LEO’s? he had asked, and that was the beginning of a long morning at the Los Angeles International Airport.
“Law Enforcement Officers,” I had said, shrugging my carry-on bag from my shoulder and dropping it to the floor, “means we have lots of paperwork to complete. You might want to ask for some help, if you’re new at this.”
The young man with strawberry-blond hair and an American Airlines ID with a photograph of his freckled face, the name John Walker beneath it, turned to the lady next to him and asked for help. She didn’t help much, as it turned out, but not because she was new and inexperienced like the kid. She came with an attitude and a look on her face that said she was unappreciated and underpaid, and the last thing she needed was to have to help the freckle-faced kid fill out all those damn forms, the ones we needed to get on the plane with our guns. She took a deep breath, rolled her eyes and pursed her lips, just enough to show her disgust. As if we were doing this to her.
When we finally reached the gate, the attendant smiled, said she would pre-board us and asked that we stop in at the cockpit and introduce ourselves, let the captain know there’d be a couple cops on board. Sure we can, is what we told her, having grown accustomed to post 9-11 travel protocols.
“I always check the cockpit anyway,” Floyd mumbled after we thanked her and headed down the ramp, “make sure Jimbo isn’t driving.”
“I thought he worked for Federal Express?” I said across my shoulder, feeling the ramp bounce beneath every step.
“When he first quit the department, he did. Then he got on with American or Delta, one of these commercial outfits.”
I pictured Jimbo sitting at the helm, looking over his shoulder, smiling at the sight of his old friends. Saying he’s sure glad to see us, hope we’d enjoy the flight. Then a demented laugh, a Welcome to Hell smirk on his face. It took a minute to remember the name. James Garland. A short, stocky, former Air Force pilot who had seemed to lose a couple marbles somewhere along the way. He had worked patrol with us in South Los Angeles and was a good cop, but he definitely marched to a different drummer. Floyd had something there, I thought, making sure ol’ Jimbo wasn’t our pilot.
After a brief introduction at the cabin, we made our way to the rear of the plane near the restrooms and took two of the three empty seats of an exit aisle.
“No Jimbo,” Floyd said, picking through magazines in the seat pockets in front of us. “Not so sure I like the idea of a broad up there though.”
“Hopefully, she’s the copilot. She was on the right. Does the copilot sit on the left or right?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Does it matter?”
“Long as she keeps her eyes forward, I guess not.”
“Right, cause we don’t want any hanky-panky going on up there,” Floyd said.
I leaned to my left and pulled the seatbelt from beneath me. The flight attendant was making her way down the aisle, checking seatbelts and overhead compartment doors. I glanced to see Floyd flipping through the pages of a Cosmopolitan magazine, his right leg crossed over his left, shoulder against the window.
“Better buckle up there, slick,” I said.
“We haven’t even left the ground and here you are, all over my jock.”
“What the hell are you reading?”
“Cosmo,” Floyd said, dropping the magazine to his lap. “You don’t read Cosmo?”
“Are you shitting me?”
“Jesus, Dickie, you are so short-sighted at times. This is like having a look at the rival team’s playbook, or having your enemy’s war plan.”
“Yeah?”
“All the plays,” he said, tapping the cover with his index finger, “right here.”
“The plays?”
“What women like in men, what turns them on, what they’re looking for in a relationship—which is really unbelievable when you see some of this shit. Some of these broads in here are trying to say it’s not so much the physical attraction, but an intellectual connection. I call bullshit on that. There was one issue, had all these interviews, tramps from all over the country revealing how they cheat on their husbands. Didn’t give their real names, of course, but would give the particulars. You know, age, how long married, profession—if they were employed—the whole bit. Do you have any idea how interesting that was?”
“How interesting was it?”
“Very. Let me tell you what I learned from that little gem—”
“Tell me.”
“Tupperware,” Floyd said and paused, “biggest scam they’ve got running. Know why?”
“Why?”
He waited as the flight attendant passed. “Because, Dickie, what kind of asshole wouldn’t let his wife go to a Tupperware party? They say, ‘Hey babe, Shelley’s taking me to a Tupperware party tonight. I won’t buy anything, promise.’ At the most you say, ‘Why go, if you’re not going to buy something?’ She comes back with, ‘It’s like your poker night, you know, just a night out with the girls, have some hors d’oeuvres, a few drinks, dessert.’
“That’s their tactic, all planned out. They know you don’t want to go there, jeopardize poker night, so you’re up against the ropes. And after all, it’s just a Tupperware party, right? So you think, what the hell, there’s a ball game on television, what do I care if she’s out of the house for a few hours. Give me a night of peace and quiet, right?”
“Okay?”
“What you don’t know is she’s down at the Holiday Inn swinging from the chandeliers with Charlie the bug guy or some other asshole while you’re watching the Dodgers blow another lead in the ninth, what’s his name out for the season, guy with the glasses and hair on his chin.”
“Gagne,” I said, looking past him now through the rectangular window, seeing a blonde woman with earmuffs and an orange vest drive a cart under the wing of our plane, “Eric Gagne.”
“They suck now anyway. You been to a game yet this year?”
“That’s what the article said?”
“What article?”
“The one on cheating spouses.”
“Lays it all out, Dickie. Everything right there in black and white. Problem with it is that only women read this stuff—”
“And Floyd.”
“—so actually, they learn to be smarter sluts. Men just keep watching their ballgames, drinking their beers with not a clue this shit’s going on. Also, there’s always hot babes in there. Seriously, you’ve never seen one?”
“You never cease to amaze me,” I said.
“Dickie, I amaze myself at times.”
Turning into the parking lot of the Marriott Hotel at Dallas-Fort Worth, I asked Floyd what he felt like for dinner, and wasn’t it his turn to buy.
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” he said. “It always seems to be my turn to buy when we’re spending more money. Let’s see, you picked it up at that Mexican joint the other night, spent what, fifty bucks?”
“Exactly that, including the tip.”
“Yeah, well, you may recall, Dickie, this place will run us a couple bills, at least a buck and a half, if we do it right.”
“It all works out in the long run,” I told him. “Besides, when’s the last time we popped for a really good meal?”
“When we were here last, probably.”
“Yeah, and that’s been what, two years?”
“Wait, New York, Dickie, last year. We spent a fortune in that Italian joint in the Bronx, the place the Cold Case Squad took us when you said you wanted to see a mob joint. That crazy lieutenant from Brooklyn, Jim Dover, said he’d take us to a joint where they hung out, remember? We get there and see a couple old Italians with shoe leather for skin, looked the part, and your dumb ass kept looking over there, sizing them up. My Dickie, always on the J-O-B. The lieutenant finally told you to quit staring before we had a problem.”
“I’d never met any real mob guys, you know? Not that kind, anyway. Something different than our local street thugs who call themselves gangsters. I mean, what do we have for
organized crime, the Russians? That’s about it, really. Personally, I’d like to have some real mobs in L.A. Al Capone, Bugsy Malone, that Godfather shit. Something to make our murders more interesting. Dude in a suit steps into a room and finds himself standing on a sheet of plastic and realizes he’s done. Some fat dude with a .22 behind him, used to be his best friend, puts a bullet in the back of his head. Then he gets dumped in the river or chopped up and put in sausage, shit like that.”
“Jesus, dude . . . sausage?”
“I’m just saying, there’s different ways to dispose of bodies than just dumping them in an alley or up in the Angeles National Forest. Mobsters are more creative than that. Of course, maybe that’s why they aren’t out here, now that I think about it. The L.A. river never has any water in it, so there’s no place other than alleys to drop the stiffs. Other than maybe the butcher’s shop.”
“Mobsters like the east coast, Dickie, that and Vegas. L.A.’s not real mobster friendly.” Floyd paused and said, “I heard back in the fifties, they tried moving in on Hollywood, tried to get in on that racket but LAPD ran them off. That was back when the boys in blue had some balls, didn’t have a pussy for a chief. They apparently roughed them up pretty good, maybe even killed a few in shootouts, and basically shut them down and shipped their asses back to the east coast. Probably disappeared a couple of them too, now that I think about it. There’s books about it, movies too.”
“Mulholland Falls,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“Well, seems to me I bought in the Bronx, so it’s your turn.”
“Fine,” he said, “I’ll buy, but that means I pick the wine.”
“Whatever.”
“There’s a spot,” he said, pointing across my chest, “next row over.”
We emptied the bottle and Floyd told Stanley, the tall, thin waiter with dark hair but only on the sides of his head, that we’d each have an Espresso Cappuccino. Stanley glided away like a leaf blown by a fledgling breeze before I could object.
“Regular coffee works for me.”
“Trust me on this, Dickie, you’ve got to try it. Espresso is like supreme, ethyl, high test, that shit they put in race cars.”
“Nitrous oxide?”
“Yeah, that,” he said. “What time are we heading over to the Holiday Inn, have a visit with Mr. Scott, or maybe Elmer Fudd? Whoever the son-of-a-bitch is that stays in that house now and shot the shit out of your car and stole mine. The way I figure it,” Floyd said looking up at our waiter, Stanley, who had drifted back to the table with a tray holding two Espressos, “there’s no way this guy’s here in the great state of Texas. Whoever is using James Scott’s credit card rented a room here three days ago, paid for a rental car and bought dinner at the Outback two nights ago. He can’t be in two places at once, right?”
I nodded after a sip of the Espresso, then had another sip. Floyd had it right on the fancy coffee, though I wondered why it didn’t come in a regular-sized mug, as much as they probably charged us for it.
Floyd took a sip of his, then lowered it half way and said, “Not only that, but did you notice the total on that meal, the Outback? Sixty-two bucks. That had to be for two, even if you factor in drinks. My guess is we’ll find the real James Scott here, him and his wife. Alive, on vacation, enjoying Texas like good Americans.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Floyd said, “Damned right I’m right, dickhead.”
Stanley had reappeared with the check as Floyd said it. He placed it on the table and disappeared, probably thinking we were the most uncivilized men to whom he’d ever served sixty-dollar steaks and eighty-dollar bottles of wine.
“What are we, two hours ahead here?” I said, and glanced at my watch. “It’s almost eight now, we could check it out tonight, if you want.”
“Tomorrow, Dickie. We’re on overtime now.”
Room #114, the young lady at the counter told Floyd once he explained that in Los Angeles, we don’t need a warrant to get registry information, being law enforcement professionals and all. He explained that all public information is to be released upon request, hereto and forthwith, as set forth by the Public Information Act of 1986. And since Texas had not actually seceded from the Union—though we applaud both their effort and enthusiasm—there would be no reason the laws would differ here. Then he told her we could call up a tall Texas Ranger, have him come down to explain the whole process if she insisted, but why make such a bother?
As we turned from the counter and made our way to the room, Floyd looked over and smiled. “How was that, Dickie?”
“You should be ashamed.”
“It worked.”
“Poor little girl, you had her all stressed out. She didn’t know what to think.”
We stood to the sides of the door now, brass numbers 114 above a peep hole. We listened for a moment and shrugged, telling one another we didn’t hear anything, might as well knock and see how it goes.
I asked, “You don’t suppose he requested a ground-level room for a reason, do you?”
“What are you thinking?”
“Gives him a rear exit,” I said, “is what I’m thinking. The question is, what was he thinking?”
“I’ll go around the back,” Floyd said, “just to be safe, and to make you feel better. Give me five minutes, then do your little knock and talk routine. Call me on the cell if you’re getting your ass kicked, and I’ll get back here as soon as I can. As long as I don’t get distracted.”
“Hopefully there’s not a pool.”
“You did bring your phone, right?” he asked.
I pulled it from the inside of my jacket and held it up. “It’s even turned on.”
“I’m proud of you, Dickie. You’re coming right along.”
When I figured it had been five minutes, having forgotten what time it was the last time I looked at my watch, I brushed my elbow against the pistol beneath my suit jacket to reassure myself of its presence. Then I reached over from the side of the door, careful not to stand in front of it, and rapped my knuckles three times against the wood.
After a moment of no response or movement detected inside, I knocked again. Still, I heard nothing. Just when I started to think it had been a dry run and thinking maybe we should have come last night like I had suggested, my cell phone rang.
“Hey, Dickie.”
“Yes, dear.”
“When you get done screwing around up there,” Floyd said, his cocky attitude coming through loud and clear, “come on around back. There’s someone here you’re going to want to meet.”
17
THE POOL AREA gate slammed behind me, causing a metallic sound to reverberate through the iron fence surrounding a kidney-shaped pool. Two men sat at a table beneath an umbrella: my partner, dressed in a cream-colored Armani suit with a light blue shirt and matching tie, and a rough-looking Hispanic man with tattoos and dark shades. Floyd sat crowding the tattooed man in his tan, baggy shorts and loose-fitting tank top, the Mexican leaning back in his chair trying to have his personal space.
The tattooed man showed no interest in the continental breakfast in front of him, and barely glanced at me as I pulled out a chair next to him, placing myself on the opposite side from my partner. The stranger between us seemed uncomfortable, or maybe he didn’t like Floyd.
Looking at me through mirrored Ray-Bans, the bright morning sun reflecting off of the lenses, Floyd said, “Remember that photo, the one with Susie, Donna, and the dude?”
“The tattooed Mexican . . .”
Floyd nodded, then scooted even closer, now close enough the man likely felt Floyd’s breath on his cheek. Floyd, his chiseled jaw tightened, said to him, “Introduce yourself to my partner, Gilbert.”
The man looked at me through cheap sunglasses with thick, black plastic frames, and green lenses. “How ya doin’, Officer?”
I nodded.
“Tell my partner your name,” Floyd said, putting a little more pressure on him.
�
��Gilbert, sir. Gilbert Regalado.”
“Good, Gilbert, now tell my partner what room you’re staying in.”
He stuck his thumb over his shoulder and motioned toward the patio area behind him. “One fourteen.”
Floyd said, “What do you think of my partner so far, Gilbert?”
Gilbert nodded. “He’s cool.”
“No, Gilbert, he’s not cool. He’s not cool at all. In fact, if you think I’m a dick, you just wait till you get a load of this asshole.”
Gilbert glanced over at me and then looked down.
“Want to talk to him here,” Floyd asked, “or inside where we can have some privacy?”
“How’s his attitude?” Talking about him like he wasn’t there.
“Shitty,” Floyd said, “may need some adjustments. He started out lying when I sat down, and then he wouldn’t give me a bite of his English muffin.”
“Maybe inside, he’ll be friendlier, more accommodating.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“What are you guys, feds?” Gilbert asked, his tone humble now, a hint of fear.
Gilbert flinched as Floyd quickly stood, his chair scraping across the concrete.
His six-foot muscular frame showed through his suit as he stood posed, his hands clenched to his hips, the suit jacket pushed back to reveal a gold star. Floyd said: “Feds? Hell no we ain’t feds! I’m Captain Floyd T. McCray of the Texas Rangers—”
Gilbert nodded as if he understood, squinting now as he looked up toward Floyd.
“—this here’s Dickie Jones. He’s with the Number One Posse from El Puso. You ever heard of them?”
“I don’t think so, sir, but I’m not from around here.”
“Neither are we,” Floyd said, “but you have heard of the Texas Rangers, right?”
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