Blond Cargo (27 page)

Thankfully, his cousin Frankie stayed up top with Peter.

Cardona started in even before he lowered his three-hundred-fifty-pound frame into a canvas chair. “Start talkin’, Jack. I don’t like being kept in the dark.”

“A childhood thing?” Jack said, going for comedy.

“We got the mayor’s office protecting the drug-dealing wannabe hoodlum. Explain that to me for a starter, Jack. Whatta they got on ’em?”

“I don’t think it’s that.”

“Enlighten me.”

“It’s more a relationship of mutual needs. That and turning a blind eye. Real estate, tax revenues, reelections, and bragging rights.”

“So, his father buys a pardon and now the kid’s the anointed one. And what’s the tie-in with that al-Yasiri guy?”

Jack took a sip of wine and decided to play it straight. He prayed he wouldn’t live to regret his decision.

“From what I’ve put together, Raul was the spotter the night Angelica disappeared. I have him on tape taking a picture of your daughter and then forwarding her image to a second party. We think it was sent to Malic al-Yasiri.”

“Whattaya got on al-Yasiri?”

“I’ve got him tied to a sheik in Iraq who collects horses and maybe women. His eight-year-old son’s the one who posted Angelica’s video.”

“You told me that at the club, and I pegged the father for it. What’s the connection?”

“Malic and he were school chums. It’s too much of a coincidence without some involvement there. I just haven’t nailed down the exact connection. Malic is protected by the State Department, Raul is protected by everyone else.”

“They filed paper on you. How’re you gonna get close?”

“It’s what I do, Vincent. I’ll get close and they won’t know I’m there. Everything is coming to a head and I don’t want to force them into doing anything rash.”

“You mean other than kidnapping my fucking girl?” Vincent said.

“I need forty-eight hours, Vincent. A few more days. I need you to trust your instincts. That’s the reason you reached out to me in the first place and not Vinnie Badda-Bing up there.”

“He’s my cousin, Jack. A little respect.”

“I lost my head,” Jack deadpanned.

“Could happen. It’s all I’m sayin’. ”

Jack leaned forward, wanting to bring an end to the discussion.

“I’ll bring Angelica home. I’m getting close. But I want you to hear me on this: if I push too hard, it’s your daughter who’s going to feel the pain.”

Vincent wanted to say something, but his emotion got his tongue.

“Go home, Vincent. I’ll call as soon as I have something to report.”

“Don’t blow smoke up my ass, Jack.”

“I want to shut these guys down for good. I’m all in.”

Vincent Cardona lifted the edge of the tinfoil, took in Jack’s steak, and rolled his eyes.

Everyone’s a critic, Jack thought.

“Forty-eight hours, Jack, if you can stay alive that long.”

“Hell of a vote of confidence.”

“Prove me wrong, Jack.”

Vincent Cardona pushed his massive frame up and out of the canvas chair. The boat dipped as he stepped off.

“And if that Vargas prick laid hands on my girl, I’m gonna take his hands. Eye for an eye. It’s a Sicilian thing. Same goes for the raghead.”

Jack knew it wasn’t an idle threat.

Vicodin, Excedrin, and a hearty red wine had dulled the pain in Jack’s back. The throbbing was always present, just below the surface, waiting to make an appearance.

The waves of gold, gray, and flamingo pink that streaked the early evening sky helped Jack momentarily forget about the ugliness at the root of this case. Jack had experienced slavery before, but in that case the master was a drug. A drug-dealing scumbag who ran a crack empire in Long Island City got his entire family hooked on his drugs, and then he allowed them to run his business to stay nose-deep in crystal-white powder.

Slavery fueled by drugs and greed. Not far off the mark from his present case. Throw sex into the mix and he had the trifecta from hell.

Leslie rolled on top of Jack, holding tight, not wanting to lose contact. She bit his lip, and tugged at his long hair, and tightened and pulsed and moved in a maddening rhythm. Their breathing and heartbeats, one.

Then a shrill car alarm echoed from the parking lot adjacent to the boat’s slip. The mood was altered, but the lovers persevered, not wanting to break the rhythm toward the release that was so close. Yet the insistent clanging went on. And on. When it shifted tones, and started to beep and wail, both of them grew still.

“What the . . . ? Really? Whose car is that?” Leslie asked breathlessly.

“Damned if I know.” And then, “Shit, it could be my rental.”

A warning note—not just from tonight but for all the other nights that had come before—entered her voice. “Well, shut it off, Jack. Goddamn it. And come back to bed.”

Jack jumped off the bunk and eased into a pair of jeans, commando. He grabbed his nine-millimeter and walked shirtless and barefoot out of the cabin onto the dock. He walked gingerly to avoid splinters and made his stealthy way to the parking lot. Sure enough, his black 335i’s headlights were blinking, horn wailing. Pulling the keys from his pocket, Jack pointed and clicked the fob until the fucking alarm went silent.

Thank God, he thought.

Jack saw the muzzle flash from the side of the marine sales building before he heard the sickening sound of automatic weapons fire puncturing the metal body of his BMW.

Jack fired once where the light erupted—and then clicked on an empty chamber. He hadn’t reloaded since the firefight in Ontario.

Instantly in motion, Jack ducked and ran. The bullets arced across his car, ripping metal, exploding glass, setting off other car alarms in the lot, and then tearing into the Lexus parked next to his as he ran by.

That was Leslie’s car, Jack thought as he spun, doubled back, jumped the fence, and sprinted down the dock. The aged wooden slats splintered as the automatic rounds traced Jack’s movements. They were closing in.

Leslie was standing in the open cockpit wearing one of Jack’s T- shirts, a phone to her ear.

“Run! Now!” Jack said as he dodged to the left, grabbed her hand, and pulled her down toward the end of the dock an instant before cop-killer bullets peppered his boat in the spot where she had been standing. High-caliber intensity smashed the cockpit windows, chewed up teak and equipment, and then nipped at their heels.

Jack and Leslie leaped off the pier.

They splashed down and disappeared below the water’s surface. The sea was dark, murky, and Jack pulled her away from the deadly bullets that thwacked and corkscrewed into the water and then went silent.

They surfaced three docks down, spitting oily water and taking in huge gulps of air. They hugged the damp pilings and each other while they waited for the second assault that never materialized. All they could hear were car doors slamming, tires squealing, and then, thankfully, a siren in the distance growing louder as it moved closer.

39

Malic was seated behind the ornately carved desk in his home office. The side of his face reflected the blue light emanating from his television monitor. He watched two of his men, who were now being housed in his guest quarters, walk leisurely past the aquamarine water of the Olympic-sized swimming pool, checking the loads on their MAC-10 submachine pistols. His face changed color as he fought to control his seething rage. He turned back to his computer screen and the obsequious image of Sheik Ibrahim pacing in front of his own flat-screen television—in Iraq—with his blue, white, and gold–tiled living room as a backdrop.

“I blame you, not my
son
,
you
, for being so dramatic you felt the need to send the tape of the girl’s theatrics to sell me in the first place.” The sheik’s voice was pouty, defensive, and ugly. “I was sold,” he continued, hammering
sold
, “when you told me she resembled Kayla. I should never have let that one get away.”

It was the sheik’s condescending reminder that he had bedded Malic’s wife first when they were college students. Malic would’ve been happy to kill the man for making him suffer the boring repetition.

“That being said,” he droned on like a bad dream, “now that the legal attaché is involved, it wouldn’t be prudent to consummate the deal.”

Malic’s ears started to buzz and his heart beat with an unhealthy rhythm as he saw his deal disintegrate. He turned in his chair and stared at the perfection of Matisse’s
La Pastorale
.

“They have the local police in their hip pockets and could make my life very difficult indeed.”

The sheik paused for dramatic effect.

“Once they pull that first thread in the rug”—he mimed with his pudgy forefinger and thumb—“all that is left in the end is a dusty floor. And I cannot risk that, Malic. More to the point, I will not risk that. Not for this woman, not for any woman. And not even for you, my old friend. Are we clear?”

The sheik had worked up his own head of steam, and the little man’s coy demeanor had been replaced by deadly venom.

“I wired you the agreed-upon sum in good faith. Now I expect the money to be deposited back in my account by day’s end or you better start packing the Matisse. I shall enjoy its company until such time as you can repay your debt. That is more than fair, already agreed upon, and nonnegotiable.”

Malic was swept up by a sudden, overwhelming urge to feed the sheik his own beating heart on the end of a dagger. But Malic was a pragmatist. And his course of action would be guided by current events.

The death of Jack Bertolino would buy him some time on his end. His quick mind would discover a way to assuage the sheik.

His revenge would be total, but in its proper time.

Malic acceded to the sheik’s wishes and promised to call back before the end of banking hours. He signed off abruptly as he caught sight of Hassan running across the lawn with a tragic look on his face.

“He’s still alive,” Hassan said, the ugly truth barely able to pass his lips.

It was last call at the Paradise Cove Beach Café’s bar. Raul Vargas had lost count of his drinks consumed and the time. He’d emptied the joint and couldn’t get over the feeling that the bartender was happy to see him go. Fuck him, Raul thought as he walked on unsteady legs to the far side of the parking lot, where his car stood alone. Parking there was the only way to keep his baby from getting scratched. The midnight-blue paint job looked almost purple in the reflection of the security light, and he dug it.

Raul didn’t see the faint red glow of Maggie Sheffield’s Marlboro up on her cliffside porch, or Maggie herself, sitting in the dark, looking down as he unzipped his fly and took a leak on the cinder-block wall in front of the Mercedes. He didn’t hear the slight clacking of her ice in the red metal goblet she used for her late-night gin and tonics, or the pleased murmur as her favorite liquid slid down her throat.

He did hear an engine spark to life. Before he could shake off his dick, a squeal of brakes erupted behind him. As he fumbled to zip himself up, a burlap sack was thrown over his head. Two beefy men grabbed him and dragged him, kicking furiously, into the back of a white step van, already on the move before the door slid shut. The van powered into a sliding U-turn and roared past the empty security shack, bouncing violently over the speed bumps up the winding service road to the Pacific Coast Highway.

The red tip of Maggie’s cigarette glowed brightly as she took a languid drag and chased it with a pull of her favorite elixir. Something about the smell of the juniper berry mixing with the salt air spelled heaven on earth to Maggie. Maybe one more, she thought. After all, the night had turned out far better than she expected.

Jack was standing on the twenty-third-floor balcony of Leslie’s condo in the Wilshire Corridor. On the horizon a salmon-pink glow was bleeding into the night sky. Wilshire Boulevard was eerily silent, a dark ribbon all the way to the Pacific. His hair was still damp from his recent shower, and Leslie was finishing up in the bathroom. She had been silent the entire drive from the marina, sitting in the back of an LAPD black-and-white. She’d uttered not a word of recrimination as they watched both of their destroyed cars being towed away. They were alive and for the moment it put everything else in perspective. Leslie desired the safety and comfort of her own bed after the events of the night, and she got no argument from Jack. The more time he spent away from his loft, the more time he had to pursue the case unencumbered by the pending restraining order.

Jack was dead on his feet but not dead. The adrenaline had worn off and his back was spiking with white pain that trumped his drug cocktail.

Leslie walked out of the bathroom wearing a thick white cotton bathrobe she had purchased at the Ventana resort in Big Sur. It made her feel pampered and centered, she had told him. Jack hoped it would work its magic in the wee hours. It was not to be.

She didn’t reach out, and Jack stood pat.

“Three cars in the past week? New record, Jack?” Her eyes crinkled into a smile, but there was no humor.

“Not my proudest moment.”

“Get the feeling you’re in the wrong line of work?”

“Crossed my mind.”

“Hmmm.”

Leslie gave Jack an appraising once-over. Trying to formulate a decision.

“You saved my life, Jack . . . that goes in the plus column.”

“But if you hadn’t been with me . . . ,” Jack said, finishing her thought.

“Exactly.”

“Cops got it wrong,” he said. “It wasn’t the Mexican Mafia.”

“You know best? You might be too close to the case. Skewing the evidence to fit the crime.”

Jack didn’t like the implication. “It has Malic’s stink all over it,” he said defensively, wishing he had held back.

The police who arrived at the scene weren’t convinced. They pulled up a copy of the complaint Jack had filed after the first attempt on his life and decided it was case closed.

Jack looked into Leslie’s hazel eyes, trying to get a handle on where the conversation was headed. He couldn’t read her and fought the urge to reach out.

“You know I love you, Jack?”