"You always were my best backup," I told her. I reached over and we slapped palms. "Partners," we said in unison.
"Since I'm gonna have a little role in this, you want to tell me what we're doing--what our first step is?"
"In the morning I'm gonna take a look at a guy named Rick O'Shea." Then I told her who he was and why he'd caught my interest.
"Sounds like a good thread to start pulling," she said. "What do you want me to do?"
"Put some pressure on the ME's office. This redo autopsy is a loser for them. They already know they're gonna end up looking bad. Don't let them delay it or push it off."
"Done," she said.
"I'm pissed off, Alexa. I'm really angry. How could I have let this happen?"
"Now you're cooking. Anger's good. Now go out and bring us back a collar." The night was turning cool so Alexa decided to go inside.
I sat there a little longer and slowly my anger turned to resolve. Suddenly I felt Walt's unseen presence hovering next to me. It was like the old days, when we'd been in the morning lineup, floating beyond the break, just outside the impact zone.
Without looking, we could always tell when a big one was coming. The energy of the wave building from the ocean floor touched a spot deep inside us, curling our toes with expectation.
I had that same feeling now. A huge swell of energy and expectation was beneath me. I could almost hear Walt shouting encouragement like he did when I was a boy, yelling at me to start cranking and tap the source.
In the old days we'd sometimes take off on the same wave, ride shoulder to shoulder, dropping in together behind the curl. Both of us lighting it up, fully covered, blasting out of the tube, rail to rail, riding the wall of glass all the way into the shore, shouting our excitement into the sky where only God could hear.
Chapter 21
At seven thirty the next morning I was getting reach' to leave the house when the phone rang. Alexa was in the shower, so I picked it up.
"Scully?" a deep voice said.
"Yeah?"
"Sabas."
"How ya doing?"
"I need to meet with you."
"That's gonna be tough to arrange this morning," I said. "I'm running late. We can set it up for this afternoon or maybe tomorrow if you want."
"I'm parked outside your house. Let's do it now."
"Now's not convenient."
"I don't care."
This wasn't getting us anywhere.
"You better talk to me, Scully. You don't, I promise you're gonna regret it."
"I'll be right out."
I thought, Who does this guy think he is?
I grabbed my briefcase and jacket and walked out the door. A lowered five-windowed '53 Chevy pickup, painted bright yellow with a fifties-style flame job on the nose, was parked in the drive right across my rear bumper, blocking my egress.
Vargas was standing by the truck bed, dressed in jeans and a polo shirt. He had a BlackBerry in his hand.
"I don't have much time, so let's make this quick," I said.
"Scully, I did a little checking on you last night. Some friends of mine who work at the Public Defenders office say you have a very unorthodox style. You don't obey the rules."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You run stop signs, create legal messes."
"All that tells me is I musta put a bunch of good cases on your dirtbag friends in the PD's office."
"It's more than that."
"I don't need career counseling right now. Get to it. What's this about?"
We faced off over the bed of the Chevy.
"Where you going this morning?" he demanded.
"None of your business."
"If it's about Walt Dix, then I'm making it my business."
I stood there, trying to decide how to unload this guy. Then I pointed to his truck.
"You want to move that, or do I have to call for a police tow?"
"I know from my friends downtown that you're used to running things on your own, but with Walt's murder, that's going to change. I'm going to be taking the lead."
"It's an open homicide, Mr. Vargas. You hamper my active investigation, you're gonna eat a nice fat obstruction statute."
"Bullshit."
Try me.
"I'm not like the others," Vargas said. "The laws my beat too. I know how the game works. It's gonna take the coroner two, maybe three days to alter his cause-of-death finding. Until that happens, this is still officially just a suicide. That means you got shit. You got no case for me to hamper. I can do whatever I want."
He was right, of course, but I didn't give him the satisfaction of saying that. I was looking for a plan of action that didn't include letting some Fast L. A. gang lawyer get in the way on my murder case.
"For the next two days, I'm gonna check into this on my own," Vargas said. "There's nothing you can do to stop me."
"That would be a mistake. We could screw the case up, not coordinate on a witness, create future havoc for the DA."
"That's why I came over," he said. "I cleared my court calendar. I'm willing to cooperate with you. I'll meet you halfway. I have some unique street contacts that could be very helpful in a pinch."
"Sabas, I know you're a tough guy. I see the old scars on your knuckles. What'd that used to say, DEATH?"
He looked down at both his hands as I went on.
"I checked you out too. I got a call from my office at eight this morning. You used to run with the Latin Kings as a kid. Word I get is you've got a thick sealed file in juvie."
"Si, lo sabes," he replied softly. The words rolled off his tongue. It was obvious that Spanish was his native language. "You're right." He held up both hands. "I had DEATH on my right, MATAR on my left. I could kill you in two languages."
"I don't want your help," I told him. "If I see you anywhere around this case, I'll find some charge that works and lay it on you. Now move your truck or you'll have to pick it up in police impound."
He hesitated for a moment before moving to the drivers-side door. Then he stepped up on the running board and faced me over the roof of the cab.
"I talked to Diamond. She said you never came around, that you barely ever talked to Walt the last couple of years."
"See ya."
"Sounds to me like you're probably dealing with a heavy load of guilt right now because after all Pop did, you dissed him. Why was that? You been running away from your past and now you feel bad because you still owe him big and he's gone. That why you don't want to share this case with the rest of us?"
He'd come pretty damn close.
"Hey, I get it, Detective. Remember when I told you that Pop called me a few days before he died? That he wanted to set up a meeting?"
I looked at him and waited.
"He wanted to see me right away, but I blew him off. I was in court on a murder trial. Too busy. I told him I'd see him in a week. If I'd met with him right away like he wanted, then maybe he'd still be alive. Like you, I fucked up and didn't help him when he needed it. I'm not sleeping over it. Shit s been killin' me."
I only took a moment to think about it before I said, "Park your truck on the lawn over there, we'll take my car. I'll tell you what we're doing on the way."
Vargas moved his Chevy truck. Then he grabbed a worn leather briefcase from the front seat and climbed into the Acura beside me.
I put the MDX in gear and pulled out heading toward the 101 freeway and Rick O'Shea s house in Calabasas.
Chapter 22
As we drove, I told Vargas that I didn't really have anything solid except for a strong feeling that Rick O'Shea was a strange choice to be running the nonprofit that owned Huntington House.
As I talked, Vargas had his BlackBerry out and was typing the information onto an e-page.
"I'll run him when I get back to the office," he said. "I've got some good sources."
"I already ran him. Nothing major. But trust me, the guy's slime."
Sabas nodded.
&n
bsp; The address on Lupine Lane turned out to be a very large, new, Spanish hacienda-style house on about two acres with a front fountain and cobblestone drive located in an expensive new development. It looked like a hell of a lot of house for a guy who ran a charitable nonprofit corporation. The maroon Escalade I'd seen in the parking lot at Huntington House was parked out front.
"Maybe hes independently wealthy," Sabas said, reading my thoughts.
While we waited for O'Shea to leave his house so we could tail him, Sabas worked quietly on some legal documents in his briefcase. Occasionally, his BlackBerry would ring and he would speak softly to somebody in Spanish. The calls all seemed to involve a gang drive-by where he was defending two of the shooters.
He kept instructing the person he was talking to on which discovery motions he wanted filed first. He wasn't aware that I spoke Spanish. He thought he could have conversations in another language without my understanding. Maybe I could use that misconception to learn something that would come in hand}' clown the line.
At about ten o'clock, it started to get warm in the car so I turned on the engine and the AC.
"Y'know, if we'd been both paying closer attention, mavbe you and I coulda stopped this from happening," Sabas finally said, looking over at me.
"Right." I focused on the house, trying to keep his gaze out of mine. I didn't want him to see the pain I was hiding.
He was quiet for a minute, then he said, "You're right about my juvie record. I was at Huntington House in the early sixties. Twelve years old when I arrived. Already had a righteous one-eighty-seven on my yellow sheet. Back then I was working for a Latin Kings drug crew. I started out as a lookout at six years old. My set liked to use pee-wee G's for payback murders. It was how you got jumped in. The added benefit was, if one of us got caught, we'd only get juvie time.
"When I was nine it was finally my turn. I popped a Sureno over by one of our drug houses. The vato was only sixteen, but he hadda go cause he was doing corners on one of our blocks. The flute I used was a piece of rust. I'm amazed now it even fired. My cousin, Arturo, gave it to me, and cause I never owned my own burner, like an idiot I ditched it in my backyard. I wanted to keep it. Took the cops about ten minutes to find the damn thing.
"After I did my juvie CYA time, the courts assigned me to Huntington House. I found out later that Pop heard about my case and rigged that for me, got me out of the sheriff's honor rancho two years early. Once Pop was on a mission, there was no ducking him. He kept hammering on my juvie judge until she placed me there."
It was a familiar story. I'd heard different versions from other Huntington House grads.
Sabas went on. "When I arrived at Huntington House, I got put in Harbor Elementary. I had lotsa little homies in that escuela. With my bad-ass murder rep I was an instant big deal. A leader. I was down for my boys. But Pop was having none of it. As soon as he found out, he wouldn't let me see any of those kids, then he put me into a new school in Long Beach where I didn't have any vato brothers. Drove me all the way over there each morning himself. Pop got me out of my old set by force of will."
Vargas stopped his story and sat there thinking about it for a moment. "Y'know, I never got that dead Sureno off my conscience. It's been half a century and I still dream about that kid."
The overactive BlackBerry was now off and forgotten in his scarred hands. He turned to face me.
"Since he died, I've been seeing Pop in my memory, remembering him like he was back then. You ever do that?"
"All the time."
"He take you surfing?"
"Yeah."
"Losers on parade, right? I got to go a lot because I couldn't get out of my own way back then. Once we were alone, out beyond the break, Pop would be working to convince me I should take a better path. Nothing I did got him off my back. The man was on me like gel coat.
"I can still see him paddling out on that big ol' gun he used, that rhino chaser. Catchin' a pipe ride, getting vertical on his log, riding it 'til the curl collapsed. Then afterward, all of us on the beach having Cokes and sweet rolls. Me wondering what the fuck I'm gonna do with myself. How I'm gonna get through tomorrow. Wishin' someone would just save me the trouble and take me off the count." He stopped for a moment before he added, "Walt kept me alive. He got me all the way from there to here."
"Pretty much says it," I answered softly.
We sat there in silence, both dealing with separate memories.
Half an hour later the front door opened and Rick O'Shea came out. He was dressed in workout gear, carrying his gym bag. His muscles rippled.
"Yeah, this pendejo definitely came off the wrong bus," Sabas said, watching as Rick O'Shea got into his car.
I let him pull away, then I put the MDX in gear, dropping in about a block and a halfback. We followed the maroon Escalade onto the 118 and then all the wav into downtown L. A.
Chapter 23
O'Shea parked in a lot south of Broadway, six blocks from the financial center in a slum neighborhood full of discount clothing stores and run-down secondhand shops.
I pulled in, took a ticket, and parked a few lanes over. Sabas and I watched as he yanked his monogrammcd gym bag out of the passenger seat and made his way across the cracked asphalt to a medium-sized brick storefront that faced the parking lot. It had a dirty, plate-glass, floor-to-ceiling window with alarm tape and small gold letters that said:
NHB INC.
"Wait here," I told Sabas, then got out of the Acura, went to the trunk, rummaged around, and found a Dodgers baseball cap. I pulled it out and put it on. Disguise. I crossed back to the passenger window and looked in at Vargas.
"Stay in the car, I'll be right back." I fished in my pocket for dark glasses.
"Whatta you gonna do?"
"Don't know yet. Keep an eye on my back."
I walked across the pavement toward the storefront, past a beautiful, modified red and white Indian motorcycle that had fancy leather saddlebags and was parked in a spot reserved for the manager of NHB. As I walked past the chopper, I wondered what I would find behind the grimy plate-glass window.
I pulled the baseball hat lower, put on my darks, opened the door, and walked inside.
It was a small gym, or more correctly, a fight-training center. Kxcept for the plate glass in front there were no other windows. Most of the light came from old-style wire-enclosed ceiling fixtures. There was almost no concession to decor. The benches and workout machines were mismatched. What paint there was had chipped long ago. An octagon for cage fighting stood in the center of the room. Heavy bags and workout equipment dominated the perimeter. The smell of sweat lingered. It was very old school.
One or two experiments in chemistry were taking turns lifting the bar on a Smith machine over in one corner. The Smith was a weight-lifting apparatus also known as a hat rack because it has a rack that guides and supports the plates. We have a few in the police gym where I sometimes work out, but I'm a free-weight guy so I've never actually used one.
There were several poster-sized pictures of past mixed martial arts events hanging on the paint-peeled brick walls. I spotted one that showed Rick "Ricochet" O'Shea advertising something called "The Fall Brawl." In the shot, he was pushing his flat nose at an equally intimidating opponent. Underneath it read:
"RICOCHET" O'SHEA
VS.
KIMBO SLEDGE
ONLY ONE WILL WALK AWAY
There were posters showing pictures of other gym celebrities-Raymond "Stingray" Jackson was a big black guy with a shaved head, Gary "The Great" White was aptly named. A huge glowering blond guy with a Mohawk named Dane Vanderheiden called himself "The Striking Viking." Never heard of any of them, but I don't follow ultimate fighting so that didn't mean anything.
All of them looked like they'd be serious competition in a brawl.
I moved behind a power rack, out of sight of the two fighters on the weight machine, and tried to spot where Rick O'Shea had gone, but he'd disappeared into the back somewhere.
"I was thinking maybe I'd get into MMA," I said, smiling. "You got a program I could join? A trainer who could work me out, show me some striking and ground-fighting techniques?"
"Private gym," he said. "We only train club professionals. No cardio bunnies. Take it down the street."
I pointed at the posters on the wall. "These the guys you train? Pretty impressive."
He gave me nothing. No expression. No personal connection. He just stood with massive bowling-pin forearms crossed, looking like an ad for a toilet-bowl product. A facial muscle high on his cheek began to twitch.
"And you are?" I asked.
"Getting angry," he answered.
"I really like this place," I persisted. "It's near where I work in the financial district. I'd only come in on lunch breaks two or three times a week for an hour. I'm really serious about this. I can pay whatever it takes."
"How many times I gotta tell you we're a private gym? We don't deal with the public."
"Tell you what, let me write clown my number so you can call me if you change your mind."
"Get the fuck outta here," he growled.
Just then, Rick O'Shea came out of the back.
"Hey, Chris, you seen the shot kit? I left it in the lockup, but Brian's been in there cleaning up again. Everything's moved."
"In my desk," Chris answered. I pulled my ball cap lower, trying to keep my face turned away so I wouldn't get recognized. O'Shea had only seen me for a moment in Diamond Peterson's office, and that was two days ago. I was pretty sure, in my hot disguise, he wouldn't make me.
"Do I know you?" Rick said, immediately busting that hope. He moved closer to get a better look.
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