Blond Cargo (6 page)

The Excedrin was burning a hole in Jack’s gut. Either that, or it was his growing sense of unease about Angelica’s disappearance. She’d been missing for over three weeks; Jack knew her chances of being alive were slim. She might have been grabbed, he thought. But no one had come forward with a ransom note, despite her rich father. Jack hoped her acting partner could reveal more secrets about Angelica than her barren apartment had.

9

Jack was sitting in his favorite booth, at his favorite restaurant, across from his favorite woman, who had just pushed her uneaten duck breast to the center of the table, choked the life out of her cloth napkin, and laid it carefully down beside her plate.

Arsinio approached Jack’s booth with a smile on his face, but the chill stopped him in his tracks. He turned on his heel and moved back to the bar area. Smart man. The uneaten plate of food in front of Leslie and the one large bite out of Jack’s burger said it all to the sage waiter.

Hal’s Bar and Grill was buzzing with the west-side after-work crowd. The New York feel, lively bar, and consistent food made it Jack’s go-to place. As long as he didn’t have the interview until ten o’clock, he figured he might as well enjoy dinner. The large metal sculptures that separated the bar from the restaurant, the museum-quality photographs and first-class art, provided by local Venice artists, set the place apart from the pack. The volume was up in the large open room, and so was the growing tension at Jack’s booth with a view overlooking the entire room and the front door. Old cop’s habit that Rebecca, the maître d’, respected and accommodated.

“So, are we having our first argument?” Jack asked, and then flexed his jaw. He stared straight into Leslie’s angry eyes, trying and failing to lighten the mood.

“I’m a DDA, Jack. I work for the district attorney. My boyfriend works for the mob.”

“It’s not mob business. Angelica isn’t in the mob.”

“It’s all mob business with them, Jack. Who are you kidding?”

“I thought we discussed not bringing politics into the bedroom.”

“Good luck on that score.”

“Now you’re starting to piss me off.”

“Great rejoinder, Jack. Next you’re going to tell me it’s a matter of honor.”

“It is a matter of honor. Cardona may have saved my son’s life.”

But Leslie was buying none of it.

“So you’re telling me that you turned down a hundred and twenty K a year from the mayor because you felt too constricted, and you’re going to accept a job with a mobster where you won’t accept a salary, because you’d feel too constricted.”

“Well, if you couch it like that . . .”

“Jack.” Leslie threw up her hands, her voice rising in volume. “Remind me not to call you when I make my next deal. You and Tony Soprano?”

Jack shushed her with his hands. People were starting to glance in their direction and Jack was getting hot under the collar.

“He was there for my boy. It’s his daughter. I don’t care what his history is.”

Leslie was giving him no love, just the flinty eyes of a prosecutor. “Jack, I mean, I usually have all the answers, and I’m dumbstruck.”

Jack emptied his wineglass, trying to regroup.

“Are you still going to San Francisco?” she asked.

“Tomorrow, for the arraignment.”

“Let’s talk when you get back. No worries, Jack. I just have to process what’s really going on here.”

“Yeah, good, take some time,” he said, wanting to end the conversation.

And then Leslie threw a changeup: “We’ve been moving so fast.”

Huh. Wrong answer, Jack thought. “It feels right to me.”

“And to me,” she added quickly. “We want many of the same things, but clearly not all of the same things.”

Jack wasn’t fast on his verbal feet when his emotions started roiling. And so he chose to say nothing.

“Just to clarify, you’re taking on Cardona’s case?” she asked, but it was more a statement of fact.

“I don’t think his daughter is vacationing. I think she needs help.”

“Give it to the cops.”

“It may come to that. I’m open to it if need be.”

But that was as much as he was willing to concede. Jack picked up the bottle of wine and replenished their two glasses, fighting to keep his anger in check and his mouth shut. Jack had learned through the years that words had power and couldn’t always be taken back. And he didn’t want to lose the woman sitting across from him.

Leslie took a sip of cabernet and then put the glass down.

“You’re not the kind of man who can be told what to do. I understand that, Jack. It’s what attracted me to you. It’s what I love about you. Your integrity. But that noble sword can cut both ways.”

“The last thing I want to do is hurt you,” Jack said, sounding oddly hollow to himself.

“I have to make sure that I’m up for the ride. It took a long time to get to where I am in my career, politically. I know
politics
is a dirty word, but it’s part of my life and I’m not finished yet. I don’t want to be. I’d resent it, and then I’d resent you.”

Jack was going to give her as much rope as she needed.

“I have to assess the risk.”

And with that she hung herself.

“You do your risk assessment, and I’ll go up north and take care of business,” he snapped.

“Jack,” she said, trying to defuse the tension.

Jack knew he’d crossed that line, and he found himself shutting down. He’d been there before. The divorce had taken a damaging toll, and he didn’t want to relive it. Simple as that. His head was swimming and his heart started to pound.

“I’d better go,” Leslie said quietly.

No argument from Jack. He tried to control his breathing as she slid out of the booth and walked across the floor of the restaurant. He started losing the battle as the front door of Hal’s closed behind her.

Jack took a big pull on his wineglass as his cell phone rang. He was going to let it go to voice mail but picked up when he saw who was calling.

Narcotics detective Nick Aprea, Jack’s close friend and only confidant in the Los Angeles Police Department.

“So, Jack,” Nick said by way of hello.

“Nick.”

“Good news, bad news.”

“Yeah?” Jack hated this game.

“You answered the phone.”

“And?”

“There’s a contract out on your life.”

“Oh shit,” Jack said, sounding relieved. “I thought something happened to Carmen, you sounded so . . . weird.”

Carmen was Nick’s beautiful Filipina wife.

“La Eme,” Nick stated with gravitas. “Mexican Mafia. Retribution. They blame you for Mando, Mexican Mafia Mando, getting cut down by the Zetas’ commando. Go figure. I’ll keep my ear to the ground; you grow eyes in the back of your head.”

Nick was referencing the drug case he’d worked with Jack a month ago.

Jack had been instrumental in dismantling the 18th Street Angels, a multigenerational street gang that had controlled the drug trade out of Ontario for the past fifty years. Mando was La Eme, but he also ran the Angels. An important asset, from the Mexican Mafia’s standpoint.

Jack wasn’t surprised there was blowback. Not happy, but not surprised. It went with the territory. After twenty-five years in narcotics, Jack had made some good friends in his career but more than his share of enemies.

“Thanks, Nick.”

“
Vaya con Dios
, my brother.”

“Let’s hope I’m
bueno con Dios
.”

Jack clicked off, glancing at the empty booth opposite him, and then checked the front door of the restaurant. Leslie hadn’t miraculously changed her mind and come back. Jack let out a long sigh. It was going to be a long night.

10

Club Martinique was in full swing as Jack fought his way through the throng on the dance floor, balancing two glasses of cabernet. He was clearly out of his element. The crowd was filled with twentysomething Hollywood elite and more than its share of wannabes.

The computerized lights strobed with enough intensity to induce a seizure in an epileptic. The numbing volume guaranteed Jack’s ears would be ringing for the rest of the night.

He placed one of the wineglasses down in front of Carol Williams and took the seat next to her. They clinked glasses and drank. There were probably better locations to conduct the initial interview, but Jack wanted to put her at ease. Plus, he would get a feel for the last place she had seen Angelica before her disappearance.

Carol was also blond, but in a cute, pixie kind of way. Short but stacked. Blue eyes and a killer figure that could stop traffic. She had just worked a full shift at the Mondrian Hotel and took two large gulps before she came up for air.

“I’m very oral,” she said demurely, wiping her sheer plum lipstick off the rim of her glass.

A hell of an opening line, Jack thought.

“This is where we were rehearsing our scene,” she continued, referring to the table. “Sometimes it helps, being out in public. Change the environment, keep it natural.”

Jack wasn’t sure what she meant but took a sip of wine and let her talk. He was still stuck on the “oral” remark.

“Angelica was working on her sexuality. She was too repressed for Barry. And I’m supposed to work on releasing my anger, which I really think is a total crock,” she said with enough intensity that Jack believed her. “Sometimes I’m angry through an entire shift.”

“Must be good for tips,” he deadpanned.

“Oh, they don’t know. Because I repress it, or so Barry thinks.”

Jack wanted to steer the conversation away from the artist formerly known as Barry. “Did she ever date?”

Carol shook her head and pursed her lips before saying no.

“Did she ever talk about her family, her father?”

“Angelica was tight-lipped. We all knew who her father was. We didn’t really care. It was all about the work. I mean, an actress changing her name . . . who cares?”

“Do you think Angelica is the kind of woman who would just take off? Without letting anybody know?”

“No, that’s why I was so angry. You see, again, no issues with anger,” she said, raising her eyebrows to hammer her point. “There’s a lot of pressure in class to succeed. As far as I could tell—I mean as far as she would let on—class was all she had. Her safe place.”

“Did anybody hit on you, disturb your rehearsal that night, follow you out?”

“I get hit on all the time,” she said without ego as she gestured to her breasts. “Thirty-four C’s. They’re like magnets.”

Jack kept his focus on her blue eyes. Or tried to. “I can see how that might be an issue.”

“A blessing and a curse.”

“Now, back to Angelica . . . Did you leave the club together? At the end of the night?”

“No, separate cars. I left first. She used the ladies’ room.”

“What was her mood like? Did she seem preoccupied?”

“No. Oh.” She grabbed her cell phone out of her worn black leather bag and pulled up a photo. “This is us, at this table, that night.”

Carol leaned in so close their elbows touched as she showed Jack a few shots of Angelica alone at the table looking cool, calm, and collected, and then a few of herself, mugging for the camera. She flipped the screen a few times and pulled up a picture of Angelica and herself seated together with their backs to the bar.

“Could you forward these to me?” Jack asked.

“No problemo. I’m technically gifted,” she said with a Cheshire cat grin.

Jack detected a double entendre in her response and didn’t want to give her an opening. He stood up to go.

“Can’t you stay? I’m wired from work,” she said.

“I’ve got to run, early flight, but if you send me the photos it would be a great help.”

Jack planned on blowing up the pictures of Angelica and then talking to the bartenders alone, before the hordes descended. He handed Carol his card.

“If anything comes up. If you remember anything that might help, call.”

Carol drained her wineglass and stood up to say her good-byes.

“You want to follow me home?” she stage-whispered, leaning in close enough that Jack could feel her heat.

“Tempting offer,” he said, thinking of Leslie and how their relationship was suddenly up in the air.

“I’m not repressed,” she said coyly as her breasts grazed Jack’s abdomen.

“I can see that.”

But however Jack did the math, Carol Williams was twenty years younger. His son’s age. Legal, but oh hell, just wrong, he decided.

“Good night, Carol,” Jack Bertolino said, moving off before he acted on his much baser instincts.

When Jack got home, he thought about giving Leslie a call, but it was the booze talking. Waking up his computer, he saw that Carol Williams had already forwarded the photographs.

He wisely chose to work.

Jack blew up the pictures and then made color prints. As he studied each of the shots under a light in his office, he was reminded again of just how striking Angelica was. He thought about Vincent Cardona and tried to imagine what he was going through. Jack would have been in hell.

Nothing else jumped off the page. But when he tossed the photos onto his desk, the lamplight illuminated the crowd at the standing-room-only bar in the background. One man was staring straight into the camera lens, holding a martini glass. Carol was in the foreground, and the man’s gaze was lasered in on the photographer. Probably Angelica, Jack thought.

Who took the picture of both women?

Jack grabbed his phone and punched in Carol’s number. She picked up on the first ring.

“Did you change your mind?” she said, flirty.

“Don’t tempt me,” he fired back. “Who took the picture of you and Angelica sitting at the table?”

“Just some dude, standing at the bar. He came over and offered, and we accepted. Kinda cute. Well dressed. Seemed nice enough. Why?”

“Did Angelica shoot the picture of you?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Pull up that picture and take a look at the man standing at the bar, over your left shoulder.”

“Oh, that’s him. Oooh. He’s got kind of a creepy vibe there.”

“That’s what I thought. Thanks, Carol.” And Jack hung up.

He went back to the computer and transferred the picture to Photoshop. Cropped the man in question and enlarged the photo. It was grainy but clear enough for an ID. He sent the enhanced picture over to Nick Aprea and asked him to see if the man was in the LAPD system. He thanked him ahead of time for the help.