Private

These days, Perez lived with his wife and kids in a two-million-dollar faux Greek revival on Woodrow Wilson Drive. There were two cars in his driveway: a late-model Beemer and a black Escalade with gold-chain rims.

Del Rio had been shadowing Perez for the past forty-eight hours, monitoring his conversations with a parabolic dish the size of half a grapefruit and a Sennheiser MKE 2 lavalier mic. I didn’t care about Private’s expenses on this case.

According to Del Rio, Perez used a succession of boost phones to set up his impromptu drug deals, which took place in parking lots and on roadsides. His customers were executive types as well as models and starlets, who in all likelihood got discounts for favors provided in the front seat of Perez’s SUV.

The front door of the house opened, and a pretty brunette carrying a baby and holding the hand of a toddler came out, got into the Beemer, and then drove right past us.

“The wifey-poo,” said Del Rio with a smirk.

He put on his headset and told me that Perez was alone. He was on the phone with a disgruntled client named Butterfly, telling her to take a deep breath. He’d be there soon. He’d bring her what she needed.

“Okay, he’s meeting Butterfly in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn on Cahuenga in twenty minutes,” Rick said.

“No, he’s not. Let’s go.”

We got out of the fleet car and walked up to the front door of the house. I rang the bell. Rang it again. Then I yelled, “Open up, Perez. You won ten million dollars from the Publishers Clearing House.”

I’d just told Del Rio to go stand by the Escalade, when Perez suddenly opened the door.

He was barefoot, his shoulder-length bleached-white hair contrasting with his tanned skin and dark Fu Manchu mustache. A scar ran through the mustache, enhancing the frig-you look on his face.

Was his the last face Shelby Cushman had ever seen? It wouldn’t have surprised me at all.

Had this son of a bitch killed her for getting behind in her payments? I showed Perez my badge, and mistaking us for cops, the scumbag hesitated.

“You need a fug-geen warrant, yo,” said Orlando Perez, his face balling up like a fist, the scar going white.

Del Rio put his shoulder hard against the door, and we were in.

“See, we don’t need a warrant,” Rick said.

Chapter 79

ORLANDO PEREZ SHOUTED over the ambient music, “Get outta my house. Get outta here!”

Del Rio took his gun out of his belt and said, “Jack, I left my book in the car. The one on negotiation called Getting to Yes. Think you can get that for me?”

I said, “Let’s wing it without the book.”

“Yeah,” Del Rio said. “Sure. We can do that. See how much we remember.”

Perez’s pupils were large, and he was having trouble focusing. “Hey!” he shouted at Del Rio’s gun. “I said ged out.”

I pulled the plug to the sound system out of the wall.

Del Rio said, “We’re not cops. But after we have a talk, go ahead and call them.”

The dealer grabbed a gun resting in the seat of a lounge chair and got the grip into his palm. He was bringing up the muzzle of the semiautomatic when I hit him at the knees and brought him down.

A burst of rounds went off. Blew past my ear and took out a lamp with a glass shade and a painting of a bullfighter over the mantel.

Del Rio kicked the gun out of Perez’s hand, and I rolled the dealer over and put my knee into his back with feeling. Then I cuffed him with flex ties.

When I stood up, Del Rio handed me his gun. Then he got a two-hand hold on Perez and dragged him by his white hair and the waistband of his jeans across the polished marble floors, past the indoor pool shaped like a bong, and into a high-tech stainless-steel kitchen that was actually quite nice.

“Yowww-ow-owww, hey! What are you doing, yo? Cut the chit, will you?”

Del Rio hauled the dealer to his feet and shoved his face flat onto the stove, inches from the front burner.

“Why did you kill Shelby Cushman?” Rick shouted into the drug dealer’s ear.

“I don’t know no Shelby.”

Del Rio twitched the dial on the stove. Blue flames leaped.

Perez said, “You don’t know what kind of sunnabeech I am, mister.”

Del Rio said, “Ditto,” and turned up the heat. The dealer’s white hair sizzled and burned and scorched the air.

“Yowww. Turn it off, mannn. Please, turn it off.”

Del Rio grabbed Perez’s collar and lifted his head off the stove. He asked him again, “Why did you kill Shelby?”

“I didn’t kill her! She owed me a few grand. Like four. She woulda paid. She was a good lady. I liked Shelby-everybody liked Shelby.”

“Let me tell you how this game is played,” Del Rio said. “You keep lying and I’m going to put your face on the burner. Are we clear?”

Perez kicked and struggled, but he couldn’t loosen Del Rio’s grip. Del Rio dialed up the flames again. The heat singeing the fuse of Perez’s mustache definitely got his attention.

I was a second away from pulling Rick off Perez when the dealer screamed, “Listen to me. I didn’t kill her. Maybe I know who did.”

Del Rio yanked Perez upright, spun him around, and said, “Keep it real, yo. Or you go back on the hot plate.”