the Prostitutes' Ball (2010) (27 page)

The Santa Anas had by now cleared L
. A
.'s night sky of its normal brew of hazy pollutants, and a bright three-quarter moon was putting a soft silver glow on everything. I took a pair of binoculars from the glove compartment and panned the huge, meticulously maintained ranch before me.

Arabian horses stood in the fenced fields, some with their beautiful shiny necks arched gracefully down to graze. A large racetrack outlined by white-painted rails could be seen in the distance. On the top of the hill the sloping roof of a magnificent old Spanish-style ranch house was silhouetted in the moonlight.

Then I panned over to the white arch spanning the light brown two-lane granite driveway. There was something spelled out on the arch in gold letters. I worked the binoculars until the words came into sharper focus and I could read the sign.

Chapter
46.

Ten minutes later Hitch's Porsche flew by the spot where I was parked, his headlights off as I'd instructed. I flashed mine and the Carrera squealed to a stop fifteen yards beyond. He backed up and parked behind me. A minute later he climbed into my passenger seat.

"What's this?" Hitch looked at the ranch protected by the guard shack and arched gate that spanned the lane at the end of the road about three-tenths of a mile up ahead.

I handed him the binoculars. First he panned the farm with the grazing thoroughbreds, then the house on the hill before he focused on the archway over the gate.

"Rancho San Diego," he read aloud.

"I wonder if the guy who owns this place has any Italian poetry in his library," I said.

"You're right. 'San Diego' was written in pencil on the inside cover of The Divine Comedy."

I filled Hitch in on the rest of what had happened at Sheedy's house and how I'd tailed him to Skyline Drive and then here. After I finished, he was silent, a pensive look on his face, chewing it.

"He's worried we found that truck," Hitch said. "That means he was probably in on the gold heist."

"Maybe."

"My money says Sheedy Sr. was the tall, pale, black-haired guy in the Chief of D's office when McKnight and Norris were yanked off the Vulcuna case in eighty-one."

I nodded. "I've been meaning to get a photo six-pack together and have McKnight take a look. See if he can pick Sheedy out. We better get that done now. I'll have somebody downtown to go on the company Web site and download a current picture."

We both pondered it for a moment. Then I turned to face him. "You get anything worthwhile from Russell Meeks?"

"A few things."

Hitch opened his red journal to a page but didn't look down at it. "Meeks is real young for a CEO, only about forty, so he obviously wasn't at Axeis Cargo Insurance in eighty-three. He had to make a phone call to find out about that Brinks truck. He got some guy who lived near the office to go down there and log on the computer. Unlike the department, they actually put their old paper files on disks. He accessed the old insurance report on that stolen Brinks shipment. Apparently, the Latimer Commodities Exchange wasn't the owner of the bullion."

"Then who owned it?"

"Latimer was transporting it on contract for an outfit called . . ." He consulted his notes. "Farvagny-le-Grand Jewelry Consortium. Back in eighty-three they were a big manufacturer of expensive jewelry located in Switzerland. Apparently, Farvagny-le-Grand traded in large amounts of gold and platinum as well as gemstones. That bullion was heading to the L
. A
. airport for a transfer flight to their jewelry manufacturing plant outside of Geneva."

"Fifteen million in bullion?" I said. "Thats a hell of a lot of watches and rings."

"Sounded like a lot to Russ Meeks, too. But apparently, this outfit supplied retailers throughout the world with product. Had offices in South Africa, London, Singapore, and Cartagena."

"Cartagena?" I said, looking over at him sharply.

"Looks like some cocaine cowboys just galloped into our movie." Hitch was smiling. "A drug angle could be very cool. Figures too, cause it was snowing pretty good in this town back in the eighties."

"Who at that jewelry manufacturer paid the premium on the insurance and then collected the payment after the truck was lost did you get that?"

"I get everything, dawg. I'm the Roto-Rooter of crime." He thumbed through his notes. "The guy on the insurance form was Manfred Westerling." He spelled it out then added, "Jawohl, mein herr. Westerling was Farvagny-le-Grand's wholesale manager here in L
. A
."

"Okay. Gives us somebody to look for and question."

"German national," Hitch added. "Hopefully he didn't get transferred back to Switzerland."

Ten minutes later Sheedy's Mercedes came back down the private road and passed the guard shack. He was driving much slower. Hitch and I ducked down as he went past.

When we sat up, Hitch said, "Aren't we gonna follow?"

"No. He's already talked to whoever he needed to. He's driving like a normal person now. My guess is he's going home to pout."

We continued to sit there, both of us running through our options.

"I want you to do me a favor before we leave," 1 said.

"Name it."

"Get in your car but keep the headlights off. Then back up about a hundred yards and drive towards the gate at around sixty miles an hour. Once you get past me, turn your lights back on, then go by that guard shack as if you didn't know Potrero ends at that arch. I want the guard to leave his post and chase you up onto the property."

"Why?"

"I've been sitting here, looking at that fancy mailbox down by the gate. I think I know a quick way to find out who owns this place."

"Forgetting for the moment the illegal search aspect of reading their mail, the gate guard probably collects it every day and delivers it up to the main house, so the box will be empty."

"If this guard is like most of the other plastic badges I've met, he's hijacking a few magazines to read on cold nights. Then he sends them up with the following day's mail. It's not an illegal search if I steal something that's already been stolen."

Hitch smiled. "That's very fine hair you're splitting, dude, but I like it. You've always got some devious shit happening. That's gonna be very good for your character, movie-wise."

Sumner grinned as he got out of the MDX and into his Porsche. A minute later he had backed up and was speeding past me. I watched as he snapped his headlights on, then flew past the guard shack and up the drive.

The uniformed guard came running out, shouting as Hitch's Carrera disappeared up the long lane leading to the ranch house on the top of the hill. The guard got into an electric cart that was parked nearby and gave chase.

I put the MDX in gear, and as soon as he was out of sight, I drove up to the guard shack, stopped, left the motor idling, got out and went inside.

The shack was empty, but as I suspected, there were six or seven magazines with address stickers lying on the counter. 1 took one, got back into my car, hit reverse and backed out of there. Then I turned and reparked in about the same spot I'd been in before.

A minute later Hitch's Porsche came back down the lane followed by the electric cart. He was being escorted off the property. Once he was through the arch he continued down W. Potrero.

Then he switched off his headlights, hung a U-turn, and reparked behind me. A moment later he was again seated in my front seat.

"How'd you do?" he said.

I handed him the sports magazine I'd just lifted.

"Who the hell is Diego San Diego?" he said, reading the label.

"That's what we're going to find out first thing tomorrow."

Chapter
47.

I arrived home twenty minutes behind Alexa. It was almost half past midnight. We agreed to finish a few more work items and meet in fifteen minutes for a nightcap on our patio before bed.

I sat in the big chair in our den and began to make notes in my casebook about what I'd learned that day. I made a chronological list, starting with what Jose Del Cristo had told us about London Good Delivery Bars and gold bullion, followed by my meeting at Sheedy's house, the trip into the West Valley, and finally Rancho San Diego.

Next I went on the Internet and Googled Diego San Diego. He was not too widely written about. You had to make a concerted effort at anonymity to be that wealthy, own a multimillion-dollar Arabian horse ranch, breed thoroughbreds, and at the same time stay nearly invisible to the press. However, the few stories I did find prove
d t
hought-provoking. As I read the meager selection, I accumulated some interesting facts.

Originally from one of the hill towns above Cartagena, Colombia, Diego San Diego came to the United States as a teenager in the early forties. Cartagena is the capital of Colombia. It is a known haven for drug dealers and money launderers and is one of Farvagny-le-Grand s main marketing centers. I was beginning to wonder if the Farvagnyle-Grand jewelry company was actually some kind of elaborate Colombian drug laundry.

San Diegos business interests sounded semi-legit, unless you'd spent the last two days investigating the Vulcuna case. He'd been a polo player, which was only interesting because it hinted at too much disposable income, a little like those South American drug lords who build zoos in their backyards. Diego had also been a show-business financier all through the nineties, and a commodities broker since 1978.

As I read all of this, it seemed to hit all the right hot buttons. My Colombian mystery man was quickly rising in this twenty-five-year
-
old pool of yellow shit.

In an article about a cancer fund-raiser in 1998,1 found an out-of
-
focus picture of him obviously taken without his permission. His left hand was thrown out toward the lens, partially blocking the shot. The article noted that he was notoriously publicity shy and abhorred being photographed. Interestingly enough, it was a personality quirk shared by A1 Capone, Carlos the Terrorist, and a dozen other killers and world-class criminals.

I searched around and found another photo taken in 2004. The quality of that one wasn't very good either. He was moving in the shot, causing it to blur at the edges. His back was slightly turned to the camera, so he was caught in a three-quarter profile.

From what I could see, Diego San Diego appeared to be a very tanned, fit man in his mideighties. He had a full head of steel gray hair. His teeth looked big and strong, reminding me again of the Amazon River crocs and those foolish birds that wandered into the jaws of death to feed.

The story under the photo stated that Arabian horse breeder Diego San Diego had been a large benefactor of the City of Hope Oncology Center since the death of his wife, Maria Elaina Blanca San Diego, from breast cancer ten years earlier.

Diego was continuing to gain energy as the primary focus of my investigation. But I was so tired I couldn't plot a decent course of action. My head felt like a ball of cotton.

I shut off the computer, grabbed a bottle of Corona beer from the fridge, and went out to the backyard. Alexa was just finishing her e-mails so I sat in one of the metal chairs to enjoy the view while I waited for her.

My thoughts quickly turned away from the beautiful moonlit water and fresh ocean breeze to more venal, monetary concerns. For instance, where was my twinkling jeweled carpet of city lights? How come I had no large bubbling Jacuzzi at my elbow and no plate-glass windows that looked down on the clouds?

Hitch parked his expensive sports car under a porte cochere while my leased Acura was pulled up next to my neighbor's trash cans.

I was trying not to let any of those pesky flies land on me when my wife came out holding a cold beer and sat down. She also looked extremely tired. It had been a long day for us both.

"My detective commanders all got their estimated budgets in late," she said. "It gets worse every year."

"Well, they have divisions to run," I replied, wondering as I said it if Jamie Foxx would really agree to star in Prostitutes Ball, doubling our potential domestic gross.

She sighed. "It's getting way tougher to make a decent financial plan with all these city budget cuts."

"Right," I agreed as I sipped from my bottle. Corona is good beer, I thought, but just for the hell of it, maybe I should pick up a few six
-
packs of that imported German lager that Hitch drinks.

"How's the armored car case coming?" Alexa asked.

"We have a person of interest. Two, if you count Stender Sheedy Sr."

She looked at me and raised an eyebrow, so I brought her up to date. I also filled her in on the few things I'd just learned about Diego San Diego.

"Sheedy is the nexus," she said, cutting to the bottom line, like she always did. "He touches both cases. He was making noise in the eighties and he's still barking."

"Yeah."

Alexa sat for a moment thinking about the case. Then she turned and looked directly at me.

"You know, for two smart guys, there's one thing here you and Hitch aren't dealing with, but you should because it makes absolutely no sense."