It took a few seconds before the man awoke, the empty beer bottle thumping against the hardwood and rolling across the floor. The man pawed at the thick plastic sucked against his mouth and nose. Shane jerked his muscular arm around the pudgy neck to hold him in place and grasped the loose folds of the bag with his free hand to keep the tension. Shooting someone was one thing and stabbing another. Both methods were quick and, while satisfying, left him feeling cheap. But, squeezing the life out of someone? Watching those last jerks of limbs from an oxygen-deprived brain reverberated through him like a slow-building orgasm which always paid off. Grady Harlan may have been twisted, but he was right.
Sweat spread on Shane’s brow from the effort of holding the bucking man in place, and when the fight drained away, he pulled the skewer from his pocket. He slammed it through the man’s ear, anchoring the bag and putting a permanent end to the struggle. Brutal? Certainly. But he wanted brutal.
Shane waltzed back to the kitchen and yanked the butcher knife from the wooden block on the counter. He moved lightly up the stairs, hoping the boys weren’t home. He held a soft spot for kids. Janey, on the other hand, oh how he hoped she was there. Killing her would send Caldwell into the stratosphere.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jake drove Alina and followed Keats back to his house. On the fifteen-minute drive, she managed to relay her story of how she snuck into the U.S. She’d been brought up in poverty in Kiev with a mother who died young and a father with a proclivity for being too touchy with both his daughters. She and her sister escaped across the city to live with a cousin who operated a pub. Ulyana danced while Alina waitressed and read the occasional palm.
“Your English is pretty good. You learn it in school?”
“From television. I am quick learner. Ulyana and I talked English as much as we could. We crowd around television at back of bar during break, repeating everything we hear.” She shivered in the passenger seat. “It was horrible bar filled with worst kind of men, so we escape to back as much as possible. When friend of friend says he can get us out and come to United States, my sister and I leap at chance.”
“What did he say you had to do once you arrived here?”
The passing streetlamps on the Broadway Bridge cast Alina’s sad reflection in the passenger window glass. “He didn’t have to say. We knew.”
Jake couldn’t begin to imagine how shitty life must be to leave home and take a running leap into the sex trade. But he had to trace her pilgrimage up the food chain to get to Langston. “What happened once you hit the States?”
She turned her attention to the windshield, eyes distant. “Boat landed in Los Angeles and we huddle in steel container behind stacks of pallets. Over thirty of us. We have water and flashlight, but no food. It was so hot, and we are told we cannot make noise. If we are caught, we go to prison or sent home. Two girls pass out. Container was lifted and moved several times.”
“How long were you in there?”
“Hours. Maybe day. Next thing, we are moving by truck for two or three hours. Driver stops and opens back. We are blinded by sunlight as he brings in food and water. We are in nowhere. No houses, cars or people as far as we can see. Driver let us walk a bit and go to bathroom behind truck.”
“What did this driver look like? How about his truck?”
Alina half-turned her head, eyes crunched together. “Why is this important?”
“It just is. What do you remember? He give a name?”
“No name. He was thin, short hair on top and long in back. Tattoo on neck.”
Delbert’s description to the letter. “And the truck?”
“Driver part was blue with flame on side.” Bingo! “A white van arrives and four girls get in. To tell truth, I felt jealous because the rest of us go back into container. We drive forever. I do not know how long because we sometimes sleep, but when truck opens again, there are more vans in back lot of giant gas station at night. They split us up.”
Her voice hitched and Jake reached across the seat and patted her hand. He guessed the giant gas station was the truck stop in Branson. “Let me guess, you and your sister were in different trucks.”
Her chin lowered to her chest. “That was last time I saw her. Her eyes wide and screaming my name as they shove her in van. I promise to watch out for her, and I failed.”
The image of his brother Nicky floated into Jake’s mind, dead on a dock at the family pond in Warsaw with a heroin needle stuck in his arm. A lethal dose given by Shane Langston. Like Alina, Jake also failed to look out for a sibling.
They wound through a ritzy neighborhood and pulled up behind Keats at the guard house. The guard leaned into Keats’s car, and then trotted back to the shack to open the gate. He waved Jake through. Jake rolled up the drive and stole peeks at Alina, watching her face light up as Keats’s mansion came into view.
“This belongs to man who buys me? Is he a good man?”
“Good? Depends on who you talk to, but he’ll treat you right. What happened after the truck stop?”
She leaned toward the windshield to get a better view of the house. “I am put in car alone. Driver says nothing for over two hours, and we get to the bar where you find me. They give me room with bathroom and shower and lock me in. Next morning, Garvan comes to get me.”
Jake pulled to a stop in front of the house. Keats climbed out of his car and waited. Jake flipped his hand, signaling for him to go inside. Keats’s cheeks sucked in, pissed at being dismissed, but instead of arguing, he clomped up the stone steps.
“How long were you at The Asylum?”
“Two days. The men at bar wanted to do things with me, but Garvan wouldn’t let them. I was his until he send me here. He promised to help me find Ulyana.”
Jake took out his phone and flipped through screens until he found Langston’s mug shot. “You ever seen this guy?”
She studied the picture. “He was at bar the day you and your friend come. Garvan was very nervous around him.”
Jake resisted the urge to grab her shoulders. “Wait. You’re sure?”
She ticked her head, eyes wide. “He went out the back door when you come, but he was there.”
Son of a bitch. Langston hid within feet of him and Bear and they didn’t even know. Jake wanted to burn up the highway back to The Asylum and wring Connelly’s neck like a chicken.
“Is this bad?” Alina’s voice dropped low, dripping with anxiety. “Who is this man?”
“He’s the guy I’m looking for. The guy who killed your sister, and I blew my opportunity to get him.”
* * *
Jake enjoyed a drink and floor show as Svetlana stormed the room and, in broken English with flames shooting from her ears, demanded to know why Keats brought back another woman with him. If any doubt lingered about Svetlana being a kept woman or prisoner, she dispelled it in a matter of seconds as Keats stammered out the night’s story. Svetlana was an absolute stunner but left little doubt who wore the pants in the household, and it wasn’t the mafia boss. Keats asked her to show Alina to one of the spare rooms and he escorted Jake outside.
Keats clamped a vice grip on Jake’s elbow. “You tell anyone about this, and I will gut you like a fucking fish.”
“You sure you wouldn’t rather have Svetlana do it for you?”
Keats huffed. “Don’t think she couldn’t do it. She’s rather…possessive.”
“Or possessed. Listen, Alina didn’t give me a smoking gun, but she cemented the fact Garvan Connelly is tied in with Shane. Unsure which one Delbert is working for, though.”
“Who’s Delbert?”
“The guy transporting the girls. He brought Alina and her sister up from LA. That much she verified. She also spotted Langston at The Asylum. I need to get back there and track Langston down.” Jake opened the door to his truck and climbed in. “What are you going to do with her?”
Keats’s lips disappeared in a line. “Shit, I don’t know. Find out her skills. Could use her somewhere. I have a
lot of shady dudes working for me. What about your promise to introduce Garvan to me?”
“I did. What you do with the information is up to you. Personally? I wouldn’t call him. I don’t think he’s gonna be around much longer.”
Though after one in the morning, Jake decided to make the trek back to Warsaw. He took a chance on the way and texted Katrina to call him in the morning. Probably asleep, but he wanted to talk to her about Delbert. She surprised him by calling back a minute later.
“You’re up late,” she said.
“I’m a night owl.”
She yawned. “I’m tired as hell but can’t sleep. There was a stabbing at a local watering hole. Two assholes arguing over a woman so plastered she didn’t even know two guys were fighting over her. In fact, she left with a third guy, and I wasted two hours tracking them down. What’s up?”
Jake told her Alina’s story. “You know much about trafficking?”
“A bit. Had a case last year and spent some time with a lady at an anti-trafficking group called the Polaris Project. It’s big business. Supposedly like a hundred million dollars a year. Had a case last year with runaways who got sucked into a prostitution ring. Young girls, barely teenagers, forced to sleep with like twenty to forty men a night.”
His stomach rolled, thinking of Halle. “Incredible. Wonder how the truck stop ties in?”
“I’ve done some poking around. Trucks like Delbert’s pull in or some slimeball with an RV full of six or seven girls. They can pull in around fourteen hundred dollars. That’s an hour.”
“And Delbert’s a part of it by running the girls through Heartstone. I think Bear and I might be interested in meeting with him in a tiny room at your station house.”
She paused. “That could be arranged as long as I get to be there. Think he’ll give you anything?”
Jake had no doubt that, if presented with the opportunity, he would kill Shane Langston and not lose a minute of sleep. But the world is an imperfect place, and there was a strong possibility the cops would nab Shane before Jake got the opportunity to kill him. If that happened, Jake had to make sure the evidence was strong enough to lock him in a deep, dark hole for the rest of his miserable days.
“With as much dirt as we have on him now, he might talk. He’s the link to turning evidence against Langston. We can’t bring down a hundred-million-dollar industry, but maybe we can crush one leg of it.”
“Baby steps.”
“Absolutely. Thanks, Katrina. Bear and I will be there in the morning.”
“It is morning.”
Jake grumbled. “Don’t remind me.”
He clicked off and rolled along the highway, images of girls like Alina, Ulyana, Candy and thousands of others like them bombarding his brain. Girls his daughter’s age and younger forced to do unspeakable things with depraved men. Men with money and hard-ons to burn in dingy RVs and back bedrooms with stained mattresses. Heat flushed his face and he strangled the steering wheel. If Langston had his fingers in this sick industry, it represented yet another reason to blow the bastard’s head off his shoulders.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Pewter clouds choked the horizon and swallowed the sun as Jake and Bear drove south toward Branson. As Jake prepared for the inevitable argument about whether to stop at Smith’s for pie and coffee, raindrops the size of gumballs pounded the windshield of Bear’s Suburban, reducing visibility to the point where they missed the turnoff.
Bear’s forlorn eyes locked on the rear-view mirror once the rain lessened. “Ah, man. I was psyched for a piece of coconut cream.”
“Your ever-expanding waistline will thank you.”
“Just so you’re clear, we’re stopping at Smith’s on the way back. I don’t care if the Rapture comes, I’m getting pie.”
An hour later, they lounged in Chief Benson’s office at the Taney County Sheriff’s Department, waiting to have Delbert brought to an interrogation room. Bear and Benson shot the breeze about a case they worked years ago involving a drug bust with a naked suspect with a dick the size of a tree trunk. They got to the part where they had to cuff the guy and subdue his lethal weapon when Katrina walked in with Deputy Billy Blevins. Benson’s voice trailed off to silence.
Katrina wiggled her eyebrows. “Don’t stop on my account.”
Blevins waved her off. “Please do. I’m the one who transported him. How you guys doing?”
Jake and Bear exchanged handshakes with the two and settled back in their chairs. Katrina and Blevins dropped on a tan leather couch against the wall.
Chief Benson played with the letter opener on his desk. “Katrina told me about your trafficking find in Kansas City with Delbert. Gotta say, I’m a bit embarrassed this guy slipped under our radar.”
Blevins propped his elbows on his knees. “I mean, we know about the prostitution at the truck stop. That’s been going on for years, and we bust it when we can, but we only have so many resources to go around.”
“But trafficking is another story,” Katrina said. “We have enough to bury Delbert. Maybe enough to get him to flip on his biker gang and Shane Langston.”
“Any leads on Langston?” Jake asked.
“Reward’s out and has turned up a few crackpot calls, but nothing of substance. You guys?”
“We know he was at The Asylum at one point,” Bear said. “Had my people do some walkthroughs of the bar and set up periodic surveillance positions but haven’t seen anything. State police and FBI keep in contact, and they’ve had some reported sightings, but nothing has panned out. He’s a cockroach and will scurry into the light eventually. Hope it’s before any more bodies turn up.”
Chief Benson scratched his chin. “How do you want to go at Delbert, Katrina?”
“Billy and I struck out getting anything out of him. Since Jake and Bear found this new info, I’d say let them have a crack at him.”
Benson nodded. “Fine, but I want you in the room. That work for you, Bear?”
“Absolutely. Let’s hope Delbert’s desire for self-preservation trumps his fear of Langston.”
Jake raised his hand. “We have any leverage on him besides the truck and the girls?”
“What more do we need?” Benson asked.
“Look, Delbert’s no spring chicken. He’s been around the block, did his time with the Blood Devils and has already done a couple of stints in the slammer. Faced with a choice of crossing Shane and Garvan or going back to prison, he might do the time. He’d have a better chance of staying alive. He have a wife?”
Benson flipped through a notepad. “Divorced six years ago.”
Katrina piped in. “But he does have a girlfriend. Layla, like the Clapton song.”
“Anything we can use with her?”
“She has a warrant. Meth possession. With her two prior felony convictions for possession and distribution, if we throw the book at her, she’ll be locked up for a long time without a chance of parole.”
Bear scratched his beard. “The question is, would Delbert give a shit?”
Katrina headed toward the door. “Let’s go find out.”
Ten minutes later, Jake, Bear, and Katrina crowded into an interrogation room the size of a breadbox. Jake and Bear situated themselves across the table from Delbert, who rocked in place like he’d been through a wringer. His orange jumpsuit hung off his narrow shoulders, and crimson lines spider-webbed the whites of his eyes like a broken mirror. The dark saddlebags under his eyes suggested he hadn’t slept much since they picked him up, which was good for his interrogators. Sleep-deprived people acted the equivalent of drunks and talked too much.
Bear took the lead. “Jesus, Delbert. You look as tired as my ass feels.”
Delbert scratched at a scar on the table in front of him. “Can’t sleep on those so-called mattresses. Like lying on a concrete slab. What do you want this time? I can only sing the same song so many times.”
“Shane Langston.”
Delbert’s lips disappeared, and his bloodshot eyes flicke
d up. “I’ll tell ya the same thing I told her. Can’t help you.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“There a difference?”
Bear thumped his meaty arms on the table. “There is if you ever want to breathe free air again.”
Delbert squinted. “How long you think you can hold me on a weapons charge? The gun weren’t even mine.”
“Must’ve been left by the previous occupant of the motel, right?” Jake asked.
“Maybe. Weren’t mine. Lot of scumbags crash at the Eazy Breezy. Dust the gun for prints. Mine ain’t on there and you can’t prove otherwise.”
“We don’t have to. Charges will stick and you’ll go back to the slammer. But you can help yourself by telling us what you know about Langston.”
Delbert bared his yellowed teeth. “Like I said—Can’t. Help. You. ’Sides, even if you fuck me with your little bullshit charge, I could do a stint for a parole violation standin’ on my head.”
The wood chair groaned as Bear settled back. “You’re assuming what’s behind door number one is all you’re gonna be charged with. There’s a lot more behind door number two.”
Delbert’s grin disappeared like an anchor dropped in a lake. “Whatcha mean door number two?”
“We’ve been busy since we last saw you. Your skinny ass is in a sling dangling over a river of hungry alligators, my man. We have enough on you now to make sure you don’t view the light of day, other than through iron bars and barbed wire.”
“You’re full of shit.”
“Am I?” Bear craned his head toward Jake. “Should we tell him?”
Jake Caldwell Thrillers Page 95