“Sorry, babe,” Gunnar whispered and chuckled. “I don’t think you’re my type.”
After turning off the engine and opening the door, he was surprised by a Nissan Altima’s sudden swerve into the adjacent slot. But he was already in the momentum of getting out, and he would later regret the numbing fatigue that kept him from finding it odd how this sedan chose to park right next to him when much of the lot was empty. He stepped out of the Charger as the right-side doors of the Altima were swung open. A pair of husky men in light sports coats and T-shirts emerged. He even thrust his own door shut before realizing both individuals were reaching under their jackets and closing in to surround him.
“Don’t even breathe!” the man who exited the front passenger seat called with a brow-beating glare of hyperactive hostility. He produced a Colt Python .357 Magnum with a four-inch barrel and stabbed it at Gunnar’s midsection.
The character emerging from the back of the Nissan came up with what looked like a Browning 9mm Hi-Power. Both gunmen held their weapons at a discreet hip level.
“Inside, now!” the assailant with the Browning ordered. “And believe me, there’s no reason for keeping you alive! So get moving!”
Gunnar saw no option other than complying with the orders. He got in the back seat, with the Browning-wielding gunman fast on his tail. When the other kidnapper returned to his seat, Gunnar was whisked away from the Foundry.
“Gunnar Marino, private eye, huh?” the assailant in the back seat said with the intensity of a man whose family’s good name was insulted in front of his friends. Either that, Gunnar figured, or the man had recently introduced some foreign substance into his system, and it was making him nervous. The man’s jutting, anvil jaw was an intimidating thing to look at, perhaps even more so than the gun in his hand. With small, violent eyes, hair cropped closely at the top and the sides and left longer in the back, with nonexistent sideburns, he looked like he was having this meltdown because he lost his way to a nineteen-eighties nostalgia party. “You know what can happen to eyes, don’t you? They can get knocked out.”
Both the driver, who also was quite a formidable presence the way he filled up his seat, and the second gunman found the threat amusing.
“See, I told you that was Marino,” the gunman up front said. He, too, was of a massive size with a crew-cut head and the well-fed, thick-necked countenance of a football player.
“What do you want?” Gunnar asked, staying as cool as he could.
“See!”
“I’m in the phone book, you know,” Gunnar said and regretted it the moment it came out of his mouth. What the hell was his problem, taunting a car full of armed men who had just kidnapped him? Was it still the sex? A testosterone rush?
The man at his side drew a blank for a moment, then scowled with a darkening attitude.
“You don’t need spotters and an ambush to talk to me.”
“You didn’t say he was a funnyman!” The thug with the distracting retro-mullet pressed his handgun into Gunnar’s midsection, then grabbed a handful of his hair. “You cut your hair, funnyman?” he yelled and twisted the Browning against Gunnar’s flesh.
But he wouldn’t react.
“You ask questions at gyms, then just wanna disappear?” Gunnar’s captor interrogated. “You change your clothes, you change your looks. Wha’? You about to skip town, comedian?”
Something aggravating dawned on Gunnar. “Who are you working for?”
But the question riled the gunman in the front, and he slapped at the side of Gunnar’s head. “Shut up, punk!”
“Hey!” the long-haired tough snapped at his partner. “Sit down.”
“Yell at him, man!” The crew-cut heavy didn’t want to show their enemy any dissension in the ranks.
“Shut up!” his partner bellowed.
“You guys can sort this thing out amongst yourselves.” Gunnar couldn’t resist, although he knew it would earn a retaliation.
“You wanna die?” The heavy next to him was outraged. He slapped the back of his head. “Huh? You stupid bastard!” Another slap. “You don’t wanna get cute here, punk.” Another hit. “Hey. What’s that?”
Gunnar wasn’t sure what his assailant was referring to, so he didn’t move and didn’t react. But then a hand went under his jacket, and he realized he was about to become defenseless.
“A gun, man,” the kidnapper in the front exclaimed in a wild, manic scream. “Take it! Shit! Whatsa matter with you?”
“Shut up.” His partner wouldn’t stand to be criticized. He removed Gunnar’s Sig Sauer P226 and pointed its awesome barrel at his head. “Everybody cut the shit.”
The thug in the front passenger seat stayed quiet.
The driver let out a brief chuckle.
“Look, meathead,” the rear gunman called to Gunnar. “You fruit loops out on the beach should stick to tanning your asses and shooting the juice. Like good little morons. Don’t go developing a brain.”
Gunnar wouldn’t betray any emotion.
“But since you obviously think you have one, you think you’re, uh… You’re like something of a…what?” The hoodlum threw a glance at the Sig Sauer. “What kinda crap is this? Guns? Asking stupid questions? What? You’re like a secret agent or something? What the hell do you think you’re doing asking questions about Mr. Quartello’s business?”
Gunnar almost thought he owed the hoodlum a thanks.
“I don’t know who Mr. Quartello is.”
The gunman at his side shook his head with exaggerated melodrama. His partner up front cocked an eyebrow. A malignant stare beamed from underneath, resembling something like regret.
The hood training the guns on Gunnar shook them with an easy wrist, as if they were toys, and said, “Look at this. Guns. With the times we live in, I think they’re losing their psychological impact. Everybody’s got one today. Shit-faced jerkoff kids are takin’ ‘em to school. You can’t even scare anybody with it. That’s it, isn’t it? You ain’t scared a no guns, are ya, musclehead?”
Gunnar didn’t reply.
“Not gonna talk?” the heavy said, and replaced the Browning Hi-Power in its shoulder rig and stuck the magnum in his belt by his right hip.
“Ah, man. You’re not gonna do it?” the front-seat gunman said in disgust but trained his revolver square at Gunnar’s chest.
The back-seat kidnapper grabbed something in his right jacket pocket and lashed it at the side of Gunnar’s neck. He was stung by what felt like a couple of pointed metal pieces gouging into his neck.
“You’re gonna start talking, wisemouth, or I’ll slice your head off one inch at a time,” the hood said and accented his threat by pressing on whatever object he held against Gunnar’s neck.
He figured it to be some sort of a small wire or metal cutter.
“What do you want with Mr. Quartello?”
“Nothing,” Gunnar said. “I was interested in Brad Holt.”
“I move my fingers any closer together, and I’ll snap your jugular, asshole.” The kidnapper explained the method of his terror, then slapped the back of Gunnar’s head for added effect. “Don’t lie to me, punk.”
“I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t know who Holt was mixed up with or who he knew.”
“Holt died of natural causes, you hear me? That’s all you need to know about him!” the assailant screamed and waved a wire cutter with particularly well-honed edges in front of Gunnar’s eyes. “You understand? Huh? Do ya? Say you understand, or I’ll bleed you.” To make the point, the thug pressed the cutter toward Gunnar’s groin.
Gunnar flinched as the steel blades threatened to cut through the fabric of his pants and savage his flesh. “I understand.”
Both of the men in the front seat brayed in laughter.
The hoodlum in the back withdrew his instrument. “I thought you would. But we’re gonna m
ake sure you don’t forget.”
CHAPTER 37
The kidnappers drove to Marina Del Rey and prodded Gunnar out of the car. The heavy with the buzz cut was at Gunnar’s side, a jacket folded over his right arm and the nose of the Colt Python at point-blank range from his back. Gunnar was led to one of the docks on the sprawling boat harbor and urged toward the very end of the watercraft parking platform.
At the end of the pier, Gunnar was ordered into a bowrider runabout motorboat. Once his assailants were in the vessel, the man who drove the car took the wheel again and his partners trained their handguns on Gunnar. The craft was piloted out of the harbor, then its engines pushed to their top speed for a jarring run to a two-story yacht anchored a mile away.
The runabout driver pulled alongside the large boat, where his flat-topped accomplice moored their craft to a companionway descending from the aft deck. When Gunnar looked upward, he noticed a man peering over the railway, a strong glowering man who dwarfed even the kidnappers.
“This ain’t no pitstop,” the hood training his Browning on Gunnar said and waved its barrel toward the stairs.
Gunnar did as he was told and climbed to the deck. His welcome aboard was the giant who watched their approach, a muscleman outfitted in baggy slacks and a light blue T-shirt stretching over his capacious upper body.
The rest of what Gunnar saw on the yacht was a turgid exercise in showmanship. On the far side of the deck, another bloated hulk leaned against the railing. Gunnar was offended by his overpumped arms, neglected legs, and nonexistent calves.
The piece de resistance of all this posturing, however, was Mr. Quartello himself. Examining him, Gunnar was afraid to guess how he garnered such a position of power and authority. The leader of the gathering was no older than twenty-seven, perhaps twenty-eight, and his enormous goons surrounded him with slavish deference. He was resting in a canvas chair, wearing nothing more than a pair of swimming trunks and a black mesh shirt, with long jet-black hair flattened against his skull by liberally applied volumes of gel. A pair of Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses were parked above his hairline. To the left and right of the head-man, a couple of curvaceous women reclined and looked agitated by the commotion. Gunnar was sure their bikinis would have fit in a wallet—with space left over for the price of a three-course dinner, plus tip. To comment on this epic spectacle of the high-czar of crime, his soldiers, yacht, and bimbos, was a globe painted onto the lacquered deck of the vessel. It was surrounded by the inscription THE WORLD IS YOURS. It was enough to give an anti-media-violence crusader a hard-on, Gunnar thought. So many decades after its release, there were still megalomaniacal punks who still got their persona from Scarface. He would have thought Mr. Quartello would be styling himself after the latest best-selling rap album, but apparently, nothing made an impact like classic cinema.
“Wha’ da fuck is this?” Mr. Quartello slurred. “I’m told you’ve been trying to fuck with me?”
1983. Al Pacino version.
“Look, uh, Mr. Quartello,” Gunnar said, unsure about proceeding. Somehow it was less fear than confusion about reacting to this surreal spectacle.
But Mr. Quartello answered by waving his right hand around in a hasty, imprecise gesture as if trying to get the attention of his underlings. “Wha’, what is this he’s doin’? Don’ choo got nothin’ a say? Look, Mr. Quartello? You’ve been fuckin’ around in my operation, askin’ some dumb-fuck questions about who supplies the fuckin’ juice ‘n’ meth ‘n’ shit all over L.A. and ya ain’t got a way of explaining yourself?” The kingpin rambled in a manner of speech that faded in and out of a lazy slur.
Gunnar prepared himself for a colorful recitation of diatribes from the faithful film buff. He was expecting every other word out of Mr. Quartello’s mouth to be predicated by “fuck.”
“I’m interested in Brad Holt’s death,” Gunnar said. “Just like I explained to your associates on the way over.”
But the hood that confiscated Gunnar’s weapon had a different recollection of events. “You didn’t explain shit! You picked the wrong people to fuck with, moron!”
“Hey! Hey! Manny, relax, okay?” Quartello said. “Wha’ da ya want with Brad Holt?”
“As hard as it is to believe, someone wants to know how he died. They paid me, and I asked some questions.”
“Someone cared about Holt to wanna know why?” Quartello was amused. His pronunciation also gave way from a sloppy rendition of a bad Cuban accent to something like a general, low-class street punk.
“It looks that way,” Gunnar said.
“That’s interesting,” the criminal mused.
“Yeah.”
“Fuck you! If you’d a told me that on the way over, I’d push your face into the speeding pavement. So can I ask you who the fuck this is?”
“A couple of people he did some business with in New York about a year ago,” Gunnar replied, hoping to sound as plausible as he could. “They think he might have screwed them over. They’ve been trying to get twenty grand out of him, and now he falls over and dies before they could collect.”
Quartello sat up with a darting gaze, probing the reactions of his men with sadistic amusement. “I don’t believe this shit. I oughta fuckin’ kill you right now. The cops’ve written this asshole’s death off as an—”
“As an accident,” Gunnar said. “But any more deaths could make ‘em consider reopening the case.”
“Oh yeah?” the kingpin snapped with genuine fury in his eyes. “Someone fuckin’ cares what happen da Holt? Who? Who is that? Who’s hirin’ you to play fucking detective? Someone who thinks I did this? Who thinks this is how I’d whack someone? Lemme tell you something. If someone’s trying to fuck with my business, I’ll kill him ‘n’ feed him to a pack a fuckin’ dogs, and I’ll keep his fuckin’ head to show every other motherfucker who thinks about doing the same thing. Do you fuckin’ understand what I’m saying?”
“I think I do,” Gunnar said, and he thought the little tyrant made a semi-plausible argument among all the “fucks.” “But look, the truth is, it’s friends of his from the old days. People he’s been in the Corps with. I think Holt might have ripped them off in some business deal, and they want to know where he had property and bank accounts to sue his family. It shouldn’t have anything to do with you.”
Gunnar’s pulse raced faster than any time during the kidnapping. This was an impromptu test of his lying abilities.
But apparently, Mr. Quartello hadn’t been quite satisfied. He got out of his seat and beamed at Gunnar, who was now repulsed by the way those women were unfazed by all the vulgarity. “C’mere,” the gangster waved at Gunnar, who went over to his side. “See Roger and Cal over there?” He pointed at the two enormous thugs who were guarding him when Gunnar and the kidnappers arrived. “They’re my bodyguard detail. They let me know I’m doing everything right. That my chemists are doing everything right. Manny ‘n the boys that brought you over, they’re the work crew. A clear head, you know?”
“They don’t inject the retail, huh?” Gunnar said, although wondering if Manny might have been disobeying the boss’s orders.
“Fuckin’ Roger ‘n’ Cal, man!” Quartello shook his head with a chuckle. “They’re crazy bastards. You don’t argue with ‘em.”
“I see,” Gunnar deadpanned.
“See, I could tell Roger and Cal to rip your fuckin’ spine out. Then they’ll leave you in the parking lot we found you in. That way, I’ll send a message that I don’t wanna be fucked with just now. I’m not gonna give you a heart attack, or any shit like that, you understand?”
“Yeah.”
“A-right. I hope so. Don’t fuck with me again! I ain’t into that. I don’t want no beach boy fuckin’ with me! A-right, get him out a here.”
Gunnar looked at the three hoods who’d kidnapped him. “It’s okay if you’ll just take me as far as the pier.”
But he was approached by Roger and Cal instead. Both strong men moved in and slapped their hands on his shoulders. “Fuck you!” the man he saw second on his climb aboard yelled in his face, driven by some vehement anger simmering just below the surface. “Let’s break his arm, Mr. Quartello,” he said, worrying Gunnar when he asked their boss to vent some of that anger.
“Leave him the fuck alone!” Quartello said and got back in his chair.
“Just one more thing.” Gunnar thought it was safe to bring up another point. “Can I have my gun back?”
The little tyrant waved at Manny, who complied with a look that was an unstable combination of dejection and anger. He took the Sig Sauer in hand and ejected its clip. The empty weapon he tossed over to Gunnar, who reinserted it in the holster.
But the moment it took him to do that, he didn’t pay full attention to Roger and Cal. The duo slammed him against the railing and grabbed for his legs, hoisting him over the side and holding him upside down over the water.
“Take a deep breath!” Gunnar heard one of the goons say before he was released, and the waves closed in all around him.
CHAPTER 38
“Water’s warmer than I thought,” Gunnar said and put on his jacket.
Stupefied glares returned from the man and the woman who had been snuggling and kissing on a pair of towels in this deserted section of the beach. Seeing a six-foot-two man with a shoulder holster, a nasty-looking gun, and dressed in a navy blue suit with a Hawaiian shirt emerging from the ocean left no room for commentary. Gunnar wondered if they were locals or if they would go home somewhere telling an eye-widening story about how it is in L.A.
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