The Viking Funeral

Chapter 19

SHANE HAD BEEN dozing.

Somebody was touching him under the chin, pulling his face up. His eyes opened and he was looking at Jody. The Mexican with the gray eyes loomed in the background; the Coleman lantern hissed and sputtered.

"Make the call."

"Thanks, Jody."

"Shut up and listen. You lure her out; you take the file; then you light the bitch up."

The Mexican stared.

"Hot Rod, here, and Inky Dink wanted to pull your drapes. I still might let 'em, so you're on strict probation." Jody glanced at his watch. "It's just after three A. M. You call her at home around four and get her moving. I want this to go down before sunup. Gimme the cuff key, Rod," Jody ordered.

The big Mexican stood still, his gray eyes burning with contempt.

"I said gimme the fucking key, Rodriquez," Jody repeated. "You gonna make me take it from you?"

That confirmed it. The gray-eyed Mexican was Hector Rodriquez.

Reluctantly, Rodriquez reached into his pocket and pulled out the key.

Jody snatched it from his hand, reached behind Shane, and uncuffed him. "Get up," he commanded.

Shane's legs were weak under him as he rose. Jody spun him around and quickly recuffed him.

They led him out of the rusting cargo hold, clanging up a set of metal stairs, onto the deck of the old freighter. As he came out of the hatch, Shane saw a million stars twinkling in a windswept sky. He filled his lungs with fresh ocean air. They led him off the dank freighter, down a makeshift wooden gangplank, and over to the same gray, windowless van that had pulled into the noise-abatement area. Shane was shoved into the back, down onto the floor. Rodriquez got behind the wheel, and Jody, carrying the black UHF radio, slid into the passenger seat

facing back, never taking his eyes off Shane.

"You got my gun?" Shane asked, noticing his ankle holster had been removed.

"Right here," Jody answered, holding it up. "Why?"

"If I'm gonna take her out, I wanna use it. I qualified Marksman with that piece."

Jody smiled but said nothing. Rodriquez put the van in gear. Shane heard the tires crunch on the gravel as they pulled away from the rusting freighter. Then they jounced along on the rutted, paved roads down by the San Pedro docks until they got on surface streeets.

They drove for almost forty minutes while Jody made him rehearse his call to Alexa, going over it several times, adjusting a word or thought here and there until he was finally satisfied.

Shane could not see out of the windows, but he knew from the speed that they were now traveling on one of the L. A. freeways. Occasionally, he could see a lit sign streak by overhead, but from his position on the floor he couldn't read them. He had no idea which way they were going. Rodriquez's cold gray eyes never left him for long, constantly frowning back from the oblong rearview mirror.

Shane wondered where the rest of the members of the unit were. Victory was in Mexico, getting his wound attended to, but where were the others?

Finally they came to a stop, and Rodriquez turned off the engine.

"Okay, Salsa, we get out of the van. Hot Rod, here, is gonna lead the way. You follow. I'm in the rear. We go single file… Head down… No talking."

"Right," Shane answered.

Jody got out of the van and pulled open the sliding back door. As Shane exited, he sneaked a look. They were at some low-end motel in a shabby, half-built, one-story neighborhood. Fields of weeds and low cactus plants completed the rest of the landscape. It seemed to Shane that they were in the far West Valley, perhaps Sunland or maybe even as far out as Valencia.

"I said head down!" Jody said harshly, and slapped him hard with the palm of his hand in the exact spot where Shane had been blackjacked earlier. He winced but managed not to cry out.

They followed Rodriquez into a small motel room through a chipped red door.

The room was threadbare and decorated like Pee Wee's Playhouse: ratty orange drapes fought with faded olive-green club chairs and a yellow bedspread; the vinyl furniture had hosted a hundred forgotten cigarettes. Jody closed and latched the door, then spun Shane around and uncuffed him, stepping back to put a few feet between them. "Okay, call her. Use that phone. I'm gonna be listening from the bathroom extension."

"Okay."

"And, Hot Sauce… Here's the 411.1 love ya, but that horse don't happen t'be runnin'. You get cute, I'll kill you right here and let Rod piss on your corpse. You should also know I sent Inky Dink over to Santa Monica. He's parked across the street from her apartment. So if this is a setup, he'll spot a tail, and then it's lights out for everybody."

"I'm down, man. Stop threatening me." Shane was trying to manage both fear and anger.

After a second, Jody nodded and handed Shane a typed address. "That's where she needs to go."

Jody moved to the extension, unscrewed the receiver, emptied the speaker element into his palm, replaced the handset in the cradle, then nodded.

Shane picked up the phone and dialed Alexa's number. Jody waited near the second phone until Shane signaled that it was ringing, then Jody picked up the extension and pulled the cord out to a spot in the dressing area where he could watch Shane.

On the third ring, Alexa answered the phone.

"Hello." Her voice sounded clogged with sleep, but Shane knew she'd been waiting for his call.

"Alexa, it's Shane."

"It's the middle of the damn night," she complained groggily.

"Yeah… Yeah. Look, something just developed. I think I'm onto something here."

"Huh? What? Jesus, what time is it?" A pause for theatrics, then: "It's four-fifteen in the fucking morning!"

"I think I found 'em, Alexa. Better still, I think I maybe found the code they're using. It's a key book. If I'm right, we got a Class A collar here. These guys are cop killers. It'll be our bust."

"Key book?" She was sounding more awake now. "A key book can't be cracked by the computer." Pensive and cautious-reading her lines like Meryl Streep.

"Exactly."

"Okay… Okay… Where are you? Don't do anything till I get there."

"We gotta make a deal first."

"I don't make deals, Scully."

"You do if you want a piece of this. You jobbed me on the Naval Yard case and you gave me up to Shephard when I saw Jody. This time, we do it one hundred percent my way."

"You've turned into a complete dick, ya know that?" she snorted. Then there was a pause, and she added, "Okay… What's your deal, big shot?"

"You do this exactly the way I say. No arguments, no revisions. Right now we both have a bargaining chip, so you bring the file you got from Shephard's office; I'll bring the book."

"That file's evidence! I don't even have a copy yet."

"We need it to make sure I really found their crib. If my book decodes your document, then we know I'm right."

"Where are you?"

Shane looked at the typed sheet Jody had given him.

"I'll meet you at 1623 Glen Oaks. Near the old deserted airfield in San Fernando out by the wash."

After a long silence, she asked: "Where's Jody's unit now?"

"They're on a field op. It sounds like an all-nighter. I'm listening on the radio we found in Shephard's house-monitoring them. If you hurry, we'll be out before they get back."

"Okay, stay put. I'll be there in twenty-five," she said, then hung up.

"Let's go," Jody said. "It's only ten minutes from here. Tremaine will tail her from her place."

Shane figured that meant Inky Dink was Tremaine.

When they got back into the van, Rodriquez slid behind the wheel again. Jody sat in the passenger seat, Shane on the floor in the back as before. This time they left the cuffs off.

"Get rollin'," Jody instructed. Rodriquez put the van in gear and pulled away from the motel.

They drove for three miles to the old abandoned airfield. It was on a hundred acres, but had only a twenty-five-hundred-foot runway and was right next to the Van Nuys wash. The underdeveloped site had become too valuable for a "propeller only" landing strip, so it had recently been sold to a big developer. A sign on the rusting wire fence proclaimed it as the future site of the Dominico Gardens Condominium Project.

They parked near a culvert. Jody began fiddling with the radio, finally tuning in a rap station. Synthetic drums and black anger filled the van.

"When'd you start listening to this shit?" Shane asked. "You used t'like jazz."

"Funny, but now I puke when I hear jazz. I need some 'tude with my tunes."

"Can I have my gun?"

Jody looked at him for a long time.

"Hey, Jody, you want me to cap this bitch or not? If I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna need a piece, or am I supposed to just kill her with a rock?"

Jody just smiled. "Calm down, Salsa… Here." He reached into his belt and handed Shane's nine-millimeter Mini-Cougar back to him. Shane nodded as he pulled out the clip and checked it. The Remington Lights glittered in the pale moonlight. He slammed the clip back, then stuck the automatic into his belt.

"Okay, we're in the bushes," Jody said. "And, Shane… Much as I hate to say this: You take her, or I'm taking you."

Jody nodded at Rodriquez; they got out of the van and walked across the road. Shane watched them until he lost them in the dark.

Twenty minutes later Shane saw Alexa's headlights pull up behind him.