Cindy Kroll directed her answer to Carl Cheng and said, "Then he goes, 'I'll make it ten thousand dollars but no more. Take the extortion money and get outta my life.' That's exactly what he said."
"What did you say?" Gina Villegas asked.
Cindy Kroll looked at her this time and said, "The same thing. That he should talk to my lawyer."
"It doesn't constitute a threat of violence," Carl Cheng said. "Look, Detective," she said to him, "I had sex with that man lotsa times. All I want is a reasonable amount of child support to raise his baby boy." Then she paused and said, "Our baby boy."
"There're limits to what we can do," Gina Villegas said.
"You gotta do something now!" Cindy Kroll said. "The man's been smoking a lotta crystal meth. Way more since our troubles started, and it makes him totally paranoid. He had an insane look in his eyes today when he threatened me. Do you know what it's like to get all paranoid from smoking crystal ?"
Carl Cheng's look said, No, but I'll bet you do.
"Do you know if he has a police record ?" Gina Villegas asked. "Not that I know of."
"Have you done crystal meth with him?" Gina Villegas asked.
"Oh, fuck!" Cindy Kroll said, and stifled a sob. "You don't care if he kills me! I need protection. Tonight is when he likes to go out and score enough crystal for the weekend. I'm in danger tonight."
Gina Villegas sat down at the kitchen table, pushed some baby debris aside, and opened her notebook and said, "Okay, give us his address and phone number. We'll try to have a talk with him."
"What if he's not home?" Cindy Kroll said. "I need protection at least for tonight."
"There are domestic violence shelters," Gina Villegas said. "And restraining orders. Have you talked to your lawyer about all that?"
"I don't wanna go to a fucking shelter!" Cindy Kroll said. "I want police protection here in my home."
Carl Cheng said, "We can't camp out here based on what you've told us. But we'll ask the radio car in this area to drive by tonight and keep an eye on the place. I gotta tell you, though, this building's like a fortress. I noticed that the rear fire door is steel-reinforced with no handle on the outside. And you have a watchman in the lobby, right? Does Louis Dryden have a key, either to the main door or to your apartment?"
"No," she admitted. "He only came in here a few times after he drove me home."
"Well, there you go," Carl Cheng said. "You're safe here. But just to put your mind at rest, a black-and-white will do drive-bys tonight. Okay?"
After returning to the station, the MAC team tried to reach Louis Dryden by phone but got no answer, and no answering machine picked up. They ran a record check using the description supplied to them by Cindy Kroll but came back with nothing that fit Louis Dryden on Franklin Avenue. They were already into overtime by then and so were five other detectives, busy in their tiny cubicles, making phone calls and working computers.
The MAC team told D3 Thelma Barker about the vague implied threat that Louis Dryden had allegedly made. They said that Cindy Kroll's boyfriend was a tweaker and they were sure she was, too.
"The mother of the year, she ain't," Carl Cheng finally told his D3. "Our read is that she gave birth to a baby she doesn't want just to trap the guy into marriage or blackmail him into a nice cash settlement, or maybe both."
"Tell you what," their D3 said. "I know it's getting late and you'd like to get started on your weekend, but just to be on the safe side, let's ask a patrol unit to drop one of your business cards with a phone-me message on Louis Dryden's doorstep. That'll put the fear of God in him if he's thinking of doing something stupid." She looked at her watch and said, "The midwatch is about finished with roll call. Why don't you tell the sergeant what this is all about and also ask that a radio car drive by the place a few times tonight for a quick look-see. You never know with tweakers when they're amped up."
"If she's a tweaker, too, maybe she's the one that's paranoid," Carl Cheng said. "That's what tweakers do, get all paranoid."
"It'll make me feel better if you do it my way," his D3 said with a look that ended the discussion.
"Okay, boss," Carl Cheng said with a sigh of fatigue. "Anything you say."
Chapter Seven.
THE NEW WATCH commander, Lieutenant O'Reilly, conducted roll call that afternoon for Watch 5, the midwatch. He was a thirtyyear-old lieutenant who so far the troops didn't much like. He'd tested well on promotion exams and was recently appointed to his rank with only nine years on the Department and sent to Hollywood Division for his probation. He gave them a condescending lecture that was so boring it couldn't have been enlivened with hand puppets. It was all about treating the citizens of Hollywood with the utmost respect, even those who were as crazy as rabid squirrels. And in Hollywood that included a lot of folks.