One More Body

by Josh Stallings

  “What did you tell them?”

  “I said that sounded like you. They want me to tell you they can wipe your record clean.”

  “That must be the going price for my soul. Fuck three strikes, what do you think?”

  “I think they have the juice to do it. I also think it’s a hit, McGuire. The D.A.’s the only cheese big enough to get you into the open.”

  “I think you’re right. Tell them two hours—Mt. Fiji, behind Occidental. Bring the papers and six hundred grand. I’ll have my lawyer check them. If it’s clean, I’ll join them. Anyone else shows, I’m in the wind. Call back with their answer.” He called back in ten minutes and said they needed more time to get that much cash. “Tell them they have ’til six. Cash by close of business.”

  “You want backup?”

  I told him I had no intention of making the meet, just wanted them kept busy. I told him about the building in downtown. Plan was we hit it at midnight. He had ten cruisers that would box off the parking lot and street door. He’d call SWAT at first gunfire. The whole thing was shaky as hell. He was counting on dispatchers and a SWAT team from a department proven to be rife with rats.

  “KENNY, I NEED two burners!”

  He tossed me the phones from a stack without looking to see me catch them. Nika was helping him cross reference maps on several screens. If so many lives weren’t on the line it would have been a cute scene—two kids doing a science project.

  I CLOSED THE door to Sunshine’s bedroom. This was a private call. “Sanders, I’m about to make you an even more decorated agent.” Sanders was FBI, worked out of NoCal. He swept up after a battle Gregor and I started up there. He played it straight, got a new job and pay grade hike for his trouble. We walked away clean.

  “Fucking McGuire. Any chance in hell we could avoid a bloodbath? We have a team looking into Henry Rodriguez, Chief Dobbs and possible connections to gang leaders.”

  “Same team looking into Kennedy’s assassination?”

  “Unfair. We have to build a case, make it stick.”

  “I don’t. You want in?”

  “I’ll scramble my crew.” I trusted his ambition and true desire to do the right thing would motivate him to follow through. I told him to be in LA by nightfall and hung up.

  MY NEXT CALL was to the man who actually ran the LA mob, the man even The Pope was afraid of.

  “This is Leo. My secretary said you were calling about a man named McGuire. You must have a wrong number, never heard of him.”

  “Too bad,” I said. “He wanted you to know open season on scarface doves begins at midnight. SPCA will be busy working downtown. A straggler hunt could be productive.”

  “I do love a good dove hunt.” He passed me a string of nonsense words and hung up. Using an old prison code we’d adapted, dropping the first letter and using the second to get a number, I had a clean line and a time.

  Our second call was also coded. Nothing said would send us to jail. I needed his help, he was tired of MS-13 fucking up his business. It was going to be a night of bold, big moves. Leo was in. He would hit MS-13 cliques in Hollywood and NoHo, cutting out their backup. I didn’t need to worry about his dependability, or his discretion. In the modern world of Cosa Nostra you never knew who was selling whom out. But, like me, Leo was old school.

  “YOU REALLY GOING to meet with D.A. Rodriquez?” I was digging around the armory when Sunshine rolled in.

  “Only way to keep them off the scent for tonight.” It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t the truth.

  “You know, if he kills you his problems go away.”

  “I know he thinks that.”

  “Do you want to die?”

  “No, not anymore. I may not have a choice.”

  “Fair enough. What are you rooting around in my gear for?” I told her about Cam and her burnouts. I was looking for M16s and vests, a chunk of C4 and some det cord. “Oh, is that all?” She made an exaggerated show of it, but found what I was looking for.

  CHAPTER 36

  At noon, Peter was in the men’s room of the El Rancho strip club. A huge-breasted dancer found him some coke. For an extra twenty she let him snort it off her tits. He was an eight ball to the good, or bad depending on how you see it, when he started getting randy.

  “You wanna get fucked? I let you do it up my ass in the stall.”

  “No. Great thought, stellar, but—”

  “I blow you while I shove my finger up your ass?”

  “Still stellar, but I’m—”

  “Into that strap-on-I-fuck-you shit? Cause I don’t do kinky.”

  “No, no, no. I want, um, need . . .” He took another deep snort. “I’m a bit addicted to black girls, double underline on ‘girls.’ Pure chocolate, see me?”

  “Oh, yeah baby, I thought you was maybe a freak. Come on, I’ll hook you up.”

  KENNY SAT AT his desk, Nika leaning over his shoulder. They focused on a small moving blip on one of his screens. “He’s moving. Downstairs.” Kenny tracked every step Peter took. He overlaid the strip club’s blueprint across the tracking signal. He and Nika smiled when Peter stopped in the restroom. It was a life-sized video game. And then it wasn’t. Peter’s blip went down a flight of stairs, stairs not on any map. And then it stopped moving.

  “PHONES, ELECTRONICS, iPods in that basket, weapons in the blue box.” At the bottom of the makeshift stairs Peter faced a chain-link gate with a small opening in it to deposit your goods. A tall man with an AK swept Peter, back and forth, ready. A girl with MS-13 tattooed on her neck took Peter’s electronics and sealed them in a manila envelope. She taped his driver’s license to the front and put it in a pile with many others. His wallet was nearly empty.

  “You guys take Amex? No?”

  The girl pointed to an ATM. Peter pulled $280 using a card Kenny gave him. With only cash in his pockets, he was allowed past the gate. A second MS-13 soldier patted him down. The whole thing took three minutes, tops. The TSA had a lot to learn from these boys.

  “HIT ON THE ATM,” Nika said. “He took two eighty.”

  “He’s traveling east then. Damn it. Damn it. I hate not knowing exactly where he is.” It wasn’t like knowing would do any good. There was no extraction team waiting for Kenny’s signal to swoop in and save Peter. If it went bad he would die ugly, not a damn thing anyone could do about that fact.

  PETER WAS MOTIONED down a long tunnel, parts freshly dug, other parts old and made of brick. Halfway down he was met by a bald, prison-buff pimp in a too-tight suit.

  “I’m Zero. Word is you like your chocolate fresh.”

  “Are we beyond prying ears?”

  “Yes, just you and me.”

  “Can we cut the euphemisms?”

  “Euphemism?”

  “I like young, black pussy. At the gate they said you had someone who would meet my needs.”

  “That euphemism, hell we got ’em all. You like schoolgirl, pigtail bullshit?”

  “Yes.”

  “I got your bitch.” Zero pulled out a walkie-talkie. “Get Lil’ Diamond ready. Uniform. No, bitch, not prison, school.”

  “Help.” Peter shrugged.

  “She ain’t cheap. Only been fucked maybe once. Basically paying for a virgin.” At the end of the tunnel was another gate. MS-13 soldiers stood on the other side. They gave Peter and Zero a once-over and then opened up. Two more soldiers sat in elevated chairs, like lifeguards at the pool. Anyone trying to attack from the tunnel would be cut to pieces. The tunnel narrowed down to a two-man width.

  “Saturday nights this must be a traffic jam.” No one answered Peter.

  Up more steps, then into an open room that had once been a production floor. Now it was operations central. They had tables laid out with poster board above them, pictures taped to the boards. The tables were grouped by type: young Latinas, Japanese mama sans, pretty boys, hard boys, tattooed girls, clean-cut cheerleaders. They had a table for every kink.

  “This is the Big Lots, the Costco, of the sex trade,
no? Well done, all,” Peter said, feeling sick.

  “Pretty slick shit for sure,” Zero said.

  “It is something.” To Peter it looked more like the sickest job fair ever—a supermarket of pain.

  “Follow. If she ain’t right we have lots of others.”

  The sign over the table where Andre sat read Zero’s Crown Jewlz. The table was covered with glossy shots of their stable.

  Zero’s sausage of an index finger landed on Freedom’s picture. Peter’s heart raced. It was her. After all this, she was real. Tarted-up and giving I-want-you-to-fuck-me eyes, she was still the girl Moses had shown him. Bile came up the back of his throat. He was trembling. He understood Moses’s desire to kill. He stuffed it down, used the energy to add enthusiasm to his words. Junkies know how to lie, if nothing else.

  “Ohhhh, yes, yes. She will do.” He licked his upper lip, remembering to pull back, ease up a hair. “How old?”

  “Thirteen. And clean.”

  “Yes.”

  “Three hundred. Now.”

  “That’s, well, that is . . .”

  “Expensive, I know, but for that you can do whatever. Come in her mouth, on her tits. Fuck her ass. Soundproof room. No one bother you.”

  Peter concentrated on counting out the cash, unsure of what might come out if he spoke.

  An industrial elevator was open to the room. It creaked and groaned as it climbed to the third floor. Peter was feeling dizzy. Needed a bump. Needed a drink. Needed the safety of his laptop.

  Two angry-looking black men guarded the door. Zero nodded and they stepped aside. Once inside, they were on Zero’s turf. He grabbed Peter by the shirtfront and slapped him hard. Peter gasped, stepping back. Zero slapped him again.

  “Look, bitch, this here, all this? It’s mine. You treat it with respect you get to live.”

  “I didn’t, I wouldn’t.”

  “You wanna fuck baby pussy? Fine, whatever. You damage my goods, I will throw you down that elevator shaft.” Then he cracked an easy smile. “Ha! Fuck you, white boy, just fucking around. Want a drink?”

  “Yes. Please.”

  “Please, that’s nice. I’m just fucking with you. What was your name?”

  “Peter.”

  “Peter Peter, pecker eater?”

  “What? No. Brixton, Peter Brixton.”

  “You’re all right, Peter Brixton, for a bitch.” He handed Peter a Dixie cup with a healthy shot of Chivas.

  Peter slugged it down.

  “Five bucks. No, I’m shitting you. Look at your face. Go get fucked, have fun. Room six.”

  FREEDOM HAD ON her school uniform. Now she heard men talking in the living room. Her punch knife was between the cot and the mattress. Waiting. Calling. She wasn’t surprised by how nervous the john looked when he entered. They had all the control, and still the bashful pricks wanted her to make them feel good about that. Fucking twisted.

  “Hey, handsome, you have a name?” She looked into his eyes soulfully.

  “Peter, and you don’t need to do that.”

  “What, baby?”

  “Flirt. I came to tell you, to say . . . shit.”

  “You just want to get to the business, cool. You want me to blow you first?”

  “No.” Peter put his hands on her shoulders and gently held her back. “I’m a reporter. Moses sent me to find you.”

  “Who?”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t . . . Moses. Your Aunt Rollens hired him to find you and bring you home safe.”

  “Look, baby, you want to role-play, cool. Are you my uncle the reporter? Did I run away? Have I been bad?”

  “No, this is real.”

  Freedom was starting to worry this man might be crazy, dangerous crazy.

  Peter sat on the bed and fought to slow his racing mind. It had never occurred to him that he might have to convince her of the truth. “Ok, ok, wait . . . here. Whatever else is true or not, tonight at midnight Moses McGuire will be coming for you. He will, I repeat, he will kill anybody who tries to stop him.”

  “What does he want with me?” She sat next to him, slipping her hand under the mattress, feeling her punch knife.

  “Freedom, he wants you to be, um, free. After that it is up to you.”

  “How you know my name?” she whispered. She knew Zero or one of his boys would be listening. She started to moan a fake orgasm. The sound was real, but her face was devoid of any emotion as she stared coldly at Peter.

  It spooked Peter, made him question every girl he had ever paid to fuck. There hadn’t been many, but enough to make him want to puke. He looked away. As an afterthought, he took out a tightly rolled picture he’d hidden in his pant cuff. He gave it to her. Her moan stopped mid ‘yessss.’ It was a copy of her cheerleading picture. Beside it was a picture of Rollens.

  “That’s Mrs. Mayers. She ain’t my aunt, she was my social worker. This is for real?”

  “Yes. Midnight you lock the door, push the bed against it. We will come for you. Promise.”

  AFTER PETER LEFT, Freedom lay on her bed. Mrs. Mayers had tried to make her life better. And they had the picture of Freedom from her file. But who the fuck was going to risk their life for her? Her own kin didn’t give a shit if she lived or died. She chided herself for cursing, even in her head. She was better than that. No she wasn’t, Lil’ Diamond told her, you a fifty-dollar pump. A skeezy ho.

  No. That wasn’t her. If she gave in, then Zero and his boys won. No. She was strong. She was not falling. She ran her thumb over the point of her makeshift weapon. It bled a little. She sucked it until it stopped.

  Fact was, she believed the reporter and his friends would try and save her. They would fail, but the chaos they caused could give Freedom her chance. At midnight she would start killing Zero’s crew and anyone else who blocked her path. It was kill now or become Lil’ Diamond forever. If she died trying to escape, at least she died trying to live up to her name. Freedom was the only thing her mother gave her worth a damn. Now she would own it.

  BY TWO O’CLOCK Peter was back at Sunshine’s and had paced off the tunnel.

  “One hundred thirty-six feet,” Nika called to Kenny after she measured it with a laser tape. Kenny was pounding keys and swiping his mouse.

  “Motherfucker, we got you now,” Kenny said.

  “It is Henry Rodriguez’s building?” I asked.

  “It’s his all right. A ghost of a ghost company he owns. May not prove it in court, but this is his building.”

  “I have to roll. Tell Sunshine—”

  “Tell her what?” Kenny was still pissed.

  “Right.” I loaded the duffle bag full of felony arrests into the trunk of the Tempest. Gregor tossed his baby in the air and the boy giggled. He kissed Anya long enough to let her know death was the only thing to keep him from her.

  CHAPTER 37

  Gregor had me drop him at La Placita, an ancient Catholic church off Olvera Street. He would make peace with his God, make confession, clear the slate so if he died he would be reunited with his ancestors and his family when they ultimately passed. I envied his sureness. His faith. I doubted a few words and an act of contrition would wipe the slate clean between me and the big thug upstairs.

  I hit the windshield wipers once to clear the drizzle. The clouds were blowing in fast and dark. Out over east LA lightning flashed down. I counted to five before the thunderclap hit. The storm was coming.

  AS I APPROACHED the vet encampment, I made sure to rattle the trip line. These boys were spooked enough as it was, they didn’t need me sneaking up on them.

  “I smell death. That you, McGuire?”

  “Yeah, Kilroy, it’s me.”

  “I see you brung lady death with you.” Man was mostly blind, but he could clearly see Mikayla.

  “Can’t seem to shake her.”

  “Don’t seem to try real hard.”

  IT TOOK LESS convincing than I thought it would to get the vets to join us. Cam told them about the building full of sex slaves, here in the to
wn they fought to keep free. She offered them honor over the life they’d all slipped into.

  “What’re the odds we make it home on this one?” Vet asking was ripped, shirt off displaying a tattoo of the Mexican flag crossing Old Glory on his back.

  “Slim.”

  “I’m good with that. Fuck it, ese, let’s do this.”

  Seven men lined up to be armed.

  Seven brave, brain-fucked soldiers.

  “Thank you, sir, we will make you proud,” Penny said.

  “Beat the odds, kid, make it home.” I meant it.

  Along with the armored vests, I gave Cam a burner. It had one number programmed in it; mine. She’d already scoped a route under the building. The C4 was to blow the basement floor. “You know anything about demolitions?” I asked.

  “Not a thing. Bugs does though.”

  Bugs was always talking to dead enemies in Farsi. I didn’t know if he was called Bugs because of the tattoo of Bugs Bunny on his chest or because of the scabs on his arms from picking at the bugs he thought were just under his skin.

  “I feel much better,” I said.

  “Good. You should.”

  I was getting ready to head out when Kilroy called me to him. He said he needed me to walk him down to river’s edge for a piss.

  “Hold my arm. I don’t want to drown just to relieve my bladder.” I held his arm. He unzipped. It was a long time before any urine came out, then it slowly built up steam to a healthy flow. It was more of a personal moment than I’d have thought. The rain was soft. Mikayla stood apart from us, looking into the building shadows.

  When he was finished, I turned to lead him back but he stopped. “I need to tell you something. I think it may be important.”

  “Ok. May be?”

  “Only important if you hear it.”

  “I’m listening.” But I wasn’t. I was already moving on in my head.

  “She, the dead lady, is wrong. You want to go in guns blazing. You want to kill all but the victims. Victims. Villains. Heroes. Collaborators. All that? It is bullshit. It is more complex. We are all, all of those, and none. Moses?”