Chinaman’s Chance

When they reached the civic complex, Ploughman twisted around in his seat and said, “Now, that’s a pretty nice little city hall, you gotta admit.”

Durant and Wu didn’t admit anything. Instead, they looked silently at the five-story pile of cream-colored concrete that baked in the warm California sun. It had been designed by someone who liked slabs as form. Some slabs went up and down and some went sideways and some overhung others. There seemed to be very few windows.

“Maybe you’re wondering why there aren’t too many windows?” Ploughman said, twisting around in his seat again.

“It wasn’t bothering me much,” Durant said, “but Mr. Wu here was beginning to fret a little.”

“Well, it’s kind of an interesting story. You see, the more concrete that was used, the bigger the kickback that this certain city councilman got. So when the plans came up for approval he kept taking out a window here and a window there until there wasn’t hardly a goddamn window left in the place. Well, that didn’t bother another councilman, who had the swing vote on account of he was getting a kickback on the air conditioning, and the fewer windows, the more air conditioning. It all worked out real nice. They both bought a couple of fifty-foot cruisers and keep ’em in Marina del Rey, where they don’t have to pay any taxes on ’em on account of they’re both registered and licensed up in Oregon. Sweet, ain’t it?”

“Very,” Artie Wu said.

Ploughman nodded comfortably. “I thought you’d think so.”

After they reached the civic center, Wu and Durant were neither mugged nor fingerprinted. Instead they were whisked up to Ploughman’s office on the fourth floor.

It was a large, almost square office with a single, rather narrow window that looked out over a seedy strip of the city that boasted some tattoo parlors, a couple of hot dog stands, several grim-looking bars, and a string of small shops that were in the unlikely business of selling souvenirs of Pelican Bay.

But just beyond all that was compensation. It was the Pacific, of course, looking just as elegant and expensive as it did at Malibu or Santa Barbara. To Durant, who stood now, still handcuffed, before Ploughman’s gray metal desk, the Pacific always seemed like a beautiful, overpriced whore who promised far more than she could deliver.

Ploughman went behind his desk and sat down in a high-backed swivel chair. Lt. Lake stood next to Durant and Wu. Ploughman swung around in his chair, as though to make sure that his ocean view was still there, and then swung back. While studying Durant and Wu, he ran his hand over the lower portion of his face, squeezing it a little as if trying to mold its rather mismatched parts into some kind of symmetry.

“You notice I got a window,” Ploughman said, and then twirled around in his chair to check up on the fact again.

“We noticed,” Artie Wu said.

Still admiring his window and its view, Ploughman said, “You also notice I ain’t read you your rights.”

“We noticed that too,” Wu said.

“You wanta know why?” Ploughman said, his back still to them.

Durant and Wu said nothing.

Ploughman spun around in his chair, his face split by a hard, yellow grin. “Because you ain’t got any, that’s why.” He shook a Camel out of a pack and lit it. After he blew the smoke out, he said, “Time was, you know, when if cops wanted to make a point, well, they’d take a guy into a back room and work him over a little. Rubber hoses. That’s what they always claimed. Well, shit, did you ever hit anybody with a rubber hose?”

Durant cleared his throat. “Not lately.”

Ploughman, pleased, nodded at the answer as if Durant were an especially bright and promising student. “Exactly. If you wanta work a guy over, you don’t use a rubber hose. That’s bullshit, movie stuff. You wanta know what you really use?” He put the cigarette in his mouth and then held out his hands, palms up, clenching and unclenching them into big fists. “You use these, that’s what.”

Artie Wu sighed. “Get to it,” he said.

Ploughman smiled again, as though Wu had reminded him of some pleasant but unfinished task. “Well, we don’t do any of that kind of stuff around here anymore because we don’t have to. You know what we do now when we wanta make a point? Well, we just put guys down in the Hole, and you know what we keep down there?”

“Animals,” Durant said.

Durant remained Ploughman’s star pupil. The yellow grin appeared again, this time not only pleased, but also appreciative, “Yeah, I’d imagine that you two would’ve spent a little time in the Hole. Not our Hole, of course, but somebody else’s Hole. Every town’s got its Hole that they use to drop guys like you into.” Ploughman nodded encouragingly. “Now, you two have spent some time in a Hole — ¿es verdad? as the Mexican folks say?”

“Es verdad,” Artie Wu said.

“Then you kinda know what to expect.” Ploughman looked at Lake. “Who we got down there, anybody interesting?”