'What's up?'
'I got Chooch the coaching job. But there's a league guy you have to talk to. He's got some questions. Like, is Chooch eighteen?'
'Not quite.'
'A Pop Warner head coach has to be eighteen, but I can sign up for that job and he can be what they call a demonstrator. Demonstrators in Pop Warner aren't coaches, they're guys who demonstrate to the kids how to do stuff. Technically I'll be in charge, but he'll do the head coaching job. We just don't tell anyone. There's other stuff you need to sign off on. We're meeting with this guy at six tonight.'
'I can't. Got an appointment. How 'bout in the next hour or so, for drinks?'
'I'll have to call you back,' Sonny said.
We hung up and I dialed Ruta. 'Yeah?' he growled.
After I told him we were off the case, I told him about the windows across the street from the murder scene, and that somebody should tell the feds to check the apartments over there in case it was the shooting position.
'Whatta buncha shit,' he said and hung up. I wasn't sure if he was talking about my theory or us getting bounced. Then I called the Valley Times. Nan Chambers was out, but I left my name and number and the message that I wanted to see her immediately.
Sonny Lopez called back fifteen minutes later. 'Okay, the guy will meet you at the Boar and Bull on Ventura for drinks. Be there in twenty.'
'Deal,' I said.
The place was almost empty when I arrived. I moved through the darkly colorful restaurant. Stuffed boar and bull heads with glassy eyes were mounted over the bar, gazing down like hairy drunks hung on the wall to dry out.
I found my way into the back room where four members of the sheriff's department were sitting in one of the red leather booths under a big-screen TV that was playing a tape of last Sunday's Chargers game, with the sound off.
'Hey, Shane,' Darren Zook called out.
I walked over. I knew them all. Darren was at one end of the booth. Next to him was Sonny Lopez, then Gary Nightingale. Rick Manos, who I remembered from their mission board was an SEB scout, sat on the far end. This was obviously not going to be about football.
Sonny said, 'Want a beer?'
'Not till I know what's going on.' I pulled up a free chair and straddled it, sitting at the end of the horseshoe booth so I was facing them. 'So let's just get to it.'
'Okay. You were Emo's friend. Word is you're the one looking into all this, so I guess we're looking to you for some cover,' Sonny said.
'Cover, or cover-up?' I asked.
Rick Manos leaned forward. I'd heard about him before. Big street rep. His silent jacket said he was not a guy to mess with.
'We know you got the Greenridge homicide,' Manos said. 'We also know ATF is gonna try and force you to put it on my people. SEB didn't kill that guy, piece of shit that he was.'
'Okay, here's my take on that,' I said. 'I don't know whether SEB popped Billy Greenridge, or if he was shot by some old peckerwood bust of his who crawled out of the woodpile at Vacaville, looking for payback. But it doesn't matter what I think anymore, 'cause ATF Title-Eighteened us. They've got it now, so if you got a problem talk to the nutsacks over at Justice. But I'll tell you this much, if I was still involved I'd put your request on the record and you'd all lose pay and grade.'
'You're taking this the wrong way,' Lopez said.
'How is that, Sonny? You guys just asked me to throw an investigation.'
'We didn't kill Billy Greenridge,' Manos said. His voice was soft, but I could hear the anger. 'We just look good for it and everybody wants this thing put down fast.'
'I'm sure if you lay back everything will turn out fine.' I started to get up and Rick Manos and Gary Nightingale stood with me. Each took one of my arms to keep me from leaving. 'You sure this is the way you want to play it?' I said softly.
They hesitated, then let go.
'Shane, they killed Emo,' Sonny said. 'They sent him up there without knowing what he was walking into. Why isn't anybody investigating that?'
'They are,' I said.
'Yeah? And just who's doing that?' Manos said.
'Me. I'm looking into it for Sheriff Messenger and Mayor Mac.'
'LAPD?' Nightingale said, but his face clouded with disbelief, as if I'd just said the Girl Scouts of America were working the case.
'I'm not gonna bend the warrant investigation either,' I went on. 'I'm gonna do it straight up, and my advice to you guys is to back up and hit neutral. Proactive behavior is just gonna make things worse.'
'What if their SRT team decides to even the score?' Gary Nightingale said. 'We didn't pop Greenridge, but they think we did. What if they snipe at one of us next?'
'That's why you guys get the extra-thick Kevlar,' I said, and stepped back from the table.
'You were supposed to be Emo's friend,' Lopez said.
'I was his friend, and I know if it had been one of us up there on the porch instead of him, Emo would never be asking for stuff like this.' Then I looked directly at Sonny. 'And thanks for using my son to lure me out with all that bullshit about Pop Warner. Next time you want to have a police meeting, call my office and make a regular appointment.'
'Here.' Sonny reached down on the seat beside him, picked up a thick blue binder, and slid it across the table toward me. 'That's the play book for the Rams and the rule book for the league. The guy you've gotta call's number is in there.'
As I reached for it Rick Manos grabbed my arm and held it. When he looked up at me, his eyes were as dark and empty as two gun barrels.
'If the shit jumps off, be sure you've got a side to be on,' he warned.
Chapter 18
At five o'clock I was waiting for Sergeant Brickhouse in a back booth at Denny's, the Pop Warner binder sat unopened on the seat beside me. I was still angry about the meeting at the Boar and Bull. I'd expected much more from those guys. I sat with a cup of coffee, trying to calm down while a growing dissatisfaction with my role in police work festered.
I guess what pissed me off most was how over the years situations like this had forced my expectations down and made me question everything I had once believed in. When I joined the force we were Blue Knights, protectors of the innocent. Centurions. I had worn my uniform with pride, but without realizing why, things had started to change, and I had slowly lost my point of view.
I remember the first time somebody spit on my black-and-white. I was only about three years on the job, still in a uniform, working a neighborhood car in Van Nuys. It was a heavily Hispanic area and a ten-year-old vatito ran up while we were at a stop sign and hocked a lugie. It hit and ran down the squad car's windshield. The boy flipped us off, then took off running. My partner said the next time he saw that flaquito, he'd slap him silly. I had another reaction. I was angry, sure, but also I wanted that boy to know I was out there in the streets for him. If he needed me I was his backup. Instead, he only saw somebody to despise.
The same thing happened again six months later, when I was working an L-car in Carson. I had parked the unit, and this old African-American woman with her arms full of groceries spit on the windshield of my empty Plain-
