The Parker Trilogy Page 18

  Really. You think the Latin cop thinks that? Is that why he got all cute with what he said?

  “I caught that too.”

  I know you did. Shoot. “You’re talking about Eric, right?” Smug bastard. I’d love to chew the fingers off each of his hands.

  “He was fishing. Cops. That’s what they do: fish. Bait the line. Set the line. Jerk the line.”

  The bigger problem is the white cop, though.

  “Why?”

  He’s in this for his partner, for . . . honor. The Smiling Midget suddenly spat, as if that last word had been burped up with stomach acid. There’s nothing worse than a man on a mission, no matter how naïve it is.

  “Well. I didn’t bite on anything that either of them said,” Hector replied as he took a swig of his Coke, bottled, old-school, like they were back home in Sinaloa.

  You were born here, shit head. Don’t start playing “La Raza” card.

  He was right. Hector was born in the States and had only been to Sinaloa with his uncle a half-dozen times, but they were good times. Family was there, he was treated with love and the shrimp were the size of your fist. If home was supposed to be where you were happy, truly happy, then Sinaloa was home. “Whatevs. East Los, all the way. But home is home, little man.”

  Whatevs, my ass. He was sitting on top of a tool cabinet, like a kid, his legs hanging off the side, the heels of his feet taking turns banging against one of the drawers. So, why you so sure you haven’t been made for this?

  “I thought you knew everything.”

  The Smiling Midget sneered at him. I do. Just making sure you know what you’re talking about.

  “If they thought it was me already? I’d be down at the station house, in an interview room, playing twenty questions.”

  Yep. Yer right.

  Oblivious to The Smiling Midget’s presence, Chico walked over to Hector with a worried look on his face. “We can get all of them out but the Civic, it’s already torn to shit.”

  Hector yawned and stood up as The Smiling Midget blinked away. “S’cool. Call Twinkle’s. Have them send a tow truck over. Ask for Phil. He’s the crusty old gringo. You remember him, right?”

  Hector nodded and turned to watch Bennie, who was lowering the jack on a Camaro that he and Alex had just finished putting the tires back on. “The dude with the big-ass beard?”

  “That’s him. Spot him some feria. A hundred should do. He’ll call it in as a missed opportunity when he gets here, then have him quietly tow it over to Ingraham Street.”

  “Got it.”

  “So. We had seven in play when they were here, huh?”

  “Yessir,” Chico replied with a grin, making his eyes go wide in mock shock.

  “Lucky number seven.”

  “Yeah. Well, I almost shit myself when you invited them into the office.”

  Hector laughed. “Yeah. I saw that, you pussy.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Act like you got something to hide and la jura will get all excited, you know that, right?”

  “Yeah, but . . . talk about huevos man. You just got out. If they’d have jumped on that offer and gotten back here?”

  It was starting to rain again. “Shoot. I was hoping the rain was gone.”

  “Nah, man. Gonna rain for, like, the next five days or something.”

  “This is bullshit. This ain’t no Portland, this is LA. How am I supposed to work on my post prison tan in this weather?” Hector said with a smile.

  Chico sniggered. “You crazy, jefe.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  The cars were rolling out, assembly line style, not in a panicked pace but in a reasonably hurried one. Chico rubbed his open palm over his head, then looked seriously at Hector. “Yeah. And Burro knows it now too.”

  Hector pursed his lips, nodded and said, “Maybe a bit premature, ya think?”

  “Nah. You had to nip that shit in the bud,” Chico answered, shaking his head.

  Then? A test. “Surprised you didn’t do it for me when I was inside.”

  Chico didn’t hesitate or look away. “Almost. If you’d have been in any longer? I woulda.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I woulda come for a visit first, to clear it with you, of course. ’Cause that shit, if it’d got to Ramon . . .”

  “Exactly.”

  The gang structure was simple. Hector was the leader of the Fresno Street Vatos. As such, he had a territory that was his to manage and oversee, centered on, as one might guess, Fresno Street. His gang was one of five in the area that reported to the East Los Vatos, the larger gang with the more powerful members and a much bigger reach. Ramon Tapia was the leader of the East Los Vatos, and as such everyone reported to him. From him, the food chain went up one more step, to some psycho dude named Guero Martinez, who was with the cartel and did business with dozens of gangs in Los Angeles. Rumored to be into witchcraft and kids, Guero was the number one source for both coke and heroin. Lately, he’d expanded his inventory to include fentanyl, a powerful pain medication that was taking the East Coast cities by storm.

  Like any corporation with subsidiaries, if you were in management—as Hector was—you took care of your shit. No mix-ups, no mistakes. And having some little punk ass subordinate like Burro undermining your authority could make you look both stupid and weak. Ramon had come up on the streets alongside Curtis Ruvelcaba, the previous leader of the Fresno Street Vatos and Hector’s mentor. It was Curtis’ endorsement of Hector to take over on Fresno Street after Curtis was sent away to San Quentin that got Hector where he was now.

  They had a good thing going right about now. In their own gang, it was simple math. Hector treated their enterprise like a good stock portfolio. He kept it balanced, in roughly twenty-five percent portions of heroin, coke, weed and cars. It wasn’t the greedy play—that would’ve been forty percent each of coke and heroin, ten percent each of weed and cars—but it was the long play.

  Currently, Boyle Heights was weed for the working folks, Downtown LA was coke for the club kids trying to be retro, Los Feliz was heroin for the hipsters, and everywhere was fair game for a hot car. Every four months, like a good farmer he rotated his crops. In the process, he rotated his people. That way no one could get too comfortable, get too slick or—far worse—fall into any patterns of behavior that could be noticed by the cops.

  The sky rumbled. “Was that just thunder?” Hector asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “We best get moving. We have enough room over on Ingraham?”

  “Yeah. We had to push all the motorcycles off along the walls to pull it off and threaten the parking attendant across the street to keep his mouth shut, but we’re good.”

  “Okay.”

  “Speaking of Burro. He’s called here, like, five or six times already today. Begging to speak with you.”

  “Fool.”

  “No surprise. You put him on ice for two weeks. That’s a lotta feria he’s missing out on. By the way, who gets his cut?”

  Hector shot his chin in Bennie’s direction. “Bens needs it for the med bills I bet, huh?”

  “He sure as hell ain’t on no ObamaCare.”

  “It’s his, then, guey.”

  “Orale!”

  Chico walked away, tugging at his baggy jeans.

  The Smiling Midget had moved and was now leaning against a pole just outside the bay door entrance, tossing an Allen wrench into the air with one tiny hand and catching it, without looking, in the other.

  You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’? he asked with a smile.

  Hector imagined David Fonseca and Burro both looking like betta fish. He smiled back. “I sure am.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Parker had just turned on the wiper blades as they were driving down Los Angeles Street when Murillo called Campos to tell him that they’d tracked down the famous Amy Kim on Grand Avenue, right outside the Fashion Institute, as she was leaving class and heading to her car.

  “How’d it go?” C
ampos asked as he put Murillo on speaker phone and turned down the dispatch radio.

  “Ya know. She’s about as friendly as any gangster’s girlfriend would be, I guess.”

  Parker smiled. “So, she gave you a kiss and all the info you needed, then?”

  “Not at first. First, she wanted to act out every ‘I-got-my-rights’ scene from Law & Order with us, especially Klink.”

  “Yeah,” Klink chimed in, “she didn’t like me at all.”

  “She pretty?” Campos asked, as if that had anything to do with anything.

  No hesitation from either of them. “Yeah.”

  “That explains it. She’s Asian, man. You so white, Klink, you like one of them damn glass fishes, the ones you can see right through and shit!” Campos said, before breaking into a fit of laughter.

  “Whatever, man,” Klink shot back, sounding annoyed.

  “No. I’m serious. She’s probably used to eating them fish with her chow mein and stuff. You freaked her out.”

  Parker stifled a chuckle. “It is incredible,” he said to Campos.

  “What is?” he replied with a smile.

  “How you’ve lasted this long on the force with this kinda racist shit coming out of your mouth.”

  Campos waved him off with impatience. “Stop it, man.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “You just mad ’cause you white too, Parker. Right, Murillo?”

  “Leave me out of this,” Murillo said with a laugh.

  “Incredible,” Parker said with a shake of his head.

  “It’s true. The white man is a loyal beast. You guys all stick together.”

  “Oh yeah? So, it’s okay if I say you and Murillo like the rain ’cause all beaners are tan and don’t like the sun?”

  “Hey!” Murillo snapped over the radio.

  “I’m reporting your ass, Parker,” Campos chimed in, his face now like stone.

  “What? Why? You say Klink looks like a glass fish because he’s white and Amy Kim likes chow mein, because I guess all Asians must like chow mein or something, and I’m the racist here?”

  Campos’ accent disappeared and he suddenly sounded like Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird. “None of that shit carries with it either the racial or historical ramifications of the word ‘beaner,’ Parker. We. Must. Not use. The word ‘beaner.’”

  The radio was quiet. The car was quiet. Then Campos let loose with the Muttley the Dog laugh again and all was well.

  “You shoulda seen Parker’s face, Murillo! He was getting ready to call his union rep.”

  “You mean his Klan rep?” Murillo sniggered.

  More laughter.

  “Where you at in all this, Klink? You chicken shit!” Parker yelled into the phone.

  “Man. I been working with these two clowns for years, Parker. You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  “Okay. We done dicking around?” Murillo asked.

  “Yeah. I needed that,” Campos replied, wiping tears from his eyes. Parker realized he was right, that they both needed it after how the whole scenario at Hector Villarosa’s garage had played out. It hadn’t ended tensely, but it had started out that way.

  “So. Here’s what we finally got out of her.”

  “Go ahead,” Parker said as he eased the car out of traffic and over to the curb. No need driving any further until they got the scoop.

  “Once she was done denying she knew this Tic Toc guy—a realization she came to once we floated the idea of taking her in for questioning and making her miss her yoga class—she gave us some good info, I think. Your boy likes to hang out at an auto shop called Piper’s over on—”

  Parker cut him off. “We know where it’s at. We were there yesterday.”

  “Okay. He drives a purple Honda Accord with chrome twenty-twos—”

  “Yeah. We got that too.”

  Campos sighed. “You got something we don’t already know, Murillo?”

  “Depends. Do you know that he goes there every Wednesday between 11:00 a.m. and noon to pick up his cut of the proceeds for the weed they sell out of the shop each week?”

  “That we did not know!” Parker exclaimed.

  “Romeo called our girl here this morning to tell her that after he left there, he wanted to see her for lunch and a little TLC before he heads out of town for a while.”

  Campos and Parker looked at each other at the exact same time.

  “Why’s he leaving town?” Campos asked with a tone that suggested he already knew the answer.

  “He told her it was because he had work to do for his boss in Vegas.”

  “Vegas?” Parker asked.

  “Yeah. Then they got into an argument and I’m guessing his chances for any TLC went right out the window.”

  “Rookie move,” Campos mumbled.

  “Yeah,” Klink said. “She figured he was really heading to Vegas for some lap dances and hookers.”

  “Is there a woman on the planet who wouldn’t think that?”

  Parker didn’t miss a beat. “Racist and chauvinist.”

  Campos shrugged. “So? Where’d they leave it?”

  “He begged and cooed his way back into her good graces and is supposed to be by her apartment around 1:00 p.m.”

  “Screw that,” Parker said, pulling off the curb.

  “We’re going to Piper’s now,” Campos added.

  “We figured. That’s why Amy is currently sitting in the back of our car, stewing and rehashing her Law & Order lines on us.”

  “You still made her miss her yoga class?”

  “Yep,” Klink said. “Neither one of us trusted her not to speed dial lover boy to tip him off the minute we walked away.”

  “Good call,” Parker said flatly as he made an illegal U-turn on Los Angeles Street and sped towards Wilshire Boulevard.

  “We’ll get there soon and let you know what’s up. You keep the girlfriend in place.”

  “You know we can’t do that forever, right? Civil rights and all. Cap’s already gonna light us up.”

  “Just give us thirty minutes to an hour.”

  They heard a woman shouting in the background. “That her?” Parker asked as he made a right on Wilshire. Traffic was bad, and they were still many miles from Piper’s, so he slapped the dome light on the rooftop.

  “Yeah. She wants her phone. To call her lawyer.”

  “Who else?” Campos said. “We’ll call you.” He hung up and nodded at Parker, who hit the siren.

  Parker felt like Moses, parting the Red Sea of Cars on Wilshire as he carved his way down the street. Soon they were beyond the bottleneck of downtown and he shut off the siren and pulled the dome light back inside.

  Fifteen minutes later they were parked across the street from Piper’s Auto Shop for the second time in two days, except, according to Amy Kim’s info, today was the right day.

  “Do you think he’ll show?”

  “It’s money day.” Campos smirked.

  “Right before a trip to Vegas.”

  “He’ll show.”

  Ten minutes later? He did. A purple Honda, rap music blasting from inside, rolled right past them and into the driveway of the auto shop, then looped around and backed into a parking space.

  Parker had the emailed photo of him pulled up on his cell phone as he got out of the car; other than the fact that Tic Toc had a longer goatee now, it was a perfect match.

  “Back up?” Parker asked.

  “We don’t have time. He may grab his money bag and skip. I’ll call it in now, so at least they’re rolling as we go up, but I don’t want to wait. You okay with that?”

  Parker nodded.

  Campos grabbed the radio. “Dispatch. This is Wilbur-9. We’ve got a Code 1 at Piper’s Auto Shop on Wilshire Boulevard.”

  It was standard code for “officers in need of assistance,” less severe than a Code 8, “officer in need of immediate help,” usually reserved for a situation that had gone violent. The dispatcher chirped back and they listened as two units rad
ioed that they were on their way. Had it been a Code 8, every unit in the area would’ve been en route.

  Campos was suddenly serious. “We go in hard and heavy, Parker. Okay? We don’t know how many of them are in there. It’s a money pickup. Maybe low-key. But still, even on a simple day, it could be worse than that. Especially if Tic Toc is dropping off product.”

  “You think that’s happening?”

  “He didn’t have a bag or backpack when he went in, but he could have a brick tucked into the back of his pants.”

  “Great.”

  “It’d be unusual. And stupid. Trades are usually partial: cash one day, product the next. So that it’s harder for the DA to make a case and tie the transaction neatly together. But . . .”

  “But, what?”

  “He’s heading out of town, maybe for a stretch. So, who knows. If he is doing a swap, and any of those guys are on their second strike in there . . .”

  “Got it.”

  As they got out of the car and met on the sidewalk, they unholstered their guns.

  Campos sniffed. “This is our first time together, rookie, so listen up.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t fuck around, okay? Shoot first and ask questions later, you understand?”

  “That’s not what they taught me in the academy.”

  “Yeah? Well, tell the academy they can come kiss my ass.”

  Parker nodded grimly. Then tried to lighten the mood. “We just left a body-shop-slash-chop-shop, now we’re at an auto shop. I feel like I’m in a damn Pep Boys commercial.”

  Campos smiled.

  They walked up the sidewalk, through the front door of the auto shop and right smack-dab into Tic Toc and two men chatting at the counter, just as an envelope stuffed with cash was being handed from one of them to Tic Toc.

  “Sun-na-nitch,” Campos mumbled under his breath.

  Unlike in a Pep Boys commercial, nobody seemed happy to see them.

  The conference call behind him, Father Soltera managed to make his way through the prenuptial counseling session with Robert Avila and Laura Pena, and even then only because they were late in arriving and Carol cut the session ten minutes short. He felt bad. They were a young couple, perhaps too young to make this step, and they deserved all he had to offer, but sadly he didn’t have much to give on this day.