Sonny slid onto the barstool while saying, "I'll have a beer."
The bartender looked at Sonny and then poured a beer out of the tap. He put it down in front of Sonny and said, "That'll be four bucks."
Sonny pulled out a five and said, "Keep the change."
"Thanks," the bartender said.
Sonny turned to the man seated beside him and said, "Well! Hello, Detective Mike Saperstein. What are you doing frequenting my favorite drinking establishment in all of Los Angeles?"
"What in the hell are you doing here?" Mike asked. This was the bar down the street from the police station. The only customers who frequented the place were cops.
Sonny held up his mug of beer and said, "I'm having a beer. What does it look like?"
"It looks like you're here to make me miserable," Mike said.
He really disliked Sonny Daniels.
Sonny took a sip of his beer and then said, "I just wanted to find out how the search for those two desperados who shot me was going. Any luck finding them?"
"No," Mike said.
Sonny said, "I bet you are losing sleep every night wondering where they are."
"No, I'm not," Mike said.
He was losing sleep because the legal system was broken.
"Good. I would hate for you to lose sleep on my account," Sonny said pleasantly.
"That's nice of you," Mike said.
"I was watching a live broadcast on the news the other night. Some reporter was talking about how the police still did not have any suspects in that bombing and fire at the strip club where that gang hangs out. You wouldn't believe who I saw on it," Sonny said.
Knowing that he wouldn't like the answer, Mike asked, "Who?"
"I saw the two men who shot me. They were walking around there like they didn't have a care in the world," Sonny said.
"I didn't know about that," Mike said.
He looked down at his beer thinking he could probably chug it down and be gone in thirty seconds. The idea that Sonny would chase him out of 'his' bar, grated on him.
Sonny said, "I called 911 and told them all about it. I kind of expected to see them arrested, live, on television. There was even a police car in the background of the video. I'm sure that you can imagine my disappointment when nothing happened."
"I'll look into it," Mike said.
The fact was he knew exactly why the two men hadn't been picked up yet, but he wasn't going to admit it, publicly.
"You do that," Sonny said with a smile.
"Is there anything else that you wanted to tell me?" Mike asked.
Sonny said, "I was curious about something."
"What?"
"I was wondering if you ever thought about retiring from the police department, here, and taking a position out in the country," Sonny said.
He took a sip of his beer and watched Mike over the mug.
Mike stared at Sonny for a second wondering why he was really here in the bar. It dawned on him that anytime something happened around the gang that Sonny had an airtight alibi. There wasn't a better alibi than sitting in a bar surrounded by cops.
He swore, "Oh shit."
Mike reached into his coat and pulled out a cell phone. He dialed a number and waited for an answer.
He said, "Dispatch, I am Detective Mike Saperstein. I need two cars dispatched to a location."
"I don't have the address. It is the strip club where we had the explosion and fire a couple weeks ago."
"I want them parked across the street from the strip club."
"Let them know that I'll be there in thirty minutes."
Mike closed his cell phone. He said, "I've got to be going."
"You never answered my question about moving to the country," Sonny said.
Looking at Sonny, he said, "I'd rather live in hell than be surrounded by a bunch of yahoos like you."
"That's a rather unfriendly attitude. I'm a pretty nice guy," Sonny said.
"You're a pain in the ass," Mike said getting up from his stool.
Sonny asked, "Where are you going?"
"I'm going to that strip club," Mike answered.
"Are you going to arrest those two guys?" Sonny asked.
"I'll try to if I can," Mike answered.
He had a feeling that all of this would disappear as soon as the two men were in custody. He wished that he could actually arrest them.
Sonny asked, "Are you afraid that something bad is going to happen there because I'm here with you?"
"Yes," Mike said. "You're here to establish an alibi."
Mike was getting ready to walk off when Sonny said, "I wonder if you'll blame me if nothing happens tonight."
"Why don't you come with me?" Mike said thinking it would be good to watch Sonny so that he couldn't make a call to prevent something from happening.
Taking a sip of his beer, Sonny said, "I'd love to. Do I have to ride in the back like a suspect?"
"No, you ride up front with me. I want to keep an eye on you," Mike said. "Let's go."
Sonny followed Mike out of the bar. He took off his hat and wiped his brow with a red bandana. He said, "It sure is hot out here."
"It is the middle of summer. What do you expect?" Mike asked. He gestured to the passenger door and said, "Get in."
"Okay," Sonny said. He got into the car and looked around at the dashboard. Not seeing any special police equipment, he asked, "Are you going to drive around with your siren on?"
"No, this is my personal car," Mike said. "Officially, we're not on official business. We're just two citizens driving around."
"I'm glad to hear that," Sonny said. He looked around the car and then said, "This is one of my first times in a sedan. I have to say that I don't like it. It seems to me like you're too low to the ground to have good visibility. I've always driven pickup trucks. They sit a little higher off the ground."
"You've been driving ... what ... three years," Mike said.
He started the car and pulled away from the curb. The traffic was pretty bad at that time of the day. He hoped that he made it to the strip club before something bad happened.
"I've been driving since I was ten," Sonny said.
He turned his head to look at a woman wearing a short skirt entering the police station. She looked like what he imagined a 'working girl' to look like.
"I didn't know that you can get a driver's license at ten in Montana," Mike said glancing over at Sonny to see his reaction.
"You can't. The earliest you get a learners permit is fourteen. After six months, you can get a limited driver's license," Sonny said.
He leaned back in his seat to check out a car that was cruising beside them. It was bright orange and had yellow flames painted along the side. He expected a young kid to be driving it, but the driver was a middle-aged man. He shook his head.
"It seems to me that you don't have much regard for the law if you started driving at ten," Mike said. For some reason it didn't seem all that unexpected that Sonny was driving that early.
"You don't need a license to drive on your own property. We've got five square miles of land back home. It was either ride a horse or drive if I needed to get to one of the far pastures," Sonny said.
"Five square miles?" Mike asked turning to look at Sonny. He realized that he was about to drive into the car in front of them and hit the brakes.
"That's right," Sonny said looking at the incredulous expression on Mike's face. "It is not the biggest place around, but it is also not the smallest."
Mike said, "What are you doing going to school here if you own that much land?"
"I like computers. I'll be going home after I graduate. Right now our only connection to the internet is via dialup. Of course, there's always satellite, but that is expensive. I want to bring low-cost high-speed connectivity to the area," Sonny said.
"What do you need high-speed connectivity for?" Mike asked.
"You may not be aware of it, but modern ranching is a big business. Farm equipment can cost over a million dollars apiece and you can't afford to have it sitting around because some twenty-dollar part broke on it. If you need a part for it, you can't rely upon a printed catalog that is a year or two out of date. You want to know if they have it in stock, how long it will take them to get it to you, and how much it will cost you. You try going to some of those websites with a dialup modem and see how much you like it," Sonny said.
"I never thought about it," Mike said.
"I'm sure you didn't. Did you know that as of 1997 that there were still six percent of the households in this country that didn't have a telephone?" Sonny asked.
"I didn't know that," Mike said, thinking he was going to have to go look that up when he got home.
"The availability of high-speed internet in rural areas is abysmal," Sonny said, "There are government programs out there to help rural areas get connected. I want to help my family and my neighbors. There is only one person around who will do it and that is me. No one from Los Angeles is going to move out to Montana to start a small internet company."
"It sounds like you have it all planned out," Mike said.
He didn't think that Sonny would ever live to see those plans bear fruit. He was going to arrest the man and convict him for his role in all those gang member deaths. The more times they interacted, the more likely it was that Sonny would slip and say something.
"I was serious when I asked you if you ever considered retiring and moving out to the country. I'd think you would actually like it," Sonny said.
"I'm not interested in patrolling some little hick town of two hundred people," Mike said.
Sonny laughed and said, "If you were to join our sheriff's department, you'd be responsible for keeping law and order across more than two thousand square miles. We've got a sheriff and two deputies to cover that much territory."
"You're kidding," Mike said.
Sonny shook his head and said, "No."
"How many local police officers are there?" Mike asked.
"None," Sonny said. "We've only got about two thousand people in the county. We've got about one person per square mile. We have to be self-reliant because it can take three hours for the sheriff to show up."
"No wonder you don't have much respect for law enforcement," Mike said.
Sonny shook his head and said, "I've got a lot of respect for law enforcement. I'd just like to see a little more enforcement of the law around here."
Mike was tired of all of the cheap shots being taken at the police. He said, "There are a lot of good cops in this city who take their job seriously. They really do want to serve and protect the public. They put their lives on the line every time they put on their uniform. However, they have to work within some pretty harsh guidelines at the moment. There are some things going on that you just don't understand."
"Explain them to me," Sonny said. "I'm a reasonable guy."
"About two months ago two officers arrested four gang members for possession of drugs. The gang members were loitering along the street. The police stopped and searched them. It was a clean bust and they followed proper procedures. The gang hired an attorney to sue the LAPD on the grounds that the arrests arose out of harassment and not probable cause. It turned out that the gang members were standing on private property owned by the gang," Mike said.
"Who cares? They were guilty of a crime," Sonny said.
"A lot of people care. Criminals have rights and we have to protect those rights," Mike said.
He would be lying if he were to say that he always agreed with that statement. There were times he would just like to take some of them out and shoot them.
He said, "The lawyer for the gang argued that if they had been boy scouts wearing their scout uniforms hanging around a scout camp that the police would not have stopped and searched them unless there had been an explicit complaint against them."
"Why would the police search a bunch of boy scouts?" Sonny said. "They aren't violent criminals."
"That's the whole point. We have to give the gangs the same consideration as boy scouts," Mike said. The disgust he felt practically dripped off his tongue.
"That's stupid."
Mike said, "A lawyer for the LAPD told us that we can't go on gang property unless we specifically observe a crime occurring or we have a warrant until after the lawsuit is settled."
"What does that mean in practical terms?" Sonny asked.
"It meant that a police officer couldn't go on gang property to arrest someone unless they had explicitly witnessed them commit a crime and pursued them onto the property," Mike answered.
Sonny asked, "What if you have video tape of them committing the crime?"
"We still can't go after them."
"I've watched enough cop shows to know that you can arrest them," Sonny said.
"That was then, this is now. About a month ago a police officer arrested a member of a different gang because he was a suspect in a drive by shooting. The gang hired a lawyer and filed a lawsuit against the LAPD. They used the same argument. The next morning the police officer was suspended because the gang member was standing on gang property," Mike said.
"So even if you know that the two men who shot me are standing in that parking lot, not one policeman will go over there and arrest them," Sonny said.
"That's right," Mike said. "It gets worse."
"How can it get worse?" Sonny asked.
Mike said, "Shortly after that another gang member from the first gang was arrested. He was walking down the sidewalk when he was spotted. The guy stepped into the yard of a house owned by a little old lady. The officer stopped him, searched him, found some drugs, and arrested him. Guess what happened?"
"What?"
"The gang paid for a lawyer on behalf of the little old lady to sue the LAPD. In the suit, it was alleged that the little old lady invited him onto her property and he was not doing anything that warranted him being stopped and searched. They said it was a clear case of harassment based solely on his affiliation with the gang," Mike said.
"You know that they used intimidation to get the old lady to file the lawsuit," Sonny said.
"Everyone knows that. It doesn't matter. The lawsuit has been filed," Mike said.
Sonny asked, "Why didn't you tell me that before?"
"We don't want it spread around that we can't arrest criminals," Mike said.
"What about the gang members that shot me? Are you even trying to catch them?" Sonny asked.
"We've been trying to catch them on public property or a place of business that is open to the public. We've been hoping to catch them driving a car somewhere," Mike said.
"Let me get this straight. If I'm standing on private property and I'm suspect in a criminal case, you can't arrest me," Sonny said incredulous at the insanity that he was hearing.
Mike laughed at Sonny. He said, "We can arrest you. We would have no problem hauling your ass to jail. You aren't a member of a gang that has been specifically targeted for harassment by the police as alleged in the lawsuits filed against the LAPD."
"You guys need to get a new lawyer," Sonny said shaking his head.
Mike said, "In case you haven't heard the news, let me remind you that the city, the county, and the state are out of money. We are broke. The powers that be aren't going to risk a dime by exposing the city to lawsuits no matter how stupid or insane the lawsuit might be."
"A judge would throw the case out of court," Sonny said.
"We're in Los Angeles, California. There's no guarantee that a judge will throw it out or that a jury won't find against the LAPD. Don't forget, we can't convict a guy of murder after finding a trail of blood from the crime scene to his car and then to his house," Mike said shaking his head.
Sonny said, "I swear that this city is going to burn. It is a regular Sodom and Gomorrah where sin reigns supreme and a good man is mocked."
Mike pulled into a spot that was across the street from the strip club. He said, "Here we are."
Sonny pointed to the two men and said, "There are the two guys who shot me."
"I can't go over there and arrest them without a warrant," Mike said. "As far as the LAPD is concerned, those guys are a protected species."
Sonny said, "Get a warrant."
Mike said, "If I try to get a warrant, they'll disappear before the warrant ever gets here. We've played that game a couple of times with the same result each time. They head out across private property and we can't give chase."
"What are we doing here?" Sonny asked.
Mike answered, "I waiting for some of your friends to create a problem."
"This is insane," Sonny said shaking his head.
"You were establishing an alibi. Your friends are coming here. I know it," Mike said.
Having waived off any action for that night, Sonny said, "I can swear on the Bible that I do not know of any attack that is going to happen tonight."
"Do you know how many of the cases we actually get convictions on?" Mike asked.
"I don't know," Sonny answered.
Mike said, "Ninety-six percent of the cases brought to court result in convictions. That's a pretty good record."
"In that case, there shouldn't be any gang members out on the street," Sonny said.
"The problem is that we've got tens of thousands of open cases where we haven't charged anyone with a crime. Witnesses won't talk to us and if they don't talk to us then we can't arrest anyone. Have you ever tried to a find a guy of uncertain ethnicity and of average build with no distinguishing characteristics? That's the description we get."
"I don't even know what to say," Sonny said.
"You'll like this since you're into computers," Mike said with a smile.
"What?"
Mike said, "Some of the gangs actually have web pages."
"You're kidding," Sonny said.
"I remember a line from the website of one of the gangs that killed a policeman. The police don't chase us. We chase them," Mike said. "Eleven hundred police officers participated in a raid against that gang. We arrested forty-four of them with eight getting away. Thirty-three members of the gang were already in custody."
"Eleven hundred policemen to try to catch fifty two people," Sonny said shaking his head.
"We've got a hundred thousand gang members in Los Angeles County ... Think about it," Mike said.