by Ted Galdi
“How?”
“Simple. Honesty.”
“What do you mean?”
“Inform me of all your moves. Before you make them. If I feel any of them are going to bump up against the FBI’s investigation, I’ll warn you. Sound good?”
“Thanks.”
“And in return, you need to promise me you’ll listen if I tell you to back away from something. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, I can do that.”
“Can I trust you?”
“Yeah, you can trust me.”
“Good.” A pause. “I have a feeling your invitation to stay at the Gabors’ is now rescinded.”
He chuckles. “I’d say so.”
“I have a sofa. You can stay by me.”
“You sure?”
“It’s cool.”
“Why’re you being so nice to me after I dicked over your partner?”
“Let’s get something straight. I am pissed you dicked over my partner. But…you lost your sister. And as reckless as some of your behavior is, I guess I can see the place it’s coming from. And…it’s a good one.”
A pause. He opens the door. “See you after work.”
“A vitamin drop-off? You could’ve done better than that.”
“You got me off guard, I guess.”
“It’s my job.”
A slight smile from him. “Yeah. I know.” He leaves the conference room.
Twenty-Seven
Tommy is at the same computer in the same library he was yesterday researching Los Hombres del Vacio, the midday sun shining down on him through the domed-glass ceiling. In prison he spent a lot of time in the library reading the sort of books he was supposed to in high school but was too distracted to open. He likes libraries. They give him a sense of belonging, though he isn’t certain to what.
The email he forwarded himself from Clyde’s computer is open on the web browser. He creates a second tab, logs into Facebook, and messages Josh:
Yo kid.
Josh replies:
Wut’s good.
Tommy:
Just spent two hours typing every text the gangster sent or received the last week into a translation website to see them in English. All dog shit.
Josh:
Why?
Tommy:
Mostly just him sending weird messages 2 chicks about how big his cock is. Nothing to or from someone who hired him. Nothing at all about Danielle’s murder.
Josh:
Crap.
Tommy:
There’s a voicemail file too. Gonna see what’s up w that.
Tommy opens the “VM” file attached to the email. Twelve voicemails were recovered on Ayala’s phone. Eleven are from foreign numbers. But one is from a US one, with San Diego’s 609 area code. Tommy puts in his headphones and plays the file.
“It’s me,” a male voice says, Tommy’s posture straightening. “Again. I know there’s a lot of heat right now. I get you want to lay low. But I have people I made promises to. I need more…supply. Call me back. You have no right to keep ignoring me. I’ve paid you a lot of money so far. You owe me this call.”
“Huh,” Tommy says to himself.
He opens the email’s last attachment, “Log,” a log of Ayala’s recent calls. The 609 number in several entries. He checks their timestamps, a call from it received the night of Danielle’s shooting, less than an hour before.
Tommy messages Josh:
I think I got this piece of garbage. “I’ve paid you a lot of money so far.” In a VM. Something a boss would say to an employee.
Josh sends Tommy a link. He clicks it. A reverse-lookup website. Tommy inputs the 609 number. It’s unregistered. No owner address, no name. His posture slackens.
He messages Josh:
Thx. But no dice. Looks like the boss uses a burner too.
Josh:
What now?
Tommy:
I don’t know. Gotta think.
Josh:
Don’t do anything stupid.
Tommy:
You’re the second person who’s hit me with that today.
Josh:
Thank the other guy for me.
Tommy:
Not a guy. Girl.
Josh:
??
Tommy:
Jordana, the FBI agent.
Josh:
I like her already. Hot?
Tommy:
Why do u always go right there?
Josh:
What’s her last name? I’m gonna scope her on IG.
Tommy:
Ur out of ur mind man. She’s not on IG. Or anything else. Kinda odd tbh.
Josh:
Liar. U just don’t want me to check her out because u like her urself.
Tommy:
She’s giving me a place to crash. That’s it.
Josh:
You’re sleeping at her pad??
Tommy:
Not in her bed u idiot. The couch. It’s not like that.
Josh:
Again, is she hot?
Tommy:
She’s gorgeous. But it’s not like that.
Josh:
Ur ridiculous bruh.
Tommy:
I gotta go. Ltr.
Tommy logs out of Facebook. He replays the voicemail from the 609 number, focusing on the tone of each word, trying to imagine the sort of man this is.
Twenty-Eight
Glen watches a Spanish-language game show on television. After he raced away from Los Hombres del Vacio in the Isuzu Trooper, he kept moving until outside Tijuana, parked behind an abandoned missionary building in a slum, and knocked on the first door he saw. He exchanged all the cash in his wallet, a hundred thirty-eight US dollars, to the occupants of this house for hiding.
The mid-thirties married couple sits beside him on a ratty couch eating soup. A contestant on the game show states a wrong answer to a question from the host, who whacks a big red button, dropping the contestant’s friend into a dunk tank. The husband and wife laugh. Glen does not.
His burner phone vibrates in his pocket. He says into it, “Yeah?”
“I’m pulling up,” Bo Archer, his army buddy from Desert Storm, says.
“Great. Thanks again.”
Glen ends the call and stands. In Spanish, he thanks the couple for their hospitality and says goodbye. He walks to the front window and peels back the curtain. The chrome grille of Bo’s GMC Sierra pickup glints in the sun.
He parks and out steps his big boot. Extending above in cargo shorts and a skull-and-bones tee shirt is Bo’s bulldog-like, five-ten, two-hundred-thirty-pound body. He hits the ground and maneuvers on his back under his truck. He stays there a few seconds, then slides out and stands with a hand in his pocket. Inside is likely a gun he smuggled over the border despite the heavy prison sentence.
Bo conducts a three-sixty sweep of the area, gives a thumbs-up. Glen trots outside and climbs into the passenger seat. They start driving.
“What’s going on, my man?” Glen asks.
“Same shit.”
“Work all right?”
“Same shit.”
“They got to fire that boss of yours.”
“Wait till you hear what the little prick did today. Some guy buys a big-screen TV from the website. Shows up at the store to pick it up. Policy is I’ve got to check his ID before I load the box into his car.”
“Of course.”
“Got to take a Xerox of it too. You know, to keep on file with the order.”
“Right.”
“So I do it. Get the TV in his car. The bald shmuck didn’t tip me, but that’s beside the point. And I come back into the store. And my boss, with that stupid head of his, he’s eyeing down the Xerox I just took. Like some…like some pain-in-the-ass teacher judging a homework assignment.”
“Was the copy unclear?”
“Clear as the ocean.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It was clear. What?�
��
“Oh. Because with the ocean, sometimes it’s really clear and in other places it’s not. Wasn’t sure what you meant.”
“Clear. All right. So this pussy…I swear I want to bite off his nose, just lean forward and clamp down on it with my teeth and shake my head as he screams…he tells me the customer’s driver’s license is expired. So I go, so what? He’s like, well, it’s not a valid document, you shouldn’t have done that. And I go, was it valid when he originally showed up to the DMV and got it? You know?”
“Fair question.”
“Right? We’re just cross-referencing to make sure the names match so I can give him the damn TV. I don’t care about some expiration date. Not a valid document? Kiss my ass.”
“What’d you do?”
“This twat went to some crappy college for two years and what, he thinks he’s better than me? But I didn’t say shit. Walked away. Hit the Chili’s in my mall after my shift. Put a thrashing on a slab of ribs. Calmed my nerves.”
“Glad.”
“Yeah. I’m fine. Good to see you, brother.”
“You too.”
Bo surveys the towel bandage protruding out from Glen’s sleeve and says, “Show me what you’re working with.”
“The couple leant me a pair of tweezers. I got the bullet out. Still a little raw though.” He reveals the hole in his shoulder.
“Just a scratch. I’ll stitch you up at the warehouse.”
Glen peers out the window at the slum’s ramshackle houses, the scattered trash in the streets, and the ragged-clothed people walking about. “Makes you feel lucky,” he says. “Seeing all this. Doesn’t it? To be an American.”
“Greatest nation in history. Didn’t get that way by chance. Got that way because people like us fought for it to be that way. Don’t ever forget that.”
“You know I’ll never forget that.”
They merge onto a northbound highway. In the rearview mirror, Glen views the distancing Mexican hills. He says, “We’ll need another way to kill junkies.”
“Amen.”
Glen thinks back to when he and Bo first began their secret initiative six months ago. They pretended to be drug dealers and lured San Diego addicts on their own. However, the two middle-aged White men often didn’t pass for dope pushers, plus ran into frequent turf squabbles with San Diego’s real dealers. So they formed a paid alliance with Los Hombres del Vacio to gain credibility on the street. Which is now gone.
“We’ll come up with something,” Glen says.
“We always do. Just glad you got out of there.”
“Down a duffel bag of cash and a Mercedes.”
“You’ve got plenty of cash. For the car, just say it was stolen in San Diego. Nab the insurance.”
“Not to mention, the gang wants me dead.”
“I knew these bastards weren’t saints. But to do…that…to an innocent girl. Over a gambling debt. Next-level twisted. You did the right thing helping her out, brother.”
“Let’s hope they don’t find out where I live. No more than thirty-something miles to the front door of my house from here.”
“We never gave Ayala our names. How could he find out?”
Glen shuts off his burner phone, tosses it out the window. “Yours too. You’ve called Ayala from it, he knows your number. If they somehow track your signal, they’ll use that to get to me. We’ll buy new pre-paid phones when we get back to the US.”
Bo snaps his burner in two pieces, chucks them out the window.
Silence for a bit. Then Glen says, “How could I be so Goddamn dumb?”
“What?”
“My Mercedes. The plates.”
Bo grunts.
“That’s my regular car,” Glen says. “The one I drive to work. It’s registered to my real name. A modest bribe to a DMV employee could get them my address. It’s not just me I have to worry about there. Cora.”
“I got your back. You’ll be fine.”
“Maybe she won’t.”
“You going to warn her?”
“About what? That a Mexican gang may show up at our home looking to kill me? She’ll ask too many questions. Ones I won’t be able to lie my way out of without telling her…everything.”
“You can’t do that.”
“No kidding.”
“So what’re you going to do?”
Glen is quiet as he considers the question. Then punches the glove box.
Twenty-Nine
Tommy knocks on the door labeled “16E” in Prescott Plaza, the Downtown high-rise Jordana lives. She opens it, Tommy seeing her for the first time in a non-work outfit. White tee shirt, yellow shorts, sneakers. He takes off his sunglasses, asks, “Did you listen to the voicemail from the US number?”
“Multiple times. I reviewed it with a team of narcotics experts at the office. We—”
“Isn’t any data from the stolen phone supposed to be a secret?”
“I had to tell them a lie.”
“Look at you.”
“A white lie. The FBI still doesn’t know we stole the phone. I said a federale CI got me the voicemail recording. And I could potentially blow his cover if I went into details.”
“Smooth.”
“Thank you.”
She waves him in. Nice apartment. On a wall a heart-shaped sculpture lit in purple neon, the wall across all glass, outside a view of the city and its bay.
“So what’s the FBI’s expert opinion then?” he asks.
“That line the leader said about needing more supply, supply must be narcotics. Standard lingo according to the team. The way they see it, the two Caucasians with the box truck are buying drugs in bulk from the Mexicans, then using drug-addicted vagrants as dealers in California, enlisting them to sell to others in their encampments. Probably compensating them with the product. And it seems killing them if they become unreliable.”
“They’re wrong.”
“What? Why?”
“Supply. It doesn’t mean drugs. It means organs.”
“No reason to infer anything about organs.”
“My sister struggled with substance abuse most of her life. But she would never sell the stuff. If the FBI’s theory were true, she was killed because she was a poor-performing street dealer. No way. They murdered her and the others for their organs.”
Her eyes angle upward. “Kill the homeless for their organs and sell them to rich people without donors. It’s plausible as a concept. But nothing ties that motive to this case. Organs haven’t come up once the whole investigation. Where drugs do at almost every turn.”
“Yes, these guys are baiting addicts with the mention of drugs. But aren’t actually selling any. Danielle mentioned that in her statement. She and the four she was with never received the smack they were promised. Seems to me that was just a ploy to get them out to the woods. Where they could be killed without witnesses around.”
“That’s a stretch.”
“She also said they shot everyone in the head. A hard target to hit, especially at night. Why avoid firing at the body?” He points at his stomach. “To not damage supply.”
“Reasonable. But still a stretch. You—”
“The victims were all on drugs, but notice how none appeared sickly in recent photos? Youthful, mostly twenties and thirties, nobody strikingly underweight. Organs viable still.”
“Still, too reliant on context. You need specifics.”
“I have specifics.”
She raises an eyebrow.
“Danielle said she saw coolers in the box truck,” he says. “Remember?”
“Yes.”
“Like me, I’m guessing you didn’t pay much attention to that comment when you first heard it. Hot August night, makes sense these men would bring along some cold waters, sodas, whatever. Right?”
“Sure.”
“But she used the plural. She said coolers. I reread her statement to make sure. There were only two men in that box truck. I don’t care how hot it is, two guys aren’t going t
hrough multiple coolers of beverages on a single trip.”
“Agreed, they’re not. Maybe the coolers were just…stored in there. Weren’t used for any function that night.”
“Why store empty coolers in the back of a vehicle versus in a garage like everyone else?”
“I…look, I’m not sure. There’s still a lot of gray—”
“Danielle said Ayala and the other Mexican passed a dead body to the White guys on the truck. They were about to do the same with her. Then likely the others if the teenagers on the quads didn’t roll up. If this was just some drug hit, why load up the bodies?”
“Maybe…to hide them, hide proof of the crime.”
“They were already in the middle of the woods. Could’ve buried them there. No, they were going to cut them open, take out their organs, put them on ice in those coolers.”
“I don’t know.”
“That one missing-persons witness you guys let me read about in Tijuana, the one from Chula Vista, said she bugged out when she saw big knives on the truck. But the suspects don’t murder with knives. They do with guns. Maybe the knives she saw weren’t for hurting her when she was alive, but removing her organs once she was dead. Surgical knives.”
“It’s…possible.”
“It’s probable. Drive up to homeless encampments talking up some super hit of heroin to healthier-looking people. Bring any takers out to the woods. Shoot them in the head, cut out their organs, put them on ice for sale to the highest black-market bidder.”
She walks to her mini-bar, pours herself a glass of red wine. Then points at the bottle as if to ask if he wants some.
“Yeah,” he says. “Thanks.” He eyes the ten or so bottles on her mounted wine rack. Almost all have the same label, “Velatti.” Though he’s not much of a wine drinker, he’s heard of the company.
“What’d you rob a Velatti truck?” he asks.
Grinning, she hands him his glass. “Don’t have to. I get it for free.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“I was born Jordana Velatti. My family…well, owns the company.”
“Come on.”
She nods at a photo on her mantle of men, women, and children posing in a lush vineyard in matching fleeces with the Velatti logo. “That’s me on the end. I was…eleven I think. That’s my grandfather in the middle. He started the company from nothing after migrating from Italy. My dad, the one behind me, took it over after he passed away.”