The Kings Of Cool

74

Dennis knows Filipo-hells yes, he does, he has Filipo’s picture pinned up on the bulletin board in his office. He knows the names of Filipo’s wife and kids, knows what futbol team he follows, knows that Filipo subscribes to the Padres games on satellite TV. This must be an important cash dump for Filipo to chance coming over the wire, so he must be up there checking up on things, making sure that all of the money goes south and none of it gets lost and wanders toward other points on the compass.

While Dennis would normally keep this house under surveillance for a couple of weeks and then turn it over to his superiors so they could get the credit, now he’s thinking about playing leapfrog. The San Diego SAC is looking at retirement, and a pop like this could put Dennis’s ass into his empty chair.

So this is totally a cowboy move, highly discouraged by the Powers That Be, but Dennis knows that he has a justification-he can always say that he had to take the chance-who knew when and if Filipo would ever come back, be on this side of the border, and there’s a federal trafficking warrant on the guy, anyway, so He clips his badge onto his jacket, finds his DEA cap in the backseat, pulls his weapon, and goes in.