The Tin Collectors

by Stephen J. Cannell

  “Had a few bubblies. Hit me harder’n I thought.” DeMarco grinned. “Shane, meet the guys—Billy an’ Mark. Guys, meet Shane. They just moved in. Been sleeping under the fuckin’ pier. I’m helpin’ ’em out.”

  They looked right through him, no change of expression. He wasn’t even a blip on their radar. Anybody in a tie over thirty was in a parallel dimension and didn’t exist for them.

  “We gotta talk. Let’s go.” Shane grabbed DeMarco’s arm and tried to drag him out of the house. The two fifteen-year-olds rose up to protect their new landlord.

  “Sit down!” Shane growled menacingly, and they did.

  “S’okay,” DeMarco slurred. “Lez go…jus’ don’ yank on me.”

  They left the house and walked out onto the sand. It was a bright Southern California day. DeMarco groaned painfully as the sunlight hit him, and he shaded his eyes, wavering badly as he walked. They were twenty yards away from the house when Shane spun him and faced him.

  “How can you be fucking drunk, man?”

  “Relax, will ya? I was up half the night workin’ on your case. Haven’t even been t’bed yet. No food…s’why the brews snuck up on me.”

  “Have you interviewed Barbara, prepared a witness list, contacted Mayweather or Halley to get their sworn affidavits and a copy of the DFAR, sent anything to the subpoena control desk?”

  “I…I’m…”

  “The answer is no, ’cause I’ve been with Barbara and you haven’t even called her yet. She’s gotta be priority one ’cause if she changes her statement, I’m dust. You gotta lock her in with an affidavit, secure her testimony before you mess with the rest of it. Since I know you know that, you’ve done nothing.”

  “Hey, Shane…will y’calm down? Okay, just calm down.” DeMarco took a step forward and lost his balance and fell down. “Oops,” he said, grinning. “Somebody’s moving the beach.”

  “Dee, I was down at IAD this morning. I bumped into Sergeant Hamilton, who is running through my life with spikes on. She’s got a box full of every mistake I ever made, even down to my old Patrol Division TAs. She’s giving me a fucking sigmoidos-copy, while you’re out here getting hammered. We only have eight more days, then we go in front of the board.”

  “Relax. Okay?” He was trying to get up and not having much luck, so Shane knelt down beside him.

  “How can I relax? I’m on the block.”

  “I don’t think Alexa Hamilton really wants to prosecute you. Okay?” He was smiling stupidly.

  “That isn’t what you said before. You said she’d been in Southwest supervising a patrol watch and came back to Internal Affairs specifically to take my case, that she volunteered for it.”

  “When I said it, I was trying to duck the case, but now that I have it, I think otherwise.”

  “She’s the queen of the Dark Side. Whatta you mean, she doesn’t want to prosecute me?”

  “Why d’you think ya won the BOR sixteen years ago?”

  “We won because you caught her key witness lying.”

  “We won ’cause Alexa threw the fuckin’ case.” He belched and then tried to stand, but again didn’t make it.

  “She what?”

  “She threw th’ fuckin’ case, went in the tank, intentionally bricked it.”

  “You never said that before. If she dumped it, you would’ve told me.”

  “Hey, winning cases was how I kept my rep hard back then. I din’ wanna share the glory. Wha’ good’s it to win a tough board if the prosecuting advocate throws the fuckin’ case? ’Sides, she swore me to secrecy…. Said she’d get busted if I tol’.”

  “I want facts, Dee. I want the whole story. If you’re bullshitting…”

  “Not shitting.” He sat back and took a deep breath to clear his head, then went on. “She comes to me like two days ’fore the board and tells me the chief advocate himself, the fuckin’ Dark Prince, got a statement from Ray that was devastating to your case.”

  “Wait a minute. Ray was on my side.”

  “Grow up, man. Ray was on Ray’s side. He didn’t wan’ any part of your problem, and his statement contradicted yours. Since he was your training officer, it was gonna flat fuckin’ sink you.” He took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. “Alexa said she wasn’t gonna include Molar’s affidavit in the discovery material. Said since the DA took Ray’s statement personally, he would insist Ray be called to testify, but Zell wouldn’t be aware that Ray’s affidavit had accidentally on purpose been left out of discovery.” Now he was grinning stupidly again. “She said I should object an’ get his testimony stricken, because she had failed to include it, makin’ Ray’s testimony inad…inad…”—he belched—“inadmissible at the hearing. Thas wha’ happened.”

  Shane was confused. It didn’t add up.

  “Then she tells me she thinks the gas-station attendant was lying,” DeMarco continued. “Tells me to polygraph him. She impeached her own fuckin’ guy, and he was the best part of her case.”

  “Why? Why would she do that?”

  “Maybe she wants your bod.”

  “Get up.” Shane pulled DeMarco up to his feet.

  He stood there, weaving drunkenly. “I’m figurin’ there’s a good chance she’s gonna come across again.” He grinned.

  “You mean you’re sitting around, sucking down beers, waiting for her to throw this case, too?”

  “I’m not waiting around. I’m bustin’ tail, bud. I’m all over this puppy….”

  “Okay, Dee, I’m stuck with you because they fast-tracked my board and nobody else will take it on such short notice. Right now I’ve got something to do, but I’m coming back, unannounced. You better be fuckin’ clear-eyed and sober. Next time I’m here, I want a full review of this case, blow by blow. I want your subpoena list and I want to know who you’re interviewing. I want to hear your case strategy.”

  “Done,” he said, giggling slightly, shading his eyes, squinting into the sun.

  Shane couldn’t believe what he was seeing, couldn’t believe what DeMarco had just told him. Alexa, with her box full of his career glitches, was hardly going to throw this board, regardless of what happened the last time. He glowered at the wavering defense rep. “We’ve gotta get our helmets on. If I catch you drunk again, I’ll beat the shit out of you. Don’t fall down on me, man.” Then he turned, leaving the longhaired defense rep teetering badly in the bright sunlight.

  20

  The Black Widow

  After he left DeMarco, Shane sat inside the hot Acura in the beach parking lot with the driver-side door open and called Sandy. Surprisingly, this time he got her; she picked up on the third ring.

  “Sandy, it’s me.”

  “Shane, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as you thought. I called the school, and they told me there’s no problem. Chooch is back in classes.”

  “Yeah, no problem. What an alarmist I’m becoming. I need to see you today. We need to work out some stuff. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  “Today’s really shitty for me.”

  “The whole week has been shitty for me,” Shane growled. “You’re meeting me at noon.”

  “Can’t. I have a lunch engagement.”

  “Cancel it.” He was pissed at DeMarco but taking it out on Sandy.

  “It’s not that easy,” she hedged.

  “Cancel the fucking lunch date. I’m gonna be there at noon.” He hung up on her. It was eleven-thirty.

  Sandy lived at the Harrington Plaza in Brentwood, in one of two gorgeous penthouse suites. Shane got there in thirty minutes. He pulled up to the overhanging porte cochere and handed the keys for the busted-up Acura to a doorman who had enough braid hanging off his uniform shoulders to lead a Latin American country or the University of Michigan marching band.

  “I’ll need to announce you, sir,” the doorman said, frowning at the bruised Acura parked on his brick entryway, subtracting elegance like a turd on a serving platter.

  “Shane Scully for Ms. Sandoval.”

  The doo
rman picked up the phone, had a short conversation, then walked with Shane into the lobby and key-carded the elevator for the penthouse level. “You can phone down before you return and I’ll have the vehicle brought up.” He pronounced the word “vehicle” like an ancient curse.

  “Thank you,” Shane said. The doors closed and he was alone in the fragrant oak-paneled luxury of the Barrington Plaza elevator, listening to a selection of orchestrated show tunes.

  Shane marveled once again at what Sandy had been able to accomplish. When he had met her, he’d been on the job only a little over a year. It was just after he’d been separated from Ray and moved to West Valley Division. The first month in that division he’d been a floater, and because he was a “new face,” he had been temporarily assigned to detectives working a bunco scam as an undercover. She had been a top-line L.A. call girl, working an executive clientele. The bunco detectives had been investigating a counterfeit bond trader, and Sandy happened to be balling the guy for a thousand a night. Shane, working UC, had arrested her for prostitution, but then instead of booking her, the bunco squad instructed him to try to “flip” her. He did, and she worked the case for him as an informant. Shane was her contact. She had skillfully pillow-talked the bond trader, allowing Shane and the Valley detectives to expand their investigation. When the bust went down, fifteen bond traders hit the lockup and Shane protected her, managing to keep her from being prosecuted. During that operation she proved that she had guts and savvy and could be counted on in a pinch. Shane became her friend, and one night, a week later over dinner, she suggested that she might be willing to work for the police if the price was right.

  “How much do you guys spend to get a big player into court?” she had asked him. “How much overtime and special duty gets approved to bring down a big vice lord or drug kingpin?”

  The truth was, often hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent trying to collar a predicate felon, and sometimes even then they failed to come up with an indictment.

  Sandy’s proposal was shrewd; it showed her keen business mind. She told Shane she would work any target they pointed her at and charge LAPD nothing up front. Despite the upscale nature of her clientele, she was tired of working one-night stands and wanted to expand her horizons. She had two conditions: if successful, she wanted half the amount of money the department had spent on that criminal investigation in the preceding year, and she would not work a target who had an annual police budget of under a hundred thousand dollars. She said she would trust Shane to divulge the correct amount. After almost a month of negotiating with her over terms and conditions, the department finally agreed.

  Sandy proved to be exceptional in this new line of work. She was thorough and totally prepared herself before ever moving in on her target. First, she would study the criminal, research him like a doctoral thesis. If he liked Russian literature, she would memorize passages of Solzhenitsyn. If he was interested in Impressionistic art, she would become an expert on Gino Severini’s essays, From Futurism to Classicism. Then she would set up shop somewhere in his field of vision. One day Mr. Big would be at his favorite country club bar and he’d look across the room and see a dusky, raven-haired goddess sitting at a table alone, reading an art pamphlet detailing the next Impressionist auction at Sotheby’s. A conversation would ensue, and this unsuspecting criminal would find that, lo and behold, he had a soul mate, a drop-dead ten on the libido scale who miraculously liked everything he did, from van Gogh to ocean catamaran racing. She became so tuned in, she could finish his sentences.

  Before long they would become intimate. Here, Sandy was on her home field. She was a Hall of Fame sexual acrobat. Mr. Big would think he’d won the quiniela. Then Sandy would slowly begin to work him for information. After sex he’d start bragging. He’d fill her beautiful head with his criminal exploits. She’d coo and tell him he was a genius. Once she had his criminal operation down, she would start looking around for a patsy. She knew that when the cops made the arrest, Mr. Big would know he’d been sold out. He might turn violent from his cell, might figure her for the informant and order her killed. To protect herself, Sandy would look around at Mr. Big’s criminal companions for a stand-in who could fulfill this unrewarding role.

  Before dropping the dime to the police, she would set up the patsy as the informant. She was careful to always pick someone worthy of execution, so the unsuspecting police department wouldn’t put too much time into the scumbag’s murder. Once she had selected her patsy, she would begin flirting with him, setting up a romantic triangle. Mr. Big would get furious at the patsy: “Stop hitting on Sandy. I catch you putting the make on her again, I’ll drop you where you stand.” But Sandy was worth the risk, and she’d work both men into steamy jealous rages.

  When the bust came down, it didn’t take Mr. Big long to figure out who had fingered him. The patsy would end up strolling the tidal basin in concrete loafers while Sandy sat in the jail visitors’ room, crying her eyes red and promising Mr. Big that she would be there when he got out.

  Because she always destroyed her targets, and a patsy always died, her nickname in the department was “the Black Widow.” Like her namesake, she was a great but deadly piece of ass.

  She would then present her bill to Shane for this valuable service, and he would be her bagman for the department’s payoff. She was L.A.’s most successful consignment concessionaire. It was a fair deal. If she didn’t get the goods, the LAPD didn’t pay.

  In the beginning Shane was the only cop she would trust to be her intermediary. The cases went down smoothly in court because the tip that led to the bust was always anonymous, so it couldn’t be traced back to the department. Naturally, the arresting officers didn’t even know about the arrangement. Since Sandy never testified in court or told anybody what she had to do to get the goods, it was, strictly speaking, legal. She was paid as an informant—something police do all over the country. It was a very efficient and profitable deal for everybody.

  Inevitably, the feds got wind of her and, in their typical, claim-jumping fashion, moved in. Since their budgets were larger and she could make more money with them, they started poaching on the LAPD, and now she was working mostly federal cases.

  The elevator doors opened, and Sandy was standing in the hall waiting for him. Every time he saw her, he was knocked out all over again. It was as if his memory wasn’t able to retain her remarkable physical perfection. She was tall, almost five-ten, and had a spectacular, trainer-sculpted body. She had told him once that her mother was Mexican and her father Colombian, which was responsible for her Latin coloring. She had raven-black hair and coffee-colored skin. Her brown eyes twinkled and danced and said “Take me.” She was one of the most attractive, sensual women he had ever laid eyes on. Although she was in her mid to late thirties, she could have easily passed for twenty-nine.

  She was standing before him, wearing designer heels and a tailored white dress that revealed just enough knee and breast to cause him to lose concentration, but she was never overtly sexy. She was a strange, exotic mixture—classy yet seductive, expensive yet available—and somehow Sandy carried it off with incredible ease.

  “Shane, you look tired. I hope you’re not doing stakeouts, sleeping in your car,” she said, reacting to the circles under his eyes.

  “You always know how to make me feel so special,” he said darkly as she took his hand and offered her cheek to kiss.

  “Come on, stop it, you know I love you. I made us sandwiches.” She was smooth, working him now, making him feel important. She was good at it. Men were her business.

  The penthouse was huge, beautiful, and all white. White walls on white carpet, with white drapes framing an acre of plate glass. The antiques were all real. A black and goldleaf Louis XV desk and matching secretary unit were on opposite walls; white sofas and European accent pieces immediately caught the eye. Sandy stood in the middle of the entry with her hands on her slender hips, the most exotic decoration in the room by far.

  �
�I think, now that I see you, you need some alcoholic CPR. How ’bout a beer?” She moved into the kitchen without waiting for a reply, got two Amstel Lights, and brought them back, along with the sandwiches on bone china plates. All of it was carried on an expensive antique silver serving tray. She set everything down on the white marble-top table near the windows.

  The mirrored glass skyline of Century City twinkled in the clean air blowing in from the ocean a few miles away.

  “You have to take Chooch back,” he said without preamble.

  “I can’t, Shane, I told you, I’m on this thing for the DEA. I’m working almost every night. The target is a hitter. I stumble—I’m gone. Honest to God, this guy’s a vampire…he plays all night.”

  “Sandy, I’m going to say this again, ’cause it’s important. You need to spend some time with your son. I blew it. I almost got through, but I blew it. Now I’m afraid he’s gonna take off, then we’re gonna be out there looking for him. He’s got some gangbang friends in the Valley; he’ll hang with bad company. He’s pissed off, ready to run. I’m worried about him.”

  They sat with the beers and untouched sandwiches between them as Sandy bit her lower lip in concentrated thought. “I know you think I’ve just dumped him, that I sent him off to boarding school or left him with friends…but I’m trying to make enough money so he can go to Princeton or Yale. I want him to get the best education, maybe be a doctor.”

  “To begin with, it doesn’t matter what I think. It only matters what Chooch thinks. You’ve gotta show him you care. You’ve gotta make room for him in your life, make him feel like he belongs somewhere, like somebody truly gives a shit. Forget about Yale, ’cause the way he’s going, he’s gonna be doing his postgrad study at Soledad State Prison.”

  “My plan is to get ten mil in tax-free munis and blue chips, stuff that will grow and throw off cash, then I’m gonna retire and move with Chooch to Arizona—Phoenix, I was thinking—settle down, be a regular mom. I’m a year away, maybe less.”