Southland by Nina Revoyr Page B

knew what kind of creatures you’d find if you went digging in its belly. What secrets, half-digested, the twisted guts would offer up. Only after a few days had Allen changed his mind. He had loyalties deeper, he said, than the department. “Most of the cops from Lawson’s time have retired, you know, and the few who are still on the force have all moved up and out to desk jobs at other stations. It’s hard—no one’s gonna speak out against another cop.”
    Jackie nodded, waiting.
    “But Allen heard about this one guy, Robert Thomas. He and his partner worked at Southwest with Lawson, and they were the only two black cops there. Anyway, the partner’s gone, but Thomas is still around, up at the Hollywood Station.”
    “Have you talked to him?”
    Lanier took a bite of his ribs. A dollop of sauce got smeared on his cheek, and Jackie pointed at the same spot on her own face. Lanier wiped the sauce off with a napkin. “Tried to,” he said. “He thought I was a reporter. I called him at the station, and when I started to explain what I wanted, he interrupted and said he didn’t know what I was talking about. Then he hung up on me. I called back yesterday and tried to tell him I was calling at the suggestion of a cop—but he still seemed to think I was messing with him. But this time he remembered ‘the incident.’ That’s what he called it, ‘the incident.’ Said it was a terrible tragedy and he didn’t want to discuss it, why did the press insist on stirring up all those painful things from the past.”
    Jackie took a gulp of her Coke. “What do you think’s going on with him?”
    Lanier shrugged. “I don’t know. He probably does think I’m a reporter. And my guess is, he’s gonna retire in the next couple of years and he doesn’t want any kind of hassle. The last thing he’s going to want to do is dig up a scandal from thirty years ago.” Lanier paused, remembering the conversation. Thomas had been curt, self-protective, an old-school Negro. Lanier almost felt sorry for him—what twists, what back-flips he must have had to perform in order to succeed at his job. Thomas was his father’s age, and Lanier understood his suspicion, his fear. So many of the old folks had been crushed down and down.
    “So what do we do now?” Jackie asked.
    “I’ve got some ideas on that,” Lanier said, “but I’ll tell you about them later. Let’s get out of here before the traffic gets bad.”
    They threw their trash away and waved goodbye to the Carters. They got into Lanier’s green Ford Taurus station wagon, strapped themselves in, and Lanier took a left onto Crenshaw.
    “Where we going?” Jackie asked.
    “We’re taking a drive.” They passed Crenshaw Motors, an old building with rounded corners that had clearly been there for decades. There was a string of small offices and stores on the right, and Jackie wondered how all these places remained in business—there didn’t seem to be enough foot traffic to support them. When she looked closely, she saw that many of the stores were empty. She thought of the ghost town she’d once seen, driving back from Arizona; she thought of the broken-windowed, barricaded buildings of Northridge, which she and Laura had toured the week after the earthquake. At the first big intersection, several blocks down, Lanier made a U-turn and they headed back north. Looking up, Jackie saw the Hollywood Hills in the distance, the tiny Hollywood sign, which was lovely, but incongruous, like someone had rolled in the wrong backdrop for a movie set.
    “This area ain’t exactly hopping,” said Lanier. “But right up here, by Leimert Park, it’s nicer—this is what I wanted to show you. There’s a couple of art galleries, coffee shops, jazz clubs. And Magic’s new theaters are helping bring people to the mall. You should see this place on Sunday, when they shut Crenshaw down to traffic and the kids all come.”
    He walked over sometimes, just to watch the show. The young