Once a Thief (Gentleman Jack Burdette Book 3)

by Dale M. Nelson

  “Isis Avenue, I think it is,” Rusty said, voice still edging in on anger.

  Jack didn’t take the time to agree with him.

  Rusty got out of the BMW with Jack and orbited to the driver’s side.

  Jack ran to the side of the building nearest them, which was the last one on the traffic circle, moving fast like a person looking for cover. He stepped from the corner to the sidewalk and quickly went to the other side.

  “What time should we be expecting the shipment,” Chan Lau said. He had a rigid posture that spoke of a youth spent at an expensive boarding school and a diction that could only have been refined at Cambridge or Oxford. He also had an authority about him that Reginald didn’t like. Something had felt off about this meeting since the moment he sat down, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He knew Pan Pacific was a front. This wasn’t a real business, so he’d expected this office to look exactly like it did: out of the box. Still, there was something else that felt…fabricated, perhaps. He didn’t expect Carter to know. That wasn’t a guy who got far in life by asking too many questions. Questions led to messy answers. All Carter wanted to know was that he had a dumping ground for the gem deals that his company thought were too shady to move forward on. A savvier person would’ve seen this for what it was. This was too…organized for a fly by night. The generic artwork on the walls, the just-enough-staff-to-make-it-seem-like-a-business, the walls without scuff marks behind the doors, and everything laid out like it was described on a checklist.

  Reginald heard a muffled, staccato ripping sound from outside the building. It was muffled but unmistakable.

  That was goddamned gunfire.

  And a lot of it.

  “What the hell was that,” Carter LeMothe said, dropping both of his hands nervously on the table and throwing his eyes back and forth as if the gunfire were in the room with them. “You guys stay here, I’m going to check this out,” LeMothe said, half-standing. That guy had been so erratic since the moment he pulled up, it could only be because he was on something.

  “Carter,” Reginald growled, “sit the fuck down. I’m sure there’s a situation where you’re useful, but this ain’t it.”

  Chan Lau gave LeMothe a cold stare and lowered his hand to the table, indicating that Carter should do the same.

  More shots.

  Reginald knew this could only mean one thing. Jack wouldn’t even bring a pistol for insurance, let alone however many the hell guns Reginald heard outside. And anyway, Jack should be up in Van Nuys about now trying to con his way into the airport. Under different circumstances, Reginald would’ve allowed himself a smile thinking about Jack trying to fit greasy maintenance coveralls over a five-thousand-dollar suit. Vito’s Italian friends had brought some heat with them and made their play. Somehow, they’d been able to track Reginald’s moves, figure out that the deal would be going down here and now.

  Yes, they’d been inside his apartment, but this deal didn’t come together until after that. Did they have a tail on him the entire time? Found the place in Westlake? That didn’t seem likely or within their specific province of ability. Unless the mafia figured out how to tap cell phones, which didn’t seem likely to him, that meant they’d gotten this from the inside.

  Vito, or one of his two idiots, was playing both sides.

  Reginald stood and buttoned his jacket.

  “Mr. Burton, please sit down,” Chan Lau, the Pan Pacific guy, said. “I do believe that’s gunfire.”

  “Welcome to Los Angeles, Mr. Lau,” Reginald deadpanned and started walking toward the door.

  “Sir, I’m going to have to insist you take your seat, for your own safety.”

  “Reg, what you are doing?”

  Lau moved to stand, but Reginald made the door before he could do anything.

  Sorry, Vito. Reginald didn’t know how he was going to salvage this, but he sure as hell wasn’t sitting around here. He found that he was genuinely saddened to discover that Vito was playing him. Reginald allowed himself the time it took him from the conference room to the hallway to feel remorse over it.

  “Mr. Burton, please return to the conference room. We have an active shooter situation,” the girl behind the reception desk said, standing.

  That’s what it was. No front desk girl at a fake company was going to bravely stand up and tell him to calmly return to the windowless conference room. She’d be hiding under the desk, videoing herself being “brave and strong” so she could post it later. Hashtag Inglewood Shooter.

  Reginald said nothing to her and made the door before she was around the desk.

  Goddamn it, Vito. This could’ve been beautiful, man.

  Reginald wasn’t giving up on his score yet. The mafia clowns might have numbers and guns on their side, but they were stupid and they didn’t know shit about smuggling diamonds. There would be a way to get these still, Reginald just needed the time and space to work it out. He heard the “receptionist” in the hallway coming after him. Reginald opened the door to the stairwell and moved down it quickly. He made the first floor and entered the hallway near the rear door. The Range Rover was a no go, but they were only a block from the light-rail station.

  If the customs paperwork held up, the FBI wouldn’t be able to hold onto those diamonds for long and would revert the stones back to WorldSecure. Reginald would have them transfer the diamonds to one of their offices out of the country. It was a delay of a few months, but nothing insurmountable. But he was cutting Vito off. This mafia thing, that was his fuckup.

  As Reginald entered the hallway, he saw a man in a gray suit and sunglasses walking with purpose pass just in front of him.

  Jack moved around the back of the nearest building along the circle, across the access road, and onto the middle one. He chanced a look to his right down the road between the two buildings. It looked like one more cruiser had arrived even during the short walk from the BMW. He made fast steps on the sidewalk, moving around that center building to the rear entry. Jack opened the door and entered a wide, air-conditioned hallway. There was a doorway to a stairwell immediately to his right, and he saw a bank of elevators on either side in the center of the hallway. There was a straight shot through to the other side, and he could clearly see the flashing lights of the police vehicles through the far doors.

  Jack didn’t remove his sunglasses when he entered the building. In part because if this building had security cameras, he would most certainly be on them, but also to convey a sense of character. Jack heard the stairway door open, saw it out of the corner of his eye.

  Fuery and Reaves issued instructions to the Inglewood PD on-scene commander, a patrol sergeant until one of their lieutenants arrived, and headed back inside the building. The police had this well enough in hand. The gunmen appeared to be a mix of native Italians and Italian-Americans. Some of them didn’t speak much English or at least wanted to give the appearance that they didn’t. They would know as soon as names were processed whether there was a connection to Italian organized crime (IOC), the Bureau’s designation for the mafia.

  They didn’t have time to wait for the elevator, so Fuery and Reaves took the stairs immediately inside the doors. Fuery saw someone in the hallway, probably some guy that hadn’t sheltered in place like he was supposed to. Well, the Inglewood PD would turn him back around if he was dumb enough to go out front. Right now, Fuery had to figure out whether they had enough to charge Burton and De Angeles. The fact that someone showed up and tried to take those things by force suggested that those two had some kind of underworld connections. Maybe they weren’t dirty, but they probably had some associates who were. Everything would now hinge on that customs import paperwork and whether they could prove these diamonds weren’t stolen.

  “I’m going to start working on Burton and De Angeles,” Fuery said when they were in the stairwell. “Can you call back to headquarters and talk to the OC guys?”

  “You want to see what they know about our shooters?”

  “Exactly.”
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  “Okay. I’ll call LAPD Vice as well.”

  “Good thinking.”

  They entered the hallway and walked fast back to 208. Fuery wanted someone to tell him what in the exact hell was going on, and he wanted it fast.

  Jack ignored the person exiting the stairs, assuming it was someone that was trying to get away to safety. He was moving past the elevators when he heard that person opening the doors that he’d just come through, caught that same slight squeak of a hinge that needed oil. Jack continued moving to the front doors, opened them, and stepped outside into bedlam.

  He counted five Inglewood police cruisers and twice that many officers, most of which were standing over the gunmen, who were lying facedown on the pavement, cuffed. There was an ambulance on scene now. He saw paramedics working on one of the officers, the one Jack watched Fiore shoot. That brought his gaze over to where he saw the mafia hit man fall. There was a body lying prone in a pool of blood. None of the paramedics had gotten to him yet, but he’d shot a cop, so Jack imagined that the police officers here might have waited just a bit for first aid. Fiore had fallen face first, but they’d rolled him over to confirm if he was still alive. Beyond him, there was a young patrolman putting up yellow police tape.

  “Sir, this is a crime scene. You need to go back inside,” a hard voice said.

  Jack’s eyes went to a Black police officer with sergeant’s stripes (Jack assumed that’s what they were) on his short sleeves. The cop’s arms were so big, Jack had to imagine that even getting dressed in the morning threatened to cut off circulation.

  “Little, US Customs,” Jack said casually. “I’m reaching for my credentials.” He pulled the badge holder out of his jacket pocket and flipped it open. He was a good ten feet from the cop. The guy just gave him a chin nod, and Jack put it away.

  “This is still a crime scene,” he said.

  “You’re goddamn right it is,” Jack said with a voice of authority. “What’s your name, Sergeant, is it?”

  “Fulton, and that’s right.”

  “Follow me, please, Sergeant Fulton.” Jack walked over to Fiore’s body. Reluctantly, the police officer walked with him. Jack looked down at the slain hit man, sightless eyes staring up into a heaven that would most certainly be denied him. “That,” he said with a decisive, two-finger point, “is Constantino Fiore. He’s a hit man for Salvatore Cannizzaro, an Italian mafia boss. Actual mafia, not this penny-ante shit we’ve got out here.”

  Jack thought about his friend, Giovanni Castro, and the last time Jack saw him. The night Fiore murdered him.

  Rest easy, Gio.

  Jack turned back to the cop. “This is an international smuggling operation. I’ve been after these guys for years, Sergeant. Can you tell me where the diamonds are?”

  “Diamonds?” A cloud of confusion came over Fulton’s face.

  “That’s what this is about. Diamonds. They were transported in that armored car there.”

  “Well, we’ve got a strongbox over there, but we haven’t opened it yet. The forensics team has to have it first,” he said, his naturally thunderous voice sounding strangely tentative.

  “Sorry, Sergeant, but I can’t leave it for them.”

  “But it’s evidence.”

  “Yes, it is,” Jack said flatly. “That’s a small fortune in that box. I can’t leave it just sitting here.”

  “Wait, you said you were with Customs?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I thought this was an FBI thing. I need to talk to Special Agent Fuery about this.”

  Jack turned to face the police officer. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the tri-folded paper. “This is a joint operation, Sergeant Fulton. The Bureau is handling the mafia angle, that’s their thing. Smuggling diamonds is mine.” Jack unfolded the paper but didn’t hand it over. “This is a search and seizure warrant from the federal magistrate, Sergeant,” Jack said. He held the forged warrant for a few seconds, watching the cop’s eyes as they scanned the text. When they left the document to meet his own stare, Jack knew he didn’t have to flip the page. He folded the paper and put it back in his jacket.

  “I’d still like to run this by Fuery.”

  “All I’m going to do is get these things inside. This place is going to be covered in newscopters, reporters, more federal agents than you can count, to mention a few. The last thing any of us want is for eighty million in diamonds to somehow go missing in all that chaos.” Jack walked over to the strongbox before Fulton had a chance to formulate a rebuttal. He’d just put into the man’s head the gravity of the situation and magnitude of the problem he’d have on his hands if something happened on his watch.

  One of the WorldSecure guards had been killed outright. His body lay under a sheet where he’d fallen, just steps from the armored car. They’d almost made it. The other was on a gurney being attended to by the paramedics. The driver, shielded by armored plates and bullet-resistant glass, survived unharmed. Looked like Vito’s men had been killed as well. Jack scanned the line of mafia gunmen. Even though they were lying on their stomachs, he could make out profiles, and some of them had their heads turned to the sides so that their faces weren’t scraping concrete.

  Bartolo was not among them.

  “Sergeant Fulton,” one of the police officers said. Jack watched Fulton hold a finger up, his attention on the strongbox. Jack knew that look. He was running out the scenarios in his head to see which was the one that was going to land him in the most trouble with management, the most paperwork. The last thing any city cop wanted was to be the piece of meat in a tug-of-war between two federal agencies.

  “Sarge?” the kid said again.

  “I said in a minute,” Fulton barked back.

  “The keys are probably on the guard’s belt,” Jack said. “I don’t have gloves, but I’m happy to take a pair.”

  Fulton reached into a pouch on his Sam Browne belt and pulled out a pair of white latex gloves, which he handed to Jack. If this asshole from Customs was going to disturb the crime scene, fine, but Fulton wasn’t going to help him do it. Jack pulled the gloves on, bent down, and lifted the sheet covering the dead security guard. Jack moved the sheet just enough that it uncovered the security guard’s belt. It was a similar style tactical belt as the police wore, utility pouches, a radio, and space for two extra magazines. Jack opened a couple of the pouches before he found a set of keys on a red lanyard. He unclipped them and walked over to the strongbox.

  Jack opened the strongbox. Inside was a carrying case made of ballistic nylon that was about two feet long. There was a thick handle on top. A heavy-grade zipper ran the entire length of the case, which would allow it to be opened flat. The two zippers were secured with a zip tie that had a WorldSecure badge on the end of it.

  “You have a knife, Sergeant?”

  Fulton reached into one of his pouches and handed Jack a folded tactical knife.

  Jack was acutely aware of how much time this was taking. He didn’t have much longer that he could play this out. At some point, Fulton was going to get tired of this and insist they talk to whoever this Special Agent Fuery was. But Jack also knew this was a critical part of selling the con. Any law enforcement officer would inspect the goods on scene.

  Jack unfolded the blade and broke the seal. He collapsed the knife and handed it back to Fulton with a low, distracted, “Thanks.” He unzipped the case. Inside, there were six smaller pouches that were all secured to the side of the case with MOLLE straps. Jack pulled one of the pouches out, opened it, and gently tapped some of the contents into his palm.

  Several diamonds rolled out.

  He had them.

  Jack quickly returned the pouch to the case and secured it. Then he stood. “Okay,” he said in a flat voice. “I’d better get these inside before it gets any crazier out here.” Jack clutched the case handle in his left hand. “Thanks for your assistance, Sergeant Fulton. I’ll be sure to note your cooperation in my report. What’s your lieutenant’s name?
”

  “Olivera,” he said.

  “Lieutenant Olivera,” Jack repeated. “Good to know. I’ll be sure to thank him. Good luck,” Jack said and headed toward the building. He didn’t look back.

  24

  “Where in the hell are Burton and De Angeles?” Fuery thundered.

  Special Agent Zhao explained that when the gunfire started, Reginald Burton got up and left. Because he was in a windowless conference room and didn’t have the benefit of the radio chatter, Zhao didn’t know that the armored car had arrived. He’d probably guessed as much, but he didn’t know. Still, either the setup for the bust or the gunfight outside was sufficient probable cause for an investigative detention. It sounded like Burton just somehow got away in the chaos of it.

  But they had De Angeles, and at least that was something. Though, it turned out he was an Italian citizen, and that was creating its own unique set of complications. They would have to notify the Italian consulate that they had him so that they could see if he was wanted for anything in his home country. They were also lucky to still have him. Once the gunfire started and Fuery and Reaves ran downstairs to assist the Inglewood officers, Reginald Burton took off. Zhao had tried to stop him, but then Carter LeMothe went into a full-on, crazed panic. Zhao had to restrain him. De Angeles slipped out of the conference room when Zhao turned his attention away. Luckily, Agent Tina Terry, who’d been playing the part of the receptionist, was at the office doorway and blocked his escape. She’d started to go after Burton but then turned around when there was another burst of gunfire, going back to assist Zhao. She radioed to Fuery to advise him that Burton was moving, but Fuery didn’t have a radio with him. He and Reaves had left them on the desk when they went to assist the Inglewood PD.