'Will you guys let go of me?' he demanded. They ignored his request and pushed him roughly up the ladder into the jet.
'Okay, 'Darker Than Me,' let's do this dust off,' Rosario said to Jo-Jo Knight, who was pulling the Citation's cabin door closed behind them.
Almost before the door was latched, the jet was rolling. They hurtled down the poorly lit runway, engines screaming to rotation speed, and then the small executive jet lifted off the tarmac. The strange, six-lane runway fell away beneath them as the government pilot banked right, heading north toward the Caribbean Sea fifteen miles away.
'Thank God you found me,' Shane said.
Alexa grinned. 'I told you that pill would locate you within a meter.' Shane smiled and took her hand.
'We found out from a CIA internal briefing in Washington that this garrison was being used to billet a right- wing Colombian death squad, commanded by an ex-Argentine colonel named Raphael Aziz,' Alexa continued.
'Aziz?' he said. 'Is he the White Angel?'
She nodded. 'We knew from the satellite tracking that you were on that base. Rosario has some very interesting contacts. He got us hooked up with that band of Marxist guerrillas through a drug source he has in Medellin. So we made a deal with Aziz's guerrilla enemies, who were already near here. They agreed to give us some backup in return for finding out where Colonel Aziz was. We surrounded the place, but before we could move, out you came.'
'He skinned Tremaine Lane alive,' Shane said softly.
She didn't answer but squeezed his hand. 'You need a hospital.'
'I'll settle for a kiss.'
So that's what they did until Luis Rosario and Jo-Jo Knight dropped into the two seats facing them.
'Is this what white people do after a gun-fight?' Rosario asked. 'Cubans just drink and sing.'
'I thought Cubans drank and made love to sheep.' Knight grinned.
'Okay, okay.' Alexa grinned. 'Knock it off, you guys.'
Jo-Jo said, 'Unless you want this bird to circle over the water, we need to figure out where we want to go. Here's what me and this little freeway dancer figured out: your buddy Jody tried to cash in the escrow account in Aruba, but Sandro and Papa Joe beat him to it. By the time he showed up, they already cleaned it out. I think Papa Joe also set up the Vikings to be killed by the San Andresitos in Maicao after you delivered the product up there. You guys were just donkeys; he was never gonna share that money with you.'
'After Jody went to Aruba and discovered the money was gone, he disappeared on a charter flight to Florida,' Rosario said. 'We lost the trail in Miami. Can't figure why he'd be going to Florida, anyway.'
'Jody's not going there,' Shane said. 'He might have filed his flight plan for Miami, but trust me, he's going wherever Papa Joe and Sandy Mantoor are. Jody's gonna kill those two for setting him up and taking his money.' Shane ran it over in his mind for a minute. 'Papa Joe's got a house in Palm Springs. Maybe there.'
Alexa shook her head. 'After we broke the code book and found Jose Mondragon's name, we hit that desert house looking for clues to where you might be. I'm afraid that site got burned. Jose won't be going back to the Springs.'
Shane gave it some more thought. 'L. A.,' he finally said.
'Why L. A.?' Alexa frowned. 'That's the hardest place for him to hide. Three thousand cops there know he's alive and what he looks like.'
'Because that's where Lisa told me she was going, and Lisa's his only contact to Papa Joe. I know this guy. It's personal… Jody is gonna get his money back, or die trying.'
Alexa went forward to tell the pilot while Shane put his head back on the seat and closed his eyes. He was bone-tired. Sleep came in seconds.
They were at Ryder Field… Back in the sixth grade. Jody in his Pirates uniform, smiling at Shane… Slamming a ball into his pitcher's mitt, pulling it out, throwing it back again. 'Good game. Hot Sauce… Way t'call the hitters. '
'You threw the Ks,' Shane answered, his own voice bright and happy.
'We're a team. Nothing can ever change that.' Jody grinned.
Shane suddenly felt the need to tell Jody how he really felt: how much his friendship meant… What it was like to have been left at a hospital… To have never known his own parents… To be raised by strangers. How he never knew his mother. How he would lie in bed wondering why she had left him. Who was she? Why didn't she care enough to keep him? 'You're all I have,' Shane finally said. 'You're the only one who ever cared about me.'
Little Jody grinned and dropped the ball, throwing his arm around his ten-year-old buddy. 'Don't you forget it, Hot Sauce.'
'I'll never forget,' Shane said, with all his heart. 'You have my solemn promise.'
Chapter 47
THEY MADE A fuel stop at Love Field in Dallas. Alexa had radioed ahead and arranged for a medical team to take a look at Shane's leg. The bullet had passed through the lastus laterus muscle, barely missing the abductor canal.
So much for karma.
The slug had threaded its way through a complex maze of potential disasters while doing very little damage. They stitched and bandaged him up, gave him a shot of antibiotics, then told him to check with a doctor in L. A.
They took off from Love Field an hour later.
Los Angeles was in the middle of a horrible inversion layer that trapped the city's smoggy pollutants like smoke under a blanket.
The Citation landed at Van Nuys airport at three-thirty in the afternoon, taxied up to the small Customs shack at the end of Runway 2–6, and shut down.
Tony Filosiani was waiting for them beside the grandfather of the Crown Vies. The old beige and brown Ford fit the funky L. A. day.
'I'm sorry about the way this went down, Sergeant,' the chief said as they deplaned. 'I know we mind-fucked ya, but I didn't know what else t'do.'
'It saved my life,' Shane admitted as he limped over to the car and stood leaning against it. 'It fooled me, so I fooled Jody.'
'We been trying t'get a fix on this Lisa St. Marie person you radioed me about,' Filosiani said, getting right to business. 'We finally got an address from the whadda-ya-callit… From the taxes.'
'The State Real Estate Tax Board?' Alexa corrected.
'Yeah. She bought a condo in Century City two years ago. The address just came in. I got a five-man jump- out squad stationed over there. They say, according to the doorman, she's upstairs. They got the place covered till we get there.'
'Let's go. I'll fill you in on the way,' Shane said through punched and swollen lips. Then he turned to Jo-Jo and Luis. 'Thanks for the backup, guys.' He shook hands with Knight.
When the fed pulled his hand back, he found that he had the STD transmitter in his palm.
'I found that floating in the airplane toilet,' Shane said. 'Guess it's yours.'
'Damn… I hope ya washed it off,' Knight said, glowering at the little white pill.
Shane shook hands with Rosario. 'Stay in touch, amigo,' he said, then turned and opened the rear door of the plainwrap. As he slid into the chiefs musty car, Shane could see that true to form, the Day-Glo Dago had cut himself no slack when it came to the perks of office. The backseat was torn, and the car smelled of stale tobacco.
Alexa paused to say good-bye to Jo-Jo and Luis, kissing both of them lightly on the cheek. 'You guys are the best,' she told them.
'Hear that, you little Cuban faggot?' Jo-Jo said, grinning. 'I'm the best.'
