The Highway Kind(72)

A fourteen-foot-long steel battering ram extended from the front of the armored vehicle, which was called the batterram in the community. There was a turret atop the squat four-wheeled, tank-like conveyance. A police officer’s head poked out of the turret in shock helmet and goggles. He pointed forward like General Patton at El Alamein. The machine climbed and destroyed the porch’s wooden steps, also taking out a low concrete wall. Photos were snapped and video cameras rolled.

More officers were positioned out behind the house in case the occupants tried to bolt and spoil the show. Under a ratty plastic tarp at the end of the driveway leading to the detached garage was an old Falcon Squire station wagon that hadn’t moved in years. It sat on its rims. Back out front, the square, thick steel plate at the end of the battering-ram shaft was driven into the metal security screen door. The door buckled and puckered loose on its rust-covered hinges. There was more snapping of pictures and oohs and aahs from the gathered.

Inside the house, Debra Hastings stood in the tidy living room, hands on her hips, shaking her head from side to side. “Oh, these motherfuckers,” she lamented. Light from the television crews’ cameras shone through the half-open curtains along with spill from the copter’s search beam. Sweat glistened on her smooth forehead.

The armored vehicle backed up some and as the driver revved the diesel engine, the rear tires spun momentarily, then gained purchase and traction. The batterram surged forward again with urgency. This time the security screen and the regular door behind it gave, along with a good portion of one side of the house and the picture window, which also had security bars on it. Debra Hastings was all about safety. That’s why she’d participated in the neighborhood-watch program sponsored by the LAPD. This and other details would be revealed later after her successful suit brought by the ACLU and the coverage by the media.

But right then, those outside witnessed the rending as hunks of stucco wall and the tar paper, chicken wire, and wood slats underneath broke away and glass burst from the windows. Into the breach rushed the police with batons and heavy mag flashlights in hand, barking orders. Several officers carried ten-pound sledgehammers.

“Down! Get down on the ground! Don’t move, don’t you fuckin’ move a muscle! Who’s back there? Kitchen, clear the kitchen...move, move, move!”

Soon four men and two women were marched out of the home with their hands cuffed behind their backs. One of the men was elderly and another had been in his boxers. But Gates had given orders to let the suspects at least get pants on, as he’d previously been lambasted for having his officers parade the arrested around in their skivvies and this was deemed humiliating. Each was made to kneel on the lawn, even the old man. Inside, plaster and lathe walls constructed in the 1930s were busted into by the sledgehammers, and furniture was destroyed in the pursuit of drug contraband.

“Clearly,” Gates said into the glare of camera lights, microphones held before his grim face, “we’ve made another dint in the battle to save South Central. By taking down this known rock house from where large quantities of crack cocaine and misery originated, we’ve made a difference tonight.” He turned his head toward Mrs. Reagan.

She blinked rapidly as if unclear on where she should focus her attention among the numerous camera lenses, but the former actress rallied and said, “I saw people on the floor, rooms that were unfurnished...all very depressing,” she intoned mournfully.

Chief Gates added, “We thought she ought to see it for herself and she did. She is a very courageous woman.”

It would be reported in a follow-up piece in the Times that in addition to a handful of cassette tapes found in what was a homemade recording studio, complete with squares of foam padding tacked to the walls in a back bedroom, an ounce of rock cocaine had been confiscated from the home along with a half-smoked marijuana cigarette.

Debra Hastings looked up from where her face had been pushed down onto the yellowed, scratchy grass. “These motherfuckers,” she muttered again.

Present

Sandra “Pebbles” Hastings ascended amid a scruff of wilted ice plants toward the hilltop parking lot. Post her morning shred, though a cold sun resided in the steel gray sky, she’d partially unzipped her wetsuit and tied the arms around her waist, her sports top underneath. She carried her surfboard under an arm, happy to have had a good session in her spot here between Manhattan Beach and El Segundo. Nearing the parking lot, she frowned at the sight of a man bent over the door lock of her boss little ’64 Falcon station wagon. She gaped not only because someone was trying to rip off her car but because the dude looked familiar.

“Shit, Scotty, what the hell are you doing?” she called out, dropping her board and running.

“Goddamn it,” swore Scott Waid. Quickly he produced a gun, bringing the caramel-hued surfer to a halt.

“Keep back, Pebbles,” her former boyfriend warned.

“The fuck, man?” Her hands rose and fell back to her sides.

“Just stay where you are, I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

“Gee, thanks, Scotty. You just want to steal my car is all.” A car he helped her restore, she didn’t add.

Alternately glancing at her and at the silver pick shaped like a surgeon’s scalpel inserted in the car’s lock, he got the door unlatched. He hurriedly transferred the tool to his gun hand. As this required a moment of adjustment, Hastings used the opportunity to cover the distance between them. Waid leveled his gun hand again, the tool falling away. Hastings launched her body in the air sideways and slammed against his torso. They both dropped onto the makeshift parking lot, Hastings on top.