Bite Back 05 - Angel Stakes

by Mark Henwick

  “Eyes on,” she replied, and I felt better. Motorcycles could get places in a hurry.

  Bryant finished his call.

  “Done,” he said. “Cell off. You too.”

  “Uh…how come?”

  “First lesson. When the boss tells you something like that, you don’t ask why. Get it? Me, I’m a nice guy, so I’ll tell you. We’re out for a good time and I don’t like getting interrupted.”

  “I’m sorry. No problem.”

  Dante switched her cell off.

  Without the boost from the cell, the signal from the wire was lousy.

  “Good,” Bryant said. “You want to get used to doing what you’re told with the boss.”

  “I love doing what I’m told, Willard. It’s my thing.” There was a pause, full of the quiet hiss of the signal. “Is that what Tamanny got wrong?”

  “Lots of things that bitch got wrong,” he said.

  Reed and I leaned forward as if that would make the signal clearer.

  “All tease and no please, that one. Got away with it because she was winning the competition. No way the boss will take that from you.”

  “Oh, he won’t have to,” she said, her voice sultry with promise.

  “Now listen to me. You ain’t gonna enjoy everything he do, and it make no fucking difference, right. He hurt you, you can scream. That’s okay, so long as when he wants it again, you give it up to him straight and ‘yes, please’, no argument, no back chat. No ‘but it hurts, Tanner’. He knows it hurts. Get it? You gonna handle that?”

  “Better than that. I’m gonna like it. I’m real bad like that.”

  Bryant grunted. “We’ll see.”

  I could hear the Tahoe pull out, and number three in our tail called “I’m on.”

  Bob overtook us to move into the next slot.

  “Really don’t like this,” I said. The whole thing was making a sour taste in my mouth.

  “It wasn’t a side road. He made a call. He hasn’t turned around.”

  “Doesn’t mean it wasn’t a check for a tail, and this road’s too quiet. He might be suspicious.”

  Reed shrugged. “If he’s looking, he’ll have seen different cars. Nothing for him to be suspicious about.” He tilted his head at one of the screens in the van, which was taking a feed from a camera pointing behind us. “There’s no sign anyone’s watching us.”

  But it had changed in the Tahoe. Bryant was sounding different. More aggressive and demanding. He was starting to work on Dante, trying to get in her head.

  “Oh yeah, that’s all good,” she was saying. “I guess she couldn’t handle it?”

  “That Tamanny bitch? No.”

  “So tell me, how did he punish her?” Her voice was breathy, excited. “I want to hear.”

  “Why you want to know that?”

  “I like it. That kinda thing gets to me, y’know. Turns me on. Gets me hot. Besides, I got to know what the stakes are,” Dante said. “He could mess it up for me so I can’t ever work in the industry.”

  “Huh. Lot worse than that, what he got lined up for that stuck-up bitch,” Bryant said.

  I immediately looked at Reed, but he shook his head. Not nearly enough.

  Melrose got busier. It went under an overpass for 101 and ended at a T junction with Hoover. Between there and the Echo Park section of Sunset was a tangle of residential streets.

  “He’ll go up Hoover and come into Sunset from Santa Monica,” Reed said.

  Bryant didn’t. The Tahoe crossed to head through the residential area.

  “Swap out,” I said.

  Number three turned up Hoover, and Bob moved into the first car spot thirty yards behind the Tahoe.

  Number one car was already waiting on Sunset, where we predicted the Tahoe would join. Randall was behind us. We had two new cars waiting in Echo Park.

  It should be enough.

  The Tahoe turned south onto Sunset, with Bob too close. Our van pulled out about a hundred yards behind him.

  This end of Sunset was quieter than the Strip. No huge billboards spilling light into the streets, less neon. Darker streets, smaller restaurants, bars and clubs. Hip. Edgy.

  “I used to know a cool bar around here,” Dante said. “It was called…hell, now I can’t remember. What’s the name of the place we’re heading to?”

  “Second lesson. Don’t ask the boss where he’s going. When you need to know, he’ll tell you.”

  “Paranoid or what?”

  “Paparazzi make his life hell.”

  “Well, there’s some of us wish the paparazzi would take notice.”

  He grunted. “Third lesson. Drop the smart attitude, real quick, or get out now.”

  Dante had slipped out of her airhead persona.

  “Sorry. Sorry,” Dante said. “I’m just playing around.”

  “You aren’t playing now.”

  “No. I’m not playing,” Dante said. “I’m out for a drink with a big, hot guy and I’m feeling all warm and wet.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh, yeah. But I think maybe you need a little relaxing.”

  Noise. Skin against denim.

  My stomach churned. Dante, no!

  “Oooh. Looks like you’re feeling pretty hot, too.”

  “Oh, man,” Bryant said, his voice low.

  “Y’know, all that rough talk, it really gets me going,” Dante said. “Sort of scared and turned on at the same time.”

  “You like it?”

  “Yeah, baby. I like the thought of that stuck-up doll finding out what it’s really like for the rest of us. I guess I can’t ask the boss, but you said you’d tell me stuff, didn’t you? You said you were there, didn’t you? So tell me—”

  “You keep—”

  There was a burst of frantic music.

  “I thought you turned it off,” Dante said.

  “Shut up,” Bryant said. “That’s the boss’ cell. That don’t get switched off.”

  Shit.

  “He’s turning around,” Bob said.

  “What’re you doing?” Dante’s voice had edged up. I could feel the fear rising in her.

  Call it off, Dante. You have the code word. Gnarly. Say it. Say it. Say it.

  “You wanted to party with the boss? This might be your lucky night. Gotta pull over and call. See what’s up.”

  The Tahoe cruised back past us, bleak and ominous.

  “Turn at the next block,” Reed told the driver. “Randall, turn if he can’t see you, and wait for him.”

  Dante: “But you haven’t told me–”

  Bryant: “I’ll make sure you’ll know everything you need when you meet him.”

  The signal was getting fainter. Then there was nothing but static on the wire.

  “Out of range. Turn now,” Reed said to the driver.

  I’d had enough. “Shit. Close it—”

  “I see him.” Randall’s voice.

  “Wait,” Reed said. “Just a minute or two.”

  We turned in the road. Car horns blared at us.

  “We can’t hear what’s going on,” I said. “This is useless.”

  “The bug keeps a record of the last fifteen minutes or so,” Reed said, “and we’ll be back in range soon.”

  The loudspeakers hissed.

  “He’s turning toward Angelino.” That was Yelena. Angelino Heights was the small area west of Sunset, bordered by the 101.

  A new voice came on the walkie-talkie. “We’re on Bellvue. Get someone on Glendale and we’ve got him in a bottle.”

  It was our two missing cars.

  “I got Glendale,” car number one said.

  “On Bellvue with the others,” Bob called out.

  “Echo Park Avenue now.” Randall.

  “Close in and take him now,” I said. “No way is Forsythe thinking of partying tonight. I don’t trust calls coming in that we can’t hear. It’s gotten too dangerous. Stop it now.”

  The wolf was thrashing inside me. Wrong. Wrong. Pack. Threat.

 
; “No. One minute.” Reed put his hand up. He cranked up the volume on the wire. Still nothing but noise.

  “Eyes on.” That was Randall. “He’s stopped on a side road near the parking lot.” He paused. “Maybe he’s getting some action. I’m driving around the block.”

  “Where?” I shouted. “Randall, where’s the Tahoe?”

  “Parking lot off the Avenue,” he replied. “Half a block west of Sunset.”

  I tore the van door open.

  One of the buildings just ahead was covered in murals. That was the junction with Echo Park Avenue.

  The intersection was blocked by traffic.

  The traffic lights were against us and the loudspeakers were still hissing.

  We were in range. The wire had gone dead.

  “Yelena!” I yelled at the walkie-talkie. “End it now.”

  “On it.”

  I ignored the shouts from the van behind me as I sprinted across the road.

  Cars skidded and horns blared. I vaulted a sedan, landing on the sidewalk with my legs already pumping. People scattered in front of me and joined in the shouting.

  How long had the wire been out of range?

  Four minutes? Five? Too long.

  That call Bryant had taken was bad news. I could feel it in my gut.

  I’d said I would be there for her.

  I hadn’t been.

  I’d failed Tamanny, and now I’d failed Dante.

  The side alley. Nearly empty parking lot. The Tahoe halfway along. Lights off. No movement.

  The Kawasaki skidded in at the far end, ignoring the one-way sign, and came screaming down the road.

  We got there at the same time.

  Yelena dropped the motorcycle and launched herself at the mirrored window on the passenger side, her bulky boot crushing the glass.

  I smashed the driver’s window with the HK.

  All wasted effort.

  Willard Bryant wasn’t going anywhere. He was slumped forward over the wheel, shocked eyes staring at me and a small, neat hole with dark edges in his forehead. The sort of hole you’d get from a .22 at close quarters.

  The passenger seat was empty.

  I backed up.

  A belt on the ground.

  Dante’s belt. Sliced open, and the bug, with its recording of the last fifteen minutes, had been torn out.

  Chapter 60

  “Yelena! What cars did you pass coming in?”

  Only a couple of minutes. There’s a chance they passed us on the way out.

  “White Honda sedan,” she said, and closed her eyes for a second. “Red Ford compact.”

  “And a blue VW sedan turning left. Go.”

  She picked the Kawasaki up and raced back toward Sunset, past a startled Reed.

  He jogged up and stood beside me, eyes taking in the Tahoe with the doors wide open, the body lying against the steering wheel. And the belt on the ground.

  “Shit,” he said.

  Shit didn’t cover it. We’d failed. We’d known what the dangers were and we’d gone on with the plan regardless.

  I pointed at the belt—the one that no one outside of Major Crimes knew about. “That says someone in your department called Forsythe today.”

  Even while I spoke, my wolf senses were reaching, reaching. Dante had been here, but there was no trail leading away, no hint in the complex and folded scents that she was close.

  The command post van and the other cars arrived at the same time, with squealing tires and banging doors.

  I ran to the van. It had a camera pointed out of the back, and the feed was being recorded. But there was no camera pointed to the front, so nothing on that intersection as we’d been approaching. No record of cars I might have missed.

  The wolf snarled in frustration.

  Reed was at my shoulder. I needed to keep it under control. I punched the side of the van, using the pain to help distract me.

  “What?” he said.

  “Yelena and I saw three cars that might have been involved,” I explained. “I was hoping to get more from the tapes.”

  The wolf twisted and twisted inside. She wanted to burst out. To run. To hunt. To chase through the brutal noise and smells of the city and find that elusive fragment of scent that would lead me to Dante.

  Breath whined in my throat.

  I slumped against the van, fighting my wolf, fighting myself.

  I should have gone with Yelena to search for the kidnappers’ car.

  No. I should have called it off the moment Bryant received that call. Stopped them on Sunset.

  Better, I should never have let Dante talk me into this in the first place.

  The cascade of bad decisions seemed to trigger a light in my head. Painfully bright. If it was too late to go running back to Sunset looking for cars that might be a mile away already, what could I do?

  Calm. Look for clues.

  Snatching Dante had to have been planned in a rush. Reed and Simpson had only put the operation in motion this morning. Surely the abductors had made some mistakes.

  I was vaguely aware of Reed sending his colleagues out onto Sunset with the minimal information we had. It was a futile gesture, and we both knew it.

  We walked back to the Tahoe. Numbness was setting in. My footsteps seemed to float.

  “How did they know where…” Reed was speaking to himself.

  I stuck my head in the Tahoe, careful not to touch anything. In the central console was a neat double slot for charging smartphones. It was empty. Both of Bryant’s cells were gone.

  Reed leaned in from the other side, peering over Bryant’s body.

  “If he kept a cellphone for talking to Forsythe permanently on—” I started.

  “Yeah, you can hack the cell. Forsythe could probably hear everything that was said in here, and he was probably pulling a GPS signal from it as well.”

  We stood back and looked at each other over the hood of the Tahoe.

  “So he knows we’ve got a wire on Dante and we’re trying to get Bryant to talk. Bryant becomes a liability. He sends a team down here. Maybe the same hitman who did the judge. He knows we’re following closely. He’d have a car.” He paused and closed his eyes for a moment. “What’s wrong with this scene, Farrell? Why aren’t there two bodies?”

  I didn’t answer. I was afraid I knew.

  To Forsythe, Bryant was business. He worked for Forsythe and he’d stepped over the line. He paid the penalty. Just another transaction to Forsythe.

  But Dante was personal.

  As far as Forsythe would know, my appearance had started this investigation against him. He’d blame me for everything. And whoever was feeding him information from Major Crimes would have linked Dante to me.

  To Forsythe, taking Dante was a way of getting back at me for ruining his sick life here in LA. Instead of sending a hitman down here, he’d sent a team. Probably two guys with the hitman—one to drive the car, one to snatch Dante while the hitman killed Bryant.

  And there was no way Forsythe would be hanging around now. There were too many pointers to him. This abduction had been hugely risky. They’d gotten away with seconds to spare. If we’d caught them, we’d have a direct line to Forsythe.

  He’d already started running. Had to have.

  And catching him was the only way to be sure of getting Tamanny and Dante back safely.

  Cellphone again. Billie. Again. I could see it was her call I’d ignored a few minutes before.

  Bad feeling.

  “Billie, can you take Forsythe? Wherever he is.”

  “No! I’ve been trying to call you. He’s gone. Limousine stopped outside a store and he ran through it. He was gone by the time we got around the other side. He must have known he was being followed.”

  Or guessed it. Or was paranoid enough to take precautions.

  Think!

  He had Tamanny. His team had just abducted Dante. If he wanted her dead, she’d be dead here. So he wanted something else.

  I shuddered.

/>   He had something planned. Something he wanted Dante for. Somewhere in his immediate reach. He wasn’t going to leave until it was done.

  What? And where?

  Around me, everyone just kept moving. Reed was busy calling it in. Gawkers were gathering. A squad car had turned up and a couple of uniforms started putting up a yellow tape perimeter.

  The snarl of the Kawasaki told me Yelena had returned, but a glance showed me she didn’t have Dante.

  Reed’s other colleagues were returning, dispirited. No one had seen anything suspicious in any cars that matched Yelena’s and my descriptions.

  Time running out.

  Reed might put out an APB for Forsythe, but there was nothing I could add to that. And I couldn’t just leave everything to the police. They moved too slowly. They had to respect the rules.

  Reed would be full of questions if I was here much longer. I couldn’t afford to answer them and my House couldn’t afford to have me delayed by him.

  One other route I can investigate.

  Yelena knew what I was thinking.

  I leaped up behind her on the Kawasaki.

  The snarl as she gunned the engine drowned out the shouts from the police.

  Chapter 61

  “Jacob! We’re coming to you now. Any movement?”

  I had ducked behind Yelena’s back to call Jacob on the cell, one arm gripping her waist as she powered the Kawasaki through the traffic.

  “Nothing, Ms. Farrell,” he said. “She had some deliveries, but she hasn’t been out—”

  I didn’t like the sound of that.

  “What deliveries?” I interrupted him.

  “Ahh…just some couriers and stuff. I have them written down. Companies and license plates. They had to wait for the gate to open, so it was easy—”

  He was eager, and if this had been a long-term surveillance, that kind of detail would be useful.

  “Cars? Motorcycles?” I asked.

  “Motorcycles.”

  “Wearing full-face helmets?”

  “Uh, yeah, a couple of them.”

  “Jacob, this is important. Were the people who wore helmets out of your sight? Even for a second? Did they go inside?”

  “No, Ms. Farrell,” he said quickly. “I can see the front door from here, and they just stood there and handed stuff over.”