Although Shavo was round-faced and ruddy-cheeked, he had expressionless eyes that belonged in a taxidermy shop, dark and hard as marbles. Of course, he was claiming jurisdiction for the FBI. He had no legitimate criminal standing in the case, but that didn’t seem to bother him. The Frisbees were notorious claim-jumpers.
Also present were a few Brooks Brothers jobs from WITSEC, most likely the entire L. A. office. Carl was the one in charge, but he looked like a sales rep from Gold’s Gym, with wall-busting shoulders and the pissed-off expression of a steroid jockey. He couldn’t admit Farrell was in the program, but WITSEC wanted to manage this case anyway.
The roomful of hungry feds kept circulating around the office, hunting for a place they liked, but since Filosiani had no chairs, they simply looked unsettled and frustrated.
Shane, Alexa, and the chief represented the LAPD.
After Nicky the Pooh reported what he knew, he backed up and stood off to the side, trying to blend into the wall—a difficult task while wearing a flowered Hawaiian shirt and tennis shoes. Shane brought them all up to date on what he suspected. Then Filosiani took control of the meeting—or at least tried to. Problem was, nobody had much use for anyone else in the room. The DEA hated the FBI, and vice versa. They all hated the Marshals, who hated them back. Information was proving to be a scarce commodity. Adding to the confusion, everybody’s beeper kept going off. They would glance at their little screens, then step out into the hall to return their calls in private. With all the paging going on, it was no secret that everyone’s office was on Red Alert.
“You guys over at WITSEC must have some kinda ongoing management of your assets,” Filosiani said.
“What assets?” Carl, the wide-bodied head marshal, deadpanned. “We don’t control anybody named Zelso or Champion. Furthermore, even if he was on our list, which he isn’t, WITSEC is constitutionally exempt from cooperating with other investigations in regard to our clients.”
“Then why is the guy in your fucking computer?” Shane asked hotly.
“That’s enough a that, Sergeant,” Filosiani reprimanded, then turned back to Carl. “Then why’s the guy in your fucking computer?”
“You telling me the LAPD has been hacking into a secure WITSEC computer and lifting confidential information?” Carl was glaring at Tony; then his beeper went off. He glanced at it, then handed it to another marshal, who left the office to return the call.
“Why can’t we share what we have?” Alexa said, somewhat naively. But she had lost control of her gang war and was getting desperate. “This is red-ball. If American Macado abducted Farrell Champion, and the dope coming into Arizona is being supplied by Valentine, we could be headed for a bloodbath. So let’s cut all this interoffice bullshit and try to work together.”
“Are you somebody’s secretary or something?” Shavo asked, looking appalled at her suggestion.
“This is Lieutenant Scully, the head of my Detective Services Group,” Filosiani said angrily.
“Obviously, Lieutenant Scully has not worked on many cross-jurisdictional cases,” the DEA suit said around his toothpick. “We’re tasked out of Treasury, the FBI is outta Justice, and the Marshals here report to some intergalactic war council in outer space. I have serious jurisdictional issues. I have people above me who ask hard questions when I give up jurisdiction.” His beeper went off. “Excuse me.” He stepped out, passing the deputy marshal, who was just coming back.
“Listen,” Filosiani said, spreading his hands in supplication, still addressing Carl from the Marshal’s office. “I know you guys watch your assets. You’ve got video surveillance or bugs—something. You can’t tell me you don’t have a clue what happened to Farrell, that you weren’t watching him when he was put in that boat in front a his house, that you haven’t got a tail working.”
“Farrell? Who is Farrell, again? Was he Zelso, or Champion? I’m confused,” Carl asked, impatiently looking at his watch.
“I guess the meeting’s over,” Filosiani announced. “It’s every man for himself.” Tony walked to his office door and opened it. As they all headed out, another beeper went off, but in the crowd, it was impossible to tell whose it was.
Before he left, Shavo stopped and gave Tony a stern warning: “You are instructed to stay out of what is clearly an FBI situation. Don’t get involved.”
“What situation you talking about?” Tony asked. “Since there ain’t no Danny Zelso, or Farrell Champion, why don’t you buncha territorial assholes just eat me?”
“It would be a big mistake if you pursued this,” the toothpick from the DEA said.
“Yeah, well, I’ll live with mine if you live with yours,” Tony replied. “See ya, boys.” He was in the threshold of his office as the crowd finally left.
“What a waste of time,” Tony said, closing the door. “They’re all lyin’. They know a lot more than they’re sayin’. But in the meantime, we’re left standing in the rain here. We got no way to track this. It could be goin’ down anywhere in Arizona.”
“Well, bunky,” Nicky said to Shane, “having done my civic duty, I think I’ll just hit the road.” Nicky started toward the door, but Shane pushed him back.
“You’re not going anywhere yet.” Then Shane’s beeper went off. He looked at it and turned to Alexa. “Chooch.” He pulled out his cell phone and hit a preprogrammed number.
Chooch answered immediately.
“You okay?” Shane asked. “Where are you?”
“I’m fine. I’m at the hospital with Delfina. She’s talking again … making sense.”
“That’s great.”
“Dad, you gotta get over here. She knows most of what’s going on.”
Chapter 45.
THE DIARY
“His name isn’t Carlos Martinez, it’s Juan Ruiz,” Delfina said, her voice a whisper. She looked like a delicate, dark-skinned, black-eyed doll lying in the hospital bed, her glossy black hair fanned out on the pillow around her.
Chooch was sitting next to her, holding her hand.
“They thought I wasn’t listening, but I was. They had me taped to the bed. I was … I was without clothes… they …” She shut her eyes.
Chooch looked at Shane, silently pleading with him not to pursue Delfina’s darkest memories.
Shane and Alexa were standing across from the bed. Dr. Sloan had suggested they keep the’ group small and was waiting in the hall with the chief and Nicky.
“It’s okay,” Alexa said. “We don’t have to discuss that.”
“No, no … I have to say it.” Delfina looked up at Chooch. “I’m so ashamed,” she said. “But if I can’t talk about it, it will live inside me. I will not get past it. I won’t get better.” Surprising wisdom from a sixteen-year-old.
“You did nothing, querida,” Chooch whispered. “It was them.”
She had tears rimming her eyes as she smiled up at him. “Thank God you are here with me, querido.”
“What else did they say?” Shane asked.
“They said this man Ruiz has a dairy in Arizona, that they use his hay trucks, which come up from Sinaloa, Mexico, where he owns a hay farm. Juan Ruiz ships the Mexican hay across the border to feed his cows in Arizona, but the real reason is the chiva. The mayates said the drugs make it through the border checks because Customs dogs cannot smell it hidden in the hay.”
“Did they say when this was going to happen? When the shipment of heroin was coming in?” Shane asked. “My cousin thinks soon.”
“American,” Shane said.
She nodded. “Senor …” Delfina was looking only at Shane now, her eyes boring into him while choosing her words with care. “My cousin is rifa. You know this word? He is special—the very best. But he fights for things so big, he has made bad choices to win. He worries about the movimiento and our clica. He fights for his people, but his weapons are wrong. He uses drugs and guns. These things give him money, and money gives him power, but they also enslave the children he hopes one day to free. He knows this and it
tortures him. He cannot sleep. He is up half the night pacing. He wants to be a force for good. He wants to change the laws, to affect the politics here in El Norte, but without the drugs he has no leverage. This dilemma is destroying him. He carries it all on his back. It is making him desperate, and one day soon it will cause his death.”
She was saying a lot of what Chooch had said two days ago in the kitchen in Venice. “You are the police, but he trusts you. If you can find him, maybe he will listen to you or to Chooch. Deep down he knows that to make a difference he must fight using the right weapons, and must be able to survive. He understands that the real solution is education. Soon our people will be the majority in California. Amac told me about a new plan he has to try to get elected to Congress, maybe go to Washington one day and become a great leader. But to do this he must not be a criminal. Please help him.” When she was finished, her eyes remained locked on Shane.
“The blacks who held you, are they going to Arizona?” he asked.
“SI, Arizona. They said they were going soon. Maybe they have left already.”
“But you don’t know where?”
“No, but wherever Juan Ruiz’s dairy is, that is where they go.”
“Thank you,” Shane said. “I hope you feel better soon.”
She nodded. “I will feel better when my cousin is safe.”
Shane and Alexa left the room and found Chief Filosiani and Nicky down the hall. Dr. Sloan had gone to attend to another patient.
“What’d you get?” Filosiani asked.
“Somebody named Juan Ruiz, which could be another alias for General Fernando Miguel Ruiz, or possibly he’s a relative.” Then Shane told him about the dairy in Arizona and the heroin that was coming in on hay trucks from Mexico. “We need to get into the state tax records and run a cross-check, see if we can tie somebody named Juan Ruiz to a milk business anywhere in the state of Arizona. It’s probably near Flagstaff, because that’s where the stolen Hertz plate came from. If that doesn’t work, I’d check to see if there are any Arizona dairies owned by anybody with a Spanish surname, starting with Martinez and going on from there.”
“Maybe we’re about to get back in this thing after all.” Filosiani opened his cell phone and moved down the hall, stopping next to a window for better reception.
“Pretty remarkable girl,” Alexa said softly.
“Muy rifa.” Shane nodded.
“Whatever the hell that means,” Nicky commented.
Chooch exited the room and walked over to them, a fiercely determined look on his face. “Dad, I want to go with you.”
“Jesus, if we’re gonna keep having this argument, you better get over to the Police Academy and grab yourself a badge.”
“Dad, please, what she said about American is true. He could make a difference one day. He could change things, but he’s out of control right now. He’ll try and avenge what they did to her. But I can get to him, talk him out of it. I know his heart. I’ll be able to reach him.”
“Son, we can’t keep doing this. I can’t. If this drug deal is going down, and American has gotten Farrell to spit up the location, then believe me, it’s gonna be bad theater. I can’t have you there.”
“I owe Amac. It was my life and future he saved in that park two years ago. If we can keep him alive, someday he could really help our people.”
“Our people?”
“I can’t pretend I’m not Hispanic, that people don’t look at me and see my dark skin. Sandy took chances to try and get a new life. She had brains and beauty, but here in El Norte, she had to sell her body to get ahead. If Amac’s dreams had been true back then, she wouldn’t have had to do that. If things were different, she could have had a different life.”
As always when Shane was stuck, he looked over at Alexa, who just stared back at him.
“Don’t you dare,” she said softly.
Chapter 46.
TOP COW
Nicky the Pooh escaped from them at the long stoplight, two blocks north of Parker Center. He simply opened the door, bolted out of the chief’s Crown Vic, and took off running. The last thing Shane saw was a glimpse of riotous green silk billowing off the little grifter’s back as he dashed around the front bumper of a van.
“Let him go,” Shane said to Alexa and Tony, refusing to humiliate himself again by trying to run Nicky down.
They arrived at Burbank Airport’s Police Air Unit a little after one P. M. Shane and Alexa followed Filosiani over to a small, black twin-engine King Air that had been flying drugs up from Mexico until last March, when the pilot had lost power and landed on the Ventura Freeway in the middle of the night. The LAPD had arrested him, confiscated the King Air, and now used it to fly high-ranking officers to different law enforcement conventions around the state. The little plane was a turboprop with a top speed of around three hundred mph without headwinds.
The police department had a fleet of choppers, but only one fixed-wing airplane. The pilot was a grizzly bear of a man who was standing by the boarding ladder as Shane, Alexa, and Tony climbed the steps and settled into the comfortable dove-gray seats. Soon the propellers were spinning and the plane was taxiing down the runway.
They hadn’t heard back yet on their computer tax search of dairies in Arizona. Their plan was to get moving anyway, fly in the general direction of Flagstaff, which was north of Phoenix, and hope that the search yielded results before they got too far off course.
They lifted off, climbed over the San Gabriel Mountains, and in ten minutes, were flying east over the California desert. The flat, dry landscape was endless, stretching below them like a sandy brown carpet.
The chief was working the phone, trying not to sound like a pissed-off commander kicking ass, but he was demanding results. “Put a few more people on it! Use the guys over at Computer Management Division.”
“Try Lee Fineburg,” Shane suggested. “He’s in Records and Services, Special Duties. Guy’s a genius.”
“Get Lee Fineburg on the fourth floor,” the chief said. “I want half-hour updates and don’t hang me up here doing figure-eights over the fuckin’ Arizona border.”
After he hung up, they all remained quiet, looking down at the relentless desert. They were flying into a hundredmile-an-hour headwind, which was scrubbing precious minutes off their ETA.
Finally the air-phone in the plane buzzed; the chief snatched it up, listened for a moment, then grabbed a pen from his coat pocket and started scribbling. “Got it,” he said, then hung up and smiled at Shane. “Fineburg White Cow Dairy. Registered owner is Juan Ruiz, Scottsdale, Arizona, on Happy Valley Road.”
They landed at Deer Valley Airport, on the east side of Phoenix, near Scottsdale, and rented a Lincoln Town Car from the Executive Jet Terminal.
As they stood in refracted heat bouncing off the tarmac, Tony’s eyes went warily toward three executive jets parked a short distance away. Two Gulfstreams and a Challenger—big iron. When the ramp agent delivered their car, Tony badged him. “Who came in on those three birds?” he asked.
“Buncha’ fells … landed twenty minutes apart, couple of hours ago.”
“Figures,” Tony said. He took the keys, climbed into the Town Car, got the air-conditioning going, then started driving. “Get a map outta the glove box,” he barked at Alexa, now in the front seat beside him. “Find 2676 Happy Valley,” he said as she spread the map across her knees and started studying it.
“Turn right on Deer Valley Road,” Alexa directed, “take it to Cave Creek, go left on Pinnacle, then right …”
“Jeez, Lieutenant, I’m from Brooklyn. Keep it simple. Tell me where to turn when I’m gettin’ close.”
“Sorry, sir.”
They rode in silence for a while, but Tony was frowning, his forehead gathered up in folds below his hairline. Finally he spoke. “Okay, look. This buncha eggbeaters from Washington got their own game going, and it’s not called law enforcement, it’s called politics. I don’t trust any a them. More important, I want to take
these people alive, without bloodshed, but there’s just three of us and we’re outta state with no jurisdiction.”
“What’re you suggesting?” Shane asked.
“I ain’t suggesting nothing, Sergeant. I’m looking at operational alternatives and assigning risk co-efficiencts. We could call the Scottsdale cops, try an’ get ‘em to back our play, but I don’t know this department. We could end up with a buncha toothpick-chewin’ gunslingers, wearing Ray-Bans and straw hats. I don’t wanta add to the confusion.”
“I agree,” Shane said. “We oughta be able to handle it alone.”
“You fuckin’ nuts?” Tony said. “We probably got a mess a Crip and Blood shot-callers plus the Mexican and Italian Mafia, and God knows who else. We need backup, but we gotta get a look at the landscape first. If the feds are already at White Cow, then that’s it. I ain’t gonna fuck with ‘em. But if they’re not, then we’ll case the place, get an idea where the shooters are, how many guys we’re facing. Then we call in the Scottsdale P. D. Once I have the layout, I think I can control the outcome.”
“Sounds much more sensible,” Alexa said, sending Shane a withering look.
Tony pulled a gun out of his hip holster and checked the cylinder, snapped it closed, and reholstered it. The gun was pure Tony. A no-nonsense .38-caliber Smith & Wesson round wheel with a blue-steel finish. Tony had wrapped hundreds of rubber bands around the handle to make the grip larger and softer. The only place Shane had ever seen that modification was in Chicago. A lot of Chicago cops rubber-banded their grips. Tony, as usual, was an unorthodox mixture of good ideas and proven methodologies.
They made a left on Pinnacle, then went for about six miles before Alexa instructed Tony to turn right on Scottsdale Road, another mile and a half to Happy Valley. They made a right and started following the numbers.
Scottsdale was not geographically located in one place. It was spread out in population clusters. Land was not a pricey commodity in the desert, so people built low-level buildings in places that suited them. Only a few buildings at intersections and around business centers were three stories or taller.
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