The prostitutes ball ss-10

by Stephen Cannell

  "Okay, look, when we get there let me do the talking," he said.

  "Jamie doesn't like a hard sell, but he's got a shrewd eye for a hit. He also knows what works for him. This is right in his sweet spot, so he's gonna know it without us overdoing the whole story pitch. Sometimes less is more."

  "We can't tell him the whole story. Remember, the gold bullion thing is still off-limits."

  "Shit, he's gonna be in Prague. Who's he gonna tell in East Europe? We can trust him."

  "It's off-limits. We can only pitch Vulcuna, not the Brinks truck." I was hanging on to this slender distinction as if it was some sort of important moral distinction. "You tell him about the gold bullion, I'll put you under arrest right in front of him," I said hotly.

  "Okay, okay. Don't go all Dirty Harry on me." Hitch downshifted as he made the turn away from the ocean onto Trancas Canyon Drive.

  "So how's this?" he said. "We use the fact that we can't tell him anything to tease him. Y'know, like, 'We can't tell you everything, J, because it is so fucking hot, we've been sworn to secrecy by the LAPD, FBI, and the entire Department of Homeland Security. But it's huge and involves over thirty million in liquid assets. And once it goes public it's gonna be on the cover of Time and People magazine.' How's that?"

  "Nothing about money," I said, my neck bowing.

  "A liquid asset isn't money. It could be stocks or even real estate priced to sell. Come on. If we get Jamie to do this, we just doubled our back end in one hour."

  "No," I said. I had my teeth clenched as I spit that one word through them.

  I felt ridiculous having this argument. After all, selling out was selling out. The only thing we were arguing about was degree. I was so far out of character, I was afraid I would meet myself coming the other way down Trancas Canyon Road.

  At the top of the hill, the landscape was rolling grass and majestic rocks. The view was spectacular up here. The ocean stretched out two thousand feet below us, blue as sapphire and just as ageless.

  "Jamie's assistant said Canyon Ridge Drive." Hitch was looking at his scribbled directions. "He's buying twenty acres up here as an investment. Fuck if I can find it." Then he put the car in gear and pulled farther up the road to read a sign.

  "Ah, there it is."

  He downshifted again and turned onto a small unpaved feeder road. After we were about two hundred yards in, we were forced to stop because a large pile of boulders blocked the way.

  "Fucking rock slide," Hitch said. "Even God has turned against me."

  "Hitch."

  He didn't answer.

  "Hitch."

  "What is it?" he snapped. "We're running out of time. We gotta get around this rock slide."

  "I don't think it's a rock slide. There are no loose rocks or boulders up there." I pointed up at the grassy hillside above us.

  "If it's not a rock slide, what is it?"

  "A barricade."

  As soon as I said this, the first rifle shot rang out.

  The windshield on the Carrera shattered right by Hitch's head, but the tempered glass saved his life because it ricocheted the bullet.

  That shot was followed by two more. I felt the wind from the second one as it whizzed by my cheek and hit the headrest behind Hitch. It was almost a full second before I heard the retort. From that one-second sound delay, I knew whoever was shooting at us was a long way off using a scoped rifle.

  Hitch ducked low, threw the car in reverse, and roared out of there, churning up dust and gravel.

  The fourth and fifth shots slammed the front of the sports car, blowing furrows into the hood. Fortunately, on a Porsche, the engine is over the rear wheels so nothing vital was hit and we kept going.

  "Hold on!" Hitch screamed. Then he put the Porsche into a smoking one-eighty bootlegger's turn and we were back on Trancas Canyon, burning rubber from all four tires. Two more shots followed, but they were wild and missed.

  We were finally out of range. Hitch pulled over at the first turnout while I snatched up the radio.

  "This is Delta-28. LAPD officers need help on Trancas Canyon Road in Malibu. Cross street Ocean View. Shots fired. Were in the county. Notify the sheriffs substation in Malibu."

  "Roger that. LAPD D-28 needs help on Trancas Canyon Road and Ocean View. Shots fired. Contacting LASD. Stand by."

  "We can't run away. We gotta go back up there and catch that shooter," I said.

  Just then a red and white Bell Jet Ranger rose up from the hilltop behind us. The helicopter hovered for a moment before it headed north, speeding away.

  "Too late," Hitch said. "There goes our Michael Bay factor. The two assholes in a chopper." He heaved a frustrated sigh. "Look what they did to my beautiful car!"

  "Forget the car. You can fix it. We need to move fast. The shit just jumped off. They're gonna go back to that ranch in the Valley and tell Diego San Diego they missed us. He's gonna run. We got less than an hour to pull this together."

  Chapter 50

  After the chopper left, we didn't stick around for the L. A. Sheriff's Department to arrive. I called in a Code Four as Hitch sped along Trancas Canyon toward the ocean.

  We'd decided against going back up to find the shooter's nest and look for brass in favor of making a move on Diego's ranch.

  "I hate what they did to this car. Can't see shit through this busted windshield," Hitch groused, squinting through shattered glass.

  "Forget the car. I can't believe all this materialistic bullshit."

  "It's not just the car that's got me so bummed. It's also the fact they got to Jamie," he said. "How could he have given me up? The guy was my tight."

  "They didn't get to Jamie. Jamie doesn't even know about this unless you blabbed it to him, too."

  Hitch looked over at me as he snap-shifted into third and simultaneously took a hairpin turn too fast. His eyes were off the road.

  "Watch where you're fucking going!" I yelled.

  He looked back, swerved, stayed on the road. "You're right. Of course Jamie's not involved. He couldn't be. Guy loves me. But then how did they know to call us and lure us up there?"

  "I don't know. How much did you really tell your dumb-ass agents?"

  "Nothing! Do I have to take a damn polygraph?"

  I didn't answer, but when he looked over I was probably scowling.

  "If we're gonna be partners, you've gotta develop a little trust," he said, sounding pissed.

  I snapped my fingers. "Your plates. That security guard at Rancho San Diego. I bet he got your license plate when he followed you down the hill."

  "That's gotta be it. Powerful guy like San Diego must have some police connections. He could have run it. My association with Jamie is all over the Internet. Once they knew who I was, one of San Diego's guys could have called me, pretending to be Jamie's assistant."

  "Listen, Hitch. We're way behind here. We're chasing this. We need to get out in front."

  "Gee, whatever gave you that idea? The five fucking bullets in my car?"

  My mind was racing. "We've gotta get back to the PAB fast. We got no time, but we've gotta set up a takedown."

  "I'm going as fast as I can," he said, roaring around some slow-moving traffic.

  "We've got to hit that horse farm and bust San Diego this morning. That means judges, warrants, even SWAT."

  "Exactly!"

  We were now on the Coast Highway roaring past Moonshadows. Hitch started to downshift. "Forget my car. Leave it," I said, shouting over the slipstreaming wind.

  I pulled out my cell phone and dialed the office. "This is Scully. Gimme Jeb," I told the probationer on our call desk.

  A minute later I had the captain on the line. "Jeb, the Vulcuna case went hot. Hitch and I were just fired on, ambushed up in Trancas Canyon." Then I told him about Diego San Diego and explained what I needed.

  "I think this guy is some kind of retired Colombian scumbag," I said. "You need to get Dahlia to start writing warrants."

  "What kind of warrants?"

  "
Anything she can get a judge to sign. Search, arrest, evidence gathering. We need to lock that ranch of his down before he splits."

  "Thats kinda vague for a warrant," Jeb said. "You need to give me some probable cause."

  I looked at Hitch. "He says we need PC."

  "Tell him what those assholes did to my car."

  "They dumped six or eight rounds down on us from a hillside with a scoped rifle," I told Jeb. "That's attempted murder of two police officers. We've got some of the slugs with us in Hitch's car. That's gotta be good enough to get us paper. This has to happen now. These guys are shooters so you better notify SWAT. We'll need to use their warrant delivery team."

  "I'm on it. Get in here," Jeb instructed. He'd been my boss for several years and I knew he trusted my instincts. I could hear nervous energy in his voice as I hung up.

  We raced onto the freeway, made it to the interchange in a miraculous ten minutes.

  Then I called Barrv Matthews in Financial Crimes. "We're out of time," I told him. "I'm about twenty blocks away. What have you got for me?"

  "I'll meet you in your office in ten," he said. "You got something?"

  "Yeah," he said. "Get ready to be very happy."

  Chapter 51

  We got to the Police Administration Building in record time. The last few miles of the trip the Porsche had begun making loud growling sounds that didn't sound too healthy. Hitch pulled his bullet-riddled Carrera into an empty parking spot.

  "Those assholes are gonna feel the Hitchmeister's full and complete wrath over what they did to my ride he said, slamming the drivers-side door in frustration. When he did that, most of the windshield glass fell into the front seat.

  We hurried upstairs. Jeb, Dahlia, and Alexa were already there. Because she had been a primary responder on the original case, and because she really missed this stuff, Alexa was taking some time away from the department budget wars to help us sort it out.

  Two or three other Homicide Special cops were already talking to a warrant delivery team, lining up tactical support.

  "I think we re gonna want more than one SWAT," Hitch suggested. "These guys have already piled up five corpses. This morning they tried to make it seven. They're a bunch of trigger-happy assholes with long guns and helicopters. How much PC do we need before we can make a move?" The Hitchmeister on a rant.

  "Slow down and talk me through it," Dahlia said.

  She set a digital tape recorder on Jeb's desk between us. We gave them everything we had, including all of our suspicions. When we finished, Dahlia weighed in.

  "You can't pin any of that on San Diego. You got nothing that sticks to him except the fact that Stender Sheedy ran out there after you braced him in his den, which is not a crime. No judge is going to write this."

  "I didn't say we had it completely nailed down," I defended. "But these people have somehow tripped to our investigation. Sheedy went directly out to Skyline Drive after I started talking about gold contracts. My bet is he wanted to check that well house to be sure we hadn't found the truck. When he couldn't get on the property, he went straight to San Diego. That tells me they're all involved in that eighty-three bullion heist and the deaths of at least two guards."

  "Circumstantial, nonbinding, probative, and inadmissible," Dahlia said, firing these legal concepts at us like clip-fed bullets.

  "Maybe, but how 'bout this?" I said, switching tactics. "An hour ago we were both shot at. The slugs are in Hitchens s car. We search that ranch. If we find the long gun out there that fired those bullets and ballistics can make a match, that's physical evidence tying the gun licensee to an attempted double cop killing."

  "It's upside down, Scully, and you know it," Dahlia said in frustration. "You need the gun and the ballistics match first, their you get the search warrant. I'm trying to help here, but it's all speculative. You need to give me more."

  Of course she was right.

  Just then, Barry Matthews from the Financial Crimes desk rode in on a white horse and saved us. There weren't enough chairs so everyone stood as he launched into his report.

  "In eighty-one the DEA thought Diego San Diego was a silent partner in Eagle's Nest Studios," he began. "But it was never proven. There were also rumors he was funding that studio's bank overdrafts."

  "Why would he do that?" Hitch asked.

  "The DEA thought Diego San Diego was a silent partner in the company and was setting Eagle's Nest up as a potential money laundry for the Columbian drug cartels. Apparently, this was going on without Thomas Vulcunas knowledge. Vulcuna found out in December of eighty-one. They had at least one public argument over it. It almost came to blows at the studio Christmas party."

  "The night he supposedly killed his wife and daughter, then shot himself," I said, looking at Dahlia. She had a neutral wait-and-see look on her face.

  "A lot of the DEA stuff I got dealing with Diego's past relationship with Vulcuna was redacted," Barry continued. "So I don't know exactly what was going on there, but somebody in our federal system wanted to keep San Diego out of that murder-suicide case and blacked out about ten paragraphs of their own report. Back then, the DEA was running a big probe on the Colombian drug cartels. From all that blacked-out language, it looks like the feds had flipped Diego San Diego and he had started giving up names on his drug buddies."

  "So the feds protected him," I said.

  Barry nodded. "They didn't want him compromised as a witness before they could get their major drug case to court. He wouldn't make much of a wit if in advance of those cases, he got accused of Vulcunas triple murder."

  I said, "That's why McKnight and Norris were yanked off the Vulcuna case and it got closed down so abruptly."

  Hitch now took one of the few chairs, opened his journal to a fresh page, and started writing furiously.

  "How does a production company operate as a drug laundry?" Alexa asked.

  "You invest dirty drug cash in the production company and take ownership in the shows it produces," Barry explained. "Then after two network runs, when Eagle's Nest finally sells the shows into syndication, the owners take their money out in distribution and syndication profits. Everybody pays their income taxes and walks away rich and happy."

  "And how does the Dorothy White Foundation fit?" I wondered.

  Barry started grinning. "That's the really neat part. You'll never guess who Dorothy White really is." He paused for effect.

  We all just waited him out and the moment was lost, so he shrugged and pushed ahead.

  "Dorothy White is Diego San Diego's sister-in-law. Diego's wife was Maria Elaina San Diego, but her maiden name was Blanca. Blanca is white in Spanish."

  "Duh," Hitch said.

  "Yeah, duh. But you guys walked right past it. Dorothy and Maria Elaina were sisters," Barry continued. "Dorothy married Thayer Dunbar. Maria Elaina married Diego San Diego. Their grandfather changed his name to White from Blanca when he emigrated from Colombia in the fifties. It was a very common practice for immigrants to do that."

  It's exactly what Chrissy Sweet had done when she married Karel Sladky. Another weird parallel between those two cases.

  Hitch finished writing this and shouted, "He shoots, he scores!"

  Everybody in the room turned to look at him. His red journal was still open in his lap. His left fist up pumping air. The smile on his face quickly faded under the roomful of glares.

  "He's excited because that's the main subplot that's been lying beneath the surface since the inciting event that nobody saw until it finally jumped up in the third act and tied these two cases together," I said.

  Now everybody was staring at me.

  "Maybe we should explain it later," Hitch muttered.

  "So, Brooks Dunbar is what? Diego San Diego's nephew through marriage?" Alexa asked.

  Hitch nodded. He was still grinning.

  In the next hour an arrest warrant came through for Diego San Diego and twenty John Does as material witnesses and potential suspects in the hijacking of the Brinks armore
d truck and the killing of its two guards. A search warrant was written for Diego's ranch located at the end of W. Potrero Road.

  Jeb called a Realtor in the West Valley and found a nearby farm that was for sale near San Diego's spread. He made arrangements for us to use it as a staging area.

  I was tapping my foot impatiently while I imagined the ranch house emptying out, with the old Colombian drug boss scurrying to his jet for an escape to the town of his birth somewhere in the hills above Cartagena.

  We were on the road less than ten minutes after we had the warrants in hand. I was in the back of an armored rescue vehicle with Hitch, Jeb, and a SWAT warrant delivery team.

  "We need more SWAT shooters, Skipper," Hitch said, leaning forward, an intense look on his face.

  "We have one unit," Jeb told him.

  "Two SWAT teams would be better," Hitch pressed. "Three if possible."

  Jeb wasn't convinced, so Hitch went into verbal overdrive. "This shoot-out will soon become LAPD campfire lore. The heroics of your takedown will be talked about for years, Skipper. They write folk songs about shit like this. It could end up being called the Battle of Simi Valley or, less favorably, Calloway's Catastrophe." Then he lowered his voice. "You want to protect your guys, Skipper. It's better to have extra SWAT and not need it than to need extra SWAT and not have it."

  Jeb was still reluctant, but a sense of caution finally prevailed. He made the call.

  "I'd also get the SWAT chopper up over the target with a couple a Colt CAR-15 assault rifles," I suggested in the clutches of the moment.

  We sped along on the 101 freeway. A caravan of five Suburbans full of armed cops in flak vests followed by a SWAT team in a black ARV, with two more on the way.

  "We're over twenty-five years late serving this warrant," Hitch said. "But the LAPD is on a collision course with justice."

  It sounded like the tagline for our movie.

  Chapter 52

  The ranch Jeb had found was small and only a quarter of a mile from Rancho San Diego. It was a holdout property that had finally been sunk by California's high state taxes. The few farm buildings were in desperate need of repair. We pulled up the drive and parked next to an old barn with faded, peeling paint.