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77th Street Requiem
By Wendy Hornsby OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 1995 Wendy Hornsby
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4532-2928-6
CHAPTER 1
Fahizah taught me the perils of hesitation—to shoot first and make sure the pig is dead before splitting.
—Patricia Hearst, eulogy to Nancy Ling Perry, June 8, 1974
May 10, 1974. I see the scene filmed in high-contrast black and white, like an old news photo. Roy Frady is, after all, old news. Old grief, too. Now that he is my film subject, that's how I will shoot him, in high-contrast black and white.
I never met Roy Frady. When he died, an L.A. cop with four years, nine months on the job, I was a kid in high school preparing for a summer in Europe. If our paths ever crossed, I doubt whether either of us would have paid the other any attention. He was a Vietnam vet with one marriage and two kids behind him. I was the daughter of a Berkeley physics professor, with braces still on my teeth. It may be difficult to explain how, twenty-some years after his murder, Roy Frady moved out of my documentary in progress and into my life.
Frady was to be the first project I produced under contract with one of the big three TV networks, a contract that wanted two documentaries a year aimed at a demographic audience about halfway between "Hard Copy" and PBS. I loved researching Frady, and it was nice to know that for a change I would be free from grubbing around for facilities and resources. But I had been an independent filmmaker for too long to accede graciously to network oversight: "Black and white? There's no color in black and white."
A contract of another sort had brought my daughter and me to Los Angeles, one that had clauses for either "from this day forward" or adiós amigo attached. Until I decided which, I needed to pay my share of the rent in one of the more expensive cities in the world, keep my daughter in tutus, and help with my sister's endless medical expenses. Working on Frady within the network framework was the price I paid for the price I was paid.
It was a daily battle with the brass, but I managed to at least begin the Frady film in black and white.
May 10, 1974, was a clear, warm Friday, a typical Southern California spring day. Roy Frady worked day watch out of LAPD's Seventy-seventh Street station, putting in his last day assigned to CRASH, the gang detail, working in the Watts area. He was confident of a commendation landing in his jacket for his success in creating a powerful police presence wherever gang members showed themselves; a commanding figure in his crisp uniform, he had ambition.
Frady had vacation time coming that he planned to spend in Long Beach with his girlfriend, helping her recover from the boob job his overtime had paid for. After his thirty days off, he would go back where he felt most comfortable, working street patrol out of Seventy-seventh Street Division in the city's southeastern section.
At around 5:30, Roy Frady left the station wearing pressed chinos, soft-suede chukka boots, and a plaid flannel shirt with the tail hanging out to cover the .38-caliber, two-inch Smith & Wesson Airweight revolver tucked, not holstered, under his belt. He headed north on the Harbor freeway, driving his own car, to meet three of his coworkers for drinks at the police academy bar.
Officially, the four men were celebrating the reunion at Seventy-seventh Street of the Four Horsemen—Frady, Mike Flint, Doug Senecal, Hector Melendez. I say officially because wives and girlfriends had to be given some sort of excuse when all the men had in mind, probably, was getting drunk and getting laid.
I'm not sure what Frady's state of mind was at that point, or what he expected to get out of the evening. My sense is that he was full of cocky good humor: his work on CRASH moved him closer to a promotion, he had a steady girlfriend who loved him, and an estranged wife who still slept with him, and had, according to the evidence in his underwear, slept with him that very morning. He didn't go straight home after a few drinks, and I don't know why.
On Friday nights the Embers Room, the police academy bar, was always crowded, as it still is: cops out of uniform, brass off the high horse, and women looking for midnight blue dick. It was Frady's milieu.
When he walked into the bar, Frady spotted Mike Flint first—couldn't miss him, tall, skinny, sandy brown hair already beginning to recede at the temples, the wire-rim glasses that earned Flint his Conan the Librarian nickname; Flint only joined up after the department relaxed its vision standards. When Roy Frady set his course toward Mike Flint's baritone laugh and crossed the room to join his friends, it was six o'clock. Hector Melendez remembered checking his watch.
Doug Senecal's face was already flushed from drink when he moved over to give Frady the seat between him and Mike Flint. Senecal, handsome, muscular, dimples like exclamation points for the ends of his dark mustache, suffering through the breakup of marriage number three, seemed unaware of the women around him who did everything but back flips to get his attention.
Senecal slugged back a V.O. and water, chased it with beer, and signaled for another round: shooters for himself and Mike, Coors for Frady—always Coors—and Bacardi and Coke for Hector.
Hector leaned on the bar to see around Mike. "So, Frady, I'm driving past the Most Worshipful Mount Nebo Lodge last night around midwatch." Hector slurred his words some. "And what do I see spray-painted all over the front door?"
"It said, Fuck you, Melendez?" Frady shifted the revolver under his belt when he sat down.
"It didn't say fuck me." Hector laughed. "It said, Kill Roy Frady, then it was signed with some gang bejoobie. Getting to be a real nuisance in the division, Frady, all your little gangster buddies announcing their love for you on the streets like that. Good thing you're off CRASH or we'd be repainting the whole goddamn division."
Frady had seen the Kill Frady graffiti, too, all over the south end of the city. He was almost proud of it, meant he had gotten to someone. He swaggered. "Good thing for the Crips and the Brims I'm off CRASH. Took a lot of trial and error, but I found the spot at the back of their thick skulls, I hit it just right with my flashlight, pops 'em open like a ripe melon. Gangster brains all over the goddamn street."
"You need another drink, Frady," Senecal said. "Shrink that head of yours down to normal size. Talk about a ripe melon."
Mike had to contribute his own gibe. "A week in Seventy-seventh, we'll have him straightened around again. Right, Hector?"
Hector was distracted by a sweet young thing at a nearby table. His three friends watched him and exchanged lewd leers. Though Hector was the toughest street brawler in the division, and the hardest drinker, his dark curly hair and big brown eyes gave him a deceptive, teddy bear quality. Women wouldn't leave him alone. This one thrust out her chest when Hector smiled at her, smoothed the seat of her tight miniskirt over her baby-fat bottom.
"Jailbait, Hec." Frady grabbed Hec's shoulder and pulled him in close, with Mike trapped between them. "Be sure you ID her first. Or get a note from her mommy saying she can be out past ten."
"Just looking." Hector blushed behind his tan. "No charge for looking. Anyway, I gotta save myself for my date later."
"Your date have a friend for me?" Mike pushed them both away. "Make it a party?"
"Maybe. But only if you call home first, Conan," Hector scolded Flint. "I don't want your wife calling my wife anymore, looking for you. Gets me in the doghouse every time, you dumb shit."
"Conan, you're a bad boy." Frady grinned; so much shared history among them. The Four Whoresmen, the lieutenant called them. He gave them all a two-day suspension when he caught them dirty with some topless dancers from a bar out in Southgate, busted their little party in Flint's camper parked behind the club.
Mike punched Frady's arm. "Admit it, Frady. You missed us."
"Maybe." Frady looked sidelong at Mike, something defensive in the cock of his head. "But I had a good time in CRASH, developed some good street contacts, brought in better than my share of the little creeps, terrorized the 'hood. Captain said I have an affinity for the job."
"Yeah?" Senecal asked. "But can you spell affinity?"
"If I have to, I'll look it up."
"Sounds like you have a plan." Like an owl behind his big glasses, Mike studied Frady. "You moving on, Roy?"
"We're all moving on, Conan. Senecal's thinking about Metro. I know you'll go to detectives, and Hector's probably going to follow you because following you is what Hector does best." Frady grew serious, seemed a little sad. "I signed up for the next sergeant's exam. I want to stay on the street, work some more on gang suppression. Just promise you'll keep in touch when you're downtown running the head shed."
"One thing's for damn sure," Mike said, scowling. "I'm never going into administration. Another thing, I'm never going to leave you out there alone."
"What is this, a wake?" Senecal nudged Mike. "Conan, tell Frady about your bust."
Mike shrugged him off. "Forget it." He concentrated on his glass. "We could get our asses fired on that one, so keep a lid on it, will you?"
"The stick caper?" Hector signaled another round because he was already half in the bag and wasn't keeping track; he'd only taken two hits from the drink in front of him. "I don't think we'd draw more than maybe a two-month suspension. Anyway, if you don't tell Frady, I will. It's my bust, too."
Senecal laughed. "You never tell a story right, Hec. You don't have the gift."
"So, tell it yourself, Senecal, you think you have the gift."
"Not me. Conan, tell Frady."
"I told you to shut up," Mike muttered.
Frady reached up to wrap an arm around Mike's neck. "No one but family here, Conan. Every person in this room but me has probably heard all about it by now. Why don't you tell me so I'll get it right?"
"No big deal," Mike shrugged. "But if I take the beef, I expect you three to make my house payment."
"Sure, partner," Frady said. "Better than that, we'll all draw two months suspension together, charter a boat and go down to Baja, do some serious fishing."
"Uh-huh," Senecal said. "Draw two months, find a couple more part-time security jobs to cover my alimony. Tell the goddamn story, Flint."
Mike shifted his rangy six-foot-two like a saddle-sore cowboy settling in for the long ride. "Started maybe a week ago, wasn't it, Hec?"
"About a week ago." Hector grinned in anticipation.
"Asshole breaks into this woman's apartment, beats her, rapes her, ransacks her house. Ugly scene. By the time she calls in and we get over there, he's long gone. She's in bad shape—about what you expect. We take her over to Morningside Hospital, get her patched up, take her report. She gives us a pretty good description of the guy, we get a good sketch, put out a Teletype by the end of watch. But we don't pull him in."
"Old boyfriend?" Frady asked, starting on his second Coors.
"Not this one," Hector said. "Complete stranger."
Senecal glanced at Frady. "That nurse you're doing, JoAnn, she still working Morningside?"
"Yeah. I moved in with her."
Flint pushed aside his drink, leaned closer to Frady. "Hec and I drive by the victim's place at the start of the next watch, check on the woman—she's pretty shook up—thinking chances are it was so easy for the asshole, he'll be back—he promised her he would. And back he comes, but not until just about the time me and Hec are on the freeway headed for home. He puts her through it again, only worse: sodomizes her, breaks her nose, trashes what little she has left after the first time. She's living in this crappy little studio over a garage, working her ass off to keep it. It may not be much, I'm thinking, but it's all she has, and he comes in and destroys everything. Just because he can do it, because he can overpower her. And us."
Frady smiled in anticipation. "What'd you do?"
"Went looking for him. Every car in the division is looking for him. Sergeant has someone drive by the place every half hour or so. I think that if it gets tight enough for him, the asshole will go torment someone else, leave this one alone. He knows we're out there. He gets off on fooling with us, waits till we go by and then he hits her door again. He's inside there, beating on her at the same time we're cruising by. This time, he doesn't even bother to rape her, he just settles for a quick pounding, and then he's gone."
Hector chimed in, "Moron don't know better than to tug on Superman's cape. You should have heard Mike when he gets the call."
"Who's telling this?" Mike glared at Hector. "There's no way he'll leave her alone until we catch him—the game is like an obsession or something. So, me and Hec get the sergeant's okay to set up a stakeout. For two days, we hardly even piss, we watch that damn place so close."
"But the asshole waits for an opening—we go for coffee—and he's in again," Hector said. "That's when you should have heard Mike."
"We've all heard Mike," Senecal said, taking over Mike's drink, downing it.
"You telling this?" Mike asked, eyes narrowed.
"Go on," Frady said. "I have places to go, so get on with it."
"So," Mike said, "he was in there with her while we were out front watching for him. Maybe we didn't see him go in, but we sure saw him come out. Butt first out the bathroom window, came sliding down the drainpipe right into the sights of my roscoe. I let him run a little, just so we could fool with him."
"You beat the dog shit out of him?" Frady asked.
"Nah. Just laid him on the ground and cuffed him, sorry son of a bitch. Then he gets froggy with me. 'I'll be out on bail in the morning,' he says. 'I'll be back.' We all know it's true. Hec gets the woman to come downstairs and ID him. She goes absolutely hysterical when she sees the guy, and he feeds on it, tells her what he's going to come back and do to her. Meantime, we have him cuffed to the car door, patting him down."
"So much noise, we're drawing a crowd," Hector said. "Whole damn neighborhood's out there, mouthing off, talking street justice."
Mike nodded. "I want to get out of there before the crowd moves in. I ask the victim if she's ready to press charges, but she's too scared to do it. Then that poor misguided detainee starts bad-mouthing me, too, kicking the side of the car, kicking at me, calling me every name his mother ever called him. I take out my stick, act like I'm going to sting him across the legs, try to settle him down. But he's just getting started. Everything he says, he's terrorizing this woman and he's loving it. He's got everything but a hard-on."
Hector said, "I'm thinking it's gonna get ugly when we try to get him in the car. And I'm thinking the folks around us are gonna barbecue him for supper before we get to that point."
"The victim's bawling, ready to come apart on us," Flint said. "She's screaming, 'Make him stop!' Gives me an idea. So, I go over to her, give her my stick. 'Hit him,' I say. She thinks I'm kidding, but I see the light come on in her. I walk her over to the car, I say it again, 'Go ahead and hit him.'"
Hector was the Greek chorus. "Crowd starts chanting, 'Hit him! Hit him!'"
"She takes a little more persuading, but she taps him one, hits him on the legs, but too soft to do any good."
Hector again: "People in the 'hood are all yellin', 'Hit him bitch! Hit the nigger harder!'"
"He starts howling police abuse," Mike said.
"Hold it," Frady said. "How come you didn't want to tell me about this caper, but the whole neighborhood knows about it?"
"They're not going to snitch me off," Flint said. "We're tight. Hell, I've arrested half their kids. Besides, they do anything, they know I'll come back on them."
Senecal gave him a nudge. "Get on with it."
"I am." Flint nudged back. "So I take the victim over to the telephone pole, show her how to use the stick, tell her to hit the damn pole as hard as she can. Takes her maybe three whacks before she decides she's going to get behind the swing. That fourth whack, she really made the old wood sing. So I walk her back to the car and I tell her to go to it, just don't hit him on the face or the head."
Mike got into it, too, demonstrating with an imaginary stick, making the sound of wood hitting flesh, "Bap, bap, bap. Better than a hundred years of therapy the way she took control and lit into him. I let her get in some good licks, let him see she wasn't going to take any more off him. She didn't really hurt him, but, shit, did she scare the son of a bitch. By the time I took my stick back, he was practically begging us to take him in and book him. Sorry-ass piece of crap."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from 77th Street Requiem by Wendy Hornsby. Copyright © 1995 Wendy Hornsby. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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