the Pallbearers (2010) (30 page)

"Do not call and announce me," I told her, then flashed my creds again to make the order stick.

I walked down the cracked cement walkway, past scarred wood doors, until I found room six. I unlocked without knocking and stepped inside. The room was threadbare and smelled of cooking grease and cigarette smoke.

Vargas was sprawled on the bed in his underwear. When he heard the door open he reared up on his elbows and squinted at me with unfocused eyes.

"What the fuck?" he growled.

I crossed the room, pulled his pants off the chair, and handed them to him. "Get dressed," I said.

"I'm through taking orders from you, Scully."

"Let's go. I'm buying breakfast."

He blinked a few times, then stood and put on his pants. He grabbed a denim shirt off another chair, then went into the bathroom and closed the door. I heard water running. When he returned to the bedroom he was wide awake but still trying to figure out what was going on.

"You have a rental car?" I asked.

"Yeah, the red Mustang out front."

"You're driving. Come on."

We exited the room and walked to his car. I waited while he fished around for his keys and unlocked the door. We got in and pulled out onto the highway.

"I saw a coffee shop a mile back," I said. "We gotta get away from this smell."

"Yeah ... I didn't see the dump cause it was dark when I checked in and the wind was blowing the other way."

We drove to a small wood-sided restaurant on the highway that advertised a farm breakfast special: Eggs, potatoes, choice of chicken or fried steak.

We climbed the steps, went inside the half-full diner, and sat at an empty booth at the front window. An Indian waitress came over, poured our coffee, and left two menus. When she was gone, I leaned forward.

"Okay, Sabas. I'm only gonna say this once."

"I don't wanta hear it."

"Yes you do. Its an apology."

He sat back, not sure how to react.

"You were right," I said. "I was trying to shut you guys out. I wanted this to be just between Walt and me. All those years since I graduated Huntington House, I've been running away from him, Sabas. It was such a bad time in my life I didn't want to go back. I didn't want to deal with those old memories. If I'd gone over there, I would have seen this coming. I wouldVe gotten a nose full of Rick O'Shea. I woulda sensed something and stopped him. Like you, I've been kicking myself."

We were silent, eyeing each other across a scarred linoleum table
-
top. At first, his eyes were shiny black marbles, radiating distrust, but slowly, they softened.

"Sucks, doesn't it?" he said. "Knowing you could've saved Pop but were too wrapped up in your own bullshit to even try."

"Yeah." I sighed. "I've been dragging it around for a week. I just figured since I screwed up so bad, that it was my job to fix it. I didn't want help from the rest of you. I kept telling myself you were amateurs and you'd just screw it up. Maybe from a law-enforcement standpoint that was correct, but from an emotional one, it was selfish. I'm sorry. That's the whole apology. It's the best I can do."

Sabas reached across the table and put one of his big, scarred paws on my left hand and squeezed it once before letting go. "Apology accepted."

"Jacks still running with these guys" I told him. "He called last night and told me Diamond showed up here yesterday. She got into an argument with O'Shea in the casino. O'Shea pulled her out of there. Jack said it caused a big ruckus.

"According to the tribal police, there's no record of either of them being on the reservation, but since Jack saw them both yesterday they gotta be here. I'm worried about Diamond. Her name's not registered at the security gate, so I have no idea how she got in. But if Jack's right, then O'Shea got his hands on her, and I don't have a clue yet where she is."

"Maybe I do," Sabas said. He set his coffee down. "I saw Chris Calabro in the casino last night right after I first got here around seven. He was alone playing the slots. I hung back and watched. After he wiped out I followed him.

"He goes back to this little house that's about a half a mile down the road from the casino right on the golf course. I asked around and found out the casino has two or three bungalows that aren't listed on the room charts. They give them to the main acts who play the show rooms. The guys from Team Ultima are all staying in one of those. That's probably where they took her."

"Good stuff," I said.

He smiled. "So how do we do this?"

"I found out last night that E. C. Mesa owns the Talking Stick Hotel and Casino."

"Yeah, I learned that too. It's why I went down and registered at the Blue Mountain Lodge. But I can't put up with that smell another night."

"We're all at the resort under Seriana's name. We should be okay there 'til tonight. We've got plenty of room in our suite. Let's move you in with us. Then we can start working on a strategy."

He nodded, gazing out at the hot dry Tohono O'odham reservation. Then he said, "It's turned into a fully developed sea, bra."

It was what Pop always called any dangerous sea where without warning, a riptide could sweep you far out into the bay with little chance of getting back to shore. Pop never let us surf when it was like that.

"I guess sometimes you just gotta take a chance and go out anyway," Sabas said softly.

Chapter
54

"Where the hell did you go?" Alexa demanded as I walked through the door. "I've been worried sick."

"Look who I found," I said.

Sabas walked into the Pinto Suite behind me. All of the women, including Alexa, hugged him.

We gathered in the suite over room-service coffee and studied a site map of the resort that I'd found in the leather-bound folder on the writing desk. Sabas pointed to the spot where he had followed Calabro. A small cluster of three bungalows were indicated halfway dow n the tenth fairway.

"Why don't we all sign up for golf," Alexa suggested. "Rent carts, go to the tenth fairway. Try and see inside."

It was a good plan, so we callcd and got an early tee time at 8:30 A
. M
. Next we arranged for club and shoe rentals. At the appointe
d h
our, we signed in at the pro shop, got our equipment, and took off in two carts. I drove one, Sabas the other.

Once we were out of sight of the first tee and the clubhouse, using a course map we'd picked up at the pro shop, we drove across the third and sixth fairways and shot off the cart path, through the rough, passing several other foursomes ahead of us.

The hot desert sun was making a slow climb in the clear blue sky. It was low enough so I could feel it shooting under the cart awning, heating the back of my neck and shoulders.

When we reached the tenth tee, we parked and waited. Nobody was coming up behind us, so we headed our carts on down the tenth fairway and pulled to a stop next to each other across from the bungalow Sabas had pointed out.

"You two guys have already been burned," Alexa said. She pulled a club out of her bag, dropped a ball, and sliced it over by the bungalow where Sabas had told us the fight team from NHB was staying. Then Alexa, Vicki, and Seriana walked toward the house and into the rough where they began searching for Alexa's ball. Sabas and I were backup, watching from twenty yards away.

Alexa moved toward the back fence of the target bungalow and began walking along the east side of the house. Then she turned and came back again.

"Not here," she called out to Vicki. "Try around to your right."

They continued to search, looking into the windows of the house from time to time as they traversed the back fence. Five minutes later they all turned and came quickly back to the carts. I could tell something was wrong.

Alexa got into my cart as Sabas pulled alongside with Vicki and Seriana. Each woman wore a tight, strained expression.

"She's there," Vicki said angrily.

"You saw Diamond?" Sabas said.

"Yeah," Vicki said. "She's swimming in the pool. What kind
a h
ostage gets to take a morning dip in the fucking pool? I was worried when jack said she showed up here asking for O'Shea. I think this makes it pretty obvious the bitch is in on it!"

I looked at Alexa, who nodded.

"I don't get it," I said. "If she's one of them, then why didn't she tell O'Shea I was a cop?"

"Let's not deal with it now," Alexa said. "Let's just get out of here."

Sabas and I floored the little electric carts and, without another word, whizzed off down the fairway.

Chapter
55

We were in the Pinto Suite trying to deal with the idea that Diamond had betrayed us. But I was having trouble seeing it. Besides not telling O'Shea that I was a cop, she also hadn't burned Jack.

If she had scammed Pop into signing all those documents, then she was an accessory in his murder. She had a lot at stake. If she was an accomplice, she'd tell them. But Jack was still hanging with them, and that meant she hadn't.

Wouldn't she also tell O'Shea that we'd learned about the challenge match on this reservation and that we were planning on being here? Knowing that, why would O'Shea take the chance and show up here at all? Yet according to Jack, he had. So, what the hell was going on?

After I repeated these concerns to the others, we all sat around trying to come up with a reason that would fit the known facts. Nobody could do it.

Alexa finally looked at me and said, "The Black-Hole Rule."

"The what?" Sabas scowled.

Alexa said, "In astronomy, when the known astronomical facts don t fit the action of the planets, then there's usually a black hole you can't see creating the magnetic pull. Same is true in law enforcement. Since Diamond's actions don't fit our known facts, we have to assume there's an information hole we don't know about that's causing it."

Sabas said, "We gotta take some action. We can't just sit here and do nothing."

"Regardless of what we just saw, I think we still need to treat Diamond as a hostage," Alexa said. "We can't put her life at risk without having the answers to Shane's questions. T hat means we've got to come up with a way to rescue her before we attempt to arrest O'Shea."

"In Ranger school, they taught us whenever you have a split objective, the most efficient solution is to split your force and stagger the timetable," Seriana said. "Tactically, it weakens us, but on the plus side we have a relatively small AO and we should be able to divide up, put two people on that bungalow while the main group deploys in the event center. We stay in touch by phone. The bungalow team waits 'til all the MMA fighters leave that house for the event tonight. Then, if Diamond stays behind, we secure the house first and take her into custody. Debrief. Then the splinter group moves up in support."

"What the hell is an AO?" Vicki asked.

"Sorry, it's just the battlefield. Stands for Area of Operation."

"Then say it, okay? We can't afford a buncha misunderstandings."

Seriana nodded.

"I think Seriana's got a good idea," Alexa said. Then she looked at me. "What about Faskin and Westfall? Isn't it about time to pull them in?"

"Who are Faskin and Westfall?" Sabas demanded.

I told them about the two FBI agents and how I'd used Jack as bait to lure them out here.

"Jack s risking his life too," Vicki said. "You really gonna turn him over to the FBI?"

"He's guilty of sticking up two banks in Central California," I argued. "I'm still a cop. I'm supposed to turn my back on that?"

"Yeah," she said.

"Well, I'm not going to," I replied. But I certainly didn't feel very good about it.

Then I told them about my visit to see Tom Ironwood at the tribal police and that my boss, Jeb Calloway, said we could trust him.

What I didn't tell them was it concerned me that, despite his nine-foot wall and all that electronic security, Ironwood still didn't know Diamond and O'Shea were on his reservation. That meant he either had a large hole in his security or was careless or maybe even lying. But I didn't see any choice. I had to take a chance on him.

We went over our plan point by point. After we were finished, I wrote out some instructions for the concierge. Then I left the suite and went to the lobby, where I handed my sealed letter to the man behind the desk along with a fifty-dollar bill and some instructions on what I wanted him to do.

I showed him my LAPD credentials.

"Is this a police matter?" he asked.

"Yes, but I've already spoken to Captain Ironwood. We need you to follow the instructions inside exactly."

We ordered burgers for lunch from room service. After we ate, we put the final touches on our rescue-and-arrest plan.

When we were finished Seriana said, "We have eight hours. We should get some rest. Somebody needs to take the first watch."

"I'll do it," Vicki said. "I'm not tired."

We went to bed. Sabas pulled the drapes and stretched out on the couch in the living room.