The Prostitutes Ball

Chapter 35.

Ten minutes later Hitch and I were sitting in the front seat of our slick-back, arguing about what to do next.

"We gotta take this to Jeb," I said.

"Forgetting the Permission to Search we got from Brooks, which I'm not even sure is completely valid, 'cause he was stoned; if our bosses find out we came up here to work on a whole second homicide without telling anyone what we were doing, we're capital-F fucked. The department will give us the grand tour, with that all-important career-ending last stop at Internal Affairs."

"But how can we sit on this?" I asked. "We got dead bodies stacking up like cordwood. These two have probably been in that truck since Thomas Vulcunas death in eighty-one. They're probably part of the motive for his murder."

"I know. I know. Shit. Cool as this is movie-wise, if we divulge it to our bosses, were gonna get sacrificed. We should ve never come up here. Let's just think this out for a minute. Maybe there's another way to go."

"Look, Hitch. Even if we wanted to, we couldn't button up and walk away. Besides, since we've cut down that berry bush, somebody's gonna find that garage and truck tomorrow anyway. We gotta deal with this."

"I know."

"If you don't want to go to Jeb, then I say we start with Alexa."

"No."

"She's a good street cop. She thinks like a cop, not a suit. She'll understand why we went after this. Especially once Dahlia told us to take the 7.65 slug off our evidence sheet."

"Are you nuts? She's the head of the Detective Bureau."

"She's also my wife and a primary responder on the Sladky murder. We're gonna eventually have to tell Jeb too, so let's just get it over with and call them both. I don't see any way around it."

"A lot of people don't believe this, but I really love this job," he said. "I don't want to end my career on the LAPD with a blindfold and a cigarette."

"We'll get through it. Stick with me, here. I've been in tighter spots."

I took out my cell and dialed Alexa. It was after three A. M. but she was still in her office at the PAB.

"Why aren't you in bed?" she asked.

"I'm up at the house 011 Skyline Drive with Hitch. You need to collect Jeb and get up here now."

"What's up?"

"Plenty. Just get up here. I'd rather show you than tell you."

We spent a tough hour waiting for Alexa and Jeb, while we worked out our plan of attack and a few of our arguments. Captain Calloway arrived first.

"This better be either great or really, really good," Jeb said as he pulled in. He'd thrown on an old LAPD sweatshirt, jeans, and flip-flops.

"I'll let you assign the degree of greatness," I told him.

Alexa drove up a couple of minutes later and Hitch and I led them up the hill to the concrete well house. We had left the door ajar.

"Get ready for a shock," I advised as we accompanied them inside. Hitch and I turned on our flashlights, illuminating the Brinks truck for them.

"Drivers are still inside. Dead," I said. "Take a deep breath, cause it ain't pretty."

Both of them looked through the truck's windows at the skeletons. Alexa said nothing, but as Jeb looked, I could see he was breathing through his mouth and swallowing air. I cut him some slack though because he was born in Haiti where they still practice voodoo. When they finished, everyone backed out and we all stood outside.

"That truck is old," I said. "Late seventies or early eighties."

"I'll bet it's the armored car that disappeared off Wilshire Boulevard in eighty-three," Jeb said. "It was carrying something like fifteen or sixteen million in gold bullion from the Jewelry Mart. Case is still open, but very cold."

"It's still open?" I said for no other reason than to slow this down a little. I was getting overrun by events.

"Everybody thought the guards pulled the heist and escaped to Tahiti or someplace, to live the good life," Jeb explained. "Apparently not. I'll run the plate to confirm it, but I'm sure this is it."

"How did you find that garage?" Alexa asked. "I didn't see it before."

"You want to tell em?" I asked my partner.

"You can do it," Hitch replied.

"We found this because we were working an old double murder/ suicide from 1981. The Vulcuna family used to own this house in the eighties. The father was supposed to have killed his wife and daughter, then shot himself," I began. "Instead of working on closing loose ends for ADA Wilkes on Sladky, we were working that old double murder/suicide instead. We don't think Thomas Vulcuna was the doer. We think he was murdered too, shot back here. That's where the 7.65 slug came from. I'm really sorry about this, but cutting to the chase, I guess we were disobeying Jeb's direct orders."

"That may be an overly harsh assessment," Hitch jumped in, trying to massage it. Then the bullshit started flowing. "Put in a friendlier light, we were operating as good police officers, following the lead of our commander, Captain Calloway, who said that the 7.65 bullet we found over here should definitely stay in the Sladky case. But it needed to be explained and in an attempt to do that, we discovered it wasn't part of Sladky at all. So, in a dedicated and extremely professional way, we "

"Please shut up," Jeb said softly.

Hitch fell silent. We all stood quietly trying to assess the situation.

"There's no way we can keep this from Dahlia," Alexa finally said. "This is going to affect her prosecution."

"We're fucked," Hitch whispered in my ear.