On The Grind ss-8

by Stephen Cannell

  "I don't think it's likely that Rocky Chacon is going to win the election," I said.

  "You're wrong," Cecil replied. "Unless something important happens, he's bound to win. Perhaps even in a landslide. Not because he's right, but because he's popular. These last months, Rocky Chacon has become a very big problem for me. I can't let him win. It will destroy everything I've been building here." Then he turned his head and glanced at me. "Any suggestions?"

  "Eliminate the problem."

  "But as I've just explained, the problem is complex and deals with many diverse social and economic factors."

  "You're wrong," I said. "The problem is just one guy. One dirt-town Mexican with limited resources. I'm sure somebody could jack him up and talk some sense to him, or, if that fails, employ a more direct solution. Either way, once he's no longer in the political picture, your problem disappears."

  "Interesting theory," he said solemnly, as if he were pondering this for the first time.

  "Nothing theoretical about it," I replied. "It's your call, but somehow I think you already know what you want to do."

  His face was now a mask that I couldn't read.

  We finally arrived back at the police department lot, where my rusting squad car was parked alone in the back row. As Cecil Bratano turned in his seat to face me, Sinatra began to sing "My Way."

  "If I had something for you to do, something important that would preserve what we have ereated here but needs to be done in the next several days, would you be willing to take on such a project?"

  "I would very much like to help you preserve what you've built here, sir. I've already told you that." I held his solemn gaze.

  "In that case, how would you feel about taking care of this problem for me?" he asked.

  "Are you asking what I think you are?" I replied.

  "I would rather leave this solution in your hands. You are a man of considerable talents."

  Then Bratano reached across me and opened the passenger door. "Vaya con Dios, companero," he said.

  I got out of the car realizing I had just been given the contract on Rocky Chacon's life.

  He waved and smiled before turning up the volume on the eight-track. The lyrics hung in the air as the turquoise Cad disappeared around the corner. Frank Sinatra sang:

  I did it my way.

  Chapter 35

  I was released from duty an hour early to go down to Wilshire Boulevard and give a statement to Homeland, but I decided to blow that off and get Ophelia to cover for me.

  I dragged my ass back to the hotel, went up to my room, and checked inside the top dresser drawer. One of Ophelias case agents must have visited my room, because hidden underneath my socks there was a small, innocent-looking ballpoint pen with a mike hole in the top.

  I put the ballpoint in my pocket and checked my messages. There was a package for me at the desk. Nobody at the LAPD or the FBI would contact me here, so I was naturally curious who might be leaving me packages.

  I went downstairs to the front desk. The clerk reached into a file and handed me a thin #10 envelope — no identifying marks, but my name was printed on the front in block letters. I found a secluded place in the back of the casino bar and opened it.

  One sheet. Two lines.

  Come alone. Five PM

  Under the Pacific Blvd. bridge.

  I was already pissed at Rick Ross for what I'd seen him doing at the party. Now I was even more pissed at him for leaving me a message that anyone could open at the concierge desk and read. But I knew Ross's police history and he'd never been on an undercover assignment, so I tried to cut him some slack because, quite obviously, he didn't know what the hell he was doing. Either that or he was actively trying to get me killed.

  I didn't want to have a clandestine meeting with this asshole. But there was one overriding factor influencing my decision to go. He might know something that I needed to hear in order to stay-alive.

  I went back to my room, stripped off the belt with the tracking device, activated Ophelia's pen satellite transmitter, and headed back downstairs. If Ross was luring me out there to ambush me, at least the LAPD and the feds would have a good recording of my murder.

  I took the scenic route through Vista, into the City of Commerce. It was 4:20 and I had forty minutes before my meeting. I felt the reassuring weight of my backup AirLight. 38 riding comfortably on my hip.

  As I drove, I looked across the river and saw the city of Haven Park just beginning to darken in L. A.'s smog-filled late afternoon sunlight. I made a right and took the bridge back to the Haven Park side of the river, then parked on a residential street two blocks from the meeting spot and locked the Acura.

  There was a strip of dead grass about ten yards wide that ran along the riverbank. The rusting chain-link fence that protected the wash had been cut long ago by 18th Street tagger crews. I slipped through the rusted edge of the clipped opening and slid on my heels clown the forty-five-degree poured concrete bank to the river floor. When I reached the bottom I found myself standing in mud, looking at old juice cartons, moss and waterlogged garbage, thinking, some picturesque river we have here in L. A.

  I picked my way through old tires and soggy junk, reading 18th Street Loco graffiti as I walked. It had been sprayed on every flat surface and concrete piling. I was heading back toward Pacific Boulevard, trying to keep the muck out of my shoes. The idea here was if I approached the meeting spot from the river, anybody waiting to ambush me would be looking the wrong way, with their back to my approach. At least that was the theory.

  Finally I saw the Pacific Street bridge span up ahead and when I was near, I scrambled up out of the wash, climbing the steep concrete bank quietly on rubber-soled shoes until I reached the lip above. Then I started moving slowly along, staying close to a line of trees, trying not to make any noise as I approached. When I was less than fifty yards away from the bridge, I knelt in the shadows to check out the meeting site.

  There was enough light for me to see up under the abutment. No one appeared to be there, but that was the reason I'd arrived thirty minutes early.

  I crept closer and found a good hiding place in some browned-out shrubbery that was clinging in death to the concrete base of the bridge. I cleared a space behind the dead brush, then squatted down, concealing myself. I wasn't sure what was coming, so I pulled my gun and waited.

  At seventeen minutes after five I heard a single set of footsteps crunching through dead leaves, carelessly kicking stones and gravel, making more noise than a stumbling drunk.

  Finally Rick Ross came into view. He was alone and wearing his same stupid disguise — windbreaker, tennies and a baseball cap pulled low. I watched as he worked his way down under the bridge and stood with his hands on his hips, looking around. Then he glanced at his watch.

  "Hey, Scully," he whispered. "You down here yet?"

  I didn't answer. I wanted to see what lie would do.

  After a minute he pulled an abandoned shipping crate over, brushed it off with his hand and sat. He looked at his watch again and scuffed his feet. He let a few minutes pass, then he took out his phone and speed-dialed a number. I leaned forward.

  "He's not here. He's late," I heard him say. "Look… I'll get there as soon as I can. Stop bitching at me about it."

  He rang off, then got to his feet and started looking around again. "Hey, Scully. You down here? Shit."

  It didn't look like an ambush, so I palmed the AirLight in my right hand, held it clown by my leg, parted the dry brush, and stood. Ricky spun around, a panicked look on his face.

  Chapter 36

  "What arc you doing back there?" he challenged angrily.

  "I'm careful. Before we talk, you need to answer three questions."

  "Look… You…"

  "First question. Who did you just call?"

  "MY new girlfriend."

  "What's her name?"

  "Chrissie."

  I bolstered NIY AirLight, then reached over, took the cell phone from him, and hit r
edial. After two rings it was answered.

  "That was quick," a woman's voice purred.

  "Who's this?" I demanded.

  "Chrissie. Who's this?"

  I closed the phone and handed it back to him.

  "Next question. Did YOU know those gins were gonna pick me up last night and threaten me out in that orange grove? And if so, why the hell didn't you warn me?"

  "I didn't know. I got hired onto this department by Charles Le Grande before Cecil was elected four years ago, so I wasn't part of Mayor Bratano's crew. I was isolated. I think its why he wanted me as chief. Up until about a month ago I was so wasted all the time I didn't know what the hell was going on and they never confided in me. I got my envelopes, my money, but nobody ever told me much of anything. After what happened with Le Grande, that's the way they wanted it. I only found out last night at the party about them taking you out to that orange grove."

  "You told me you were drug-free. Then last night I saw you snorting up lines in Bratano's cabana."

  He was quiet for a long moment, uncertainty, or maybe it was shame, playing across his face. Then he said, "I relapsed, okay? I'm trying to stay straight, but I'm under a lot of pressure here myself. I had a weak moment."

  I looked at him, not sure how I wanted to frame this. I finally decided to just say it. "When I first came here, I wasn't sure you weren't trying to make good on your old threat to kill me. But I've been thinking about it a lot and if that had been your plan, you would have done it long before now. After what happened in that orange grove I have to figure you're telling the truth. They didn't know I was a UC, so I figure you're probably being straight with me. But you need to stay in the program, Rick. I can't have the guy holding my back buzzed on drugs."

  "I'm in just as much jeopardy as you are," he said. "I'm doing the best I can, but I'm vulnerable and scared. If you'd caved in out there and told them I put you undercover, I was going to end up just as dead as you. I was going nuts at that party, not knowing if you were about to give me up. I needed to settle my nerves. That's why I did the lines. From now on I'm clean."

  We stood looking at each other. Selfish bastard that I am, I hadn't really stopped to consider that Ross was in just as much jeopardy from me as I was from him. I now saw that he was very close to the edge. His hands were shaking and, like me, he looked like he hadn't slept much lately.

  "Okay," I said. "Lets put all that behind us for now. Why did you leave me the note? What's up?"

  "I just found out this afternoon that Talbot Jones hired an independent polygraph operator to come down and put the entire police department on the box. All the blues plus command staff." "Why?"

  "Because they think there's a mole on the force somewhere. They're totally freaked about it. They know somebody gave them up to the feds on the Haven Park High gang fight. They just don't know who. Until last night everybody thought it was you, but now they're not sure, so everybody gets tested top to bottom."

  I couldn't catch a break. "Who did they hire? What company?" I snapped.

  "I don't know, but the polys been fast-tracked. The guy will be here soon," Ross continued. "As soon as he shows they're gonna start pulling people in and putting them on the box one at a time. I don't know what to do. I'll never pass. I'm a nervous wreck. If either one of us fails that poly, it's over for us both. Whatta we gonna do?"

  "Either change the game or the timetable."

  Rick's cell phone rang. He answered. "For Christ's sake, not now, Chrissie." Then turned off the power and shoved it deep into his pocket.

  "You haven't told Chrissie whats going on here, have you?"

  "I may he fucked up, but I'm not an idiot," he said. "Give me a little damn credit, okay?" I was trying.

  "How are we gonna stop it?" he said.

  "I haven't the faintest idea. But since neither of us wants to die, we better come up with something fast."

  Chapter 37

  So that was my five o'clock powwow with Ricky Ross. After we split up I walked again through the L. A. river muck to the Acura and arrived hack at the Bicycle Club a little before six. I went straight to the lobby, picked a pay phone and dialed Alexa. I told her about the pending polygraph. I could feel worry and frustration coming from her end of the line.

  "Here's what I was thinking," I said. "In LA, there can't be all that many qualified independent polygraph experts or companies. Eight or ten, max. We need to find which one of these people Talbot Jones hired and get that person off the Haven Park job, put our own guy in there instead."

  "There's a polygraph licensing board," Alexa said. "I think its called CAPE — California Association of Polygraph Examiners. Ophelia and I can start calling each name and offer them an immediate job for Homeland Security. If anybody says they're busy in Haven Park, we'll order them to cancel that because national security is involved."

  "I probably can't beat a poly and Rick Ross is shaking apart," I said. "You gotta do it tonight. If he shows up here, I'm gonna have to get out fast."

  I was about to hang up when I felt someone standing right behind me. I turned around. Alonzo Bell was two feet away. How much of this had he overheard?

  "Who you talking to?" he asked.

  "Dentist. I was clamping my jaw down so hard in that orange grove, I think I cracked a molar. It's killing me. I'm gonna have to get it out fast," I said, repeating most of the last sentence I'd just said to Alexa, praying my B. S. would fly.

  He took the phone from my hand. I could hear Alexa's voice talking as he raised the handset to his ear.. could fit you in next Friday at two, Mr. Scully," I heard her say. "Dr. Swanson has an opening then and you're due for a cleaning anyway."

  Alonzo hung up 011 her and turned to look at me. "We're outta here. You've been called on."

  "Let me get my jacket."

  We took the elevator to my room. Alonzo stood in the doorway as I grabbed my coat. I also snatched up the belt with the transmitter, stringing it through the belt loops and cinching it tight, hoping Ophelia had a track on it, by now. Then I followed Alonzo back to the elevator and out of the casino. Parked out front in the red zone was his white Escalade.

  "Where are we going?" I asked. "I should follow you in my car."

  "Don't worry, Til bring you back."

  The windows of the SUV were tinted, so I couldn't see inside, but when I opened the door to get into the passenger side Horace Velario was seated in the back. He bulled his buffalo neck and glared with hard eyes.

  "Where are we going?" I repeated.

  Alonzo didn't answer, but put the Escalade in gear and pulled out. We drove across the bridge and out of Vista. I wanted to get the ballpoint transmitter out of my jacket and move it up into my shirt pocket where it would be better located to transmit, but it felt like too obvious a move so I left it where it was.

  We turned onto a two-lane street, which ran along the edge of the river into the city of Haven Park. Alonzo made a final turn and pulled up in front of A Fuego. As usual, he parked in the red zone by the front door.

  With Alonzo in front and Horace behind, I headed into the club. I found a moment when my back was to them and reached into my jacket, clicked the ballpoint pen, and transferred it into my front shirt pocket.

  Inside the club, mariachi music blared. People laughed loudly, shouting over the racket. Whatever ended up being transmitted by my little DCST was going to be killed by this racket.

  Alonzo motioned for me to follow him into the mens room. "Keep everybody out," he instructed Horace.

  The mens room was empty. Once we were inside, Alonzo said, "Assume the position, darling."

  "Okay," I said. "But if this keeps up, I'm gonna need to get a ring."

  He was very thorough just like last time, but he was looking for a wire and completely missed the pen.

  When he finished, we exited the bathroom and, with Horace trailing us, walked across the club to his booth in the bar. Horace jammed his huge hulk in next to me on the upholstered bench, crowding me uncomfortably. Velario o
bviously didn't like me and was making no attempt to hide it. Alonzo slid in across from us.

  "Beers all around?" he asked. Horace and I nodded, so he beckoned to a waitress and gave the order.

  Then Alonzo spotted someone across the room and waved him over. A minute later Carlos Real Deal Real, the mayors whippet-thin, hyperactive assistant, walked over to our booth and slid in next to Alonzo.

  "Carlos Real, meet Shane Scully," Alonzo said. We shook hands across the table.

  Without preamble, Carlos said, "I understand you're good at cleaning up messes."

  Chapter 38

  Real had more ticks than a sleeping hound. He jiggled his leg, he picked nervously at his shirt cuffs. When he talked, his hands flew around over the table like a guy conducting an orchestra. His eyebrows kept flicking up and down maniacally. If I didn't know his rep, I wouldn't have believed this speed freak could be the mayor's number one political assistant.

  "I talked to C. B. He tells me you already know what needs to be done," Carlos said.

  "Yeah. I'm down."

  "We've recently discovered we have some serious timetable restrictions." He lowered his voice. His fingers now drummed relentlessly on the tabletop. "We have several phone taps on the target. Because of what we've recently learned, we gotta pull everything way up."

  "Okay," I said, "as long as it doesn't get stupid, I'm flexible."

  "The individual in question needs to go tonight."

  "Tonight? What's the big rush?" I asked.

  "We just learned that there are several people who have decided to involve themselves in his safety-people who have proven skills."

  "I thought you guys controlled the gangs," I said.

  "Not gangs. Marines from Camp Pendleton. Mexican guys. The target has an uncle who's on extended leave from Iraq. His tio recruited some Force Recon guys from the base. They're arriving tomorrow and plan to be with your man day and night until after the election."

  I couldn't help but wonder if the Marines might be Agent Love's doing.