"Any future plans?"
"Not so far."
"So what else is in there?"
"These two drawers are filled with intel on the Cholos," Freed said.
Thomas broke in. "More than you'd ever want to know about a bunch of dead guys."
"Hangouts, relatives' addresses, ex-wives. There's a list in there must have every woman El Viejo's put his dick in since the Wall fell."
Bear dropped a binder into Tim's hands. "This makes for the best reading."
Inside, Tim found mini dossiers on cops, prosecutors, and rival bikers. An eight-by-ten of Raymond Smiles was crossed out in red-Richie Rich's diploma. An attached report identified Smiles as a top federal enemy of the club, detailing his field experience, which ranged from anti-narcotics to counterterrorism. When Tim flipped the page, he found his own face staring back at him-a shot of him lying on his stomach taking pictures at Nigger Steve's funeral. Once the chill subsided, he realized that part of him was flattered he'd made the hit list. A thought caught him off guard: What if he got taken out and Dray awakened alone? Or worse-if she didn't and they were gone. No Rackley left. It would be as if their family, for ten years the self-important center of their own production, had never existed. Or yet another disturbing variation: Their child could be orphaned before birth, excised from an insentient body to be greeted by two pensions, a garage sale, and Bear.
Their jobs gave them a courtside view of the void, a comforting illusion of separateness and control, but never before had the costs been so evident. After Ginny's death Tim had rejected the law and his badge, weary from the essential uselessness of it in the face of universal mechanics. He'd wanted back in the Service so desperately, and now he was in, but with his wife shot and a crosshairs on his own head. The dullness Jim had carried behind the eyes the past few days suddenly clarified; Tim felt the sentiment it bespoke resonate in his bones, a low-register chuckle not unlike Uncle Pete's.
What were his options? Get a job selling mattresses? Urge Dray to take up quilting? The notion of retreating under fire would be as unappealing to her as it was to him.
At Bear's urging, Tim continued through the binder. The last section contained images of dead Cholos-crime-scene shots, news photos, and, most disturbing, moment-after Polaroids.
The deputies perused the files, their discouragement growing as little useful information was revealed. If nothing else, Tim had to admire Chief's spy skills; the intel he'd managed to acquire on the Cholos was staggering in its scope and specificity. The Sinners were wise to keep Chief-and the files-segregated from the rest of the club.
Lash had told them as much-The intel officer runs separate from the pack, never goes to the clubhouse. Keeps his own safe house, even.
Guerrera muttered, "This shit might be useful if we were going after the Cholos."
Tim's hands stopped their movement. His head snapped up. "Exactly." He shoved the binder at Bear and began digging through the hanging files in the two drawers dedicated to Cholo intel.
"Rack?" Bear said. "What's going on?"
"We're in the wrong house." Tim sensed the others reacting with puzzlement, but he continued blazing through the file tabs, racking his brain to match the names to those on the list of the dead from the Palmdale massacre. El Viejo. Dead. Frito Terrazas. Dead. Gonzo Ernez. Dead.
A name finally distinguished itself from the others; Tim didn't recognize it from the coroner's roll. He yanked the file free and flipped it open. Meat Marquez. Identifiers, bike information, and an address were typed neatly beneath a surveillance photo. Bear, Guerrera, Thomas, and Freed crowded around, realization dawning.
Tim nodded at Chief's stiff corpse on the bed. "We got the wrong intel officer."
"Huh?" Bear said with mild irritation. "Which intel officer do we want?"
"Not the Sinners'." Tim grabbed the page from the file, thumb creasing the Lancaster address. Guerrera and Bear barely kept pace down the hall.
They passed Tannino in the entry. Without a word he took Tim's. 357 into evidence, handed him a fresh one, and continued back toward the body.
Chapter 27
Needle-nose pliers protruded from the hole that had been Meat Marquez's nose. His head was wedged in the jaws of a vise, distorted by the pull of his body weight. Tim, Bear, and Guerrera stood in a loose triangle around the body, motionless on their feet as if the slightest movement might wake Marquez up. Bear's great, broad shoulders sagged, worn down by disappointment. Tim glanced at the sheet from Chief's file on Meat, the typed address matching the brass numbers hammered beneath the light outside, then crumpled it up and shoved it into his pocket.
Meat had been the last nomad of his kind-the hearts of the other three, Den and Kaner had left on the Cholo clubhouse doorstep, the bit of improvisational surgery that had won them matching convictions. After the past three days, Tim understood the strategic implications of the first rule of biker gang warfare-kill the nomads.
The deputies' preliminary walk through the garage conversion had turned up nothing in the way of files.
The complaint of the A/C explained the merciful chill in the air; the nomads had likely maxed the unit while they tossed the place so they wouldn't be assailed with the stench as Meat started living up to his name. A flipped cot soaked up engine grease. Tufts of mattress stuffing floated in oil puddles. Plate shards littered the kitchen. Smashed floorboards stuck up like stubborn weeds. A porcelain Virgin Mary lay shattered at the base of a shelf.
"At least we know how they intercepted the Cholos' funeral route," Bear finally said.
Guerrera broke their unspoken vow of stillness, toeing the remnants of the tchotchke Holy Mother. Tim figured Guerrera was being sentimental until he called them over and pointed at the interior of the statue base. A clear key outline showed against the sticky dust that had accrued inside.
The tip of a footprint-boot edge rendered in oil-pointed toward the bathroom. Guerrera picked up its next appearance after a six-foot interval, the long stride indicating Kaner.
Tim and Guerrera stood shoulder to shoulder in the tiny white square of the bathroom, Bear crowding them from behind. In the main room, the air conditioner groaned like a tired engine on a steep hill.
Guerrera ran a hand over the tiles that sheathed the lower half of the walls like wainscoting. An offset edge. He tugged gently, and the tiles swung as one piece, exposing a file cabinet set back in the space between wall studs. Tim felt a long-overdue flush of excitement.
The top drawer slid too easily under the tug of Guerrera's finger. The hanging file folders remained, each tab listing an individual Sinner, but the contents had been pulled. The next two drawers revealed the same. After killing Marquez, the nomads had wisely purged all the intel on their club. Tim stared at the empty Den Laurey file and cursed sharply. They withdrew to wait for CSI. Doubleheader Friday for the crime lab.
Standing over the rigor mortised body, Bear grimaced. "Whatever groundwork they're laying, it's thorough as hell."
"But for what?" Guerrera's rhetorical hung in the refrigerator-cool air.
Flashing blue lights cast a glare through the garage-door windows, mapping waves across the ceiling. A few more vehicles pulled up outside.
The A/C emitted a creaking groan. Tim walked over and examined the main vent. The rush of air felt uneven. He placed his hand in front of it. Cold air was seeping from the edges, but the center gave off nothing. He pried the panel free and removed the dusty filter. A folder slipped out from behind, slapping the floor. Tim snatched it up.
An assassination dossier, containing surveillance photos of Goat. Astride his Harley. Weaving through traffic. A familiar, horrifying close-up of the marred flesh of his face. Emerging from a commercial building into an alley. The location of the last shot was nondescript-no address, no telling marks on the wall. But captured in the background was a sliver of the world's most recognizable image-the golden arches. One enormous yellow leg had been captured, and a segment of pantile roof. A Dumpster blocked part of the alley, its faded stencil showing a floral emblem.