Girl Undercover 12: Showdown (3 page)

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said and smiled. “Okay, let’s get a doctor here that I can talk to about how to inject Haldol properly.”

Dante pressed a button next to his bed, then asked to use my disposable. Punching in a bunch of numbers, he put the phone to his ear.

“Hombre,”
he said after a few beats. “Where are you? Driving home? Good. I need a prescription for a drug called Haldol. H-A-L-D-O-L. Haldol. Anti-psychotic medication. Look it up online.” A brief pause. “Let me ask Gabi, she’s the one who needs it.” He looked at me. “He’ll do it as soon as he gets home, but wants to know how much to put on the prescription.”

I shrugged. “The biggest possible amount. At least 100 mg, but more is better. We also need big syringes. Ones that can fit 50 mg at a time.”

As Dante told Jose that, the door to his room opened and a freckled nurse with big glasses entered, her gray-streaked hair in a conservative bun at the nape of her neck.

“You called?” she said, glancing at Dante.

Dante gave her a friendly grin. “Yeah, ma’am. I have to ask you something. Could you please hold on a sec?” His eyes moved away from her and he said to Jose, “Gotta go, man. Can you take care of that and swing by Marina Del Rey Hospital afterward? She’ll be here waiting for you.”

Saying goodbye, he disconnected and returned his attention to the nurse, who had politely been waiting for him to finish his call.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, still at the door.

“Is there a doctor available that I can talk to?” Dante wondered. “I have some questions about a medication.”

“What are they?” she asked. “Maybe I can help.”

“Do you know how to properly inject...”—he shot me an inquiring glance.

“Haldol,” I said, looking at the aging nurse. “My friend has schizophrenia and she’s forgotten the instructions how to inject herself with Haldol, and she can’t get hold of her physician. She needs an injection soon.”

“That’s not information we can give out without having first seen the patient,” the nurse replied. “Haldol is a controlled substance. She’d have to come to the ER here and have the doctor on staff evaluate her, then give her the proper dosage. If she comes within the next hour, they should be able to get to her before the evening. So tell your friend to come here and we’ll take care of it.”

I forced myself to smile gratefully at the nurse. “Okay, I’ll do that. Thanks so much.”

Giving a curt nod, the nurse turned around and left.

“I guess we won’t get anyone here to give us instructions then,” I said and smirked at Dante, even though it wasn’t his fault that the nurse was so by the book.

“I guess not,” Dante replied, sounding guiltier than he should.

I blew out a defeated breath. “I’ll just have to bite the bullet and do it myself. But it’ll be fine.” I nodded to myself. “Just fine. I can always Google how one goes about properly injecting a vein. Like you said, how hard can it be? I’m making too big a deal of it!” The way my stomach kept twisting at the thought of injecting Brady contradicted my words.

Gazing at me, Dante suddenly lit up, like something had just occurred to him.

“What is it?” I asked him. “Out with it.”

“Forget Google. I have a better idea. Junkies are experts at getting drugs into their bloodstream. They can teach you how to go about it correctly. And I happen to know the perfect person to help you with that.”

I frowned at him. “You want a
junkie
to teach me? Come on, be serious.”

“I’m dead serious. The person I have in mind is an old friend from my days in the gang. He used to be a big-time heroin addict, but when I ran into him the other week, he told me he’s been clean for the last couple of years. He should be around. Let me call him and see. Can I have your phone again?”

I handed Dante my disposable. Putting the phone to his ear, he called information, asking for the number to a man called Donald Lee in North Hollywood. As the operator connected him to Donald, Dante blocked the mic part of the phone with his hand, glancing at me and whispering, “I don’t know Donnie’s number of the top of my head. Thankfully, he’s listed.”

His eyes left me and I could tell someone was on the other line because of the way he lit up. Then he looked at me again, smirking with disappointment. “Voicemail,” he managed to hiss before talking into the phone. “Hey, Donnie, it’s me, Dante. Dante Davila, former member of the Latin Devils. We bumped into each other at the supermarket last week. Ralphs. Hey, I need a little favor. It’s pretty urgent. Call me at—hold on a sec.” His eyes went to me again. “What’s the number to this phone?”

Quickly, I wrote down the number on the notepad next to Dante’s bed. He read it slowly so Donald’s voicemail could record it, then hung up.

“He wasn’t home,” Dante said unnecessarily and handed me back the phone.

“Yeah, I figured that. Well, thanks for trying.” I couldn’t help but sigh disappointed.

“Relax. I’m sure he’ll get back to me soon. Let’s talk about how you’re gonna get your hands on Brady. What are you thinkin’ in regards to that?”

I screwed up my lips, considering the problem with Brady in depth for the first time. My first instinct had been to abduct him against his will, but now that I thought about it some more, it dawned on me that such an approach might be overkill. I doubted Brady was aware I was onto him. I told Dante that.

“After the so-called accident that Dr. Sokoloff had this morning”—I grimaced to show my disgust and sadness with what had happened to the psychologist—“I immediately assumed he must know. But now I realize that I’m probably wrong about that. As far as I’m aware, he doesn’t even know that I found out she died this morning. And even if I do find out, why would I assume
he
had anything to do with it? It’s not like I’m supposed to know that he’s become an untouchable. So, really, nothing has actually changed between us since we last interacted. In other words, I could just call him up and ask him if we could meet somewhere.” I smiled deviously at Dante. “If I agree that I need help with my crazy fantasies and that I want to discuss it in person with him, for sure he’ll drop everything and come running. I might even convince him to come to my hotel room…”

“Sounds like a good plan, but how are you gonna explain staying at a hotel? If you’re back for good and agreeing to enter treatment, it would make more sense that you’re staying at your old place or with your parents. Plus, you do realize that you’re gonna have to either tie him up or knock him out to be able to inject him, don’t you? That could get rowdy. It would be easier to take care of such a situation at your old place.”

“Hmm. Yeah, those are all good points.” I bit the inside of my lower lip. “Why
would
I be staying at a hotel if I’m planning on living here now?” I expelled a dejected breath. “I suppose I’ll just have to suck it up and ask him to come to my old place then.”

My phone mercifully rang then, cutting short the darkness that was about to descend upon me at the thought of returning to the apartment in which I had found Nick. I fished it out of my purse. I didn’t recognize the number on the screen, but I answered anyway.

“Hello?”

“Um, hey,” a tentative male voice said. “Dante Davila called me and told me to return his call on this number.”

“Yes, that’s correct,” I said. “Hold on, please.”

I extended the phone to Dante, mouthing a big “it’s Donald.”

Dante took the phone and put it to his ear, a smile spreading across his lips. “Donnie! My man! It’s Dante, how are you doin’?” The smile kept growing as he listened to what Donald had to say. “Oh, no, I’m fine, but thanks for asking. What about yourself? You still clean?” Dante listened some more, saying uh-huh every now and then. After a couple of minutes had gone by, the smile shrunk and instead Dante rolled his eyes at me; apparently, this Donald-guy was a big-time chatterbox. It didn’t sound like they were discussing what had happened at
Cuerpos,
though, which was pretty amazing given that the hostage situation was all over the news.

Finally, Dante got a word in. “That’s great. I’m glad to hear it. Hey, so I need a favor. A weird one. You think you could help me out?” Donald must have launched into another bout of babble, because Dante just listened for a while. Within short, he cut Donald off, however, saying, “Don’t even mention it. Listen, I have this friend who needs a lesson in how to properly inject drugs. We’re talking prescription meds here, not illegal drugs of course. Anyway, so I thought of you. Could you show her how to do it right?” Dante listened again as the other man spoke, the smile on his lips back, growing wider by the second. “I thought so. You’re the best, Donnie.”

They exchanged a few more words, then disconnected.

“Donald will be happy to instruct you,” Dante said, grinning pleased. “If there’s someone who knows all the tricks to shootin’ up, he’s your man. He’ll come anywhere you want him to.”

“Okay. Fantastic. Jose’s on his way, right?”

“Yep. Shouldn’t take too long. His house is only a fifteen-minute drive from here and he was halfway there when we last spoke.”

“Great.” I screwed up my face then. “Now the question is how I’m gonna go about getting Brady to sit still long enough for me to give him the injection. What with his bad heart I’d rather avoid knocking him out and tie him up instead, then inject the stuff. You think Jose and Sergei or someone could help me with that?”

“You just give the word and they’ll do whatever you need them to do.”

“Awesome. The sooner we can make this happen, the better. As you know, we don’t have much time to lose.” Something struck me then. “Um, don’t you think Donald will find it a little weird that Brady is sitting tied up and gagged in my apartment? He’ll probably think I want to kill the man and that he’s helping me out with murder. I’m assuming he’s on the right side of the law these days. Which means he might have a problem with it.”

“No, he won’t. He owes me. I saved his life once. That’s why he was going on and on over the phone, wanting me to know just how grateful he is. But if it makes you feel better, I can tell him Brady is your dad and that he’s schizophrenic and that his nurse is sick and can’t come over and give him his meds. You heard that I didn’t give him any details for your need to learn how to shoot up prescription meds, so it’ll be perfectly believable. And if your dad’s schizo, you won’t need to gag him ’cause no one can take anything he screams seriously.”

I thought about Dante’s suggestion and liked it; telling Donald that Brady was my father and schizo was in fact a great idea. I told him so, then found my phone.

“You might as well tell him to head to my apartment right away,” I told Dante. “North Hollywood isn’t exactly around the corner from West L.A. On second thought, I don’t think I’ll need Sergei. Jose and a gun will be enough.”

“Yeah, I agree.” He took the phone from me. “As small as Jose is, Brady won’t notice a thing before it’s too late.”

Jose entered the room then.

“Speaking of the devil,” Dante said and wiggled his eyebrows at me.

“What, me?” Jose said, bringing his hands to his chest, an innocent look on his boyish face that made him look years younger. Combined with the clothes he wore, he could easily pass for a college kid. He’d switched out of the stuff from this morning when we were in the Downtown L.A. apartment, now wearing a pair of baggy, darker jeans and an over-sized black T-shirt that said
Fart now loading… 85%. Please wait...

“Yeah, you,” I said, my eyes glued to the text on his T-shirt. “Your wife actually let you out of the house wearing that thing?”

Jose grinned happily. “She’s at the beach with her sister all day today, so she never saw it. It’s my favorite T-shirt, but she hates it.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “I wonder why. You have the prescription?”

He waved a piece of paper in my face as he reached me. I took it from him and eyed it closely. It looked extremely authentic. “Great work,” I told him, then turned to Dante, who was calling Donald. A couple of minutes later he was done, handing the phone back to me.

“He’s leaving his house right now,” he said. “Your turn to call.”

Chapter 3

I punched in the number to my division, assuming Brady was there since he was back at work and it was one thirty p.m.; unless he was out to lunch somewhere, he should be sitting behind his desk. Before the operator could pick up, I disconnected the call, however.

“What happened?” Dante asked me as I was dialing 411 to get the number to Brady’s house. I couldn’t remember it off the top of my head.

“I suddenly remembered that I’m not supposed to know that he’s back at work,” I replied. I wiped away imaginary sweat from my forehead.
“Phew.
Thank God I caught myself! To make this stunt believable, I need to first call his house to get hold of him. I do have his cell number programmed into my regular phone, but that’s in my car. If his wife doesn’t answer to tell me his whereabouts, I’ll have to go get it and call him directly.”

Dante nodded. “Got it.”

After the 411 operator connected me to Brady’s house, the rings went through in my ear and then a woman answered, “Hello?”

I made my voice darker. “Hello, may I speak to Captain Brady, please?”

“I’m sorry, he’s at work. Who’s calling?”

“My name is Lara Jones and I work for the Van Nuys Division. I will just try him at work. Thank you for your time, ma’am. Have a good day.”

With those words, I disconnected.

I glanced at Dante, who seemed confused, and said, “I figured it was better to not just hang up on her in case she talks to him before I do. That would make him suspicious for sure. But hopefully I don’t have to worry about them talking.”

I punched in the number to my division again and asked the operator to connect me to Captain Brady’s office. After she did, I kept my fingers crossed and held my breath, praying that Brady would be in and available. I knew exactly what to tell him to get him to come to my place, having thought of it only moments ago.

“John Brady speaking,” a voice said that I recognized so well and held so dear I momentarily forgot that I was not actually speaking to John Brady, my captain of more than five years, but to a stranger.