layout, I think I can control the outcome.'
'Sounds much more sensible,' Alexa said, sending Shane a withering look.
Tony pulled a gun out of his hip holster and checked the cylinder, snapped it closed, and reholstered it. The gun was pure Tony. A no-nonsense.38-caliber Smith amp; Wesson round wheel with a blue-steel finish. Tony had wrapped hundreds of rubber bands around the handle to make the grip larger and softer. The only place Shane had ever seen that modification was in Chicago. A lot of Chicago cops rubber-banded their grips. Tony, as usual, was an unorthodox mixture of good ideas and proven methodologies.
They made a left on Pinnacle, then went for about six miles before Alexa instructed Tony to turn right on Scottsdale Road, another mile and a half to Happy Valley. They made a right and started following the numbers.
Scottsdale was not geographically located in one place. It was spread out in population clusters. Land was not a pricey commodity in the desert, so people built low-level buildings in places that suited them. Only a few buildings at intersections and around business centers were three stories or taller.
The three LAPD interlopers continued down Happy Valley Road, eventually passing through a residential area and entering an open stretch of vegetative desert with no buildings. It was magnificent, arid country with Joshua trees dotting the landscape. Palms and bougainvillea bordered the roadside. Beyond, the desert seemed to stretch endlessly.
White Cow Dairy turned out to be a few hundred acres near some low rock outcroppings. A line of trees and a white split-rail fence that ran along the road bordered the dairy. There were at least two hundred Holsteins grazing in the surrounding fields. A huge WHITE COW DAIRY arch spanned the entrance to the main center drive. Barns and milking sheds were located at the end of this long road. A white Colonial house with a covered porch and slate roof stood off to one side.
Tony drove by at the posted thirty-mile-an-hour speed limit. Alexa pulled a digital camera out of her purse and began taking pictures.
There were no cars, no trucks, and no people. Shane was worried they'd made a mistake because the farm appeared to be completely deserted.
Chapter 47
'We meet back here in ten minutes,' Tony ordered.
They were standing next to the rented Lincoln, parked off the road several hundred yards from the main gate. They had popped the hood up, to make the car look abandoned.
'Shane, you take the east end of the place. Go in through the field, try and get close enough to the buildings to see if anybody's in there. I'll do the same from the west.' He turned to Alexa. 'Lieutenant, find a position out front. If anybody comes down the driveway, you hold the front door and contact us on the pager. Nine-one-one means trouble. Here's my number.' He handed it to Alexa.
Shane didn't have his pager, but he did have his new satellite phone with the bug from ESD. He turned it on and set it to vibrate, then handed Alexa the number, which he had written on the back of one of his business cards.
'Okay, ten minutes,' Tony repeated. 'Then we're back here with whatever we find out.'
They all took off. Shane went with Alexa, up the road alongside the line of cypress trees and the white split- rail fence. They reached a group of low rocks across from the front gate and ducked behind them.
'This looks like a good spot,' Shane said as Alexa settled down and took a chrome-plated.38 Smith amp; Wesson out of her purse and laid it on the rock in front of her.
'Listen, Shane, just so we've got this straight. No John Wayne bullshit, okay?'
'The Duke's dead. Hit the slab almost twenty-five years ago,' he said, remembering Nicky's line.
'Shane…'
'Okay, okay. I'm just gonna go hang out with a buncha Holsteins. John Wayne would've never hid under a cow.' He kissed the end of her nose, and before she could pursue it, moved out.
'Don't start a stampede!' he heard her whisper as he sprinted past the front of the dairy, ducking under the split-rail fence into the field. He made a dash across the pasture, then hunkered down with the closest herd of grazing milk cows. It wasn't quite a herd there were only three black and white Holsteins more like a small gathering. They probably didn't wash these dairy cows, because Shane was immediately engulfed in their heavy, pungent musk. He knelt down between two of the animals and peered underneath at the barn and milking sheds, which were now only about two hundred yards away.
From here the dairy still looked deserted.
Shane watched the front of the farmhouse from beneath the swollen udder of Flossy or Bessie or whatever, but regardless, she didn't like him down there and kept moving and pivoting away to keep him out from under her. Shane had to duck-walk the Dance of the Toreadors to keep from being trampled.
After being stepped on once or twice, he finally managed to get a hand on the cow's neck and hold her still. She mooed, stamped her feet, then urinated. A yellow stream splashed on the ground, splattering him. 'I guess you're trying to tell me something,' he grumbled, then got out from under her, moving on to another cow.
When Shane looked over at the farm from this new angle, he could see the front end of an eighteen-wheeler parked behind the hay barn. The flatbed tractor wasn't attached, just a cab with some writing on the door.
He tried to make out what it said, but it was too far away, so he attempted to push his new cow in the general direction of the milking sheds to get closer. But she had also tired of him. Her udder was red. Shane was no farmer, but it looked like she'd already been milked once today and didn't want to give it up again. She mooed loudly and looked like she was about to head-butt him.
Suddenly, she turned her head and gave Shane the angriest look he could ever remember seeing on either man or beast.
'Okay, okay have it your way. I'm leaving,' he whispered. Then he left her, sprinting across some open ground to the next cluster of grazing Holsteins.
He was now about fifty yards away from the milking sheds and hay barns. He squatted again, looking underneath a new cow.
From this distance he could read the writing on the side door of the truck cab: Sinaloa Farms.
Sinaloa was where Delfina said Ruiz's hay farm was in Mexico. The new cow Shane was hiding under slowly turned her head and looked down at him with sleepy, slutty eyes.
'I'm married,' Shane whispered as he began to herd her gently toward the barn. She moved slowly at first, but then started to get into it… or maybe she was just trying to get away from him. At any rate, the cow kept picking up speed, until she was almost cantering toward the barns. Shane was running beside her, awkwardly stumbling in weeds and rocks, trying to stay upright, when he abruptly lost his footing and fell, facedown, in the dirt. The cow moved on for a few paces, then stopped, and looked back at him. She stretched her lips in what Shane was almost certain was a grin.
He stayed low, surveying the terrain, wondering what to do next. Then in the distance he heard two flat pops. Gunfire.
It was coming from the west end of the property.
He heard two more flat, popping sounds. Then everything went quiet. Shane clawed for his phone, pulled it off his belt, and dialed Alexa. She answered on the first ring. 'You hear that?'
'Yeah.'
'Sounds like Tony. It came from his direction.' 'It's blown,' Alexa said. 'Pull back.'
'You're breaking up…'
'Goddammit, Shane! Don't pull this shit on me. Save it for Tony.'
'Didn't get all of that. Only heard 'Save Tony,' so I'm moving up. Get in touch with Scottsdale P. D. We need backup.'
'Shane, cut the bullshit. I know you can hear me. Pull back! That's a direct order!'
