Blond Cargo (18 page)

Chris appeared in the doorway with disheveled hair, torn T-shirt, red-rimmed eyes. He had obviously been asleep. At four in the afternoon. He’d dropped more weight in the past week, his pupils were dilated, and he was clearly high. Chris shook his head, exasperated, and walked back into the room. Jack followed him in and gently closed the door behind them.

Chris turned on his father. “What the hell are you doing here?” he said with total disgust that cut Jack to the quick.

“You’re stoned,” Jack said in a controlled tone.

“I am not. Answer my question. What the hell are you doing here? Why didn’t you at least call?”

“I called. I left two messages. But you were too high to answer your phone.” Jack wished he hadn’t said that, but there it was.

“Dad, I’m not stoned!”

“Your team is out on the field. You were asleep. You tell me.”

“I don’t sleep at night. I told you to stay away.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he delivered like a punch to the heart.

“Do you know who you’re talking to?” Jack said, bringing a little attitude into play.

“What?”

“Do you think you’re the only Bertolino who’s got a thick skull?”

Chris let out a labored sigh, and Jack wanted to slap the shit out of his progeny. But he fought to control himself and the energy in the room. “Has your mother ever, ever once in your entire young life done what you told her to do?”

“Yes.”

“Bullshit.”

“My laundry.”

“You
ask
her. You’d be wearing crusty Jockeys if you ever
told
your mother what to do. And she’d be right. You hear me? She’d be damned right.”

Chris sat down on the edge of his bed, his head low. The cast on his arm jutted out at an uncomfortable angle.

Jack leaned back against the small desk that dominated the dorm room and felt claustrophobic, too large for the space.

“You think I’m gonna be
told
to do anything?” he went on. “Do you think that was my reputation at work? A detective who did what he was told?”

“No.”

“I think it’s time to rethink your strategy here. This is not a winning strategy.”

Chris leaned off the bed and pulled two bottled waters out of a mini-fridge that was an arm’s length away. Just about everything in the dorm room was an arm’s length away. He handed one to Jack, who accepted the offer, screwed off the top, and took a long pull, diminishing some of the heat in the room.

“Where did you get your drugs?”

“I’m not doing drugs.”

“Where did you get your pills?”

“From you.”

That actually made Jack feel better. He knew better than to trust a user, even his own son, but if Chris was still taking the pills he stole from Jack, he might not be too far gone.

“Tommy went through a lot of effort to set you up with good doctors, where you’d feel safe, away from campus. Now, do you have him on retainer off of money I wasn’t aware you possessed?”

“Dad . . .” Chris sounded like a boy again.

“Then why did Tommy do it, Son? Call in favors for you.”

“He loves me.”

“Why am I here?”

“You love me.”

“You wanna get rid of me?”

“Yeah.”

Jack smiled and his eyes got moist.

“Let’s call Dr. Leland and see if she can fit you in this afternoon.” Jack knew that she’d make the time. He had called her office as soon as he landed. “I’ll drive you over. If you two don’t get along, and I think you might, we’ll find someone else. But just know, we won’t stop until you find someone that works for you.”

Chris took a swig of water and looked out his window. He didn’t say yes, but more important, he didn’t say no. Jack took that as a win and soldiered on.

“How’s the pain?” he asked, referring to his son’s arm.

“Comes and goes. Two in the morning, three.”

“Dr. Pick has an opening tomorrow at eleven. He thinks if it’s physical, it might be as simple as changing the angle of your brace.”

Chris jumped up off the bed, red-faced. “Physical! What the hell does that mean? You think I’m making this up? It’s psychological? I’m a nutter?”

“I misspoke! Muscular, not physical. Muscular, and not nerve damage. Chris, I’m trying, I make mistakes.”

“No kidding.”

“No kidding.”

Chris turned back to the window and Jack did the same. Dr. Pick, a neurologist, could give Chris something for the pain that wasn’t addictive, if Jack could get him to his appointment.

“What’s her number?” Chris finally mumbled.

Jack pulled out his phone, accessed the number, and hit Dial. He handed the phone to his son, who grabbed it and waited for Dr. Leland to pick up on her end.

Father and son stared out the window and watched normal college life pass them by in the quad below.

29

“The neurologist took X-rays, MRIs, the whole enchilada and said he couldn’t detect any nerve damage. He applied a new cast that was fastened in place closer to Chris’s body. He thought there was a good possibility that the pain was migrating from the strain on the kid’s shoulders and back, down his arm.”

“How about the shrink?” Nick Aprea tossed back a shot of Herradura Silver and chased it with a bite of lime that puckered his mouth slightly and put a grin on his face.

“Noncommittal, but he made an appointment to see her again next week. About as good as could be expected,” Jack said with a tone of optimism. He took a sip of Caymus cab, but he could have been drinking Cribari. He was spent.

They were sitting at the Beachside Restaurant and Bar, attached to the Jamaica Bay Inn in Marina del Rey. The water was still and the small lights on the boats’ decks played off the protected water of the marina.

“I don’t know,” Nick said. “Being in narcotics and all, if my daughter, God forbid, started using, I don’t know, maybe a nunnery.”

“That’s what Vincent Cardona said about his daughter.”

“Cut out my tongue.” And then, “Do you trust her?”

“Who?”

“The shrink?”

“Yeah, I do, but that’s not the issue, is it? The kid has a bad case of PTSD. If she can help him get a handle on that, and if Pick can get to the bottom of the pain, and if Chris can get some sleep . . .”

“Lotta ifs, Jack. But hell, he’s a Bertolino. You call your ex?”

“Rather poke my eyes out.”

But Jack knew he would have to make the call. Just a matter of time.

“Wouldn’t do any good, you’d still find trouble with both hands. Speakin’ of which, do you get a lot of pleasure poking hornet’s nests?”

Jack was stirred out of his exhaustion. “My mind’s a little too fried for abstractions.”

“The pictures you took of the license plates in front of that strip mall in Costa Mesa. One of the plates, on the black GMC Yukon, was a Detroit plate.”

“Good detecting, Aprea.”

“I am impressive, and possess twenty-twenty, but there’s more. Every immigrant group brings along some good and some bad when they step off the boat. You know, the bad comes in the form of homespun gangsters, like the Mariel boatlift from Cuba or the Russian mob. Instead of getting a job when they come to America, they get into the protection rackets in their neighborhoods and . . . you get the drift. A lot of these mobsters make the Mafia look downright genteel.

“Well, there’s an Iraqi gang that set up shop in Detroit. Big Iraqi population there. We heard rumors of an L.A. connection but haven’t been able to nail it down. You might have stumbled onto the hornet’s nest.”

Now Jack was all ears. “Interesting. Detroit was one of Raul Vargas’s cocaine destinations.”

“I think it might get better. The Sinaloa cartel’s providing the Iraqis with coke, pot, and weapons. They’re into all the good stuff. Oh, and uh, did I mention prostitution?” Nick asked rhetorically. “And guess how the drugs and guns and illegals and whores are coming into the States and traveling east?”

“Panga boats,” Jack answered.

“Wasn’t that how the second blond chick got snuffed? You know, her vehicle of choice. Her death chariot.”

“You are a poet and a detective, sir.”

“I’m gonna give myself a raise.” Nick signaled the bartender for another round. Jack passed.

“The YouTube video was generated in Iraq,” Jack mused, and let that notion drift in the air to see where it landed. “And now with the connection between Raul and the Iraqis, maybe an Iraqi gang. Could be.”

“Who knows? The punk is a drug dealer of record. You’re the detective, find the linkage.”

“Any hits on the men I photographed?”

“Nothing local and no hits on ViCAP. The limo is registered to a personal corporation.”

“I’ll have my guys run it down.”

“Speaking of which, you still have that CI working for you?”

“Mateo, yeah, he’s good people.”

“Fuckin’ rogues’ gallery on your team.”

“Meaning?”

“Eh . . . I don’t trust him.”

“He’s quick on his feet, smart, loyal to a fault.”

“If you say so.”

Jack finished his glass and decided to order another round. Nick licked some salt, swallowed the tequila, and sucked on the lime. He wasn’t grinning this time. Jack knew he was bothered.

“He’s losing money staying in town. Just doing it to help me out.”

“I don’t like it.”

“So you said.”

The bartender placed another glass of cabernet in front of Jack, who nodded thanks and took a sip. He placed two shot glasses in front of Nick and told him one was on the house. Nick didn’t object.

“There’s always an angle with those guys,” Nick said.

“Well, if you figure it out, I’m all ears, but at this point in time . . .”

“Dude sold a lot of poison. Mateo and Raul, cut from the same cloth,” Nick said, surly now. “Silver spoons, educated, they both chose the low road.”

Nick licked a pinch of salt, tossed back the Herradura, and bit into a lime like a man biting off the head of a snake.

“I opened the door for Mateo,” Jack said. “He stepped through. Raul, he’s toxic.”

“Gut check, Jack. Raul’s complicit in the disappearance of the Cardona girl?”

“He’s good for it.”

“Bring me something, and I’ll be there with you to take him down.”

Jack raised his glass, and Nick picked up his last shot. They clinked as friends do, disagreements left on the playing field, and they polished off their drinks.

Tufts of gray-white clouds peppered the night sky and star field. The moon was vivid without the light pollution. Its reflection seemed to dance on the chop of the black Pacific. The Ferris wheel—with its computerized psychedelic colored-light patterns—was his heading.

The feel of Leslie’s arms around Jack’s waist as he piloted the boat beyond the breakwaters toward the Santa Monica Pier was just what the doctor ordered. She was excited and recounting her day in court, her mouth dangerously close to his ear. He was glad he had fielded her phone call.

“I eviscerated him, Jack. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?”

“Horny?”

“As hell, Jack. Horny as hell. You really didn’t have to take me out on the water to seduce me. I would’ve done it in the backseat of a taxi.”

“You’re such a romantic,” Jack said, smiling. Glad to have Leslie’s energy to bounce off of. Happy to get out of his own head for a few hours.

DDA Leslie Sager had been prosecuting a rape and attempted murder case, where the suspect was acting as his own defense attorney. The defendant had stalked an Asian woman who worked a self-selected neighborhood in Venice collecting aluminum cans from Dumpsters and filling a cart she pulled behind her bicycle.

The suspect had run up behind her, grabbed a handful of her hair, and yanked her to the ground, where he started beating her mercilessly, punching the woman’s face until she was unrecognizable.

While she lay in a coma, he ripped off the woman’s clothing from the waist down, put on a rubber, and forced himself into her frail body.

The woman was sixty-nine years old.

The truck driver, with two out-of-state priors for sexual assault, was fifty-eight.

The attack took place in a dark grassy area bordered by a four-story apartment complex. A woman on the third floor testified that she heard something strange that made her feel uncomfortable, like a hand punching flesh. She looked out and saw what appeared to be a man from the back. The woman couldn’t tell if he was puking, heaving, or having sex, and then she heard him punch the woman again. The horrified witness dialed 911.

The man was still raping his victim when the first cop arrived.

As more patrol cars swarmed the scene, the police subdued and arrested the defendant, still wearing the prophylactic filled with his DNA. It should have been an open-and-shut case, Leslie had explained.

But when a defendant represents himself, the court and prosecutors have to take extra care to ensure that there’s no room for appeal. Leslie had been very impressed with the way the judge handled the defendant and was confident the case was tied down.

Leslie had delivered her closing argument, and after two hours of deliberation, the jury returned a guilty verdict.

Leslie was riding a high that Jack well understood. All the hard work, grueling hours, and court gamesmanship had paid off. The innocent victim, who was still in recovery, would know that justice could be done and her attacker would never see the light of day.

“I put another scumbag away, Jack.”

“You’re starting to sound like me.”

“Like a drunken sailor?”

“Like an ex-cop.”

“I am damn good, Jack.”

“No argument from me.”

“My contract review comes up end of the month. I’m up for a promotion, a raise, the entire enchilada.”

“You’ll make a fine DA.”

“You’re preaching to my choir. Oh, I ran into the mayor at the courthouse today. He wanted to know if you’d stop by his house in the morning. Ten-ish, he said. I told him you’d be there.”

Jack’s head snapped around. “You what?”

“I hope I wasn’t talking out of school, but you’re a smart man and the mayor of Los Angeles is not a bridge you want to burn, Jack.”

Jack wasn’t sure that Leslie hadn’t set up the meeting herself, but the damage was done.