"So I asked Amac, why are they doing this? It seemed so sad to me, but they were all smiling. Amac said they were happy because their funerals would be huge celebrations… tributes to their ganas. They would be laid out in their expensive new mahogany coffins, and all of the Surenos would come to celebrate their lives and their bravery. The Emes would be at the funeral all fronted out. They would look down at the beautiful casket and say, 'This ese was rifa, the best.' And then Amac said to me what he always says: 'Asi es, asi sera.' "
There was a long silence while they sat across from each other, both thinking about the P. G.'s buying caskets at the New Calvary Cemetery.
"Then Amac asked me to pick out a coffin. He said he was prepaying for them and the grave sites out of the Eighteenth Street Surenos' war chest. I told him I didn't want to buy a casket, that I didn't want to die. And you know what he said?"
"No."
He said, "You're already dead, homes. You were dead the day you were born. We just been waiting for the right day to bury you."
"So what happened?" Shane asked.
"I picked out a casket and a grave site. Amac paid for it. My casket is a big mahogany job with chrome rails, called a Heaven Rider. Don't ya love it? A Heaven Rider… like it's a damn chariot gonna take me to the Promised Land. They're holding it at New Calvary Cemetery until my blessed day."
"Why're you telling me this?" Shane asked.
"Because Amac thinks he's a dead man, too, Dad. He always has. So do all the others. They all have their caskets, their burial plots-everything prepaid. Now all they got left to do is fill the hole in the ground. They're all dreaming about their funerals with veteranos praising their bravery in death. It's like the most hopeless thing I ever saw."
"And how do I change that?" Shane asked, marveling at the depth of Chooch's realizations.
"You gotta stop this war from happening, Dad. You gotta save him, 'cause he can't save himself."
They sat there for a long moment while that impossible mission hung before Shane.
Suddenly, Chooch got up and grabbed his book bag. "Gotta go or I'm gonna get a late slip." He walked out of the kitchen, pausing at the door and turning back. "I love you, Dad."
"I love you, too," Shane answered.
When his son was gone, Shane felt strange. It was almost as if Chooch had been saying good-bye. Then he heard his son's Jeep Cherokee start up, pull out of the drive, and power away.
Shane washed off their breakfast plates, then got Alexa's backup gun and holster, a Smith amp; Wesson.38 round wheel. He locked the back door, climbed into the Acura, and pulled out of the garage onto the 405 Freeway North. He transitioned to the Santa Monica Freeway, then headed toward Malibu.
He was still bummed by his breakfast conversation. It carried a sense of impending disaster. As he drove, he told himself to calm down. He was no psychic; he was over-dramatizing.
It was another crisp day, with cold northern winds blowing the smog out to sea, freshening the air. But as he wound his way up the coast, Shane kept picturing the roomful of teenagers selecting caskets. He knew that the gang experience in L. A. was a death sentence, and that all the young men who wore La Eme colors knew they were probably signing up for a short, violent ride. And now Chooch had his own mahogany Heaven Rider in storage, waiting for that day when he would fill it-a frightening thought.
Then he was in Malibu pulling up to the Colony guard gate. This time he had his police creds, so he didn't intend to take any guff from the old man who demanded his name and the name of the resident he was there to visit.
"This is a police matter," Shane said crisply as he flashed his badge. "Open the gate, please."
The guard complied and Shane pulled through, thinking it was great to have his tin back. He drove up to Farrell Champion's French Tudor and parked so that he was within sight of the garage. Then he waited.
At a little past ten, Farrell Champion pulled his black Testarossa out. He gunned the quarter-of-a-million-dollar Ferrari once, then zoomed off without a look back in Shane's direction.
Shane got out of the Acura, walked across the street, and rang Farrell's bell. A few minutes later, the door was opened by Nora Bishop, wearing a robe and carrying a cup of coffee. Her dark hair was still wet, but she looked happy to see him.
"My God, Shane, I just got through doing my laps. You missed Farrell, he left a minute ago."
"What a shame. I would've loved to have some more time with him. Great guy," he lied.
Nora smiled at him, cocking her head. "He sure is. Y' know, Shane, except for you and Alexa, I don't have that many good friends here in L. A. It seems everyone in this town lives right on the damn surface. I don't have to tell you, some of the guys I was going out with were pretty sleazy." She smiled. "And then, along comes the last living prince in America. And not only does this incredibly funny, sexy guy think I'm interesting and entertaining, but by God, he even wants to marry me. Sometimes I feel like I'm walking around in a dream."
Shane felt his ears turning red as he grinned and nodded, muttering things like: "Yep, yep… Farrell Champion… Sure got one there, honey."
Then she led him into the foyer. "What can I do for you?" she asked.
"Well, it's kind of a long shot, really. But I lost my wallet somewhere a day ago. All my credit cards, my license, Social Security… I've checked with the card companies and nobody's using them, so it's probably under a sofa somewhere. I've checked everywhere else and the only place I can think I haven't looked is here."
"You think you might have lost it at the party?" "I don't know, possibly."
"Well, I haven't seen it, but come on. Let's see what we can find." She led him into the living room, which had been dusted and vacuumed back to its pre-party elegance. Nora really was a superb decorator. Cinnamon walls, with fresh white trim, beautiful paintings, and matching floral fabrics… just enough flash, but not too much glitter.
"Any ideas where to start?" she asked.
"Well, I know I didn't sit down in here, but the pool house… I sat on the couch out there."
"Let's go," she said, leading the way.
They walked across the deck, and as soon as they were outside, Shane could again smell the cool, damp scent of the Pacific Ocean. He followed Nora down into the large pool house. Shane already knew what he wanted to steal, but he was going to have to distract Nora. She was dogging him, chattering excitedly about her wedding. "Farrell wanted to do the ceremony in Monaco, can you believe that? What a romantic that man is. He wanted to fly all of our friends there on the BBJ."
"The what?"
"It's a huge Warner Brothers plane he gets to use. It's called a Boeing Business Jet-a BBJ. He was going to put everybody up at the Hotel de Paris, do the reception at Jimmy's. But in the end, I just wanted it to be more normal, y' know? More spiritual."
"Absolutely," Shane said. "A Monaco wedding does seem to lack a certain sense of spirituality."
"So as you know, we decided to use that wonderful chapel up in the hills above Pepperdine University. You know… the one with the glass atrium. I've always loved that setting. You can see all the flowers and the trees outside, the spectacular views of the Pacific…"
They were in the main room of the pool house now, and Shane was down on his knees, reaching around under the sofa cushions, looking for his "lost" wallet, which was, of course, safely tucked in his back pocket.
"Nope, not here," he said after retrieving a few quarters. Then he spotted what he'd been looking for: the large gold lighter that Farrell had used to light everyone's Cuban cigars. It was resting on an antique sideboard. It had a broad, flat surface, which should have retained Farrell's thumbprint along with an index and at least one digit. "Nora, would you mind checking the bathroom?" Shane smiled. "Look behind the toilet? The wallet's a worn brown leather job. Nothing too special."
"Sure," she said, heading off to the guest bath while Shane slipped quickly across the room and stole the large lighter. Using only his fingertips, he dropped i
t into an evidence bag, which he then sequestered in his side jacket pocket. Next he took out his wallet and laid it on the top of the bar, in plain sight. When Nora returned, Shane was on the far side of the room by the window, down on his knees, searching under a club chair.
"Not in the bathroom," she announced as she moved toward the bar. "Is this it?" Nora suddenly asked, and when Shane turned, she was holding up his wallet, smiling triumphantly.
"That's it!" He grinned. "Where'd you find it?"
"Right on the bar. The maids must've picked it up and set it there." She handed it to him.
"Man, I'm glad I don't have to cancel all these," he said, flipping it open and looking at his two minimum-limit Visa cards. Then he put his wallet away and Nora led him out of the pool house.
"Can you stay for a cup of coffee?" she asked hopefully.
Shane sure as hell didn't want to stay. He already felt like a big enough asshole and traitor, but he was trapped. "Coffee sounds great," he said.
They each had a cup of fresh-ground Colombian. Nora told Shane how hard it had been for Alexa after her mother died, and how vulnerable she was during that first year.
"Underneath that tough cop exterior is one of the sweetest people we'll ever know," she told him.
An hour later he was back in his car, feeling like Judas. He dropped the lighter off at SID in Parker Center, with instructions to send any latent prints up to Lee Fineburg in Records Services.
All in all, it had been a grimy little mission, but he was pretty sure that Farrell Champion was another in a long line of Nora Bishop's romantic mistakes, so what choice did he have? Was he just supposed to accept this handsome Hollywood phony at face value?
The last living prince in America, my ass, he thought.
Chapter 11
THE PHONE CALL
Later that afternoon Shane returned to his canal house in Venice. He called out, but immediately knew that the place was empty. The house had that strange stillness that told him nobody was home.
It was five-thirty, so he took a beer out of the fridge, and again took his place in his chair on the back lawn. He was beginning to feel like a terrible creature of habit. Like one of those tired, dusty wharf pelicans who had finally given up foraging for food and sat on a concrete piling, taking French fries from tourists, never moving until, with clogged intestines, it finally toppled off the pier into the water. Shane sat on this damn chair way too much, looking at these same unaltered vistas. His view of this canal never changed, but in his mind, somehow it always looked slightly different. Maybe it was a new shadow on the water, or a shaft of sunlight through a cloud, or maybe he was just sliding into some early form of geriatric senility. He pulled out his phone and called Alexa, but only got as far as the X. O. at Detective Services Group, who told him that his wife could not be disturbed. She was in a briefing with the chief.
"Tell her that her husband called and-"
"Right," the sarge said, and was gone before Shane could continue his message. Obviously they had very little patience for the spouses of commanding officers right now.
There was a clipped irritation in the man's voice, which told Shane that all was not well on the sixth floor at Parker Center.
He spent the early evening going through the bills on his desk, trying to clear the decks for tomorrow's return to duty. His meager bank balance was $437.86. Depressing. Two hours later he put everything away in the desk drawer and locked it. It was after nine. He was looking at the phone on his desk, thinking he shouldn't make this next call, but already knew he was going to. A valiant little internal struggle ensued where the outcome was never really in doubt, so he finally went into Chooch's room, found his school phone directory, looked up Billy Rano's number, and dialed. Mrs. Rano picked up on the second ring.
"Yes?" Beth Rano was a professor of African Studies at Pierce College.
"Hi, Beth. This is Shane Scully. I need to talk to my son. I understand he's over there."
"Chooch isn't here, Shane."
His heart started beating faster. "He said he was spending the night with Billy."
"I'm sorry, I don't know anything about that. Billy's here, you want to talk to him?"
"Please…"
After a moment he heard Billy Rano's soft African-American lilt.
"Wassup, Mr. Scully?" the tall; quick wide receiver answered.
"Hi, Billy, I'm looking for Chooch."
"Uh, I left him at the library around five o'clock." "I thought he was spending the night over there." "He was, but he said something came up. Didn't say what."
"Okay, thanks," Shane said. "If you hear from him, tell him to call home."
"Yes, sir."
Shane hung up and his imagination immediately started to run away with him. What if Chooch went to see Amac?
Of course, that was about the stupidest thing Chooch could do with the Emes in a citywide war. But the more he thought about it, the more he was sure that was exactly what his son had done.
He dialed Chooch's cell phone, and it started ringing down the hall in his bedroom. His son hadn't taken it with him.
He called Amac's cell number and got an "out of the area" recording. He called Alexa again and this time, by claiming a personal emergency, was put directly into Chief Filosiani's office.
"I'm sure he's okay," she said after listening to his concern. "He's probably studying with somebody, or maybe he's at the library. Did you try to call him?"
"He left his cell here. I think he's with Amac," Shane said. Then he heard the back door slam. "Hold it. I think he just came in. Talk to you later."
Shane hung up the phone and met his son in the kitchen. "Where've you been, bud?" Shane asked with a little too much force, and got the teenage mantra.
"Out," Chooch stonewalled.
"Right, but out where? I called Billy. He said he left you at five. It's after nine."
"Don't you trust me, Dad?"
Shane had one of those parental moments. Did he want to make this a battleground where Chooch's word was at stake? "You know I trust you."
Chooch nodded, retrieved a soda from the fridge, then walked past him without saying anything else.
Shane wanted to be fresh for tomorrow's meeting with Chief Filosiani, so he went to bed at ten and was sound asleep by 10:02.
He had an unsettling dream.
Chooch was dragging a big mahogany coffin up the hill at the New Calvary Cemetery, tugging it up to the edge of an open grave. When he got it there, he looked at Shane and smiled.
"It's called a Heaven Rider," his son said proudly in the dream. "My eses will all come. Vatos will talk about my bravery. They will celebrate my life." Suddenly, the chapel bell started ringing, and then it sounded more and more like a telephone.
Shane opened his eyes and looked at the bedside clock. It was almost eleven. The phone kept ringing. He sat up in bed and fumbled the receiver out of the cradle, noticing that Alexa still wasn't there.
"Hello," he said.
"Is this Sergeant Shane Scully?" a woman's voice asked. "Yes. Who is this?"
"Detective Carla DePass, Homicide."
Uh-oh, Shane thought, but said, "What can I do for you, Detective?"
"My partner, Detective Lou Ruta, and I are working a homicide at West Eleventh Street, just east of Hoover. We'd appreciate it if you could roll on this, right now."
"I'm not assigned to Homicide. In fact, I don't even go back on active duty till tomorrow."
"We don't need help investigating the murder. We need some help identifying the vic. We're at 2635 West Eleventh, Los Angeles. How soon can you make it here?"
"That's gonna take me half an hour."
"Don't let it take any longer," she said, and was gone. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. That address was somewhere down in the Rampart Division.
Then he had a dark premonition as to who'd died.
Chapter 12
STAR
"Detective Ruta's in the back by the garage," a young uniformed policeman t
old Shane after he had identified himself. Shane hung his creds in the handkerchief pocket of his blazer and started up the narrow concrete driveway. The house was a ramshackle California Craftsman, an architectural style popular in Southern California in the thirties and forties. This one had seen better days. The low wood dormers flaked paint, and sagging drainpipes and window shutters made the once fashionable structure look forlorn. This part of Rampart was ethnically mixed; the house on West 1 1 th was located on a street that, a few years back, had been all Hispanic, but Vietnamese and Koreans were beginning to buy up the neighborhood. Asian and Mexican families were standing in their doorways up and down the street, looking at the police circus parked in the center of the block.
Shane got to the head of the drive where Detective DePass, a middle-aged blonde in plainclothes with a weight lifter's build and close-cropped white hair, stopped him. "You said half an hour. It's twice that. Ruta is chewing my ass."
"Well, let's go calm him down then," Shane said. "Which one is he?"
She pointed out Detective Ruta.
Ruta was one of those police nightmares that every cop looks at and thinks Please, dear God, don't let me end up like that. He was at least seventy pounds overweight with a drinker's beet-red complexion and a nose like a small Idaho potato. His unkempt mustache was growing down both sides of his mouth in a modified Fu Manchu, or was it a Pancho Villa? He looked like he was just waiting for somebody to say something that would give him an excuse to kick the shit out of them.
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