Stanton walked over to him. James saw him, smiled, and nodded hello before turning away. Then he turned back around, recognition lighting his face.
“I’ve seen you before,” James said. “I think you saw me in one of my weaker moments.”
“You mean when you assaulted an elderly man without provocation?”
“It wasn’t without provocation. Me and him go back a long time. Long time. I love the man. But you know someone that long, they’ll eventually give you a reason to hit them.”
“If you really loved him, you wouldn’t have done it, even with a reason. That’s what love is.”
James laughed. “What are you, a Boy Scout?”
“My father once struck me when I was five. He was a pacifist, a hippie from the ’60s. Didn’t believe in violence at all. But I did something that just threw him, and he snapped. He punched me so hard, it knocked out one of my teeth. He never forgot it. He’d come into my room at night sometimes and just hold me and cry ’cause he knew I’d never forget it either.”
“Did you forgive him?”
“Yeah, but I never forgot it.”
James stubbed out the cigarette in an ashtray bolted to the wall next to him. “My old man was a one-night stand. He’d come back from the war, fighting the Germans in France, and my mother got drunk with him at some bar. She told me once that she went to him and told him about me. He laughed and kicked her down the stairs.” James chuckled. “You know what, Boy Scout? I haven’t told that story out loud in thirty years. But I just told you. Now why do you suppose that is?”
“Sometimes it’s easier to talk to strangers.”
“Suppose so.” He pulled another cigarette from a gold carrying case in his pocket. “So, what’s your game?”
“I don’t gamble, actually.”
“Really? Here for the shows, then?”
“No. I’m a detective with the San Diego Police Department. I’m out here at your request.”
James’s demeanor instantly changed. He went rigid, frozen in place, before he replaced the cigarette and put the case back in his pocket.
“We were never supposed to meet,” he said.
“I’ve been asked to leave in a few days. I don’t think it matters.”
“I haven’t seen any news of catching the person who killed Daniel, so I can only guess you’ve failed.”
“I guess I have, but I’m not finished yet.”
“You gonna solve this thing in a few days?”
“No, but I’m not leaving. I said I was asked to leave. Your funding runs out, but I think I’m going to be sticking around awhile.”
“What the fuck do you care about Daniel Steed?”
“It wasn’t just him. A cop’s been killed now, too. A man who was kind to me when a lot of other people weren’t.”
“Yeah.” He glanced away at the casino floor. “Yeah, I read about that. It was a shame.” He took a deep breath. “I got some business to look after. You’ll have to excuse me, Detective.” As he walked away, he said, “Come back and visit us anytime. We never sleep.”
38
Alma Parr waited until the sun broke over the horizon before he slipped on the Kevlar vest and his sunglasses. The three other people in the car began prepping, too. He checked his sidearm then placed it back in the holster. The SWAT van was twenty feet away to the west. A few of the men were stretching and taking nervous pisses. Back when he was in SWAT, he had to crap before every raid.
Behind the van sat two men in ankle and wrist cuffs, with two SWAT officers behind them, holding semi-automatic rifles. The men were staring at the ground. One of them was having minor convulsions and tremors. It had been a while since his last hit.
“How’d you know they’d have sentries?” Javier asked from the backseat.
“Because I’m paranoid, and that’s what I would do if I ran a compound.” Parr took a deep breath. “Sun’s up. Let’s go.”
He slipped out of the car and left the door open. Aside from the SWAT van, at least half a dozen cruisers with uniforms were standing by. The SWAT commander, who was in the passenger seat of the van, looked over and gave the thumbs-up. Parr did the same, and SWAT officers silently hopped out of the van and began making their way to the compound entrance, which wasn’t more than thirty feet away.
Parr fiddled with the lock on the gate, hoping to break it off, but it was solid. He looked back at the SWAT commander and motioned for the van to break through the gate. The commander whispered to one of the officers next to him, and he ran back to the van and turned it on. Parr and his men scattered as the van roared down the dirt road and crashed into the gate, ripping it off its hinges. The officers swarmed in.
Two women were out smoking, and they screamed. One of the officers grabbed them both by the back of the neck and threw them in the dirt. He put his boot on one of them and had his shotgun turned on the other.
Parr had gotten the layout from one of the sentries. He had refused to cooperate, so Parr had asked for a few minutes alone with him in the back of the van. The other officers took a break, and it didn’t take much for Parr to get what he needed.
Three of the five buildings were housing, but the last two had operational functions. One was the meeting place and housing for the leaders of this sector of the Brotherhood, which consisted of eleven men in total. The other was a heavily guarded weapons and drug cache armory.
SWAT went for the armory while Parr, Jay, Javier, and three officers went into the leadership’s stronghold. Shots rang out from the various buildings, then the crackle of return fire filled the air. Parr kicked down the door and went in gun first. He swung left and right as the others came in behind him.
They were inside a bar. Rather than walking around them, Parr kicked over tables as he made his way through. The surprise had worn off, and now the guys had to feel intimidated. Otherwise, the officers were in for a fight.
A blast behind them threw Jay off his feet and over a table. Parr swung around and saw a man behind the bar lift his shotgun and aim at one of the other officers. Parr fired twice. The first shot went through the man’s forearm, and the shotgun fell to the floor. He held up his hands in surrender and screamed, “Don’t shoot!” Parr fired again, sending a round through his eye, spattering skull and brain matter on the liquor bottles behind him.
Jay was choking and coughing as he pulled off the hot Kevlar. Parr bent over him and scanned his back. It was bruised with half-inch purple-and-black circles, but there was no blood.
“Stay here,” Parr said.
“No fucking way.”
Jay got to his feet and put the Kevlar back on, still coughing.
Parr told one of the other officers, “Stay behind him.”
They made their way through the bar, to the door at the far end. Parr took one side, and Javier took the other. He could hear machine-gun fire outside, as well as the high-pitched squeal of pistols. Parr held up his hand, counting down. Three, two, one…
He kicked open the door to a large room with furniture, a computer, swastika posters, and a Confederate flag. There was a bed in the room, and the sheets had decorations of skulls on them. They walked through the room silently, watching the door on the other side. Parr glanced at the closet. He tried to blink away the hot sting of sweat in his eyes. He got to the closet and flung open the door.
A woman screamed, and he placed his weapon against her head. He lowered it when he saw that she wasn’t armed. He grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the floor. There was no one else in the closet.
As he turned to go to the unopened door, three shots went off in succession. An officer screamed and tumbled to the floor, his ankle a mass of slick, wet flesh and bone.
“Under the bed!” Javier shouted.
Parr jumped to the floor on his side as two more shots went off. The man under the bed looked up just as Parr pulled the trigger. His mouth opened to scream, and the round went down his throat and out the back of his neck. He was choking and gurgling as Javier grabbed his feet and pulled him from under the bed. The woman was screaming frantically, and it was hurting Parr’s ears. He looked at the officer’s ankle then at the woman. He lifted his firearm and slammed the handle across her head just behind the ear, knocking her out.