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61.
Martin Delavalle had a woman with him when the knock came on the door at three in the morning. Still slightly drunk from the night before, Delavalle rolled out of bed. He patted the woman's behind and staggered over to the door. The knocking continued the whole time.
"Yeah, yeah, hang on." He peered out through the peep hole and saw a gold police shield against a gray background.
The knocking intensified, and a handful of fat fingers roughly thrust some kind of paper up to the peep hole. "Police! Open up! We have a warrant."
The woman sat up in bed. "What is it, honey?" She was a common prostitute he'd picked up on El Cajon Boulevard that evening after drinking at a pub near 70th Street. "Oh God," she said, getting into her clothes. "Let me out of here."
The door was rocking on its hinges by now.
"Hang on, you Gestapo bastards!" Delavalle bellowed. "I'm getting my clothes on."
"Mister, I don't know nothing," the young Hispanic girl said. "Tell them I ain't done nothing."
"Quiet, Maria." He didn't know her name, but Maria was good enough for both of them.
He opened the door and saw the huge red haired guy, probably sixty, and mostly gray, but still very much a red haired guy, standing outside. The giant wore cowboy boots, tight black jeans, a gray jacket, white blouse with turquoise bolo, and a cowboy hat. "Mr. Martin Delavalle."
"That's me."
"I am Detective Captain Enderdoss, and I am highly upset that I had to get out of bed to collect your tired ass." He waved a sheet of paper. "This is a warrant for your arrest. You are charged with a whole sheet of very bad deeds, including trafficking in illegal drugs, crossing state lines to conspire, conspiring in the first place, thinking about conspiring, conspiring to conspire, and a whole lot of other shit that's all written down here." He handed Delavalle the paper.
Delavalle glanced at it. "This is all a bunch of baloney."
Several uniformed city cops stepped in and turned Delavalle around to search him for weapons. They handcuffed him and laid him belly down on the carpet.
The girl grabbed her things and tried to make an escape, stepping on Delavalle with her high heels. Enderdoss raised a thumb over his shoulder and growled: "Book the bitch. I've seen her around. She's got a sheet with us. Prostitution."
Delavalle lay face down on the carpet of his leased luxury condo. "This is all bogus, officer, and I plan to sue."
"You can call your liar from downtown," Enderdoss growled. "Take him away and book him, guys. I'm going back home to bed."
At four a.m., a rumpled county defender showed up at Delavalle's cell. "How are you doing?" the 40ish man with more beard shadow than an English country hedge asked.
"Not too good. I know what they're after. They want to bust Collwood."
"Who?"
"Sit down—I'll explain. I'm expecting a phone call."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes. From a Louise Trost—who now owns my nuts, and she's going to set me up as state's witness. Tell her I said yes."
At nine a.m., having catnapped and feeling more tense than awake, Martin Delavalle and his lawyer sat in a room resembling a concrete bunker with steel doors. In walked Louise Trost with two FBI agents. "Hello, Mr. Delavalle."
"Yes."
"Pardon me, child?"
"I'll plea bargain or whatever."
"Honey, I'm planning decades in prison for you. Don't you give me any lip now, or I'll add decades to that."
"Louise," Delavalle said, "you're overplaying it."
"We'll see about that."
"Take me, I'm yours. What do you want?"
Louise folded her hands on the desk and looked him intently. "Child, you can either play ball or play with your balls. Either way, I'm going to cook your goose—well done, rare, medium rare, or broiled black as a charcoal bricquet—no matter to me."
"What do you want?" he asked, knees shaking.
"I want Collwood on a platter with an apple in his mouth."
"I'll do everything I can, including giving you the apple."
She set a little recorder on the desk and pressed a button. Delavalle winced and felt chagrin as she played for him a conversation in which he seemed to agree to round up a group of men and kill them all at Collwood's request.
"It's nothing like it sounds," he said. "That's an illegal wiretap and you know it."
Louise grinned malevolently. "Child, you are no poker player. You are dealing with years of your life here, so start singing for your supper. I want the goods on Collwood, and I mean for real. Don't you dare mess with me. Don't even think about it. Now sing, my little canary."
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