Crystal Meth Cowboys (14 page)

"C
J
," said Bell.

"To-
mas
," said the narc in a smoky late-night DJ kind of voice.

"Thanks for showing, man."

CJ shrugged. Wes thought he looked sad, sitting in the middle of an empty picnic table, his bony shoulders slumping inside his beat-up bomber jacket. He looked at Wes. Wes nodded.

Bell plunked himself down beside CJ and gave him a one-armed hug. "Is this gonna make my butt hurt?" asked CJ.

Bell's left hand strayed under CJ's brown leather collar, ruffling the split ends of CJ's long, thin hair that glinted, where the sun caught it, metallic orange. "Only if you don't relax," grinned Bell.

A chainsaw rent the air with a spurt of gas-powered fury. They swiveled to see a city tree-trimming crew preparing to attack an overgrown cottonwood on the far side of the park. The sound waves lengthened as the blade bit wood.

Bell said, "Estebang beats feet, Ramon tries to off himself. What the fuck is goin' on?"

CJ slipped his hands into their opposing sleeves so that it looked like he was wearing a straight jacket. He did not reply.

Bell continued. "I know the Emperor told you not to talk to me,
us
, but, hey, I
am
the man who stood by you when you were strung out, got you a job and singlehandedly
saved your life
!"

Bell paused to remove his face from CJ's. Wes turned and pretended to admire the view of Wislow dissolving into
mist and distance as it approached the Pacific. The mist was so thick the setting sun looked like a rising moon.

"I'm cashing in my marker," said Bell.

CJ dug in his jacket pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack of Camels. He lit a cigarette. Bell made a face and waved his hand in front of his face.

"OK," said CJ. "In case you haven't heard, the old prope dope days are gone. Bikers don't run the meth trade anymore. The Mexican drug lords do. Ramon is a Mexican national. He knows if he does the right thing they won't torture his family to death down in Sinaloa. He's not going to say a word." CJ took a drag on his cigarette. "And Esteban, well, after he gave up Ramon he knew they'd be waiting when he got discharged from the hospital so he checked himself out. Doesn't matter. Eight to five he's already dead."

Bell digested this information while nibbling on his lower lip. CJ continued. "Mostly they smuggle the shit from down south. But the preferred set-up is to have a lab up here in
El Norte
. Cuts down on bribes and transportation costs." CJ picked a string of tobacco off his lip. "We think they've got a big lab working here."

"Based on what?" said Bell.

CJ smoked in silence. Bell and Lydecker waited. CJ tossed his butt under the picnic table and said, "The really cool thing about meth is that you can cook it up from scratch, like brownies. No acres of
cocoa
plants to protect. No mules to pay. No warehouses. Just cook it up and send it out." CJ poked a yellowed finger inside his crumpled cigarette pack, thought better of it, looked up. "And it's not just gearheads and long haul truckers using now, it's guys holding down two jobs, students, even working moms. The ingredients don't cost much. It's the fast food of hard drugs and the closest thing to pure profit these shitheels have ever come across."

Bell nodded and said, "And you think there's a big lab around here because…"

"Purity. The precursor chemicals, the ephedrine, red phosphorous and hydriodic acid you need to cook are higher quality in the States. And the kilos you took off Ramon were 95% pure."

"OK," said Bell. "I can buy that. But why
Wislow
?"

"Why not? There's not a DEA agent within a hundred miles. All they have to worry about is a couple of county mounties and us underpaid dickheads."

"So what are you waiting for?” said Bell. “Boss Hogg doesn't want the noise during his re-election campaign? Doesn't want the geeks to know that he's let his sleepy little seaside town become a cystal meth manufacturing and distribution center run by Sinaloan drug lords while he's been practicing his chip shot at every country club in Santa Barbara, Montecito and Hope Ranch? CJ? Am I close here?"

CJ's laugh became a cough. He dug a Camel out of his pack. He didn't answer the question. Wes cleared his throat. Bell inclined his head, giving him permission to speak.

"Sir, we, uh, we were curious as to why Ramon would sell to a small timer like Esteban Rodriguez. We thought that maybe, instead, they were using him as a mule."

Distaste puckered CJ's features. He looked to Bell. Was he expected to answer questions from a rookie? Bell nodded.

"Would you trust Esteban Rodriguez with four kilos of 95% pure crystal meth?" said CJ, the unlit cigarette bobbing between his lips, punctuating his words like a conductor's baton, "They may be dumb but they're not stupid. No, they prolly used Esteban as a guinea pig, testing the cut."

Wes nodded in acknowledgement of his elder's wisdom. He hadn't considered this possibility. Bell pushed his big
mitts flat on the picnic table. "So, C
J
, my bosom buddy, my re
steamed
associate…the SRB. I was kinda hopin' you'd, as our only board member, ya know, kinda
jump in
once in a while."

CJ lit his cigarette and smiled for the first time. "I didn't have to. I knew what Bernie Fischer was going to say - the biker was OD'ed and about to kick."

"Yeah?" said Bell. CJ's smile diminished in inverse proportion to Bell's. "And what exactly was the subject and circumstance of your conversation with the Deputy Coroner?"

It was CJ's turn to admire the sweeping vista. Wes turned to look and blinked at the bleaching mist off the sea. This was cool, one veteran officer interrogating another.

CJ spoke. "I had a hunch that the new boys in town gave the biker a hotshot."

"Not possible," said Bell. "We already doped this out. There's no way they could have done it and escaped unnoticed."

Wes kept his mouth shut. CJ smiled another wan smile. "Ether," said CJ. "Bernie ran a blood panel for me and found trace evidence of ether in the corpse. They downed him out before they shot him up."

Wes struggled to suppress a smile. Ha! He had been right. He had actually been correct in a matter involving law enforcement.

A low slung '72 Nova Super Sport chunked over the speed bump at the entrance to the parking lot. The driver had two passengers and a shaved head. "Gotta run, gentlemen," said CJ. The young men climbed out of the Chevy with a boom box and a beer cooler. "Gotta stay low profile."

Bell gestured at himself in his civvies. "Hey,
I'm
low profile."

CJ rose to his feet. Wes hadn't realized how tall he was. Maybe it was the slope of the hill, but he towered
over Bell, who rose with him. CJ eyeballed Bell's high-water plaid pants, his unbuttoned salmon pink dress shirt that billowed over his gun, his 'Death from Above' B-29 t-shirt, his motor cop Ray Bans and his shaggy wind-blown hair.

"Bell," said CJ, retrieving a stovepipe leg from under the picnic table. "You're about as low profile as a circus poster.”

-----

Bell piloted the Firebird down the mountain at a stately pace. The onboard police scanner blinked silently as Dion and the Belmonts performed
Runaround Sue
on the Blaupunkt speakers. "What was that about CJ being strung out?" asked Wes.

Bell pushed his Ray Bans back on the bridge of his nose. "CJ and I used to be DJ's in our younger years, down in Santa Barbara, K-D-O-C, the mighty fine 99. Freeform, no playlist. Man," said Bell with a far off look, "It was
radio
. Anyway, CJ started whiffing to keep his eyes open during his
Night Flight
shift. And then of course he couldn't sleep during the day so he'd have just one more line and he kept on keepin' on for months and months until one particular Friday night."

Bell turned right on J Street, which meant he was headed back to the Lei Lani Village. Wes was kind of hoping Bell would invite him over for a beer, give him a chance to gloat about being right, keep him away from his antiseptic apartment. "And what happened then?"

"You'll recall from your narcotics training that one of the sought-after effects of stimulants is what yer bullshit psyrologists call enhanced self-esteem. Well now, ol' CJ found out first hand that too much self-esteem can be a very dangerous thing."

Bell oozed to a stop at Playa Road. He seemed in a mellow mood as he waited for a slow-moving panel truck to clear the intersection. "And how did he discover that?" said Wes.

Bell motored across Playa at approximately 8 mph. "CJ looked down on speedfreaks, said meth was just a stupid body high, didn't compare to the brain-fizzing euphoria of Peruvian peach flake. But it was better than nothing. So, this one particular Friday night when his eight-gram pharmaceutical bottle came up empty, CJ went slumming."

Wes watched a homeless man pull a discarded phone from a garbage can halfway up the block.

"CJ took a coupla six packs over to Danny's Carburetor Shop. Danny was a scrappy little white scrote who could fine tune a carburetor with his eyes closed, 'specially four barrels. He laid hands on the Firechicken several times."

As the unit approached the homeless man looked down and pressed the receiver to his ear.

"What ol' Danny'd do is mainline a major load of meth on Monday morning, throw open the doors to his shop and take all comers. And man you should have seen the display of 60's muscle cars lined up in that lot." Bell's chest swelled at the thought. "Anyway ol' Danny he'd work around the clock for five straight days, shooting up every few hours, then crash to earth on a tidal wave of beer close of business Friday. Enter CJ with his six packs."

Bell eased the Firebird across an intersection like a speed boat just leaving the dock. He glanced over to make sure Lyedecker was listening.

"CJ knew he was going to throw Danny off his carefully worked-out cycle and he didn't care. He
gots
to get his mind right. So they drink and they shoot and they drink and they snort. CJ said they took turns mentally shifting light around the room, from one overhead bulb to another. I love that. So round about 0400 hours Danny ducks into a back
room, comes out with a pistol grip twelve gauge and announces he's God.

He goes on to say that as the Supreme Being he, Danny, has decided it's high time for CJ to depart the planet and g'wan up to hebbin!

Welllll now
. CJ's life passes before his eyes at a million miles an hour but he manages to get a grip and say, 'OK. OK, OK, OK, if you're really truly God, prove it to me. Keep the sun from coming up at six a.m.'

Danny, feeling fully self-esteemed at this point, agrees. He keeps the shotgun trained on CJ's chest and for two extremely very long hours CJ squirms, waiting for daybreak. Long about 0600 Danny stands up with a told-youso kind of grin and chambers a round. CJ begs another ten minutes saying - and this is brilliant - saying he wants to
pray
to Danny, God, before he dies!

What self-respecting meglomaniacal meth freak could resist that? So ol' CJ's down on his knees praying for all he's worth, trying not to wet himself when…blessed orange light finally leaks under the pull blinds. Danny goes beserk and empties his shotgun out the window, trying to shoot out the sun."

Bell hooked a left on Cedar, closing in on the the Lei Lani Village. "And CJ's been clean ever since."

Chapter 14

"Quiet night," said Wes as Bell piloted the LTD west on Playa Road. Wes looked up at the superstructure of the Municipal Pool building. He could hear squeals of childish glee through the steam-streaked glass above the two-story concrete flying buttresses that fronted the street.

"So far," said Bell.

Wes thought this an odd comment at 9:42 PM, heading back to the barn two blocks ahead. End of shift was ten o'clock but they usually spent the last thirty minutes sitting in the the PD parking lot finishing up their paperwork. Bell drove right on by the red tile epaulets of the City Center Complex. Wes didn't bother asking why.

Bell turned right on Union Street. Must be the original downtown, thought Wes, admiring a handsome Beaux Arts building with an empty storefront on the first floor. A sign in the window said Mr. Mattress had moved to the new shopping center. Bell accelerated past a rumbling double hopper tractor trailer hauling diatomaceous earth. The oncoming traffic stopped when Bell hit the blinker. They turned left on Kent Street, passing a white clapboard church hoisting maroon Moorish spires. Russian Orthodox, Wes decided. This was their third trip down Kent Street that evening. Seventy-foot hardbark fir trees lined the avenue on both sides, shiny brown trunks bare of branches, all their energy crowded into blue-needled crowns that steepled out across the street.

"12-2, Control."

"12-2, I hear ya,"
said Renaldo on the blue frequency.

"A-D-W, with a knife. 2-9-0-7 J-John Street…"

"I thought we were the felony car," said Wes.

"Renaldo can handle it," said Bell, crawling along at 20 mph. Wes watched the parade of proud turn-of-the-century homes pass by, thinking that Renaldo got the call because, after their prolonged radio silence, the dispatcher assumed that 12-Frank was already parked.

Bell pulled to the curb just before the next cross street. He switched off the dome light before he climbed out of the unit and studied a stately three-story Victorian through binoculars. Wes recognized the same group of expensive cars parked out front.

Bell climbed back behind the wheel and shut the door. "Cops up in San Luis are staking out a notorious gin mill at closing time. It's Friday night and they just
know
they can bag themselves a deuce," said Bell, his eyes down the road. "Sure enough a guy wobbles out to his car, fumbles with his keys, drops them, bends down to pick them up, drops them again. Meanwhile several other patrons weave drunkenly to their cars and take off. When the first drunk finally lights it up, the cops leap into galvanized action and drag him from behind the wheel.
Whereupon
he stands up straight and tall and sober as a churchman. 'What's the deal with the drunk act?' say the cops."