“She said she was, and she wanted to pimp out Betts’s girlfriend.”
“Jesus. They were cracking jokes,” Braun said. “Betts knew the route from the hospital.”
“Maybe he informed Canella, which is why he didn’t come in today. He knew what was going down,”
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Braun said. He picked up his cell phone and dialed Betts.
***
Betts was driving his car when his cell phone lit up, the volume muted. He saw it was Braun and let it ring out.
***
Braun put his phone away and watched as the morgue technician got busy cutting it open. The two cops looked over and put on their best poker faces.
“So they were cracking jokes, huh?” Braun said.
Chapter 59
It was late afternoon when Cakes approached the front door of the suburban house and knocked. No answer. He checked around the side of the house. “Hello?” he called. Still no answer. When he was satisfied no one was around, he went down the side of the house, located the gas hot water system and began tampering with it. In a few minutes he heard what he was wanted to hear: the sound of leaking gas. He took out a foot-long sparkler, stuck the base of it into the garden nearby and lit it with a match. Cakes walked down the drive, got into Doc’s van and they drove away.
***
The officer sat in the unmarked sedan outside Lauren’s place reading a magazine. He was interrupted by an enormous explosion and saw the plume of black smoke rising into the air a few blocks away.
“Mother of God!” he said.
He looked at the Lauren’s house, then at the plume of smoke. He started the car and drove around a corner, leaving Lauren’s house unprotected.
Doc’s van pulled up just a few seconds later and parked right up by the front door. Cakes looked over at the growing plume of smoke and smiled, then put on a ski mask and got out of the van.
Chapter 60
With the sun setting behind him, Betts climbed over the six-foot fence and dropped into the fern garden at the back of the apartment. He could hear a game show on a television inside the house. He weaved through the ferns towards the porch, stopping when he was close enough to see through the rear window.
Inside, Lauren was sitting on the sofa, head in hands, sobbing. Peter’s wheelchair lay on its side, some toys scattered nearby, as if they had been flung from it.
Betts watched as Lauren dug a card out of her handbag and made a call on her cell phone. His phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and looked at it, watching Lauren as she waited for him to answer. But he couldn’t risk answering it, having Canella hear the conversation. Cakes may have turned the volume back up. He put the phone back in his pocket and watched as Lauren waited until the call rang out. She put the phone down and wept some more.
Betts wanted to go to her, wanted to embrace her and promise her he would return Peter safely, though he knew that would be a promise he may not be able to keep.
That prick Cakes. Where would he have taken Peter? Surely not back to Canella’s workshop, now they know they are under surveillance. Obviously they want Mitch Walker to hand himself over to them in exchange for Peter. How are they going to make a rendezvous with Walker? How can they communicate with him? He doesn’t have a cell phone, he’s probably hiding under a bridge somewhere. The only link is Lauren. Cakes would have banked on Mitch making contact with her and so given her instructions and told her to pass them on to Mitch.
Betts spotted a notepad and pen on the coffee table in front of Lauren.
She must have written down the instructions.
The doorbell rang. Lauren sat up startled, then went to answer it.
Betts hustled quietly to the back door. He pulled open the fly-screen and turned the back door knob. It was unlocked. He walked inside, through the kitchen to the lounge and could hear Lauren opening the front door.
“Hi ma’am, there’s been an explosion in a house around the corner,” Betts heard the cop tell her, “gas leak. I had to leave my post here and attend the scene. Just want to make sure you’re alright,” said the cop.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“You don’t look fine, are you sure?”
“Just hay fever.”
Betts went over to the coffee table and opened the diary to the current page, but all that was written was an ordinary list of things to do.
“You sure you’re okay? Something on your mind?”
“My son has cancer, okay?”
Betts flicked through the diary, trying to find some address that could be the rendezvous point. There was nothing that seemed to fit.
“Sorry, ma’am. I understand.”
“It’s okay, I’m sorry. Was anybody hurt?”
“No, ma’am, not as far as we can tell. Anyway, I’ll leave you to it,” he said.
“Thank you, bye,” Lauren said, and closed the door. She walked down the passage and back into the lounge, sitting on the sofa.
Betts was hiding in the kitchen, waiting for the right moment to leave. Listening as Lauren began sobbing again.
Lauren took her cell and made another call.
Betts’s cell vibrated again in his pocket again. He slipped it out, then rejected the call.
She tried a third time, and again he rejected the call.
“Son of a bitch!” Lauren said.
Then her phone rang.
“Hello!” she said. “Mitchell! Where are you?” she asked, “...no, it’s not okay, they took Peter!” she said, her voice alternating between fear and anger. “...I don’t know, he was wearing a ski mask... ...no I didn’t, listen... ...he... ...listen to me, Mitchell! The man who took Peter, he told me to tell you to meet him. He said they just want to talk to you, and to coach you, so that you know what to say in court. It’s a lie, isn’t it?”
Yes, it’s a lie, Betts thought.
“I don’t know what to do, I’ve been trying to call that cop... ...he seemed nice, Mitch! I think I can trust him, I know I can!”
Betts felt a warmth in his chest that was pleasant and somehow, just slightly, it eased the tension that had been gripping his entire body. But this was no time to ease off. He needed to stay taut and focused.
“It’s Port of Los Angeles, Berth 46. He said to come alone, and if you tell the cops he will know. He said if you come and anybody is tailing you, we’ll never see Peter...” she sobbed.
Betts tightened up again. Makes sense. Canella owns a security recruitment business that handles security at the wharf. Not a bad place to dispose of a couple of bodies.
“I don’t know what to do, should I call the other police?” Lauren asked. “You really believe that? I want to believe that, but... okay, Mitchell. If I don’t hear from you in an hour, I’m calling the police... okay, I love you... ...Bye.” She hung up the phone and inhaled, filling her lungs. Then she shuffled to the kitchen and opened the fridge. She felt noticed the back door was ajar. She opened the fly-screen and stepped outside, looking into the garden. There was no one there. She walked back inside and shut the door.
Chapter 61
Braun had closed the door of his office and was standing behind Vance, who sat at his computer running a geo-tag program.
“This will give us live feed of his movements, using his cell phone. You got a warrant for this, right?”
“Just do it, Vance, and keep your mouth shut.” Braun said. Vance kept at it. “Come on, get this thing working, will you?”
In a few moments Vance had triangulated the location of Betts’s cell phone, a moving dot on a map.
“That’s him. He’s really moving,” Vance said.
“That’s Seaside Freeway. He’s heading towards the Port of LA,” Braun said. “What about Canella? Where’s she at now?” Braun asked.
Vance hit a few more keys. “She’s on the water.”
“At the docks.”
Vance nodded. “Let’s see what Betts has been up to. He was supposed to have been home sick all day,
right?” Vance said.
“Sick, my ass,” Braun said.
With a few clicks, Vance had a diagram of Betts’s movements.
“Looks like he was home all morning. Went out at two forty. Stopped in Inglewood for a few minutes…then went back home again. Went out a little later…”
“Where exactly in Inglewood? And what time?” Braun asked.
“That was at…” Vance clicked a button, “East ninety-ninth and South Flower, from 3:24pm to 3:32pm.”
“Couple of blocks from where the hit went down, and right around the same time. Son of a bitch. Betts, of all people. I can’t believe it,” Braun said. “Where’d he go after that?”
“He went home, then left half an hour later. Then he went to Sherman Oaks, and now he’s en route to the city.”
“What’s in Sherman Oaks? Canella got something going on there?”
“Not that I know of,” Vance said. He hit the keyboard some more. “That’s where Cakes has been, too,” he said, as lines showed up on the map indicating Cakes’ movements converging with Betts’ at the Sherman Oaks location, then separating. “They both went to Sherman Oaks. Betts got there thirteen minutes after Cakes.”
Vance clicked a little more. “Looks like Cakes is now at the docks with his mom.”
“And Betts is heading out to meet them,” Braun said.
They looked at each other, Braun grimacing and shaking his head. “Betts, of all people. Fuck me.”
“You see him at our last meeting? No wonder he was quiet as a mouse,” Vance said.
“You mean a fucking rat,” Braun said.
Chapter 62
The CarnivOrca, a fifty-foot motor yacht, was docked at Berth 46. Canella stood at the rear deck in a pair of navy blue overalls, drinking a beer and looking over at a huge storage shed on the quay that was built to house a cargo ship. The massive roller doors were open all the way to the top. Inside it was dark, she could only make out the a few storage crates and a forklift. Then a vehicle entered through entrance at the far end, its headlights beaming straight at her.
The van drove right through and parked on the quay by the CarnivOrca. Doc and Cakes got out, Cakes turning on the lights in the shed as Doc escorted Peter Walker out of the car towards the boat. The color had returned to Peter’s face, as had his strength, so much so that Doc didn’t hesitate to give him a shove and to guide him up onto the ramp and onto the rear deck, where Canella was waiting.
Not a nice man. A very nasty man, Peter thought. I better watch out for him.
“This is Peter Walker,” Cakes said.
“Hello, kitten,” Canella said, smiling at Peter. He smiled back. She was surprised at how healthy the kid looked, considering he was supposedly dying.
“What if Walker doesn’t call his sister?” Cakes asked her.
“We’ll skin that cat when we come to it,” Canella said.
Chapter 63
Betts drove along Seaside Freeway listening to Canella and Cakes via the spyware installed on Canella’s phone.
“I sent most of the staff home, with full pay,” Cakes said. “We’re only using the guys who’ve been with us since the club days, and they are all out in the yards. They’re not going to see nothing.”
“Good,” Canella said. “When this is done you get those guys back to work. We’re not paying them for nothing.”
Betts pulled into a wharf-side car park by Berths 32-69. He took the gun from his chest-holster and made sure it was loaded with a bullet in the chamber. He did the same with the palm-sized pistol on his ankle, then got out and closed the door, careful not to make a noise.
Betts jogged to the sparsely lit promenade. Further up he could see the fence enclosing huge sheds, cranes and containers around the wharf. Peter was being held somewhere in the darkness beyond the fence. If he was still alive.
Betts stopped at the fence, which ran a few yards off the wharf into the water, razor wire along the top. Beyond the fence he could see a large shed, the only structure with lights on. That has to be Berth 46. They have to be there.
There didn’t appear to be anyone about and Betts took out a pair of pliers and started cutting a vertical line in the fence.
The wire was thick and took some cutting, but Betts managed to hack a line from chest to knee height, then began to slide through the tight gap. He got halfway through, palming the wire away from his face and the chest-cam. But the taut, severed wire ends, like steel claws, scratched and dug holes into his shirt and pants. He wanted to jump through quickly but knew that would leave him shredded. He pried the steel away from one part, only to have it grip another as he inched onwards.
Then his head jolted back violently. He had been struck by a powerful blow from the dark, wharf-side of the fence. Seeing stars, he raised his right arm to protect himself, but his attacker grabbed it in a grappling martial arts grip. With his left arm on the other side of the fence, he was defenseless. The guy tugged, trying to haul him through to the other side, but the clawed ends of wire dug into him, into the solid metal side of the chest-cam, keeping him stuck. Grunting and reeking of body odor, the assailant pulled with more force and Betts felt the sting of the skin flap being torn from his chest. The wire grated across the glass lens of the camera, peeling off the duct tape as he was pulled through and dumped on the asphalt. More stars, and then a knee was thrust onto his throat, choking him.
But Betts now had a free arm and immediately thrust it upwards to the man’s crotch. He took a crushing grip on the guy’s testicles and, like magic, his right arm was released and the knee was removed. Betts applied two hands and the big guy groaned and dropped onto his side. Betts kept his merciless grip, his opponent groaning in agony. Finally the groaning stopped and Betts knew the guy was unconscious.
He searched him, pulling a radio and torch from his belt. The adrenalin wore off, replaced by throbbing pain on the side of his face and stinging on his chest. Using the torch to check the damage, he saw his torso was shredded from the fence, his shirt torn up and missing most of its buttons. The duct tape that had covered the chest-cam lens had been scratched off, and so had the flap of skin, now hanging by a thread. He took a hold of it and yanked it off, the sting making his eyes water.
Betts switched off the torch and closed his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them again they soon adjusted to the darkness. He set off towards what he hoped was Berth 46.
The pain on his chest and face was almost forgotten as he wondered if Canella would be watching the video feed. He hoped the darkness would create the illusion that he was still in bed, but that would only last until he got to the shed. He could only hope Canella’s crew were preoccupied and had forgotten about him for now.
Betts crouched along the water’s edge in the moonlight, past a jetty where motorboats sat on their moorings, almost completely still. Holding his gun with one hand, he covered the chest-cam with the other, hoping to keep the light out and the transmission black. He looked over to the shed a few hundred yards away where the large motor yacht was docked at the quay. Up ahead was a sign marked Berth 36. Betts weaved through the forklifts, crates and shipping containers towards the shed.
Chapter 64
Inside the galley of the boat, Peter was seated at a wooden table. The open window beside him looked out to the shed. Nearby Canella was rummaging through a refrigerator and emerged with a chocolate bar and a soft drink, which she placed onto the table in front of Peter, not making eye contact with the boy.
“Thank you,” he said.
She ignored him, took a beer and left. Peter noticed a duffel bag on the seat opposite. He leaned over, grabbed it and unzipped it to find the remote device that controlled the chest-cam. He played around with it and found the flip-out screen. The power was on, but the vision was dark. He moved it around, trying to get a better reception. Then he heard something faintly through the built-in speakers. He found the volume button and turned it up, the sound of Betts’s labored breathing coming through loud and clear.
Chapter 65
The Nissan sports car turned off Seaside Freeway into a dark side street that ran parallel to the wharf. Mitch was at the wheel, the Glock .30 that had belonged to Jenkins on the passenger seat.
He didn’t believe for a second that Doc just wanted to coach him on his courtroom manner, especially here at the wharf. Having survived the last assassination attempt, he was certain that Doc had every intention of finishing him off for good this time, and leaving his body at the bottom of the harbor, or feeding him to the sharks. But he had something to cling to, something that he hoped would be a enough to bargain for the lives of his sister and nephew, and perhaps even his own. He looked at the red USB thumb drive in the center console that his sister had given him. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had.
***
Braun drove an unmarked police car down the back street, running alongside the wharf. Vance sat in the passenger seat beside him, watching an electronic tablet on which he tracked Betts’ movements.
“He’s here alright, just around the corner.” Vance looked up just as the Nissan sports car drove by in the opposite direction. He got a quick glimpse of the driver.
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