went wrong, making sure the witnesses were okay, that the prosecutor knew what the hell he was doing. That sort of thing.'
'Witnesses all safe?'
'Sure. Far as I know, and I think I would have heard. But it's the Witness Protection Program. All secret, secret, secret.'
'Albert Gorman wasn't safe,' Chee said.
'Albert wasn't a witness,' Shaw said. 'Kenneth couldn't turn him. Couldn't get anything on him. Leroy, now, he's a witness. Ken got him cold, in a stolen Mercedes with his hotwire kit and keys. And he even had written himself a note about the model and when to deliver it to what dock. Two previous convictions.'
'So now Leroy's a protected witness?' Chee said.
'I'd guess yes,' Shaw said. 'Wouldn't you? I know he hadn't been in town since before the grand jury. If I was guessing, I'd guess maybe they assigned him the name of Grayson and hid him in a trailer on the Navajo Reservation.'
'So why shoot Albert?' Chee asked. But he was already guessing the answer.
'I don't think they planned to do it. I think they were watching him to see if he'd lead 'em to Leroy, and they followed him to Shiprock. Sent Lerner. Lerner was supposed to follow Al or get him to tell where Leroy was hiding. Something went wrong. Boom.'
'Makes sense,' said Chee. 'The fbi report didn't say much about Lerner. Who was he?'
'We have a folder on him,' Shaw said. 'Longtime hood. Used to work in one of the longshoremen's rackets, extortion, collecting for the sharks. Then he was bodyguard for somebody in Vegas, and for a long time he worked for McNair.'
'Sort of a hit man?' Chee asked. He was uneasy with the expression. It wasn't a term in the working vocabulary of the Tribal Police.
'Not really,' Shaw said. 'Their regular muscle, from what Upchurch told me, was a freelancer. A guy named Vaggan.'
'Wonder why he didn't go,' Chee said. 'Looks like it would have been important to them.'
Shaw shrugged. 'No telling. Maybe it cost too much. Vaggan is supposed to be expensive.'
'But good,' Wells said. 'But good.'
Chapter 13
Vaggan rarely wasted time. Now, while he waited for 3 a.m. and time to begin Operation Leonard, he listened to Wagner on his tape deck and reread
It wasn't likely that anyone would be outside. The Santa Ana had started blowing early in the afternoon. It was blowing harder now, and Vaggan had picked this place carefully—the screened off-street parking apron outside the four-car garage of a massive, colonial-style mansion on Vanderhoff Drive. The owners of the mansion were elderly, their only live-in servant a middle-aged woman. The light went off early, and the parking area offered Vaggan an unobtrusive place to wait, out of sight of the Beverly Hills police patrol. The patrol prowled the streets at night looking for those, like Vaggan, who had no legitimate after-hours business here among the richest of the rich.
In addition, it was near enough to Jay Leonard's home to make it convenient for Vaggan to scout his grounds. He had done that at 11 p.m., and again a little after midnight, and twice since midnight. And it was far enough from Leonard's to reduce the risk of being noticed in the event someone else was watching, Vaggan had considered that possibility—as he considered all possibilities when he took on a job—but it didn't seem to be happening. Leonard seemed to be content to base his safety on a triple line of defense. He had a rent-a-cop staying in his home with him, he'd installed a fancy new burglar alarm, and he'd rented two guard dogs.
Vaggan found the thought of the dogs intruding into his concentration. The paragraph he'd just read concerned the taboo violations which could be counteracted by the Enemy Way ceremonial, a subject that interested him mildly. But the thought of the dogs excited him. He had inspected them (and they had inspected him) on each of his scouting trips. Dobermans. A male and a female. The dog man at Security Systems, Inc., had assured him that the dogs were trained not to bark, but Vaggan had wanted to check that out. Even with the Santa Ana blowing, even with the whine and howl of the wind covering just about every sound, Vaggan didn't want the animals raising a clamor. Leonard was a drinker, and a coke snorter, and Leonard might be out of it. But he would be nervous. So might the rent-a-cop.
'You can ask Jay Leonard,' the dog man said. 'He's had 'em better'n a week now and they ain't barked for him. If they'd been bothering his neighbors, I don't think he'd have recommended us to you.'
'Maybe they haven't had any reason to be barking,' Vaggan said. 'But what if somebody walks along the fence there with a dog on a leash, or a cat, or if somebody wants to come through the gate. What if a cat gets in the yard?'
'No barking,' the man said. 'One kind of watchdog, you teach him to bark when somebody shows up. Encourage it when they're pups. Another kind of guard dog, attack dog, you don't want barking. You teach 'em right away they bark they get punished for it. Before long, nothing makes 'em bark. We can rent you a pair like that.'
Vaggan had reserved two dogs for December, long after he'd be finished with Leonard. He used a name and address he'd picked out of the Beverly Hills telephone book and paid a $50 deposit to make sure the man would know the deal was made and wouldn't be calling Leonard about the barking business. Leonard was into the Man for $120,000, not counting interest and Vaggan's collection fee. And Vaggan's collection fee—usually 15 percent—was going to be a lot fatter this time.
'Publicity,' the Man had said. 'That's what we need. You know what that silly little bastard said to me? What Leonard said? He said don't give him any of that crap about breaking kneecaps. Them days is past, he said. He said
