The Bad Shepherd Page 3

  Rik walked over and set the still-open briefcase on the table and then backed away. Deacon eyed the cash. There were ten stacks in there. They had actually signed out 100,000 in case they needed some room to negotiate as well as to sell the high roller legend. The day prior, Bo had meticulously photocopied each bill and entered its serial number into the case record.

  “It’s pure. You originally said eighty, so that’s what I was prepared to pay. That’s still high for street, and I’m buying in bulk.”

  “I just wanted to fuck with Rik a bit for making me jump on short notice,” Deacon said, motioning to the man with his drink. “I’ll give you the original price at eighty.”

  “So,” Bo said at length. “Do we have a deal?”

  Bo pulled two stacks out and set them on the table near him. He closed the case and locked it.

  “Yeah, we can deal.” Deacon grasped the handle and moved to stand.

  “Right on.”

  Doors opened, feet thundered across floors above and around them. Bo’s hand went into his jacket, and a pistol appeared. “Police officer!”

  Mitch echoed the announcement from behind Deacon. “Hands where we can see them.”

  “Ohshitohshithshitohshit!” Rik wailed, hands on his head. “Hey, what the fuck, man? What the fuck?” His voice was pitched high, just below a girl’s horror movie shriek.

  Bo looked over at Rik, his face draining into disappointment. “Knock it off, asshole.”

  “I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about, man.”

  Deacon Blues considered Bo with a quizzical look. He slowly put the briefcase on the floor, rose, and placed both of his hands above his head. Mitch cuffed him, patted him down, and found a .45 Colt 1911 stuffed into his pants at the small of his back. He removed that and guided Deacon hard onto the couch. Queen and Senna secured the drugs, the money, and Deacon’s personal effects. Bo Mirandized him and then took him to his place back on the couch. He gave Senna a look and nodded toward Rik. The detective escorted Rik upstairs. Queen went to the phone to call it in.

  “How about we start with your real name?” Bo removed a small notebook from his jacket’s inside pocket. “According to DMV, your 280ZX is registered to a Robert Charles Ryan.”

  Mitch retrieved a wallet from Deacon’s back pocket and pulled out the driver’s license. “Robert Charles Ryan,” he announced. Mitch held it up to the light, bending it and moving it in a few different directions. “It’s a fake, but a pretty good one.” He returned the ID to the wallet and walked it over to his other personal effects.

  Bo made a quick sweep with his pen, as if crossing something off a list.

  “Ok, we know Robert isn’t it. How about we start with your real name?”

  “Deacon Blues.”

  “I’m not going to sit here and whistle song lyrics at you. This is serious business, and you’re in a lot of trouble. For this.” He motioned at the table. “You’re looking at ten years.”

  “Deacon,” he said again. “Blues.”

  Bo gave him a cross look, but Deacon shrugged it off. “Sorry, I’m a little foggy since your partner shook my head up. Maybe I forgot.”

  “How about I hang your ass off the edge of the deck and see if a seventy-foot drop jogs your memory?” Mitch suggested.

  Deacon sized Mitchell up like a bank. Even in bracelets, he held his head high, defiance in his eyes. “I’ll bet you think you could try that. You became a cop for the excitement, right, for the rush? It’s the controlled thrill, isn’t it? You get a jones, but it’s on your terms. I mean, you get to bust people up, knock ‘em around some, and they can’t really do anything back.”

  “Keep talking, shit-wipe.”

  “It’s the perfect job for a coward.”

  Mitch lunged forward, but Bo stood up, blocking his path. He put a hand on his partner’s shoulder and told him to ease up.

  “UCLA, huh?” Deacon said, looking at Mitch’s t-shirt. “Let me guess. College deferment? Told yourself if the war was still going on when you graduated, you’d go over, telling anyone that would listen you wanted to do your part, all the while praying to God that they’d sort it out before you had to call the marker in.”

  “Hey, fuck you!”

  “That’s what I thought,” Deacon said and leaned back into the couch.

  Bo wanted to bawl his partner out for losing his composure but wouldn’t do that in front of a suspect. He turned back to Deacon. “Look, we just want to talk. That’s all. Nobody needs to go to jail. We need information, and if you can supply that information, you go free. If not, we’ll press charges, and, I’ll tell you, we’ve got you cold. You will do ten years. We’ll also make sure this is a very heavily publicized trial. Everyone will know. We’ll also let word get out that you talked. You named names. How long do you think you’ll last in prison if that happens?”

  Deacon exhaled. His eyes fixed on the traces of coke spread across the table. After a few moments, he nodded, still looking at the powder. “Fine. I’ll talk. But to you,” he looked up at Bo.

  Bo looked over at his partner. “Mitch, why don’t you go check on Rik and send Dom down here.”

  The partners traded a look, and the threat was clear in Mitch’s eyes. Bo couldn’t push this much further. He was trying to deescalate the situation, but Bo could tell his partner took it as siding with their suspect. Mitch flashed an angry glance, turned, and left. Most police their age had seen time in Vietnam. Mitch was one of the few exceptions and Bo knew how heavily it weighed on him. Not just because of the department, but also the tension it caused at home—Mitch’s father was something of a war hero himself.

  Deacon hit very close to the mark, and he’d known exactly where to aim. He was either a hell of a gambler or had a preternatural skill at reading people.

  Mitch had indeed taken a deferment to finish his degree at UCLA. He’d always told Bo that he intended to volunteer when he graduated and go in as an officer. His father had been an officer in Korea and something of a hero. The expectation was that Gaffney men wore their rank on their shoulders, not on their sleeves. From the stories Mitch told about his old man, he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who took to disappointment lightly. Mitch’s father didn’t agree with his son’s decision and thought he should’ve volunteered as soon as he was of age, done his part. He believed Mitch “lacked fortitude” because he hadn’t. Sounded like this was a running thing for most of Mitch’s life.

  As it was, Mitch’s father didn’t think much of his being a cop, and the two barely spoke.

  Mitch had told Bo he was ashamed he hadn’t been to Nam when so many of their peers had. He was clearly embarrassed when someone asked him what unit he served in, having just assumed that he’d gone like everyone else. Whatever the reason, Bo had no reason to doubt his partner’s bravery. Mitch had come up in the department in the Southwest Division. He was a gunslinger. There were some neighborhoods in that division just as dangerous as anything you’d see in Vietnam.

  Dom Senna jogged down the stairs. Dom was a five-eight fireplug. The son of a Portuguese father and a Sicilian mother, he had a perpetual tan and course, black hair. Dom hit the weights harder than any cop Bo had ever met, often twice a day. Wide shoulders with a jaw to match and a dimpled chin that more resembled a bomb crater than a piece of face, Dom looked like a man forever in search of a broken chair and a bar fight.

  Bo walked over and forcefully enough to make the point took Deacon by the arm, guiding him to his feet. He spun the man around. “I’m going to take these cuffs off you as a sign of good faith, hoss.” He unhooked Deacon’s hands. “But if you try anything stupid, Detective Senna here is going to pull you apart, limb from limb, and he won’t stop until I shoot him. Understand me?”

  Deacon looked at Senna, who said and did nothing.

  “Yeah.”

  “OK. Let’s get some air.” Bo led them outside to the back patio. A huge pool the same blue as the rest of the motif dominated the white patio in a wide, lazy checkmark
. Dom walked off to the far side of the pool, giving the illusion of privacy but sending the message that Deacon could run neither inside nor to the fence before he was shot. Shot if he were lucky, or caught if he were not.

  “You saw some action, I take it,” Deacon said.

  “Yeah. First Cav. Ia Drang, ‘71-’72. How’d you know?”

  “Same way I knew he didn’t.” Deacon indicated the house with his head. “You a leg?” Meaning, was he Infantry.

  “No. Door gunner on a Huey.”

  “Air Cavalry, huh? Caught a ride with you guys, time or two.”

  “That right? What unit were you with?”

  Deacon didn’t say anything for a time, then finally asked, “So, what are we talking about, Detective?”

  Bo walked over to a round table and pulled out one of the chairs. He motioned for Deacon to take the other one. Bo took in the view, the warm sun. “We’re not really interested in you,” he opened in his easy drawl, looking out across to pool and the skyline that lay beyond.

  “If you can help us out, tell us what we need to know, you can avoid doing time.” Bo restated the deal so everything was perfectly clear. He leaned forward, unbuttoned and removed his jacket. He draped it over one of the other chairs, rolled up his shirtsleeves and removed the tie. He retrieved his notebook and a pen from the jacket. “You’re obviously well connected and well supplied. You got an uncut kilo on short notice, couple of days. That tells me that whomever you’re buying from has got some serious juice. Either they’ve got a huge stockpile or a very short supply line.”

  Bo tapped the notebook with his pen. “Me? I think it’s a little of both. You’re also selling higher quality stuff at a lower price point than most of the other major coke dealers we know about. How am I doing so far?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “What I am interested in is your source.”

  Deacon shook his head. “Cooperating with the police isn’t exactly good for business.”

  “And the alternative would be?” Bo turned in his chair and faced Deacon.

  “A snitch jacket wouldn’t exactly be an improvement.”

  “We can place you under protection.”

  Deacon actually laughed at that. His face soured, but he said nothing.

  “You know what the most valuable skill an undercover cop has?”

  “Reading people?”

  “That’s right.” What did this guy do? “I can tell from our interaction so far that you aren’t going to do well in prison. It’s not the disregard for authority, I think. It’s the idea of confinement. Way I see it, you will do just about anything to avoid getting locked up. To be forced to live by our rules, in a cage, every day. I also think that if it came to that, you wouldn’t go easy. How am I doing?”

  “Pretty well, so far.”

  “I can protect your identity so that when I do roll the people above you, they won’t know it was you that told me. When we make the bust, I’ll make it look like you didn’t know I was a cop. I’ll arrest you along with them, only they’ll get booked and you won’t. We’d separate everyone at the time of arrest anyway so no one can corroborate stories. The more you can tell me about their organization, the more plausible I can make it that our lead came from somewhere else. Your name and your aliases will go in my case file as a confidential informant. Only my lieutenant and I have access to that file. Once the case goes to trial, the record is sealed and can’t be opened without the approval of California Superior Court.”

  This last part was total bullshit. Deacon’s identity and KAs would simply be put in the case file and could be opened by the order of the Division Commander.

  “Fair enough,” Deacon said.

  “What I am interested in is the network. I want to know how it’s coming in, what the system is, and what happens when it gets here, everything.” Bo held his gaze a moment. “Now, this is all contingent upon approval of the judge, you understand.”

  Bo considered the man opposite him.

  “I live and die by my sources, Deacon. Literally. If word gets out that I can’t be trusted, it’s not just a liability.” Bo paused. “It could cost me my life.” Bo leaned forward and pressed his hands together. “This is not something I would bullshit about.”

  Deacon looked up at the sky. He closed his eyes for a time, then opened them again and studied the clouds.

  “The guy you’re looking for is one Lorenzo Fremont,” he drew the name out with a dramatic flair.

  Bo repeated the name aloud and copied it into his notebook. “If he’s such a major player, how is it that I’ve never heard of him? He new on the scene?”

  “You’ve probably never heard of him because you never considered the possibility that the biggest supplier of coke in Hollywood is Black. Lorenzo Fremont is a Rollin’ 30s Crip.”

  Bo set his pen down and looked Deacon dead in the eyes; his expression dripped disbelief, as did his voice. “The Crips are selling in Hollywood?” Bo had shown an enormous amount of trust, given Deacon some serious concessions that he never would have under normal circumstances. Now he was beginning to fear that he’d overplayed his hand and that “Deacon Blues” was just dicking with him. “That seems like a tall order. How do they pull it off?”

  Deacon shrugged. “Through people like me, mostly. Look, I’m going to be up front with you. I don’t exactly know how big the organization is or how many dealers they’ve got. They compartmentalize very well. I know they’ve got a dealer who’s pretty deep into a couple film agents and managers, some studio people. From the talk, I’d say in total they’re moving between five and ten kilos per week across all of their distributors.”

  “What’s the biggest order you placed in that amount of time?”

  “Five kilos on short notice, but I’ve gone up to ten with a few days’ notice. What I do know is that Fremont is a major player, maybe the major player. I buy through him because I’m smart. He doesn’t cut his product, and people notice.”

  “Who’s above him in the organization?”

  “That’s just it. Fremont is the organization.”

  “What?”

  “He runs a crew, five or six other gang bangers, but he’s the head of it. Far as I know, he’s buying from whomever directly.”

  “Mexican Mafia?”

  “I had to guess, I’d say no. His product is pure. The Mexicans would have to get it from Columbians, Peruvians, Nicaraguans, whomever, and they’re sure as shit not going to pass along premium goods. They’re going to cut it like hell so they can cover their transportation risk.”

  “And the rest of his gang, they’re just OK with him freelancing like that?”

  Deacon shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him that. If they do know about it, he’s kicking money up for sure for protection and whatever. If he’s doing this on his own, then he’s got some serious tradecraft. All I know is, whenever I need a re-up, he’s never more than a day or two out. He couldn’t do that if he were very far down the food chain.”

  Bo nodded. “How did you first come into contact with him?”

  “I was buying from some Latinos, and I think Lorenzo’s people made them go away. They said if I wanted to buy, I could buy from them. Gave me a lower price point and higher quality; how could I say no?”

  Bo wasn’t discounting Deacon, but he wasn’t sure if he believed it either. The gangs had never pushed too far into the cocaine trade. Coke was the White man’s party drug. Usage statistics were in the ninetieth percentile, or higher. A Black gang member would have no way to break into the circles where White people used coke to be able to sell to them, let alone do it at the volumes Deacon was suggesting. It didn’t seem plausible that they’d just up and recruited a bunch of White dealers either. That was so much savvier than a street gang would be. But as Bo sat on that patio and considered the facts, it felt like they’d been chasing a ghost for months. He wondered at the possibility that not only were they looking in the wrong place, they were also looking for the wrong person. Gangs had al
ways dealt a little coke, mostly as freebase or rock, but that rarely left their part of town. If Deacon were right, and they were getting into powder coke now . . .

  “Is Fremont OG?”

  “Not exactly. He wasn’t around when they were still called the Original Harlem Gangsters, but he’s a little older than most of the bangers I’ve seen. I’d put him at about twenty-four.”

  “That’s old enough for grandkids down there. Physical description?” That meant Fremont had been smart enough not to get himself jailed or killed.

  Deacon looked up at the sky. “About five-eleven. He’s got some beef to him, so I’d say he lifts weights. Wears his hair in a, what do you call it, a high top fade?”

  “Shorter on the sides, kind of looks like a stubby eraser?”

  “Yeah, that sounds about right. Anyway, he runs a crew out of his place in South Central, Second Avenue. Getting next to him is going to be a little tough. I’ve only met the guy a couple times. He does everything through his crew. He’s got about four lieutenants who act as his couriers; they shuttle the drugs and the money. Far as I know, he never touches either. Most times, the couriers don’t leave the hood. You’ve got to go to them.”

  “That seems pretty sophisticated for a gang banger.”

  Deacon shrugged the comment off with a “take it or leave it” expression.

  “That’s the problem with you guys. Same mistake the government made in Vietnam. You don’t respect your opponent. You think that because they’re a bunch of dropouts and thugs that you can just outsmart them. Most of them haven’t gotten past the ninth grade, but they understand business, and their tradecraft is pretty good. And your approach is all wrong. I mean, you guys send a CRASH unit into one of their neighborhoods, go crack skulls, and what, you try to out-intimidate them?” Deacon shook his head the way in disappointment. “Same thing with the VC. You see how these guys live day to day, what they have to live with, you understand why they aren’t going to be scared straight by a couple of cops acting tough.”