Blond Cargo (5 page)

“Did anyone at the school try to contact her?”

“The registrar, I called a few times, and Carol camped out in front of her apartment.”

“You said Carol works as a waitress?”

“At the Mondrian,” the woman said. When it was clear from Jack’s expression that the name didn’t strike a chord, she added, “the Mondrian Hotel on Sunset.”

Jack handed Barry and his assistant each a card.

“If anything comes to mind, if you hear a rumor, if she contacts you, anything, this is where I can be reached twenty-four/seven. I’d appreciate a call,” Jack said.

“And if you change your mind about the acting,” Barry said, “let’s talk. I think you’ve got something.”

“I’ve got something all right,” Jack said, amused. “But what I want is to find Angelica.”

7

Angelica Cardona’s eyelids fluttered then snapped open. Her green eyes were bright and relaxed and then, as she got her bearings, darkened with the speed of a roiling storm cloud blocking the sun. All emotion and color washed out in a heartbeat.

She closed her eyes again and then willed herself awake, uncovering her legs from underneath the white silk sheets and draping them over the side of the king-sized bed.

Her blond hair was feathered across her beautiful face, but she didn’t notice. She pulled down her silk teddy. The material was just enough to cover her. Angelica stood up, moved deliberately to a pair of slippers that had been neatly placed next to the wall, and stepped into them. She headed across the plush gray carpet to a full closet, where she shrugged into a silk bathrobe that did more to accentuate her perfect figure than cover it.

The room was well appointed, like a suite in a high-end hotel. Beautiful bed, fluffy white down pillows and comforter, black-lacquered designer furniture, modern prints on three blue plaster walls, but no windows. There was a large kitchenette with a silver tray laden with sweet rolls and muffins, and a coffeemaker that had been set on a timer was now filling a carafe with fresh brew.

No windows.

Angelica filled a coffee mug and paced the length of the room, lost in thought. Coffee mug in hand, taking small, safe sips. Small, safe steps. Losing count. The steps became strides, more exaggerated and more manic as she paced back and forth. And then with volcanic ferocity she spun and hurled the coffee mug.

The mug seemed to explode into thin air. The mass of brown liquid fanned out and flattened like a Rorschach test. It dripped down the perfectly clear, thick Plexiglas fourth wall like the dark tears she would never reveal to her unknown captor.

Angelica strode into the kitchenette, picked up another mug, filled it with hot coffee, and drank. She picked up a sweet roll and ate. She threw the breakfast roll back onto the dish, sucked in a furious breath, hit the rug, and started humping out push-ups. Angelica wasn’t in control of much, but she knew that if she didn’t keep up her strength, she would die in her Plexiglas cage.

Malic al-Yasiri sat Jesuit-straight behind an ornately carved desk. Thirty-eight years old, he weighed in at one hundred seventy pounds without an ounce of body fat. He had short, dark, brush-cut hair, salted with silver, and severe features that rendered him just short of handsome. His mirthless, coal-black eyes were trained on a sixty-inch flat-screen monitor while he sipped thick Turkish coffee. His eyes creased, but it was more a gesture of avarice than a smile.

Malic dispassionately observed Angelica’s outburst and her daily morning routine. Twenty-five push-ups, twenty-five sit-ups, twenty-five squat-thrusts, and then repeat. Malic watched like a scientist, one might say. Like a connoisseur, he would argue. A collector.

His eyes shifted to Matisse’s
La Pastorale
, lit with a pin spot on the mahogany-paneled wall to his right. The original. Procured through a very private party after the Musée d’Art Moderne heist in 2010. It relaxed him and thrilled him at the same time.

The glint of pure yellow gold caught his eye. A two-thousand-year-old Mesopotamian statuette he had personally pillaged from the National Museum of Iraq.

While the Republican Guard risked their lives repelling American artillery from the upper floors of the Baghdad museum, Malic was cherry-picking some of his country’s most precious treasures in the safety of the basement.

A slight knock at the door brought him out of his reverie. He glanced out the window as he touched three buttons on a panel that slid out from under his desktop. The video display of Angelica wiping the sweat off the back of her neck turned to black and disappeared behind the paneled wall. Another mahogany panel slid in front of the Matisse, and a third hid the gold statuette from prying eyes. He stood, straightened his tailored Armani suit, snugged his floral-pattern silk tie, and unlatched the heavy door to his office.

A dark-haired beauty ran in and jumped into her father’s powerful arms. Five years old, precocious, spoiled, Saarah. His little princess, and the only real love of his life. She was the collector’s prize possession.

Malic looked over his daughter’s shoulder and stroked her head as his wife, Kayla, cleared the edge of the infinity pool. He looked with pride, past his wife, to the main house beyond the aquamarine water and the manicured gardens, to the eight-foot wall that surrounded his gated compound and protected what belonged to him.

“If you don’t leave now, you’ll be sitting in traffic for two hours,” his wife said as she appeared in the doorway. She was oval-eyed, exquisite. She wore a multicolored silk hijab head scarf that hung loosely over her natural blond hair and framed her perfect face. She never stepped foot into the converted guest and pool house. Malic was the only one besides the engineer and workers who knew how intricate the conversion had been.

“You are right, my love,” Malic said, his voice deep and resonant. He spoke perfect English with a slight British accent. An affectation he had acquired during his studies at Oxford, along with his future bride.

The drive from Orange County to downtown L.A. was always a challenge. “Have Hassan bring the car around. And you,” he said, turning his attention to his young charge. “You be a good girl and know that you are loved.”

“Okay, Daddy.” She put on her best pouty face until he kissed her forehead and handed her off to his wife before securely locking the door behind him.

Malic desired to take one last look at his blond prisoner. She would be stepping into the bathtub right about now. But he really didn’t have the time. That was fine, he thought. She would be his alone for as long as it took to complete the deal.

8

Vincent Cardona wasn’t happy that Jack had a previous commitment. He wasn’t happy Jack refused to accept any payment. But Vincent was really unhappy that his daughter was still missing and reluctantly agreed to Jack’s terms.

Cardona slammed down the phone with a fury.

“Follow that fuck!” he raged at Peter, his face purple-red, the vein on his temple swollen and throbbing. “I wanna know what the fuck Bertolino’s fuckin’ doing twenty-four/seven. And if he finds out you’re following him, shoot yourself with your own gun. It’ll hurt a lot less than if I get my hands around your fuckin’ neck. Now get the fuck outta here.”

Peter, having been trained by the best, moved quickly out of Cardona’s sight.

Angelica’s building was located in a lower-rent district of Beverly Hills. The only thing it shared with its rich cousin to the north was the zip code. The Big Man had called ahead and spoken with Angelica’s landlord, who was outside her apartment having a smoke while Jack took a look around.

Apartment 3B was a one-bedroom on the ground floor of a modest, midsixties, well-maintained eight-unit apartment building. Two stories, off-white stucco, green trim, manicured lawn, and mature evergreen hedges.

The front door opened into the living room, and Jack lingered there to get a feel for the place and maybe get a feel for Angelica before he slipped on a pair of disposable gloves and booties and closed the door behind him.

The floors were white oak and highly polished. Angelica’s furniture was shabby chic. Overstuffed tan sofa and a large faded blue paisley chair that looked well worn and comfortable. A modern reading lamp with double white glass globes stood sentry between the two pieces of furniture.

A large wicker basket of unopened mail had been placed directly underneath the mail slot located on the wall next to the door. Jack picked out the phone bill and credit card receipts that had arrived in the past few days.

Angelica’s laptop was on a small wooden table that looked out onto the heavy afternoon traffic on Beverly Boulevard, but the room remained remarkably silent. Jack pulled out a flash drive and downloaded the MacBook Pro’s hard drive. He’d have Cruz tear it apart.

He was most interested in her social media sites, her e-mail accounts, and her Instagram files. It always amazed Jack how much personal information people were willing to share in this environment of increased identity theft and cyber hacking. A digital trail that could follow the youth of America to their graves—or Todd Dearling to prison, he mused with satisfaction. But Jack knew it might also provide valuable clues as to Angelica’s whereabouts.

Her bedroom was feminine but understated and perfectly clean except for a few articles of clothing draped haphazardly on her well-made bed, as if she had changed her mind a few times before she left her apartment. Jack was interested in reconstructing her itinerary the day she disappeared.

Her closet was neat. High-end designer fashions on one side, J.Crew, jeans, and workout clothes on the other. A few empty wooden hangers marked the designer side, and from the quality of the blouses that were strewn on the bed, she had walked out the door dressed for show.

Angelica was orderly and composed. An empty suitcase was in the back of her closet; a carry-on bag stood next to her shoe rack. Again, orderly, not too many empty slots. It didn’t look as if she had packed for an extended trip. In fact, it didn’t look like she had packed at all.

The bathroom was filled with her toiletries. No prescription drugs to speak of except for a bottle of Zyrtec, which could now be purchased over the counter. No spare toothbrushes or men’s toiletries under the sink or in any of her drawers. No birth control. Jack remembered that his ex-wife used to carry hers jammed in her overstuffed bag along with the rest of her crowded life, in case she forgot to take one in the morning.

The analgesics reminded Jack that his back was starting to throb, so he dry-chewed two Excedrin and walked into the kitchen in search of water to wash them down.

Other than the dregs in the bottom of a coffee cup that had been placed in the sink, the kitchen was spotless. Jack took a mouthful of water from the faucet and washed down the bitter pills. He opened the cabinet next to the sink and saw orderly rows of wineglasses and coffee mugs and water goblets. The dishes were stacked neatly, according to size.

Some fruit and vegetables were shriveled and growing purple hair in the fridge but nothing unusual for three and a half weeks out. Bottled water, condiments, and a half-drunk bottle of Chardonnay. Again, it didn’t look like she had been planning a trip, and from all appearances, Angelica was a woman who took care of the details. Nothing loose about her bill paying. Nothing loose about the way she lived.

Jack fielded a phone call as he walked back into the living room. Carol Williams agreed to an interview after her waitress shift at the Mondrian Hotel. Ten o’clock gave him pause, but he wanted to get as much accomplished as possible before traveling north again.

He moved up to a Pottery Barn–style bookcase that stood next to Angelica’s desk. It was lined with:
A Life in the Theatre
,
Stanislavski
,
Stella Adler on America’s Master Playwrights
,
The Method
, and multiple biographies of film and theater stars. And then row upon row of paperback plays that were all stamped
Samuel French Bookshop
and were probably used for her scene study work at the Strasberg institute.

Jack pulled out a dog-eared copy of
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
and flipped through the pages. He had seen a Broadway production of the play starring Kathleen Turner back in the nineties when his marriage was still a success and they were both still trying.

Handwritten notes filled the margins in precise pencil. This was one serious young woman, Jack thought. Nothing frivolous about her.

No family pictures, except one silver-framed photo that had turned sepia-brown with age. A very attractive woman, probably her mother. He replaced the picture on the shelf and picked up an unframed eight-by-ten glossy headshot of Angelica. It was definitely her mother. Jack could see a clear resemblance in her eyes.

No cell phone; the new bill just had a carry-over balance. No new calls. The few snapshots in the drawer of the desk also seemed older. Jack gathered them up and would let Cardona put names with the faces. No boyfriends, no letters, nothing personal to give Jack any direction at all. He found a spare key that matched the apartment door key and pocketed it in case he wanted another look around.

Angelica’s childhood seemed to have been left behind in the Beverly Hills home. Jack made a mental note to ring up Cardona and take a look at her old room. Get a feel for how she grew up.

The gray-haired landlord cracked the door a sliver, peeked his head into the unit, and almost leaped out of his skin when Jack pulled the door the rest of the way open. They both laughed as the startled man feigned a heart attack. He locked up and then showed Jack Angelica’s parking space in the enclosed garage.

Everyone’s an actor, Jack thought.

Cardona had provided a key for the late-model red Miata, and Jack spent the next twenty minutes combing through the car—under the seats, in the glove compartment, behind the visor, and in the trunk—for anything of interest. The small sports car was as clean as her apartment. He found a few gas receipts and some Post-its with addresses written in ink that had been filed in the car’s owner’s manual. There were no names, and Jack decided to add the addresses to his yellow pad and track them down at a later date.