On The Grind

Chapter 24

"What were you doing in Manhattan Beach two nights ago?" Bell demanded. We were standing in the deserted parking lot of the elementary school next to my car.

I started groping for an appropriate response.

"You left here at end-of-watch, then went downtown, switched cars and went to Manhattan Beach. You spent the night in a condo on Ocean Way."

"Are you having me followed, Alonzo?"

My heart was racing. I'd left the bugged MDX with Harpo, made sure I wasn't followed on the freeway when I drove his van. So how the hell could they know about my trip to Deputy Chief Arnett's condo in Manhattan Beach? Yet somehow they'd managed to tail me there. Either that or they'd planted a tracking device on me. I knew from police ops I'd done recently that the new GPS trackers had been reduced to the size of small collar buttons. Was I wearing one of those in the sole of a shoe or something?

"I'm waiting for an answer," Bell growled.

"I don't have to tell you what I do off duty," I stalled, still trying to assess the jeopardy.

If they knew I'd gone to that condo in Manhattan Beach, then they also knew I'd been meeting with Alexa. My whole story about Tiffany Roberts was going to start looking like a lie. What about Ophelia Love? Did he know she'd been there? I could see Alonzo's off-duty piece clipped in an easy-to-reach place on his belt under his windbreaker. Mine was in my clamshell at the small of my back, just a little tougher to get to.

"I was seeing a woman," I finally said, keeping it vague.

"Not good enough."

I knew I had to tell this ape something and, if he didn't buy it, be ready to deal with some major fallout. However, the more I thought about it, the more I was certain he didn't have a clue what I'd done or I'd already be tits-up under a bridge somewhere. So he didn't know what I'd been doing, only where I'd gone.

"It's none of your business," I said, trying for a better read.

"I did you a solid to get you on this department. If you're a federal plant, then it's my screwup. So it damn sure is my business."

"I was in Manhattan Beach seeing Tiffany Roberts," I said. "She's still hooked to that producer Harry Venture, trying to keep her marriage together for the sake of her career. I met her there."

"You're lying. We ran the real estate taxes to see who owns the units. There's no Tiffany Roberts or Harry Venture on the books for those condos. There is, however, an LAPD assistant chief named Malon Arnett who owns a penthouse there. Let's talk about him."

"Hey, Sergeant, I just got thrown off the L. A. department. What would I be doing hanging out in an apartment owned by Chief Arnett?"

"Debriefing. Telling him shit about what's going on down here."

"Right." I shook my head in disgust. "Me and the A-Chief from Administrative Affairs. He's a paper pusher. He runs budgets, not undercover ops. What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Then come up with something, because I talked to some people an hour ago who are very upset about this. I want the truth."

"I told you the truth. I was meeting with Tiffany. I don't know shit about A-Chief Arnett having a condo there. The condo we were in was a furnished model in the building. Tiffany has a friend who works at Century 21. We gotta be very careful since this all went down. Her husband knows about us now. She just barely kept him from throwing her out. Her friend unlocked the model so we could use it. Check it out, Al. There're empty units all over that building."

My heart was slamming inside my chest.

"You can bet your ass I'm going to check it out."

We stood for a minute studying each other. Then I said, "Is this meeting over?"

"Yeah, it's over." Bell turned and walked to his Escalade and drove off.

I headed back to the hotel and went straight up to my room. I stripped off all my clothes, took everything out of my dresser and closet and put it all out on the bed along with my briefcase and shoes. Then I started looking for the tracking device.

I found it inside my belt. They had sliced open the leather on a seam, buried the tracker and stitched it back up. As I suspected, the unit was the size of a collar button. I left it in there. It wasn't too hard to realize how they'd done it. They'd broken into my locker while I was out on patrol. The padlock they'd given me obviously could be opened by a second combination.

Now I needed to warn Alexa and have Ophelia set up a new cover story for Tiffany Roberts and me about the condo.

I dressed again and stuffed a change of clothes into a paper bag, then exited the room, leaving the belt containing the tracking device behind.

I went downstairs to the lobby, crossed to the casino and made two calls from a pay phone. One was to Alexa, the other to Ophelia.

Next, I rented a car from Hertz through the hotel concierge, who handed me the keys and informed me it was a blue Mustang, parked in slot 23 at the side of the hotel. I went into a downstairs mens room in the casino and changed into the black T-shirt and Bermuda shorts I had in the paper bag. I rolled my original outfit up inside my windbreaker and jammed it under my arm. I pulled a ball cap low over my eyes and slipped on a pair of dark glasses, transforming myself into another card zombie. 'Then I slipped out a fire exit and hugged the side of the building, watching my back as I made my way to the rental car slots. I found the Mustang, got in and sat there watching out the rear window to see if I was being followed. My heart hadn't stopped flopping around in my chest since the meeting with Alonzo. Textbook paranoia.

When nobody showed for five minutes, I put the car in gear and got the hell out of there.