Kirk Russell - Night Game

“Petroni taught me how the department works, and we hit it off. We were working the coast, mostly abalone. I taught Petroni some things about undercover work, and he taught me about poachers, boats, the coastal towns.”

“What happened if you were such good friends?”

“All I know is when things changed. My team made a bust up the north coast in Albion. In the last few days before the takedown we were on the suspects every minute. Petroni was down south, and I was out of communication with him before and then during the bust. He found out we’d made it by talking to our chief, and after that he was a lot less friendly.”

“Why would it matter to him like that?”

“I got the feeling he thought he was running both teams, and he should have been told. Not long after that we both got called to Sacramento, and Petroni’s team got shut down.”

“Bam, shut down just like that?”

“Yeah. The chief wanted both of us there at 9:00 that morning. At 9:10 Petroni’s team was over with.”

“Who gave you the word?”

“Chief Keeler, so you can picture it. Petroni thought I’d kept this other operation secret from him as a way of making my team look better, and that somehow I knew it was all going to go down.

He threw that theory at me in a parking lot in Placerville a year later.”

“He was hurt.”

“Yeah, and it didn’t make any sense to him. He was the one with the wildlife experience.”

He told her a little more but not the whole story as they drove back to Placerville. When they reached the safehouse Marquez called Bell and told him the team was kicking in the money and would wait to get reimbursed. They were going forward with the buy. Alvarez and Cairo were getting their gear ready, everything spread on the dining table. Roberts and Shauf stood in the kitchen talking.

“I don’t like how you’ve done this,” Bell said. “I feel like you went around me.”

The conversation ended badly, and he felt lousy after hanging up. The team had all grouped into the kitchen, Roberts and Cairo laughing at some joke they’d shared.

“We’re on,” Marquez said, as he walked in.

“We were going either way, Lieutenant,” Alvarez said, his face lit up, the energy building now.

Marquez stood among them, taking up the last space, larger than the rest. They were all from different walks of life, coming from different places, more than twenty years between him and Melinda Roberts. Roberts’s hands flew over a keyboard while he still pecked out his reports. She was also a rated sharpshooter. Alvarez came out of East Palo Alto, had worked at his dad’s auto shop, and had planned to be a mechanic. He was the guy who could adapt to any problem, the type you read about surviving an avalanche, somehow reacting quickly enough. Cairo had gone to a year of law school before going through the Fish and Game academy. He was an easy-going surfer type. Even the people he busted didn’t get pissed off at him, and some apologized.

“Okay,” Marquez said, “let’s go over it again before everyone takes off.”

They moved out to the dining room table, and Marquez spread the map. Alvarez and Cairo would leave first, get dropped off near the creek bridge by Roberts, and would hike in until they found the rock.

“The rock has white spray paint on it,” Marquez said. “That’s what he told me to look for. I’m supposed to start up the road at 8:00.” He glanced at Alvarez, then looked at Cairo. “You need to find positions up the slope where you can see the rock. Time yourself going in this afternoon, and that’ll tell you roughly how long it should take for me to get there.”

“How about whistling as you come up the road?” Cairo said.

“Yeah, or I’ll sing.”

The team’s laughter was a nervous kind, and Marquez could feel the change since the CD. The address in Roberts’s file was her parent’s peach orchard outside Colfax. She’d talked to him about the orchard’s isolation, the vulnerability. They were all a little worried.

Marquez watched Alvarez and Cairo load gear, then climb into Roberts’s van. Shauf left ten minutes later, and he was alone at the safehouse. He got his gear together and put on the Kevlar vest, but it didn’t feel right. He sat and held the vest in his hand for a while and then picked up the coat with the fiber optic sewn into it, the camcorder, and it just didn’t feel like the right move. He’s not through checking us out, and he gave us too much time to prepare today . Marquez picked up his phone and called Roberts.

“I’m not going to wear anything,” he told her. “Tell Alvarez and Cairo they have to get as close as they can. They’ve got to be able to move fast.”

She chuckled. “You found a new way to cowboy it, Lieutenant.”

“No, I’m running with my gut. He’s giving us too much time to prepare.”

She was quiet then said, “Okay, I’ll let them know.”

He hung up and took a call from Kendall. “How about meeting me in Placerville for a beer?” Kendall asked. “I want to compare notes and talk, and I met with your warden today.”

Marquez got the name of the bar. An hour later when he walked in he found Kendall at a table with a thin red-haired woman he introduced as Sadie. Her freckled face was evenly tanned, hair heavily dyed, her smile shy and friendly. Marquez figured her tan explained Kendall’s using an applied tanning product. Sadie smoothed her thin dress as she stood, and she brushed away Kendall’s hand as he patted her rear.

“I won’t be long,” Kendall told her, then motioned for Marquez sit down.

On the table a bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and a half-eaten order of fried zucchini rested on a copy of the Mountain Democrat . Marquez watched Sadie take a seat at the end of the bar. She looked unhappy to be alone, and Kendall nodded toward her.

“Good woman,” he said, as though talking about a reliable old car. “I drove down and picked the bullet up from your friend at DOJ. Thanks for having him call me, but the bullet is not a match. I’ll get it back to you. That said, if you find your Coldwater Canyon hunters, I’d like to interview them.”

“How’d it go with Petroni?”

“He bullshitted us again.” Kendall leaned back, belched softly, covering his mouth. “I’ve got another witness tying him to Vandemere, and we’re going to have to kick it up a notch. I’m notifying your chief tomorrow unless you want to take a final run at convincing Petroni.”

“I don’t.”

“Then it gets rough for him now.”

“You’re running on rumors.”

Kendall looked at Sadie, then back at Marquez. “I don’t have to tell you anything about rumors. You live off tips, don’t you?”

Marquez left Kendall sipping a Jack Daniels. After he was in his truck and rolling toward the buy site, he checked in with Shauf.

“We’re all in position,” she said. “You’re going to drive past Melinda right at four miles out.”

“Have you seen anyone?”

“No, though we heard motorcycles.”

“Dirt bikes?”

“That’s what Brad and Cairo think.”

Their map showed the road alongside the creek ending a couple of miles in, but that didn’t mean there weren’t unmarked trails.

“So maybe there is another way in,” he said.

“That’s what we’re guessing.”

“Okay, well, I just drove past Roberts.”

He felt his gut tighten the way it had years ago when he’d gone out on the first drug buys. He didn’t feel like himself.

“They say it’s going to take you twenty minutes to walk up to the rock. It has the names Chloe and Ed spray-painted in white on it.”

“Got it.”

Twelve minutes later Marquez started up the creek road, smelling the moss and oak leaves, feeling the cold night. The flashlight shone on dark earth. He heard the trickle of water in the creek off to his left, and the night seemed unnaturally dark. On the phone their seller had warned him to keep the flashlight pointed down at the road, and he kept it angled just ahead and walked slowly, listening, expecting from what Shauf had told him that it might be a dirt bike that would round the corner and coast down toward him with its engine off. Half a mile in, a light flashed on and off ahead. A deep voice he wasn’t sure he recognized said, “Shine the light at your face and keep it there.”