Blond Cargo (17 page)

He wasn’t going to get any argument from Jack, who added, “Didn’t the sultan of Brunei get some nasty publicity a few years back for paying to have women delivered to his palace and then holding them against their will?”

“He did,” Mateo said. “And he can’t be the only one who’s twisted enough to play that game.”

“So, if it’s a sex ring, why are they killing their bottom line?” Jack threw out to the team.

Cruz looked up from the screen again. “They kill greyhounds when they start losing races.”

“That’s cold,” Jack said. “But I can appreciate the train of thought.”

Mateo jumped in. “The first girl did OD. Maybe Angelica was picked up to fill an order.”

“A definite maybe,” Jack said.

The men took a moment to process that piece of ugliness.

“When did that guy, Malic . . . ?” Jack asked, looking for a last name.

“Al-Yasiri,” Mateo gave him.

“Right, when did Malic al-Yasiri come to work for the Vargas Development Group?” Jack asked, shifting gears.

“Two months before Raul Vargas was released from federal prison. And he’s Iraqi,” Mateo added, knowing where Jack was going. “I got the whole story from Chatty Cathy. She said it dominated the gossip around the watercooler for weeks. This was right around the time that Philippe Vargas was fighting to keep his head above water. He’d mortgaged all of his properties and they were about to topple like dominoes. An office pool at the Department of Building and Safety was wagering on when the Vargas Development Group would go belly-up. And then at the eleventh hour, he found the golden goose.”

“Malic al-Yasiri,” Jack said.

“The same. Word around the office was that Malic immigrated to the States after the fall of Baghdad with a bag full of cash. Rumor was, he had some juice with the State Department. Clean bill of health as far as anyone knows, but I’ll do some digging.”

“Do we have a picture of him?” Jack asked.

“Nothing yet.”

“Now, all the while Vargas Senior was struggling to maintain,” Mateo went on, “he was fighting and calling in every favor owed to get his kid out of jail. No easy feat.”

“Let’s see if there’s any traction between the hiring of Malic and the release of Raul,” Jack said. “Philippe’s political connections might have been enough to work the magic, but a well-placed call from the State Department could’ve sealed the deal.”

Jack started to pack up his MacBook Pro.

“Where you headed,
jefe
?”

“Beverly Hills. The Chop House.”

“Early lunch?”

“Vincent Cardona. It’s time to reacquaint father and daughter.”

27

The heavy metal door that led to the basement, meat locker, pantry, and storage area of the Beverly Hills Chop House swung open, and a man with a burlap sack over his head, cinched tightly around his neck, was shoved down the short flight of metal steps and tumbled hard onto the cement floor below. Vincent Cardona’s cousin Frankie followed, closing the doors to the alleyway behind him, shutting out the light. Fluorescent bulbs lent an otherworldly edge to the room. His jowly face tightened as he punt-kicked his captive and then lifted the man off the floor with remarkable ease.

Vincent Cardona was standing next to the large thick-glassed meat locker, where sides of beef were butchered and steaks were air-dried and aged to perfection. He held the double-sealed door open and gestured with a nod of his head.

“In here, Frankie.”

His cousin roughly pushed the whimpering man into the cold room, muscled him down into a chair behind a butcher’s table, and ripped off the burlap sack.

The young man had black hair, piercing eyes blinking wide with fear, thin fine features on a handsome face. Both of the man’s arms were tattooed with bright greens, yellows, and reds—an ink rendering of a rain forest. The bright blue tail of a parrot wound gracefully around one forearm. Yet amid the sweeping vines were the track marks of a heroin needle.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Cardona, it’ll never happen again,” he said with an upper-class French accent as he rubbed his neck where the tape had ripped off skin. “I promise you on the life of my son. Never again.”

Cardona signaled to Frankie the Man, who backhanded their prisoner, knocking snot, tears, and spit out of every bruised orifice.

Vincent Cardona closed the door to the meat locker, keeping the chill in and the sound out. He unzipped a fine leather carrying case and spread the flaps open onto the wooden cutting table. Five finely honed Japanese carving knives of different lengths and thicknesses were held in place by orange silk sheaths.

“Which one’s your favorite?” Cardona asked as if he really cared.

The young chef tried to answer, but his mouth was too dry to speak. He pointed at a small paring knife. He knew where this drama was headed, and his choice of the shortest blade almost made Cardona laugh. But not quite.

“I’m going to be reasonable here. Not sure why. Maybe because you’re a great chef.”

The young man’s face turned beet red. Tears started to pour down his cheeks.

“Pick a finger,” Cardona ordered. “You know where I’m going with this.”

“Please.” His voice was a rasping tremolo. “It’s my trade; I’ll work off the loss. I’ve got family.”

Cardona grabbed the man’s wrists and pounded them down onto the wooden tabletop. “Which hand did you use to steal from me again? Not just me, all the other men and women who put in an honest night’s work here. Which fucking hand did you use to manipulate my fuckin’ receipts?” he said, snarling.

The young Frenchman’s eyes started to roll back into their sockets. Cardona gave way as Frankie slapped him back to consciousness. Frankie had the skill set to beat a man just short of unconscious, keep him lucid enough to feel more pain, or hit him hard enough to end his life.

“Think hard and clear now,” Cardona hissed. “You’ve got one last chance. You control your destiny. If it’s dealer’s choice, my choice, you’ll never hold a knife again.”

The Frenchman screamed.

“My left hand, my pinky finger!”

Japanese hardened steel flashed in a lightning strike, impaling the man’s pinky finger to the wooden cutting block. He looked down at his hand, and before he could scream, Vincent Cardona pounded on the dull side of the knife with his meaty fist and the razor-sharp blade severed the joint of the finger just above the fleshy part of the hand, like a chicken bone.

The popping sound the blade made, cutting through bone and sinew, turned the Frenchman’s red face to white. He let loose with an animal wail. Frankie slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth.

Cardona tossed the knife onto the butcher-block table and stepped back as blood spurted from the man’s mutilated hand. He gestured to his cousin, who threw the thief a towel.

Cardona looked down at his shirt and spotted a bloodstain.

“Shit!” he said as he slapped the Frenchman on the side of the head. “I’m buying a new shirt and it’s coming out of your next paycheck.”

The young man wrapped the finger with the towel and tried to stanch the flow of blood.

“You caught your hand in the dumbwaiter. No one will believe you, but no one will steal from me again. If I didn’t like your kid, you’d be a dead frog.”

Cardona looked to Frankie. “Get him cleaned up, take him to Cedars, and put the bill on my MasterCard.” Then he looked down at his handiwork. “Put the finger down the disposal. I don’t want them to find it and sew it back on.”

The Frenchman was going into shock as a pissed Cardona dabbed at the stain on his silk shirt, closed the glass door behind him, and started for the stairs.

Peter came rushing down, glanced at the scene in the meat locker and then back at Cardona. “Bertolino’s here. I said we were closed. He said he’s got news. Gotta show you something important.”

Vincent Cardona tucked his shirt back into his pants, buttoned his sports jacket over the bloodstain, and walked up the stairs to his restaurant.

Jack, standing at the bar, watched the six-panel wooden door swing open and Vincent Cardona fill the door frame before heading in his direction. His eyes were heavy-lidded and cold. Jack saw a red crease across the meaty part of Cardona’s hand as he thrust it forward to shake.

Peter entered the room behind his boss but never gave Jack eye contact, which wasn’t the norm. He moved beyond the two men and slid into a red leather booth, picked up a
Los Angeles Times
, and buried his head.

“I’ve got something you’ll want to see,” Jack said. He couldn’t swear to it, but he thought the big man smelled of testosterone and violence.

“It better be good.”

So much for small talk, Jack thought as he opened his sleeping laptop, pulled up the URL of the YouTube video, and hit Play.

Angelica Cardona’s beautiful face filled the computer screen with dialogue from
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
. Cardona’s mouth fell open, he stood rock still, and tears started to roll down his face. No other emotion showed. The only chink in his armor was the tears. When the video came to the end, he said, “Play it again.”

Jack complied. When it ended and froze on Angelica’s face, Jack asked, “Have you ever seen the room that she’s in, or the room behind the television screen?”

“Never.”

“Does she look distressed? Does she look like she’s being held against her will?”

“She looks different. What’s she talking about?”

“It’s a scene from a play she was working on.”

“When did you get this?”

“Yesterday.”

Cardona’s head jerked in Jack’s direction. “And I’m just seeing it now?”

“I didn’t want to get your hopes up until I had more information for you. The video was posted three days ago, but it might have been generated six months ago. I’m still trying to ascertain a location.”

Vincent Cardona grabbed a bar napkin and swiped the tears off his fat cheeks. The button on his sports jacket popped open when the big man raised his arm, and Jack spied a smear of blood on his silk shirt.

“You have an accident?” Jack asked, gesturing toward the stain.

Cardona spoke without looking down. “I was cutting steaks. You want me to wrap up a few to take home?”

“I’m good. Do you know anybody in Iraq?”

“One of my guys. His kid’s in the army. Why?”

“We think that’s where the video originated. An eight-year-old boy posted it. We know the general area, but we’re waiting on an address.”

“It was his father’s.”

Cardona’s remark came out of the blue, and Jack said, “What?”

“The video on the TV screen was his father’s. The kid shot it. I stole a nude picture out of my father’s drawer when I was about that age. Took it to school and got dragged to the principal’s office when I passed it around class and Mrs. Stern grabbed it. What do you think?” he asked, referring to the tape.

“Makes sense, Vincent. That’s why we need an address. I’m working on it. Just know, if she’s alive, I’m gonna find her.”

“I’d like to be there,” Cardona said murderously.

“Don’t count on it.” Jack knew how that would turn out. The guilty party would never see the inside of a courtroom. “But this
is
good news, Vincent.”

Cardona stared at his daughter’s face on the computer screen. “She looks like her mother.” And then, “You’re doing good, Bertolino. I knew I didn’t make a mistake reaching out. Get her back.”

Jack nodded as he shut down the computer and headed for the entrance. His gaze drifted to the six-panel door leading to the restaurant’s basement. His cop radar, which kicked in as he walked past, left him with an overwhelming sense of dread.

28

Thirty minutes later Jack was motoring down the San Diego Freeway, going over all the things on his to-do list for the rest of the day: calls to make, traces, follow-ups, surveillance to set up.

The Marina Freeway turnoff loomed a quarter mile ahead and, at seventy miles an hour, was closing fast. As he started to merge onto the off ramp, he had a sudden thought about his son, Chris. He vividly recalled Cardona’s reaction to the video of his daughter. Following his instincts, Jack veered sharply to the left and continued down the 405 toward LAX. Everything else would have to wait.

The early spring light illuminated the most mundane objects from the window of the Boeing 737. Emerald-green hills were alive with development and industrial commerce surrounding the iconic skyline of San Francisco. Sailboats with multicolored spinnakers heeled to one side in the choppy waters and shared sea lanes with cargo-laden freighters. The Golden Gate Bridge glowed brightly in the afternoon sun, an architectural wonder that could put a smile on the most cynical face.

Jack barely noticed. He was worried. He had put in two unanswered calls to Chris as he waited to board the plane and was now going to show up unannounced and knock on his son’s dorm room at Stanford.

Chris had warned him in no uncertain terms to stay away, to let him go through his emotional trauma alone. But Jack had to make sure Chris understood that he
wasn’t
alone. Not in his fear, not in his recovery, not in this lifetime. He had family who loved him. Maybe his drug use was just a momentary lapse, self-medicating to make the pain in his healing arm go away. If not, Jack was going to make sure that he reached out.

After landing, Jack checked back into the Garden Court, the only hotel he knew in town, and then walked up Campus Drive toward Klein Field at Sunken Diamond and watched the baseball team practice, hoping for a glimpse of his son somewhere in the stadium. Chris wasn’t there, which Jack found disturbing, and he still wasn’t answering his phone. Jack headed over to Florence Moore Hall, better known as FloMo. Within the asymmetrical grouping of seven separate student houses, Chris lived in Alondra. His building was all freshmen, coed, and the tab was entirely picked up by his athletic scholarship. It was a high honor.

Jack walked through the front door and took the stairs to the second floor. It was late-afternoon quiet and Jack stood for a moment outside of room 2B, raised his big fist, and then knocked. He listened. Not hearing any movement, he knocked again, a little harder. Jack’s heartbeat started to elevate; he was getting upset, a little light-headed, not knowing where Chris was, imagining the worst. He knocked one last time, hard. A young man three doors down opened his door, looked out, saw Jack’s state of mind, and just as quickly closed the door. As Jack turned to walk away, 2B was yanked open and he heard, “What!”