The Detective & the Chinese High-Fin (17 page)

I
walked fast and steadily across the field. The farmhouse, the lights on inside, and the dark barn behind it got bigger and bigger as I got closer and closer. When I was about three hundred yards out, I crouched down low, and stayed that way until I was at the edge of the property. Right at the edge, the field gave way to manicured grass. I stayed just inside the field, got down on my chest, parted the wheat, and looked around. The farmhouse was two stories, maybe four bedrooms, and well maintained, nice. Lights on both upstairs and down. The barn behind it sat in near-total darkness, but I could see, with my adjusting eyes, that it was in good shape too. There were no animals around, no livestock; maybe some horses in the barn, but I doubted
it. There were two vehicles in a parking area between the house and the barn. The van and Graves's Tesla.

I didn't see any activity in the windows of the farmhouse, so I got up, still staying relatively low, and very quickly and quietly ran over to the house. Glued to it now, in a section of darkness between what appeared to be a lit kitchen window and a dark window next to it, maybe a bathroom. I took the black ski mask out of my front right pocket and put it on. Then, very slowly, I lifted my head up and looked through the kitchen window. A nice, remodeled farmhouse kitchen, but no one in it. I moved past the dark window to a big window with light coming out of it, on the same side of the house as the kitchen window I'd just looked through. I stood next to it, then very slowly moved my head over to look inside.

This is where they were. The dining room. Burgundy walls. A chandelier. An antique-looking rectangular dining-room table. At the table: Graves, the Mexican man, and another man I'd never seen before. A thin, pale, almost sick-looking older man with long gray hair. He wore what looked to be a blue velvet blazer and a crisp white shirt. He was at the head of the table, Graves on his left, the Mexican man on his right.

The three men were drinking red wine. Each man had a glass in front of him, and there were three bottles on the table. They were chatting, smiling, having a cordial conversation. But it didn't look like everyone had an equal voice. The man with the long gray hair was doing most of the talking. And the body language of the other two suggested that they were giving him respect. Long Gray Hair was in charge.

I ducked out of the frame and moved down the side of the house, then across the front of it, then down the other side, looking in windows, taking in what I could quickly. The house was nice, high end, but not lived in. It looked fake. Like a set. Decorated to achieve an effect: a farmer who had done well. Dark colors, chunky wood furniture, big beige couches, a fireplace the size of a small country.

There didn't appear to be anyone else in the house. No aquariums either. Not a clarion angelfish or a Chinese high-fin anywhere.

I was back at the rear of the farmhouse now. I moved away from it and walked between the Tesla and the big empty van back to the barn, which sat twenty yards away, at the edge of the field I'd come through. There were no exterior lights on the barn, but the sliver of moon and the glowing farmhouse gave me enough light to operate.

I began to circle around it. There were three entrances. Front, side, back, all locked up tight. The windows were blacked out from the inside by a dark tarp. I went around to the side of the barn farthest from the house, where one of the entrances stood between a row of blacked-out windows.

I had my lockpicks with me, but the lock at this entrance, at every entrance, was above my skill set. Way too serious.

I looked along all the windows, at each window, until I found what I was looking for. The interior tarp blacking one of them out had stretched, was billowing a bit, giving me a little slice to look through.

I put my eye up to it but found only more darkness.

I pulled a mini Maglite flashlight out of my pocket.
Where I was, I was pretty sure I could turn it on and not be seen. I clicked it on and shone its beam through the sliver in the tarp. I could see a section of the wall opposite me. Neatly lined up in rows were filled glass liquor bottles, looked like tequila bottles. Next to them were rows of opaque white plastic containers that might or might not have been filled with something, I couldn't tell. I was only getting a partial view of what was there, but there had to be hundreds of bottles and hundreds of containers. And if there were as many on the other walls as there were on the wall that I could see, we could be talking thousands.

I clicked off the light and stood there in the darkness.

A dog barked. Maybe the dog I'd heard earlier as I'd walked into the field behind the little houses. The bark didn't come from Graves's property, sounded like it was coming from the field in the next farm over, maybe a hundred yards away. Was it reacting to me? Or was it just a dog doing its dog thing in a field behind a farm on a nearly moonless night?

It barked again. Then it stopped. Quiet again. Good.

I heard the back door of the farmhouse open and shut.

Shit.

I pulled away from the barn, quickly crossed the grass, and entered the chest-high field.

The light at the front of the barn went on. I dropped down to my chest, flat on the earth. The barn light was helping me hide. It put the areas outside its range in black contrast.

Still down on my chest, I made my way back a bit, just a bit, toward the barn, back to the edge of the high
stuff, toward the patch of cut grass. My eyes were trained to my right, to the front quarter of the barn that I could see. A man stepped to the side of the barn and faced me. Two hundred feet away, a silhouette. Graves, for sure. He moved his head in a way that suggested that he was looking into the blackness, right toward me, like a bird zeroing in. Focusing. He pulled a gun sheathed between his belt and his back and held it at his side.

I pulled my Colt, held it out in front of me, pointed at Graves. He looked to his right and jerked his head. He was telling someone else, someone I couldn't see, to make a move.

I pulled my Sig and put it in my left hand.

Thirty seconds later, at the back corner of the barn, to my left, I heard a noise. And then a flashlight went on, a big, bright ray of light moving around, searching, searching for me. It was the Mexican man holding the light. He held it in his left hand, because his right hand held a gun.

The light beam swept toward me, then stopped, shining brightly on the grass directly in front of me. If the Mexican man moved the light just a bit deeper into the field, he might make me. And the guns would start firing. Theirs and mine.

I was okay with this happening. I had
felt
that this might happen. I just didn't want it to happen right now. Not yet. I had more information about Graves, but I didn't have a direct line from that information to Keaton Fuller. And that's what I wanted.

The light moved off the patch of grass. Then the Mexican man walked right in front of me, rounding the corner
of the barn where I'd found the sliver of undraped window.

Now Graves and the Mexican man both stood in the pool of light just to the side of the barn's front. And now I had two guns pointed at two silhouettes.

The Mexican man clicked off his flashlight and said, “Nothing. We're clear.”

Graves didn't say anything, but I could see his silhouette nod. Then the light at the front of the barn went out and the two men walked back toward the farmhouse.

I could hear Graves unlock the Tesla with his key fob, open a door, then shut it. Graves didn't lock it, though, didn't set the alarm with the fob. Which gave me an idea.

Ten minutes after I heard Graves and the Mexican man reenter the farmhouse, I stood up, walked back over to the front edge of the barn, carefully looked around it back at the farmhouse. Nothing doing. Graves and the Mexican man were probably back at the dining-room table, sipping some red, listening to their boss.

I walked over to the Tesla. Made my way over to the side-view mirror on the driver's side. I pulled out my flashlight again, but I didn't turn it on.

Instead I got low, right next to the mirror, and popped it with the butt of the steel flashlight, breaking it, a little spiderweb appearing instantly. It made a noise, but not much of one. It didn't create any action in the house. I slid the Maglite back into my pocket, then slid out of there, back through the big field, back to Nancy's Passat, back to L.A., and finally back home.

N
ext morning, early, I went to my office, got out my computer, and started adding to, and of course refining, my case notes. I then looked at them, at each crisp line, from the beginning up to right now.

So how had my story progressed?

Well, Keaton Fuller was a bad guy, we all know that, it's been confirmed by everyone in his world. And Keaton Fuller was assassinated, probably by a person who does that kind of thing, a person with some experience. And then there's the Prestige Fish folks, who, I had now confirmed, were part of a Pendella Situation. And who almost certainly had access to someone, or had someone in their employ, who could put a bullet in a guy with a Smith & Wesson M&P pistol from seventy-five yards.

So why was I sure Prestige was a Pendella?

Because of the tequila bottles and the plastic containers. That liquid I could see inside the tequila bottles? Well, it looked like tequila, same golden color, but it wasn't tequila. It was meth. Yes. Pure methamphetamine. Dissolved into a liquid solution, put into bottles and containers to disguise it, and carried over the Mexican border.

Okay, I wasn't one hundred percent sure it was meth. In that I hadn't taken one of the bottles to the cops and had them run a test on the liquid. But this was a smuggling technique I was familiar with, so I was ninety-nine percent sure. And that was good enough, by a long way, for me.

So where was the lab here in California where they mixed the liquid with acetone and turpentine, where they iced it, where they turned it into white, sparkly crystals ready for the street? Well, don't know. They could be using a second Pendella business as a cover for that. An auto-repair shop somewhere. A carpet installation company. And how big was Graves's operation? How deep did it go? How far did it reach? Not sure of that either. But I can tell you this: Just from what I saw, all those bottles and containers, their operation was into the many millions. And roles? What was everyone's role? Graves, the Mexican man, the man with the long gray hair? My guess? The guy with the long gray hair was the one connected to the cartel in Mexico. Was the one who'd been in business here in the States a long time, knew how to run it, set up the Pendella businesses, bring in shrewd new people like Lee Graves, who could learn the operation and one day run it on his own and who, most important, was comfortable with re
ally dangerous illegal activity if it meant making a shitload of coin. And the Mexican man? I'd say a lower-level guy who ran between Mexico and the United States and had the trust of both sides. And who, by the way, had probably killed a lot of people.

So, Keaton Fuller? Right, Keaton Fuller. Where does he fit in? Graves had said that Keaton was an investor in Prestige Fish. Maybe that was a version of the truth. Maybe Keaton had given Graves some money to buy equity in the drug operation—“all businesses need capital”—but then did something stupid and got popped. Sure. These guys, meth guys, they don't care that somebody came from Hancock Park. They kill people all the time. They just pull out a gun and shoot you. Punch in, kill guy, punch out, go home.

And you know what? That mentality just might end up helping me.

So what next? What next?

Back to the Valley. I had a few stops to make. I closed up my laptop, closed up the slider, got in the Focus, and headed out.

F
irst stop: the Firing Line shooting range in Northridge.

Again I went through twenty-four rounds on the Colt and twenty rounds on the smaller Sig. But this time I took the whole process slower. Not much slower, just a touch, just a second or two longer between shots. And I focused, intensely focused, on my stance, on my breathing. And I took the shots, all forty-four of them, like there was something on the line.

I looked at my targets. A nice, tight cluster of holes at the head and the heart on both the Colt target and the Sig target. Getting really close to being ready—ready for action.

I got back in the Focus and headed toward my second
Valley stop, Craig Helton's office. I pulled into his horrible little parking lot, and just as I was about to get out, my phone buzzed. Gary Delmore.

“Hey, Gary.”

“The Darv!”

“You got the paddle.”

“I got the paddle. Thanks, dude, like it a lot. Looking forward to using it to kick your fucking ass.”

“You know how silly that comment is, right?”

“I've beaten you once.”

“That's right, once. How many times have we played, how many games? A thousand? I bet we've seriously played a thousand games.”

“Yeah, I know, but that's what makes it so great. Because every time we talk about our Ping-Pong history, whether it's to each other or to other people, that fact comes up. And it puts this little kernel of doubt into the overall story. Like, hmm, Darvelle
is
beatable. Maybe he's not
that
good. That
one
victory does that. It probably affects your sleep from time to time. I bet it really does. I bet you toss and turn every now and then, just lying there in the dark, thinking about it.”

I'd never admit it, never, but he was right. He really was.

I said, “Whatever. Listen, thanks for giving Ott's niece a part. Really helped me out.”

“You know, she's pretty good, I have to say. Turns out I might have cast her anyway. I was wondering, though—”

Before he finished his sentence I said, “No. Gary, I'm serious. No. Off-limits. Just get it out of your head.”

“John. Chill. You don't even know what I was going to say.”

“What were you going to say?”

“I was going to say what you thought I was going to say.”

I had to laugh.

“All right, all right,” he said. “Just thought I'd check one more time. Thanks again for the bat. Let's seriously play soon.”

“Yeah.”

“Or grab a beer or a bite.”

“Yeah. All of the above.”

“Hey, actually, some really cute girls I know are getting together soon—I know, I know, you're with Nancy—I'm just saying, come with me, you'll want to just
look
at these girls. Gorgeous actresses. And believe it or not, gorgeous actresses with personality. Fun, funny. Anyway, we're all getting together for, like, a boozy brunch soon. Want to join?”

I could feel an anger rising up within me, just like that. But not because Gary knows I'm with Nancy. For another reason entirely. “Gary, I don't go to brunch, you know that. Brunch? You actually think I'm going to go to one of those places with a line out the door on the weekend? With a bunch of people standing around outside, starving, waiting to be seated in some horrible, loud, bright, hot-as-balls restaurant. To get some poorly made lukewarm eggs Benedict? With tables of couples everywhere, and terrible fucking service. Dude, really? You're really asking me that?”

“Darv, chill. Jesus. I forgot, you hate brunch. Or maybe
I thought you'd calmed down a bit about the whole thing.”

“And also, did you say the term ‘boozy brunch'? Did you really just say that? Are you going to start saying the term ‘foodie' next? Fuck.”

I had raised my voice. Involuntarily. I just couldn't control it. I was yelling at Gary Delmore. “You know what, Gary, send me the paddle back. Just put it in the mail. You know my address. Just put it in the mail and send it back.”

Now he started yelling. I guess he couldn't control it either. “No, I'm not going to send it back. It's mine now. And you know what else? Go to therapy, John. Just do it. Just, wherever you are right now, just drive to a psychiatrist's office and get started. And go every day for years. You need a name? I'll give you my therapist's name. I might even pay for it. Whatever it takes to help you.”

“Send me the paddle back.”

“Fuck off.”

“You fuck off.”

We hung up at the same time. I thought: I love that guy. I really do.

I got out of the
Focus and walked into Craig Helton's insurance office. I caught his eye and he waved me back, gestured for me to sit in front of his desk. He was on the phone, telling me now with his index finger and his eyes to hold on one sec. I nodded, looked around the bleak little room now populated with agents, a stark contrast to the empty one I'd experienced the first time I'd been there. Each desk had an agent sitting behind it. Some desks had a person in front of it, like me, only probably
an actual customer. At the desk to Craig's left and my right sat a female agent, no one in front of her, working on her computer. She was wrapped in a blanket to fight off the air-conditioning.

I thought: There's one of them. A member of a strange and bizarre club. The People Who Wear Blankets at Work. This member happened to be a woman, but men do it too. How do you become one of these people, I wondered. Do you just wake up one day and say: Today's the day—I'm going to take part of my bed to work with me. You know, I worked briefly for a big detective agency before I left to start my own thing. There were a few members of the club at the agency. And since then, I've been in lots and lots of offices. And there's almost always one member present. If not two. Yes, an adult, at work, fully wrapped in a blanket, a quilt, a duvet. And all you see is a little face poking out the top of it.

Craig hung up the phone and looked at me. “Sorry about that. How are you, John? How's the case? What's happening?”

I said, “The fish people you mentioned.”

He produced a snarky laugh. “Yeah. Prestige Fish. What about them?”

“Did you ever hear anything about what Keaton was actually doing? His role?”

“Man, no. Not really. You know, we weren't speaking at that point. So I wasn't going to hear anything from him.”

“I understand. But do you know if he really worked with them? Or was it something he was going to get into, then didn't? What I'm asking is, did it fall through before
it got started, or did he work with them for a bit and then something happened? Do you know?”

“I think he did work with them. Because when I would hear about it, from people who knew him around that time, they would say he was saying all the usual Keaton stuff. ‘I'm
killing
it.
Crushing
it.' You know, that macho shit.”

“Right. He indicated to others that he made some real money working with Prestige Fish?”

“Yeah. I think so. I think that's how I remember it. Right after he started working with them. But I have no idea if it's true. Could all just be a lie. Keaton. Totally full of shit.”

And then he looked at me and said, “Why? You getting somewhere with the whole tropical fish thing?”

I looked back at him and said, “Maybe.”

I got up, shook his hand, headed for the door. Before I left, I looked back, took one last look at the woman in the blanket. She was eyeing me from beneath a swath of plaid. I turned around and left.

My next stop in the
Valley was to pick up my old friend and mentor Jim Douglas. The guy I told you about earlier. The guy who taught me to fight. I was headed right to my old neighborhood, where I grew up. A perfectly nice, suburban section for middle-class Angelenos. My family doesn't live there anymore. My dad died, my mom moved to Idaho, my older brother moved to Arizona. I told you before, Jim was a neighbor when I was a kid. I also told you that he's an ex–Green Beret and a seriously advanced black belt in karate. But I didn't tell you that he still lives right
where he always has. Right in the old neighborhood. Jim has four daughters who have all left the house. Graduated from college, started lives and families of their own. Nowadays it's just Jim and his wife, Candy. Back in the day, Jim loved it when I used to come down and hang out with his family. He loved his daughters more than anything, but he also loved that I was a boy who he could teach things to. And I loved that he was a man who knew about the things I wanted to know about. Stuff my dad didn't have a lot of knowledge about. It was pretty much a match made in heaven. Or, more accurately, a match made in a middle-class neighborhood in the Valley.

The things Jim taught me over the years I use almost every day in my professional life. And when things start to ratchet up on a case, I sometimes call on him to help me. Like now.

I got to his house, got out of the Focus, and walked up to his door. As I was about to ring the bell, Jim opened it. I looked at him. Jim's black, pretty tall, about five-eleven, and very thick and stout, with thick arms, thick thighs, a thick neck, and a big, solid-as-steel gut. Standing there, he filled up the door entrance almost entirely.

“John, my boy.”

“Hi, Jim.”

We hugged.

Jim wore a tight white army-style T-shirt and maroon Riddell coaching shorts, the kind Little League baseball coaches wore in the seventies. He also wore army-issue gold aviator sunglasses and a hunter green, un-broken-in baseball cap with a big high front emblazoned with some
kind of military logo. Jim seemed to have a number of hats like this. On his feet, lightweight black combat boots and bright white athletic socks.

“That's a fantastic outfit,” I said.

Jim didn't answer.

“Where do you even get shorts like that? Do they still sell those? At Big 5 or whatever? Those look pretty new. Or did you buy a bunch back in the day? That's what you did, I bet. You have a stash of them.”

“Son, are we going to go look at what you want to show me, or are we gonna stand here and talk about my shorts?”

“I thought we could do both. I mean, I honestly want to know where you get shorts like that. What are they made of? It's, like, stretchy material. Is it rayon? They look flammable.”

“You through?”

“I guess.”

We got in my car and buckled up. Jim filled up the seat entirely.

“What kind of car is this one?”

“Ford Focus.”

“You really can't remember these cars you drive. That was a good idea, John.”

“Hey, thanks, Jim. You can move the seat back a little bit if you need to.”

Jim said, “Clean in here too. Clean and nice.”

Right. I was still in the phase of my car ownership where I kept it pristine. I hadn't reached that moment when you decide it's okay to trash it a bit. That moment, it's a big one. The one where you say to yourself, Yeah, okay, I guess
I'll leave a little trash in the cup holder. Or you look at an empty soda can on the floorboard in front of the backseat, and you think about it long and hard, you stare it down, and then . . . you get out of the car and shut the door, leaving it there.

No, I wasn't there yet, and I was fighting, fighting hard, to never arrive.

Jim said, “Please turn the AC on. Hot as shit in here.”

“Balls. That's how you say it now. It's hot as balls. It's no longer hot as shit anywhere. I used the phrase earlier today, in fact. So, you would say: ‘Please turn the AC on. Hot as balls in here.'”

Jim looked at me, his gold aviators covering his eyes, and said, “Just turn it on, John.”

I nodded, cranked up the Focus, and blasted the AC. A smile stretched across Jim's face.

We headed south, took Laurel
Canyon over the hill into Hollywood. We hit Sunset Boulevard and went right until we got to Keaton's old neighborhood, Sunset Plaza. We cruised by clusters of Hollywood glitz, trendy restaurants, bars, and coffee shops.

We saw a very skinny woman walking a very small dog down the boulevard, an iced latte she'd just gotten at Coffee Bean in her left hand, the dog's strained leash in her right. She wore big glasses, cutoff jeans, high heels. Some people would think she was attractive. Not Jim.

“Where's her ass?” he said.

“Not sure.”

I turned right off Sunset and went up Rising Glen
Road. You could take a quick right and go to Keaton Fuller's old house, but I didn't. I headed up a bit farther, to the little embankment off the road where you could pull over and stretch your legs. Or get a straight shot right down into the driveway of Keaton's old place.

We got out of the Focus and stood in the little clearing, and I explained the case I was on to Jim. I took him through it, from start to finish. He listened, without interrupting, as I gave every detail. It's a lost art, actually listening. Calmly sitting and really listening. Most people sit in front of you on edge like a dog waiting for a treat, lips and body quivering, barely able to contain themselves, barely able to wait to pounce, to tell
you
something
they
know. Not Jim. He just lit a couple of Benson & Hedges 100's, took long luxurious drags, and listened.

After I finished, Jim walked over to the edge of the clearing, got into a shooting stance, and held up an imaginary pistol. He stayed like that, still as a statue, for about thirty seconds. Then he stood up.

He said, “The guy fired just once?”

“No other bullets found. So, yes. Think so.”

“Well,” he said. “Then the shooter most likely had training. That's a tough shot. A very tough shot. And the Smith too. Might indicate that they knew what they were doing.”

The Smith & Wesson M&P nine millimeter, that's what he meant. Like we talked about, a gun used by lots of police and military forces. And, yes, a gun used by lots of civilians as well. And within that group of civilians were, of course, lots of
ex
-cops and
ex
-military. But also:
pros
.
People who need a gun to be reliable because they use it a lot.