I waved at the waitress again, but she did an exemplary job of ignoring me.
"Anyway," Sally sighed, "our background on Lionel Wright says that from there on, it was a new life. Great big house in Bel Air, cars with lots of vowels in their names."
"But the problem was?"
"The problem was that Lionel Wright was about ten times smarter than Crocodile Smith, who looked fine in his gang drapes down on Sixtieth, but looked like terminal cancer in the offices of trendy Westside media companies. Lionel had started integrating with Hollywood movers and shakers. He was dealing with big media conglomerates and filmmakers, writing soundtracks for motion pictures. He turns out to be great at marketing and puts out Bust A Cap clothing, which is a smash in Wal-Mart, Target, and on the Internet. Then all the other stuff happens, the hair products, video games, the whole schmeer. But he's still got this three-hundred-and-fifty-pound slobbering street G standing behind him pissing people off. Two years ago Lionel made his break. It ended up being something called, the Shootout at the Barn."
"I remember that. In Compton. The Barn was some titty shake. A lot of guys left on stretchers."
"You got it. Lionel does the termination meeting there 'cause it's his homeboys' club. Croc Smith sees it coming and everybody comes strapped and with backup. Six guys end up dead. Among them was Smith's younger brother, Junior Smith gang handle, Roundwheel. Lotta anger still simmering over that. It became a straight-up revenge issue for The Croc. He started trying for some payback on Lionel. But Lionel has big money and he employs top-shelf security. Smith is a street villain whose idea of a smooth hit is to blow up your car. So to date there have been three attempts. All failures."
I picked up the folder and started to process this, thinking Lionel Wright had a lot of trouble heading his way. The old payback hit from his first partner on Sixtieth Street and now the Malugas. I was starting to see what Stacy Maluga might have in mind. All she had to do was set up Lionel Wright and Curtis Clark for Crocodile Smith and his posse and let the Sixtieth Street shot-caller do the wet work. Because of Smith's past history with Lionel, the Malugas would be way down on the suspect list.
I looked up at Sally and said, "Thanks."
"These are not nice people, Shane."
"Apparently."
"David Slade was still living up at Stacy Maluga's when he died," Sally said. "So this whole thing with Alexa has a gangsta-rap connection?"
"If you want, I'll spill the whole deal, but trust me you don't want to get mixed up in it."
"I didn't like you using me to get ESD to plant that bug, but you're a cop who gets results and I want a partner who's not afraid to kick a door, now and then. I've been working with a wuss for two years, so if you need some backup, I guess I'm volunteering."
"Even I wouldn't do that to you," I said. "But thanks for offering."
We reached out and slapped palms.
"Good hunting, partner," she said.
Chapter 43.
THE EL REY Theatre is an art deco building and registered historical landmark in the Miracle Mile district of Wilshire Boulevard. Throughout the years, its rococo frescos and thirties-style marquee have been completely restored and the theater has now become a trendy, live concert venue. Most of the big acts from pop to hip-hop have played there. Aside from the facility's new, state-of-the-art sound system and lighting board, there is a grand ballroom and a nine-hundred-seat theater, with an upstairs VIP lounge and full-service kitchen.
I pulled into a red zone on Burnside Street which was diagonally across from the theater where I could see both the front on Wilshire and the back parking entrance on Burnside. I was twenty minutes early, but the place was already hopping. There were half-a-dozen TV trucks lined up and a red carpet was laid from the front entrance to the curb. Fans thronged the sidewalk in front of the theater, trying to get photos of arriving rap stars. They spilled over into the curbside lane on Wilshire, which had been blocked off to accommodate the overflow. Half a dozen uniformed LAPD officers diverted traffic and were attending to crowd control while reporters from Access Hollywood and Extra! jockeyed for prime position on the camera line.
I watched as Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and stretch limos ran a gauntlet of reporters and fans on Burnside. They were waved into artist parking in the rear of the theater by two uniformed guards under the supervision of an imposing brother wearing a tan suit, white shirt, bowtie, and an African Kufi hat. Fruit of Islam security was becoming commonplace at big hip-hop events. Gleaming car doors opened to discharge men wearing fur coats or designer warm-ups. Fans screamed from behind the chrome rail barricades shielding the parking lot as the rappers moved to the backstage entrance, trailing hot-looking women like knots in a kite's tail. The white stretch limo I had followed into Wright Plaza was parked in a VIP spot next to the back door, so I knew Lionel was already inside.
I didn't want to use my backstage pass until just minutes before the doors closed, because as one of the few non-blacks in attendance, once inside, I was not going to blend in. For the next twenty minutes I kept my eyes on the parking lot. I was looking for Stacy or Lou Maluga and the three possible hitters from Sixtieth Street who were in The Croc's known associates file. Their pictures were tucked in a manila envelope Sally had given me were on the seat beside me.
I opened the file and again glanced at the first mug shot on the top of the pile. Mister Smith, aka Crocodile Smith. Lousy teeth and a sumo wrestler's build. He looked fat, greasy, and unhealthy. His yellow sheet revealed him to be a Martin Luther King High School dropout, but with a graduate degree in violence from Pelican Bay State Prison. His teens were a litany of gun and drug busts that grew in later years, to assault felonies. Reading his charge sheet was like taking a slow ride through a bad neighborhood.
His known associates file, clipped to the top sheet, identified a thug named Little Poison, Smith's number one tight. His real name was DeShawn Brodie. The two had ended up in the same squad car a total of three times. His mug shot revealed a tall guy with an undershot jaw who was missing half his left ear. His height and weight were six-foot-three, two hundred ten pounds. The next known associate was a hitter from Sixty-third Street named Jordan Kendal whose street handle was Krunk. A drug dealer with an attitude who regularly beat up his customers or anybody else who was handy. The yellow sheet chronicled a pile of felony ag-assaults, most for no apparent reason. Apparently something would piss him off and he'd just snap and throw down. His picture showed a surprisingly good-looking guy with a weight lifter's sloping traps. If he was popping Amies to get those shoulders, roid-rage might explain the multiple assault beefs. Krunk and Crocodile Smith were cousins by marriage. I closed the file and placed it on the seat beside me.
I was pretty sure the Malugas would make an appearance. Because of the size of the event, and the fact that Lethal Force still had big acts under contract, a guy like Maluga would be expected to attend. My guess was if they did show, they'd stay well out of the way, probably buddy-up with somebody influential who could vouch for their innocence when the play went down.
Ever since Slade was found dead in Alexa's car, I'd been trying to figure out the time line and affix a motive that would pull all of this into sharper focus. I'd been accumulating little bits and pieces of information and now thought I had enough to finally sketch out a rough picture. While I waited and watched the theater, I took out a notebook and started writing down each fact, theory, or guess in chronological order. I started by listing things I was more or less certain of, even though much of it was not provable.
My theory was that six or eight years ago, in the late 1990s, Chief of Police Burleigh Brewer had used the trumped-up road rage and 911 incidents to dirty David Slade's reputation so he could be placed undercover inside the increasingly violent and murderous world of hip-hop music. David Slade and Louis Maluga both went to Compton High School and were in the same Crip street gang, so it would have been easy for the department to plant him.
Although each circumstance varie
d when deep cover agents were used, the department usually limited the number of people with knowledge of the assignment to just a few command rank officers in order to protect the UC. When Alexa took over the Detective Services Group after Chief Brewer's ouster, she was undoubtedly briefed on Slade's assignment by the new, incoming chief, Tony Filosiani. Alexa knew Slade from the Academy and my guess was because of the rumor that they had dated back then, Alexa and Slade cooked up the love letter e-mail idea as a way to communicate.
Once the initial contact was made, Slade probably started out by working event security for the Malugas, then slowly established himself as a member of their inner circle, and under that guise had most likely been gathering information on the criminal operations at Lethal Force, Inc., detailing a variety of crimes from accounting fraud to assault and murder.
Following this line of thought, it seemed reasonable to speculate that after Lou went to prison and Stacy was estranged from him, Slade used the opportunity to move in with her. From the even more privileged position of her bedroom, he continued to funnel information to Alexa either through clandestine meetings or disguised as intimate e-mails. He was undoubtedly the source of much of the music industry gang intel for the past six or seven years. That was where my more or less reliable guesswork ran out.
Next, I made a calculated assumption. The Malugas, or someone inside their organization, may have discovered Slade going through records or planting bugs something. Realizing he might be an LAPD undercover, they started following him.
Alexa told me when I left her at Parker Center on Thursday that she had one errand to run and would be home in an hour and a half. If she met up with Slade and the Malugas were tailing him, then they could have waited until Alexa drove to some secluded spot like the top of Mulholland and taken care of business. They killed Slade and kidnapped Alexa, holding her hostage until the race card was played in the press. They used her cell to call our home phone until the machine picked up, then they forced her to confess to killing Slade on tape. Alexa must have known she was as good as dead. Knowing her, if the Malugas had threatened my life or Chooch's, she would have confessed to Slade's murder to buy our safety.
I closed my eyes for a moment as the painful memory of my own shallow behavior tormented me. How could I not have trusted her when she had been willing to die for me?
More shiny imports and limos pulled into the parking lot as I sat blinking back tears, trying to reconstruct the rest of it.
As far as the Malugas were concerned, Alexa and Slade were now finished business. But Curtis Clark and Lionel Wright were still a big problem. If I had reasoned all this correctly maybe I could bust the Malugas for the attempted murder of Lionel or Curtis. Stacy was hard and savvy, but she had never done any prison time. She might trade her estranged husband, Louis, to avoid a prison stretch.
Just then a black late-model Chevy Impala SS with tinted windows pulled into a bus stop up the street from me. When it passed by the Jeep, I heard the loud sound of rap pounding against its tinted windows. Pimped-out Chevy SS sedans were big show cars and popular rides for gangstas and G-wannabes in L. A. The black Impala was hunched low over expensive blades on low-profile tires. The four-door sedan was big enough to hold seven. Instinct told me it was a wrong car. I dialed Sally Quinn at Valley Homicide.
"I need you to run a plate for me," I told her. "I don't want a record of this request logged at the Communications Division."
"Go," she said.
"Ida-Mae-Victor three-five-six," I said. "If the tag's legit it should come back as a late-model black Impala SS."
A few seconds later the car pulled away from the bus zone and headed up the street, slowing as it rolled past the crowd near the artist and VIP parking. Then it sped up and hurried to the corner at the end of the block.
"Registered to a Jordan Kendal, aka Krunk," Sally said, coming back on the line. "Twenty-three West Sixtieth, Los Angeles. He's in the known associates file I gave you on Smith."
"I know. Listen, Sal I need help. I'm at the El Rey Theatre on Wilshire. There's about six or eight blues already out front working crowd control for a rap awards show Lionel Wright is throwing. The shit's about to jump off. Fruit of Islam is working hall security. Put out a hotshot dispatch and get me some backup."
"I'll put out the call but I'm on my way, partner."
Of course, by the time she got here from the Valley, this would be over, but I loved her for trying.
I waited until the Impala turned right at the corner. Then I started the Jeep and headed after them. I tried to stay half a block back and followed as the car made another right and headed slowly down an alley that ran along the back of the theater. The Chevy pulled up and parked next to a chain-link fence.
I nosed the Jeep in behind an overflowing Dumpster, got out, and moved to a spot where I could maintain my surveillance. The passenger door on the Chevy opened and after a minute, a huge brother exited the Impala. Crocodile Smith was an immense blob of a guy, dressed in all black, wearing oversized chrome shades. Even from where I was hiding I could see big, yellow crocodile shoes on his feet. He moved around the car, opening doors like a valet. Then the serious talent got out. I saw two of the characters that Sally had included in the K. A. file. DeShawn Brodie, aka Little Poison, and the roid-raging Jordan Kendal, aka Krunk. They were joined by two other guys I didn't recognize who looked implausibly young, just teenagers.
The hitters all wore baggy jeans, expensive basketball shoes, and had black MAC-10 machine pistols hanging under their arms from nylon slings. While these four calmly started checking clips and tromboning rounds, The Croc handed out loose-fitting windbreak-ers. With oversized jackets now concealing their ordinance, Smith gave out final instructions. Then he watched as his wet team headed for the chain-link fence. All four went easily up and over, dropping gracefully on the other side.
They sprinted to the back wall of the theater, where Krunk pounded on a metal door with the heel of his hand. It was immediately opened by someone with white-blond hair. I couldn't see the face, but that dye job definitely belonged to Stacy. The four shooters quickly disappeared inside. Smith walked to the driver's side of the car and eased his gelatinous body behind the wheel. The Impala started rolling as rap pounded on the smoked windows. It turned at the intersecting alley and headed away from the El Rey.
I knew I didn't have much time. I put the Jeep in reverse and floored it, turned around in the alley, then swung back into the VIP lot and skidded to a stop. The FOI guard and his security troops were no longer there. Even the fans behind the barricade had left, seeking better vantage points. I threw the gearshift into Park, jumped out, and ran to the stage door. It was now closed and locked. I pounded hard on the metal. No one answered. I checked my watch. It was seven-ten. I'd missed the damned cutoff.
I pounded hard again. "Open up!" I yelled. I was about to turn away and look for another way in when the door suddenly opened and Vondell Richmond peered out at me.
"What you want?" he said.
"Lionel gave this to me," I lied, flashing my backstage pass.
"No, he didn't," Vondell growled. "I made out the guest list and ran all the security checks. You ain't on it."
"Hey, Vonnie, you got uninvited guests. Four hitters from Sixtieth Street just jumped the fence in the back. Somebody let them in here through the side door. It looked like Stacy Maluga."
He didn't answer.
"I know you don't need my help, but I saw the shooters. I can point these guys out for you. I'm not trying to bitch up your show, man. I'm trying to save Lionel's life."
Then he made another good executive decision and let me inside the theater.
Chapter 44.
A POUNDING RAP song was being performed on stage for a sound check as I stepped inside the theater.
"Follow me. Stairs are faster," Vondell said, and started climbing up a narrow back staircase. We arrived at a door displaying a sign handwritten in Magic Marker that read vip lounge passes required. Vondell ope
ned the door with a special key card and we entered a large room filled with guests. The lounge featured red and gold decor and was dominated by a long, dark oak bar being worked by two beautiful, coffee-colored twins in strapless evening gowns. The area was populated by hip-hop celebrities and beautiful women turned out in trendy, body-baring creations. The vibe was electric, Everybody engaged in animated conversation.
Vondell pushed me firmly up against a side wall and said, "Okay. Listen to me. This is a strained situation in here. Some of these brothers got bloody histories. Only thing keeping this in line is most a these people is hopin' to take home some brass for their trophy cases. See if you can stand here without starting a riot. I'm gonna round up my posse."
Then almost as if he'd been beamed down from the crystal chandelier, Taylor Hays appeared and hovered at my elbow.
"Stay with him," Vonnie instructed. "You seen Lionel?"
"Sound booth," Taylor said.
"Scully, fill my man in," Vonnie said and hurried off.
"Four uninvited guests, all packin' MAC-tens." I pulled the police mug shots from my back pocket and showed him the grainy faces of DeShawn Brodie and Jordan Kendal. "These are two of them."
"I know these niggas. Bloods, off Sixtieth," Taylor said.
"They're all wearing baggy jeans and loose black windbreakers."
A minute later, Vonnie reappeared with two other guys and a brother in a tan suit who was introduced to me as Elijah Mustafa, head of FOI security. He was a large, no-nonsense-looking brother holding a small Handi-Talkie radio to communicate with his FOI guards who were all wearing NSA-style earpieces.
Vondell motioned us to follow him. I fell in behind Taylor, who flexed through the crowd rolling his shoulders. We exited through a side door in the VIP lounge and walked along a glass-lined corridor that overlooked the empty theater below. It was getting close to eight o'clock. The doors to the theater would open soon. There were rows of center aisle seats marked off with ribbon for VIPs and their guests. One entire side section was set up for the press. On stage, a female rapper and her backup singers were pounding out a hip-hop number while the sound engineer adjusted levels from the booth.
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