the Prostitutes' Ball (2010) (29 page)

"So what?"

"Right now, this morning, he happens to be in Malibu looking at some property he wants to buy. He happens to want to talk to us about Prostitutes Ball. If we get our asses up there, he'll hear me out, but it's kinda time sensitive. We blow this meet, unless we wanta spend a fortune to go to Prague, we lose our chance at getting any face-time with him for half a year."

I remained silent. Or maybe I just groaned slightly.

"Okay, okay. So I'll say no. I just had to check with you, dawg I mean, Shane. Because, like it or not, I've become sort of fond of you. I'm trying to keep my partner from throwing away a bloody fortune so you and Alexa won't get stuck eating dog food after you've pulled the pin and shot through your measly police pension."

I suddenly realized I was so distracted by this conversation I was driving erratically and straddling two lanes. Cars behind me on Sixth Street started honking. I corrected and felt myself caving in to this new lust for money.

The canal house was nice, but beachfront would be better. Instead of taking our retirement sitting on lawn chairs in some public campground, wouldn't Alexa and I be happier on a sleek sixty-foot sailboat with silk spinnakers, cruising the California coast?

"I'll call him and tell him no." He paused. "So that's the decision. That's what you want, right?"

"Uhhh, well ..." I was vapor locking.

"Good. I hear indecision in your voice. You're finally coming to your senses. Listen, I got directions here. It's off Trancas Canyon, bu
t i
t's a little confusing. Meet me at Moonshadows restaurant on the Coast Highway out by Malibu in half an hour. Can you make that?" "I don't know," I said. "I'm not sure we should be doing this." "Its a lousy two hours out of your life, get a grip, Scully." "Okay, okay. I'll see you there."

Chapter
49.

I turned around, headed the other way, and got on the Santa Monica Freeway to the Coast Highway. All the way, I kept wondering who I was turning into. Was I now just a Donald Trump wannabe with a badge?

Hitch was waiting in the restaurant parking lot with the top down, looking like a GQ photo spread in his tan suit, pink shirt, and matching tie. I pulled in and he shouted.

"Park over there. We'll take my ride."

I parked and got in the Porsche. We buzzed out onto PCH heading farther up the coast toward Trancas Canyon. As we drove, I told him I'd set up a second gold assay test at the Latimer Commodities Exchange. He didn't seem too interested. He was deep in movie producer mode.

"Okay, look, when we get there let me do the talking," he said.

"Jamie doesn't like a hard sell, but he's got a shrewd eye for a hit. He also knows what works for him. This is right in his sweet spot, so he's gonna know it without us overdoing the whole story pitch. Sometimes less is more."

"We can't tell him the whole story. Remember, the gold bullion thing is still off-limits."

"Shit, he's gonna be in Prague. Who's he gonna tell in East Europe? We can trust him."

"It's off-limits. We can only pitch Vulcuna, not the Brinks truck." I was hanging on to this slender distinction as if it was some sort of important moral distinction. "You tell him about the gold bullion, I'll put you under arrest right in front of him," I said hotly.

"Okay, okay. Don't go all Dirty Harry on me." Hitch downshifted as he made the turn away from the ocean onto Trancas Canyon Drive.

"So how's this?" he said. "We use the fact that we can't tell him anything to tease him. Y'know, like, 'We can't tell you everything, J, because it is so fucking hot, we've been sworn to secrecy by the LAPD, FBI, and the entire Department of Homeland Security. But it's huge and involves over thirty million in liquid assets. And once it goes public it's gonna be on the cover of Time and People magazine.' How's that?"

"Nothing about money," I said, my neck bowing.

"A liquid asset isn't money. It could be stocks or even real estate priced to sell. Come on. If we get Jamie to do this, we just doubled our back end in one hour."

"No," I said. I had my teeth clenched as I spit that one word through them.

I felt ridiculous having this argument. After all, selling out was selling out. The only thing we were arguing about was degree. I was so far out of character, I was afraid I would meet myself coming the other way down Trancas Canyon Road.

At the top of the hill, the landscape was rolling grass and majestic rocks. The view was spectacular up here. The ocean stretched out two thousand feet below us, blue as sapphire and just as ageless.

"Jamie's assistant said Canyon Ridge Drive." Hitch was looking at his scribbled directions. "He's buying twenty acres up here as an investment. Fuck if I can find it." Then he put the car in gear and pulled farther up the road to read a sign.

"Ah, there it is."

He downshifted again and turned onto a small unpaved feeder road. After we were about two hundred yards in, we were forced to stop because a large pile of boulders blocked the way.

"Fucking rock slide," Hitch said. "Even God has turned against me."

"Hitch."

He didn't answer.

"Hitch."

"What is it?" he snapped. "We're running out of time. We gotta get around this rock slide."

"I don't think it's a rock slide. There are no loose rocks or boulders up there." I pointed up at the grassy hillside above us.

"If it's not a rock slide, what is it?"

"A barricade."

As soon as I said this, the first rifle shot rang out.

The windshield on the Carrera shattered right by Hitch's head, but the tempered glass saved his life because it ricocheted the bullet.

That shot was followed by two more. I felt the wind from the second one as it whizzed by my cheek and hit the headrest behind Hitch. It was almost a full second before I heard the retort. From that one-second sound delay, I knew whoever was shooting at us was a long way off using a scoped rifle.

Hitch ducked low, threw the car in reverse, and roared out of there, churning up dust and gravel.

The fourth and fifth shots slammed the front of the sports car, blowing furrows into the hood. Fortunately, on a Porsche, the engine is over the rear wheels so nothing vital was hit and we kept going.

"Hold on!" Hitch screamed. Then he put the Porsche into a smoking one-eighty bootlegger's turn and we were back on Trancas Canyon, burning rubber from all four tires. Two more shots followed, but they were wild and missed.

We were finally out of range. Hitch pulled over at the first turnout while I snatched up the radio.

"This is Delta-28. LAPD officers need help on Trancas Canyon Road in Malibu. Cross street Ocean View. Shots fired. Were in the county. Notify the sheriffs substation in Malibu."

"Roger that. LAPD D-28 needs help on Trancas Canyon Road and Ocean View. Shots fired. Contacting LASD. Stand by."

"We can't run away. We gotta go back up there and catch that shooter," I said.

Just then a red and white Bell Jet Ranger rose up from the hilltop behind us. The helicopter hovered for a moment before it headed north, speeding away.

"Too late," Hitch said. "There goes our Michael Bay factor. The two assholes in a chopper." He heaved a frustrated sigh. "Look what they did to my beautiful car!"

"Forget the car. You can fix it. We need to move fast. The shit just jumped off. They're gonna go back to that ranch in the Valley and tell Diego San Diego they missed us. He's gonna run. We got less than an hour to pull this together."

Chapter
50.

After the chopper left, we didn't stick around for the L
. A
. Sheriff's Department to arrive. I called in a Code Four as Hitch sped along Trancas Canyon toward the ocean.

We'd decided against going back up to find the shooter's nest and look for brass in favor of making a move on Diego's ranch.

"I hate what they did to this car. Can't see shit through this busted windshield," Hitch groused, squinting through shattered glass.

"Forget the car. I can't believe all this materialistic bullshit."

"It's not just the car that's got me so bummed. It's also the fact they got to Jamie," he said. "How could he have given me up? The guy was my tight."

"They didn't get to Jamie. Jamie doesn't even know about this unless you blabbed it to him, too."

Hitch looked over at me as he snap-shifted into third and simultaneously took a hairpin turn too fast. His eyes were off the road.

"Watch where you're fucking going!" I yelled.

He looked back, swerved, stayed on the road. "You're right. Of course Jamie's not involved. He couldn't be. Guy loves me. But then how did they know to call us and lure us up there?"

"I don't know. How much did you really tell your dumb-ass agents?"

"Nothing! Do I have to take a damn polygraph?"

I
didn't answer, but when he looked over I was probably scowling.

"If we're gonna be partners, you've gotta develop a little trust," he said, sounding pissed.

I snapped my fingers. "Your plates. That security guard at Rancho San Diego. I bet he got your license plate when he followed you down the hill."

"That's gotta be it. Powerful guy like San Diego must have some police connections. He could have run it. My association with Jamie is all over the Internet. Once they knew who I was, one of San Diego's guys could have called me, pretending to be Jamie's assistant."

"Listen, Hitch. We're way behind here. We're chasing this. We need to get out in front."

"Gee, whatever gave you that idea? The five fucking bullets in my car?"

My mind was racing. "We've gotta get back to the PAB fast. We got no time, but we've gotta set up a takedown."

"I'm going as fast as I can," he said, roaring around some slow
-
moving traffic.

"We've got to hit that horse farm and bust San Diego this morning. That means judges, warrants, even SWAT."

"Exactly!"

We were now on the Coast Highway roaring past Moonshadows. Hitch started to downshift. "Forget my car. Leave it," I said, shouting over the slipstreaming wind.

I pulled out my cell phone and dialed the office. "This is Scully. Gimme Jeb," I told the probationer on our call desk.

A minute later I had the captain on the line. "Jeb, the Vulcuna case went hot. Hitch and I were just fired on, ambushed up in Trancas Canyon." Then I told him about Diego San Diego and explained what I needed.

"I think this guy is some kind of retired Colombian scumbag," I said. "You need to get Dahlia to start writing warrants."

"What kind of warrants?"

"Anything she can get a judge to sign. Search, arrest, evidence gathering. We need to lock that ranch of his down before he splits."

"Thats kinda vague for a warrant," Jeb said. "You need to give me some probable cause."

I looked at Hitch. "He says we need PC."

"Tell him what those assholes did to my car."

"They dumped six or eight rounds down on us from a hillside with a scoped rifle," I told Jeb. "That's attempted murder of two police officers. We've got some of the slugs with us in Hitch's car. That's gotta be good enough to get us paper. This has to happen now. These guys are shooters so you better notify SWAT. We'll need to use their warrant delivery team."

"I'm on it. Get in here," Jeb instructed. He'd been my boss for several years and I knew he trusted my instincts. I could hear nervous energy in his voice as I hung up.

We raced onto the freeway, made it to the interchange in a miraculous ten minutes.

Then I called Barrv Matthews in Financial Crimes. "We're out o
f t
ime ," I told him. "I'm about twenty blocks away. What have you got for me?"

"I'll meet you in your office in ten," he said. "You got something?"

"Yeah," he said. "Get ready to be very happy."

Chapter
51.

We got to the Police Administration Building in record time. The last few miles of the trip the Porsche had begun making loud growling sounds that didn't sound too healthy. Hitch pulled his bullet-riddled Carrera into an empty parking spot.

"Those assholes are gonna feel the Hitchmeister's full and complete wrath over what they did to my ride he said, slamming the drivers-side door in frustration. When he did that, most of the windshield glass fell into the front seat.

We hurried upstairs. Jeb, Dahlia, and Alexa were already there. Because she had been a primary responder on the original case, and because she really missed this stuff, Alexa was taking some time away from the department budget wars to help us sort it out.

Two or three other Homicide Special cops were already talking to a warrant delivery team, lining up tactical support.

"I think we re gonna want more than one SWAT," Hitch suggested. "These guys have already piled up five corpses. This morning they tried to make it seven. They're a bunch of trigger-happy assholes with long guns and helicopters. How much PC do we need before we can make a move?" The Hitchmeister on a rant.