the Viking Funeral (2001) (13 page)

Then he sensed movement behind him.

He spun around, but he was way too late.

Chapter
17.

THE FIRST THING Shane became aware of was a fetid, throat-constricting stench. He was still unconscious; the smell had started in the middle of a confusing, kaleidoscopic dream. The odor filled his nostrils, becoming stronger and more unpleasant as consciousness gradually returned. Getting his eyes open was a little like prying up a manhole cover with his fingernails.

He was finally looking at a damp, rusting metal wall; his hands were locked painfully behind him. Finally Shane realized he was sitting on a metal floor, handcuffed to some kind of structural support... all of this drifting through his thoughts without making much of an impact. The back of his head throbbed where he had been hit, and a sharp pain pulsed behind his eyes, threatening to explode with each heartbeat. Suddenly a moment of panic and a surge of adrenaline. His thoughts focused; his senses returned.

Cold, bluish light hissing from a Coleman lantern hanging from a knotted rope on the ceiling; the radio he took from Shephard's house, on a nearby table, on the edge of his peripheral vision; three..
. N
o, two men, talking low.

"Was me, I'd come correct on the man." The sentence had a Mexican lilt. The second voice was deep and rumbling. Shane recognized the same African American speech rhythm from the UHF radio broadcast he had overheard from the house on Dolores Street. He had to concentrate hard to translate the rich ghetto idiom.

"We all be flossin'. You hear what I be sayin'? Jody's all'a time treating us like we just studio gangstas hangin' round, tryin' t'get served. He ain't da only one bustin' moves here. Know what I'm sayin'?"

"You a tough cabeza when Jody ain't in the room, but you just doin' fake jacks, nigger." A chair scraped.

"Ain't afraid a'Jody--fuck Jody," the black voice said, then added: "I think Casper's over there lyin' in the cut. Check him out."

Shane heard footsteps, then a face loomed into view. The man had tangled shoulder
-
length hair and a bushy black beard laid up against dark, swarthy skin. He looked Hispanic, but his eyes were an odd color for a Latin, a strange light gray--hooded eyes, set deep under massive, bony brows. He shoved his chin down in Shane's face and studied him.

Could this be the late Sergeant Hector Rodriquez?

When the man spoke, the Mexican idiom disappeared. Now his tone was condescending, more like a cop talking to a street criminal: "How's things down there in Shitsville, Scully?"

Shane heard another chair scrape, and a second face swung into view. This was the
African American who'd exited the pool
-
cleaning truck when Shane was trapped in the noise-abatement house. He was ebony black, and now that the man had his baseball cap off, Shane could see that he had shaved his head. From his right ear hung a long chain with a cross dangling at the end of it. His tank top was ripped and dirty.

"How long you been listening Scully?" the African American said.

Shane could smell booze on his breath. "Where's Jody?" Shane's pinched voice echoed weakly in the windowless space.

"Ain't here," the Mexican said.

"Are you cops?"

The black man looked at Shane and gave his answer careful consideration before he spoke. "We was makin' weak-ass music, y'know? Hadda leave da jam. You come along and be tryin' t'collect for the trip. 'Cept now all you be doin' is waitin' on the big bus."

The confusing ghetto-speak made Shane's head throb. "Get Jody. I got something he'll want to hear, something important." Shane was trying to focus, to collect his scattered thoughts. He didn't know how long he'd been unconscious. He couldn't see outside and didn't know if it was day or night. As his senses cleared, he began to feel the gentle lapping of water against the outside of the metal wall he was cuffed to. He thought maybe he was on a big rusting boat, somewhere down by the harbor. "I got something important to tell Jody," he repeated.

"You don't tell nobody shit. You assed
-
out big-time, muthafucka," the African American said softly. "You shot Victory. Fuckin' guy is moaning and crying'. We hadda smuggle him down t'Mexico t'get him fixed."

"Victory?" Shane asked.

"Peter Smith. Man calls hisself 'Victory' 'cause he say he never loses. He's the--"

"Hey, Inky Dink," the Mexican interrupted. "Shut up. Yer mama ain't here, so who you tryin' to impress?"

"Don't matter... Fuckin' guy's dead anyway."

Then, either because he had been disrespected or to make his point, the black ex-cop stepped forward and grabbed Shane, jerking him up violently. Shane's hands were still cuffed to some kind of structural support, so his wrists exploded in pain as he came abruptly to the end of the chain. His head and torso were only three feet off the floor, his shoulders aching, barely able to keep his legs under him.

"I told Jody we shoulda capped you when you went to see his old lady..
. W
hen you talked to the Good Shepherd," the black ex-cop said angrily. "But he says no. He's got some fuckin' issues with you. Like what you two white boys did in Little League makes a shitload of difference t'anything. But he ain't here t'cover ya, so guess what? We gonna come correct on yo' white-slice ass."

He hit Shane with a thundering right cross.

Darkness swarmed, and Shane was knocked back inside his head. For a second he was stil
l c
onscious, peering out through a tiny hole of light that quickly narrowed.

Then he was swimming in black..
. D
reamless... unattached... alone.

Chapter
18.

You AMAZE ME," the voice said.

Shane kept his eyes closed; his head was down on his chest. His jaw felt dislocated. He was trying to get his jumbled thoughts in order, standing on the front porch of a disaster, rehearsing opening lines like a teenager on his first date.

Jody's voice droned: "You runnin' all over, talkin' to Glass House brass. I always held your back, Hot Sauce. How come ya' couldn't hold mine?"

Shane still didn't answer.

"Give it up, man. I can see ya thinkin' in there. I read you like the funny papers. Open yer eyes, or I'm gonna set your socks on fire."

So Shane opened his eyes and looked up.

Jody was still greyhound-lean, his stringy muscles flexed and bulged under an old LAPD T
-
shirt that read sis..
. W
E MAKE HOUSE CALLS. Copper hair hung in long, untended ringlet
s a
round his head. His tangled beard had not been trimmed. But Jody's X-ray eyes were drilling, piercing holes in Shane's paper-thin psyche.

"I was countin' on you, Salsa, but you didn't come through. It was all I could do to keep my crew from swingin' by your house and giving you a shiny new set of nine-millimeter nipple jewelry."

"You're hanging out with very frank company," Shane mumbled softly; his throat was sore, his jaw was popping cartilage painfully when he spoke. "Your crew thinks you're a piece of shit."

"Two weeks more and none a'that matters. I can hold it together." He smiled, and for a second, Shane saw the old Jody from Little League, smirking after a tough out, joy mixed with sarcasm, as if his charmed life were still just a practical joke on everyone.

It was time to make his pitch. Shane felt weak and dull, not up to the task, but he had no choice. He wondered what day it was..
. H
ow long he'd been unconscious.... He wondered if he needed to adjust the Chief's carefully worked-out timetable.

"You got something you're about to lay on me, Hot Sauce. So, get to it." Jody was back inside his head, browsing, uninvited.

"What time is it?" Shane started. "What day?"

"Two A
. M
. Tuesday morning."

"Tomorrow at nine A
. M
., the department is gonna know all you guys are still alive."

"I don't think so."

"Commander Shephard had a secret safe in his office. He kept a file on your unit behind your back. Alexa found it. She's taking it to Filosiani tomorrow morning." Shane watched Jody for a flicker of interest or concern but saw nothing. "The whole thing is written in some kinda number code," Shane continued. "Once Filosiani gets it, he's gonna send it over to Questioned Documents. They're gonna scan it into their computer and they'll probably be able to break it in a day or two. Then everything you did to Medwick and Shephard is gonna be for nothin'."

"Medwick and Shephard?"

"You killed 'em."

"I what?" Jody smiled. "Why would I kill those guys?"

"Because they were the only two left who knew that you and this squad of yours exists."

Jody was squatting before him, Indian
-
style. Shane remembered that Jody could squat on his haunches like that for hours; his thighs, like steel, never seemed to tire. He was looking at Shane carefully, reading him like always but never giving away his own thoughts. Jody's face was granite, so Shane had to push his bet. He shoved more chips out. "If that file says you and these other guys aren't dead, then the department is gonna figure you killed Shephard and Medwick so you could disappear. Once they believe that, there isn't a town high enough up in the Andes or far enough out in the bush for you to hide."

A long, tense moment was punctuated by the distant moan of a foghorn. Shane was now pretty sure he was inside one of the old deserted freighters he'd seen chained to the docks in Long Beach or San Pedro.

"I think you still got something else you want to tell me. This ain't all of it," Jody finally said.

"Jody, I've been fucked over by the department." Shane repeated the lines they had all come up with in the coffee shop across from Filosiani's office.

"No shit."

"I made that Naval Yard case, not Alexa, but they gave all the credit to her, gave her the Medal of Valor while I got a psych review. While she makes lieutenant, I'm stuck in a basket
-
weaving class. At first I was pissed. Now I'm just looking to get paid." Jody didn't respond, so Shane pressed his bet again--threw in some more chips. "When I saw you on the freeway, I was hurt," Shane continued. "You should've told me what was going on--that you were alive. I was like your brother. That's why I went to Medwick's house and to see Lauren. I couldn't believe you'd do this to me..
. L
et me think you'd killed yourself."

"I had no choice, Shane. It was a department
-
sanctioned deep-cover op. Medwick set it up. Got the phony coroner and death-scene photos made. CGI, they call it--computer-generated imaging. He got us all undercover driver's licenses out of ATD, where they bury 'em with high-security numbers. Only Medwick and Mayweather could access them." ATD was the Anti-Terrorist Division; among othe
r t
hings, it supplied bogus IDs for undercover cops on deep-cover stings. "I couldn't tell you, Salsa.... It was a black ops case."

"Bullshit. You told Lauren."

"Right. And look what it did to her."

No turning back now. "Whatever it is you got goin',1 want in," he said. "I know you're about to score, and I know it's gonna be big."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You're not doing doors for the department anymore..
. Y
ou're way past that. You're running some kinda high-dollar conspiracy. For you to be taking this big a risk, it has to be huge."

Jody was still squatting before him, elbows propped on knees, hands straight out, not moving, studying him intently. Shane tried to make his thoughts neutral so Jody couldn't crawl back inside his head and read the lies.

"I was gonna use that UHF radio I found at Shephard's to contact you," Shane continued, "to set up a meet..
. B
ut you moved first. I wanted to tell you, I think I have a way to save this for you, but if I do, I want in. I want an equal share."

"You're dreamin', Salsa."

"Jody, the department is going to find me unfit to return to duty and they're gonna take back my pension. Twenty years on the job goes in the shitter.... They're gonna gig me, I can smell it."

"I warned ya," Jody said. "In police work, it's all about CYA."

"Covering your ass. Yeah.... So you better listen to me and cover yours. Since Shephard died, Alexa Hamilton is the temporary head of DSG. I told her I saw you on the freeway. She's goin' to Filosiani with it tomorrow. Since she's just won the MOV, he's liable to believe her."

"Good goin', Salsa," Jody growled. "How's this supposed to help me?"

"I call her up, tell her I figured the number code that Medwick's file is using. Tell her the numbered file she found in his secret safe is not an arithmetic sequence but a key-book code and that I found the key book. I'll set up a secret meeting with her in some deserted spot, tell her if she brings the file, I'll bring the key book, so we can break the code together. She's an ambitious bitch. She'll come because she'll want to claim the credit."