Hollywood Crows by Joseph Wambaugh

the car, started the engine, and was just about to head back down, when the garage door opened and the red Beemer backed out. The car turned and drove down the hill with Hollywood Nate Weiss following behind, but far enough to be out of mirror range.
    Nate’s heart started pumping faster and he knew it wasn’t the caffeine. He’d never done anything like this before, had never had the memory of a beautiful woman affect him in this way. Hollywood Nate Weiss had never had to pursue any woman, not in his entire life. And it made him think, I’ve turned into a goddamn stalker! Now Nate was experiencing something altogether unique for him. Not just shame, but a trace of self-loathing had entered his consciousness.
    He said aloud, “Fuck this!” and was about to abandon this silliness when they were a few blocks from Hollywood Boulevard. But then he saw her car rolling through a boulevard stop without so much as a tap on the brake pedal.
    Suddenly, Nate Weiss was no longer in charge. Something took him over. It was like he was watching himself on a movie screen. Without completely willing it, Nate stepped on the accelerator and got close behind her, turning on the light bar and tooting his horn until she glanced at her rearview mirror, pulled over, and parked.
    When he got to her driver’s-side window, she looked at him with amber eyes that matched her hair and said, “Ditzy Margot didn’t come to a complete stop back there, did she?”
    Her cotton jersey that stretched tight over her cleavage was a raspberry shade. Her skirt was eggshell white and was halfway up her suntanned thighs. Those thighs! She
was
an athlete or a dancer, he just knew it.
    Nate’s hand trembled when he took her driver’s license, and his voice was unsteady when he said, “Yes, ma’am, you ran the stop sign without even trying to stop. Your brake lights didn’t glow at all.”
    “Damn!” she said. “I’ve got so much on my mind. I’m sorry.”
    He read the driver’s license: Margot Aziz, date of birth 4-13-77. She was six years younger than Nate, yet he felt like a schoolboy again. Stalling for time in order to pull himself together, he said, “Could I see your registration, ma’am?”
    She reached into the glove box for the leather packet containing the owner’s manuals, removed the registration and insurance card, handed them to Nate, and said, “Please don’t call me ma’am, Officer. I recently turned thirty, as you see, and I’m feeling ancient. Call me Margot.”
    Her lipstick was a creamy raspberry to match her jersey, and her perfect teeth were probably whiter than nature intended. Nate blurted, “I won’t call you ma’am if you don’t call me Officer. My name is Nate Weiss.”
    She had him and she knew it. The smile widened and she said, “Do you patrol this area all the time, Nate?”
    “Actually, I’m what the other cops call a Crow. I work the Community Relations Office. I don’t do regular patrol.”
    “You don’t look like a crow,” Margot Aziz said. “More like an eagle, I would say.”
    He couldn’t remember the last time he’d blushed, but his face felt hot. He said, “Yeah, I do have a bit of a beak, don’t I?”
    “No, my husband has a beak,” she said. “Your nose is barely aquiline. It’s very strong and manly. Actually, quite… beautiful.”
    He wasn’t even aware that he’d handed her back her license and registration. “Well,” he said, “drive carefully.”
    Before he could turn to leave, she said, “Nate, what does a Crow do?”
    He said, “We deal with quality-of-life issues so that the officers on patrol don’t have to. You know, stuff like chronic-noise complaints, graffiti, homeless encampments up near where you live. Stuff like that.”
    “Homeless encampments!” she cried, like calling a winning Bingo. “This is an amazing coincidence because I was going to call Hollywood Station about that very thing. I can see them from my patio. They make noise up there and they light