short-sleeved shirt, and his elaborately tattooed arms rippled with muscles that you can only get with an intense workout routine.
'I'm Shane Scully,' I said, standing to greet him, putting out my hand.
'Good for you. Come on, Diamond. Let's do this.' He ignored my handshake and left abruptly. Diamond stood up.
'See what I mean?' she said, glowering at the door he'd just gone through. 'It ain't easy.'
'Nice guy. Who is he?'
'That's Rick O'Shea. President of Creative Solutions.' She sighed. 'My boss.'
I was looking at the empty doorway where, moments before, two hundred and thirty pounds of tattoo- enhanced gristle had been standing.
'That's the president of your nonprofit corporation?' I said. 'Kinda not what you'd expect, is he?'
'He's a very difficult man.' Diamond sighed again. Then she gathered up the folders she'd been carrying before, grabbed the clipboard, and turned to face me in the doorway.
'Listen, Shane, I gotta go. I'll see you at Sabas's place at six.'
'Great.'
We both left the rec center together, and I split off to go back to my Acura. Before getting in, I walked the lot. I was looking for a car that didn't belong here. The kind of ride a thirty-year-old tattooed gym rat might drive.
It was easy to spot. A one-year-old, custom-painted maroon Escalade with expensive chrome spinners. I looked in the passenger window and saw a gym bag. On the side, it said: RICK 'RICOCHET' O'SHEA. I walked around to the back of the SUV and wrote down the plates.
O'Shea was about to get a little piece of my unofficial investigation.
Then I got into my car and, even though it was early, headed on out to the twelve hundred block on Whittier Boulevard in Boyle Heights.
An hour ago I'd been feeling like this case was loose. But something had just shifted. At the beginning of any investigation, what you're looking for are the little inconsistencies that may be hiding an important fact. Tiny pieces of the puzzle that don't quite fit. You're looking for the slight but unmistakable odor of deceit.
Like Alexa, I'm also pretty good on cop reads. Rick 'Ricochet' O'Shea was definitely coming off as a false note. He didn't belong in this picture.
Besides that, he was an asshole.
Chapter 15
As I drove toward the six o'clock meeting in Boyle Heights, I checked in with Sally Quinn. She wasn't there so I left her a message to call me. I was going east on Whittier Boulevard, heading deeper and deeper into East L. A. Tagger art announced the gang blocks. MS-13's graffiti gave way to East Side Surenos, then 18th Street Locos, and finally to Latin Kings. The letters were angry black slashes made from thousands of Home Depot spray cans.
If you're uninitiated, this jagged tagger script can be almost impossible to read, but after a few weeks in a squad car, you get pretty-good at it. Driving the East L. A. ghetto was a little like riding through hostile Indian country in an open wagon. If you didn't want an arrow in the back, you'd better scan the rocks for signs of danger.
Since many of these Hispanic gangs had different countries of origin, their cultural differences tended to define their behavior. Knowing which bunch you were up against could affect your survival.
I finally pulled up in front of the address Seriana had given me. I had been expecting an office building, but instead found a small, badly maintained Spanish-style bungalow in the middle of six blocks tagged as Latin Kings turf. I looked at my watch. It was still early, and I didn't see Jacks Harley or any other car I recognized from before. I figured I was the first to arrive, so I sat at the curb and cased the run-down block and house. A small sign propped in the window read:
SABAS VARGAS
ATTORNEY AT LAW
A few minutes later, I saw a white woman dressed in a tailored cream-colored pantsuit, carrying an expensive-looking, oversized shoulder bag, walking up to a porch six houses away. She looked completely lost.
I watched as she knocked, waited for the door to open, then spoke for a moment to somebody inside. The door was abruptly slammed in her face.
I knew even before she turned that it was Vicki Lavicki walking around down here in her summer suit and sensible shoes like a Jehovah's Witness who drew the short straw.
Then a lowrider with four young thugs inside glided by, pulling to a stop where she was standing. She stupidly crossed to the lowered Chevy and started asking for directions.
The four teenaged vatos in the lowrider didn't seem to be paying much attention to what she was saying. They were busy taking inventory of her jewelry.
They got out of their axle-dragging mother ship and surrounded her on the sidewalk like a pack of wild coyotes about to shred a defenseless poodle.
I couldn't hear what was being said, but Ms. Lavicki didn't seem to appreciate the danger she was in. She had one hand in her purse fishing around for a pen or something, while four Latin Kings in black and gold head wraps were fanning out, going into attack mode.
'Shit,' I muttered and got out of my car, pulling my badge, while moving quickly up the block toward her.
'Hey, Vicki!' I called out to distract them, holding up my creds as I ran. The four vato thugs spun to check me out, trying to decide whether to add me to the party or just roll on. I pulled back mv jacket as I ran, showing them my sidearm in its clip-on holster. Because they were just teenagers, I didn't want to draw down on them. I was pretty sure they were all packing but was trying not to initiate a gun-fight. I kept my right hand near my gun and my left holding the creds high as I ran to let them know they'd be firing on a cop.
They hesitated for a minute, decided they didn't want that kind of trouble, got back into their lowered hood mobile, and pulled slowly off. They took the corner at the end of the block at an insolent five miles an hour.
'My hero,' Vicki said dryly as I approached. 'Very John Wayne, but I had that handled.'
'You were seconds from getting unzipped,' I told her, but she waved this off as she glanced clown at an address in her hand.
'I must ve gotten the wrong street number from Diamond,' she said. 'Where the hell is Vargas's office?'
'Listen, Ms. Lavicki, in the future it might not be such a good idea to wander around down here alone.'
Her hazel eyes cut holes in me. 'I was okay. You were the one causing the problem.'
'You were not okay. Those guys were packing.'
'Me too.' Then she pulled her right hand out of the purse. The whole time she'd been holding a snub-nosed. 44 caliber Charter Arms Bulldog with a wood-checked grip, aiming it at them from inside her purse.
'You're supposed to be a damn accountant. What kind of adding machine is that?'
'It subtracts to six, but there were only four, so you do the math,' she said. Then, because I frowned deeply, she added, 'Get over it, Scully. I sometimes carry cashier's checks for my firm. I have a permit.'
'You were gonna shoot them?'
She stuffed the Bulldog back into her purse and smirked at me. 'That was just a little chest bump. Those guys were only sniffing.'
'And you re some kind of expert on street action,' I shot back.
'Before I got put in Huntington House, I was raised in South Central,' she replied. 'I was the only white face on my block. The shit jumped off in that hood almost every night. We didn't have bars in our windows, we had MAC-lOs.' She seemed tired of discussing this and abruptly changed the subject, showing me the slip of paper in her hand. 'You know where Vargas's office is? These all look like houses. I was expecting a building.'
'I'm glad you're not doing my taxes. This three should be an eight.' I pointed to the bungalow half a block away.
Alexa had called Vicki a brass cupcake, and she was right. I now had a tough-talking pistol-packing CPA and ex-South Central hood rat from Kinney and Glass to worry about. I got my briefcase out of the MDX, and we walked
