by Rusty Ellis
The man stepped back to the cell bars, this time leery of placing his arms through the bars.
“We’ll see,” he spat out the words.
“Back to your cell,” a voice echoed down the hall toward the man.
Foster could hear the sound of the man’s footsteps retreating away from his cell.
His daughter was safe.
She’s safe. She’s out of reach. You can’t reach her, and more importantly, my past can’t reach her.
30
Leesa parked on the corner, down the block from Turing’s home. Far enough away from the goons in the SUV to not be noticed, but close enough for Ransom and her to watch their vehicle and the front door to Turing’s house at the same time.
“Coincidence?” Ransom asked and raised an eyebrow.
Before Leesa could answer, the garage door to the house rattled to life. A red Honda Accord backed out of the garage and hesitated at the edge of the driveway while the automatic door closed. Ransom could make out a young, blonde female driving. She appeared to be alone in the car. The girl backed onto the road in the opposite direction of the SUV and headed toward Leesa and Ransom’s position. Leesa started the car and waited for the girl to pass in front of them and continue down the street. The black SUV flipped around and the driver gunned the engine to catch up to the girl. Leesa punched the gas pedal and shot out in front of the SUV causing the vehicle to swerve and screech to a stop.
Leesa jumped from the car and pulled her firearm and badge from her waist and yelled, “Police, let’s see your hands!”
The two men in the vehicle complied and raised their hands toward the car's roof. Ransom climbed from the car and slid his Glock from the middle of his back and held it along his side. He stayed behind the open door of the vehicle and waited for Leesa to call the shots.
Leesa yelled at the occupants again, “Driver. Turn off the vehicle and drop the keys out the window…and do it slowly!”
The driver looked at the passenger then complied with Leesa’s commands.
“Driver. Open the door and slowly exit the vehicle. Passenger. Keep your hands up.”
Again, the driver complied and exited the vehicle.
“Step to the front of the vehicle and put your hands on the hood,” she shouted. Satisfied with the driver’s compliance, she turned her attention to the passenger, “Passenger. Do the same thing and exit the vehicle.”
The passenger followed suit and walked to the front of the car.
Ransom was confident these were the same guys they’d seen leaving Turing’s office earlier.
“I’m going to bring over the driver. You got the passenger?” Leesa asked Ransom.
“Got him,” Ransom lifted his Glock up to the crevice where the door met the body of the car.
“Driver. Keep your hands up and walk backwards toward my voice.”
The man walked backward to Leesa’s voice and she instructed him to put his hands on her hood. She stepped in behind the man, holstered her gun, then grabbed the back of his belt line while patting him down. She felt a bulge in his right armpit.
“I got a concealed carry permit for that,” the man said over his shoulder.
“Just keep your hands on the hood,” Leesa instructed and removed the gun from the shoulder holster and placed it in the mid of her back and retrieved a pair of handcuffs.
She reached for the man’s arm and slid it behind his back. The man tensed up and Leesa lowered her stance to the ground for better balance.
“Don’t,” was her only comment as she latched the first handcuff on the man’s wrist.
“What are you arresting me for?”
“You’re not under arrest. I’m detaining you for my safety while we sort this out.” Leesa pulled the man’s wallet from his pocket and set it on the hood of her car.
Ransom watched Leesa run the drills. He was always impressed with her swift response and adherence to safety. She didn’t budge when it came to protecting herself or her partner.
Leesa pushed the man forward and had him rest his chest on her hood, instructing him to stay there. The other man watched the entire scenario and waited for his turn.
Ransom nodded at Leesa to let her know he could watch the guy on the hood. He stepped around the vehicle and took up a position to one side of the man. Leesa drew her firearm once again and went through the same orders with the passenger. The man’s look remained the same from the moment he exited the vehicle; a look of disinterest across his face.
Leesa retrieved a second firearm and this time handed it to Ransom to tuck in his belt line.
With both men handcuffed, Leesa directed them, “Turn around and face me.”
Both men slowly turned. Ransom grabbed the first man’s wallet and opened it in front of him, “What’s your name?”
“It’s on my driver’s license,” the man chuckled.
Ransom looked at the picture on the license and scowled, “That’s you? I guess you have to work with what you’ve got.”
The man’s chuckle stopped. The juvenile jab hit a nerve. Ransom was content with the result of his shot.
“Antonio Beretti,” Ransom read the name out loud and looked back to the man. The man’s face shifted from humor to contempt.
Leesa reached around the second man and retrieved his wallet from the hood of the car, “And who do we have here?”
The man’s look remained unnerved; no emotion.
“Gianni Riva,” Leesa read the name and looked at Ransom.
“We’ve been looking for you Gianni,” Ransom turned his attention to the man.
Leesa took the second wallet from Ransom and returned to the driver’s seat of her car. She left the door open and one foot out on the pavement while calling dispatch for wants and warrants on the men.
Leesa exited her vehicle and spoke to Ransom, “They’re clear.” She turned to the two men and added, “Looks like your CCW permits are current.”
Tino smiled at Leesa but offered no comments. Gianni’s look remained unaffected by anything either Ransom or Leesa shared.
“You wanna take these off now?” Gianni finally spoke up.
Ransom questioned, “Why are you following her?”
Gianni’s face gave way to a wry grin, “Following who?”
Ransom stared at Gianni and the two men locked eyes.
Ransom asked again, “Why are you following Turing’s daughter?”
“Is that who that was? Cute girl,” Gianni turned toward his cohort, “What’d you think Tino, cute girl?”
Tino joined in, “Yeah, cute girl.”
Ransom stepped closer to Gianni and watched the man’s cold look return.
“One more time,” Ransom’s eyes narrowed, “why were you following Turing’s daughter?”
Gianni glanced at Tino and back to Ransom before answering, “We’re looking at houses in the neighborhood. I kind of like this area, thinking of buying something up here.”
Tino smiled at the response and fought back a snicker.
Leesa looked at Tino and asked, “So what were you doing at Turing’s office this morning?”
Tino whipped around to look at Leesa, the smile gone and replaced by an angry scowl.
Gianni spoke up before Tino could open his mouth, “You know, an important part of our judicial system is the relationship between an attorney and a client.”
“So you’re a client of Turing’s?” Ransom questioned.
Gianni turned to Ransom, “Again, an important part of our criminal justice system…”
Ransom interrupted and asked, “What about your relationship to Foster?”
Gianni stopped mid-sentence. The passive look turned cold and a twitch appeared above the corner of his mouth. Ransom was once again pleased to have hit a nerve, this time verifying Gianni and Foster’s connection.
“I think we’re done here. Either arrest us and we can call our attorney or let us go,” Gianni snarled at Ransom.
Leesa looked at Ransom and then stepped toward th
e two men, “Turn around and face the hood. When I take your cuffs off, put your hands on the hood until I say you can remove them.”
The men followed Leesa’s instructions and waited for her to give them the go ahead to stand up and retrieve their wallets. They turned to face Leesa and Ransom.
“Our guns,” Gianni grinned.
Leesa stepped forward and pulled the gun from her back and slid it into Tino’s holster. She stepped back and Ransom stepped forward with Gianni’s gun and did the same thing.
“Are we free to go now?” Gianni asked.
“Sure, watch yourself though,” Leesa added.
“You too,” Gianni answered back and took the time to make eye contact with Leesa then Ransom.
Ransom met Gianni’s gaze, “We’ll be in touch.”
Gianni started to respond but caught himself. He nodded at Tino to follow him. The men returned to their SUV and Tino maneuvered around Leesa’s car and continued down the street.
“We hit a nerve,” Leesa grinned at Ransom and headed back to the driver’s side of her car.
Ransom’s leg throbbed from standing without his cane. He could pull off several minutes without it, but paid for hiding the injury.
Back in the car, Ransom asked, “Could you run the license plate? I’m curious who’s listed as the owner.”
Leesa pulled the car to the curb and contacted dispatch again. After rattling the plate number off, they listened as the dispatcher responded, “The plate comes back to a black 2018 Cadillac Escalade. The vehicle is registered to Black Label Limousine Service on West Russell Road in Las Vegas.”
Leesa looked at Ransom and repeated, “Black Label Limousine Service.”
Ransom leaned his head back against the head rest and muttered toward the roof, “The Sartori’s. Looks like we’re making our way up the food chain.”
31
“Should we contact the Old Man?” Tino asked.
“Let me do the thinking, you just drive,” Gianni answered, irritated his thought process was interrupted.
The detectives were starting to put a few things together—not enough to really be concerned with, but enough for Gianni to take note. For now, he would just keep the information to himself and find a way to take care of it all. His crew was tight. Where they lacked in intelligence, they made up for in following orders without question.
Foster was an issue. He was the lynchpin. As long as he continued to flap his gums there was a chance more pieces of the puzzle could leak out to the cops. Having the detectives find him in front of Turing’s house was one thing. Them knowing he’d been to Turing’s office that morning was another thing. Gianni was careful about being tailed. It was common for him to have Tino make a few extra turns on the way to wherever they were headed. Tino didn’t ask questions and turned the car when told—following orders. Gianni didn’t notice being tailed from Turing’s office to his home. He needed to tighten up his counter-surveillance and quit acting so lax about it.
Sartori could handle set-backs—“Part of the game,” he would say—but slipping up was a whole other issue. He was not so forgiving about laziness or shoddy work. Not to mention Sartori’s version of firing was a little more permanent.
Gianni picked up his phone from the center console and tapped a number, “Where are we at with him?”
The voice on the other end responded, “He warned him, but the bird’s a tough nut. I don’t think he was swayed from singing…just waiting on you.”
Gianni lowered the phone to his shoulder and pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand. He mulled over the decision in front of him and how the Old Man would react to the news. Taking a deep breath, Gianni forced the air in a steady stream from his lungs.
He raised the phone back up and ordered, “Do it.”
32
“You’ve been too quiet and I can hear the gears grinding in your head,” Leesa quipped.
“We need to see if we can get anything else out of Foster,” Ransom quipped back. “And there’s Turing.”
Leesa hit the Spaghetti Bowl—where I-15 interchanged with US 95—and took the ramp going west. Traffic had been light but the road construction on the 15 caused havoc none-the-less. Riding up and over the exit ramp the traffic was thin and the 65 mph speed limit was an achievable goal versus the drive on the I-15. Leesa was headed in the general direction of Ransom’s home and made her way to the far-left HOV lane.
“I don’t think we’re going to get anything else out of Turing,” Leesa commented. “He’s obviously running scared.”
“Turing’s soft spot is his daughter. He needs to know she’s in better hands with us than with Sartori and those two goons at her house.”
“Should we make another run up to the prison in the morning?”
“Might as well. Now that Foster thinks his daughter’s out of the picture he may divulge a little more about his meetings with Gianni.”
33
Foster laid on his bed ignoring the clanking and echoes in the darkness. An occasional song or laughing from a cell would disrupt the night but was usually silenced by the yell of a guard.
Foster had learned to sleep with his back against the cement block wall on one side of his bed. It was always better to see someone coming at you. No matter where you were—cafeteria, library, rec yard—you always had to be aware of your surroundings. The problem with getting older was your body didn’t always agree with sleeping on the same side every night. Between the thin mattress and the arthritis in his hip, he found himself waking up on his back and on occasion facing the wall.
The pair of rubber soles made a squeaking noise down the hallway. The sound was usually accompanied by the jingle of a ring of keys on the guards belt. As the sound of the shoes grew closer, they were void of the keys jingle. A shadow stopped at the end of Foster’s bed.
“Forget your keys?” Foster asked the shadow.
“They didn’t issue me keys,” the familiar voice resounded back.
Foster recognized the voice from earlier in the day. He squinted to see the man standing in a prison uniform near the bars at the foot of his bed. A red swollen spot on the side of the prisoner’s face was a reminder of their previous encounter. The man’s face must have caught the bars when Foster tugged his arms through the gap. Foster smiled at the thought of having caught the man off guard.
Never get caught off guard.
The man slipped his left arm through the bar and smacked Foster’s foot. The contact to his foot caused him to shoot up out of bed. A sign of disrespect—putting your hands on someone else—wasn’t going to go unchallenged. Foster didn’t care that no one else had seen the contact, the sign of disrespect. He knew. And that was enough.
The shadowed outline of the man’s arm dangled through the bars again. With a swift motion, Foster stepped with both hands toward the man's wrist. Instead of recoiling his arm, the man punched further into Foster’s cell and grabbed a fistful of his Foster’s shirt. The blow to his chest caught Foster off guard and he reached for the man’s hand on his chest. With a heave, the man whipped his shoulder back and crashed Foster into the bars. His head struck the bars and his knees buckled. Reaching up to push away from the metal bars, Foster felt a burning sensation in his stomach and chest as if he was stung by a hive of hornets.
The man released Foster’s shirt and he stumbled backward to the floor. He pushed himself up and leaned against the wall between his bed and the metal commode on the opposite wall. The sound of someone singing bounced off the walls and through the hallway in front of the cells. Foster cried out but the singing drowned out his muffled attempts.
As the crooner’s tune trailed off, the shadowed cell walls began to spin. Foster’s eyes rolled shut—his body slid down the wall and tipped over against the metal frame of his bed.
At least she’s safe…
Part VII
Thursday
34
Ransom stared into the bathroom mirror and inspected the wrinkles on his face. The si
gns of maturing didn’t bother him. He was in no quest to outrun Father Time. Other than the nagging pain in his right knee, he had no real reason to complain. The wrinkles were well-earned. A road map of an interesting life. Life in general put the wrinkles there—the patches of white and grey were attributable to fatherhood and having a daughter. The latter thought put a smile on Ransom’s face. As he reached for his toothbrush he could hear the familiar tune of his phone ringing in his bedroom on the nightstand.
He turned gingerly on his right leg and limped across the room to the annoying little device. The number on the screen was for the Warden at the prison.
Ransom answered the phone, leery of the call, “Morning, Warden.”
“Hey, Ransom. I hate to start your day like this.”
Ransom sat down on the edge of his bed and waited for the Warden to continue.
“Foster’s dead.”
“How?” was Ransom’s only question.
“Someone stabbed him in the stomach several times through the bars of his cell.” Hearing no reply, the Warden added, “We’re still putting together who could have done it. They had to have connections on the inside. I’ve asked for some outside help to track down those involved.”
“I appreciate the call, Warden. I’d appreciate a call if you find out anything more.”
“You bet.”
The phone went dead.
Ransom held the phone in front of his face and dialed Leesa’s number.
“Good morning, Sunshine,” Leesa answered.
“I just got a call from the Warden. We don’t need to make a trip out to the prison. Foster’s dead.”
“How?”
“Why don’t you pick me up and I’ll tell you on the way to Turing’s house. The closer we get, the closer he and his daughter get to being expendable.”