She arrived at a little past six. After I showed her what Jack had left in our mailbox and informed her that the plate on the Rolls checked back to Eugene C. Mesa, I poured each of us a scotch, and we settled into our chairs in the backyard to deal with it.
"Fucking Straw," I vented. "How do I get a leash on that guy?"
"Better question is, What does it all mean?" Alexa countered.
"That cigar-box board is a classic--an antique, the kind Duke Kahanamoku rode in the nineteen thirties in Hawaii. Nobody surfs on those anymore. As far as I'm concerned, it's no coincidence that thing turns up in Mesa's garage."
"If nobody rides one, then why on earth would he have it?" she asked.
"I've been mulling that, and the only thing I can come up with is maybe E. G. Mesa used to surf with Pop. I remember when I was a kid all kinds of random guys used to show up on that beach. Walt adopted everyone. Lotta people wanted to try and ride his rhino. Usually one wave convinced them to give it up. But maybe Walt showed Mesa how to use that oversized log, and, like Pop, he somehow got into it."
"And maybe, that's the connection between Creative Solutions and the Mesa Group," Alexa offered. "Eugene Mesa and Pop became surf buddies and later, when Pop needs money, E. C. sets up Creative Solutions to take over when Pop can't carry the financial pressure of Huntington House by himself anymore."
I nodded. "Yeah, maybe." It still didn't feel quite right, but who knows?
As we sat and sipped our drinks, Alexa kept peeking over, checking me out. She was still worried about the effect all of this was having on me. But I was through my depressed, sentimental period. I was now just kick-ass angry. I wanted to get whoever did this to Pop. The idea that they might have also framed him as a thief made me even madder.
"We still don't know what ties all these MMA fighters into this," I said, thinking out loud.
"Maybe this will help," Alexa ventured. She opened her slim wafer briefcase and pulled out a handwritten sheet with forty license plate numbers on it.
"These are the cars that Seriana and I found parked outside the nonprofit offices we visited. A lot of them probably were just using the lot and have nothing to do with this. We're gonna have to run them all, then check the names against that Rolodex that Jack stole and see who matches up."
It was a big job. We decided to skip dinner and our second drink and get right to it. The RTO on the horseshoe in the communications center began sounding frustrated with us as we kept reading off new plates for her to run.
"Damn good thing I'm a division commander," Alexa said, grinning, during one of our breaks.
I was jotting down names and addresses on index cards and began to notice the same address--1386 Avalon Terrace, Wilmington-kept showing up a lot. When I finished alphabetizing the cards, we began going through the gym Rolodex, looking for matches, eliminating the other names.
Here's what we ended up with.
Besides Rick O'Shea, who was the executive director of Creative Solutions and lived in a million-dollar house in Calabasas, and Christian Calabro, who held the same position at Bridge to Tomorrow and lived in North Hollywood, four of the remaining matches were also listed as living at 1386 Avalon Terrace in Wilmington.
They included the executive director of Hopeful Journey, Raymond "Stingray" Jackson, and Dane Vanderheiden, "The Striking Viking," who ran the nonprofit in Torrance.
There was someone named Jason Scott, a new name that I hadn't come across before. He was listed as running Life Promise. The last name was Gary White, referred to at NHB as "The Great" White. He was the director of Pure Emotions.
"Okay, so that gym is the nexus," Alexa said. "Wonder why?"
I pickcd up the phone in the den and called Vicki Lavicki. She answered on the first ring.
"Lavicki," she half shouted into the receiver. Her voice nearly split my eardrum. The woman had not one ounce of social rhythm or personal subtlety.
"How you coming with the computer run on No Holds Barred?" I asked.
"It's a small private gym," she said. "Basically, a fight club. Eight guys on the roster. They're managed by something called Team Ultima, Inc., which is also the name of the corporation that owns the gym.
"The address for Team Ultima is a post-office box in Delaware.
I'm trying to get the list of directors, but because Delaware is a tax haven, their corporations are tough to penetrate and it's gonna take some time.
"Also, I've been trying to catch up on this MMA phenomena. I've read some recent Internet stories that say some of these fighters at Team Ultima are starting to show up in televised events on Spike TV and are getting some pretty big purses. Six figures and up. O'Shea and Calabro seem to be the gym's two big stars."
I read Vicki the names that Alexa and I had culled from the pilfered Rolodex.
Vicki said, "Yep. All of them plus two more. There's a guy called Brian Bravo and somebody named Ivan Tronhead' Brown."
I thanked her and hung up. Then Alexa and I ran Bravo and Brown through the Department of Motor Vehicles. They were also listed as living at that same address in Wilmington.
After we hung up, it was still early, only a little past ten in the evening.
"Whatta you suppose is at 1386 Avalon Terrace?" I asked Alexa.
"Guess we better go take a look," she answered.
Chapter 34
Wilmington is in a strange part of Los Angeles. Its basically a town that eaters to the South Bays large port facility and fishing fleet, but its sandwiched between a growing Crips gang area in Compton and the docks of San Pedro. Its an oasis of fishermen and dock-workers inside a festering maw of residential poverty and gang violence.
The businesses and restaurants are all no-frills. Wood turn-of-the-century houses line the blocks around Avalon Boulevard all the way to Anaheim Street. Wilmington was right on the way to Seal Beach, where this had all started for me years ago.
Alexa drove her BMW while I sat silently beside her, watching the exact same streets Yd watched as a kid when Pop had made this trip to the shore down the Pacific Coast Highway.
We turned onto Avalon Boulevard looking for Avalon Terrace. The cross street was so small we overshot it before I called out to Alexa.
She made a U and we drove down a seedy block, full of unkempt houses and old cars, until we arrived at 1386.
The house was a big, three-story, gone-to-seed, wood-sided Victorian that looked like it had been built in the late eighteen hundreds. It had a pitched roof, a sloping porch, and a loud party raging inside.
Alexa and I drove past and found a parking place up the street where we could observe the festivities.
There were a lot of run-down cars parked in front. A few yards from the house, I spotted Rick O'Shea's out-of-place, new, pimped-out maroon Escalade.
There were also half a dozen vintage Indian motorcycles parked off to the side on the dead front lawn. They all sported the popular Indian red and white or turquoise and white paint jobs. Most of the motorcycles were chromed and tricked out with studded saddlebags. Impressive rigs.
"Those look like the same bikes that were in Jacks video of E. C. Mesas garage," I said.
Alexa reached across me, opened the glove box, and pulled out a pair of Bushnell binoculars. She put them to her eyes and studied the Indians, then shook her head. "Too far away for me to read those bike plates."
I pointed to her little Beretta Bobcat still in the open glove box. "You should keep that .25 loaded," I said.
"I wanted a new purse gun, but I wish I hadn't bought it," she said as she put the binocs down. "No stopping power. Won't blow an asshole out of his socks."
I smiled. Most guys don t have wives who could get away with a statement like that.
We've had this punch-versus-penetration handgun argument before. Alexa favors big-bore Magnums and Super 9s that carry a wallop. When I was in patrol, I did too. Like everybody else, I packed Dirty Harry style. But now that I'm in homicide I go for lighter, easy-carry weapons.
As far
as I'm concerned it's not the size of the gun but the quality of the shooter that counts. Goliath got dumped with a slingshot. You just have to know what you're doing.
I listened to the rap beat pounding out of the house, fouling the neighborhood. I wondered how long the residents on this street had been putting up with this. But it was going to take a real set of cojones to pound on the door and demand that these animals dial it down.
As we watched the house, we saw women and men dancing to the music through the living room window. My eyes shifted back to the Indian motorcycles. They're rare. You don't usually see so many gathered in one place.
Indians had big V-twin engines and looked a little like Harlevs, but with long, deep-skirted fenders and distinctive fender lights. One thing separating the vintage Indians from their Harley competitor back in the day was the fact that the throttle and shifter were on the opposite side from where they were located on a Harley.
The people who loved Indians were fanatical about them, and I guess that included some of these fighters and, for some reason, Eugene G. Mesa.
Alexa put the binoculars back up to her eyes, scanned the cars on the block, and started calling out plate numbers, which I wrote down. After about ten minutes, we had all of the tags from the vehicles parked near the old Victorian.
"I'm gonna go check those bikes."
"Be careful," she said as I got out of the BMW.
I made my way across the street, staying in the shadows. 'Then I crept up onto the grass and approached the six bikes, which were tucked off on the far side of the dead lawn.
Plates on a motorcycle are about the size of an index card, which is why Alexa couldn't read them with binoculars from where we were parked half a block away. As I wrote down the numbers, I was even more sure than before that these were the same bikes I'd seen on Jack's DVD.
I was just finishing with the plate numbers when I heard another motorcycle coming down the street. Before I could duck down, the headlight swept across me as it turned up the drive. I was caught in its beam.
The bike's engine shut off and the headlight went dark. It took a second for my eyes to adjust, and I used the moment to pull my Taurus .38 snub-nosed Hy-Lite from its ankle holster.
When I could see, I got a shock. Standing in front of me, next to his pavement-scarred Harley, was Jack Straw. He pulled two six-packs of beer out of his saddlebags, and said, "Don't shoot. Strange as it seems I'm still on your side."
Part of me wanted to tackle him, put him under arrest, and drag him out of there. But any commotion on the lawn and I'd have the head-butt team from inside to deal with.
"Jack, what the fuck are you doing?" I whispered.
"Get out of here, Scully. This is a whack move."
Then the screen door opened, and I ducked back as I heard footsteps coming across the front porch to the railing.
"Hey, Jack, get yer ass up here with that beer. Where you been? You left over half an hour ago." It was Rick O'Shea.
I slid further away from Jack, out of sight under the porch, pushing myself quietly into the bushes that surrounded the house.
"Whatta you doing down there?" O'Shea said to Jack from the porch just over my head.
"I thought I saw something by the bikes. A huge rat of some kind." Jack smiled at me huddled ass down in the bushes.
"How big?" Rick replied. "Maybe it was just a possum. We got a lot of those around here."
"This was no possum, dude. It was a big, slimy, ungrateful rat."
I flipped him off as he turned and bounded up onto the porch with the beer and entered the house.
When I got back to the car, Alexa was looking worried.
"That looked like Jack," she said, the binoculars still in her hand.
"It was Jack." My heart was pounding from an adrenaline rush.
"Why didn't you arrest him?"
"Why didn't you?"
Both of us tensed, watching the party house.
"If we aren't up to our asses in trouble in the next two seconds, then I guess Jack is on the level," I told Alexa.
When nothing happened, I added, "It appears that our runaway bank robber is over here infiltrating these pecker-heads on our behalf."
"How's he gonna infiltrate this bunch?" Alexa said.
"Look at him, honey. He's one of them. He's just the kind of asshole they'd throw their arms around."
Nobody came out to hassle us. The party raged on. About twenty minutes later, Jack came out to stand on the front porch. He seemed to be motioning to us. I grabbed the binoculars and focused in on him.
All he was doing was giving me the finger.
Chapter 35
The party broke up a little past 2:00 A. M. Men and women started coming off the front porch. I saw Rick O'Shea exit. He had a pretty dark-haired girl in a Hooters T-shirt clinging to his arm. They got into his Escalade, and he revved the engine like a teenager before slamming it into gear and squealing away from the curb.
The partygoers were streaming out of the house, heading to their vehicles. Motorcycles and old cars with dented fenders started firing up all over the street. Alexa and I ducked down as they roared past. I noticed they all turned east at the end of the block.
I pulled my head up and spotted the short, middle-aged man with the hair plugs who had been out by the pool in Jack's video leaving the house with Chris Calabro. E. C. Mesa.
He looked slightly ridiculous the way he was dressed. A clumpy, middle-aged guy with obvious hair implants wearing a too-tight biker jacket, torn jeans, and three-inch Cuban-heeled boots. He and Calabro got on the last two Indian motorcycles and racked the starters.
Jack exited the house a few feet behind them, mounted his Harley, and jumped down on his starter. The two Indians roared across the lawn and bounced over the curb, with Jack just a few yards behind.
I ducked down quickly, but Jack saw me. A big, slimy lugie gobbed onto our side window as he roared passed.
"Thanks, Jack." I turned to Alexa and said, "Let s go."
"Where?"
"Everybody turned east at the end of the block. I'm no mathematician, but that defies even my meager understanding of the law of probability. Gotta all be going to the same place. The party ain't over yet."
Alexa put the car in gear and swung a U-turn. When we got to Alameda Street, everyone was about three blocks ahead just making a left. I could see the taillight of Jack's trailing Harley as it made the turn.
We hurried to catch up. Either Alexa was closing the gap or Jack's Harley was slowing, because as we sped down Alameda and made the next left, I could see we were much closer. It was soon obvious that Jack was deliberately dropping back. I rolled down the window as we came alongside.
"Get out of here, Scully!" he shouted over the roar of his engine.
"You're under arrest!" I yelled back.
Jack shook his head in disgust, then powered ahead.
We followed the party as it turned onto Pacific Coast Highway, heading east, and crossed the Los Angeles River into the coastal town of Signal Hill.
We continued along the PCH into Long Beach and were soon in a run-down industrial section of town a few blocks from the San Gabriel River. Up ahead the motorcycles and cars were turning into the parking lot of a big, wooden, red barn-shaped building. As we neared, I could read the neon-lit sign on the roof:
HAYLOFT BAR & NIGHTCLUB
The parking lot was about half full of cars and a smattering of Harley choppers. The party crowd we'd been following all pulled in and began backing and filling in the gravel lot, sending up clouds of dust that reflected in everybody's headlights.
As we rolled past, I heard car doors slamming and saw the tough-looking men from Avalon Terrace, along with their dates, walking toward a barn-sized front door. Alexa and I came to a stop a block past the club.
As soon as she parked, Alexa leaned across me to rummage in the glove box, quickly pulling out the little palm-sized Beretta Bobcat. Then she grabbed a box of .25 caliber ammo from a hiding place I had
n't found under her seat and began thumbing cartridges into the clip.
"Don't go all Jane Wayne on me," I said, watching her load the gun, then slam the clip home.
"Hey, pilgrim, I know how you plan your work. I'm going in there with you."
"Let's just settle down for a minute and talk this over."
"You talk it over." She got out of the BMW and headed up the street toward the parking lot.
"Shit," I said, and scrambled out after her.
We knelt behind some bushes a hundred yards from the Hayloft. It was now two thirty in the morning, and according to California law, the nightclub should have already been closed.
Then, as we watched, the neon sign on the roof flickered off. We could still hear the distant sound of a crowd cheering loudly.
"What on earth are they doing in there?" Alexa said.
"Underground fight."
"I'm sorry?"
"I read up on this stuff on the Internet before you got home. The younger, upcoming MMA fighters start their careers in unsanctioned bare-knuckle events. They're known as underground fights and they take place in gyms or bars after hours. Lots of MMA fighters, including Rampage Jackson, the ex-champ, got their start like that."
"A bar fight?" She looked at me. "I gotta see this." She started to rise.
I grabbed her arm. "Get back here."
She shook me off, then pulled her shirt out, unbuttoned the bottom, hiked it up, and knotted it. Of course, she's already a ten, but in navel-baring mode, she was a twelve.
"Alexa, I forbid this."
"I'm your boss, dummkopf."
Man, do I love this hard-headed woman.
"Okay, okay. Then at least let's get a plan of action."
"I already got it. The putz with the hair plugs has gotta be E. C. Mesa. I'm gonna seduce that little gnome. Take his temperature."
"Okay, that's not bad. You target him and see what you can find out. I'll be close by." I pulled out my Taurus snubbie. Alexa frowned at the light, magnesium-framed .38.
"We're better off not pulling these two little pop guns. They could die laughing. Put it away. I know how to do this." As I reholstered, she stuck the Bobcat down into her boot, then pulled her pant leg over it.
the Pallbearers (2010) Page 14
