The Bad Shepherd Read online

  THE BAD SHEPHERD

  by Dale Nelson

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  Table of Contents

  Part One: May–June 1981 Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Part Two: May–June 1984 Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Part Three: July - August 1984 Chapter Thirty Three

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty One

  Chapter Forty Two

  Chapter Forty Three

  Chapter Forty Four

  Chapter Forty Five

  Chapter Forty Six

  Chapter Forty Seven

  Chapter Forty Eight

  Chapter Forty Nine

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  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Part One

  May–June 1981

  “Casual drug users should be shot.”

  —Daryl F. Gates, Chief, Los Angeles Police Department

  Chapter One

  Bo Fochs stared through a telephoto lens at his informant sitting in a sidewalk café across Hollywood Boulevard. The man in the camera’s viewfinder reclined with a forced laziness while he white-knuckled the beer bottle in his hand.

  Good, Fochs thought. You’re smart to be scared, Rik. Rik had one chance to convince his supplier that he was moving up in the world and that he needed a couple keys, like, right now. The alternative was felony possession with intent, and this was a guy who wouldn’t make it past signing his name at prisoner intake.

  Rik Ellis was the entertainment manager at the Starwood Lounge, one of the more notorious of the Sunset Strip music clubs. The club’s notoriety was well earned, and it was a lightning rod for the Hollywood Vice boys. Rik’s job was to sign popular bands that kept the Lounge packed, but Rik wasn’t on anyone’s A-list, and none of the A&R guys that mattered even knew his name. Bands wanted one thing, exposure, and that meant crowds. Savvy bands knew that meant the right kind of exposure, and that meant going to the kind of club that record company scouts frequented, which wasn’t the Starwood. Gazzari’s had its famous dancers, and no one really asked questions about what went on backstage. The Rainbow was, well, the Rainbow.

  So, without the contacts, the reputation, or the womanly assets of his competitors, Rik used the resources at his disposal to entice people to play at his club, namely, coke.

  Rik first popped up on the squad’s radar several months ago when Bo heard rumors that there was some nearly uncut cocaine on the street. They eventually traced it back to Rik. Bo learned through a guitarist whose band played the Starwood that Rik had trays of the shit flying around. Bo didn’t want to bust him at the club and risk blowing his identity on the Strip, so he’d worked to get himself invited to an after-party at Rik’s. They’d busted him that night with just under half a kilo.

  Rik’s only salvation was that he bought in bulk, and he had no loyalty to anyone. He lasted an hour in interrogation. He rolled on his supplier in exchange for dropping the felony possession charge, not to mention the coked-out seventeen-year-old blonde that went into cardiac arrest on his living room floor. She lived, but barely. Bo made it clear that a jury would know that she was so high that she’d nearly stroked out before they got her to the ER where doctors administered an elephant’s dose of Diazepam to save her life. And that Rik’s hands had been all over her when she was too incoherent to do anything about it.

  Rik dealt.

  Fochs snapped several more test shots of his informant, decked out in a white linen jacket over a blue t-shirt and jeans and Ray-Ban Wayfarers like he was Roy fucking Orbison. He’d taken the ponytail out, and his wavy blond hair just about hit his shoulders. Satisfied with his establishment shots and position, Fochs stepped back from the waist-high stucco wall of the second deck of a three-story garage. It was the color of spoiled cream and smelled the same. His partner, Mitchell Gaffney, closed the door of their ‘78 Plymouth Fury.

  Mitch rapped his knuckles on the roof of the car and took a few steps toward the stairs at the corner of their level. Gaffney was all height and sinew, a standout wide receiver and track star at UCLA and still one of the fastest men in the LAPD. Fochs, by contrast, was a surfer and spent most mornings before his shift paddling into the Pacific off a Santa Monica beach. Fochs was deeply tanned, lean and muscular.

  “I’m going to get in position for radio check,” Mitch said.

  “Right on. See you on the other side.”

  “Radio check, this is Unit One,” Bo said after Mitch had a few minutes to get into position.

  Mitch: “Unit Two in position.”

  “This is Unit Three,” Freddy Queen’s voice said after a short burst of static.

  “Four here. Read you guys loud and clear,” Detective Dom Senna said. They were both in unmarked cars parked at either end of the block. These were undercover units, signed out of the impound lot rather than the standard unmarked prowl car that drug dealers could pick out in a hot second.

  Through his viewfinder Bo watched Rik stand and walk into the café. He lowered the camera as though the image it showed him was somehow phony. “What the fuck are you doing? You stupid son of a bitch.” He spoke into the radio, “All units, all units. This is Unit One. Subject has left the area.”

  “Unit One, say again?”

  “I repeat, subject has left the table and entered the café. He is out of sight.”

  Bo weighed his options. He could pull one of the units off the end of the street and circle around to the back of the café, cutting off Rik’s escape route. But if it turned out this was just a nervous bladder married to extremely bad judgment, they would leave one of his contact’s egress points uncovered. Bo couldn’t take Mitch out of position. He needed his partner in place for backup and possible intercept.

  What on earth is this asshole thinking? Bo’s mind flipped through the possibilities. When Rik showed up on the squad’s radar offering nearly uncut cocaine at his club, the Rockstars knew they were onto something. There was no way someone like Rik would be able to get his hands on powder that pure. Since then, they’d found others in Hollywood with the same coke, but no one else could—or would—identify the dealer. Rik was their link. Without him, they didn’t have a connection to the dealer and whoever was supplying him. Somebody was trying to corner the coke market in Hollywood with nearly pure shit and Fochs had spent th
e last seven months trying to find out who that was. Without Rik, they had nothing.

  “Unit Three, proceed up Orange and reconnoiter. Check out the alley behind the café. I want to make sure he’s not rabbiting.”

  “Roger.”

  Bo watched the blue Firebird make a right turn and disappear down the alley.

  Long minutes passed and Bo thought his watch was lying.

  Rik reappeared from the café’s interior, wiped his nose once, and wove through the sidewalk tables to his own. Bo brought the camera up and sighted Rik immediately. As soon as he was seated, a body detached itself from the stream of people trickling down the sidewalk. He was tall, lean and athletic. He moved with a grace that was almost animal. He wore a gray t-shirt, blue jeans, aviators and a blue Dodgers cap pulled practically to the top of the glasses. He wore the shirt loose, but in the camera’s amplification Bo could easily see the tightly corded muscle beneath.

  This was Deacon, just the way Rik described him.

  Bo replaced the camera with the radio momentarily.

  “All units, all units, subject is in place.” Bo snapped a photo of Deacon sitting down at the table and then marked the time in the surveillance log. Watching a conversation unfold when you know one half of the dialogue in advance is surreal, particularly when you couldn’t see the individual whose lines you knew. From this angle, Bo only had Rik’s profile so that he could get a full shot of the subject, but he could tell Rik was describing the party he was allegedly planning by the animated hand gestures and the bullshit smile.

  This guy was good, big sunglasses and a Dodgers cap broke up the profile and made it hard to get a handle. He also looked at the table a lot, leaving no good angle on his face. Rik said something that pissed him off because he was pointing across the table at the promoter now, and Rik was spreading his arms wide in the universal “It’s not me” gesture. Deacon shook his head, and his mouth cracked in a mirthless smile. He pushed back from the table and stood. A cold pit formed in Bo’s gut; he wasn’t going for it.

  Rik stood then too and went to shake Deacon’s hand, but the other guy looked at the gesture like it was contaminated. Rik tried to save the move by jerking his hand into a thumb’s up. Flake. Rik ran both hands through his hair and vamped like he was tying a ponytail, the symbol that Deacon had agreed to make the sale. Deacon turned and walked away in the direction he’d come.

  “This is Unit One. Unit Four, subject is moving in your direction. Pick up the tail when he passes.”

  “Copy that, One.”

  Rik watched Deacon walk away. He waited the requisite ten minutes, stood, and walked across the street. Jaywalking in downtown Hollywood was easy because traffic didn’t move, it leaked. Rik crossed the boulevard and found Detective Gaffney waiting for him. Satisfied that Rik was back in their control, Bo lowered the camera and began breaking it down.

  “What was up with your little disappearing act?” He heard Gaffney say. Bo looked up and saw his partner roughly dragging the promoter towards Bo’s position.

  When they reached Bo, Mitch took the backpack, opened it, and visually verified the three envelopes were present. They’d count them before they let Rik go.

  “I had to take a piss.”

  Without another word, the detective turned and continued on his way. Rik waited a beat and followed. He looked back at the café. Golden California sun baked the boulevard. Rik looked pleased with himself.

  Fochs leaned in so his mouth was right next to Rik’s ear and said, “You missed some. Don’t ever try something like that again. There are people you can push back on and people you can’t. Which one do you think I am?”

  Rik hastily wiped his nose, clearing the trace off-white ring on the inside of his left nostril.

  The three of them climbed into the Fury and drove to Hollywood station in silence.

  Bo and Mitchell debriefed Rik in one of the interview rooms on the first floor. The partners rehashed the entire interaction in painstaking detail, transcribing everything Rik and Deacon said. Then they went through it again and another time after that. Rik started to get frustrated. He was coming down and didn’t have the patience for this shit, but Gaffney calmly told him it was important that they got it all right. They were trying to build a profile on this Deacon Blues to see if they could determine his real identity. That would allow them to find out if he had a record. If he had any priors, they’d be able to go for a heavier sentence when they finally prosecuted him.

  When they’d finished the transcription, they asked detailed, probing questions about the meeting. Rik had to describe Deacon’s demeanor, his mannerisms, and whether Rik thought he bought the ruse or was onto them. Then he had to answer those questions all again, asked a different way. Sometimes, they’d trade up who asked a particular question from one round to the next. They went at it for about an hour.

  The detectives concluded the debrief and told Rik they’d be in touch in the morning to set up the sting. They thanked Rik for his time, and then Fochs walked him out of the station, hoping the one thought on the promoter’s mind was wondering how long his luck would hold.

  Chapter Two

  Bo’s stomach dropped, and his balls went the other way.

  The tip of his surfboard dropped, and he angled back, shifting his weight so he cut across the wave. He rode the crest, slicing like an inverted L and leaning into it as it broke. Bo extended his left hand, tracing it across the inside of the pipe. Water crashed over top, a scintillating tunnel of shattered glass. He dropped the tip again, picked up speed and then kicked it back up to streak to the top of the wave. Bo spun about at the top and dropped back down over the break, crashing through the roiling surf.

  Bo rode the wave into shore, toying with it. He cut a casual zigzag across the break and rode the wave out. When he’d lost momentum, he dropped and paddled, riding the last of the wave’s energy to the shoreline. Bo stood when the water was knee deep, picked his board up, and walked to the beach. He found his towel and ran it over his face and hair then turned around to watch the sapphire waves crest and crash. Surfers were territorial, and Malibu was his. He’d gladly make the hour drive to ride these breaks and watch the sun come up over the city as he surfed.

  Zuma Beach made up the western edge of Malibu, tracing a long crescent up the coast. Steep bluffs dropped onto the long, curving stretch of bleached sand. The southern tip of Zuma connected with Westward Beach, where the iconic final shot of Planet of the Apes had been filmed. The group Bo surfed this break with eventually took to calling themselves the “Damned Dirty Apes”. One of the guys worked in a surf shop and had access to a graphics company, so he had stickers printed up of Chuck Heston pounding the sand in front of the top half of the Statue of Liberty with You Maniacs! in bold red letters underneath. They all slapped them on the backs of their cars, their boards, and damned near anything else they wanted to mark.

  Bo sat in the sand and dried, watching the water crash upon the beach, refreshed, centered. The Rockstars lived by night, but even those nights when they weren’t running a bust or a surveillance, they were out on the streets listening, vibing, staying connected. He checked the cheap digital watch he’d bundled up in his towel. It was almost 8 a.m. Technically, his shift was starting in a few minutes, but as a special unit, they were a bit more flexible with their hours.

  Bo found his orange CJ-6 in the parking lot and tossed the towel in the back. He put his foot on the step and hoisted his board onto the rack, securing it with thick nylon straps. A six-inch lift kit and twenty-four-inch tires on something where you needed to access the roof rack probably wasn’t the brightest idea, but he loved this thing and hadn’t found anything better for the beach. Bo checked the straps and did a quick walk around, throwing a quick glance to the Damn Dirty Apes sticker on his rear fender. Bo smirked; that joke never got old.

  He climbed into the Jeep, cranked up the stereo, wheeled out of the lot, and headed back toward Hollywood.

  “Hey, partner,” Mitch said, droppin
g a backpack onto he and Bo’s table in the squad room. Mitch had been out with some of the others trying to get background on their target while Bo stayed behind and wrote up the ops plan for Saturday’s takedown.

  “So you want to hear about what your boy was up to all day?”

  “Hit me.”

  “I’ll tell you, dude; we sure can pick ‘em.” Mitch popped open his Orange Crush. “Senna follows him to the Santa Monica Airport. He meets a twin engine Beechcraft on the runway, trades a motorcycle bag for a backpack, gets in his car, and heads back into town.”

  “We know who was on the plane?”

  Mitch nodded. “Yeah, Dom wrote down the airplane’s tail number while it was on the ground. He called the airport today and got the flight plan, which he tracked back to their point of origin in San Fran. Guy on the plane was a Lewis Stanley.”

  “No shit. Tell me Dom at least pulled the plane over.”

  Mitch laughed at the image of Dom Senna chasing after an airplane, Code Three with lights and sirens, down a runway. “Not exactly, Freddy made some calls in San Fran, and apparently Joe Walsh is playing a guest set at the Fillmore tonight.”

  “We get an address?”