from my father, who had his own daily routine that he picked up from his foster father, Frank East. East was a chop-shop artist who, I learned later, was responsible for connecting him to what ultimately became known as the Sacci crime organization. One of the most enduring childhood memories of my father is watching him pound out his daily exercises in our living room, and at the time it made me think of him as invincible. Little did I know that he used his considerable strength to breaks legs and arms, to crush tracheas and snap necks…
…the thought of which stops me dead in the middle of flying leg lifts.
Covered in a light sheen of sweat, I rest my head between my legs a few seconds, then jump up and take the eight stairs up to my kitchen in two strides. My mobile data terminal (aka MDT, basically a laptop that docks in the console of my cruiser) rests on the stone countertop against the backsplash, and a heavy feeling hits my stomach as I flip open the top and boot the motherfucker up.
With Bob Marley’s “
Red Red Wine”
bouncing in my ears, I check my departmental message center and find no new messages—a good thing.
Still, I’m anxious.
Switch applications and scroll through the real-time dispatch entries that went online since I last checked, finding that today’s been a busy day in the LA crime scene, but not an unusual one: Burglary and robbery reports, DUIs, assaults, minor drug busts. A couple shootings worthy of note, one involving a robbery in Japantown and another of unknown motivation in Culver City. Found fugitives from justice, prostitution arrests, missing person reports…
Zero squeals from West Covina PD.
As relieved as I’ve ever been about anything, I mix up an herbal urine-detox solution in a glass of pure cranberry juice to flush the pot from my system (a daily routine I adhere to in case I’m hit with a random drug test), and drink it down. I shower again, dress in worn gray jeans and a black V-neck tee, pull on socks and black Doc Martens street boots, holster up, and grab a black sport coat on my way out the door. My unmarked is in my driveway, and first thing I do after climbing inside is to slide my MDT into its dock on the console and check again to see whether Macky’s murder has come to official light.
So far, so good.
—
Yesterday I promised Nico Wang, my contact in the Sacci organization, that today I’d stop by to see him at the Venetian Social Club, flat guaranteed it. Still hungover despite my workout, still shaky, I almost call Nico to tell him I won’t be there today, that I’m feeling a little, uh, out of it—which would’ve been a monumental understatement. But when you’ve never broken a promise to meet a friend like Nico before, you don’t want to draw undue attention to yourself by not meeting him the day you witness your father strangle a notorious hood until his head nearly burst like a rotten eggplant.
The Venetian Social Club is Joe Sacci’s informal headquarters and is on the northern edge of Koreatown on Western Boulevard. The best way to get there at 4:04 in the afternoon is to take the Melrose exit off the 101 freeway. Traffic’s not as bad as it usually is this time of day and I’m there in fifteen minutes. A rare curbside space is available in front of the club and I jump on it, get out and walk around the front of the car to the sidewalk, light a cigarette to gather myself. My eyes wander from the sidewalk to the Venetian’s entrance, and it occurs to me for maybe the hundredth time that you’d never know from looking at the outside of this joint that it’s a club or that an Italian owns it. The façade is plain brick, no signage, a Korean beauty shop sits to one side of it, and a Korean buffet restaurant is on the other.
Just about every business in this ’hood is Korean; none are Italian.
Italians didn’t play a big role in populating LA, never settled in any one section with enough numbers to establish their own neighborhood.
…the thought of which stops me dead in the middle of flying leg lifts.
Covered in a light sheen of sweat, I rest my head between my legs a few seconds, then jump up and take the eight stairs up to my kitchen in two strides. My mobile data terminal (aka MDT, basically a laptop that docks in the console of my cruiser) rests on the stone countertop against the backsplash, and a heavy feeling hits my stomach as I flip open the top and boot the motherfucker up.
With Bob Marley’s “
Red Red Wine”
bouncing in my ears, I check my departmental message center and find no new messages—a good thing.
Still, I’m anxious.
Switch applications and scroll through the real-time dispatch entries that went online since I last checked, finding that today’s been a busy day in the LA crime scene, but not an unusual one: Burglary and robbery reports, DUIs, assaults, minor drug busts. A couple shootings worthy of note, one involving a robbery in Japantown and another of unknown motivation in Culver City. Found fugitives from justice, prostitution arrests, missing person reports…
Zero squeals from West Covina PD.
As relieved as I’ve ever been about anything, I mix up an herbal urine-detox solution in a glass of pure cranberry juice to flush the pot from my system (a daily routine I adhere to in case I’m hit with a random drug test), and drink it down. I shower again, dress in worn gray jeans and a black V-neck tee, pull on socks and black Doc Martens street boots, holster up, and grab a black sport coat on my way out the door. My unmarked is in my driveway, and first thing I do after climbing inside is to slide my MDT into its dock on the console and check again to see whether Macky’s murder has come to official light.
So far, so good.
—
Yesterday I promised Nico Wang, my contact in the Sacci organization, that today I’d stop by to see him at the Venetian Social Club, flat guaranteed it. Still hungover despite my workout, still shaky, I almost call Nico to tell him I won’t be there today, that I’m feeling a little, uh, out of it—which would’ve been a monumental understatement. But when you’ve never broken a promise to meet a friend like Nico before, you don’t want to draw undue attention to yourself by not meeting him the day you witness your father strangle a notorious hood until his head nearly burst like a rotten eggplant.
The Venetian Social Club is Joe Sacci’s informal headquarters and is on the northern edge of Koreatown on Western Boulevard. The best way to get there at 4:04 in the afternoon is to take the Melrose exit off the 101 freeway. Traffic’s not as bad as it usually is this time of day and I’m there in fifteen minutes. A rare curbside space is available in front of the club and I jump on it, get out and walk around the front of the car to the sidewalk, light a cigarette to gather myself. My eyes wander from the sidewalk to the Venetian’s entrance, and it occurs to me for maybe the hundredth time that you’d never know from looking at the outside of this joint that it’s a club or that an Italian owns it. The façade is plain brick, no signage, a Korean beauty shop sits to one side of it, and a Korean buffet restaurant is on the other.
Just about every business in this ’hood is Korean; none are Italian.
Italians didn’t play a big role in populating LA, never settled in any one section with enough numbers to establish their own neighborhood.
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