by Mark Wheaton
Taking the stairs three at a time and fearing he might topple over at any moment, Luis made it to the bottom in record time. There was only one road that spilled onto Sunset, three short blocks from the entrance to the freeway. If it were him, this would be the route he’d take.
But as he caught his breath, there was no sign of the Bronco. He waited in the shadows of the nearest storefront, a shoe repair outfit with pairs of shoes literally cascading off shelves and piled in the aisles, and looked back up into the neighborhood and down the streets.
They couldn’t have gotten past me, could they?
Seconds passed, then minutes. The silence of the night was broken by sirens, and he saw the distant flashing lights of approaching police cars. There was still no sign of the killers.
It didn’t make sense.
It dawned on him that they must’ve anticipated that the police would be on their way. If they were the one car speeding from the scene, likely filled with blood-soaked passengers, they’d be pulled over immediately. The cops would’ve had reasonable suspicion without a doubt.
Instead they’d need a place to hunker down until the first wave of police passed.
As the first squad cars raced by, Luis looked back up to the quiet neighborhood. The Bronco was still there somewhere.
Hoping to keep a low profile, Luis moved back up the concrete stairs at an unhurried pace. The Bronco could be anywhere, he knew, but they’d have had to park in a hurry. In a neighborhood this crowded, it might mean a fender jutting out into the street or a vehicle parked in front of a driveway.
But as he walked, his senses heightened, the scent of exhaust fumes crept into his nose, providing him with a direction. He was sure there were other cars on the road that night, but this was the heavy stench of a gas-guzzling 4x4. He looked up and down a dark residential strip, bracketed on both sides with run-down houses framed by useless chain-link fences. He didn’t see anything at first, so he took a few steps down the block, hoping his luck would last.
As the street curved around, he spotted it. The Bronco stood in front of a small house and, counter to Luis’s theory, was perfectly parallel-parked. There were no lights on inside, no silhouettes. The vehicle was completely still.
For a moment Luis wondered if they’d gone two blocks, dropped the truck, and hopped into the real getaway to avoid detection. But as he stared at the truck, he could no longer be certain it was the one he sought. There were probably as many black Broncos in East LA as there were stars in the sky.
Still, he wanted to be sure.
He crept closer, kneeling low to the sidewalk as he scanned for a license plate number. As soon as he had that and maybe a quick look inside, he’d go back to the Caprice, call it in to the police, and ring Michael to tell him the latest. As he got closer to the Bronco, he noticed it still had its license plate. Not something he expected to see on a getaway truck.
He went around to the front of the truck and put his hand on the hood. He’d expected it to be cool but was rewarded with warmth. It had likely been stolen, used with the intention of sending police off on a wild-goose chase.
With the three killings thus far, this hit squad of Michael’s had proven themselves perfect at setting a scene, whether it be staging an accident or doing their work through a junkie with a gun.
Who are these guys?
They had clearly anticipated every move the police would make. And what about him? It occurred to him in the last second before the blade entered his lower back and lifted him off the ground that he had walked into a trap. The pain was delayed by a microsecond of mere discomfort that soon erupted into a feeling of intense, devastating heat. As it consumed his every nerve ending, Luis’s vision blurred and his heart rate accelerated. His body wanted him to flee, to run in any direction he could, but his muscles wouldn’t respond.
As the blade was wrenched around, tearing through his flesh and making Luis feel as if he were being severed in half, the man with the knife leaned in close.
“Vamos a ver si su dios detiene esto, Padre,” a voice hissed in his ear.
Let’s see if your god will stop this.
Luis was thrown forward, the blade making the wet sound of the gutting of a fish as it was yanked free from his lower back. Luis, in agonizing pain, forced his eyes open, catching sight of his attacker reflected in the side of the car. He couldn’t discern much. He was Latino, maybe forties, maybe fifties. As he faded into unconsciousness, he was struck by the fact that it looked like the man’s face was melting.
PART II
X
When the bullet had entered Gennady’s throat, he’d known he’d never be whole again. In the moment he thought he would die. It was as if a great clawed hand tore at his neck. If he moved in any direction, he feared he might snap his own spine, the pain was so great. He thought he’d been paralyzed or even partially decapitated. Then he’d mercifully lost consciousness.
When he awoke again, after several surgeries and an induced coma, the first thing he saw was Nina. She was gripping his fingers tightly and smiled.
“Papa!” she exclaimed.
He immediately let out a sob. Only it didn’t resemble the anguished cry he’d expected. Instead it was strangled squeak of a suffocating mouse.
“You’ll never speak again,” Yelena explained to him after she’d shuttled the children from the room. “The bullet missed the major veins, arteries, and your spine by millimeters. You should have bled to death, but you didn’t. You should be paralyzed, but you’re not. For that I’m thankful.”
At first, this didn’t make sense. Gennady tried to respond and was punished by what felt like ball bearings moving around inside his neck. Yelena put a hand on his chest. Gennady waited for tears to glass her eyes, but they didn’t. He was relieved. He pointed to a pad of paper and pencil on the nightstand. She handed them over and he began to write.
Michael Story? He scrawled.
“He also survived,” Yelena said, bristling. “But why were you meeting with someone from the DA’s office? We’ve already had calls to the house. Clients are worried you were selling them out.”
Gennady wrote, I’ll contact each directly. Say this was about my bank job only. Mention Charles Sittenfeld’s arrest.
“How is that our business?” she countered. “You put your trust in a police officer?”
He knew she meant Michael but didn’t correct her. Someone came into our house. Related to Sittenfeld. They cannot do that.
Yelena read this twice, then set the pad back down. Gennady waited for her to walk out of the room and out of his life, never to look back. Instead she took his hand and squeezed it tight.
“You’re right, Gennady,” she said. “I shouldn’t have doubted you. Business is business, but family is off-limits.”
Gennady nodded. He picked the pad back up and wrote a name and phone number on it, asking Yelena to call the person and have them contact him back via text once she’d set up a new phone for him that would only be for this purpose. She read the name on the page and frowned.
“Who is Miguel Higuera?” she asked.
Gennady wrote, He does what I do but has more connections. If anyone will know where to start, he will.
Yelena folded the piece of paper and put it in her pocket. She kissed Gennady on the lips, then headed for the door. “We’ll see you soon,” she said.
Gennady watched her go, then sank back onto his pillow. He wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to take down all those responsible without her help. Now it was only a matter of time before they realized—too late—how imperiled they were.
“There used to be a million ways to launder money,” Special Agent Lampman had explained to Michael at the beginning of their marathon debriefing in a small hotel conference room downtown. “My favorite will always be the casino scheme. Certain casinos used to be given some of the same privileges as banks. A high roller, a whale, wouldn’t roll into town with suitcases full of cash. No, they’d wire the money into a temporary acc
ount with the casino, usually based overseas, and use it to draw chips at the tables.”
Michael had nodded, though listlessly. On the way here, they’d driven past the exact spot where he’d last seen Naomi alive, last kissed her, last touched her hand.
“If they lost a hand and needed another ten thousand dollars in chips, it came right out of the casino account,” Lampman continued. “Of course, they picked casinos where they tended to ‘win,’ so when they left they’d take back whatever was in that account in the form of a check. They could then walk it into any bank in the US or Europe and cash a check on gambling winnings that would normally be taxed. Money laundered.”
“Not anymore?” Michael asked.
“Reined in somewhere around the end of the eighties to the beginning of the nineties,” Lampman said. “It became harder and harder to find rogue governments, like Panama, who’d help out for a price. Heck, it used to be the only way a Swiss bank would open its records was if Justice could prove the money was linked to organized crime. Now they lift their skirts for anyone. Which leads us to Sittenfeld. Why don’t you catch us up on your side of the investigation, and we’ll try to fill in anything you might not know?”
Michael sighed, believing this was a way for them to get everything they wanted without giving anything in return. When they started laying out large chunks of the case, however, he realized that they’d been looking at Sittenfeld and his dirty dealings for a lot longer than he had.
When they were finally done, Michael outstretched his hands. “I know you’re focused on the money-laundering side, but my case involves capital charges. They can’t be made to go away. He was arranging to have his wife murdered! Money changed hands!”
But Michael knew he wasn’t talking about Evelyn Sittenfeld right now. Not being able to prosecute Charles Sittenfeld meant there’d be no justice for Naomi. And he couldn’t live with himself if that happened.
“You want to bet?” Lampman asked. “All it will take is convincing the spouse, the lawyer, and the LAPD reservist not to testify. And all that takes is money. If they want too much, CIA will lift back the curtain—a surprise audit, passport trouble, surveillance. Whatever it takes to make them see their way to ending their cooperation with the prosecutor’s office. Your boss—sorry, former boss—will have no choice but to drop charges. I’d be surprised if there’d even be a civil suit after that.”
“What’s to keep him from doing it again?” Michael asked.
Lampman shrugged. “Nothing. But I imagine that’ll be Europe’s problem. Or some friendly nation out there he’s done favors for. Used to be deposed dictators those courtesies were extended to. Now it’s bankers.”
Throughout the day Lampman’s task force brought pages in to her from Archipenko’s hard drive. Some she looked at, a few required instructions she hastily delivered to her agents, but her attention soon returned to Michael. A couple of times, however, she’d stepped out of the room, to return five, ten, or even twenty minutes later. Michael was exhausted by being made to sit still but truly had nowhere else to be.
He worried how this would all look to Deborah when she found out he’d been talking to the Feds but decided he didn’t care. His future in Los Angeles was about finished anyway.
When Special Agent Lampman came back after being gone for a particularly long time, though, Michael was ready with an idea.
“If the CIA has Sittenfeld because he’s involved in some kind of black budget operation with them, so be it,” Michael said. “But I refuse to believe he’s the only one at his bank who was involved. If we find out who all the players are, whose money it originally was and who laundered it into the United States in the first place, we can take what we know about Sittenfeld’s operation and use it to see who those other bankers or even other banks are. Then we go after those Sittenfelds. They can’t all work for the CIA.”
“And how do you expect to determine who these other operators are?” Lampman asked. “From the best we can tell, it could be foreign governments, Russian oligarchs, drug cartels, terrorist organizations, even major stock swindlers. That’s a pretty wide field.”
“Yeah, that’d take too long,” Michael said. “We ask Sittenfeld.”
Lampman scoffed. “Brilliant plan. I see why you get all the headlines around here but still somehow managed to get yourself fired.”
“Leave that part to me,” Michael said. “Just tell me that wherever they’ve got him stashed on this planet, you’ve got the budget to send me there.”
Lampman sat up straight. “You’re serious?”
“Sittenfeld has to be feeling rather confident about now. If I can get face-to-face with him, I think I can get what I need.”
“No way they’ll let you speak to him alone.”
“Even if I’m his lawyer?” Michael asked.
Lampman turned to her left long enough for Michael to realize there must be a camera recording everything.
“You find a way in, and we’ll send you anywhere on earth first class, all expenses paid,” Lampman said, pointing a crooked finger at him. “I mean, you’ll have to keep your receipts, but still.”
“Done,” Michael said, glancing to the window. “Give me forty-eight hours.”
It had been dark outside for a couple of hours now, and his still-aching body had him looking forward to sleep. He wondered if he’d see Naomi in his dreams again.
Lampman had exited after Michael’s last statement but came back in now, phone pressed to her ear. “What was the name of that priest you mentioned? The one whose brother had written to Sittenfeld all those years ago?”
“Luis Chavez. Why?”
“He was stabbed in Silver Lake. Two blocks from where they found the dead bodies of two other priests. It’s about to hit the news.”
“Christ!” Michael said, getting to his feet. “Who are the other priests?”
Lampman waited a moment as she listened for the answer coming from the other end of the line. “A Father Uli Belbenoit, and then a Bishop Eduardo Osorio. Either name ring a bell?”
Michael leaned against the conference room table, unsure how to process this. “Yeah, the bishop. The second Luis saw Nicolas’s name in the Sittenfeld files, he asked for a search on Osorio. Nothing came back, but he was probably heading over to talk to him about all this.”
“Looks like this hit squad is at it again.”
“Yeah,” Michael said wearily. “You said he was stabbed. Is he alive?”
“That’s an excellent question,” Lampman replied. “He was rushed to Kaiser. Went through several surgeries. Once he was stabilized, an ambulance arrived to take him to Cedars for even more work. He never arrived.”
Luis thought he was dreaming. He stepped in and out of thoughts and conversations like a time traveler careening through the past. But when he recognized one as a memory, he leaped to something else, and the process had to begin again.
These moments were interspersed with lucid ones where he felt as if he was waking up but didn’t know where he was or who was speaking to him. He felt confusion but no pain.
The only constant from waking life to the dreams and back was the image of his father. Sebastian materialized in some long-ago moments as he appeared now, an older man in voice and body. But then in contemporary ones he was the man he’d been twenty years earlier, faster and more agile. Quicker with a joke.
It was so confusing and propulsive that Luis felt as if he were hanging on for dear life as he was swept through the past and present. He had no control of what happened next and no sense of time. He wondered if this was what death was like and if time had slowed to the point that he was experiencing his last moments on the planet in a matter of seconds.
How would it end? Would the bright lights become gray? Individual objects and people blob into a single mass? What would be the last color he saw as his mind’s eye gently closed?
Then all at once, life returned.
Luis’s eyes opened, and he found himself in an unfamiliar room. It
was warm, but a light breeze came in through the window. The room itself was unadorned, to the point of being almost bare, though the walls, ceiling, and floor appeared to be new. Luis perceived his body spreading out on the bed before him under a heavy woolen blanket, but it seemed detached. He raised his arm, but it took such a Herculean effort that he brought it back down to rest a second later.
He looked to the window, but there was nothing to see but sky. He glanced to the room’s single door but saw only a doorframe with nothing attached. Beyond it was a hallway and some sort of open-air pavilion. He could hear sounds echoing up and realized he was on an upper floor of a building.
He moved his left arm, only to receive a searing pain in return. A needle was inserted into the back of his hand. A tube behind the needle ran up to a saline drip, hanging from a hook on the wall behind him. A stainless-steel table to his right was the only furniture in the room other than the bed.
He tried to move the wool blanket aside and found he was tucked into the bed by white sheets. He didn’t think he was a prisoner so much as someone that needed to be immobilized. He turned back to his hand and had a terrible thought. It wasn’t his. The color was wrong, faded and blanched, and the muscles weak and reduced. This was the arm of someone much older and malnourished.
He opened his mouth and realized what had felt like a dry stone held between his teeth was his dehydrated tongue. He tried to run it over his lips but found them cracked and dry. He craned his neck around to look for water and finally saw a crucifix with an image of the suffering Christ on the wall over his head.
I’m in a hospital.
It was his first coherent thought. He tested his legs and found them stiff and sore, as if he’d run a marathon. When he tried to sit up, pain erupted from his side with such ferocity that he thought the blade that had been driven into him was still lodged in his body. He lay quietly for a few minutes to catch his breath and allow the torment to subside.