'SI, Arizona. They said they were going soon. Maybe they have left already.'
'But you don't know where?'
'No, but wherever Juan Ruiz's dairy is, that is where they go.'
'Thank you,' Shane said. 'I hope you feel better soon.'
She nodded. 'I will feel better when my cousin is safe.'
Shane and Alexa left the room and found Chief Filosiani and Nicky down the hall. Dr. Sloan had gone to attend to another patient.
'What'd you get?' Filosiani asked.
'Somebody named Juan Ruiz, which could be another alias for General Fernando Miguel Ruiz, or possibly he's a relative.' Then Shane told him about the dairy in Arizona and the heroin that was coming in on hay trucks from Mexico. 'We need to get into the state tax records and run a cross-check, see if we can tie somebody named Juan Ruiz to a milk business anywhere in the state of Arizona. It's probably near Flagstaff, because that's where the stolen Hertz plate came from. If that doesn't work, I'd check to see if there are any Arizona dairies owned by anybody with a Spanish surname, starting with Martinez and going on from there.'
'Maybe we're about to get back in this thing after all.' Filosiani opened his cell phone and moved down the hall, stopping next to a window for better reception.
'Pretty remarkable girl,' Alexa said softly.
'Muy rifa.' Shane nodded.
'Whatever the hell that means,' Nicky commented.
Chooch exited the room and walked over to them, a fiercely determined look on his face. 'Dad, I want to go with you.'
'Jesus, if we're gonna keep having this argument, you better get over to the Police Academy and grab yourself a badge.'
'Dad, please, what she said about American is true. He could make a difference one day. He could change things, but he's out of control right now. He'll try and avenge what they did to her. But I can get to him, talk him out of it. I know his heart. I'll be able to reach him.'
'Son, we can't keep doing this. I can't. If this drug deal is going down, and American has gotten Farrell to spit up the location, then believe me, it's gonna be bad theater. I can't have you there.'
'I owe Amac. It was my life and future he saved in that park two years ago. If we can keep him alive, someday he could really help our people.'
'Our people?'
'I can't pretend I'm not Hispanic, that people don't look at me and see my dark skin. Sandy took chances to try and get a new life. She had brains and beauty, but here in El Norte, she had to sell her body to get ahead. If Amac's dreams had been true back then, she wouldn't have had to do that. If things were different, she could have had a different life.'
As always when Shane was stuck, he looked over at Alexa, who just stared back at him.
'Don't you dare,' she said softly.
Chapter 46
Nicky the Pooh escaped from them at the long stoplight, two blocks north of Parker Center. He simply opened the door, bolted out of the chief's Crown Vic, and took off running. The last thing Shane saw was a glimpse of riotous green silk billowing off the little grifter's back as he dashed around the front bumper of a van.
'Let him go,' Shane said to Alexa and Tony, refusing to humiliate himself again by trying to run Nicky down.
They arrived at Burbank Airport's Police Air Unit a little after one P. M. Shane and Alexa followed Filosiani over to a small, black twin-engine King Air that had been flying drugs up from Mexico until last March, when the pilot had lost power and landed on the Ventura Freeway in the middle of the night. The LAPD had arrested him, confiscated the King Air, and now used it to fly high-ranking officers to different law enforcement conventions around the state. The little plane was a turboprop with a top speed of around three hundred mph without headwinds.
The police department had a fleet of choppers, but only one fixed-wing airplane. The pilot was a grizzly bear of a man who was standing by the boarding ladder as Shane, Alexa, and Tony climbed the steps and settled into the comfortable dove-gray seats. Soon the propellers were spinning and the plane was taxiing down the runway.
They hadn't heard back yet on their computer tax search of dairies in Arizona. Their plan was to get moving anyway, fly in the general direction of Flagstaff, which was north of Phoenix, and hope that the search yielded results before they got too far off course.
They lifted off, climbed over the San Gabriel Mountains, and in ten minutes, were flying east over the California desert. The flat, dry landscape was endless, stretching below them like a sandy brown carpet.
The chief was working the phone, trying not to sound like a pissed-off commander kicking ass, but he was demanding results. 'Put a few more people on it! Use the guys over at Computer Management Division.'
'Try Lee Fineburg,' Shane suggested. 'He's in Records and Services, Special Duties. Guy's a genius.'
'Get Lee Fineburg on the fourth floor,' the chief said. 'I want half-hour updates and don't hang me up here doing figure-eights over the fuckin' Arizona border.'
After he hung up, they all remained quiet, looking down at the relentless desert. They were flying into a hundredmile-an-hour headwind, which was scrubbing precious minutes off their ETA.
Finally the air-phone in the plane buzzed; the chief snatched it up, listened for a moment, then grabbed a pen from his coat pocket and started scribbling. 'Got it,' he said, then hung up and smiled at Shane. 'Fineburg White Cow Dairy. Registered owner is Juan Ruiz, Scottsdale, Arizona, on Happy Valley Road.'
They landed at Deer Valley Airport, on the east side of Phoenix, near Scottsdale, and rented a Lincoln Town Car from the Executive Jet Terminal.
As they stood in refracted heat bouncing off the tarmac, Tony's eyes went warily toward three executive jets parked a short distance away. Two Gulfstreams and a Challenger-big iron. When the ramp agent delivered their car, Tony badged him. 'Who came in on those three birds?' he asked.
'Buncha' fells… landed twenty minutes apart, couple of hours ago.'
'Figures,' Tony said. He took the keys, climbed into the Town Car, got the air-conditioning going, then started driving. 'Get a map outta the glove box,' he barked at Alexa, now in the front seat beside him. 'Find 2676 Happy Valley,' he said as she spread the map across her knees and started studying it.
'Turn right on Deer Valley Road,' Alexa directed, 'take it to Cave Creek, go left on Pinnacle, then right…'
'Jeez, Lieutenant, I'm from Brooklyn. Keep it simple. Tell me where to turn when I'm gettin' close.'
'Sorry, sir.'
They rode in silence for a while, but Tony was frowning, his forehead gathered up in folds below his hairline. Finally he spoke. 'Okay, look. This buncha eggbeaters from Washington got their own game going, and it's not called law enforcement, it's called politics. I don't trust any a them. More important, I want to take these people alive, without bloodshed, but there's just three of us and we're outta state with no jurisdiction.'
'What're you suggesting?' Shane asked.
'I ain't suggesting nothing, Sergeant. I'm looking at operational alternatives and assigning risk co-efficiencts. We could call the Scottsdale cops, try an' get 'em to back our play, but I don't know this department. We could end up with a buncha toothpick-chewin' gunslingers, wearing Ray-Bans and straw hats. I don't wanta add to the confusion.'
'I agree,' Shane said. 'We oughta be able to handle it alone.'
'You fuckin' nuts?' Tony said. 'We probably got a mess a Crip and Blood shot-callers plus the Mexican and Italian Mafia, and God knows who else. We need backup, but we gotta get a look at the landscape first. If the feds are already at White Cow, then that's it. I ain't gonna fuck with 'em. But if they're not, then we'll case the place, get an idea where the shooters are, how many guys we're facing. Then we call in the Scottsdale P. D. Once I have the
