Illegal

SEVENTY-SEVEN

Chief Javier Cardenas felt powerless. An L.A.P.D. detective was roaming his office like a jungle cat.

Just how much does Detective Eugene Rigney know?

Cardenas had never faced anything like this. He could scarcely remember a time he hadn't been taking orders from Uncle Sim. They had an unspoken arrangement. If Cardenas did what he was told, Simeon would boost his career, make his life more comfortable, and protect him.

Neither man had ever used the word "bribe." Not even "gift" or "present." Sometimes, Simeon would say, "I'm sending over a little something for the fridge." Slabs of freshly butchered ribs would arrive on ice, a stack of cold cash bagged separately. Other times, a Rutledge truck would deliver cartons of vegetables, Ben Franklin's quizzical face peering out from beneath the lettuce leaves.

Whenever Cardenas had a problem, Simeon was there to help. Except today. Hell, Uncle Sim's to blame for the spot I'm in.

Cardenas put on his friendly smile and leaned back in his ergonomically correct chair. His desk was an asymmetrical glass slab mounted on blocks of blue glass that resembled chunks of glacial ice. Outside, the thermometer on the Rutledge State Bank read 110. Inside the police station, the smooth, silent flow of the A/C kept the temperature a brisk 72.

So why am I sweating?

Maybe because at this moment, a swinging dick from L.A. was inspecting the office as if it were a crime scene.

"Never saw a cop shop like this." Detective Rigney stared at a lionfish darting in and out of a coral house in the chief's aquarium. "Must have cost a fortune."

"Private donations." He chose not to say that the donations all came from Simeon Rutledge. From the high-tech communications gear to the cushy leather chairs and sofas, it was all Uncle Sim's doing.

"Looks like a sports bar," Rigney said, checking out the five LCD monitors on the chief's back wall. It was the only wall not made of glass. The aquarium, six feet wide and twenty feet long, formed the wall with the bullpen. Glass block walls on either side separated the chief's quarters from adjacent offices.

The glass blocks multiplied the images on the other side. Cardenas often wondered if Uncle Sim was sending him a message there. Things are not always what they seem. Or, Someone's always watching. Or maybe, People in glass houses shouldn't peer too deeply into other people's lives.

Not that the place reflected Uncle Sim's taste. He did his business at his grandfather's rolltop desk with its hundred nooks and crannies, a piece of furniture as bulky as a battleship. For the Rutledge Municipal Building, Simeon hired a San Francisco designer, a noodle-necked young man who blew into town in black leather pants and a red silk scarf. By the time he left, Cardenas had an office where he couldn't scratch his nuts without being observed by meter maids crossing the bullpen to grab a demitasse from the gleaming titanium espresso machine.

That, too, hadn't escaped Rigney's notice. "You running a police station or a Starbucks here?" Sarcasm steaming like milk in a latte.

"We find that a pleasant atmosphere helps morale."

Cardenas nearly biting his tongue, thinking he sounded like one of those dweebs in Human Resources.

Rigney scanned the office as if he wanted to take prints off the artwork, starting with the granite sculpture of a horse pulling a plow.

Just what was the detective thinking? Cardenas wondered. The chief knew Rigney was a cop in deep trouble. A blown sting operation. A judge's suicide. Jimmy Payne's escape.

Rigney studied the chief through weary cop eyes. "So I'm still trying to figure out why you called L.A.P.D., asking about Payne."

"I had a report about this lawyer causing a scene over at the Rutledge corporate office. I ran his name, found the outstanding warrants. I called."

"But you ended up talking to Homicide, not Warrants."

"The call was misdirected. Maybe that's why the detective seemed so confused."

"Lou Parell may be fat and lazy, but he's not stupid. He says you never mentioned Payne was up here."

"Your detective is mistaken. Why else would I have called?"

"You tell me, Chief. Driving up here today, I kept asking myself: Why's this small-town cop mixed up with an asshole like Royal Payne?"

"All I know, Mr. Payne became agitated when he couldn't locate a woman he thought was working at Rutledge Farms."

"Where'd he pop up next?"

"He didn't. Hasn't been seen since he left the Rutledge office a couple days ago."

"So you never met him."

"Afraid not." Cardenas met Rigney's gaze. Turning away or blinking would make the lie too obvious. The less said, the better the chance the L.A. cop would leave town.

"Then you just dropped it? Never followed up, even though you knew about those warrants."

"Not my jurisdiction, and it's been busy up here."

"I'll bet."

Cardenas cursed himself for having made the call to the L.A.P.D. He needed Rigney here like a farmer needs a February freeze. But Uncle Sim had ordered him to do it. Charlie Whitehurst was right.

The old man's losing it.

"If Payne's still looking for that woman," the chief said, "he's probably checking out other growers. It's a big valley."

"And filled with a lot of horseshit." Rigney dropped into one of the soft leather chairs. He didn't seem in any hurry. "I pictured your office like something out of a black-and-white movie. Paddle fans, an old sergeant pecking away at a manual typewriter, a holding cell for the town drunk. But the place looks like Mission Control."

"I'm not following you, Detective."

"I'm just wondering, if the Attorney General started poking around in Hell's Little Oven here, what would he find?"

"An efficient police department, I suspect." Cardenas got up and walked to his glass-doored mini-fridge. He took out a pitcher. "Lemonade, Detective? Made from Rutledge lemons."

"No lemonade. No sarsaparilla. No peeing on my leg and calling it champagne."

Cardenas poured two glasses, anyway. "Seems like you're under some stress, Detective."

"No shit."

Another friendly smile. The lies weren't working; the chief decided to change his approach. He remembered some advice Simeon had dished out years ago, when he was still sharp as a cactus.

"Never been a horse that can't be rode. Never been a man who can't be sold."

"We get a lot of city cops who take early retirement and move up here," Cardenas said. "Got a couple working for us, couple more over at the Sheriff's Department. One or two even had some blemishes on their records."

"What the hell are you saying?"

"Just that a man should always be open to new opportunities."

"So I should move here and arrest artichoke poachers?"

"You'd be surprised how easy it is to make money in the Valley." Letting it hang there, like bacon dangling above the koi.

"Just how would I do that?" Rigney didn't jump at the bait, but he didn't swim the other direction, either. "Make easy money, I mean."

"You hungry, Detective? Clara over in Zoning makes the best B.L.T. s you've ever eaten."

Rigney studied him a moment, scowling. Then he answered, "Yeah, I'm hungry. In fact, I'm starving."