The lead guy had to be Mike Church. He was a hulking six-foot-three steroid case who weighed over three hundred pounds. His basketball-size head sat low on water buffalo shoulders.
'The fuck you think you're doin'?' Church screamed and grabbed Secada by the collar of my grimy raincoat, yanking her to her feet.
'LAPD. Back off, asshole!' I heard her scream, but in the next second they had thrown her to the ground. Her prop bag with her wadded-up suit jacket fell open as they proned her out face down in the dirt.
I was out of the Acura the second I saw them. I started by circling around the rear of my car, staying out of sight. I was going to need the element of surprise. Church was now holding Scout's gun, kneeling heavily on her back. They were all staring down and didn't see me coming from across the street. I couldn't figure out how they had been alerted so easily to her presence unless they had motion sensors covering the front of the house. I'd seen drug houses with sensors like that in the past.
In order to get to an effective firing position I had to cross the lawn. I pulled my short barrel 38 and ran lightly, trying to muffle the sound of my approaching footsteps by staying on the dead grass. The short-barreled Air Light magnum felt small and insignificant in my right hand. As I neared the five of them, Church yanked Scout up off the grass and pulled her violently toward him.
'Why you fuckin' with my ride, bitch?' Then before she could answer Church yanked the scarf off her head, freeing a pound of lustrous black hair.
'Back off. I'm police,' she shouted at him.
'Slow down, homie,' one of the vatos exclaimed. 'She's popo. This chica's muy guapa, tambien?'
I saw a vein throbbing on Mike Church's forehead as he reached out and grabbed a handful of Scout's hair, yanking her painfully closer. Then he pointed her gun at her. 'That's nothing to me. I killed plenty a cops.' He pulled back the hammer on the gun.
I didn't trust him not to do it. I wasn't quite where I wanted to be yet, but I was out of time.
'Hey, Miguel,' I said softly. 'Fire that and you're in the obits.'
I was close enough, so I didn't have to shout. I wanted it to be a whisper, to sound a little crazy.
'The fuck?' He turned slightly so he could see me. I was behind him on his left, my gun pointed directly at the back of his huge head.
'I ain't bagged me no fat, outta-shape whales in a while. Do exactly what I say or you're a fucking grease stain on the pavement here. Now put the gun down, step away. Get going. You're on the clock, asshole.'
He stood there, not sure of what to do. I had him dead to rights. He looked spooked. 'What is this?' he finally said as he stood there trying to calculate his odds.
They were all packing but, except for Mike, nobody had a gun out yet. If I wanted to control this, I had to act crazy enough to convince them to back off. Everyone's afraid of crazies, even VSL killers.
'Let go of her. Drop the gun.' Then I giggled to add a little insanity to the moment.
After almost ten agonizing seconds, Church let go of Scout's hair and slowly lowered the gun, letting it fall at his side.
'Good. Now give her the gun back.'
'Fuck you,' Church snarled.
'You're on my wish list. I'm two seconds from pulling your drapes.'
He looked at Scout, then tossed the Smith and Wesson at her. It landed at her feet. She scooped it up and immediately aimed it at the other three guys.
'This is private property,' he said. 'If you're cops, where's your fuckin' warrant?'
Scout waved her gun at him. 'This is my warrant,' she hissed. Then we both backed across the street to the Acura and got in. I started the car.
'Shit!' she said, once we were inside. 'I left the bag with my suit jacket on the lawn.'
'Leave it.'
'That outfit cost me six hundred bucks,' she complained as I put the car in gear and squealed up the street. Still pissed at herself, Scout grabbed the dashboard mike and called in the plate number from the sports car. 'This is L-fifty-six. Warrants and DMV for Adam-Boy-Victor-one-nine-three.'
'Roger, L-fifty-six. Stand by.'
She turned to me. 'It's some kind of Mercedes. I saw the emblem. A big, new, expensive one.'
The mike crackled. 'L-fifty-six, on your tag number. That plate comes back as a two-thousand-eight Mercedes McLaren registered to Wade A. Wyatt at three-eighty-seven Bel Air Road in Bel Air. No wants or warrants.'
'You sure it's clean?' Scout asked. 'Check recent stolens.'
There was a pause, then, 'No wants,' the RTO confirmed.
Secada hung up the mike and looked over at me. 'A McLaren. Isn't that worth a pile of money?'
'Like about half a mil.'
'Not to be racial profiling or anything, but what the hell is a half-a-million-dollar race car doing on that dickhead's front lawn?
'Good question.' I looked over at her and saw a faint smile play on her face in the passing streetlights.
'Something funny?'
'You were amazing. I actually thought you'd gone bug house myself.'
'It was a bad situation. We needed to turn a corner. It was all I could come up with.'
'We're onto something here, Scully. Can't you feel it? This case has a heartbeat.'
'Yeah. Let's just hope they don't find out who we are before we can put it down.'
'Don't worry. They won't,' she said, as she put her gun back into her holster, then started fumbling around on her belt. I saw a look of alarm pass across her face.
'What's wrong?'
'Put a hold on that,' she said, then slammed her palm on the dash in frustration. 'What?'
'When I was proned out, eating dirt, Church musta stole my badge.'
Chapter 8
'This is gonna cause a pile of trouble,' Scout said. We were parked in the lot behind La Golondrina, two spots over from her slick-back detective car. It was nine-thirty p. M. 'One of the investigating officers in our unit had her purse stolen a while back- lost her badge. It's a whole rigamarole. First, I gotta notify my supervisor, Captain Sasso, how I lost my ID, and you know that's gonna turn into a mud fight. Next, she's gotta send a teletype through the whole damn department with my badge number. Then an area headquarters team has to maintain the list of lost badge numbers indefinitely and send 'em each month to all divisions and station houses. Looks like I just blew our covert investigation.'
'Just tell Sasso the purse was stolen, same as your IOs. Don't tell her we were over giving Mike Church a chest bump. If you tell her that, we're screwed.'
'Except I don't like lying.'
'That's ridiculous. Lying is the first great art of police science.'
'Yeah, right. For you, maybe.' She got out of the car, then turned and looked back in at me. 'Anyway, thanks for the rescue.'
We looked at each other. We had bonded over the dustup in Church's yard, and we both knew it.
Finally, I said, 'Secada's such a pretty name, why don't you use it? What's with the Scout thing?'
'There're two theories on that,' she smiled. 'One is because I'm always out in front.'
'I saw that.'
'The other reason is my last name. Llevar. In Spanish, Llevar means 'to lead.''
Secada left and I called Alexa. She was still at the office but said she'd be home in an hour or so.
'You're not gonna have a change of heart, like last night, are you?' I said.
'No, not tonight. I gotta get outta here. My brain is broken. I need a drink. I'll see you at the house.'
I hung up and took the freeway heading for Bel Air. On the way I radioed Records and Identification and asked them for a deep check on Wade A. Wyatt, giving the 387 Bel Air Road address.
While I waited for them to come back to me, I transferred to the 101 Freeway heading toward the 405. Then
