Three Shirt Deal (2008) (12 page)

"Then we should wait," I said. "It's more important that we talk."

"I used to be so sexual," she said sadly. "Nothing feels the same anymore. It's not you." "I know."

"I'll find my way back, Shane." "I'll be right here."

We continued to sit like that for almost an hour, feeling close, feeling sad, feeling strangely different.

Chapter
15.

"THERE WERE TWO YEARS, I THINK IT WAS THE FIFTH GRADE and half of the sixth, where I stopped being Secada Llevar and became Sally Levitt. I put blond streaks in my hair and tried to become a Valley Girl." Scout wrinkled her nose and her voice shot up an octave. "I'm like totally amped for those bodacious dudes. They're the bomb." She smiled. "My parents put up with Sally Levitt because they understood how lost I was. I felt so brown. So not part of it. Nobody looked like me. Not my dolls, nobody on my favorite TV shows. I was a bracero"s daughter trying to make it in this mostly white, press-on-nail middle school, so I understand Miguel Iglesia wanting to be Mike Church. A lot of Hispanic kids go through that. I certainly did."

"Only with him, it's not a stage," I said.

"That's because he's big and mean enough to force a result. I couldn't hold it. I wasn't Sally Levitt. I didn't understand her. My blonde streaks all turned orange in the YWCA pool. It was a cheesy disguise, and I knew it. Worse still, I saw the disappointment in my parents' eyes, so I moved on. I had to discover who I was and eventually I came to love that person. A happy ending."

I sat there listening to Secada, thinking about how fragile identities really were. I was forged by loneliness and anger as a boy and then transformed as an adult by a family who loved me. In a millisecond, a bullet had altered Alexa's core, changed who she was and how she thought. It sliced through her mood center, setting in play new thoughts and emotions.

Secada looked over at me and seemed to sense my dark mood. "What about you? Didn't you ever have an identity crisis as a kid?"

We were parked across the street from Aubrey Wyatt's Bel Air estate, sitting in the front seat of a new maroon Cadillac I'd borrowed from the drug enforcement motor pool. The leather smelled sweet. The gelled paint and polished chrome fit this ritzy neighborhood. It was ten-thirty the same evening. I had left Alexa working at her desk, and Scout and I were half an hour into an unauthorized stakeout.

"My whole upbringing was an identity crisis," I told her.

"Come on. It couldn't have been that bad."

"It was what it was. It doesn't help to talk about it."

We sat in silence. I felt her gaze fix on me.

"I don't blackmail or bite," she said.

I don't know why I was hesitant to take this next step with her; why I was reluctant to share my personal backstory and feelings. Maybe it was because I knew there was a strong attraction between us. Talking about my childhood, my early fears, was like letting down a fence, and allowing her to come closer. Close enough to see my shortcomings. That act of trust would put her in another category, and it was one I wasn't sure I knew how to deal with. It felt dangerous, yet at the same time, exciting.

"Do you think I'm coming on to you?" she suddenly asked.

"Are you?"

"I don't mess with my partners, especially married partners."

"Good."

"No, listen. I like you, Shane. I like that you went to bat on this, despite the heat coming from Sasso and PSB. I know why you don't want to tell your wife what we're doing. I've heard the scuttlebutt. I know she's been different since she got back. I knew that before I ever came to see you about this. I just hoped she might be strong enough to lend a hand. But I understand why she can't."

"She's not different. She's just fallen a little behind," I snapped, rushing to her defense.

"I'm not being critical. My God, she was shot in the head. You don't think I understand what you're going through? Listen, Shane . . . listen--"

I was staring angrily at the Wyatts' driveway.

"Look at me," she demanded.

I turned and looked into her dark eyes.

"I find you very attractive. I guess I can't hide that, but I'm not a slut. I was raised with values. I've got a way I intend to live my life. I'm not a home wrecker and I'm sure not going to take advantage of you and your wife, especially not now, when she's going through such a tough adjustment. You have my word on that."

"Thank you."

After a moment a smile started to play across her face, and in Sally Levitt's voice, she said, "You may be cute, dude, but you're a long way from bodacious ta-ta."

I smiled at her, but there must have been sadness and pain in my smile because she saw it, and said, "If you ever want to talk, I'm a good listener."

"I'll get back to you on that."

Half an hour later, the solenoid on the gate started clicking and the wrought-iron monster swung open. We both ducked down in the front seat as the red Ferrari Enzo flew down the drive and out the gate again. I figured it must have been Wade Wyatt driving because he left his trademark trail of sparks from th
e l
eading edge of his left front bumper, and nobody who actually paid a million dollars for a car would treat it that way.

"What the fuck?" Scout said as she sat back up and watched the car whine away up the street.

"That's the way he drives. He's a cute kid. Wait till you meet him."

I hung a U as Scout grabbed a portable Kojak light out of the glove compartment and put it on the seat between us, ready to slam it up on the dash in case we needed it. We began a white
-
knuckle ride trying to stay up with the Ferrari as it blew through stop signs, heading west down Sunset toward the ocean and a low gray mist of coastal fog. On Sepulveda the Ferrari turned right and headed into the hills. Around eleven-fifteen it pulled to the shoulder up on the top of Mulholland and parked.

Scout and I were driving without headlights to avoid detection. When the Enzo stopped at the crest of the hill we backed down on Sepulveda and ditched the Caddie a few hundred yards away. Then we covered the last stretch on foot, moving back up the road, and climbed into the hills above Mulholland. I was carrying my Bushnell binoculars. We found a place where we could watch undetected. The foggy coastal marine layer had not crested the mountain and from here we could see across Mulholland, to the million-dollar red sports car and past that to the million-dollar view of the twinkling lights in the Valley below.

There were now two people standing beside the Ferrari, leaning on the front fender. I put the binoculars to my eyes and focused them. Wade Wyatt was dressed like Field Marshal Rommel in an expensive three-quarter-length, belted black leather trench coat. With him was an expensively dressed girl who looked like she'd just stepped out of a Victoria's Secret catalog. Long blonde hair, high cheekbones, willowy body.

"You know who she is?" Secada asked.

"Bodacious ta-ta," I said, and handed her the binoculars.

"Looks like they're waiting for someone," she said.

We got comfortable, sitting with our backs against a pine tree. Slowly, over the next half hour, one by one, other expensive sports cars arrived at this spot at the top of Mulholland. Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Maseratis were joined by souped-up Corvettes and some muscle cars with racked suspensions. Finally, I saw a silver Mercedes McLaren arrive. License plate ABV-193. It was Wade Wyatt's car but this time a slender, dark-haired guy I'd never seen before was driving. By now, there were over twenty men and women, mostly young and attractive, standing on the shoulder smoking dope or drinking booze from silver flasks.

"What are they waiting for?" Scout said.

"I've heard about this, but I thought it was just an urban myth," I told her. "The story is, every now and then, a bunch of these rich assholes bring their expensive sports cars up here and have road races at midnight for high stakes and pink slips. Tens of thousands of dollars and car registrations change hands."

"You kidding? On Mulholland?"

"Yeah. The way I heard it, they block off the road. Look. They're doing that now."

As we watched, two guys in a pickup with yellow construction sawhorses in the back arrived and drove around the corner and down the hill. Scout and I scrambled to the top of the mountain where we could see the streets converging into Bel Air. I looked through the binoculars and sure enough, several miles down Mulholland, barely visible in the coastal fog, the pickup stopped, and the two guys jumped out and blocked off the road with a couple of sawhorses, both of which had flashing amber lights. One of the men triggered a walkie-talkie and spoke into it. Scout and I scrambled back down to our earlier position just as two cars at the top of Mulholland pulled to a makeshift starting line. One was a white Corvette with red racing stripes and an exposed engine. The hood was off to make room for a four-barrel

blower. The other car was a blue Lamborghini. Wyatt's beautiful blonde girlfriend stepped out into the center of the road between the two vehicles holding a checkered flag. Wade was booking bets on his computer, his face illuminated by the glow from the laptop.

"What do you wanta do?" Secada asked.

"Beats the hell outta me. I wasn't exactly expecting this."

A minute later, the engines revved high and the girl swung the flag. Both cars squealed away from the starting line toward the sawhorses two miles down the twisting, two-lane road. In less than half a mile, they were going over ninety, engines wrapped tight and whining, the tortured sounds of squealing rubber destroying the quiet Bel Air night.

"Mamacitar Scout gasped as the Vette almost lost it, missing a deadly plunge into the Valley below, by inches, then righted itself and continued. "We need to get some A-Units up here now," she said.

Just then, the silver McLaren, with the dark-haired guy I didn't know behind the wheel, pulled to the starting line beside a yellow Maserati. As the drivers strapped in, money began changing hands. Wade Wyatt was punching keys, making book on the laptop.

"We can't wait for patrol. We gotta shut this down before somebody dies," Scout said.

We ran back to the Caddie and jumped in. While Scout called for backup, I put the car in gear, and we shot up the road onto Mulholland, and made a left turn. Scout slammed the bubble light up onto the dash and turned it on. I hit the switch on the waiter disguised under the hood and we boiled in, braying the siren.

The crowd at the top of the hill saw us coming and scattered like tenement house roaches. As this was happening, the McLaren and the Maserati took off from the line and veered away from us, powering down the hill toward the sawhorses two miles away.

"We gotta stop them before they kill somebody," Scout yelled.

I floored it, but the Cad was no match for these two race cars and they quickly left us behind, taking corners neatly while I slewed recklessly around the curves. Soon they were out of sight.

"Faster," Scout yelled.

I had my foot buried to the floor, and the Caddie was leaning dangerously on every turn, threatening to break loose and pin
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wheel over the side. It didn't seem to bother Secada, who was yelling for more speed. We flashed past the sawhorses, which had already been run through, and now lay broken and in ruins all over the road.

We drove into the coastal fog at Sunset Boulevard and I had to make a decision. The two cars were way out of sight but it would do no good to go back up to the top of Mulholland. That party would be long over. I knew the McLaren had come from Church's house in Van Nuys, so I made a right and headed toward the Palisades and the 405, still hoping to catch up. After several minutes of reckless driving on Sunset, I spotted the Mercedes idling at a light, blocked in by a line of traffic coming out of a concert at UCLA.

"The good guys catch a break," Scout announced as I wailed the siren and squealed to a stop behind the silver sports car.

I piled out of the Caddie and ran toward the McLaren with my gun drawn. Scout pulled her weapon and took a cover position at the right rear quarter panel of the silver race car just like we'd all been taught to do it at the Academy.

"Hands in the air. Put 'em out the window!" I yelled at the driver, adrenaline pumping up the volume. He was alone in the car.

"Okay, okay. Hold your water, dude," the man said. He poked his hands out the window holding the car keys, then dropped the keys to the pavement. He'd done this drill before.

"Okay, out of the car," I instructed.

He opened the gull wing door on the expensive Mercedes an
d s
tepped out. He was a tall, handsome, Latino-looking guy with a tennis sweater tied around his neck. Senor Suave Bola.

"What is this, Officer?" He was the very picture of innocence.

"What's your name?" I barked.

"Enrico Palomino." No accent; no attitude. He could easily have joined the group of UCLA students driving by, staring at us.

"Let's see some ID."

He reached into his pocket, pulled out his driver's license, and handed it to me. Enrico Jorge Palomino. He was twenty-six and lived in Van Nuys on Woodman. I knew from two years working patrol in the Valley that Woodman was in a blue-collar neighborhood.