Dragon's Den

“His story is this mystery perp scared the living shit out of him. Said the guy was a big son of a bitch, dressed up like some type of commando. Apparently he just walked in and started shooting the place up and blowing it all to hell. Preliminary evidence says there were automatic weapons and high explosives used in Pratt’s house. Crime scene thinks possibly grenades.”

“And you believed him?” Amherst asked as she cocked one eyebrow.

“Hell, yeah, I believed him!” Lareza noticed her look around and lowered his voice self-consciously. “Sorry.”

Amherst could already see where this conversation would end up, but she couldn’t ignore what Lareza had just revealed. “Automatic weapons aren’t anything new here. But military-grade explosives, that sounds a bit more serious.”

“You’re goddamn right it is,” Lareza said. “And I’ll tell you something else. This wasn’t done in gangland style one bit. This guy hit the place like a professional all the way.”

“What did he look like?”

“Tall with dark hair. Pratt’s guy couldn’t really get a look at his face because I guess he had it smeared with shoe polish or something, but he remembered the guy’s eyes were blue because they stood out so much. Said he’d never seen colder eyes on someone than this bastard.”

Amherst could feel that sensation go through her again, like ice pulsing in her veins. Other than the commando outfit and face paint, the guy matched Matt Cooper’s description perfectly: big, dark hair and some very intense blue eyes. Yes, she couldn’t deny that sounded exactly like Cooper, and moreover she couldn’t deny how betrayed she felt. At that moment, she had an even bigger problem. While she’d known Lareza for a lot of years she didn’t entirely trust him. In the past he had kept her other secrets, though, and if she needed a friend now was the time.

“That guy sounds like a dead ringer for a man who came to my office late this afternoon.”

Something changed in Lareza’s expression. “What man?”

“Well, I wasn’t supposed to tell anybody, but you know how to keep your mouth shut. You can’t breathe a word of it to anybody, Nesto, I’m telling you straight.”

“I swear, I won’t say nothing,” Lareza replied, crossing himself and kissing the crucifix hanging from his neck. “But what the hell are you being so damn secretive about?”

“Because I don’t know where any of this is going yet, and I don’t want anyone jumping to conclusions and doing something stupid.”

“It would be a little hard to do something stupid when I don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“This guy who came to see me, his name is Matt Cooper. He’s an agent with the DEA…or so he claims.”

“The feds? Why would they be so interested in any of this? It’s a local problem.”

“Because of the volume of drugs that have come into the greater Los Angeles area in just the past three months.” Amherst looked around, took a swig of beer and continued, “There’s been a lot more than you know about, Nesto. A lot more. I’m talking major weight, not just a few hundred kilos being pushed around.”

“Great. So how come I don’t know anything about this?” Lareza asked.

“For the same reason you didn’t know about any of the other stuff I’ve told you about,” she said. “The sheriff and city politicians have been trying to keep it quiet. They didn’t just threaten my job, like I told you before. They threatened to go to a judge and get a gag order.”

“Why didn’t they?”

Amherst shrugged and said, “I managed to convince them I’d remain silent, I guess.”

“Except for what you’ve told me,” Lareza replied. He cracked a smile.

She smiled and nodded. “Except for what I told you, yes.”

“So let me get this straight. There’s been major drugs recovered at a number of key locations in the past few months, and now all of the sudden you get paid a visit from the DEA.”

“Right,” she said, “and I got in touch with some friends in Washington about this Cooper, just to be sure it wasn’t some kind of trap. Maybe put there by the sheriff to spy on me.”

“You figure if he’s legitimate he wouldn’t prefer you keep quiet. He’d want you to make some noise.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But if the guy your gangbanger describes is Cooper, then there might be another way to look at this.”

“How’s that?”

“Maybe Cooper’s DEA, maybe he isn’t,” she said. “I’d guess he’s some sort of special operator in town to rattle cages. He figures it’s probably one of the local gangs trying to get the corner on the market here in L.A., or maybe even a rival faction.”

“So he shakes some trees to see who falls out,” Lareza concluded. “And he doesn’t want you to tell your higher-ups in case they’re involved somehow.”

“Or maybe he just doesn’t want local interference. He might have his own leads to follow. Hell, Cooper might not even be interested in the drugs at all. This could be about something else entirely. He did tell me he wasn’t here to step on our toes.”

“Oh, bullshit! They always say that, Rhonda.”

“I don’t know, maybe you’re right. But I swear to you, Nesto, there was just something different about this guy. Don’t ask me to explain it. I can’t. I just know—” she stopped and chewed her lip a moment “—I just know he’s not like most other men.”

Lareza expressed surprise. “Get serious! You’re starting to sound like you’ve fallen head-over-heels for this Cooper.”

That caused her to laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just have this sense about him. It’s only a feeling, but I get the notion he’s really a good man.”

“Well, good man or not, he just blew peace between the gangs wide-open, and that only stands to make more trouble.” Lareza wagged his finger at her almost as if reminding her of another time, a time back during the gang riots following the announcement that vindicated several police officers charged with nearly beating to death a black man.

Amherst waved away the notion. “This situation is entirely different, and you know it. There will never be peace between these gangs. Especially if drugs continue to flood the market at the current rate.”

“Seems to me this is about way more than drugs,” Lareza said, sitting back and folding his arms in resolve.

Amherst cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“You just said it yourself,” Lareza said. “Let’s suppose this Cooper’s a real federal cop, or even some kind of special troubleshooter.”

The concept intrigued Amherst. “You mean, special ops.”

“Right. It’s no secret every federal agency in this country was required to lend resources when the administration formed Homeland Security. They all work together now. Task forces and suchlike are very common.”

“I might agree there was something to what you were saying. But then that leaves me with one question where Cooper’s concerned. How come he came alone?”

“You don’t know for a fact he’s operating alone,” Lareza replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “Maybe that’s what he wanted you to think.”

Amherst certainly couldn’t deny the possibility, so she chose to keep any further thoughts about Cooper to herself and turned the conversation to other things. They made small talk for a while, bantered a few war stories and discussed the latest gossip within the department.

The digital clock read 1:42 a.m. by the time Amherst climbed behind the wheel and started for home. The quiet caused her mind to wander some, and her head ached with the echoes of nearly two hours of continuous loud music and having to shout now and again to be heard.

As she continued toward home her thoughts turned toward Cooper. Why couldn’t she get the guy out of her head? For the first time in a while she found herself unsure of what to do next. She supposed she could issue a BOLO, but if he found out she had people looking for him he might get spooked. Then again he didn’t really have any reason to run anywhere if he was legit.

The sudden squawks of activity over a dash-mounted scanner demanded her attention. She listened carefully for what lay behind the general tones of panic underlying the radio traffic. Something major had just gone down over on Lincoln Boulevard, a few blocks from Fox Hills Mall in Culver City.

Amherst knew immediately what it meant. Whoever had taken the heat to Pratt had just unleashed some more on the smaller Hispanic gangs neighboring Ladera Heights—gangs that had close ties to the fabled La Eme.

Amherst turned her SUV around and headed straight for Lincoln Boulevard.