The Tin Collector s-1 Page 15

  "How much do you guys spend to get a big player into court?" she had asked him. "How much overtime and special duty gets approved to bring down a big vice lord or drug kingpin?"

  The truth was, often hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent trying to collar a predicate felon, and sometimes even then they failed to come up with an indictment.

  Sandy's proposal was shrewd; it showed her keen business mind. She told Shane she would work any target they pointed her at and charge LAPD nothing up front. Despite the upscale nature of her clientele, she was tired of working one-night stands and wanted to expand her horizons. She had two conditions: if successful, she wanted half the amount of money the department had spent on that criminal investigation in the preceding year, and she would not work a target who had an annual police budget of under a hundred thousand dollars. She said she would trust Shane to divulge the correct amount. After almost a month of negotiating with her over terms and conditions, the department finally agreed.

  Sandy proved to be exceptional in this new line of work. She was thorough and totally prepared herself before ever moving in on her target. First, she would study the criminal, research him like a doctoral thesis. If he liked Russian literature, she would memorize passages of Solzhenitsyn. If he was interested in Impressionistic art, she would become an expert on Gino Severini's essays, From Futurism to Classicism. Then she would set up shop somewhere in his field of vision. One day Mr. Big would be at his favorite country club bar and he'd look across the room and see a dusky, raven-haired goddess sitting at a table alone, reading an art pamphlet detailing the next Impressionist auction at Sotheby's. A conversation would ensue, and this unsuspecting criminal would find that, lo and behold, he had a soul mate, a drop-dead ten on the libido scale who miraculously liked everything he did, from van Gogh to ocean catamaran racing. She became so tuned in, she could finish his sentences.

  Before long they would become intimate. Here, Sandy was on her home field. She was a Hall of Fame sexual acrobat. Mr. Big would think he'd won the quiniela. Then Sandy would slowly begin to work him for information. After sex he'd start bragging. He'd fill her beautiful head with his criminal exploits. She'd coo and tell him he was a genius. Once she had his criminal operation down, she would start looking around for a patsy. She knew that when the cops made the arrest, Mr. Big would know he'd been sold out. He might turn violent from his cell, might figure her for the informant and order her killed. To protect herself, Sandy would look around at Mr. Big's criminal companions for a stand-in who could fulfill this unrewarding role.

  Before dropping the dime to the police, she would set up the patsy as the informant. She was careful to always pick someone worthy of execution, so the unsuspecting police department wouldn't put too much time into the scumbag's murder. Once she had selected her patsy, she would begin flirting with him, setting up a romantic triangle. Mr. Big would get furious at the patsy: "Stop hitting on Sandy. I catch you putting the make on her again, I'll drop you where you stand." But Sandy was worth the risk, and she'd work both men into steamy jealous rages.

  When the bust came down, it didn't take Mr. Big long to figure out who had fingered him. The patsy would end up strolling the tidal basin in concrete loafers while Sandy sat in the jail visitors' room, crying her eyes red and promising Mr. Big that she would be there when he got out.

  Because she always destroyed her targets, and a patsy always died, her nickname in the department was "the Black Widow." Like her namesake, she was a great but deadly piece of ass.

  She would then present her bill to Shane for this valuable service, and he would be her bagman for the department's payoff. She was L. A.'s most successful consignment concessionaire. It was a fair deal. If she didn't get the goods, the LAPD didn't pay.

  In the beginning Shane was the only cop she would trust to be her intermediary. The cases went down smoothly in court because the tip that led to the bust was always anonymous, so it couldn't be traced back to the department. Naturally, the arresting officers didn't even know about the arrangement. Since Sandy never testified in court or told anybody what she had to do to get the goods, it was, strictly speaking, legal. She was paid as an informant something police do all over the country. It was a very efficient and profitable deal for everybody.

  Inevitably, the feds got wind of her and, in their typical, claim-jumping fashion, moved in. Since their budgets were larger and she could make more money with them, they started poaching on the LAPD, and now she was working mostly federal cases.

  The elevator doors opened, and Sandy was standing in the hall waiting for him. Every time he saw her, he was knocked out all over again. It was as if his memory wasn't able to retain her remarkable physical perfection. She was tall, almost five-ten, and had a spectacular, trainer-sculpted body. She had told him once that her mother was Mexican and her father Colombian, which was responsible for her Latin coloring. She had raven-black hair and coffee-colored skin. Her brown eyes twinkled and danced and said "Take me." She was one of the most attractive, sensual women he had ever laid eyes on. Although she was in her mid to late thirties, she could have easily passed for twenty-nine.

  She was standing before him, wearing designer heels and a tailored white dress that revealed just enough knee and breast to cause him to lose concentration, but she was never overtly sexy. She was a strange, exotic mixture classy yet seductive, expensive yet available and somehow Sandy carried it off with incredible ease.

  "Shane, you look tired. I hope you're not doing stakeouts, sleeping in your car," she said, reacting to the circles under his eyes.

  "You always know how to make me feel so special," he said darkly as she took his hand and offered her cheek to kiss.

  "Come on, stop it, you know I love you. I made us sandwiches." She was smooth, working him now, making him feel important. She was good at it. Men were her business.

  The penthouse was huge, beautiful, and all white. White walls on white carpet, with white drapes framing an acre of plate glass. The antiques were all real. A black and goldleaf Louis XV desk and matching secretary unit were on opposite walls; white sofas and European accent pieces immediately caught the eye. Sandy stood in the middle of the entry with her hands on her slender hips, the most exotic decoration in the room by far.

  "I think, now that I see you, you need some alcoholic CPR. How 'bout a beer?" She moved into the kitchen without waiting for a reply, got two Amstel Lights, and brought them back, along with the sandwiches on bone china plates. All of it was carried on an expensive antique silver serving tray. She set everything down on the white marble-top table near the windows.

  The mirrored glass skyline of Century City twinkled in the clean air blowing in from the ocean a few miles away.

  "You have to take Chooch back," he said without preamble.

  "I can't, Shane, I told you, I'm on this thing for the DEA. I'm working almost every night. The target is a hitter. I stumble I'm gone. Honest to God, this guy's a vampire… he plays all night."

  "Sandy, I'm going to say this again, 'cause it's important. You need to spend some time with your son. I blew it. I almost got through, but I blew it. Now I'm afraid he's gonna take off, then we're gonna be out there looking for him. He's got some gang-bang friends in the Valley; he'll hang with bad company. He's pissed off, ready to run. I'm worried about him."

  They sat with the beers and untouched sandwiches between them as Sandy bit her lower lip in concentrated thought. "I know you think I've just dumped him, that I sent him off to boarding school or left him with friends… but I'm trying to make enough money so he can go to Princeton or Yale. I want him to get the best education, maybe be a doctor."

  "To begin with, it doesn't matter what I think. It only matters what Chooch thinks. You've gotta show him you care. You've gotta make room for him in your life, make him feel like he belongs somewhere, like somebody truly gives a shit. Forget about Yale, 'cause the way he's going, he's gonna be doing his postgrad study at Soledad State Prison."

  "My
plan is to get ten mil in tax-free munis and blue chips, stuff that will grow and throw off cash, then I'm gonna retire and move with Chooch to Arizona Phoenix, I was thinking settle down, be a regular mom. I'm a year away, maybe less."

  "You don't have a year. You may not have a week."

  "Shane, the sting on this drug deal goes down in two days. I'm right at the critical point, creating my exit strategy."

  "You mean setting up your dead man," he corrected.

  "Boy, are you in a shitty mood. Stop being so contentious. I'll take him once this sting is over. I promise. But I'm not taking him today, or tomorrow… Maybe this will be over by Monday. Let's shoot for Monday."

  Shane got to his feet, without having touched the sandwich or the beer. She didn't beg him to stay, either.

  "By the way, who the hell is his father?"

  "His name is Carlos Delmonica. I got careless with my pills. He was a drug dealer in Simon Boca's operation, and he's currently a resident of Leavenworth, Kansas, doing twenty-five to life in the federal pen."

  "Jeez, no help there, I guess."

  "The best thing we can hope for is that Chooch never meets his father. And don't tell him who he is. I don't want Chooch writing Carlos, who doesn't even know he has a son."

  "Monday," Shane said with finality.

  He started for the door, and Sandy scooped her purse off the sofa table. "I'll go with you. Maybe I can still make my lunch." She picked up the phone and dialed the bandleader with the braided shoulders in the lobby. "Darling, it's Sandy. I'm coming down with the gentleman who just arrived. Be a dear, will you?" She hung up and smiled brightly. "Our cars will be right up. Magic."

  They exited into the hall. As she punched the elevator button, a phone rang. Both Sandy and Shane dug for their cells. It was Shane's. He popped it open.

  "Yeah," he said.

  It was Luanne McDermott, of the Fingerprint Analysis Unit at SIS. "The print lab lifted a set of pretty good latents off the videotape box," she said. "They came back to Calvin Sheets, 2329 Los Feliz, apartment sixteen."

  "Calvin Sheets," Shane said, taking a pen and his small spiral notebook out of his pocket. "Spell it ea or ee

  "Sheets ee. Also, he used to be one of us."

  "A cop?"

  "Yeah… got terminated by Internal Affairs six months ago."

  "Anything else?"

  "That's it."

  "Thanks." He closed the phone and tapped the pen on the spiral notebook, deep in speculation.

  The elevator arrived at the penthouse level, and he and Sandy got aboard. This time they were listening to an orchestrated version of "Eleanor Rigby."

  "I know Calvin Sheets," Sandy said, surprising him.

  The doors closed and they rode down.

  "You do?"

  "He works for Logan Hunter at least he used to."

  "The movie producer?"

  "Actually, Logan runs his own independent studio now, Starmax. Calvin Sheets is head of his security."

  "How do you know Logan Hunter?" Shane asked, always surprised by the level of people Sandy knew. "Isn't he a big social deal, always doing some major fund-raiser or civic project?"

  "Actually, that's how he keeps his reputation. He only works on stuff that will keep him in the press. Right now he's in the paper 'cause he's trying to get a pro football team to come to L. A. He's a football fan like I'm a microbiologist, but it's popular, makes him look good. If it's a news story, he's up for it."

  "I hesitate to ask you how you met him."

  "I was working Logan for U. S. Customs about two months ago. It went nowhere. He just wouldn't give me any play. One of my few wipeouts. I found out a few weeks later that he's a closet gay. To each his own…"

  "What did U. S. Customs want him for?"

  "They thought he was smuggling heroin into the country, using film magazines being shipped back from a production he had shooting in Mexico. They thought he was unpacking loads of Mexican Brown in the film lab, but like I said, I never got close enough to find out."

  "And Calvin Sheets works for him now?"

  "Yeah. And is he ever an asshole. A blister, that one. I'd hate to get caught alone with him in a dark place."

  They got to the lobby and stepped out of the elevator. The doorman had already called up the cars; two Spanish-speaking men in white coveralls with BARRINGTON PLAZA stenciled over their pockets delivered the keys and stood by the cars waiting for their tips.

  Shane slipped his man a dollar, while Sandy tipped hers five, then rattled some Spanish at him. He smiled and bobbed his head energetically up and down like a sparrow digging for worms. She got behind the wheel of her new bottle-green XJB convertible. They both drove off, heading their separate ways: Sandy in her Jag, to arrange some poor asshole's funeral; Shane in his battered Acura, to pick up her only son at Harvard Westlake before Mr. Thackery threw a shit-fit and started threatening expulsion, ad summum bonum.

  Chapter 25

  B AND E

  It was just after ten P. M. when Shane left a brooding Chooch Sandoval with Longboard Kelly. He was driving across town to the Bradbury Building, dressed for a burglary in 211 colors: a black LAPD sweatshirt, black jeans, and Reeboks. He had his.38 backup piece snug against his belt. His badge and ID card, picklocks, and penlight were stuffed in all available pockets.

  He pulled off the freeway and drove down Sixth Street, right into the hovering helicopter lights of the Schwarzenegger movie. They were back downtown doing night work, barricades in place, assistant directors and klieg lights glaring. He had hoped he would be able to sneak into IAD, rifle the chief advocate's files, and get out unobserved. The last thing he needed to deal with was this fucking movie.

  He got stopped two blocks from the Bradbury by a motorcycle cop, now a potential witness who could put Shane at the location.

  He considered turning around and going home but then decided, fuck it, he was running out of options. He had to take the chance.

  "Sorry, Sergeant, we're almost on a take," the old motorcycle cop said after Shane badged him. He had outgrown his uniform, which stretched over his belly like a Mexican bandit's faded guayabera.

  The LAPD supplied movie companies with police assistance to control crowds and traffic on location, and many of the retired old-timers made some money by working movie gigs. Shane didn't know this officer. He never had many friends in Motors because the officers assigned there were basically "hot pilot" types attitude junkies known on the job as "mustard cases."

  "I need to get to my office," Shane explained.

  "Lock up traffic. This is picture," the assistant director's voice came over the motor cop's walkie-talkie.

  The officer was in his late sixties and looked slightly ridiculous in his too-tight shirt and worn leather knee boots. He held up his hands as if to say there was nothing he could do. The god of cinema had just spoken. "Sorry, we have to wait for the shot," he said.

  "It's a good thing the corner bank isn't being robbed," Shane muttered.

  They waited while the helicopter hovered loudly overhead. Suddenly a car squealed around the corner of Spring Street, roared down Sixth, skidded sideways, then disappeared around another corner.

  "Cut. Release traffic," the AD said over the walkie-talkie, and Shane was finally waved through.

  In L. A., movies had their own hallowed place in the subculture. God forbid anybody should fuck with a unit production schedule.

  When Shane got to the Bradbury Building, he was greeted by another surprise. The entire north side of the building was flooded by a huge condor light suspended forty feet in the air from a crane. It lit almost the entire city block.

  "Shit," Shane muttered. This was getting ridiculous. He was dressed in black, trying to do an illegal entry while a movie was shooting, and the fucking building he was burglarizing was lit up like City Hall. He had already decided not to use the parking structure, because he was pretty sure that the gate had a common security feature that would read his key card, then time-log it, so
he parked in a private lot next to a string of honey wagons and dressing rooms.

  He locked the Acura and walked past a line of chattering extras, out onto the brightly lit sidewalk. Hugging the bricks of the Bradbury, turtling his head down into his collar, he tried to hide, feeling stupid and exposed like a cockroach scuttling along a kitchen baseboard.

  The building was open, as he knew it would be. Advocates often worked late, so the department kept civilian guards on at night. Usually they slept somewhere on the fifth floor.

  He walked into the huge lobby and stood in the atrium. The guard desk was empty. He looked up at the advocates' windows on the third floor. The lights were off. He climbed the stairs, his tennis shoes squeaking on the tile floor. When he got to three, he headed down the corridor and stood for a moment in front of the advocates' offices, looking through the windows, past the reception desks to the cubbies beyond, where any late-working advocates might be sitting. The place looked empty, and the lights were all off. He knocked loudly on the door.

  Shane had a cover story ready. If anybody was inside, he was going to abort and say that he had come back to finish some Xeroxing but first needed to pick up his key.

  He knocked again, but nobody answered. Everyone had gone home. He looked up and down the exterior corridor, then pulled out a small leather case and removed a set of picklocks.

  Ironically, picking locks was a criminal specialty he had learned from Ray Molar. A good set of picklocks contained an array of long, needle-shaped tools and one long, thin, notched metal strip. Shane slid the notched strip into the lock and jiggled it to find the first tumbler by feel. Then the smaller picks slid in behind it. The idea was to fill as many of the lock's keyed openings as possible so that you had enough leverage to turn all the tumblers inside the bolt. It was not as easy as it looked on TV, where some guy would just slide a credit card into a door and, bingo, he was in. It took Shane almost ten minutes before he could turn the lock and let himself inside.