This happens, you, your wife and kid-the whole Scully family-go for a deep-sea stroll on the bottom of the ocean. If you talk to your wife, you gotta control the outcome.'
After delivering this bone-chilling statement, Valentine just lounged there, looking at Shane, sipping his Taittinger vitamin cocktail.
'I can control Alexa. Lemme give it a shot.'
'Good.'
Now the doctor was heading across the deck toward them. 'The bullet went through. I've stitched him up and given him antibiotics, but I want to take him to my hospital. I can't get human plasma, of course, but I can give him intravenous saline for fluid loss. With bed rest and no complications, he should make it.'
Shane and Dennis carefully carried Gino back to the doctor's car, then sat him up on the passenger side with the seat reclined. They watched as Doctor Seligman backed down the long drive on his way to an animal hospital with Valentine's pet gorilla.
Chapter 24
This time on his way home Shane stopped at a mini-market and bought a six-pack of Amstel Light and a bag of tortilla chips. When he got back to North Chalon Road and let himself in, he was concerned that neither Chooch nor Alexa were home yet. It was after ten P. M., so he looked up the number of the library, dialed, then heard a recorded message announcing that they opened at seven and closed at nine.
Shane glanced out toward the backyard and saw Franco outside on the pool deck, looking in through the sliding glass door. Shane and Alexa had decided to keep him inside for a few days to reacclimate him, but somehow the cat had gotten out. Shane unlocked the pool door and pushed it open. Franco rushed inside.
'Who let you out?' he asked.
Nobody should have been inside from the time he left the house with Gino, at around seven. That only left one answer…
Shane went to the garage, took the LAPD 2300 Frequency Finder out of his trunk, and brought the unit inside. It had a battery pack, as well as a long, retractable cord. He inserted the plug, then began his sweep in the living room.
The first bug he found was in the phone receiver; it was the size of half an aspirin tablet. Shane found a second bug under a lampshade.
In the bedroom there were two more: one in the desk phone, another taped to the back of the headboard. A fifth bug was in the kitchen above the air vent; a sixth, hidden in the den.
Filosiani had called it right.
Shane opened a beer, then went out the front door to sit on the curb. He pulled out his phone and dialed Chooch's cell first. He got the 'subscriber is outside the area' recording, then tried Alexa, who answered on the second ring.
'Where are you?' he asked.
'About a block from Chalon Road.'
'Pick me up, I'm sitting out front.'
He walked inside, got her a beer, then returned to the curb just as Alexa pulled up in her dark brown police- issue Crown Vic. Shane climbed in and pointed toward the end of the block.
'Where we going?' she asked.
'Tell you in a minute. You know where Chooch is?' 'Library.'
'Closed an hour ago.'
'Listen, Shane, he's seventeen. We lifted his curfew. He's supposed to be growing up, managing his own life. There're lots of times he gets home late. We've gotta let him have some room.'
'Honey, his phone is off and I'm scared to death he's gonna get dragged into this gang case you're working.' He pointed to the curb. 'Here's good.'
She pulled over and stopped the car. He handed her a beer.
'Why are we having happy hour in my car?'
'House got bugged.'
'Really?'
'Yeah.'
Then he told her what had happened, and how he had spent the evening.
She listened until he finished, then pulled the tab on her beer. It chirped loudly in the car. Alexa downed half the can at once. She drank beer like a guy. It was just one of the hundreds of little things Shane loved about his wife.
'Of course, you know if you'd let that happen, we'd all be out of the movie business by now,' Alexa said. Shane nodded but said nothing.
'You report the shooting at the Pompadoro to the detectives downtown?' she asked.
'My cell isn't working too good in this weather,' he hedged.
'Pretty pathetic, Shane.'
'Okay, look. I've been kinda busy.'
'What about Parelli, you think he's still alive, or is he L. A.'s newest one eighty-seven?'
'Far as I know, he's still breathing. But Alexa, we don't want to report it. I'm next to Valentine now. If this investigation goes wide and Dennis gets sucked in, my cover gets blown.'
She nodded, then finally turned to face him. 'Okay, I'll handle the chief. Don't report anything.'
'Good.'
'You have any idea who made that phone call at the restaurant, lured you outta the way?'
'I been trying to dope that out. Here's what I've come up with so far…'
Alexa remained silent.
'Since it was Emes in that work car, it had to be Amac's hit,' Shane started, 'one of his vatos probably cased the restaurant to position Valentine for the shooters. The scout could have been at Paradise Square and saw me when they took me to meet Amac. He calls Amac, and says I'm in there. Amac calls me to the phone to get me outta the way.'
Alexa looked over at him and took another long swig on the beer. 'I guess it could have gone down that way,' she said. 'So, if Amac is trying to clip Dennis Valentine, I guess we know what that tells us.'
'Tells us Valentine's probably the one organizing the Crips and Bloods, and importing the White Dragon?'
'Could these two cases really be interrelated?' she speculated, her brow furrowed in doubt. 'In police work, the first rule is never trust a coincidence.'
'It's not a coincidence. Valentine moves to L. A. with his uncle's blessing. But do you really think they're only gonna do this showbiz deal, or is Dennis also gonna open up all the traditional mob rackets: drugs, guns, prostitution, porno?'
'He'd try and control everything,' Alexa said.
'Right. So that means we gotta figure there's a good chance Valentine is behind your drug war. The timing makes sense. He shows up, Stone dies, Crips and Bloods unite to distribute heroin, then White Dragon samples hit the street. You said the DEA would have picked up a Mexican or Colombian smuggler, but they didn't, so maybe it's the Italians. So it follows that if the Emes know Valentine's supplying the black gangs with drugs, they would want to clip him.'
Alexa finished her beer in three giant swallows, then crumpled the can and dropped it on the seat between them. 'Welcome to my case.'
'Hey, we're a great team. Even when we don't know what the fuck we're doing, we score.'
'No shit… we're the best…' She smiled. 'The rubber gun squad.'
'Your call,' Shane said. 'I still work for you.'
'I guess we go back to the house and put on a show for the bent noses.'
