“I was there.”
“We’ve worked hard to get him in place, Roland. Don’t fuck it up.”
The next round, Mike shot first and toggled the target back to us. Six clean holes in the black. One in the center circle. He blew on his upraised barrel like a gunslinger and set his pistol on the bench.
I brought up the Gold Cup, took a deep breath and let it out slowly, settled my weight evenly and enjoyed the God-given blessing of my vision. I shot unhurriedly. As Wyatt Earp once noted, fast is fine but accuracy is final. The trigger’s sweet spots presented in rhythm, weighted and cam-like within the heavy Colt. As the silhouette sailed back to us I could see points of sunlight through the paper. Seven in the black — one just at the edge of the bad guy’s right shoulder — but enough to win.
“What’s Crag Face’s pitch to Dalton and Tola?” I asked.
Lark’s look was cool anger. He could do little more than trust my professional ethics, and our untested, young friendship.
“A California Department of Business Oversight regulator with holes in his wallet and his morals,” he said. “Maybe willing to look the other way on Tola’s wannabe credit union partners. His favorite foundation funds literacy on Southern California Indian reservations. The second she offers it cash, that’s a bribe and we’ve got her.”
I wondered if Tola had been sufficiently fooled by Crag Face to do something so reckless. Her familiar attitude toward him suggested that she might have.
“And if Dalton is willing to sweeten the pot by throwing in a no vote on credit union oversight in return for a campaign donation from said foundation, we get two for one,” said Lark. “We snag a drug pusher and a vote-peddling assemblyman.”
I was suddenly sick of Lark and his feds. Of their separate laws and pugnacious power. I thought they should leave California’s problems to California, rather than compound them. Go entrap someone else. I said nothing. But Lark and I knew each other well enough for him to read my mind like an open map.
“Roland? I still carry the federal handcuffs in San Diego. So if you blow our cover to Dalton or Tola, you’ll qualify to wear them.”
I didn’t have to tell Mike that his FBI wouldn’t be able to prove such a thing if I simply whispered in their ears.
“Your call, Mike, not mine.”
“Are you personally interested in Tola Strait?” he asked. “I’ve seen her.”
“She showed me around the Nectar Barn outside Julian.”
“And?”
“I thought she might hire me to move some cash but she didn’t. I was glad. It looked like an easy way to die.”
Lark gave me his hard-guy look, somewhat softened by his awkward haircut.
“Her cash comes from federal crimes,” he said.
“Her business is legal in the State of California,” I said. “And you put people like Tola Strait in danger by not letting them bank their money. She’s sitting on safes full of time bombs. Her growers were attacked by cartel gunmen last year and had to shoot their way out of it.”
“Poor little felons.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“Then we agree to disagree,” said Lark. “If Dalton and Tola suddenly turn a cold shoulder to my man, I’ll have to have a talk with you.”
“I can’t make them fall for his bullshit, either, Mike.”
“I wonder. Maybe we can help each other. Even dogs can share the spoils.”
I didn’t say so, but I’d never seen dogs share anything, especially spoils.
Instead I asked him about their progress on The Chaos Committee.
“Representative Clark Nisson had eighty-seven letters, twelve oversized envelopes, and seven packages delivered to his Encinitas office the week leading up to the bombing,” he said. “That we know of. Almost half of those items came through twenty-eight different U.S. post offices, the others from private carriers. The bomb contained a powder accelerant and the fire destroyed almost everything evidentiary — paper being paper — part of The Chaos Committee’s intention, no doubt. But we’ve got no positive point of origin. Which leaves us mountains of surveillance video to view, along with all the internal tracking information. All to locate a suspect we can barely make out on the outdated surveillance video. If, of course, she even mailed it.”
“Jackie O,” I said. “Mailing bombs from Fallbrook and Ramona. Gaming the postal workers and FedEx employees with phony names and return addresses.”
“Washington is frantic for an arrest,” said Lark, an edge in his voice. “We’ve sent her image to every post office clerk and carrier in the county. To hundreds of FedEx and UPS employees. To every media news outlet there is. She’s been all over the social platforms. Last night the president tweeted that every U.S. citizen should be on the lookout for her. Well, that’s all great but we’ve got scores of thousands more tips, possible sightings, and positive identifications than we can follow up on. And they’re still flooding in.”
Lark wasn’t exaggerating. I’d seen Jackie O everywhere the last few days, from the mainstream media to the corners of the dark web.
“We’ve computer-flagged all post office mailings addressed to government workers in California,” he said. “The obvious ones, that is — mayors, city councilmen, supervisors, state legislators, judges, commissioners. Anyone elected or appointed to federal positions. A huge job. But there are thousands of cops and firefighters we can’t flag. And The Chaos Committee promised more and bigger bombs — soon.”
“What can I do, Mike?”
Lark reloaded his gun and jammed it back into the paddle holster high on his right hip. Gave me a small but joyless smile.
“Joan always said to watch out for you and your favors.”
“You and Joan have gotten plenty from my favors.”
Once again, what hung before us was that terrible night when Joan Taucher was lost to both of us, suddenly and forever.
“I’ve sent you all the surveillance video we have from the postal service.”
“I’m still catching up with it.”
“I’d like you to look at the private carrier video also. Some of it’s good. Some not.”
“Send it, Mike.”
He gave me a tired and harried look. “But mainly, Roland, you can help me by standing behind my agent’s cover if the opportunity arises. Maybe even pursue such opportunity. In your usual subtle fashion. And along the way, I want you to let me know what Dalton and his sister are up to. If you can find it in your heart to defend the Constitution and help us hated feds.”
Twenty-Seven
After dark, I found a place in the Tourmaline Resort Casino parking tower. Took the stairs down to the employee level, located Brock Weld’s white Suburban and attached a GPS tracker to the bottom of the trailer hitch. The powerful magnet clanged with an echo. I turned it on and a few minutes later was sitting in the Terrace Café.
Just as he had the night before, at ten minutes after eight o’clock Weld came off his shift with the same two coworkers. Again, the younger man wore the black moto jacket and carried his helmet. They disappeared into the employee parking garage. As before, Moto Jacket came out first, easing his burping rocket down the ramp. But tonight the blonde came out next, alone and at the wheel of a yellow Mercedes two-seater. Last was Brock Weld in his clean white Suburban.
I turned on my tracking app, laid my cash on the tray, and headed out.
Easy tracking with the Vigilant 4000, the best $299 a PI can spend. I have three. With one-second real-time reporting you can follow far behind and still track the target on a three-color map with a flashing indicator. On your phone, of course. The only downside is that the whole contraption runs on cell signal, which can be spotty and sometimes nonexistent. You can program the app to give you a complete two-week driving history, nailing down the bad actor/cheating spouse/runaway son or daughter without having to follow him or her all over town. You can use it to set up a geo-fence that notifies you when the unit enters a certain area.