Rabbit Factory Chapter 3 of 3
A horn honked and my partner pulled up in his 2002 silver Lexus ES 250. “Hey,
kids,” he yelled out the window. “We’re going to Familyland. Yayyyy!”
That’s Terry, the Fun Homicide Cop.
I got into the Lexus ES 250, which I love to remind Terry is actually a Toyota Camry with a wood paneled dash and a few other non-essentials to jack up the price. “Good morning, Detective,” I said. “Are you looking for the guy who slapped a Lexus logo on the front of your Camry?”
“Nice way to talk to the man who brought you breakfast.” There was a container of Starbuck’s in the cup holder plus a bag of Krispy Kremes on the floor. “Today’s the 18 th ,” he said, pulling away from the curb.
“Yeah, I saw that,” I said sipping the coffee and trying hard to ignore the aroma of fried dough and sugar wafting up from the waxy bag of carbs at my feet. “It made Page One of today’s paper.”
Terry was one of three people who knew about Joanie’s letters. “It’s that time of the month,” he said. “You get mail?”
“Yeah.” I said. “She’s having a great time. I don’t get the sense she’s coming back.”
Terry was there for me when Joanie was dying. Not intruding. Not giving advice. Just there. A lifeline. He knows when to keep quiet, and this was one of those times. Carbs, be damned, I decided. I unbagged a glazed donut as we headed for the 405 South. Terry Biggs is the best partner I ever worked with. For starters, he’s not very L.A. He’s one hundred percent Da Bronx. From the time he was a kid, he knew he was going to become a cop. But in the late 70’s when he was ready to apply, the city of New York was in financial hell, and the NYPD had a hiring freeze. Los Angeles, on the other hand, had money, criminals and jobs. Terry switched coasts and joined LAPD.
Terry is tall, dark and ugly. Don’t get me wrong. I love him. We’ve been friends and partners for seven years. But he’d be the first to back up my description. Six foot three, a mop of greasy black hair and a face that’s kind of muley, but more pock marked than a real mule. The man is butt ugly.
Until he speaks. And his voice, soft and sweet as honey, warms you. He’s funny, charming, loving, and before you know it, you’re thinking what a beautiful guy. Women are particularly vulnerable to his special brand of ugliness. Terry Biggs has no problem getting girls.
Keeping them is a different story. He’s had three marriages go south. But number four was the charm. Marilyn. She’s with LAPD Rescue. They met on the job.
About ten years ago, Terry stops at the Ralph’s on Robertson. He’s just parked his car when two guys with guns come tear-assing out of the market carrying a sack, which later turns out to contain $18,000 in cash and food stamps.
Terry pulls his service revolver and yells the standard “Police, drop your guns, etcetera, etcetera.” Now Terry is off duty, so he’s wearing plaid shorts and a New York Yankees T-shirt. Apparently, this is not an intimidating outfit, and the robbers keep running. They jump into a moving car, and in two seconds flat, the car is barreling down on Terry.
He dives out of the way, but a fender catches his foot in mid air and breaks his ankle. He still manages to get off three shots, and blows out two of their tires. The car plows into one of those metal dividers where they collect the shopping carts. The driver gets a face full of air bag. One of the gunmen pulls his own trigger on impact and shoots himself in the leg. And before the last guy can figure out where the door handle is on their stolen car, Terry limps over and is singing “You Have the Right to Remain Silent.”
The headline in the paper the next day says, “One of LA’s Finest Bags Three of LA’s Dumbest.” But there was a second part to the story that got even more coverage. Lots more.
A few minutes after Terry nails the bad guys, about a dozen black and whites converge on the scene, followed by LAPD Rescue. The cops are screaming “officer down, officer down” which lets the Rescue Squad know to bypass the dirtbag who is bleeding to death and take care of that cop over there with the Camel dangling from his mouth.
The ambulance screeches to a stop, the driver’s side door flies open and out jumps Marilyn Cavanaugh. Marilyn has green eyes, curly red hair and a big Irish smile. Sounds pretty good on paper, but she’s what they politely refer to in the Personals Ads as fullfigured. She’s a hefty lass, Marilyn is, weighing in at about fourteen stone. But she’s also a top-notch paramedic, and no one ever complains that their Angel of Mercy is too chunky. Certainly not Terry.
Big as she is, Marilyn is lightning on her feet. Wham, bam she takes Terry’s vitals and quickie-splints his ankle. Then together with her co-pilot, Marty Delaney, they hoist Terry onto a gurney and wheel him into the back of the bus. Marty hops in with the patient. Marilyn slams the rear doors, jumps in the cab and flips on the siren. Terry, who has been operating on pure adrenaline, knows he’s finally headed for a fistful of Advil, a six pack of beer and at least a week’s paid leave. He closes his eyes and thanks God for another mission accomplished. Marilyn, feeling all the pressure of being responsible for an Officer Down, peels out, hell bent for Cedar Sinai.
And that’s when the A-M-B-U and the L-A-N-C-E part company. The back doors fly open, and the gurney catapults out onto the macadam, where it rolls about thirty feet until it runs head on into a Soccer Mom parking a minivan. The cops, who are still on the scene, scramble to help Terry, who now has a concussion to go along with his broken ankle. When they realize this is not particularly life threatening, they all have a huge laugh. But the camera crew from News Channel 4 has the biggest laugh of all. They had been shooting the departing ambulance for the evening news when the doors burst open. The video ran incessantly for three nights.
About sixty seconds later, a totally humiliated Marilyn returns for her Officer Down Twice. And that’s how they met.
After that, she visited him every day, first in the hospital, then at home, offering to do whatever she could to make him happy. One night, it seemed that the thing that would make Terry the most happy was a roll in the sack. No problem for Marilyn. Rarely does a nice Irish girl get the opportunity to have sex with a man and actually diminish her Catholic guilt.
One thing, as they say, led to another and despite the fact that Marilyn had 7-year-old twin daughters, and a third, age 5, Terry signed on for the whole package. And that’s how a guy from The Bronx winds up living in Sherman Oaks with a wife and three teenage Valley girls.
We plugged along the 405. “No sense using lights and sirens,” Terry said. “With all this traffic, we’d wind up causing an accident. Besides, the guy we’re going to see is already dead, so what’s the hurry? You been to Familyland?”
“A bunch of times. You know Joanie,” I said. “She was a kid at heart.” What I didn’t say was how much she wanted kids. We both wanted them. We spent three years and thousands of dollars trying to make one. It was our fertility doc who actually discovered the ovarian cancer. Congratulations, Mrs. Lomax. You’re not going to have a baby, and you’re going to die.
“I always thought of Lamaar as a rip-off of Disney,” Terry said. “But that’s sort of like saying Pepsi is a rip-off of Coke. There may be truth in it, but it’s still an 800-pound gorilla on its own.”
He was right. Lamaar, like Disney, had started out as a small animation house. Rambunctious Rabbit, Slaphappy Puppy, McGreedy the Moose, and a shitload of terminally jolly characters had captured the public’s heart and transformed the little cartoon studio into a global entertainment company.
Today Lamaar made movies and TV shows, owned music and toy companies, operated hotels and a cruise line, licensed cartoon characters and was traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Familyland was just one small piece of the corporate pie.
Terry recapped the highlights of his last two trips to Familyland with Marilyn and the girls. He made sure to give me some tips on how to get back-doored, which is theme park jargon for entering a ride or attraction without waiting on line. Apparently, his ability to buck the long lines and get the VIP treatment at Familyland had made him even more lovable in the eyes of the four women who already adored him.
We don’t like to talk about a case before we get to the scene, so Terry segued into the upcoming college hunt for the twins, who were Juniors in High School. He never once mentioned how expensive it would be, which if you know Terry is just like him. He was just a button-popping proud Dad, who wanted the best for his girls. We were discussing the merits of applying for early admission when he pulled onto the off ramp. The arrow on the sign for the main entrance to Familyland pointed right. Terry turned left.
“They said don’t go to the front gate,” he told me. “We’re going to the admin building on Happy Landings Boulevard. They want to keep this investigation low profile, so try not to look like a cop.”
That’s the nice thing about Terry. Sometimes he lobs out a straight line for me to take. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll leave the donuts in the car.”
Terry gave a little chuckle, which from him is a rave. I, in turn, bowed to thank him for the setup line. Sometimes homicide can be a lot of fun.