my arm tats.'
'You must have sawdust for brains.'
'Scully, you're focused on the wrong things. Wait'll you see what I got.'
'Everything you took out of there is inadmissible!' I shouted. I was beginning to lose it. 'You gotta have a search warrant to remove evidence in a police investigation.'
'You gotta have a search warrant. All I need is a crowbar.'
'You're fucking amazing.' I went around to the other side of the teeter-totter and pulled the seat down, then got on it and lowered my end, hoisting him up by the handcuffs. His end was now almost eight feet in the air, and he was hanging under the seat, shrieking in distress, standing on his tippy-toes.
'Ow! Ow!' he bellowed. 'This is police harassment!'
I bounced on the seat, pulling him a few inches off the ground with each bounce. He screamed in pain as the metal cuffs cut into his wrists. Then I lowered him back to his tiptoes again.
'Okay, Jack. Here's the deal. I wanta know everything you've done since yesterday. Everything you touched, every window you crawled through. I want your whole chicken-shit playbook.'
'Nothing… I've done nothing.'
'I figure you've been running amuck ever since this started. Tomorrow or the next day, I'm gonna be getting this case. I wanta know how much evidence you've lost or compromised, how many laws you've broken, how much of your shit I'm gonna be digging out of.'
'Owww! Ow! Lemme down!' he screamed.
'You break into Diamond's office too?'
'No way! Lemme go!'
'You did, didn't you? You broke in there and went through her rebuilt files.'
'No.'
I bounced my seat a few times. He shot up and down, showing me his white belly like a prize bass on the end of a spruce fishing pole.
'Okay, okay. I did. But there was nothing there.'
'How 'bout the NHB Gym? You pay them a little visit earlier tonight, before you went into the Mesa building?'
'Uh… okay, okay.' He was squeaking slightly, hissing out the words through his teeth. 'Put me down. I'll tell you everything. Please.'
I lowered him until he was standing with both feet under him, but his hands were still stretched high above his head.
'I'm listening,' I said, looking up at him from the low end of the teeter-totter.
'Okay, I… I… okay, I went to the gym. Man, you and Vargas really fucked that place up. The front window was all boarded up. I had to pick the lock in back. Some guy's trashed Indian chopper was in the office, leakin' oil on the cement floor. But it's just a fight gym, man. Nothing there. I found some drugs in the back room, stole a Rolodex, that's it.'
'What kind of drugs?'
'I don't know. Prescription shit.'
I bounced a few times.
'Some kinda polypeptides/' he blurted.
'Aren't they like human growth hormones?'
'The fuck would I know? I don't shoot drugs. I drink a little beer occasionally, couple a scotch shooters from time to time, but that's it. My body is my temple.'
I looked at his temple dangling there, with numbers and pictures scrawled all over it. I took a minute and tried to assess the damage.
'Why would you break into Mesa Group after I specifically told you not to?'
'Because I've been trying to solve Pop's murder while you been sitting on your ass doing nothing.'
'Eventually, I could have developed enough evidence to get a legitimate search warrant on that place. Now I can't use one thing you took! Everything you removed is inadmissible! Don't you get that?' I shouted.
'Scully, Scully, for chrissake, calm down and listen to me? Will you just listen?'
'I'm listening.'
'Okay, look, you want the real truth? Here it is. I know you probably won't believe me but I wasn't the one who broke in there.'
'The cops said you did.'
'It wasn't me, okay? It was somebody else. Somebody I was following.'
'You're a trip, Jack.'
'I was following that MMA fighter guy you were talking about tonight. 'Ricochet' O'Shea. It wasn't something I planned. It just happened.' He took a breath.
'Put me down.'
I held him up there on his tippy-toes, then bounced him once to keep him talking.
'I was leaving the gym after going through their office and that Ricochet guy shows up for a late-night workout. He didn't know I was there so I hid. I wanted to see what his story was. He works the bags for an hour or so then leaves. I followed him. He went to the Mesa Investment Group building on Wilshire. It was almost midnight, and I'm thinking, what the fuck is this? So I decided to wait around outside.
'He musta tripped a silent alarm because half an hour after he went inside, two cop cars pull up and rattle the doors. A couple minutes later a security guard comes out and opens up for them. Five minutes later O'Shea comes flying out of the place through a side door. He gets in his car and books. I'm on the Harley, so I take off after him. He sees me back there and he throws something out of his car window, then escapes. It looked like a computer flash drive.
'I'm just gettin' set to pull over and pick it up when all of a sudden I'm in the middle of a major police action. I took off, but I laid my Harley down trying to get away. That's why I was on foot and why I called you for help, dude. I managed to ditch the cops for a while, but they're pulling in major backup. I'm ducking and jukin', running like a bastard, staying outta sight. Next thing I know, I see you in the park, and then ten seconds later we're both in the middle of a baton-and-pepper-spray party.'
'That's your story?' I said.
'Yeah. What's wrong with it?'
I just glared at him.
'Swear to God, Scully. I'm not lying! It wasn't me who broke into Mesa Group. It was Rick O'Shea.'
'Now you're just pissing me off.' I sat down hard, yanking him high off the ground.
'Scully, I swear! It wasn't me!' he screamed.
'Right,' I drawled.
'O'Shea threw the flash drive away!' he shrieked. 'But Scully, I know where he threw it. We can go back there. We can get it.'
'It's illegally obtained evidence. How many times do I have to say that?'
'How's it illegally obtained? It's just lying behind a Dumpster. You don't need a search warrant to find something some other asshole stole and ditched in an alley? C'mon, put me down.'
I lowered him to his tiptoes again and studied him, hanging under the seat of the teeter-totter.
'I can't possibly look this stupid to you.'
'Scully, you just gonna let the whole case disappear into some wino's pocket?'
'If you didn't see what was on the flash drive, how do you know it contains incriminating stuff we can use to solve Pop's murder?'
'Huh?'
'How do you know it's not just Rick O'Shea's Internet porn collection?'
'How?'
'Yeah, douche bag, how?'
'Because, because w-why else would he go in there at, at… at like midnight and like take something, unless he knew it was incriminating?' he stuttered.
I sat down hard again, lifting him for the third time off the ground. He was hanging by the cuffs, spinning
