The Viking Funeral

Chapter 18

You AMAZE ME," the voice said.

Shane kept his eyes closed; his head was down on his chest. His jaw felt dislocated. He was trying to get his jumbled thoughts in order, standing on the front porch of a disaster, rehearsing opening lines like a teenager on his first date.

Jody's voice droned: "You runnin' all over, talkin' to Glass House brass. I always held your back, Hot Sauce. How come ya' couldn't hold mine?"

Shane still didn't answer.

"Give it up, man. I can see ya thinkin' in there. I read you like the funny papers. Open yer eyes, or I'm gonna set your socks on fire."

So Shane opened his eyes and looked up.

Jody was still greyhound-lean, his stringy muscles flexed and bulged under an old LAPD T-shirt that read sis… WE MAKE HOUSE CALLS. Copper hair hung in long, untended ringlets around his head. His tangled beard had not been trimmed. But Jody's X-ray eyes were drilling, piercing holes in Shane's paper-thin psyche.

"I was countin' on you, Salsa, but you didn't come through. It was all I could do to keep my crew from swingin' by your house and giving you a shiny new set of nine-millimeter nipple jewelry."

"You're hanging out with very frank company," Shane mumbled softly; his throat was sore, his jaw was popping cartilage painfully when he spoke. "Your crew thinks you're a piece of shit."

"Two weeks more and none a'that matters. I can hold it together." He smiled, and for a second, Shane saw the old Jody from Little League, smirking after a tough out, joy mixed with sarcasm, as if his charmed life were still just a practical joke on everyone.

It was time to make his pitch. Shane felt weak and dull, not up to the task, but he had no choice. He wondered what day it was… How long he'd been unconscious… He wondered if he needed to adjust the Chief's carefully worked-out timetable.

"You got something you're about to lay on me, Hot Sauce. So, get to it." Jody was back inside his head, browsing, uninvited.

"What time is it?" Shane started. "What day?"

"Two A. M. Tuesday morning."

"Tomorrow at nine A. M., the department is gonna know all you guys are still alive."

"I don't think so."

"Commander Shephard had a secret safe in his office. He kept a file on your unit behind your back. Alexa found it. She's taking it to Filosiani tomorrow morning." Shane watched Jody for a flicker of interest or concern but saw nothing. "The whole thing is written in some kinda number code," Shane continued. "Once Filosiani gets it, he's gonna send it over to Questioned Documents. They're gonna scan it into their computer and they'll probably be able to break it in a day or two. Then everything you did to Medwick and Shephard is gonna be for nothin'."

"Medwick and Shephard?"

"You killed 'em."

"I what?" Jody smiled. "Why would I kill those guys?"

"Because they were the only two left who knew that you and this squad of yours exists."

Jody was squatting before him, Indian-style. Shane remembered that Jody could squat on his haunches like that for hours; his thighs, like steel, never seemed to tire. He was looking at Shane carefully, reading him like always but never giving away his own thoughts. Jody's face was granite, so Shane had to push his bet. He shoved more chips out. "If that file says you and these other guys aren't dead, then the department is gonna figure you killed Shephard and Medwick so you could disappear. Once they believe that, there isn't a town high enough up in the Andes or far enough out in the bush for you to hide."

A long, tense moment was punctuated by the distant moan of a foghorn. Shane was now pretty sure he was inside one of the old deserted freighters he'd seen chained to the docks in Long Beach or San Pedro.

"I think you still got something else you want to tell me. This ain't all of it," Jody finally said.

"Jody, I've been fucked over by the department." Shane repeated the lines they had all come up with in the coffee shop across from Filosiani's office.

"No shit."

"I made that Naval Yard case, not Alexa, but they gave all the credit to her, gave her the Medal of Valor while I got a psych review. While she makes lieutenant, I'm stuck in a basket-weaving class. At first I was pissed. Now I'm just looking to get paid." Jody didn't respond, so Shane pressed his bet again-threw in some more chips. "When I saw you on the freeway, I was hurt," Shane continued. "You should've told me what was going on-that you were alive. I was like your brother. That's why I went to Medwick's house and to see Lauren. I couldn't believe you'd do this to me… Let me think you'd killed yourself."

"I had no choice, Shane. It was a department-sanctioned deep-cover op. Medwick set it up. Got the phony coroner and death-scene photos made. CGI, they call it-computer-generated imaging. He got us all undercover driver's licenses out of ATD, where they bury 'em with high-security numbers. Only Medwick and Mayweather could access them." ATD was the Anti-Terrorist Division; among other things, it supplied bogus IDs for undercover cops on deep-cover stings. "I couldn't tell you, Salsa… It was a black ops case."

"Bullshit. You told Lauren."

"Right. And look what it did to her."

No turning back now. "Whatever it is you got goin',1 want in," he said. "I know you're about to score, and I know it's gonna be big."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You're not doing doors for the department anymore… You're way past that. You're running some kinda high-dollar conspiracy. For you to be taking this big a risk, it has to be huge."

Jody was still squatting before him, elbows propped on knees, hands straight out, not moving, studying him intently. Shane tried to make his thoughts neutral so Jody couldn't crawl back inside his head and read the lies.

"I was gonna use that UHF radio I found at Shephard's to contact you," Shane continued, "to set up a meet… But you moved first. I wanted to tell you, I think I have a way to save this for you, but if I do, I want in. I want an equal share."

"You're dreamin', Salsa."

"Jody, the department is going to find me unfit to return to duty and they're gonna take back my pension. Twenty years on the job goes in the shitter… They're gonna gig me, I can smell it."

"I warned ya," Jody said. "In police work, it's all about CYA."

"Covering your ass. Yeah… So you better listen to me and cover yours. Since Shephard died, Alexa Hamilton is the temporary head of DSG. I told her I saw you on the freeway. She's goin' to Filosiani with it tomorrow. Since she's just won the MOV, he's liable to believe her."

"Good goin', Salsa," Jody growled. "How's this supposed to help me?"

"I call her up, tell her I figured the number code that Medwick's file is using. Tell her the numbered file she found in his secret safe is not an arithmetic sequence but a key-book code and that I found the key book. I'll set up a secret meeting with her in some deserted spot, tell her if she brings the file, I'll bring the key book, so we can break the code together. She's an ambitious bitch. She'll come because she'll want to claim the credit."

"'Cept it's probably not a key-book code," Jody said. "Medwick was in DSG, and DSG always uses alphabet number codes."

"She doesn't know what it is. If I say it, she'll assume I'm right," Shane answered, "and she'll know Questioned Documents will never be able to break a key-book code. She'll have to play ball with me to get the book."

A key-book code was a simple and almost unbreakable code developed by the Germans in World War II. In order for it to work, both the sender and receiver had to have the same book. If the word you wanted to send was apple, and it was the third word on of the key book, then you would write 200-3. The person receiving the code would read the third word on in the same book, where he would find the word apple, and so on. Without the key book, the Scientific Investigations Division would never be able to break the code because it didn't correspond to the frequency of letters used in the alphabet, like most codes, but to a page in an unknown book. Shane could see this realization dawn on Jody's face.

"Without the key book, she'll know she's got nothing," Shane continued. "That secret file was originally set up by Medwick and Mayweather. Mayweather died during the Naval Yard case, leaving Medwick. He retired and turned it over to Shephard. If the department knows you guys are alive, they'll know you killed those two captains. Your picture will be at every airport and border crossing. You'll spend the rest of your lives running."

Jody's intense blue eyes kept drilling, compelling Shane to look away.

"She used me, man… Fucked me over," Shane growled. "I hate her guts." Shane was aching all over. His head was throbbing even worse than before. This story had sounded foolproof when he, Alexa, and Filosiani had discussed it over coffee earlier that evening, but now, handcuffed in the dark hull of the rusting freighter, he hoped Jody would go for it.

"Lemme think about it, Hot Sauce," Jody finally said, then rose gracefully to his feet without having to put his hands down for balance or to push himself up.

"I can get her to meet me and bring the file before it goes to Filosiani. I know I can."

"Would you kill her for it?" his old friend asked softly.

"Yeah, I could kill her, you bet I could."

"'Cause if I go for this, that's what you're gonna do."

"Jody… It could be like old times."

Jody stood over Shane. "I'll get back t'ya," he finally said, then turned and walked out of the cargo hold, closing the rusting hatch behind him.

The distant foghorn moaned, a morose note, low and dark, as Shane's plunging spirit.