Cold Hit (34 page)

"Look, Alexa, to be safe, I think we need to move everybody out of here. Take a hotel room down by the beach."

"We can't afford to do that."

"We can't afford not to." I took her hand again an
d h
eld it.

"Sometimes I get so weary of this." Her voice was softer now, almost pleading. "When I'm not battling with Tony and my crime stats, I'm worrying about you. I know you're doing what you feel you have to, but I wish you'd just take a job on the sixth floor so I could stop looking at my watch and wondering why you haven't called. I can't change how I feel."

I sang Billy Joel's song to her, warbling the tune comically off-key: "I want you just the way you are."

"Great." She smiled. "I wish you weren't such an impossible hard head." Then she put her head on my shoulder.

So I led her into the house.

We closed the bedroom door and slowly started to undress. Looking at Alexa, I couldn't help but think how my wife seemed more beautiful and incredible to me with each passing day. If Zack or someone else took advantage of my family, would I be able to go on? Would I have the courage to keep fighting if either she or Chooch were in serious jeopardy? I suddenly understood the wisdom of the Russian mafia rule to never many or have children. My wife and son gave me strength and emotional stability, but they also made me extremely vulnerable.

I needed to get my family relocated tonight.

Alexa and I lay on the bed and caressed each other for a long time. I felt her breath on my neck, her hands on my back.

She turned her face up to mine and kissed me. "Darling," she said. "I'm so afraid. Sometimes I thin
k i
f I lost you, I couldn't go on." Voicing my exact fears.

I knew how vulnerable we both were to misadventure and my heart suddenly raced. I vowed to protect us, even at the expense of my own life.

We began to make love, slowly taking each other higher and further than we had ever been before. As we coupled, the intense pleasure of desire, primal and pure, washed over us. I wanted to be closer than our bodies would allow. It was almost as if I needed to be her, to wear her skin as my own. In this act of love, the longing and closeness we shared made me crave even more.

Afterwards, we lay on the bed listening to the innocent sounds of our home. The kids were laughing about something in the living room. The TV was blaring. The normalcy of all this was a bitter contrast to my lingering fears.

"I think you're right. We need to get out of this house," Alexa said, sitting up and looking at me. "I don't trust it here right now."

We dressed and went out to tell the kids to pack; that we were spending the night somewhere else.

The phone rang. I caught it on the fifth one. It was Roger Broadway. He told me that the Financial Crimes Division had just called him back with troubling news on their reactivated investigation into Americypher. Ten months ago, Calvin Lerner's widow had sold controlling interest in the company to an offshore Bahamian corporation called Washington Industries. I wondered what that meant, but told Roger I'd call him back once I was resettled.

As I was locking the house five minutes later, Alexa slid into her department slick-back with Franco purring on the seat beside her. Chooch and Del piled into his Jeep. They pulled both vehicles out, headed for The Shutters Hotel on the beach in Santa. Monica.

I followed half a block behind them in my Acura, on the lookout for gray sedans with government plates, while also scanning the road for any glimpse of a white Econoline van.

Chapter
52

Kenneth Broadway was a broad-shouldered, fiftyyear-old man with ebony skin, and the deepestset eyes I'd ever seen. He had a megawatt smile that could instantly light his semi-serious face. He was standing next to his nephew, Roger Broadway. Emdee Perry was facing them, his back to a two-story building located across from the Coast Highway in Long Beach. I pulled in, got out, and was introduced.

It was ten o'clock the next morning.

We were a block from the ocean, a mile northwest of the old Long Beach Naval Yard. The empty, warehouse-sized building we were parked in front of was dominated by a giant, two-story high, rooftop cutout of a slightly cartoonish blonde of extraordinary proportions. She was a luscious creature with overdone curves, wearing platform heels and a painted-on black miniskirt. Large corny lettering proclaimed our locatio
n a
s the West Coast factory for Lilli's Desert-Style Dresses.

"Lilli is Butch Lilli. Human dirt," Roger Broadway said. "He's currently doing a nickel in Soledad. This was his front. We took it down in two thousand three when I was still in Narcotics. The guy moved a shit-load a flake outta here. The upstairs is nothing but a big room full of long sewing tables. He made the brasseros who bagged his dope in cellophane twists work in their undies, so he'd be sure they couldn't steal any powder."

Kenny boasted, "I put more cameras and mikes in this joint than they've got over at NBC Burbank."

Emdee Perry had the key from the real estate agent and he opened up. We walked into a dim, musty, downstairs corridor decorated with cheap wood paneling and years of petrified rat shit.

"If you guys wanta use this place, we'll need to turn the electricity back on so you'll have enough light to get a video image," Kenny said, as he led us up the stairs. "I kept meaning to come over here and pull the electronics out, but I did this job off the books for Rog, so I had to be cool about it. It's all outdated anyway. We don't use fiber-optic cable anymore. It's voice-activated radio transmitters now. This stuff still works, but it's three generations past prime."

We entered a large open area on the second floor. Sewing tables stretched the entire length of the room--perfect for making dresses or bagging cocaine.

"Uncle Ken put five cameras in here," Broadwa
y s
aid. "It was great, because Butch Lilli loved to bring his dirtbag dealers up and show them the operation. Ran the sting for six months before we took the joint down. Forty coka-mokes hit the lockup."

"See if you can find a camera," Kenny said, with a tinge of professional pride. "I'll give ya a hint. It's right there." He pointed at a place on the wall.

I walked over and studied the spot where he was pointing, but couldn't find it. Then he came over and showed me where a piece of plaster had been chipped four feet up from the baseboard.

"That little dot there," he said, proudly.

"That's a camera?" I could barely see the pinhole.

Kenneth nodded. "Fiber-optic line on this bug runs down a channel we cut in this concrete column here, then behind that baseboard, down the air shaft, out into the lot. When we did this sting, Roger parked one of the ESD minivans in the culvert forty yards to the east, loaded brush all over the thing, and then plugged everything into monitors we put in the van. Television City."

We walked the room. "This is gonna work good," Perry said, studying the layout. "It sits out here all alone. The Odessa bandas will like it. If I was gonna stomp your gonads, Shane, this is where I'd do it."

"I'm beginning to have second thoughts," I said, a cold chill descending. "I'm not doing this unless we get some decent backup."

"No problemo, Joe Bob." Then Emdee shot me a yellow-toothed smile. "Once we set that up, all ya gott
a d
o is get Sammy out here and get him talkin' before he kills ya."

"What makes you so sure he's gonna chase me down here?" I asked.

"Sammy's got no impulse control," Emdee explained. "He's a gag reflex with balls. We got ten pages of withdrawn complaints to prove it. Piss him off and he'll come after ya. No insult goes unpunished. It's his thing."

I looked around. "This place is pretty deserted. If he's gonna fall for this, it's gotta look like I'm here to meet someone. I can't just come to an abandoned building way out in butt-fuck-nowhere, and wait around to get captured. He'll know it's a setup. One of you guys is gonna have to be up here waiting so it looks like we're having a meet."

"I'd do it, but my back's been acting up," Broadway grinned.

"You ain't gonna skip out that easy," Perry said.

"Okay, what then?" Broadway said. "Draw straws? Eenie-meenie-miny-mo? If we measure dicks you know you lose."

"Ahhh, yes," Perry grinned. "The old African dick myth." He pulled a coin out of his pocket. "Call it," he said, and flipped.

"Tails," Broadway said as the coin hit the floor, and spun for a moment before lying down.

Tails.

"Okay, Emdee's in here waiting for me." I looked at Broadway. "You're in the van outside with whateve
r b
ackup we can score this afternoon. If Rowdy and I look like we're about to get harp lessons, you gotta make some big-ass trouble, man."

"I got your six," Roger assured me.

I looked over at Perry. "Let's stash some guns up here, just in case."

We both pulled our nines and started looking for a place to hide them. I found a spot under one of the sewing tables near the cameras, and taped up my Beretta using a roll of silver duct tape I'd brought in my briefcase. Perry had a big .357 Desert Eagle that he taped behind a heater six feet away.

We all went downstairs and watched as Kenneth Broadway reactivated the bugs. He turned on each camera and checked it on a portable monitor for picture and sound, then ran some fresh cable from the building outlet through the brush to the spot in a gully where one of his NSA surveillance vans was parked. Inside the vehicle was a bank of monitors.

After two hours, we were ready to go.

I unfolded the warrant that Alexa had procured, and showed it around. "Open warrant for the tax records on Patriot Petroleum once we find where the damn company is located. They're not listed, so we're checking with the IRS. We can forget looking for the gun 'cause he won't have it at his office. I'll just raise as much hell as I can and blow outta there."

"Whatever you do, make sure you get all the way down here," Broadway cautioned me. "I wish this place was closer, but tactically this is the best location tha
t w
as prewired and fit all the other parameters. If they pick you up before you make it here, you're pretty much up on The Wall."

The Wall was the marble monument to dead police officers located in the main lobby at Parker Center. Hundreds of brass nameplates were mounted under a plaque that read: "E
. O. W
." End of Watch. Every name on display had died in the line of duty. One of my main career goals had always been to stay off that damn wall.

I was praying Stanislov Bambarak, Eddie Ringerman, and Bimini Wright were going to help me keep that goal alive.

Chapter
53

I'm bloody tired of waiting," Stan said, glaring at his watch. "Give us a bell if you ever decide to get serious about this."

We were standing on the end of the Santa Monica Pier in the blazing noontime sun waiting for the others to arrive. Both of us had our coats off. A quarter mile up the beach I could see the Shutters Hotel where I stayed with my family last night. Just as Stan turned to go, Broadway's car pulled up and parked. Roger got out, and then the passenger door opened, and Bimini Wright, looking very hot in a sundress and heels, joined him. They started walking toward us.

"What's she doing here?" Stanislov glowered at th
e b
eautiful CIA station chief who was now only twenty or thirty yards away.

"Calm down, Stan."

He threw his coat over his shoulder and started to walk away.

I grabbed his arm. "I told you I had something that would interest you. You don't get to hear it unless you stick around."

"Not interested."

This was in danger of unraveling before it got started, so I said, "What if I can put Sammy Petrovitch in Pelican Bay for murder? I also have a decent shot at getting his brother Iggy on conspiracy to commit."

Stanislov stopped walking and looked at me. "If you could really do that, we bloody well wouldn't be standing out here gassing about it, would we?"

"Don't be so sure."

But I had him interested, so I went ahead and told him about the ballistics match on the bullet that killed Martin Kobronovitch. "If Sammy was the triggerman on both hits, and if we match the bullets to a gun in his possession, he's gone."

"Those are big ifs," Stan said. He shifted his weight and looked at Bimini Wright, who slowed as she approached. You could feel the negativity jolting back and forth between them like deadly arcs of electricity.

"Roger," she said, looking at the handsome African-American detective, as they came to a stop where we were standing. "You didn't say anything about this sonof-a-bitch being here. If he's involved, I'm gone."

"Strange remark from a woman who flat-backed half my Moscow Bureau," Stanislov growled nastily.

"Hey, Stan, it's not my fault all you recruited was a bunch of alcoholic hard-ons."

Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Emdee Perry approaching with Eddie Ringerman. It distracted Bimini and Stan, and they both turned as the two men approached.