Boulevard rises out of a Hispanic ghetto east of Burbank into ochre, sand and olive-colored foot hills. A left over suburb from an earlier Los Angeles, a place for horse owners needing larger lots.
Among the slopes and folded hills shabby developments with meaningless names like Ocean View and Sienna Village spill over the sere hillsides as they do everywhere in Los Angeles. Real estate people ran out of interesting names in the 20’s.
Jesus said, “In my father’s house are many mansions.” It is doubtful that Jesus had Los Angeles in mind.
Halfway up Sunland, between the hills, an open area of fields covered by buffalo grass and fruit trees surprise the driver heading up the canyon to Tujunga. Los Angeles is a city that seldom leaves open ground undeveloped. A ten foot brick fence with a plain metal gate separated the fields from the road front. There was a mail box with a number but no name next to the gate,
The house wasn’t visible from Sunland. It perched a top a second hill behind a smaller hill closer to the street. The house didn’t fit any of the cute real estate jargon. It was part Moorish, part medieval, and part Mediterranean.
A large, six-sided tower in the center rose three stories above the rest of the structure. The roof of the tower and the rest of the house was covered with Mexican tile the color of creamery butter. The stucco walls were painfully white in the spring sun.
Three low arms fanned outward from the center and dropped in pleasing steps away from the top of the hill. A large flagstone patio around the sides and rear of the house reached across half an acre of ground to a four car garage with attached work shop.
The hills and area around the house were covered with flowers and trees. Red velvet Don Juan roses surrounded lush banana plants. Patches of apricot-colored California Poppies were spread among more roses on trellises amid the fruit trees. It wouldn’t make Home & Garden; it was far too eclectic, too whimsical.
The house looked deserted. The only sounds were bees, birds and the wind in the buffalo grass. Around the back, a heavily-furred, gray cat scratched at the door. The door opened a few inches and the cat went inside.
Five miles away in Pacoima on San Fernando Boulevard, a seriously mean street, a black & white pulled into a Taco Bell fast food stand. Sergeant Teresa Keely, the youngest sergeant on the Burbank police force, stepped out. Even in shapeless blue serge her physical beauty captivated men and women alike.
The men on the force called her, ‘Viking’. She stood five ten, had masses of pale blonde hair in tightly coiled braids, a classic face matched to a voluptuous body. She destroyed utterly and forever every dumb-ass male notion that female officers are all repressed lesbians with more facial hair than a Greek sailor. She would have stood out in whatever world she chose to live.
She slipped her nightstick into a belt loop and strode over to the take out window ignoring half a dozen slack-jawed stares. She’d been seeing those looks since puberty.
She ordered two burritos, two tacos and cokes. In the black & white, officer Jaime Sosa slumped in the passengers seat and read the sports page. He muttered with disgust.
“Goddamn Dodgers! Manager? Right, couldn’t find his ass with both hands in broad daylight.” Another disappointed die-hard Dodger fan.
Where Sergeant Keely was tall and extraordinarily beautiful, Sosa was short and homely. Sosa’s people emigrated north from the Yucatan at the turn of the century. His Mayan heritage showed in his square, high cheek-boned face and liquid brown eyes, but his soul was pure Angeleno.
Keely brought the food back to the black & white. Sosa suffered with the trials of the on-again, off-again Dodgers.
“Hey, Jimmy, wake up in there.”
He reached over without looking and opened the door.
“Here take these damn things.” She handed him the Burritos and coke. “You eat this shit, you’ll really have something to complain about,” she said with disgust.
“Look at this,” Sosa shook a burrito filled fist, drooling green chili salsa on the newspaper. “Goddamned idiots, look at this! Dipshit trades away every good player on the team!”
“Sure, Jimmy.”
He looked at her with disgust and pulled the paper away. “You’re un-American, Viking. Baseball is serious.”
“Don’t call me, Viking, you bald-headed dwarf.”
“Nice talk, Teresa. Okay, how about, Freya,” he grinned slyly, happy to get a rise.
Keely shook her fist in his face. “I told you about that shit.” She took a bite from a taco. “My mother told me to watch out for Nicaraguan’s who read books. I am not a Norwegian goddess, I am an American goddess.”
He raised one thick eyebrow. “Don’t call me no steenking Nicaraguan, Chica. I am Mayan, the descendant of kings.”
“Mmmph, I told you a thousand times to call me, Teresa.”
“Si, sargento, you did, and I deeply regret my mistake. Everyone knows I have the greatest respect for authority.”
“How can you eat that dog manure, Jaime? Don’t you have any respect for your body?”
“If I had your body I might give a shit. I don’t...have your body, mores’ the pity.”
The radio crackled and hummed. “Any car in the vicinity of San Fernando and Osborne, see the man with the ax. Chango’s cafe.”
Keely took the mike. “382 responding.”
“382, roger.”
“Shit, Keely, do we have to take every call? I haven’t finished my burrito.”
Keely put her food on the seat between them and slammed the car into gear.
“Good. I’ll save your life, be a heroeen. C’mon, let’s meet the man with the ax.”
“Jesus!” The acceleration drove him back into the seat as Keely burned rubber away from the Taco Bell onto the black top of San Fernando Road, lights flashing, siren screaming.
“Goddamn John Wayne in skirts.” Sosa gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. “Hail Mary, full of Grace...”
“Wrong woman, Jimmy. You want to live, try hail Teresa, full of skill.”
“Full of shi...” Jaime muttered.
“Nice talk, Jimmy...” she grunted as the car hit a pothole.
Chango’s Cafe, a sleazy dive; dirt parking lot overgrown with weeds and trash. A half dozen low-riders and battered pickups were parked in front of a small building that hadn’t seen paint since the second world war.
Keely slid the black & white across the dirt right up to the door. Before she could get out, a heavy set Hispanic flew backward through the door and slammed into the hood of the police car.
Keely and Sosa leaped out. The man rolled on the ground
