The Fight Against Crime: Notes from the Front : Adventures in the Van Nuys Drug Trade

At 7:41 p.m., Martin rode his bicycle up to a woman standing in front of an apartment house near the corner of Vanowen Street and Hazeltine Avenue in Van Nuys.

He was looking to buy a “twenty,” $20 worth of rock cocaine.

“I remember you,” the woman said as Martin--dressed in jeans, a black T-shirt and backward baseball cap--approached.

The woman spoke quietly but there was excitement in her voice, like she was greeting an old friend. About a week ago Martin had been at this same corner, looking for drugs. She had nothing to sell him then.

But this time she told him to stay put. She ran a short distance up the street to talk to a friend.

At 7:44 p.m. she returned to tell Martin that she had the cocaine.

All he had to do was give her the money and she would hand it to him.

It was, in this part of Van Nuys, an all-too-typical scene--a quickie drug deal right out in the open. In the dusk, Martin and the woman could be easily seen, even a block away.

What the woman did not know, however, was that they could also be easily heard. The conversation was being broadcast via a hidden microphone to seven cars within about a block radius.

She was playing an unwilling role in a seriocomic drama played out almost nightly in the San Fernando Valley.

She was selling drugs to a member of the Los Angeles Police Department’s “buy team” of undercover narcotics officers.

Martin worked the deal patiently, going for the complete “hand-to-hand” transaction that would give him the best chance of scoring an arrest that would stick in court.

Meanwhile, in the unmarked police cars, a steady stream of radio transmissions could be heard, in addition to the conversation between Martin and the woman.

Andrea and Wayne, the other members of the buy team working Van Nuys that night, were parked near enough to offer a running commentary on the transaction. The “chase” cars--several of which had been obtained from a used-car rental agency--were driven by officers who would step in to make the arrests.

Directing the whole street ballet was Detective Jerry Holtz, sitting in a car about a block north on Hazeltine Avenue. Dressed in street clothes, he slumped down in his seat and tried to look as casual as possible to avoid arousing suspicion.

“I’m the mother hen,” said Holtz, 48, whose nickname is the Tweak Monster because he has been known to scream orders into his radio, tweaking it into distortion.

“It’s kind of like living on the edge,” said the former schoolteacher. “You picture yourself as a James Bond.”

The three undercover agents seemed less like James Bond and more like a ‘90s version of the Mod Squad.

Later that night, back at the Van Nuys LAPD station, they filled out voluminous arrest reports in a basement room that could be mistaken for backstage at a Pearl Jam concert, complete with piles of the worn-looking flannel shirts, T-shirts and jeans.

In one corner was a pair of crutches. “We use stuff like that for disguises sometimes,” said Martin.

The UCs, as they are known in the department, feel this is a plum assignment. “It’s a lot of fun,” said Wayne, “except for the boring parts, like going to court and the paperwork.”

And a stint on the buy team looks good on the resume.

“In this job, you don’t have a lot of supervision, and if you can do it well, it makes a good impression,” said Andrea.

The team members know that they are dealing with the penny ante end of the illicit substance hierarchy and that their work makes only a tiny dent in the nightly Valley drug trade.

“But it’s nice because the people in the neighborhoods like us out there,” said Martin.

At 7:45 p.m. Martin had the rock cocaine in hand.

Holtz said into his radio “It’s a go!” several times and suddenly, out of nearby alleys and parking lots, the chase cars appeared. The woman and man who were allegedly involved in the sale of the drug to Martin were handcuffed while Martin quickly pedaled away.

Later, during a strip search, police said, a plastic-wrapped packet containing drugs would be found in his rectum. But at the moment, the man sounded angry and indignant.

“You are going to jail,” Holtz told him, “for the sale of cocaine.”