Chapter 24

WISEGUY THEATER

This time on his way home Shane stopped at a mini-market and bought a six-pack of Amstel Light and a bag of tortilla chips. When he got back to North Chalon Road and let himself in, he was concerned that neither Chooch nor Alexa were home yet. It was after ten P. M., so he looked up the number of the library, dialed, then heard a recorded message announcing that they opened at seven and closed at nine.

Shane glanced out toward the backyard and saw Franco outside on the pool deck, looking in through the sliding glass door. Shane and Alexa had decided to keep him inside for a few days to reacclimate him, but somehow the cat had gotten out. Shane unlocked the pool door and pushed it open. Franco rushed inside.

"Who let you out?" he asked.

Nobody should have been inside from the time he left the house with Gino, at around seven. That only left one answer…

Shane went to the garage, took the LAPD 2300 Frequency Finder out of his trunk, and brought the unit inside. It had a battery pack, as well as a long, retractable cord. He inserted the plug, then began his sweep in the living room.

The first bug he found was in the phone receiver; it was the size of half an aspirin tablet. Shane found a second bug under a lampshade.

In the bedroom there were two more: one in the desk phone, another taped to the back of the headboard. A fifth bug was in the kitchen above the air vent; a sixth, hidden in the den.

Filosiani had called it right.

Shane opened a beer, then went out the front door to sit on the curb. He pulled out his phone and dialed Chooch's cell first. He got the "subscriber is outside the area" recording, then tried Alexa, who answered on the second ring.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"About a block from Chalon Road."

"Pick me up, I'm sitting out front."

He walked inside, got her a beer, then returned to the curb just as Alexa pulled up in her dark brown police-issue Crown Vic. Shane climbed in and pointed toward the end of the block.

"Where we going?" she asked.

"Tell you in a minute. You know where Chooch is?" "Library."

"Closed an hour ago."

"Listen, Shane, he's seventeen. We lifted his curfew. He's supposed to be growing up, managing his own life. There're lots of times he gets home late. We've gotta let him have some room."

"Honey, his phone is off and I'm scared to death he's gonna get dragged into this gang case you're working." He pointed to the curb. "Here's good."

She pulled over and stopped the car. He handed her a beer.

"Why are we having happy hour in my car?"

"House got bugged."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

Then he told her what had happened, and how he had spent the evening.

She listened until he finished, then pulled the tab on her beer. It chirped loudly in the car. Alexa downed half the can at once. She drank beer like a guy. It was just one of the hundreds of little things Shane loved about his wife.

"Of course, you know if you'd let that happen, we'd all be out of the movie business by now," Alexa said. Shane nodded but said nothing.

"You report the shooting at the Pompadoro to the detectives downtown?" she asked.

"My cell isn't working too good in this weather," he hedged.

"Pretty pathetic, Shane."

"Okay, look. I've been kinda busy."

"What about Parelli, you think he's still alive, or is he L. A.'s newest one eighty-seven?"

"Far as I know, he's still breathing. But Alexa, we don't want to report it. I'm next to Valentine now. If this investigation goes wide and Dennis gets sucked in, my cover gets blown."

She nodded, then finally turned to face him. "Okay, I'll handle the chief. Don't report anything."

"Good."

"You have any idea who made that phone call at the restaurant, lured you outta the way?"

"I been trying to dope that out. Here's what I've come up with so far…"

Alexa remained silent.

"Since it was Emes in that work car, it had to be Amac's hit," Shane started, "one of his vatos probably cased the restaurant to position Valentine for the shooters. The scout could have been at Paradise Square and saw me when they took me to meet Amac. He calls Amac, and says I'm in there. Amac calls me to the phone to get me outta the way."

Alexa looked over at him and took another long swig on the beer. "I guess it could have gone down that way," she said. "So, if Amac is trying to clip Dennis Valentine, I guess we know what that tells us."

"Tells us Valentine's probably the one organizing the Crips and Bloods, and importing the White Dragon?"

"Could these two cases really be interrelated?" she speculated, her brow furrowed in doubt. "In police work, the first rule is never trust a coincidence."

"It's not a coincidence. Valentine moves to L. A. with his uncle's blessing. But do you really think they're only gonna do this showbiz deal, or is Dennis also gonna open up all the traditional mob rackets: drugs, guns, prostitution, porno?"

"He'd try and control everything," Alexa said.

"Right. So that means we gotta figure there's a good chance Valentine is behind your drug war. The timing makes sense. He shows up, Stone dies, Crips and Bloods unite to distribute heroin, then White Dragon samples hit the street. You said the DEA would have picked up a Mexican or Colombian smuggler, but they didn't, so maybe it's the Italians. So it follows that if the Emes know Valentine's supplying the black gangs with drugs, they would want to clip him."

Alexa finished her beer in three giant swallows, then crumpled the can and dropped it on the seat between them. "Welcome to my case."

"Hey, we're a great team. Even when we don't know what the fuck we're doing, we score."

"No shit… we're the best…" She smiled. "The rubber gun squad."

"Your call," Shane said. "I still work for you."

"I guess we go back to the house and put on a show for the bent noses."

They parked her car in the garage and went inside. Shane gave her another beer, took a second one for himself, then walked her around the house, silently pointing out the bugs. She nodded at each one, then pointed at him and mimed grinding a camera-show time.

She went to the front door, opened it, then slammed it loudly.

"Hi, honey. Where've you been?" Shane called out. Alexa walked into the living room.

"Those pricks downtown! I swear I'd like to shoot that fucking Filosiani," she said.

They both moved over to the bugged lamp in the living room. Alexa sat near it, but Shane started moving around the room to change the sound density on the mike. He'd heard tapes on hundreds of bugs and they were never clean recordings.

"Whatta you expect?" Shane said, roaming around, picking up a magazine, then dropping it. "Y'know it's all politics down there."

"Right. I'm busting my ass and all I'm getting is grief. Did you read that horrible article in yesterday's Times?" she asked.

"Yeah, saw it after you left. Pathetic."

"Sometimes I just want to pull the pin. Get the hell out, like you did," Alexa fumed.

Shane crossed to her and sat. "Listen, I met a guy tonight, a guy nobody in our Organized Crime Bureau even knows is in town."

"Do we need to discuss this now?" She sounded bored. "I'm really tired."

"Yeah, we do. Our OCB spotters shoulda picked him up at LAX, but he slipped in here. Your hotshot goomba squad missed him completely. He's a made guy from the East Coast."

"Just what I need. Now I gotta deal with some vacationing wiseguy while I got all this other shit to contend with."

"He's not on vacation. He's in town to set up a new business."

"Who is he?"

"If I tell you, you gotta promise it stays with us. I don't want this going to OCB."

Alexa remained silent. They both waited patiently, then Alexa cleared her throat. "Just tell me; let's not play this game."

So Shane gave her a glowing account of Dennis Valentine: telling her how smart he was, how careful, and how he was intending to take over IATSE. He ran through it point by point, leaving nothing out.

When he finished, Alexa was quiet for almost a minute. "If he tries to organize a labor union, I can promise, we'll shoot it down-fast!" she exclaimed.

"Honey, stop thinking like a cop for a minute. This is a chance to get rich. He offered me a piece of his scam. He'll make us partners. If he pulls it off, it's worth a fortune."

"You think he can really do that? Take over IATSE? How much can that be worth?" She sounded both amazed and skeptical at the same time. Alexa, like most cops, was a superb actor.

"What if, tomorrow, I handed you a hundred thousand in cash for just having a meeting with him and saying you're willing to think about it?"

"A hundred thousand to just think about it? You're kidding."

"I'm telling you, this guy is for real. He's serious."

"A hundred thousand for just talking to him?"

"All he wants now is for us to agree to agree. Once he starts cutting special deals with producers and studios, he's afraid some union guy will squawk. Then it could go to the D. A. for an investigation. If it does, all he wants is for you to put the right guy on it. A guy we can control."

"You're serious?"

"Honey, this is our little winery and restaurant in Mill Valley. This is all our dreams answered; a chance at a peaceful, normal life away from all that glass-house bullshit."

She finally said, "I'm not saying I'm absolutely gonna do it, but I think we should hear him out. Why don't you call him back and set something up?"

They left the room and went out to the pool; Franco trailed along behind them. They sat on the pool deck sofa and Shane put his arm around her. She leaned her head on his shoulder, while Franco licked his paws, cleaned his face, and watched.

Shane's mind was lasering over his myriad of problems.

Chooch was now exposed to Valentine as well as to Amac. Shane was worried about that and was slowly becoming very depressed over it. He wished the boy would come home so he could hold and hug him. He wished he could send his son away to protective custody until this was all over.

Alexa picked up on his thoughts like a Gypsy mind reader.

"I know," she said softly. "I'm worried about him, too."

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