The Bad Shepherd Page 4

  “OK, OK. How does the resupply work?”

  “I call a pager and give them my code, I’m ’94.’ Its randomly assigned, far as I know. They page me back with a number to call. Then I get a second page with the day and time. Usually it’s the same day, but not always. I call the number, give them the quantity I need, and they let me know how long it’ll be.”

  “That’s a well-organized system.”

  “I told you, you’re underestimating them.”

  Bo mulled it over for a time, taking his eyes back out to the skyline. Finally, he said, “OK, this is what we’ll do.”

  Chapter Four

  Bo pulled a Tecate out of the fridge and opened all of his windows to let the last bit of evening light in. He took a pull from the beer and leafed through his album collection, trying to find something that suited his mood. He settled on Deep Purple’s Burn, their first album with David Coverdale on vocals. Deep Purple was a band that was hard to pin down. They’d been around since the mid-‘60s and cut their teeth on psychedelic rock, like a heavier version of The Guess Who. In the ‘70s, Deep Purple gravitated toward a funk and soul-influenced sound with Burn and deepened that on the subsequent record Stormbringer. This, in turn, forced the departure of guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, who felt the new sound was contrary to the musical direction he thought the band should go in. Blackmore went on to found a new band called Rainbow at the Rainbow Bar and Grille, a few years back. Deep Purple was on their third lead singer now and was nose diving into obscurity.

  Guys don’t need soap operas. We have bands.

  With the music playing, Bo dipped into his room and pulled his stash out of the sock drawer. He rolled a joint, lit it, and lay down on the couch, trying to forget the last few days.

  Lorenzo Fremont’s home, which actually belonged to his grandmother, now residing (by choice or not) in a nursing home, was in the Southwest Division Area. Mitch served his boot year down there, and it truly lived up to its LAPD nickname, the Wild West. The cops who patrolled those streets referred to themselves as “gunslingers.” Bo and Mitch spent most of the day at Southwest station with their CRASH liaison, a shaved gorilla named Dave Ellison. Ellison, a sergeant, ran the squad.

  Each division in the South Bureau had an anti-gang CRASH squad that gathered intelligence on the gangs in the division area and disrupted their activities, or at least tried to. Originally piloted in the late ‘70s out of the Seventy-Seventh Street Division, each area with a significant gang presence had a CRASH unit now. CRASH stood for “Community Resource Against Street Hoodlums.” When the program first launched, it was called “Total Resources,” but the department was forced to change the name have a public backlash. With just three years until Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympics, the department knew they had an uphill battle to decriminalize the southern areas. The centerpiece of the games, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, was ground zero for gang activity in the city. CRASH was the first line.

  Ellison doubted the theory that Fremont was running a major distribution network right under their noses. He said none of the intelligence his unit collected backed that story up. The division’s narcotics squad boss said the same thing, adding that they just didn’t believe it was possible that a mid-level crew runner could get next to a direct supplier from Columbia. Ellison went so far as to suggest that perhaps Lorenzo Fremont was a smokescreen that their informant was putting up to protect his actual source.

  They’d considered that angle. Particularly, Mitch as he was less inclined to trust the source after their dustup at Rubenstein’s house.

  Ellison’s curt dismissal of the theory propelled the partners into a boiling argument on the ride back to Hollywood. Mitch, still singed from Deacon’s assessment of him, was quick to throw in with Ellison’s counterargument. Mitch was also refusing to let go that his partner didn’t defend him in front of a suspect when Deacon made his accusation. Then Mitch told Bo that he’d been spending entirely too much time with their suspect and wondered if he were being objective. That was true; Bo had spent several hours with Deacon.

  Bo told him that he was keeping tabs, checking in daily to make sure the dealer hadn’t fled. The day they busted Deacon, they took him down to the station for finger printing and booking. Bo explained that this was a precaution, a guarantee that he’d cooperate. He stuck with the alias on the driver’s license. They printed him and immediately ran the prints through the city, sheriff, and NCIC databases. They came up empty with the city and LA Sheriff searches, but it’d be a few days before they heard back from the National Criminal Information Center. Still, they had prints on him now, and Deacon Blues would have his on file somewhere if the government sent him over to Southeast Asia. They released him on his own recognizance after booking him, but there would be a tail on him twenty-four hours a day until the meet with Fremont’s people. The DA initially refused Bo’s request to release Deacon and said he wouldn’t consider it until Lorenzo Fremont was in custody. When Bo explained they couldn’t set up the takedown from central holding, the DA acquiesced, but he explained to Bo that it was his ass, his career, if Deacon fled.

  Bo continued to spend a lot of time with the dealer during the days between his arrest and their takedown of Fremont. Officially, Bo was keeping tabs on Deacon to make sure he honored his deal and didn’t flee but Bo would admit, only to himself, that he was drawn to Deacon in a way he couldn’t quite understand. Vietnam was common ground and they formed the kind of bond that only people who’d been under fire can. Bo and Deacon walked the beach and talked about the futility of it, the fifty five thousand lives lost and for what? They talked about the government lying to them—to the foot soldiers—about what they were really doing there and whether that was working. Deacon shared very little of his experiences there, though Bo guessed that he’d been Special Forces with the way he’d talked about the bush. And Laos.

  Bo didn’t agree with the path Deacon had chosen, but he could understand why he’d made that choice. You spend the better part of ten years in a place fighting for some nebulous thing called “freedom” only to find it’s got nothing at all to do with that. You defend people who’ve done terrible, unspeakable things and do terrible things yourself to keep them in power because they support your government. Only to lose anyway.

  But that was Vietnam. No one left that country without scars.

  Deacon was breaking the law. There was no equivocating or moralizing that, Bo knew. But, he was still different than the thugs with their bandannas that gunned down their neighbors for real estate to sell their drugs. He was different than the people like Rik who used drugs to gain influence and access they couldn’t get on their own. He was different, yes, but what he was doing was still wrong. Even though Bo could see exactly how Deacon had come to this place. Bo stopped short of justifying Deacon’s actions. That was a very dangerous place for him to be, but he understood them and he didn’t want to see Deacon burn because of it.

  The duality of it confused and frustrated Bo.

  The phone rang near the end of the first side, and he considered letting it go to the machine, but he set the joint down in the ashtray, got up, and walked over to the kitchen. “Fochs,” he said, hearing the weariness in his own voice.

  “Hey, you,” the bright voice on the other end announced. “You sound tired.”

  “Hey darlin’,” he said, his mouth breaking into a smile. They’d spent the day adding additional details to the Richard Ranes legend that would help them sell it to Lorenzo Fremont. Mitch talked to a friend in Auto Theft who was able to get them a high-end sports car to help backstop the Ranes identity. They knew they needed to sell Fremont on the idea that Ranes was so used to being a power broker in his circle that’d he be exactly the kind of person to drive a Ferrari into South Central with a briefcase full of cash and feel perfectly safe in his bubble of naiveté.

  “What are you up to?”

  “A whole lot of nothin’.”

  “I’m meeting some friends out later tonight
. We’re going to go to see Rat-something, I think.”

  “No, it’s just Ratt, with two ‘t’s,” Bo said through a laugh. “They used to go by Mickey Ratt.”

  “That’s it,” Daphne said, her voice excited as though she’d made some great discovery.

  Bo loved to hear the excitement in her voice. “They’re pretty good. I’ve caught a couple of their shows. I like the two-guitar thing they’re doing. You don’t see that with a lot of bands here.”

  “I went out and got some of the records you told me about, and then one of my girlfriends was over, saw me listening to them, and now they want me to come out to the shows with them.”

  “That’s how it starts.”

  “Why don’t you come out with us?”

  “I’d love to, but I’ve had a pretty rough couple of days. I think I just need to relax.” He regretted declining as soon as he’d done it. What he really wanted to do was see Daphne, but he just didn’t have the juice to be out all night. Tomorrow was going to be a long one too, judging by how the week was going. “Why don’t you come by here?”

  “OK,” she said, her voice a half-song. “We could hang out until the show starts, and I’ll just leave from your place instead. Have you eaten yet?”

  “Naw, I really haven’t thought that far ahead.”

  “You must be in bad shape. I’ll pick us up a pizza on the way over.”

  Daphne arrived a half-hour later cradling a pizza and a six-pack. She kissed Bo softly as she walked through the door, still holding their dinner. Bo slid an arm around her and guided her into the apartment.

  “I’m really glad you came over tonight.” He took the pizza and set it on his table.

  They had met the night the Rockstars busted Rik. Bo was undercover as a record industry scout. They’d spent most of the night flirting before Bo identified himself as a police officer and arrested their host. When the squad brought everyone in for questioning, Bo filed Daphne as a confidential informant and didn’t write up the standard field interview card on her. They started seeing each other a few days later. It was a breach of protocol if not outright skirting the rules, but Bo didn’t much care. Daphne wasn’t involved in Rik’s trade, she just happened to be at the wrong party at the wrong time. Mitchell knew that Bo called her an informant to keep Daphne’s name off the books but not why, and he certainly didn’t know that they’d seen each other almost every night since that bust a few weeks prior. Mitchell, who sometimes had trouble parsing the letter of the law from the spirit of it, would see this only one way, Bo’s knowingly and willfully violating the cannon of ethics that separated the police from society. But Bo knew that the world was gray and his relationship with Daphne was just another shade of it. If that meant skirting his partner’s overly developed definition of morality, so be it.

  Daphne was a woman worth taking a risk or two for.

  She pulled two beers out and took the others to the refrigerator. “Rough day, huh? You want to talk about it?”

  “Not really,” he said, popping his beer as he sat. He opened the pizza box and pulled a slice out. “It’s just been a long week.”

  She slapped at his hand, playfully. “Don’t you use plates?”

  “Just more to wash later,” Bo said with a smirk.

  “Well, napkins at least.”

  Bo indicated the roll of paper towels on the kitchen counter and, while her back was turned, shoveled half a slice into his mouth. Daphne shot him a look of feigned anger when she returned to the table but said nothing about it.

  “I got a line on a new dancing gig today,” she said instead.

  “Really? That’s awesome. Where at?”

  “Universal. It’s for a music video. Have you seen that show, Night Flight?”

  “I don’t have cable, but I catch it at Mitch’s sometimes. Music videos are pretty cool.”

  “Well, there’s a whole TV station that’s going to air in a couple of months, and all they’re going to do is show music videos, all day long. Everybody is going crazy trying to get videos shot so they can get on air, and I have a friend who is directing. He asked me if I’d be interested in dancing in a few. We’ll see where it goes from there.”

  Daphne had come to LA from some nowhere town in Idaho to escape a no-account future. Model class legs and some decent rhythm got her steady enough work dancing.

  “Right on.” Bo raised his beer can and toasted her across the table.

  They finished dinner, and Bo rolled a fresh joint while Daphne picked out Steely Dan’s Aja, held it up, and eyed him skeptically. “I didn’t think you were into stuff like this.”

  “I’m not really. I got that record because of a friend of mine,” was all he said. “Friend” was a bit of a stretch, he thought. He had a long-shot idea that the album might give him some insight into the enigmatic dealer and tell him why Deacon had chosen that alias and clung to it like a dying man to a rosary. The hunch hadn’t paid off, and he was no closer to answering his questions, but at least it was a good record.

  Bo lit the joint, and he and Daphne passed it between them on the couch. She lay down and put her head in his lap, stretching her long legs out. With his free hand, Bo stroked her hair. They talked about her dancing gig and what that might lead to for her. She didn’t ask him about work, sensing that was a place he didn’t want to go tonight. Daphne took a deep drag, held it, and let it out slooooowwwwwly. Her left hand weaved back and forth to the rhythm.

  “You always have the best grass.”

  He cracked a wry smile. “It’s because I get it out of the evidence locker.”

  She laughed.

  “Are you from LA originally?” Daphne asked after a few quiet moments. Bo tended to dodge conversation about his past. When they first started dating, she playfully accused him of trying to play it off as being mysterious. Soon, though, Daphne learned that it was a subject that Bo was very uncomfortable around, so he simply avoided it.

  “Born and raised,” he said slowly, pronouncing each word as if it were its own sentence.

  “Are your parents still here?”

  Bo shook his head, and the smile drained off his face. “My folks aren’t around anymore.”

  Daphne put a hand up to her mouth. “Oh, Bo, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

  He shook it off. “Not another word, darlin’. You couldn’t know.”

  “I guess that’s why you never wanted to say much about it, huh?” she said, looking up at him.

  After a deep breath, he told her, “Growing up, it was just Dad and me, anyway. He’d come out here from Houston in his twenties with eyes on becoming a wildcatter. Guess he’d done oil work in Texas. I don’t think it dawned on him that he was showing up forty years late to the party.” Bo looked away to the bare wall he’d never had the inclination to decorate.

  “Pop, he never made much money, but when he did, he’d always splurge on something like a steak dinner. Sometimes we’d go to a fancy restaurant, at least fancy for us. If Dad brought home steaks, he was flush. He was usually working two jobs to keep the house, so I was alone most nights. Lot of the reason I got into surfing was it was the only way I knew to escape being stuck in a stuffy bungalow in the Valley while my dad was out working. I turned out to be a pretty good baseball player, and Pop would make it to games when he could. I really enjoyed that.

  “Things were especially tough when I was in high school, though, and he stopping coming to my games because he was working so much. I stopped playing when he stopped coming. Practice was cutting into my surfing time anyway.” He added the latter after a thoughtful pause, as if buttressing his father’s absences.

  “Wasn’t your mom ever around?”

  “No. I never really knew her. Spots here and there. It’s like faded pictures in my head. Actually, I don’t even remember when she left. I was so young. I just know that it was before I was in school. The accounts vary as to why, sometimes even from my dad. Some people said she left but were vague on the reasons. Some said there was another
man; that was when I was older. Someone said she got sick. I’d heard she’d died from my uncle, but maybe that was just wishful thinking. When my dad did talk about her, which was rare, he was never very specific, but I know whatever happened it hurt him a lot. He never remarried. Far as I’m concerned, she abandoned both of us. I never believed she just got sick and died. If the explanation was that simple, Pop just would’ve told me. Either way, I never knew her, and I don’t ever care to if she’s still out there.”

  “Is that why you’re so fearless around women?” Daphne smiled coyly.

  Bo smiled, but it was cold. “I guess I just never grew up being afraid of them.”

  “What made you decide to become a policeman?”

  “Well, when I got back from Vietnam, I found out that in the real world a mess cook doesn’t hand you three plates full of shitty food every day.” Bo took a long toke and handed the joint back to Daphne. “No kidding, I got back to the world without any kind of a plan. Everybody always talked about what they’d do when they got back to the world. Every time they got to me, I said I just wanted to surf.”

  “You never wanted to be anything when you grew up? I thought all kids wanted to be an astronaut or Joe Namath.”

  “Not me. I never really had a plan, too busy surfing to think about it, I guess. College was never an option for me. We had zero money when I was in high school. My dad sunk his meager savings into a fix-it-man business that went under before it ever got off the ground. He was working on a renovation on some house and had a heart attack. He died before they got him to the hospital. I had six months to go before I graduated. Thought about dropping out, but I knew that would’ve crushed him, so I crashed with a friend for a few months until I could graduate. Draft was only a matter of time, and I didn’t have any college prospects, so I volunteered. I don’t know if this is true or not, but I’d heard that if you volunteered you could pick your job. If you got drafted, they made you infantry. Those odds were not good.” The light returned to his voice, and the SoCal drawl that was more pronounced.