Dennis has put Bad Guys away to see other Bad Guys take their places
Dennis has looked into the dead, tortured faces of his sources
Dennis has seen You’ve heard the expression “truckloads of cash”? And thought it was a figure of speech?
Dennis has seen, literally — truckloads of cash headed south for Mexico to people who have kitchens with granite countertops, and he turns those trucks in to his bosses, who pose beside them while he dutifully puts a little money away each month for his kids’ college educations and his wife clips coupons because while Paradise is Paradise, Paradise is also expensive.
Dennis sees his face get a little older, hair a little thinner, belly no longer taut. Knows that his reflexes are a little slower, memory not quite as acute, that there might be more calendar pages behind than in front of him.
So maybe that little nudge of discontent was fear. Maybe not. Maybe it was just discontent, as in “the winter of” in a place that knows no real winter.
Anyway You need to know that Dennis hoards information. He feels justified in doing so because he’s worked hard to develop sources-they’re his — and he doesn’t share them because he doesn’t want to share the information they develop. This does not make Dennis particularly popular among his peers, but he doesn’t give a shit-the life plan isn’t to make friends among his peers, it’s to rise above them, and then they’re not going to like him, anyway.
So Dennis’s modus operandi is to work his sources to develop information right up to the point of making a bust, then dole those busts out for the best possible political and promotion-creating effect.
That’s why when one of his CIs-that’s “Confidential Informants,” and D has given a whole new meaning to the “Confidential”-tells him about this isolated little ranch house way the fuck out in East County near Jamul, he goes by himself.
The Lone Ranger
Or “the Lone Stranger,” as he’s known in the office.
(Undercovers are natural loners-they don’t trust anybody-paranoia is a survival strategy.)
Sans Tonto, as Paqu might say, recalling that she’s in her French phase.
To check it out.
Solo Surveillance.
Dennis has balls-big, clanging brass-so he drives out into the dark desert all by his lonesome, parks his vehicle on a ridge overlooking this ranch, and trains his nightscope on the house.
It’s a cash dump.
(There’s a phrase, huh?)
What’s happening is that the dealers are bringing their cash there to be counted, sorted, and stacked for the relatively short dash down across the border. On any given night, there’s going to be hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in that house.
Dennis takes one look at this and knows it’s the bust that could Put Him Over.
Because what he also sees through that scope is
Filipo Sanchez.
Number Three in the Baja Cartel.