The Bad Shepherd Read online

  Lindsay nodded.

  Mitch took over. “Captain, I have a CI placed in the Rollin’ 30s Crip set who has provided convincing evidence that Marlon Rolles is one of the major narcotics distributors in South Los Angeles. Rolles is the head of the Next Chapter Foundation, which is a charity that helps kids get out of gangs.”

  Lindsay nodded as his expression betrayed the fact he couldn’t believe what he had heard. Some part of Mitch always drew short pleasure from shocking undercover officers, men with the best poker faces in the department.

  “We believe Rolles uses the foundation as a front for recruiting people into his distribution network. Once recruited, he places these kids in a variety of programs where they have contact with other at-risk kids. He uses this network to sell a high volume of narcotics, primarily rock cocaine.” Mitch opened his briefcase and pulled a folder out. He removed the map and unfolded it on the commander’s desk.

  “The red stars represent the locations where Next Chapter participants are enrolled in programs. The circles around them show the concentration of drug arrests made in the last six months. As you can see, each of these places is a nucleus of distribution activity. We believe that Rolles’ people are the distributors. They go into these places and recruit middlemen who manage the street level dealers. They only deal in volume and never touch the street.”

  Mitch folded the folder’s front cover over revealing the arrest records. He handed those to Lindsay. “These are the arrest records.” Each arrest record was marked with a corresponding color. “You’ll notice that the nuclei in the predominantly white, middle class neighborhoods are surrounded by cocaine charges. The ones farther south are primarily rock and PCP.”

  “The entire organization isn’t involved in this, is it? All those kids?”

  “We don’t think so,” Zarcone cut in. “He’s using the organization as a cover for the drug network. Looking at the rough numbers, I’d speculate about 25 to 30 percent are involved in the narcotics distribution. The rest are legitimate kids trying to get out of the gangs. Though, he’s just using them as a cover.”

  Lindsay flipped through them and reviewed the map for a few moments in silence.

  “This is an interesting theory, gents. It’s also a very serious accusation against a pretty visible member of the community.”

  “I agree, Captain, so I contacted an asset I’d worked with in the past to see how Rolles would react if approached. Rolles’ people had my guy checked out, and they agreed to a buy. Since they didn’t know him, they said it had to be significant to get them to move. They want $500,000.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  Zarcone broke in. “It is, but I also think this is an opportunity that we should take. This is a major drug ring operating right underneath the Olympics. We shut this down now, and it’s good all around.”

  Lindsay muttered, “A rising tide raises all boats, eh?” Lindsay continued to page through the materials Mitch set in front of him. Finally, he looked up at Gaffney. “And Rolles agreed? Just like that?”

  Zarcone’s beeper went off.

  “He did,” Mitch said, nodding. “My asset is a high-profile dealer. Actually, he was the guy that handed us Lorenzo Fremont. They knew him by reputation but not personally, that’s why they set such a high buy number. They want to see if he can deliver.”

  Lindsay looked up from the map.

  “So what are you proposing exactly?”

  Zarcone leaned forward in his seat. “If the department will back the funds, Mitch will work with your detectives to set up the sting. His CI will wear a wire and carry the cash. As soon as the money changes hands, we’ll swoop in and grab them.”

  “Did Rolles set a date for the buy?”

  “Next week, Thursday.”

  “OK,” Lindsay said, standing. “Let me talk it over with my people, and I’ll let you know tomorrow at the latest. We’ll need to get the chief’s approval for that much. What happens if the Chief says ‘no’?”

  “We may lose our opportunity with Rolles. This particular source will be burned for not coming through.”

  “Ok,” Lindsay said, hand on his chin and downcast eyes.

  “Captain, Rolles has been playing us for years. CRASH has used him as an asset. We’d identify kids that we thought could get turned around by his program. In return, he’d feed us gang intel and info on who the dealers were. Looks like he was just tipping us to his rivals to clear out the competition, and we bought it. For years.”

  Mitch nodded, sadly. “And used us to recruit for him.”

  “Jesus. We’ll be in touch. Today or tomorrow. Chief has his hands full right now, so I can’t make any promises.”

  “Ok, thanks, Phil.”

  They shook hands. Zarcone’s beeper sounded again.

  “Somebody wants you pretty bad.”

  “Is there a phone around here I can use?”

  “Sure, use mine.”

  Zarcone dialed the number on the pager. After the introductions there was a short, tense conversation followed by a “shit.” Zarcone hung up and looked at Mitch. “We’ve got to go. Now.” Zarcone nodded to the captain and thanked him again for his time.

  Mitch followed his lieutenant out the door, lengthening his stride to keep up with his rushing commander. “What’s going on?”

  “Two drive-bys in 30s territory today. Two dead. One of them was at a goddamn bus stop. Come on, we need to get back to the station before the entire area tears itself apart.”

  They made the parking garage as fast as they could and raced back to Southwest.

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Bo drummed his hand absently on the steering wheel to the tune of the Saxon tape in his deck. He’d gotten up in the small hours and made the trek out to Santa Monica to catch a set just after dawn. It felt so good to be back on the waves. He realized that the last few months had been like a long, restless sleep and it wasn’t until he got back onto his board and surfed that Bo finally felt alive again.

  Mitch sat half-awake in the seat next to him, a cold convenience store coffee between his legs

  The department had approved the funds, despite the short notice, and Zarcone detached Mitch from the gang suppression sweeps for three days, at which time they had to show tangible progress or Mitch would be pulled back.

  Bo sipped Orange Crush from a 7-Eleven cup.

  “You know what this reminds me of?” Mitch asked, fiddling with the telephoto lens attachment for the camera he’d signed out.

  “What’s that?”

  “The Eddie Barnes stakeout,” he said and punctuated it with a short laugh.

  “You’re an asshole,” Bo returned, smiling. “It was food poisoning.”

  “Bullshit,” Mitch said at length.

  “It totally was. And anyway, it was your fault.” Bo tilted his cup so the straw was aiming at Mitch. “You picked the place. You and your effing burrito fixation.”

  Bo smiled at the memory, and it lingered a long while before it faded from his face. He truly missed this, the banter, the camaraderie. He realized that he really missed his friend.

  “Bo, here it is.” Mitch slapped his arm with a backhand.

  The red Tornado pulled out of Next Chapter and north onto Crenshaw, a four-lane road with a palm-lined median. Because they could only turn right coming out of the foundation, Bo parked half a block down where neighboring buildings would shield them from observation. Bo waited for a few cars to pass before he slid into traffic. The Tornado U-turned at the next light.

  “Full boat,” Mitch said. “I make Rolles, Shabazz, and two in the back.”

  Bo followed them through the U-turn and south into Inglewood, where they picked up the southbound 405. The Tornado cruised south for about twenty minutes, taking the Sixth Street exit in Long Beach.

  “Smart,” Bo said. “They’re making deals outside of LAPD jurisdiction.”

  Mitch nodded in agreement.

  Shabazz turned onto Long Beach Boulevard, and from th
ere it was another three quarters of a mile to their destination, a shit shack used car dealership. The lot was sandwiched between an alley at the end of a residential strip and an empty lot. A six-foot chain link fence that looked like it was held up by hope surrounded the lot. The office was in the back left corner of the lot and was a squat mid-1960s building that hadn’t been updated or, likely, painted since then. The dealership also sported the obligatory red, white, and blue triangle pennants strung across poles over the center of the lot. Despite the “Long Beach Exotic Imports” sign, the lot was filled primarily with mid-‘70s domestics in varying degrees of awful.

  Shabazz pulled into a parking spot next to the building. All four men, one of them carrying a briefcase, exited the car and walked inside. Mitch had the camera ready and snapped several shots of them entering the building as they rolled slowly by. Long Beach Boulevard, like Crenshaw, was a major north/south thoroughfare and a divided four-lane road. There were no good, unobtrusive vantage points on the northbound side so he looped around at the next light and pulled into the parking lot of an auto-parts store roughly across the street from the car dealership. Mitch climbed into the back and rested the camera on a seat back.

  “Dude, I can see straight into that front window.”

  “What’ve you got?”

  “They’re talking with two guys.” Mitch paused to snap several photos. “Latin American.” The camera clicked off the shots in rapid succession. “OK, I’ve got a handshake.”

  Rolles, Shabazz, and two heavies stepped out of the building and into the summer heat. The two Bo and Mitch hadn’t identified yet broke off from the boss and walked over to a two-toned, yellow-and-white Chevy van. They climbed in and started the vehicle, and both cars exited the lot.

  Bo quickly turned about in the parking lot, but because it was a one-way street, they couldn’t follow them directly. Bo took a chance that they were heading back up to Crenshaw and turned right on Ninth Street and raced to the Pacific Avenue intersection, which ran parallel to Long Beach Boulevard. He sped up Pacific to PCH, which he took over to Long Beach where he made a left and rejoined the northbound traffic. He figured they’d ride this all the way to the 405. Sure enough, they caught back up with the van as it passed through the Spring Street intersection. The Tornado was nowhere to be found.

  “What do you want to bet that van has some fake floorboards?”

  “We’re actually seeing a lot of hollowed-out seats now. Feels just like the real thing when they’re filled up. When it’s empty, well, it’s about the ride you’d expect from a shitty van. They could have $3 million in that thing, and you wouldn’t even know it from looking.”

  They followed the van back into Inglewood, but instead of taking Slauson into the Crenshaw district, they turned north on La Cienega and took that straight into Baldwin Hills. Bo was careful to maintain a discreet distance, but he was also fairly certain these guys couldn’t spot a tail. The van took a loop over Rodeo and back south into one of the Baldwin Hills neighborhoods. The van turned onto South Ridgely, a quiet, oak-lined residential street that lazily wandered up a large hill that eventually led to Baldwin Hills Park.

  The van slowed when it reached a mid-century, one-story bungalow. The driver pulled forward and backed into the driveway, which was a little precarious because the house itself was on a slight incline and the driveway was barely wide enough to accommodate the van. The driver alternated using the rearview mirror and leaning half out the window. After a few stop-starts, he managed to back it up to the stand-alone one-car garage. His partner jumped out and opened the garage door, and the driver finished backing it in. They closed and locked the garage then went inside.

  Bo rolled by slow enough for Mitch to jot down the address, time of day, and a brief description of the squat green house. Ridgeley was a thumb-shaped loop, so Bo drove past the house and back down the hill to Coliseum, where he reentered the neighborhood and drove back up the hill, slow enough to observe but not so much that it looked like that was what they were doing. They drove past the house once more and noticed all of the shades were drawn. The exterior of the house and the lawn were maintained well enough to blend in with the middle-class neighbors. Neither could observe anything that set this house apart from the others around it.

  “Baldwin Hills is an interesting choice for a rock house,” Mitch said, surveying the landscape. “We usually see them in some pretty bad neighborhoods.” However, most of them were not all that far from where they were now. “Its also interesting that Rolles’ people are manufacturing. Usually, suppliers sell the raw cocaine.”

  “So you think they’re cooking here as well?”

  “Yeah, it wouldn’t make sense to have a separate safe house for the drugs. That’s a lot of moving around, and he’s already got some overhead with the location and the upkeep.”

  “Smart move on his part. Police aren’t looking for them up here. The neighborhood is predominantly black, so his crew doesn’t necessarily stand out. They’re probably paying someone to keep the lawn up so that doesn’t draw any attention. Pretty sophisticated operation, all told.”

  “True enough. This is a lot better thought out than what I’m used to seeing. How long do you want to sit on the place?”

  Bo shrugged. “Up to you. Do you think this is enough for your boss?”

  Mitch nodded, looking at the house as they passed it one last time. “Yeah. If we had time, I’d put in for a wiretap. I’m going to request ‘round-the-clock surveillance with the detail I’m getting from Ad Narc. I’d really like to catch them manufacturing. Odds are they didn’t just get enough for our buy; they probably got bulk.”

  “Well, like you said, they could’ve held three mil in that van, and nobody would be the wiser.”

  “Exactly. Right now it’s just felony possession with intent. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lot of possession, but if we can throw manufacturing in there too, it makes it look like this big conspiracy to a jury. Besides, most civilians still think coke is no big thing, party drug and all that. Rock, though, they associate with gangs, violence and shootouts. That plays. Ideally, we want to ID one of those two.”

  He thumbed over his shoulder at the house. “What I think we do is sit on the house until the buy and then follow his people to the exchange. As soon as we see these guys hook up with Rolles, we bust him. At the same time, we have a team raid that house and prove he’s manufacturing as well. We draw that line, and we’ve got the whole fucking thing.”

  The subtext was that in that plan they wouldn’t need to use Deacon. Bo was well aware of Mitch’s feelings on the matter, and in this case he actually agreed with his partner though it was for different reasons. He’d asked Deacon to stick his neck pretty far out in contacting Rolles and that could have consequences if they didn’t get Marlon off the street. If Bo could spare his friend that, he would.

  My friend, Bo mused.

  “No, I think that’s a damn good idea, hoss.” Bo headed east to take Mitch back to the station. “Man, I miss this shit.”

  “I know what you mean, partner.”

  “Hey,” Bo said tentatively. “I wanted to apologize for the other night, for what I said. I was out of line, and I’m sorry.”

  “It’s OK. Really.”

  “No, I had no right to say that or to force your hand like that.”

  “I know what bringing in Rolles means to you and what you’ve sacrificed to get here.”

  Fochs nodded slowly.

  “I’m glad it’s us bringing him in,” Bo said.

  “Yeah.”

  It was a long journey to get here, three interminable years that had seen Bo twice lose his job, his partner, his reputation, and cost him the life of a woman he loved. Which is to say nothing of the price paid by those in his orbit—Hunter, Kaitlin, Lorenzo Fremont, all of them scarified willingly or not for this. Now, finally, Fochs and Gaffney were going to bring Marlon Rolles to justice.

  Bo dropped Mitch off and popped the glove box to check his pager.
Bo flipped the on switch, and the device erupted. He had three pages, all from the same number, Jimmy Mack’s. “What the hell?” What could McLaughlin possibly want with him now? Fochs found a pay phone and dialed the attorney’s office number. Jimmy’s voice sounded clipped and strained. Bo said he was in the area and could meet him. Jimmy said to come at once and hung up.

  Bo drove to the L-shaped strip mall at the corner of Santa Barbara and Western, beneath the billboard displaying Jimmy’s grinning countenance and assurance in ten-foot tall letters that Jimmy Mack had your back. Bo walked into the attorney’s office and told the girl there Jimmy was expecting him. She didn’t bother looking up from her magazine before telling him he could go on back. Jimmy saw him approach and waved him in, asking him to close the door when he did.

  “You got some muthafuckin’ nerve on you, boy!” he shouted across his desk. The squat attorney was bracing himself with both palms flat on the desktop. His big eyes were flaring.

  “Jimmy, what the hell?”

  “You think you can run game on me?”

  “Jimmy, I still don’t know what you’re talking about. Why don’t you calm down and explain what’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s going on. Mitchell Gaffney, that’s what’s going on!” He drew the name out. “You think you’re the only cop I know?” Jimmy stepped back from his desk and turned his back to Bo, folding his arms across his chest and looking out his window at the alley beyond. “So now you’re working with him? Boy, you’re playin’ so many sides against each other I don’t even know how you keep it straight in yo own head.”

  “Why do you care, Jimmy? I quit your case and you didn’t pay me for my time so explain to me why in the hell I’m standing here listening to this shit?”

  “Because I have a client and I have a case and they are paying me to do a job. How’s it gonna look when the LAPD’s lawyers point out that the guy who was working for me is now working with the guy I’m accusing of killing a kid?”

  “Not sure that’s my problem. You don’t have a case, Jimmy. I don’t know if you ever did.”