Free Hollywood Tough (2002) by Stephen - Scully 03 Cannell

cynics. But you taught me it doesn't have to be that way. You taught me that cops can even be great lovers. I don't know if I ever thanked you for that."
    Shane thought she was really trying to tell him she was sorry about asking him to invite a dangerous gang leader back into their lives. He smiled and squeezed her hand, but didn't answer.
    The phone started ringing, so Shane got up and walked into the living room, where he picked it up. "Yeah."
    "Shane, it's Lee Fineburg. I got something on this Farrell character you asked me to run."
    "Really?" With a sudden pang of guilt, Shane looked over his shoulder at Alexa, who was still sitting on the back lawn out of earshot. "What is it?"
    "When I first started, it was more what it's not, if yo u k now what I mean." He paused, then continued. "There was nothing anywhere on this guy. It's like three years ago he parachuted in here from Pluto. My brother's looked everywhere: the Justice Department computer, the IRS, even ViCAP. You'll never guess where he finally turned up."
    "Where?"
    "WITSEC over in the U . S . Marshal's office. He's in their computer, and nowhere else. The marshals must have erased everything."
    "Witness Protection?"
    "Only now they call it Witness Security. My brother couldn't break the nine-digit spaghetti code to get the actual file, but Farrell Champion is definitely on an asset list in their mainframe."
    "Wait a minute . . . hold on. That doesn't make sense. WITSEC isn't going to give a new identity and protection to a high-profile guy like Farrell Champion. Everybody knows who he is. He's in half of last year's People magazines, for Chrissake."
    "Shane, if you wanna argue with me about it, help yourself. I'm just telling you what my brother found. This guy looks like he's a protected witness. That's gotta be why there're no IRS or LAPD records. Because the Justice Department keeps him scrubbed clean--no back story, no records, nothing that can be used to trace him."
    "Then why would WITSEC let him be so high profile?"
    "I don't know, I agree it's weird. But unless we got two Farrell Champions, which seems highly unlikely given the unusual name and the circumstances, your boy is in the program."
    Shane knew that a lot of the clients of WITSEC were violent criminals who turned state's evidence to keep from going to jail. Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, who'd killed nineteen people for John Gotti, was the poster boy for that fact.
    "How do we find out for sure?" Shane asked.
    "My brother Doug said if you can get a set of his prints, he can keep going, try to find out his real name. To make it quick, he needs a thumb, index, and at least one digit.
    Doug says that somewhere there's a record. Those prints are gonna go back to some original piece of I . D ., like an old state driver's registration or hospital birth records--something sitting in somebody's computer. You can't erase everything. Get me those prints and we'll give it a go."
    "Okay . . . okay, I'll try." Shane looked over again at Alexa, who still had her back to him, sitting in the metal chair, staring out at the still canal. "Thanks, Lee. I owe ya. Talk to ya tomorrow."
    He walked back outside and sat down again.
    "Who was that?"
    "Captain Haley. He left something out of my package. I gotta swing by tomorrow and pick it up." A little lie, but a lie nonetheless, and Shane felt shitty about it.
    "Honey, Nora called today," Alexa suddenly said. "Farrell's having a bachelor party and he wonders if you'd like to come. It's this Friday night at the Jonathan Club, on the beach."
    "Sounds like fun . . ." Another alarm bell went off in his head. Shane wondered why Farrell Champion, a man he'd only met once, would want him at his bachelor party?
    "Should I tell her yes?"
    "Uh, well, maybe we should wait and see what happens when I get back on duty. See what my hours are, what kinda caseload I've got."
    "Oh, sure, if you think." She fell silent. "I also told Nora I'm giving her a bridal shower. I'll have to throw it