Hollywood Tough

Chapter 46

Nicky the Pooh escaped from them at the long stoplight, two blocks north of Parker Center. He simply opened the door, bolted out of the chief's Crown Vic, and took off running. The last thing Shane saw was a glimpse of riotous green silk billowing off the little grifter's back as he dashed around the front bumper of a van.

"Let him go," Shane said to Alexa and Tony, refusing to humiliate himself again by trying to run Nicky down.

They arrived at Burbank Airport's Police Air Unit a little after one P. M. Shane and Alexa followed Filosiani over to a small, black twin-engine King Air that had been flying drugs up from Mexico until last March, when the pilot had lost power and landed on the Ventura Freeway in the middle of the night. The LAPD had arrested him, confiscated the King Air, and now used it to fly high-ranking officers to different law enforcement conventions around the state. The little plane was a turboprop with a top speed of around three hundred mph without headwinds.

The police department had a fleet of choppers, but only one fixed-wing airplane. The pilot was a grizzly bear of a man who was standing by the boarding ladder as Shane, Alexa, and Tony climbed the steps and settled into the comfortable dove-gray seats. Soon the propellers were spinning and the plane was taxiing down the runway.

They hadn't heard back yet on their computer tax search of dairies in Arizona. Their plan was to get moving anyway, fly in the general direction of Flagstaff, which was north of Phoenix, and hope that the search yielded results before they got too far off course.

They lifted off, climbed over the San Gabriel Mountains, and in ten minutes, were flying east over the California desert. The flat, dry landscape was endless, stretching below them like a sandy brown carpet.

The chief was working the phone, trying not to sound like a pissed-off commander kicking ass, but he was demanding results. "Put a few more people on it! Use the guys over at Computer Management Division."

"Try Lee Fineburg," Shane suggested. "He's in Records and Services, Special Duties. Guy's a genius."

"Get Lee Fineburg on the fourth floor," the chief said. "I want half-hour updates and don't hang me up here doing figure-eights over the fuckin' Arizona border."

After he hung up, they all remained quiet, looking down at the relentless desert. They were flying into a hundredmile-an-hour headwind, which was scrubbing precious minutes off their ETA.

Finally the air-phone in the plane buzzed; the chief snatched it up, listened for a moment, then grabbed a pen from his coat pocket and started scribbling. "Got it," he said, then hung up and smiled at Shane. "Fineburg White Cow Dairy. Registered owner is Juan Ruiz, Scottsdale, Arizona, on Happy Valley Road."

They landed at Deer Valley Airport, on the east side of Phoenix, near Scottsdale, and rented a Lincoln Town Car from the Executive Jet Terminal.

As they stood in refracted heat bouncing off the tarmac, Tony's eyes went warily toward three executive jets parked a short distance away. Two Gulfstreams and a Challenger-big iron. When the ramp agent delivered their car, Tony badged him. "Who came in on those three birds?" he asked.

"Buncha' fells… landed twenty minutes apart, couple of hours ago."

"Figures," Tony said. He took the keys, climbed into the Town Car, got the air-conditioning going, then started driving. "Get a map outta the glove box," he barked at Alexa, now in the front seat beside him. "Find 2676 Happy Valley," he said as she spread the map across her knees and started studying it.

"Turn right on Deer Valley Road," Alexa directed, "take it to Cave Creek, go left on Pinnacle, then right…"

"Jeez, Lieutenant, I'm from Brooklyn. Keep it simple. Tell me where to turn when I'm gettin' close."

"Sorry, sir."

They rode in silence for a while, but Tony was frowning, his forehead gathered up in folds below his hairline. Finally he spoke. "Okay, look. This buncha eggbeaters from Washington got their own game going, and it's not called law enforcement, it's called politics. I don't trust any a them. More important, I want to take these people alive, without bloodshed, but there's just three of us and we're outta state with no jurisdiction."

"What're you suggesting?" Shane asked.

"I ain't suggesting nothing, Sergeant. I'm looking at operational alternatives and assigning risk co-efficiencts. We could call the Scottsdale cops, try an' get 'em to back our play, but I don't know this department. We could end up with a buncha toothpick-chewin' gunslingers, wearing Ray-Bans and straw hats. I don't wanta add to the confusion."

"I agree," Shane said. "We oughta be able to handle it alone."

"You fuckin' nuts?" Tony said. "We probably got a mess a Crip and Blood shot-callers plus the Mexican and Italian Mafia, and God knows who else. We need backup, but we gotta get a look at the landscape first. If the feds are already at White Cow, then that's it. I ain't gonna fuck with 'em. But if they're not, then we'll case the place, get an idea where the shooters are, how many guys we're facing. Then we call in the Scottsdale P. D. Once I have the layout, I think I can control the outcome."

"Sounds much more sensible," Alexa said, sending Shane a withering look.

Tony pulled a gun out of his hip holster and checked the cylinder, snapped it closed, and reholstered it. The gun was pure Tony. A no-nonsense.38-caliber Smith amp; Wesson round wheel with a blue-steel finish. Tony had wrapped hundreds of rubber bands around the handle to make the grip larger and softer. The only place Shane had ever seen that modification was in Chicago. A lot of Chicago cops rubber-banded their grips. Tony, as usual, was an unorthodox mixture of good ideas and proven methodologies.

They made a left on Pinnacle, then went for about six miles before Alexa instructed Tony to turn right on Scottsdale Road, another mile and a half to Happy Valley. They made a right and started following the numbers.

Scottsdale was not geographically located in one place. It was spread out in population clusters. Land was not a pricey commodity in the desert, so people built low-level buildings in places that suited them. Only a few buildings at intersections and around business centers were three stories or taller.

The three LAPD interlopers continued down Happy Valley Road, eventually passing through a residential area and entering an open stretch of vegetative desert with no buildings. It was magnificent, arid country with Joshua trees dotting the landscape. Palms and bougainvillea bordered the roadside. Beyond, the desert seemed to stretch endlessly.

White Cow Dairy turned out to be a few hundred acres near some low rock outcroppings. A line of trees and a white split-rail fence that ran along the road bordered the dairy. There were at least two hundred Holsteins grazing in the surrounding fields. A huge WHITE COW DAIRY arch spanned the entrance to the main center drive. Barns and milking sheds were located at the end of this long road. A white Colonial house with a covered porch and slate roof stood off to one side.

Tony drove by at the posted thirty-mile-an-hour speed limit. Alexa pulled a digital camera out of her purse and began taking pictures.

There were no cars, no trucks, and no people. Shane was worried they'd made a mistake because the farm appeared to be completely deserted.