Lucas said, “I’m not so much SWAT. I was homicide back in Minneapolis and with the Minnesota state cops. Bob and Rae are more tactical. If there are four guys over there and they’re hard-core fighters like LuAnne says, then we’re probably going to need one of your SWAT teams to back up Bob and Rae.”
“For sure,” Rocha said. “I’ll get that organized, but it’ll take a while. I’m thinking we’ll do it tomorrow at dawn. That gives us plenty of time to pull things together. And if they stay out late, like you say, they ought to be pretty out of it if we hit the door at six o’clock.”
“The option would be to watch them come and go, track them individually, and take them when they get out of their cars,” Lucas said.
“Could do that,” Rocha said. “But that’d be asking for a shoot-out in a parking lot with people around. I think I’d be happier with a SWAT team doing their thing at dawn.”
They talked about that for a bit, but it was LA territory. Rocha said, “For now, we basically want to sit here with you, do some watching of our own.”
Bob had noted the license plate on the BMW and Rocha ran it. “Goes to a Douglas Moyers, at that address,” she said, nodding at the house across the street. “We have nothing on him at all. Not so much as a traffic ticket.”
“Fake name,” Rae said.
Rocha nodded. “Yup.”
They were watching for half an hour when the garage door went up at the target house and the Jaguar backed into the street. MacIntosh got the tag number, Rocha ran it. “Goes out to a Jacob Barber, again at that address, again not a single violation of any kind.”
MacIntosh: “Fake. That pretty much clinches it.”
Rocha looked up from her tablet screen and said to Lake and MacIntosh, “Let’s get it going. We need to talk to the sheriff’s office. If they’re still at home, we’ll hit them tomorrow at first light.”
CHAPTER
SIX
Genesis Cox was sleeping as deeply, and as naked, as a newborn baby, so accustomed was she to the stentorian snoring of her partner that even the rapid-fire wheezes, snorts, and grunts of his dream episodes failed to disturb her.
Cox was a standard big-boobed, bottle-blond, bar menu Long Beach babe, with curly hair like Meg Ryan’s in that movie When Harry Met Sally, which was, like, her way favorite forever. Several other Ryan vehicles were in her top ten, mostly because of the star’s way-amazing hair. Even when Meg was, like, flying a fuckin’ Black Hawk helicopter in some kind of fuckin’ war, or something, her hair was way fuckin’ epic.
Cox knew the guys she was living with were criminals, but really it was more like the redistribution of wealth from Beverly Hills to Long Beach, almost like being a Democrat, so it was hard to see too much wrong with it. And nobody ever died.
She was currently working her way through a self-help book called You Are a Badass—How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life. It was wedged between the pillow and the top of her head, where she’d left it when she turned off the lamp. Cox’s life had not yet reached the awesome peak she was sure was on its way, but it was nothing less than what she deserved. She hadn’t yet made out its substance. Probably something in Hollywood, she hoped. Like fuckin’ a producer. That would be awesome, all right. Though she’d have to be careful: sometimes you thought you were fuckin’ a producer and he turned out to be a writer or something.
Cox slept well, especially after a round of athletic sex, and was proud of her ability to take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’.
* * *
—
MARION BEAUCHAMPS, who Cox called Marty, even though when she snuck a look at his real driver’s license one time, which he kept in a chest of drawers, it said Marion. Beauchamps slept in a T-shirt and also workout pants, because his legs got cold when he threw the covers off, which he did every night.
Beauchamps was a criminal, but of the relatively intelligent and thoughtful sort, who believed he could do home invasions in Beverly Hills, Hollywood Hills, Holmby Hills, Cheviot Hills, and any other hills you might have, for as long as he wished, with minimal chance of getting caught as long as nobody got hurt and it didn’t make the front page of the