Stephen Cannell - The Tin Collector

"How come?" Ellen asked, brushing a wisp of honey-blond hair out of her eyes. "According to the news, he's Hispanic."

"His mother was, but I think I may be the father."

She looked at Shane for a long moment and smiled. "Can't keep the little head from controlling the big head?" she said playfully, so Shane stuck his tongue out at her and left.

He had one more stop to make before he went home and slept for a year.

The freeway was crowded, and he was locked in bumper-to-bumper five o'clock traffic. He finally got to the end of the 10 and found himself back on the Coast Highway. He didn't have his badge, so this time he had to pay for parking. He left the Taurus, walked onto the bike path and up to DeMarco's house.

For once it was quiet out front. The blond beach ornaments were all gone, off playing with somebody else's mind. Shane passed through the gate and walked up to the front door. He tried to look through the front window, but the blinds were pulled and he couldn't see anything. Finally he reached into his back pocket and fished out his trusty collection of picks. The lock was an old brass Yale and was a bitch to open, but after five minutes he turned the tumblers, went into the house, then closed and relocked the door behind him.

He stood in the living room, looking around, remembering his trip here two weeks days agoHe had stood in this very same spot, watching DeMarco play with his speakers while Snoop Doggy Dogg spewed race hatred. It seemed as though that had been in another lifetime. He walked softly through the place, looking into each room. No one was home, so he entered the office at the end of the hall, walked across the room, then sat at DeMarco's desk. His defense rep's case material was sitting there in one half-filled file box. DeMarco had been on Shane's case for almost ten days, and as Shane went through the material, he was surprised by the lack of evidence he'd collected to support Shane's position. The defense rep hadn't yet received all of the discovery items, and there wasn't even a copy of Barbara Molar's statement. There was a halfhearted, half-full spiral notebook… It was all damned puny compared with the mountain of stuff that had been carted out of Alexa's house.

He finally stopped looking at the case files, leaned back in the chair, and waited.

An hour later he heard the front door open; DeMarco was talking to someone. He heard a young boy's laughter, and then the music came on. Shane waited for a minute, then got out of DeMarco's chair and continued silently down the hall, into the living room.

What he saw didn't surprise him as much as it sickened him. On the living room sofa, DeMarco Saint and one of the fifteen-year-old surfer boys were lying in a romantic embrace. They were both naked.

"What a total shitbox!" Shane said.

DeMarco snapped his head around and glowered up at Shane. Then he scrambled up into a sitting position and grabbed for his underwear. The boy made no move to cover himself. Instead he remained lounging on the sofa, glaring his indifference.

"You didn't get thrown off the job for drinking. You got thrown off for pedophilia," Shane said.

"Nobody ever proved anything," DeMarco said, now reaching for his beach shorts.

"I should've seen it. First you turn me down, then a day later, all of a sudden, you're taking on my case. Mayweather got you to do it, didn't he? He wanted somebody on the inside of my defense. He wanted to find out what I was up to. He knew about this thing you've got for underage boys. He could've still filed criminal charges and gone after your pension. He forced you to reconsider."

"That5 s nonsense," DeMarco sputtered as he got his shorts on and rose to his feet. He was flushed, his complexion a ruby red. Sweat was slick on his skinny white chest.

"Nonsense?" Shane said reflectively. "I only told one person that I went to the Long Beach Naval Yard. Two hours later I'm kidnapped and taken up to Arrowhead, and Coy Love knows about it. The person who told him was you!"

"Whatta you… whatta you… gonna…" DeMarco's lower lip was quivering.

"Do?" Shane finished the sentence for him. "I'll show you." He grabbed DeMarco's arm and jerked him off balance. As his defense rep fell forward, Shane swung, landing a left hook square on the side of Dee's face.

DeMarco went down in a slump and began to weep. The naked teenager was on his feet now, his hands up, fists balled.

"Don't try it, Jocko. I'll make fucking hash outta you." Shane walked to the door, then turned. "By the way, Dee, you've got a subpoena coming. I'm putting you in the mix." Without saying another word, he left.

Shane drove back to Venice. The incident hung with him and poisoned his mood.

He worked hard to shift his thoughts and finally tried to contemplate his future. He thought about his life, about Chooch, and whether he was truly the boy's father. Shane had been looking for a deeper meaning in his life. Chooch had begun to fill that emptiness.

In the past two weeks, Shane had had two big surprises, both from unexpected places. Chooch had been one; Alexa, the other.

He was paralyzed with fear that the blood test would prove that his one intimate moment with Sandy would turn out to be just what he'd always believed it to be a mindless mistake instead of what he hoped it was now, a chance for a different kind of future. He parked the Taurus in the garage at his Venice house on East Canal Street, walked past his ruptured Acura, and went into his kitchen. Longboard had slipped a note under the door:

Shane, I got some cold beer and steak.

I'm tapping the Source.

You're invited.

Longboard

He put the note on the counter and slowly walked through the house, taking stock of his minimal emotional and physical existence: the furniture remnants from broken love affairs; the bullet-riddled plaster walls in his front room, reminders of his fragile mortality. He picked up a pen and paper, then went outside and sat in one of the old rusting metal chairs.

He looked out at the setting sun just dipping below the horizon, dragging the last vestiges of the day across the shallow channels like a burnt orange memory.

He was in a new place, starting a new chapter in his life. He was not sure where he was going or how long it would take to get there, but for the first time in a long time, he was looking forward to the journey.

Then he uncapped the pen and wrote a long, personal letter to Chooch.

The news vultures were on the sixth floor of the Bradbury Building, leaning over the rails, blowing white streams of cigarette smoke into the huge glassed atrium. The ancient wrought-iron elevators went up and down, making unhurried stops, measuring each trip with a tailor's precision.

Shane was seated in the witness room on the fifth floor because he didn't want to stand out in the corridor and be pestered by news crews asking about the whole breaking Long Beach story. The NFL had just rescinded the L. A. Spiders' franchise along with the Web, and the Coliseum was now the likely choice to get the nod.

Burl Brewer was awaiting trial in County Jail, and the LAPD had a new chief named Tony Filosian, from New York. A short, round man who wore huge pinkie rings and spoke with a Brooklyn accent, he showed up for work in a shiny suit and was instantly dubbed "the Day-Glo Dago," but he seemed like an excellent choice because of his background of turning around troubled departments.

Barbara Molar got off the elevator and walked down the hall. Shane saw her through the window. He hoped she wouldn't come into the witness room, but when she saw him, she smiled and quickly came through the door, her blond hair shining, smile radiant, dancer's calves flexing as she took a chair next to him in the empty room.