On the back of his neck Shane could see interlocking M and 13 tattoos. La Eme.
Shane held the dead receiver to his ear, still trying to make sense of it when the busboy with the gang tatts exited the kitchen through a side door.
The penny dropped. Shane knew what was going on.
'Shit.' He dropped the phone and sprinted back through the restaurant. Valentine was not there. He had already walked out through the main entrance. Shane reached down and clawed his ankle gun from its holster as he ran, then he exploded out into the street.
A few yards away he could see Valentine's white-andtan Rolls-Royce convertible pulling up to the curb. Valentine paid the valet and was moving around to get behind the wheel. Gino was standing nearby, waiting for his rental.
Shane heard it before he saw it. The low rumble of blown mufflers. 'Get down! A hit!' he screamed at the top of his lungs. Everyone dove for cover just as an Eme work car peeled around the corner and four auto mags opened up.
Bullets ripped into the Rolls and chipped brick dust off the building behind him. Shane landed on his stomach behind the Rolls and maneuvered into a prone firing position, then started squeezing off rounds under the car in the general direction of the low-rider. He heard a taillight break as more automatic gunfire ripped the night. Somebody screamed from behind the Rolls. Then suddenly rubber squealed and the carload of Emes was gone.
As Shane stood, Valentine was just pulling himself up from the wheel-well where he had ducked. He had a little cut on his forehead from a piece of windshield shrapnel. Blood was leaking down into his eye. Sprawled in a sitting position against the restaurant wall, his shirt soaked crimson, was Gino Parelli.
Valentine ran over to him. 'How bad is it?!'
'How the fuck do I know?' Parelli croaked. 'Fucking beaners. How'd they know where we were?'
Then they could hear the wail of a siren in the distance.
'Gimme a hand!' Valentine yelled at Shane. The two of them pulled Parelli to his feet, dragged him to the bullet-riddled Rolls, and laid him across the backseat.
Valentine got in the car and turned the ignition key. Miraculously, nothing had hit the engine and it started. Precious blood was pumping dangerously out of the bullet wound in Parelli's chest. Valentine took off his expensive cashmere coat, reached back and put it over Gino's wound. 'Hold it there, tight… Compress it,' he ordered his gunsel. 'Let's get the fuck outta here. I don't wanna try to explain this to the cops.' He turned to Shane. 'You saved my life. This sure as shit complicates our negotiation.'
'We don't have a negotiation,' Shane said.
'That's what you think. Get your car and follow me.'
So Shane grabbed the keys off the valet board and sprinted into the parking lot next door. The street-savvy Mexicans had all magically disappeared.
The sirens were only a block away as Shane bounced his Acura out onto Fairfax, leaving a trail of bumper sparks on the asphalt. He hit the gas and hung a right, then followed Dennis Valentine's Rolls out of West Hollywood.
Chapter 23
As he followed the Rolls across town, Shane tried to call the chief and Alexa on his cell, but he must have had a weak battery or something because he couldn't get a signal. They finally arrived at Valentine's rented estate on Mandeville Canyon Road, where he was greeted by state-of-the-art security: panning cameras, punch pads, motion detectors, and a sign on a not-too-friendly wrought-iron gate that announced: VICIOUS ATTACK DOGS. Shane followed Valentine's Rolls as they headed up the long designer-brick drive. Vast lawns with lit fountains decorated the landscape while they pulled up to a huge Greco-Roman house. Stone and granite pillars held up a monstrous roof with porch dormers. Motion detectors clicked on security lights, illuminating large sections of the property as they drove past.
Shane followed the Rolls around to the back, where Valentine parked and got out. No bloodthirsty dogs. Shane guessed either the sign was a fake or Dennis had phoned ahead to have them locked up. Valentine looked down at Parelli in the backseat, then waved at Shane to come over.
Shane got out of the Acura and started toward the Rolls, but Valentine was now moving away, motioning for him to follow as he headed toward the backyard. Shane didn't know why the handsome mobster was leaving Parelli, unless the bodyguard had bled out during the ride across town and was already dead. Shane veered and followed Valentine through a side gate, past an Olympic-size pool with swim lanes set in blue tile strips along the bottom.
As they walked across the deck, more lights clicked on, illuminating their way. Valentine stopped beside a lounge chair, then motioned to it.
'Wanna get Gino out of the car. We can put him on this,' Valentine said, so they picked it up and carried it back to the Rolls.
'How is he?'
'Not good. The bleeding is slowing some, but I think he's going into shock. He'd be dead if those barrio rats didn't all hold their Tec-Nines sideways like a buncha rock-video gangsters. Looks cool, but nobody can hit shit that way. Musta been a lucky shot.'
When they got back to the Rolls, Parelli was trying to sit up.
'Hey, Gino, lay back. We'll do it,' Valentine said, while putting on a pair of leather driving gloves to protect his skin. With a little struggling and careful tugging, they finally pulled Gino out and laid him on the lawn chair. He looked pale. A cold sweat glistened on his sallow, pasty face. With Dennis carrying the front and Shane the back, they hoisted the two-hundred-fifty-pound enforcer and lugged him back through the pool gate.
They set Gino down near the lighted Jacuzzi. Dennis told Shane to wait, then went inside the house. A minute later, he reappeared with an armload of beach towels and put one of them on Gino's bullet-shredded shoulder.
'Fucking frijolito dickheads,' Gino grunted as he held it tightly on his wound.
'Don't talk. I called the doc from the car,' Valentine ordered as he rolled up two more towels and placed them under Gino's feet, elevating them to help ward off shock. Suddenly he headed to the pool house.
'You got a doctor coming?' Shane asked, trailing after him, but by now Valentine was already inside, so Shane stood by, waiting. A minute later, he reappeared with a blood pressure cuff.
'Use this to check my pressure every day. Do it thirty minutes to the second after I swim my laps. I stay at exactly one twenty over eighty. Textbook numbers.' He went back to Gino, who now looked unconscious. Dennis wrapped the gunsel's arm with the cuff, then pumped on the rubber ball.
'The fuck you doin'?' Gino opened his eyes and whined.
'Checking your pressure. Shut the fuck up and stay quiet. Now I gotta do it over.' He pumped it again till he got a reading. 'Eighty over sixty. Not so good. Too low. You're going into shock.'
'Them fuckin' greasers,' Gino growled. 'Somebody in our crew musta ratted us out. How'd they know we was at Ciro' s?'
'I think it was my fault. I wasn't paying much attention when I left the house. They musta tailed me,' Valentine said, picking up the pool phone and hitting a buzzer.
'Lynette, you lookin' for Doctor Seligman's car?' he said, then paused. 'Okay, okay, open the gate the second you see him.' He hung up. Gino's teeth were starting to chatter.
'Wouldn't it be warmer in the house?' Shane suggested.
'I'll get him a blanket. Last thing I need is this guy bleedin' all over my wife's ivory carpets. I fuck up her new decorating, Lynette'll start bitching like a French whore.' Valentine went into the main house and reappeared seconds later with two blankets. He draped them over Gino.
Then they heard a car pull up around the side and Valentine moved quickly to the pool gate and let in a small, balding man, carrying a doctor's bag. He rushed over to Gino and kneeled down.
