Chapter 13

The cowboy strolled into the police station as if he owned the place. He was wearing a straw cowboy hat, boot fitted jeans, a white shirt, round-toed boots, and a belt buckle with an agate stone gracing it. In one hand he carried a small foam coffee cup. In the other, he had a large stack of papers.

He walked over to the desk sergeant and said, “Howdy.”

“Howdy back at you,” the desk sergeant said amused by the greeting.

He took a second to look over the man standing at his counter. It didn’t take him more than a few seconds to recognize him as the cowboy who was the center of a lot of bad publicity for the department.

A reporter who hung around the police station in case there was a story of some kind walked up behind Sonny and started listening to the conversation. He had recognized Sonny the minute he had walked into the station. Now he was busy writing down everything that was said.

He asked, “When did they let you out of the hospital?”

“This morning,” Sonny answered.

He had been released from the hospital in the middle of the morning. They had let him go without filing any charges against him. That didn’t mean that his ordeal was over. He was still considered a suspect in the deaths of the gang members.

Sonny dropped the stack of papers on the desk sergeant’s counter.

“What’s that?” the desk sergeant asked.

“I stopped by the county clerk’s office and they gave me this stack of papers to fill out. I’m going to need a little help with it,” Sonny answered with a wry grin.

The desk sergeant picked up a sheet from the top of the stack and looked at it.

Puzzled, he said, “This is an application for a restraining order.”

“That’s right. I want to file restraining orders against every member of a local gang. You know ... the gang that the two guys who robbed me belong to,” Sonny said.

“Are you crazy?”

The reporter was grinning ear-to-ear, as he listened to the exchange. This story was going to be great. He could just read the headline, “Gang Restraining Order.” He was curious about who was going to be brave enough to try to serve the papers to the gang members.

“No. Why would you ask that?” Sonny asked.

“A restraining order won’t do a bit of good against a gang,” the desk sergeant said tossing the sheet of paper back on the stack of forms.

This was the most ridiculous thing he had experienced in years sitting behind the desk. He was pretty sure that the gang members would laugh at the idea. Restraining orders did little to protect someone, and they wouldn’t mean a thing to the gang.

Sonny spit a bit of tobacco juice into his foam cup.

He said, “Well, I want the full protection of the law against those desperados.”

“You are crazy,” the desk sergeant said. Shaking his head, he asked, “Why are you here?”

“Well, it turns out that I can’t get a restraining order against the gang as a whole. I have to do it on an individual-by-individual basis. As a result, I need the names of all members of the gang. I understand that you can provide that for me,” Sonny said.

“I don’t know about that,” the desk sergeant said.

He had never had anyone come in and make a request like that. He wasn’t sure if they were allowed to give out that kind of information. There were rights of privacy issues, despite the fact that they were members of a gang.

The reporter piped up and said, “The gang unit has that information, Sonny Daniels.”

The desk sergeant looked over at the reporter and said, “Don’t do this to me, Arnie.”

“Well, the gang unit does have that information,” Arnie said. He grinned and asked, “How are you planning on getting those restraining orders served?”

Sonny answered, “It’s my understanding that the police will do it, for free.”

“That’s true,” Arnie said writing that down in his notepad.

Imagining what would happen to a police officer who walked into the strip club occupied by the gang members, the desk sergeant said, “You aren’t going to find a policeman crazy enough to serve gang members.”

“Can I quote you on that?” Arnie asked with a grin.

“No,” the desk sergeant answered. He took a deep breath and said, “I’m afraid that we can’t help you with the names of the gang members. Our records are highly sensitive.”

Sonny spit into his foam cup earning a disgusted look from the police officer.

He asked, “Is that your final answer?”

“Yes,” the desk sergeant answered.

Sonny said, “I guess I’ll just have to ask my attorney to get that information released to me. I’m sure there is some mechanism ... something like the freedom of information act ... that I can use to force you to give me the names of all known gang members in the Los Angeles area.”

It was suddenly difficult to hear over the sounds of half a dozen police cars, with sirens blaring, pulling out of the police station. The radio on the front desk filled with so much chatter that it was nearly impossible to make out a single word. The last time the desk sergeant had heard that much excitement over the radio, there had been riots after some policemen had been found not guilty of police violence.

The desk sergeant asked, “What the hell?”

He picked up the telephone to find out what was happening. After a minute of animated conversation, he hung up the phone and stared at Donny.

He said, “We just got a 911 call from the strip joint where that gang hangs out. It appears someone has reported explosions and injured people there.”

“Really?” Sonny said. He looked at the reporter and said, “They must have made someone angry.”

The reporter immediately asked, “Do you know anything about this?”

Sonny spit into his foam cup before he answered, “How could I know something? I was standing right here with you and the police officer here.”

“What about the gang member who was killed outside the hospital you were in?” the reporter asked.

This was actually the first time anyone in the press had been in a position to ask Sonny questions directly. He wasn’t about to all that opportunity to pass. He had a lot of questions to ask.

“How could I know anything about that? I was lying in a bed, in the hospital,” Sonny replied.

The desk sergeant said, “It seems to me that there are a lot of problems with that gang, when you’re around.”

“I noticed that, too. That’s why I wanted the restraining orders,” Sonny answered gesturing to the stack of papers on the counter. “A car full of them fellows drove by when I returned to the campus.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a relative who is stirring up the pot, would you?” the desk sergeant asked suspiciously.

Talking to a policeman in the middle of a police station was the perfect alibi. A suspicious man might wonder if it was entirely coincidental, and the desk sergeant was a suspicious man by nature. Years spent in a patrol car had only increased that natural tendency.

“My mother and brother are in Montana,” Sonny answered. Seeing the expression on the officer’s face, he added, “My Dad was killed by a drunk driver when he was coming home from a rodeo down in Oklahoma. I was just knee high to a grasshopper, at the time.”

“Any other relatives?”

“I’ve got family all over the country. I’ve even got one overseas fighting in the Army. I don’t even know where some of them are,” Sonny said.

He spit in the foam cup.

Warming up to the topic, Sonny said, “So many kids my age do their best to leave the country behind. I’ve got a cousin who is married to a guy that doesn’t even know what direction to face when riding a horse.

“It’s kind of sad really. I’ve been going to school out here, and I’ll probably get married to some city girl who screams the first time she sees a bug or something. My kids will probably grow up listening to that rap ‘music’, or something just as obnoxious. They probably won’t get too many chances to make it out to the country. Odds are that they’ll never learn to ride a horse, rope a cow, or drive a tractor.”

Sonny stood there with a hand over his heart and then said, “It’s a real shame.”

The desk sergeant and the reporter just stared at Sonny.

In the silence, the police radio reported, “We need at least six more ambulances and two more fire trucks.”

Sonny said, “Six ambulances. Wow! It sure sounds like someone put a lot of hurt to some people.”

“We need someone from the morgue, over here,” the radio blared.

Arnie asked, “Sonny, what do you have to say about this?”

“It sounds to me that it isn’t safe being in a gang,” Sonny answered as he spit in his foam cup. “It must be that disregard for the law that gets them into so much trouble.”

The radio blared, “We’ve got burn victims.”

The desk sergeant watched Sonny for a minute and then said, “If there’s nothing else I can do for you then I suggest you head on out.”

“You’re not going to give me the names of the gang members?” Sonny asked.

“Not today,” the desk sergeant answered.

He was positive that Sonny knew exactly what was going on. As soon as Sonny left, he was going to call the detective in charge of the shooting case at the hospital.

Sonny spit out the smokeless tobacco into his foam cup. He dropped the cup into a trashcan and then picked up the stack of papers he had set on the counter. He made a big production of straightening the stack by tapping the edges on the desk.

Smiling, he said, “I guess I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Maybe there won’t be an explosion the next time you come here,” the desk sergeant said.

“You never know what’s going to happen,” Sonny said.

He turned and left the police station. Arnie and the police sergeant watched him leave. Arnie looked amused. The police sergeant was frowning.

Arnie looked over at the desk sergeant and asked, “What do you think?”

“I think it’s highly ‘coincidental’ that he was standing here when that explosion took place,” the desk sergeant said. He snorted and said, “Imagine trying to get restraining orders against that bunch.”

“He’s liable to do it just out of stubbornness,” Arnie said, thinking that he had rather liked the cowboy.

“All hell is about to break loose. I’ve seen his type before. If you ever make one of them mad, they will never give up making sure the score is even,” the desk sergeant said.

“What do you mean?” Arnie asked.

The desk sergeant said, “I’ve got some family back in the coal mining area of Pennsylvania. If you mess with one of them, they won’t stop until they decide the score is even. I’ve got a feeling that we haven’t had the last 911 call regarding that gang.”

Arnie asked, “Don’t you think it’s ironic that the gang calls you when they get attacked?”