by Lynch, Sean
Kearns stepped back. “Talk about lousy timing,” he said. Jennifer sheepishly rose and entered the kitchen.
“Thank you,” she said to Hynds. “I’ll take it upstairs.”
“Sure,” Hynds said. “I’ll hang up when I hear you come on the line.”
Kearns watched her go. He sat outside on the rear patio and drummed his fingers on the table while his coffee grew cold and night fell. Almost an hour passed, and the darkness fully descended. He contemplated turning on the rear patio light, but decided against it. In his current mood he found the dark comforting.
He was trying to imagine the telephone conversation between Jennifer and her boyfriend when he detected the noise of brush rustling out in the darkness. Whatever it was, it was too big to be an animal. It was followed by the distinct sound, which every street cop is familiar with, of toes and knees scraping over wooden fence. Somebody was entering the Judge’s yard from the adjacent property.
Kearns ducked and drew his revolver. He had to warn the others inside. There could be additional individuals approaching from the front. In every attempt on his life so far, multiple assailants had been present. He saw no reason to believe the pattern would be broken tonight.
He presumed he hadn’t yet been seen. He knew if he opened the rear kitchen door the light from within the house’s interior would reveal his presence to whoever was creeping up from the void of the backyard. Kearns went to his elbows and stomach. He planned to circumnavigate the house by high-crawling along the border of the patio to the study windows. Hopefully from there he could signal Hynds and the Judge inside without also alerting the intruders.
Thankfully he’d been outside as night gradually fell, and as a result his night vision was intact. Kearns watched as two human silhouettes emerged from the gloom. They were walking forward in a crouch, their heads scanning right and left. He was positive they hadn’t seen him. If they had, they wouldn’t be advancing so brazenly across open ground. He stopped his creeping advance and froze in place.
It was two men of medium height. Both were Hispanic, in their late teens or early twenties, and wearing dark clothing. One wore a baseball cap, the other a beanie. Both were armed. One held a pump-action shotgun, and the other a black pistol in one gloved hand and a crowbar in the other.
They were still at least fifty feet away. Too far to guarantee hits with a handgun on moving targets in poor light. Kearns slowly thumbed back the hammer of the model 1917 for precision shooting, taking aim first at the figure wielding the scattergun. Though slightly farther away than his companion, the shotgun-wielder was the greater threat. Kearns waited for the men to get closer, and prayed they wouldn’t detect him until within range for a certain shot.
The kitchen door suddenly opened and the patio light came on, flooding the backyard. Kearns was drenched in illumination.
In the same instant Jennifer appeared in the doorway and called out, “Kevin?”
Chapter 47
Farrell watched from inside his parked car as Avery’s green Ford Granada slowly made the turn from East Castro Valley Boulevard. His blood-red Oldsmobile was backed up in the dirt shoulder beneath the Interstate 580 overpass. As the unmarked sheriff’s sedan rolled to a stop within a few feet of his vehicle, Farrell got out, bringing the heavy gym bag with him.
The area beneath the overpass was well-lit, due to the indirect glare from the lights on both sides of the freeway above. Outside the umbrella of the overpass the noise from the traffic overhead was considerable, but underneath the concrete roof it was strangely quiet, and sounds echoed as if in a cathedral.
Farrell set the leather bag on the hood of his car as Avery stepped from his vehicle and began walking towards him. He unzipped the top of the satchel and pulled the flaps apart to reveal many stacks of cash, in thousand-dollar increments.
Like him, Avery was wearing a suit and tie. Farrell noted the somewhat tight fit of his jacket around the chest, and the telltale bulges weighing down each of the sheriff’s detective’s side pockets.
Farrell put an unfiltered, unlit, Camel cigarette between his lips as Avery approached. He watched Avery’s eyes take note of the money.
“I thought you quit smoking?” Avery said, lighting one of his own cigarettes.
“It’s been a rough week.”
“So it has.” Avery stared at Farrell for a long moment. “You busted into my home,” he finally said. “That pisses me off.”
“I know how you feel,” Farrell said. “Your crew turned my apartment into Hiroshima.”
“Wasn’t my crew,” Avery said.
“The corpse in your bathroom says different.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Avery said.
“You think I’m wearing a wire?” Farrell said.
“You could be.”
“Goodbye,” Farrell said, spitting out his unlit smoke. He closed the gym bag with his left hand and slowly began backing away, keeping his right at waist level near his unbuttoned suit coat. “Me and my three-hundred and forty-five thousand dollars will go find someplace where we’re welcome.”
“Wait,” Avery said.
Farrell stopped. “I look like a guy who wears a wire to you? I already admitted to breaking into your house. If I was recording this conversation I just copped to a felony, didn’t I?”
“How can I be sure?”
“You can’t,” Farrell said. “Any more than I can be sure your Alvarado Norteno assholes won’t keep coming after me, Kevin, or my daughter. You don’t trust me, that’s fine. I’ve got better places to be.”
“If you were me, what would you think?”
“I’m not you,” Farrell said. “I don’t have a dead cop-killer named Arturo Cervantes decomposing in my bathtub. You want to pat me down?”
“All right,” Avery said. He tossed his cigarette to the ground. He approached Farrell, who extended his arms. Avery pat-searched him, pausing a second when he touched the .357 under Farrell’s left arm and the .38 on his hip.
“Two guns,” Avery said. “You’re a very cautious man.”
“Matches the several guns you’re packing,” Farrell said. “Makes us even. Did you find a wire.”
“No,” Avery said, stepping back.
“Satisfied?”
“I’m ready to hear what you’ve got to say.”
“Way I see it,” Farrell said, “we’re both over a barrel. We can cut a deal like honorable men, and walk away satisfied, or we can fuck each other over and go down in flames.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Avery said. “Let’s deal.”
“I want my kid to stay alive and you want to stay out of prison.”
“So?”
“So you can keep sending soldiers after me and my family until we’re dead or hell freezes over, whichever comes first.”
“You’d better believe it,” Avery said.
“But one phone call from me and the sheriff’s deputies patrolling your neighborhood are in for a big surprise. You’d get a one-way ticket to San Quentin. By the way, if you were harboring any ideas about doing me in tonight, you should also know that if I don’t make a check-in call pretty soon the cops will get an anonymous tip reporting your address as a crime scene.”
“I figured you’d cover yourself. What do you want?”
“You guarantee my daughter’s safety. Same thing for me and Kevin Kearns. Call off your dogs.”
“What do I get in return?”
Farrell gestured to the bag of money. “A payday.”
“That’s my money anyway,” Avery said. “You stole it from me.”
“That’s right,” Farrell said. “I took your dope, too, but I wasn’t stupid enough to bring it here tonight. We come to an agreement you’ll get it back.”
“I want my dope and money back. All of it.”
“I’ll bet you do,” Farrell said. “I’ll also bet there’re people higher up in your food chain who aren’t going to be pleased about your losing it if word gets out. Same peo
ple who are probably already unhappy with you because you’ve lost so many of your crew, drawn so much unwanted attention, and disrupted so much of the Familia’s narcotics trade.”
“You’re smarter than you look, Avery said. “Where’s my dope?”
“Not yet,” Farrell said. “We’re still negotiating terms.”
“You can trust me,” Avery said. “I’ll honor my word.”
“Don’t have much choice, do I? If I take you out, somebody from your crew would only try to avenge you and I’d be back in the same predicament. That’s how it is in the crazy life, isn’t it, Vato? Blood-for-blood? You’re your crew’s shot-caller; only you can stop it.”
“True,” Avery said. “But now you get to hear my terms.”
“I’m listening.”
“Like I said, I want my money and dope back. You’re going to forget what you saw at my house. I don’t want to see you, that fucking dumb-ass rookie Kearns, or your cunt daughter ever again.”
Farrell’s jaw tightened. “What about the sheriff’s office?”
“What about it?” Avery said.
“Don’t play dumb,” Farrell said. “I want the S.O. off my back. I don’t want Kevin to lose his job or be prosecuted.”
“What makes you think I have any say in that?”
“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter,” Farrell said. “You run that place. We both know you’ve been financing Undersheriff Fresco’s bid to unseat Strummer in this fall’s election. It’s why the old fat bastard lets you have free reign. You provide the asset forfeiture dollars which Lieutenant Pickrell, in his role as the Internal Affairs commander, siphons and launders directly into Fresco’s campaign. And that prick Derlinger gets paid to clean the money and run interference from the D.A.’s office, which keeps everything nice and legal.”
“You think I’m more than I am,” Avery said.
“Who are you kidding?” Farrell said. “I know what you are. There’s no need to be modest.”
“What you say is the truth,” Avery said. “I run it all. Fresco and Pickrell are both my bitches. I’ve owned them for years. Been paying that prick lawyer Derlinger, too. They’re all on my payroll.”
“I have to hand it to you,” Farrell continued. “It’s as slick an insider operation as I’ve ever seen. Everybody covers everybody else’s back, and any outside intrusion can be dealt with administratively by Fresco, internally by Pickrell, or legally by Derlinger. It’s exactly the way you run the Alvarado Nortenos, except your sheriff’s office machine is completely legit. And a lot more lucrative.”
“You’re a better detective than I gave you credit for,” Avery said.
“I’m impressed,” Farrell went on. “You operate the whole thing from the shadows. What’s everybody’s pay-off when Fresco becomes sheriff?”
“Might as well tell you,” Avery shrugged. “Especially since it sounds like you have it all figured out anyway. Fresco gets to be the sheriff, Pickrell gets promoted to undersheriff, and Derlinger gets their support when he begins his own campaign for district attorney in a couple of years.”
“What about your pay-off? What’s in it for you?”
“I get to keep being the hero narcotics sergeant whose integrity is always above question.”
“Which means,” Farrell said, “you get to continue operating your street-level dope crew, get to carry on raking in asset-seizure money from lucrative drug busts, and get to keep using your sheriff’s star to bulldoze anyone who gets in your way. You get to keep on ruling the kingdom from the shadows.”
“I like the way you put it.”
“The credit goes entirely to you,” Farrell said. “You’ve built quite an empire. Too bad a couple of greedy deputies almost brought it down.”
“I don’t know which was worse,” Avery said. “Those two selfish assholes, Mendenour and Trask, skimming everything they could get their grubby hands on, or Gabriel and his idiot brother Arturo starting a fucking war over them?” He shook his head and lit another cigarette. “I enjoyed the fuck out of putting a couple of bullets into Artie’s skull, after all the trouble he caused me.”
“Either way, it’s all going to be fixed soon. Everything will go back to the way it was.”
“That’s the plan,” Avery said.
“Only if you keep your word,” Farrell said. “I want to hear you promise. Swear to me that my daughter and Kevin are safe.”
“I swear it. Nobody from my crew will go after you again.”
“Swear on your oath as a Norteno,” Farrell said. “I know that means blood.”
“On my honor as a Norteno,” Avery said. “And on my allegiance to Nuestra Familia. Good enough?”
“It’ll do.”
“Where’s my dope?”
“The F.B.I. has it,” Farrell said.
“What?”
“You heard me. I turned it over to them earlier this afternoon at your house. Do you really think I’m stupid enough to take the word of a man who would double-cross and execute one of his own hombres in cold blood?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“An F.B.I. forensic team has been at your house since the federal search warrant was served, moments before I called your pager number. I drove up to your house, and to my surprise, your front door was smashed in. Of course I went inside to see if you were okay, and that’s when I discovered a corpse in plain view.”
“You busted in my door yourself,” Avery said, anger lighting his features. “Didn’t you?”
“Can’t prove that,” Farrell said. “I entered your house for a lawful purpose; to check on your well-being. That’s when I found Arturo’s body. As a result, when I called the F.B.I. they had no trouble getting a federal judge to sign their search warrant.”
“That’s the oldest trick in the book,” Avery grunted. “Cops have been using that stale gag to obtain search warrants since Jesus Christ was a corporal.”
“It’s an oldie,” Farrell acknowledged, “but a goodie.”
“Fuck,” Avery said.
“Look at the bright side,” Farrell said. “You won’t have to clean up your bathroom. The coroner’s deputies already did it for you. Arturo Cervantes’ remains will be transported to the county morgue.”
Farrell reached into the gym bag on the hood of his car and parted the money, revealing the VHS video cassette recorder inside. “Pretty nifty, huh? Made it myself. Comes in real handy in my P.I. business. The transceiver and recording microphones are in there, too. See how the lens fits through this hole I cut into the front of the bag? Works like a charm.”
“You rat motherfucker,” Avery said.
“That’s comical, coming from you,” Farrell said.
Both of Avery’s hands went into his coat pockets and he came out with a gun in each. The Ruger wheelgun was in his right hand and the Browning 9mm Hi-Power in his left.
Farrell was way ahead of him. While he was using his left hand to reveal the video camera to Avery’s widening eyes, his right hand snaked across his chest and drew the Smith & Wesson Combat Magnum, in the same way stage magicians use scantily-clad women to divert an audience’s attention from their hand movements.
Farrell began firing one-handed. Point-blank into Avery’s chest. The sheriff’s narc never even got his own guns levelled.
Avery flew backwards as six .357 rounds took him full in the chest, his guns falling to the ground as he did. The ballistic vest he was wearing prevented the bullets from entering his torso, but couldn’t stop their impact.
A dazed Avery looked up as Farrell stood over him. His chest and stomach were on fire. Farrell holstered the empty magnum revolver and drew his snub-nosed .38 Smith & Wesson Bodyguard. Pointing the weapon directly at Avery’s face, he kicked away the sheriff’s sergeant’s discarded guns and reached down and removed the departmentally-issued revolver from his belt. Then he pat-searched Avery’s legs and took the Davis .25 from his ankle.
“Is this the gun you used on Arturo Cervantes?” Farrell asked, p
ocketing the small semi-auto.
“I’m not saying another word,” Avery said, struggling to catch his breath.
“You don’t have to,” Farrell said. “A ballistics comparison will determine if this is the murder weapon. Besides, you don’t have to say anything more. You already said enough. You’re on Candid Camera, remember?”
“Fuck you.”
Farrell leaned over, thumbed back the Bodyguard’s shrouded hammer, and stuck the barrel against Avery’s forehead. “You tried to kill my little girl,” he said.
“That was Arturo,” Avery said.
“You sent him.”
“Go ahead,” Avery said. “Pull the trigger.”
“I ought to,” Farrell said. He stood and lowered the hammer. “But I won’t.”
“I knew it,” Avery said. “You ain’t got the balls.” He lifted himself to his elbows.
“I ain’t got the need,” Farrell corrected him. “One of your hombres is going to do it for me. You’re already a dead man. You killed one of your own crew. When that gets out, and believe me, I’ll make sure it does, you’re going to be marked for death.”
He switched the revolver to his left hand and slammed his right fist into Avery’s nose, shattering it. The sheriff’s sergeant’s head rocked, and he slumped onto his back again, blood streaming over his mouth.
“That’s for calling my daughter a cunt,” Farrell said. He kicked Avery over onto his belly and handcuffed his hands behind his back with the set of cuffs taken from his own belt.
“You’re done,” Farrell said. “Cops generally don’t do very well on the inside, but you’re a special case. Once my videotape makes the rounds, your former Norteno associates, not to mention the Nuestra Familia who owns them, will see to your very painful demise. You should thank me. Your stay in jail is going to be a short one. I’d be surprised if you live long enough to make it to trial.”
Avery closed his eyes and said nothing, blood freely dripping from his nostrils. There was nothing to say. He knew with absolute certainty Farrell’s words were true.