Blond Cargo (30 page)

“Shit! Shit!” she cried as she rose to her feet and picked up her cell phone. Her eyes were awash with tears that turned the gold statues displayed along the wall of the tunnel into surreal ugly forms. She ran to the mouth of the tunnel, stepped into Malic’s office, and pushed the secret door closed behind her.

42

“Don’t be such a stranger, Mr. Bertolino,” Arsinio, the consummate waiter at Hal’s Bar and Grill, said as he placed the bill on the table.

“Sometimes life gets in the way of good living,” Jack said as he pulled out some cash and added a healthy tip.

“With my two boys, don’t I know that to be the truth? Always something.”

Jack, Mateo, and Cruz were sitting at Jack’s favorite booth in the rear of the restaurant. It had a straight-on view of the entire room. They’d just finished dinner and were strategizing. In the NYPD it had been called a TAC meeting. The night before deployment, Jack liked to go over
tactics and tactical
, make sure all the questions had been answered, all the duties assigned, and the safety of his team enhanced.

Jack was sipping a Benziger cab, Mateo was nursing a Stoli on the rocks, and Cruz banged back the dregs of a Dos Equis and politely waved off Arsinio, who offered a refill before moving on.

The place was raucous, patrons stood three deep at the bar, and every table was filled.

Jack had his cell phone on the table with a close-up photo of the camouflaged metal door at Malic’s compound.

“I ran it by my father,” Cruz said deferentially. His father was a walking encyclopedia when it came to locks and keys and safes, and he had tutored his son well. “Semtex would work, C-4, or a half hour with a heavy-duty diamond-tipped drill.”

“So if I blow the lock, I could kill anyone standing behind the door,” Jack pointed out sourly.

“Could happen. And that would obviously defeat the purpose.”

“Next.”

“The lock was Turkish-made, used in detention centers and jails. Durable, not impenetrable. But with the drill and your skill set, security would know you were there before you gained entry. Why don’t you let me do it?”

“Not a chance,” Jack said. “Case closed. After you knock out the lights, I’ll go up and over the wall. I want you back at the main road keeping an eye out. We don’t need any surprises. We’ll all be communicating on Bluetooth. Check your batteries. Mateo, you only enter the fray if things get hinky.”

“You’re the boss. Whatever you need,
jefe
, I have your back.”

Jack knew that to be true and was grateful. The three men gathered themselves up and walked out of Hal’s.

“Mateo, you up for another drink?”

“Yeah, what do you feel like?”

“I want you to go to the Chop House on Canon Drive near Wilshire. Let me know if the usual suspects are there. As you walk into the place, a six-panel wooden door leads down to their coolers, where Cardona ages his beef and his guys butcher the steaks.”

“What am I looking for?”

“Just keep an eye out. See who comes and goes. I’ll be on my cell.”

“Where are you headed?”

“The beach.”

“Don’t forget your sunscreen.” And he hung a right on Abbot Kinney.

“I’ll call you when I’m set up in the a.m.” And Cruz hung a left. Jack wanted him to catch some shut-eye and get down to Orange County first thing in the morning.

As Jack headed across the street to the liquor store he fielded a call from his son, Chris, and answered on the fly.

“Chris.”

“I’m packing it in Dad. Quitting school and hitting the road.”

That made Jack pull up short outside the store. He flashed on the cardinal who had painted Jack with a quitter’s brush.

“Relax, Dad, jeez, just a little hyperbole. I picked that up in English lit.
Hyperbole.
Didn’t think I’d get to use it in a sentence so quick.”

“You got me,” Jack said, smiling. “You are gonna pay for that, young man.” Jack was relieved, but more importantly, his son sounded normal.

“It’s your ex-wife, Dad. She’s killing me.”

“That’s your mother you’re talking about.” Mock scolding.

“I’ve already got two doctors who actually went to medical school.”

“Point well taken. Look, why don’t you tell her I’m driving up with a date. That’ll scare her off.”

“You bringing up Leslie?”

“I don’t think that’s in the cards, Chris.”

“Oh. Sorry,” he said, not wanting to pry. “But are you really gonna come?” he asked gently.

It sounded like an open door to Jack. “I have some business to clean up down here, and then, try and stop me.”

“Okay, Dad. I’ll tell her you’re coming up with a hot blond bimbo. That should do the trick. Except then Jeremy will want to stay and check her out.”

That elicited an honest laugh from Jack, who was protective of his ex-wife in front of his son, but her boyfriend, Jeremy, was fair game.

“Let me know how that works out, Son. And I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

Maggie Sheffield was reclining in a wicker chaise lounge. Her ever-present Marlboro dangled from her red-painted lips, accenting her wild mane of red hair, which was haloed by her porch light. Her manicured fingernails were long in the extreme and . . . red. She didn’t seem surprised to see Jack, and she said hello on a smoky exhale.

Jack stepped up on the porch wearing a tight black leather jacket, black jeans, and black boots, doing his best Don Johnson impersonation. With his long dark hair hanging over his collar, he looked more like Sylvester Stallone in
The Lords of Flatbush
, but he’d driven this far. It was worth a shot.

“Maggie,” he said by way of hello, handing her a fifth of Bombay Sapphire gin.

“How did you know?”

Jack pointed at Maggie’s kitchen window, where the distinctive blue metal cap that topped a bottle of Bombay could be seen.

“You’re good,” she said. “Can I pour you one?”

“I’m good.”

“So I said. Let me pour you a drink?” But she didn’t get up. She was just flirting. “What brings you to my little piece of paradise?” she asked, knowing the answer.

Jack wanted to get home. “Just looking for anything you can tell me about the disappearance of your favorite shark.”

“Nothing to tell. I already came up with nada for the police.”

She pulled another cigarette out of the hard pack and lit the new one off the stub of the old.

“But those guys, they’re not like the two of us,” Jack said, watching a wave roll in, the moon reflecting silver on the curl.

“How so?” Maggie asked.

“We’re stargazers. Night owls. They weren’t aware you were the only witness to the death of that poor girl. About the same time of night. No, even a little bit later, I think. The bar was shut down for the night.”

Maggie nodded in agreement, not wanting to relive the tragedy of that night.

“And then there’s the two of us being creatures of habit.”

“Whatever do you mean?” she said, enjoying the sound of Jack’s voice and his scrutiny.

“My guess is, no one saw you sitting up here on your chaise, having a ciggy and a nightcap the night Raul disappeared.”

Maggie took a deep drink of gin, the ice sliding up the metal goblet.

“You sure you’re not Sicilian?” Jack asked.

That one threw her for a loop, and she demurely wiped her lips and hid her smile. “Why do you ask?”

“The way you hold a grudge. The way you sleep with a Colt special next to your pillow.”

“You’re good. You should become a PI.”

Maggie took a long drag of her cigarette and exhaled, tracking the smoke as it curled up into the clear night sky. The echo of the waves crashing onto the black rocks provided the soundtrack of her life.

“Anything you want to share?” Jack asked. “Anything?”

“Nothing really.” But Maggie knew the game was over. Jack was going to leave sooner than later, and she’d be alone again.

“I
didn’t
see two sumo wrestler types, had to weigh in at three fifty, brown-bag him and toss the piece of shit into a beat-up white van with no windows in the back and no writing on the side.”

Sounded like Cardona and Frankie the Man to Jack.

“Just dirty white. And a skinny dude with pointy sideburns drove them out of here like they had someplace important to be.”

And Peter Maniacci makes three, he thought.

“Sorry I wasted your time,” Jack said. “It’s too bad you didn’t see anything. Might have saved our friend some pain.”

Jack was letting her know he would keep her confidence. He stood up and stretched, taking in the scenery for the last time before hitting the road.

“Sure you’re not Sicilian?” he deadpanned, nailing her with his smoky eyes.

Maggie laughed despite herself as Jack stepped off the porch. He could feel her eyes stripping him naked as he walked down the path toward the Lexus.

A small price to pay, he thought. He got what he came for. The last thing Jack needed was to barge in on Vincent Cardona if Raul Vargas had really been set up by one of his pissed-off, incarcerated gang members.

You have to be in the know, Jack told himself, if you plan on breaking down the door of your client. Especially if your client is a mobbed-up gangster with a button man for a cousin who weighs in at three hundred and fifty pounds.

43

Mateo was sitting at the first-floor bar, nursing a Stoli on the rocks with seven other patrons who were feeling no pain. A sixty-year-old dowager was giving him a heavy-lidded come-on. He had just gotten off the phone with Jack and filled him in on the lay of the land.

He had seen no activity at the six-paneled door until ten minutes ago, when Frankie stepped out, wiping sweat off his brow, and walked heavily up the stairs to the main floor of the restaurant above. Vincent Cardona was still up on the second floor glad-handing his VIP clients. The piano player continued to take requests and tips, and the din of happy patrons rose and fell with his Broadway musical selections. Last call was moments away.

Mateo advised Jack to make his move now.

The alleyway behind the Chop House accommodated parking for fifteen, and in the far corner, sharing space with Mercedes and Porsches, was parked a nondescript white van with no back windows. It fit the description of the vehicle Maggie had seen, and if Jack had cared, he probably could have found traces of Raul’s blood on the sheet-metal floor inside.

The delivery door to the basement was locked, and Jack pulled out the tools Cruz had provided. After fiddling with his wire probes, he was relieved to hear the click of the lock disengaging. He eased the door open, stopped to listen, and then stepped down onto the metal stairs. Reaching up overhead, he closed the door behind him, making sure the lock stayed disengaged in case a quick exit was in play.

The basement felt tomblike, Jack thought as he edged down the stairs and onto the cement floor. He passed stores of olive oil, flour, salt, paper products, pasta, and cases of liquor used daily in the food and beverage preparation of a major Beverly Hills restaurant.

The main room was lit with fluorescent lights. He couldn’t hear any sounds from above as he checked the stairwell that led up to the restaurant. He noticed that the lock was off on the walk-in, thick-glass meat locker. As he approached, the hair on the back of his neck stood at attention.

He opened the six-inch-thick insulated door and took in the grisly scene.

Raul Vargas’s limp body was hanging from two meat hooks, pinioned by leather straps wrapped around his wrists. His ankles were bound, his body positioned directly above an industrial drain that channeled the dripping blood and juices from the four sides of beef he presently shared cold storage with. His eyes were closed and his hands were blue and swollen.

A single overhead light dripped with condensation and cold smoky vapor.

A thick, square butcher-block cutting table sat next to Raul with a pair of bloody pliers laid next to five broken, jagged fingernails with bits of cuticle and flesh still attached. A hacksaw, drill, cleaver, and blowtorch shared the tabletop, waiting their turn.

Cardona’s cousin had done one hand and was probably giving Raul time to contemplate his existence before starting in on the other.

Jack walked up and slapped Raul across the face. One eye was swollen shut, but the other blinked open and registered surprise and then recognition.

“Did you talk?” Jack asked in a forced whisper.

Raul shook his head no.

“Did you tell Cardona that his daughter’s at Malic’s compound?”

Raul shook his head and then his one good eye went wide with terror. If Jack talked, he had just signed his own death warrant.

Jack was feeling the pressure of the clock as he muscled Raul up and slid his damaged hand off the meat hook, eliciting a haunting groan. Then he released the good hand, which was frozen and useless.

Jack was struggling to get Raul ambulatory when he was stopped short by the thick New York accent of Frankie the Man.

“Drop that piece of garbage where he’s at. Right over the fuckin’ drain works for me.”

Jack did as ordered.

Raul’s knees buckled and he went down like a sack of flour. The primal moan that he emitted was more chilling than the temperature.

Jack turned slowly and found himself staring down the barrel of a cannon. With the single bulb lighting the scene, Frankie’s fat cheeks and heavily lined forehead, which had its own rolls of fat, gave him the look of a deranged Neanderthal. His feral eyes were as hard and lifeless as ball bearings.

“Now get the fuck out while you still can. You’re fired. Vincent will have words with you later.”

Suddenly, Frankie the Man went silent. The barrel of his Colt lowered from Jack’s kill zone. He straightened uncomfortably tall as he felt the cold metal of Mateo’s gun pressed against the base of his thick skull.

“It has a hair trigger and my hand’s a bit shaky. I’d drop your weapon before they’re hosing
your
blood down that drain.”

The big man was not totally stupid and wisely complied. The Colt crashed to the cement floor. Jack cringed, hoping it wouldn’t discharge, as he deftly attached two pairs of plastic flex-cuffs to Frankie’s fat wrists, knowing one wouldn’t do the trick.