Hollywood Tough

Chapter 43

Chooch called to say he was on his way home, so Tony took Nora back to Malibu while Shane and Alexa waited.

An hour later his son walked into the kitchen through the back door, looking tired and dispirited as he slumped down in a chair at the kitchen table and shoved his hands deep into his pants pockets.

"Dad, she doesn't even know I'm there," he said. "She looks right through me. The doctors say it's part of the PTSD, but I'm worried. She's not getting any better."

"Honey, you can't hope for too much, too soon," Alexa counseled.

"I don't know what else to do." Chooch's voice was so low, Shane had to lean forward to hear him.

"You want me to call and talk to the psychiatrist?" Shane offered.

"No. Dr. Sloan's been great. She said exactly what Mom just said… that it's going to take time. But I can't stand to see Delfina that way. It's killing me." Chooch told them he was going to spend the night at home, then go back first thing in the morning. He got up and headed toward his room to take a shower.

Shane and Alexa remained in the kitchen, looking after him.

"Hard lessons," Alexa finally said.

Shane nodded. "Life can be a bitch."

"I've got to get back to the office. I'm running a briefing at nine A. M. SO I'll probably sleep down there."

Shane reached out and took her hand. "No, you will not," he said. "You're going to leave it alone for eight hours and sleep right here, in our bed, with me."

She looked at him for a long moment. "God, wouldn't that be great for a change?"

"You're not leaving. You can't be much help down there, half-conscious like you are. I'll set the alarm for six."

So they had a scotch in the backyard and watched the moonlight ripple on the still canal. Then they got up and went inside to their bedroom.

Shane watched from the bed as she undressed, marveling again at how blessed he'd been to win her. His early life as a child had been so filled with disappointment and darkness, maybe the Grand Pooh-Bah of Karma had decided he was finally due for a psychic paycheck. God knows, Alexa and Chooch had more than balanced the scale.

She turned and caught him looking at her. "Whatta you leering at, buddy?" She smiled.

"Just checkin' out your booty," Shane admitted, then he reached out and she came to him.

They made love for almost an hour. Afterward they lay in each other's arms. He kissed her and felt her heart beating against his chest. Finally they both found comfort in sleep.

When he awoke the next morning, it was eight A. M. He had not heard the alarm ring, and after he checked, he discovered that Alexa and Chooch had already left the house. He showered, dressed, then drove down to Parker Center. Alexa's Crown Vic was in her assigned space. The hood was already cold, so she'd been there for hours.

By nine-thirty he was standing with Lee Fineburg in the Records Services Division, watching the wiry geek make notes while he talked.

"My target's name is Nicholas Marcella. He has an apartment at the Hollywood Towers, but he's gone. I think he may be with his married sister, but I don't have a clue what her first or last name is. They were both originally from Teaneck, New Jersey."

Lee finished writing all of this down, then, without speaking, spun toward his computer and went to work.

First he tried the New Jersey DMV. There were twenty Marcellas listed in Teaneck, ten more in the burbs. Twelve were women, so he wrote their names down.

Next he searched the L. A. County Marriage Records database looking for women with one of those maiden names. He found one match: Elizabeth Marcella.

Fineburg studied the information on the screen. He found that Elizabeth Marcella had been wed on June 12, 1998, to Lawrence "Butch" Finta.

"I think I found her," the computer geek said. "Her married name is Elizabeth Finta." Then he went to the Unified Phone Listings, punched in the name Lawrence Finta, and presto… out came the address: 2358 Coast Highway, Torrance, California.

The guy was a magician.

The house was on the corner of PCH and Higuera, two blocks from the ocean. Shane parked a short distance up the street and took stock of the place. Butch and Elizabeth Finta weren't spending much time or money on maintenance. The yard was overgrown, the house needed paint, and there was an old, slant-nose silver van parked in the driveway, which looked like a giant rusting suppository.

Shane decided that the best and quickest way was the most direct. Since he could probably run little Nicky down in a footrace, he got out of the car and walked to the front door. Shane tried to peek in a window, but the shades were drawn. He knocked, and after a minute heard Nicky calling through the door, "Go away!"

Shane pitched his voice an octave higher. "UPS, I need a signature!"

The door opened and, for a moment, Nicky Marcella was standing there, looking ridiculous in tennis shorts and a green Hawaiian shirt with huge red and yellow flowers. But this riotous vision was only temporary because Nicky immediately spun and bolted through the house.

Shane shot after him and almost caught him in the first five steps-reached out and missed by inches, coming up with a fistful of air.

Like a slippery rat, Nicky was out the back door, zigzagging across a yard strewn with old auto parts and rusting junk. He hit and jackknifed over the six-foot grape stake, agile as a spider monkey, landing on the other side.

Unfortunately, Shane hit the fence like a walrus, oofing loudly, dragging himself up, getting splinters in his palms, finally lurching over, landing in a heap next door.

What happened next was sort of embarrassing. Nicky the Pooh left Shane in the dust.

Maybe it was all that barking like a dog, or running away from bullies in high school that had made him so fast. Nicky flew down a space between the adjoining houses, using his diminutive size to slip through an opening in the neighbor's fence.

Shane hit the same hole like a linebacker, knocking the shit out of himself in the process. By then Nicky was down the street, around the corner.

Nicky was widening the lead, while Shane was beginning to wheeze and growl. The sounds coming out of his throat sounded like a low chord on an accordion. His lungs were heaving, his footsteps slowing.

Salvation finally arrived in the form of a little Yamaha crotch-rocket. The yellow-and-white motorcycle buzzed around the corner going too fast. Nicky was running in the middle of the street, looking back over his shoulder at Shane, when the Yamaha sideswiped him and knocked the little grifter into the gutter.

Shane hoofed up to him, bent down with his hands on his knees, sucking air, while he tried to catch his breath. Nicky the Pooh was still conscious, but lying on his side moaning. Miraculously, he wasn't bleeding. Shane put a hand down on Nicky's shoulder. "Gotcha," he finally wheezed.

The motorcyclist was a geeky teenager with a pubescent goatee, growing in unevenly like wispy plugs of sage. "Hey, dude, like, I didn't see ya."

"I'm suing," Nicky managed between groans.

"Asshole, you were in the middle of the fucking street," Shane angrily exclaimed.

"You willing t' be my witness?" the boy asked Shane. "Not gonna be any lawsuit." Shane flashed his badge. "You can take off."

The kid was gone before Shane finished the sentence. Nicky pulled himself up. "Jesus, whatta you doin' here?" he whined.

"Selling life insurance. You gotta lot of explaining to do." Shane took the little grifter by his shirt collar, dragged him back to his sister's house, and shoved him down on the sofa in a cluttered living room that smelled of air freshener.

"Okay, Nicky, I've got most of it. I figure it was you who introduced Valentine to Champion. That's the only way it makes sense. But this thing keeps growing and I'm not sure I can see the edges anymore. So here's your choice. Start talking or start bleeding."

"Shane, I think I broke something here…"

"I'm gonna break everything 'less you open up." "I don't know what you're talking about."

Shane slapped him.

Actually, he didn't mean to hit him as hard as he did, but just as he swung, Nicky exploded upward, attempting a second escape, and he walked right into it. The sound was like a rifle crack. Nicky flew backwards into the faded upholstery, whining again.

"Nicky, I want to know exactly where this drug deal is going down. Arizona is a big state."

"I don't know, Shane. You think those two arrogant pricks would tell me anything?"

"How are you gonna dime 'em out if you don't know where they are?"

"Who said I'm gonna-"

"I did. You hate these two guys. You're setting them both up."

"Oh, that… Yeah," Nicky answered, rubbing the side of his face, which was red where Shane had smacked him. "Let's go. I'm out of patience here."

"I know a huge Mexican from the one short bit I did in County. Guy was an Eme named Julian Hernandez-Tortilla Fats-weighed over four hundred pounds. He's a veterano in the Eighteenth Street Surenos. I called him, told him what Farrell and Valentine were doing, how they were working with the black gangs to take over the drug trade in L. A."

"So that's why Amac tried to hit Dennis Valentine in front of Ciro's Pompadoro. Without Valentine, there'd be no White Dragon the Emes wouldn't have to compete on that new line of drugs."

Nicky slowly nodded.

"It was probably Amac who scooped Farrell out of the water in front of his Malibu house," Shane said, thinking aloud. "Amac will get Farrell to talk, then he'll be in Arizona when the black gangs and Valentine meet to close the deal. I need to know where that meeting is, Nicky."

"I told you: I don't have a clue. But believe me, Shane, everything those two pricks got coming, it ain't enough."

"Nicky, I'm caught up in this. My son got caught up in it. His girlfriend is in the hospital because of it."

"Much as I hate to say it, bunky, that's kinda your problem, not mine."

"Only I'm making it yours."

"I swear, Shane. You can beat me till my ears bleed. I got no more info. I told Tortilla Fats. He told his Eme brothers, end of story. I'm out of it."

"And you're just gonna hide out here till the shooting stops?"

"Yep. My sister went on a camping trip with Butch, so I'm just watching TV, waiting to hear those two gonifs are dead."

Shane pulled Nicky off the sofa, but the little grifter dug his heels in. "I ain't goin' nowhere, Shane, so don't try and make me."

Shane pushed him hard, driving him toward the door. "Okay, I'm goin' then. But I'm not very good at this. In fact, I'm a-"

"Coward… I know. I'll show ya how to get over that."

Shane dragged Nicky the Pooh out of his sister's house and took him for a long-overdue meeting with Chief Filosiani.