The Renegades

29

Hood made Laguna by late afternoon. In the public library he copied the restaurant listings from the local phone book, then walked back across Coast Highway to the Hotel Laguna.

He ate outside on the deck. It was slow so he took a table by the railing where he had once sat with Allison Murrieta. He pictured her sitting across from him. He thought that memories are a blessing and a burden. The sun sat on the ocean like a fat red hen, then sank in the night.

In candlelight Hood started at the top of the alphabet and called down the list, asking if Juliet was working. He found no Juliet at all until his twelfth try, at a restaurant called Del Mar. She was seating customers at the moment. Hood thanked the man and rang off.

He sat in the bar of the Del Mar and watched the black Pacific through the window and Juliet as she came and went from the hostess stand in the foyer. She was on the tall side, and lovely. Her smile was measured but her hair was blond and uncomposed. She wore a black backless dress and heels. She had an easy way with the guests, and some of them she greeted by name.

During a slow period she came over and asked the bartender for a soda with lime.

“I like Laguna when it’s slow like this,” Hood said.

“Do you live here?”

“I just visit.”

“I love it here anytime. I think it’s the best city in the whole world to live. I’m a Lagunatic.”

“I live in L.A. It’s got lots to love, too, but lots not to.”

“I like the art museums and Spago.”

“I went to the drag races at Pomona last week. That was great fun.”

She looked at him with mild doubt. She sipped her soda from two thin red straws. “We don’t have drag races here. We have drag queens.”

“That’s funny.”

“I’m Juliet.”

“I’m Rick.”

“What do you do?”

“Security.”

“Like TSA?”

“Commercial-industrial, mostly. Copyright and patent protection, things like that.”

“The Chinese don’t honor them, do they?”

“Not always.”

“I took a class in Szechwan cooking once. Oops, duty calls. Nice talking to you.”

She touched his coat sleeve and got back to her stand before the next party of four came in with a gust of cool March breeze.

Hood stayed a little longer, then left, nodding to her on his way out. He sat in the Camaro across Coast Highway and waited. She came out at ten o’clock, wrapped in a black leather coat, with a red scarf around her neck and a red tote over her shoulder. Instead of the heels she wore white athletic shoes and she headed south on PCH at a good clip. Hood got out of the car and followed behind her down the opposite side. There were enough people walking that he didn’t stand out. Her hair bounced and shone in the streetlight and shop lights. She took long strides and never once looked back. At the Laguna Royale she veered across a walkway and into the lobby. She walked past the wall of mail slots, pushed a white card into another door, then pulled it open with both hands and disappeared.

He waited for a few minutes, then walked across Coast Highway and went into the lobby. He found mail slots for a J. Brown, a J. Astrella and a J. Clayborn.

He hiked back up Coast Highway to his car, keeping his head down and his eyes open for a black 2000 M5. He drove the Camaro back down and found a parking place across from the Royale. It was a good place to keep an eye on the parking entrance. An hour later, just before midnight, he saw a black M5 signal a turn into the Royale. In the streetlight he saw a swatch of white hair and a snapshot of Draper’s face as the car made the turn, then bounced down the ramp toward the garage.

Hood sat in his car for an hour, listening to the radio. He was too far out of jurisdiction to get the L.A. Sheriff’s band, so he listened to the news. No sign of Draper or Juliet.

It was also too late to call Jim Warren but he did anyway. Warren sounded slow and lucid as he always did. Hood asked him for a GPS transponder to put on Coleman Draper’s civilian car, and a portable receiver to track it with. Hood knew he would have needed a court order to attach such a device to a suspect’s car. But he also knew that IA had powers beyond the law, even beyond the U.S. Constitution. A cop under suspicion of IA has no Fifth Amendment right-he must answer even the most self-incriminating questions or possibly lose his job, benefits, reputation and future in law enforcement. He must surrender his shield and gun upon the demand of a superior. His work and pay can be suspended during an investigation. He never knows when he’ll be called to testify against himself or another officer and he has no right to an attorney unless he is ordered to stand trial.

Hood feared and disliked IA for all of this, as did most cops, but he was willing to make an exception for Coleman Draper.

So he laid out for Warren the basics of what he knew: that Vasquez and Lopes had pulled over that night but didn’t live to tell about it; that Laws, and likely Draper, had begun to receive large amounts of money shortly after Vasquez and Lopes lost their lives; that every Friday night since then, Laws and Draper had done a job that earned them roughly seven thousand dollars apiece. Next, Hood also laid out what he suspected: that Laws and Draper had framed Shay Eichrodt and beaten him senseless to cover themselves.

“You think they murdered the couriers and took over their route,” said Warren.

“That’s what I think.”

“Where does Londell Dwayne come into play?”

“I don’t know yet.”

There was a long pause.

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Warren.