I dragged my ass back to the hotel, went up to my room, and checked inside the top dresser drawer. One of Ophelias case agents must have visited my room, because hidden underneath my socks there was a small, innocent-looking ballpoint pen with a mike hole in the top.
I put the ballpoint in my pocket and checked my messages. There was a package for me at the desk. Nobody at the LAPD or the FBI would contact me here, so I was naturally curious who might be leaving me packages.
I went downstairs to the front desk. The clerk reached into a file and handed me a thin #10 envelope — no identifying marks, but my name was printed on the front in block letters. I found a secluded place in the back of the casino bar and opened it.
One sheet. Two lines.
Come alone. Five PM
Under the Pacific Blvd. bridge.
I was already pissed at Rick Ross for what I'd seen him doing at the party. Now I was even more pissed at him for leaving me a message that anyone could open at the concierge desk and read. But I knew Ross's police history and he'd never been on an undercover assignment, so I tried to cut him some slack because, quite obviously, he didn't know what the hell he was doing. Either that or he was actively trying to get me killed.
I didn't want to have a clandestine meeting with this asshole. But there was one overriding factor influencing my decision to go. He might know something that I needed to hear in order to stay-alive.
I went back to my room, stripped off the belt with the tracking device, activated Ophelia's pen satellite transmitter, and headed back downstairs. If Ross was luring me out there to ambush me, at least the LAPD and the feds would have a good recording of my murder.
I took the scenic route through Vista, into the City of Commerce. It was 4:20 and I had forty minutes before my meeting. I felt the reassuring weight of my backup AirLight. 38 riding comfortably on my hip.
As I drove, I looked across the river and saw the city of Haven Park just beginning to darken in L. A.'s smog- filled late afternoon sunlight. I made a right and took the bridge back to the Haven Park side of the river, then parked on a residential street two blocks from the meeting spot and locked the Acura.
There was a strip of dead grass about ten yards wide that ran along the riverbank. The rusting chain-link fence that protected the wash had been cut long ago by 18th Street tagger crews. I slipped through the rusted edge of the clipped opening and slid on my heels clown the forty-five-degree poured concrete bank to the river floor. When I reached the bottom I found myself standing in mud, looking at old juice cartons, moss and waterlogged garbage, thinking, some picturesque river we have here in L. A.
I picked my way through old tires and soggy junk, reading 18th Street Loco graffiti as I walked. It had been sprayed on every flat surface and concrete piling. I was heading back toward Pacific Boulevard, trying to keep the muck out of my shoes. The idea here was if I approached the meeting spot from the river, anybody waiting to ambush me would be looking the wrong way, with their back to my approach. At least that was the theory.
Finally I saw the Pacific Street bridge span up ahead and when I was near, I scrambled up out of the wash, climbing the steep concrete bank quietly on rubber-soled shoes until I reached the lip above. Then I started moving slowly along, staying close to a line of trees, trying not to make any noise as I approached. When I was less than fifty yards away from the bridge, I knelt in the shadows to check out the meeting site.
There was enough light for me to see up under the abutment. No one appeared to be there, but that was the reason I'd arrived thirty minutes early.
I crept closer and found a good hiding place in some browned-out shrubbery that was clinging in death to the concrete base of the bridge. I cleared a space behind the dead brush, then squatted down, concealing myself. I wasn't sure what was coming, so I pulled my gun and waited.
At seventeen minutes after five I heard a single set of footsteps crunching through dead leaves, carelessly kicking stones and gravel, making more noise than a stumbling drunk.
Finally Rick Ross came into view. He was alone and wearing his same stupid disguise — windbreaker, tennies and a baseball cap pulled low. I watched as he worked his way down under the bridge and stood with his hands on his hips, looking around. Then he glanced at his watch.
'Hey, Scully,' he whispered. 'You down here yet?'
I didn't answer. I wanted to see what lie would do.
After a minute he pulled an abandoned shipping crate over, brushed it off with his hand and sat. He looked at his watch again and scuffed his feet. He let a few minutes pass, then he took out his phone and speed-dialed a number. I leaned forward.
'He's not here. He's late,' I heard him say. 'Look… I'll get there as soon as I can. Stop bitching at me about it.'
He rang off, then got to his feet and started looking around again. 'Hey, Scully. You down here? Shit.'
It didn't look like an ambush, so I palmed the AirLight in my right hand, held it clown by my leg, parted the dry brush, and stood. Ricky spun around, a panicked look on his face.
Chapter 36
'What arc you doing back there?' he challenged angrily.
'I'm careful. Before we talk, you need to answer three questions.'
'Look… You…'
'First question. Who did you just call?'
'MY new girlfriend.'
'What's her name?'
'Chrissie.'
I bolstered NIY AirLight, then reached over, took the cell phone from him, and hit redial. After two rings it was answered.
'That was quick,' a woman's voice purred.
'Who's this?' I demanded.
'Chrissie. Who's this?'
I closed the phone and handed it back to him.
'Next question. Did YOU know those gins were gonna pick me up last night and threaten me out in that orange grove? And if so, why the hell didn't you warn me?'
'I didn't know. I got hired onto this department by Charles Le Grande before Cecil was elected four years ago, so I wasn't part of Mayor Bratano's crew. I was isolated. I think its why he wanted me as chief. Up until about a month ago I was so wasted all the time I didn't know what the hell was going on and they never confided in me. I got my envelopes, my money, but nobody ever told me much of anything. After what happened with Le Grande, that's the way they wanted it. I only found out last night at the party about them taking you out to that orange grove.'
'You told me you were drug-free. Then last night I saw you snorting up lines in Bratano's cabana.'
He was quiet for a long moment, uncertainty, or maybe it was shame, playing across his face. Then he said, 'I relapsed, okay? I'm trying to stay straight, but I'm under a lot of pressure here myself. I had a weak moment.'
I looked at him, not sure how I wanted to frame this. I finally decided to just say it. 'When I first came here, I wasn't sure you weren't trying to make good on your old threat to kill me. But I've been thinking about it a lot and if that had been your plan, you would have done it long before now. After what happened in that orange grove I have to figure you're telling the truth. They didn't know I was a UC, so I figure you're probably being straight with me. But you need to stay in the program, Rick. I can't have the guy holding my back buzzed on drugs.'
'I'm in just as much jeopardy as you are,' he said. 'I'm doing the best I can, but I'm vulnerable and scared. If you'd caved in out there and told them I put you undercover, I was going to end up just as dead as you. I was going nuts at that party, not knowing if you were about to give me up. I needed to settle my nerves. That's why I did the lines. From now on I'm clean.'
We stood looking at each other. Selfish bastard that I am, I hadn't really stopped to consider that Ross was in just as much jeopardy from me as I was from him. I now saw that he was very close to the edge. His hands were
