The Pallbearers

Chapter 48

The fight between Team Ultima and Team Spartacus was being billed as "The Rage in the Cage." It was taking place at the Talking Stick Casino on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation outside of Tucson at eight tomorrow night.

Seriana and I reported all this to the pallbearers as we sat around a picnic table at Huntington Beach about two miles down Beach Boulevard from Gladiator School.

"An Arizona Indian reservation?" Vicki said. "Why there?"

"According to Nate Mingo, the casino has an active sports book and pari-mutuel betting. Besides the challenge purse, both fight teams split a ten percent cut of the casino's action off the top."

"You think you can trust that guy?" Seriana asked.

"Mv guess is he'd rather help me than lose his license to promote fights on TV."

"You've got a bigger problem than Mingo," Sabas said. "If this fight is on an Indian reservation, you and Mrs. Scully got no jurisdiction;" He looked pointedly at Alexa then back at me. "Indian reservations have treaty arrangements with the federal government. They're sovereign territories, governed by their own tribal councils and policed by Indian cops."

"I think we can…"

"I know what I'm talking about," he interrupted.

"What I was about to say is we can get plenty of cooperation. I've done it before. We just check in with the Indian police chief, show our warrant, accompany him while he makes the arrest."

"I still don't get why Rick O'Shea would show up there," Diamond said. "If he's on the run, isn't that taking a big chance?"

"It's out of state," Alexa said. "Plus he knows it's going to take time for us to get a warrant and get it served in Arizona by tomorrow. That's if we ever even figured out he was going to be there."

"According to Mingo, O'Shea hasn't pulled out of his match," I added. "He'll be there or his bout is a forfeit. It's probably wav too big a payday for him to pass up. He'll take his share of the purse, then get out of the country."

Vargas finally broke the silence. "So we go to Arizona and pop him there. That's the plan?"

"No," I told them. "You guys aren't going. The Pop Dix Homicide Steering Committee is officially disbanded."

"Then let's get out of here," Sabas said.

"Just like that? No argument?" I said.

"No argument. I'm tired of fighting with you about this. Let the Indian police handle it if that's your plan. We'll just wait and get our payback at the L. A. arraignment."

I looked at Alexa. After a minute, she shrugged.

"Can we go now?" Sabas said. "I still have a law practice to run. I have a conference in my office at four."

Two hours later Alexa and I were back at our Venice house. I was sitting on one of the stools in the kitchen watching her prepare dinner.

"You want tomatoes and onions in this meat casserole?" she asked.

I nodded. "And garlic."

She peeled a clove then slammed the knife down on the cutting board and smashed the clove before chopping it and tossing the pieces into a saute pan with some sizzling butter.

"I don't trust Vargas," I said.

"What makes you say that? The fact that he won't look you in the eye when he's lying to you, or that nervous little stutter when he got out of the van? Or the fact that he'd probably rather serve this warrant with a bunch of g-sters from Boyle Heights?"

"All the above. Plus, he's not used to being told he can't do what he wants. None of us are. After a promising start with that guy, it's sort of come apart."

"We've got bigger problems than Sabas Vargas," Alexa said. "I think we need to bring in the FBI. Vargas is wrong that only Indian cops have jurisdiction on a reservation. The feds can also make arrests in conjunction with Indian authority.

"Not that I don't trust the Tohono Nation PD, but I'm thinking it sure wouldn't hurt to have a few federal cops with guns around." Alexa put down the knife and faced me. "Here's something else that might help. When I was talking to Chief Filosiani, he said that their local ASAC seemed very upset with those two guys. Apparently Agents Westfall and Faskin had Jack in custody a few hours after the Temecula bank heist before he even got out of Central California.

"The highway patrol picked him up in a freeway speed trap, ran him, and made the arrest. Our two local heroes had Jack in the back of their car in cuffs and were transporting him to L. A. to get booked when somehow Jack managed to drain their car battery by pulling out the cigarette lighter in the backseat and cross-wiring it, or dead grounding it, or some damn thing."

My respect for Jack Straw took another leap forward.

Alexa continued. "I guess the way it happened, they pulled off the road to eat, took Jack out of the car and into the restaurant in cuffs, not noticing he'd rewired the cigarette lighter. They came back an hour later and the car wouldn't start."

"Ya gotta love that Jack," I said, smiling.

She nodded. "While Westfall and Faskin had the hood up trying to figure out what was wrong, Jack took off with their cuffs still on and escaped." She smiled at me. "Needless to say, this was not met with much enthusiasm at the 11000 building on Wilshire. Westfall and Faskin are cooking over a slow fire down there."

"And you think I should use this?" I said, smiling.

"No," she replied sarcastically. "Give it to TMZ or the National Enquirer, why don't you?"