I came out from under the leafy oak foliage at the intersection, put my hands in my pockets and strolled casually across the four-lane street heading toward the market in the center of the mall. I might be able to find a phone and call for help.
I was halfway across the parking lot heading for the sliding double doors when two squad cars roared by. One of them threw on the brakes and squealed to a stop, then made a power turn and blasted into the mall parking lot where I was.
I started to run and immediately heard a broadcast for backup over the rover in my pocket.
Two more cars boiled into the strip mall. I was cut off. Nowhere to go. I turned, threw down my gun and put my hands on top of my head.
Alonzo Bell and Horace Velario got out of the second car. Horace was moving like everything hurt but managed to follow Alonzo across the lot. I was about to get a serving of omelets and toast.
"Turn around and lace your fingers behind your neck," Alonzo ordered.
I did as I was told. They spun me around, cuffed me, then shook me down.
Agent Love and her FBI SWAT team needed to get here fast and break this up. But that wasn't in my future either. I was abruptly spun again and found myself looking into the toothless and swollen face of Horace Velario.
"Now comes the fun," he said through split, bleeding lips.
Then he pulled out his sap and slammed me in the side of the head. The blow was aimed at my temple. I saw it coming and tried to pivot away, but was a beat slow and my brain exploded, engulfing me in a starburst of white light. I stumbled and fell.
"Okay, Horace, enough payback," I vaguely heard Alonzo say as my world narrowed and darkened.
"No problemo." Horace sounded like somebody whispering in a dense fog. "Just gonna give him a little tune-up." Then I felt something smash into my ribs. A foot or his metal baton. Just before I lost consciousness I heard Horace say, "This is more like it, asshole."
Chapter 49
When I came to, I was in a huge food warehouse located God knows where, maybe in one of the big storage complexes in the nearby City of Industry. It looked too big to be the storage room at the Vons market, so I'd been moved. I was looking at a pallet stacked high with large boxes labeled SAFEWAY KITCHEN-SIYLE GREEN BEANS.
My mind was, somehow, miraculously functioning. In fact, a strange sense of calm now dominated me.
I was tied to a metal chair with my hands cuffed behind me and I had a blinding headache. I tried to turn my head, but as soon as I did, my temple flashed a current of unbearable pain that threatened to take me out, so I took several long breaths, tried to refocus, waited, then slowly turned my head again. I found myself looking into the frying-pan-shaped face of Sergeant Bell. He was about two feet away, seated backward, his chin resting on huge, overdeveloped forearms that were crossed over the back of his metal chair. He examined me without expression.
"Hi," he finally said.
Some time passed. We looked at each other. "Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do," he said, softly.
I didn't answer.
He stood up and moved the chair out of the way, placing it carefully to the side. "How much did you tell Agent Love?"
I was having trouble keeping up. I needed to slow this down. I had sustained a concussion and it occurred to me that this false sense of clarity I was experiencing might just be a trauma-induced illusion.
"You need to know that right now, sitting where you are, you're a dead man," Bell said. "You're not going to walk away. I got my orders straight from Carlos Real, which means they came from the man himself. Short and sweet. 'Kill the bastard!' That's what he told me. But before that happens we need to know what we need to know."
"Agent Love hates me," I whispered weakly. "I didn't tell her shit."
"Yeah. Then how come I stopped her on the Pacific Street bridge an hour ago? She was busting into Haven Park all full a spit and mustard, looking for you."
I felt a wave of nausea and thought for a moment that I was going to throw up. I barely managed to hold it clown.
"You're working for her, Shane. I think you somehow managed to get a distress call out and she was hustling over here to back your play. She said she had orders to arrest you, but dumb bitch that she is she forgot to pick up a charge sheet or an arrest warrant. Captain Jones told her you were wanted in Fleetwood for attempted homicide. She only had two guys, Tal had six. She didn't get across the bridge. So all this tells me is you're the federal plant after all."
"You're wrong, but I probably can't change your mind."
"That's right, you can't." He smiled. "You need to pony up some info. Start by telling me what the feds know."
"There isn't anything to tell. You got this all wrong."
"Really?"
He motioned with his left hand. Horace Velario stepped out of the shadows behind him. He must have undergone some emergency first aid while I was knocked out. His split lip was stitched up and his head was bandaged, but his teeth were still a mess and they must have been killing him because when he talked, he kept his mouth closed to keep cold' air off exposed nerves. I didn't think there was much I could say that would change the outcome of this, so I tried to prepare myself for what was coming.
But Alonzo wasn't through. "That write-up on POLITE was bullshit," he told me. "You and the little wifey set that up, which means you're not bangin' the famous actress like everybody thought. Means you're still married, still got shit to worry about at home."
"Alexa threw me out."
"I gotta operate on more credible instincts." Alonzo smiled. "I need to know how deep and wide this mess is. If you convince me you're not holding back, I might take pity and leave wifey alone. But if you keep up this hard-guy routine, I'm gonna make a move. I'll fuck her up big, put her on the bitch bus and send her to a hole out in Visalia. It's up to you what happens."
"You kill her, the sixth floor will never stop hunting you. But do what you want, 'cause I could give less of a shit about her."
I was hoping he didn't hear the fear in my voice, couldn't read the distress in my eyes. The only way to save Alexa was to convince him I didn't care.
He motioned to Horace. "Your turn. But don't kill him yet. He's still got a job to do." Then Bell started to walk away.
"Al." He stopped and turned back to face me.
"Change of heart?"
"Whether I'm dead or alive, the cafeteria line is closed. You're all going to prison."
"All good things gotta end sometime," he said philosophically. "But I'm pretty sure nobody's going to prison. You're gonna be indicted and tried in absentia for crimes committed against the people and police department in Haven Park. We'll put out a warrant, but you're never gonna be found. You're gonna be moldering in your own hole somewhere."
Then he turned and left me with Horace Velario, who immediately pulled the sap out of his back pocket. He moved over to stand in front of me.
"We got us a couple a hours. You'll be conscious for all of it."
"I got stacks of money from the street hits I pulled up in L. A. It's all yours, Horace. How does a hundred thousand sound?"
He didn't answer. He hit me with the sap instead. I was out before the starburst in my head even happened.
Chapter 50
"Scully… hey, Scully.. Somebody was whispering. "Wake up, homes. Hey, wake up."
Little pieces of my senses started to return, first smell, then the pain.
"Scully! You gotta wake up! I need help."
God had blessed me with a very hard head, but I was often too careless and my brains always seemed to be getting hammered.
"Wake up, man. Hey, Scully, wake up!"
I was looking at a carton of creamed corn. Last time it was green beans. All I needed to enjoy a hearty vegetable feast was a settled stomach.
I was lying on my side on a floor that appeared to be moving. Never a good sign after a head injury.
"Scully? Shit, man, are you awake?"
"Trying," I said with great deliberation. Somet
hing was wrong with my mouth. I felt around with my tongue. Several of my front teeth were gone, others broken. Shit.
"Scully, over here."
I turned my head and was now looking at crates of asparagus and lima beans. I was in the magic vegetable kingdom… The jolly Green Gi ant was probably going to kick my ass.
"Scully, wake up, man."
I finally figured out why the floor was moving. I was in a truck, and the truck was moving… Deduction. As I came to a little more, I could hear the hum of big truck tires on pavement. I turned my head farther to the right and saw Rocky Chacon a few feet away. Like me, he was tied up. He'd also been beaten and was propped against the inside of the big semi truck full of produce and canned goods. The trailer we were in was at least fifty feet long.
"Thank God you re alive," he said.
"I'm not talking to you," I finally replied.
"What'd I do?"
"You were supposed to escape. Sound the alarm. Get help."
"So were you."
"Yeah, but you're El Aboratador."
Every time I spoke there was a terrible pain in my mouth. The exposed nerve endings from my own broken teeth were killing me.
It really pissed me off that Horace had knocked out my choppers while I was unconscious. That guy needed a new rule book.
"Where are we?" I was talking now like a ventriloquist, keeping my mouth closed. I had to get past my broken teeth, will myself to ignore the pain. I had bigger problems.
"Why are we in a truck?" I asked.
"I heard 'em say we're heading to Calexico. We're in a big eighteen-wheeler."
Calexico was on the California side of the Mexican border, off Highway 8. That was pretty much everything I knew about the place.
"Why Calexico?" I asked, taking a painful physical inventory of my injuries.
It was more than just my head and my mouth. I'd been really worked over with that sap, head to toe. I had damage everywhere.
"I think they're going to move us across the border to Mexicali on the Mexican side."
"In a produce truck?"
The truck suddenly bounced over some bad highway and there were sharp pains in my rib cage, hip and, of course, my head. Even my nuts ached.
"I think Calexico is a big Customs stop," I finally said once the testicular pain had subsided. "Customs will go through a big truck like this with dogs. They'll never be able to smuggle us across the border in this."
"I think they're taking us there to kill us," Rocky said, making it worse with every sentence. "But why take us there? They could just as easily kill us here."
"Different laws," I said. "I'm a cop and you're a famous prize fighter. Here it could cause problems. They can't get extradited for capital murder in Mexico."
"We need to come up with a plan," Rocky said. "In every fight I've ever had, no matter how bad it's going, there's always a moment where victory can be snatched from defeat. The same will be true here. We've got to find and exploit that moment."
"Yeah, good thinking." I wanted to curl up and die. My head was beginning to get fuzzy. My thoughts blurred.
"How should we handle it?" he pressed.
"I don't know. I think maybe I'll go back to sleep for a while. I feel like shit."
"Sometimes a man must ignore pain. Focus on the goal. In a fight you've gotta keep punching."
"I like it" I said. "While you do that, I'm just gonna close my eyes for a minute."
Chapter 51
The highway changed to a bad stretch of pitted road. We were bumping along, and the pain from the rough ride shot through my body and jolted my senses, bringing me fully awake. I was still on my back trying to deal with it when Rocky spoke.
"I think we're almost there."
"Seems so," I groaned.
I rolled over on my side. If I puked, I didn't want to choke on vomit. Those were the kind of choices I was down to.
"We still need a plan," Rocky said. "I don't think we've crossed into Mexico yet, because the truck hasn't made a border stop."
After a minute, I realized I might have a better chance of keeping my stomach down if I was upright. With my hands still cuffed behind me, I tried to scoot across the floor to the far wall of the trailer and push myself up into a sitting position. After four or five pain-filled minutes, I finally made it. Once I was settled, I was able to look across the trailer at Rocky and see him better.
"These guys aren't going to chance a Customs stop" I said. "It would give us too good a chance to call for help."
I took several long breaths and again tried to block out the pain.
"They're also not going to be able to drive this thing into Mexico " I said. "That means we aren't going to be crossing the border in this truck."
"How, then?"
"I don't know. We've got to wait until we can see the layout of the place where they take us. We have to guess at their plan and then do this on the fly. We need to find a way to get these cuffs off. A con I know showed me once how to pick police cuffs with a nail or a straight pin. Start looking around for something I can›› use.
Of course, we couldn't move far, so inside the trailer we found nothing.
After another half hour, the truck came to a stop and began backing up. The driver was jackknifing a reverse turn. Finally, I felt the back bumper tap a loading dock. A minute later the rear door was unbolted.
"We'll make this happen, amigo," Rocky said bravely. I wasn't as optimistic.
The trailers rear doors opened and I was surprised to see Manny Avila standing there wearing an expensive leather coat and wraparound shades. The sun was coming up over his shoulder. While we'd been rolling south, night had turned into morning.
"Get em out. lake 'em into the warehouse," Manny ordered.
Two Mexican thugs I'd never seen before moved into the truck and pulled us out. They were young bangers with 18-L tattooed in gang-style lettering across their chests like meatpacking stamps.
Rocky and I were hustled onto a large loading dock where big sliding doors led into a newly constructed concrete tilt-up warehouse.
"Put 'em in the back," Avila ordered. As I was pulled forward, I saw the white Escalade pull into the parking lot.
There were at least twenty more 18th Street Locos inside the warehouse. Some were pushing dollies, others were driving fork-lifts loaded with boxes of canned vegetables. They were all wearing wife-beater tees and baggy pants. There was lots of gang ink on display.
It was going to be hard to make a move with this many esse hitters standing around.
We were shoved inside an empty windowless storage room and the metal door was slammed closed and locked. There was nothing to do but wait.
"I think we're pretty close to the border," Rocky said. "I crossed near Mexicali when I was four. You can smell the sulfur and human waste that floats in the Rio Nuevo River. I remember it as a boy-a smell you don't forget."
"We won't get more than one shot at this," I said through broken teeth. "My guess is they aren't going to keep us here long. You gotta help me find something I can use to pick these cuffs."
"If I can, I will," Rocky said, looking around the empty room. "What is this place? What's with all the canned goods?"
"The produce is just cover. If I had to guess, I'd say we're in the Avilas' main transshipping point for all the Russian machine guns, Mexican dope and immigrant labor they're smuggling into L. A."
Chapter 52
"Mama brought me across the border about five miles east of here. The coyote was an old man with tangled white hair, who smelled of pigs. He had an empty five-hundred-gallon water truck, and six of us, all members of my family, were jammed inside. He drove us across the desert. It was over a hundred degrees — so hot I didn't think I could live for even a minute longer. Mama held my hand and whispered in my ear. She told me Jesus would protect me, and up till now He has."
Rocky and I were still sitting on the concrete floor of the windowless room waiting to see what our fate would be. It had been over
an hour and nobody had opened the door.
"After the old pig farmer let us out, he led us across into the California desert," Rocky went on. "Two of my little cousins and Uncle Pepe died from heat exposure. I was only four years old, but I can still remember every moment of that trip. Sometimes, in the ring, I'd be getting hammered senseless, but in the back of my mind that little four-year-old kid would be saying, Hey, Juanito, you've been through worse"
Sitting here feeing death on the border, I realized for the first time what the Mexican immigrant experience must be like. Admittedly, I was going the wrong direction, being sneaked into, not out of, Mexico. But still, it gave me some perspective.
In L. A., emotions over undocumented immigrants are high and conflicted. Our schools and hospitals have become swamped with non-English-speaking illegals. Liberals want their votes, conservatives want their sweat, but nobody wants them. The situation had already triggered one riot.
Bratano was corrupt but he was born in L. A. Rocky was born in Mexico, but was the gold standard. It didn't change any of the state s social or economic problems, but if I survived this, it gave me something new to consider.
"Mama told me that from dark, dank places, beautiful flowers often grow," Rocky continued. "In America, she said we would be flowers. We would add to, not subtract from, the value of life there. She cleaned floors in other people's houses. I had a paper route, sold magazines door to door and worked after school in a market, but we survived. In '81, we both got amnesty. Two years later, I became a citizen. It was the proudest moment of my life."
An hour later, they came and got us. Manny Avila checked both of our cuffs, then spun each of us around and faced us.
He turned and spoke to Rocky. "You have given up everything and gained nothing."
"Despite all you've stolen, it is you who have nothing," Rocky told him.
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