'Then she tells me she thinks the gas-station attendant was lying,' DeMarco continued. 'Tells me to polygraph him. She impeached her own fuckin' guy, and he was the best part of her case.'
'Why? Why would she do that?'
'Maybe she wants your bod.'
'Get up.' Shane pulled DeMarco up to his feet.
He stood there, weaving drunkenly. 'I'm figurin' there's a good chance she's gonna come across again.' He grinned.
'You mean you're sitting around, sucking down beers, waiting for her to throw this case, too?'
'I'm not waiting around. I'm bustin' tail, bud. I'm all over this puppy'
'Okay, Dee, I'm stuck with you because they fast-tracked my board and nobody else will take it on such short notice. Right now I've got something to do, but I'm coming back, unannounced. You better be fuckin' clear-eyed and sober. Next time I'm here, I want a full review of this case, blow by blow. I want your subpoena list and I want to know who you're interviewing. I want to hear your case strategy.'
'Done,' he said, giggling slightly, shading his eyes, squinting into the sun.
Shane couldn't believe what he was seeing, couldn't believe what DeMarco had just told him. Alexa, with her box full of his career glitches, was hardly going to throw this board, regardless of what happened the last time. He glowered at the wavering defense rep. 'We've gotta get our helmets on. If I catch you drunk again, I'll beat the shit out of you. Don't fall down on me, man.' Then he turned, leaving the longhaired defense rep teetering badly in the bright sunlight.
Chapter 24
After he left DeMarco, Shane sat inside the hot Acura in the beach parking lot with the driver-side door open and called Sandy. Surprisingly, this time he got her; she picked up on the third ring.
'Sandy, it's me.'
'Shane, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as you thought. I called the school, and they told me there's no problem. Chooch is back in classes.'
'Yeah, no problem. What an alarmist I'm becoming. I need to see you today. We need to work out some stuff. I'll be there in half an hour.'
'Today's really shitty for me.'
'The whole week has been shitty for me,' Shane growled. 'You're meeting me at noon.'
'Can't. I have a lunch engagement.'
'Cancel it.' He was pissed at DeMarco but taking it out on Sandy.
'It's not that easy,' she hedged.
'Cancel the fucking lunch date. I'm gonna be there at noon.' He hung up on her. It was eleven-thirty.
Sandy lived at the Barrington Plaza in Brentwood, in one of two gorgeous penthouse suites. Shane got there in thirty minutes. He pulled up to the overhanging porte cochere and handed the keys for the busted-up Acura to a doorman who had enough braid hanging off his uniform shoulders to lead a Latin American country or the University of Michigan marching band.
'I'll need to announce you, sir,' the doorman said, frowning at the bruised Acura parked on his brick entryway, subtracting elegance like a turd on a serving platter.
'Shane Scully for Ms. Sandoval.'
The doorman picked up the phone, had a short conversation, then walked with Shane into the lobby and key- carded the elevator for the penthouse level. 'You can phone down before you return and I'll have the vehicle brought up.' He pronounced the word 'vehicle' like an ancient curse.
'Thank you,' Shane said. The doors closed and he was alone in the fragrant oak-paneled luxury of the Barrington Plaza elevator, listening to a selection of orchestrated show tunes.
Shane marveled once again at what Sandy had been able to accomplish. When he had met her, he'd been on the job only a little over a year. It was just after he'd been separated from Ray and moved to West Valley Division. The first month in that division he'd been a floater, and because he was a 'new face,' he had been temporarily assigned to detectives working a bunco scam as an undercover. She had been a top-line L. A. call girl, working an executive clientele. The bunco detectives had been investigating a counterfeit bond trader, and Sandy happened to be balling the guy for a thousand a night. Shane, working UC, had arrested her for prostitution, but then instead of booking her, the bunco squad instructed him to try to 'flip' her. He did, and she worked the case for him as an informant. Shane was her contact. She had skillfully pillow-talked the bond trader, allowing Shane and the Valley detectives to expand their investigation. When the bust went down, fifteen bond traders hit the lockup and Shane protected her, managing to keep her from being prosecuted. During that operation she proved that she had guts and savvy and could be counted on in a pinch. Shane became her friend, and one night, a week later over dinner, she suggested that she might be willing to work for the police if the price was right.
'How much do you guys spend to get a big player into court?' she had asked him. 'How much overtime and special duty gets approved to bring down a big vice lord or drug kingpin?'
The truth was, often hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent trying to collar a predicate felon, and sometimes even then they failed to come up with an indictment.
Sandy's proposal was shrewd; it showed her keen business mind. She told Shane she would work any target they pointed her at and charge LAPD nothing up front. Despite the upscale nature of her clientele, she was tired of working one-night stands and wanted to expand her horizons. She had two conditions: if successful, she wanted half the amount of money the department had spent on that criminal investigation in the preceding year, and she would not work a target who had an annual police budget of under a hundred thousand dollars. She said she would trust Shane to divulge the correct amount. After almost a month of negotiating with her over terms and conditions, the department finally agreed.
Sandy proved to be exceptional in this new line of work. She was thorough and totally prepared herself before ever moving in on her target. First, she would study the criminal, research him like a doctoral thesis. If he liked Russian literature, she would memorize passages of Solzhenitsyn. If he was interested in Impressionistic art, she would become an expert on Gino Severini's essays, From Futurism to Classicism. Then she would set up shop somewhere in his field of vision. One day Mr. Big would be at his favorite country club bar and he'd look across the room and see a dusky, raven-haired goddess sitting at a table alone, reading an art pamphlet detailing the next Impressionist auction at Sotheby's. A conversation would ensue, and this unsuspecting criminal would find that, lo and behold, he had a soul mate, a drop-dead ten on the libido scale who miraculously liked everything he did, from van Gogh to ocean catamaran racing. She became so tuned in, she could finish his sentences.
Before long they would become intimate. Here, Sandy was on her home field. She was a Hall of Fame sexual acrobat. Mr. Big would think he'd won the quiniela. Then Sandy would slowly begin to work him for information. After sex he'd start bragging. He'd fill her beautiful head with his criminal exploits. She'd coo and tell him he was a genius. Once she had his criminal operation down, she would start looking around for a patsy. She knew that when the cops made the arrest, Mr. Big would know he'd been sold out. He might turn violent from his cell, might figure her for the informant and order her killed. To protect herself, Sandy would look around at Mr. Big's criminal companions for a stand-in who could fulfill this unrewarding role.
Before dropping the dime to the police, she would set up the patsy as the informant. She was careful to always pick someone worthy of execution, so the unsuspecting police department wouldn't put too much time into the scumbag's murder. Once she had selected her patsy, she would begin flirting with him, setting up a romantic triangle. Mr. Big would get furious at the patsy: 'Stop hitting on Sandy. I catch you putting the make on her again, I'll drop you where you stand.' But Sandy was worth the risk, and she'd work both men into steamy jealous rages.
When the bust came down, it didn't take Mr. Big long to figure out who had fingered him. The patsy would end up strolling the tidal basin in concrete loafers while Sandy sat in the jail visitors' room, crying her eyes red and promising Mr. Big that she would be there when he got out.
