Stay or go? Dammit, I wanted to stay, to walk into our home, to feel her pressed against my chest.
Wake up, Ozzie. This isn’t the make-believe city of Oz.
I fought off my primal urges and threw the gear into drive, following the Jag back into the city. C didn’t speed or break any other laws. I figured he was headed to one of the high-priced, high-rise condos sprouting up every few months. At one red light, I was in the adjoining lane and caught a glimpse of his license plate: MRDRAKE. It was a vanity plate. Now I was almost certain he lived in one of those million-dollar glass condos.
He motored east on Cesar Chavez and neared the area where about twenty new high-rises either had been recently completed or were under development. The construction boom was insane. I waited for him to turn north onto Guadalupe or any of the other roads, but he never did. He continued his eastward trek until he crossed I-35.
Now he had my attention, and I inched up in my seat. You don’t see many Jags on the east side of I-35, not unless someone was lost, and certainly not in the middle of the night. Sure, Tito lived east of I-35, but it was north of this area, in a pocket where a lot of artists lived. And even still, look at what happened to me. “C,” or MRDRAKE, turned south on Pleasant Valley. We crossed the river, and the neighborhood quickly flipped for the worse. Rooftops and porches sagged as if the burden of everything connected to a poor area—drugs, gangs, violence—had weighed them down. Guys wearing do-rags were clustered every half-block or so. Every car I passed was unconventional. A few had purple lights outlining the undercarriage; others had tires that could have fit a 747.
A couple more turns, and we passed an old storage facility. A cracked streetlight illuminated red and black graffiti, and I had to remind myself to keep driving. I saw the number thirteen, or two numbers adding up to thirteen, sprawled everywhere. I spotted the words Mara Salvatrucha, and then Maras. That had to represent the “MS” in MS-13.
I felt a dry patch in the back of my throat.
The Jag veered to the right and stopped in front of a small home. I eased to a stop behind a parked pickup on the opposite side of the street, maybe fifty feet away, and killed my lights. Two guys walked out of the house and approached the Jag. Was this some type of drug buy? Maybe Nicole had caught wind of “C’s” drug dependency and wanted to ask me for help.
I could only guess. I really had no clue.
A car drove by, and its headlights shone on one of the guys leaning through the open window. He took an envelope from the car and handed it to the guy behind him. He opened his mouth, and I caught a glint of metal. I could see his lips moving, but I was too far away to read them.
I decided to take a chance. Some might call it a death wish. I pulled out of my space and did my own version of a drive-by. It was slow, probably too slow, but for a good three seconds, I was able to stare down the guy leaning on the car, gabbing like nobody’s business. I caught just a small snippet of what appeared to be a longer diatribe.
Bitch won’t live.
I pressed the gas and turned left at the corner. I looked in my rearview. No one had followed me. Then I replayed what I was certain I’d seen the guy say. Bitch won’t live.
I went to Peretti’s to have a drink and mull over what that could mean.
36
I shook the ice in my tumbler and tipped my head back, sucking down the last remnants of my Knob Creek on the rocks—my second drink since arriving at Peretti’s. It was achieving my goal: to soothe my nerves.
“You want another?” Poppy asked, flipping a fresh napkin on the bar.
I held up a hand. “Any more, and I’ll be unable to resist her.”
I’d filled Poppy in on the last few days, at least on the topic of Nicole.
She lifted an eyebrow—it had two piercings—and smirked. “Want to know what I think?”
“You’re going to tell me anyway, so go ahead.”
“She’s playing you. She either wants something from you, or she’s simply trying to lure you to her place.”
“Our place.” I eyed my empty drink for a second.
“Whatever. She knows she can yank your chain and you’ll come running like a wounded puppy.”
“But what could she possibly want? I mean, she has everything.”
“I’m curious about this other guy in her life, the guy who wrote that love note. What did you call him? ‘C’?”
A heavy nod.
“Yeah, well, sounds like a real douche bag. So, he could be steering her to do things.”
“What did you have in mind? I told you, I haven’t pushed back on anything.”
Someone yelled for a beer, or at least I thought I heard that. She said, “That’s either pathetic or real mature of you; I can’t figure out which.”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll go with option number two.”
“Information,” she said, pouring a beer into a glass for another customer. She set the glass on the counter and shoved it ten feet. The beer sloshed everywhere, but the guy who picked it up simply nodded and started drinking. The patrons at Peretti’s were easy to please.
“What are you talking about…‘information’?”
“You said she has all your money. She wants to find out something from you that she doesn’t know. In the FBI, they call it intel.”
“What do you know about the FBI?”
She put a finger to the side of her nose, which, like her brow, also sported two piercings. She was trying to be cheeky. “I know people.” Then she barked out a brief, but obnoxious laugh. “Seriously, I read books, so I’m not ignorant. But don’t get sidetracked here, Oz. No matter how good she looks, how much she sweet-talks you, keep your guard up. There has to be a motivation here, and there’s about a ninety-nine percent likelihood it won’t be about rekindling a lost love.”
She was pulled away by another customer. Information. I scratched my head, accidentally digging a nail into one of my cuts. I gritted my teeth, thinking about what I knew that Nicole would give two shits about. I came to a quick conclusion—nothing.
My eyes shifted to the portfolio I’d brought in with me. Ray’s notes from his initial interviews. I flipped a few pages. I saw more chicken scratch than real notes. And most of the notes were more of a profile of the person. I came to that conclusion by reading the notes he’d added for Arie and Stacy. There was nothing substantive there, unless he had hidden a coded message in one of his many tic-tac-toes. How did he expect me to use these notes to find Dad’s killer? The whole notion seemed preposterous. And why the hell couldn’t he have just told me the whole story anyway?
Hidden messages. Sheesh. I looked over at Poppy. She’d planted a new series of thoughts in my head, most of them negative. But she was probably being realistic. Then again, I was a man getting advice from his bartender. Could my life be any sadder?
I shut the portfolio and checked the time. I still had thirty minutes to kill.
I felt a tap on my shoulder.
I turned and saw the man I’d never seen smile.
“We need to talk,” he said.
I followed him to a table.
37
I stopped before sitting down and pointed a finger at Brook, who was already at the table. “Don’t look so surprised,” she said.
Bowser, the one who’d tapped my shoulder, kicked out a chair for me.
“You’re quite the gentleman.” I took a seat and eyeballed Brook.
“What?” Her palms turned to the ceiling.
I withheld any comment about her new friend. “How can I help you? Or, shouldn’t it really be: how can you help me? I mean, you do technically work for the American people. I fall in that category last I checked.”
“Sarcasm,” Bowser said, drinking what appeared to be water. “I like it. Usually. But we don’t have much time.”
My eyes volleyed back and forth between the two law-enforcement officials. There was no way they knew about my one o’clock appointment with Nicole. “Do you have a deadline to hit?” I
looked at Brook. “Maybe you’re writing a sidebar story for Tracy?”
Bowser appeared confused.
“He’s just an annoying reporter I know at the Austin American-Statesman.”
Bowser nodded. “I’ll get right to it. We want you to wear a wire when you go meet Nicole.”
My heart pounded so hard I thought it might pop out on the table. “What are you talking about?” I asked while opening the portfolio and thumbing a few pages. I was thankful I had something to keep my hands occupied.
Bowser looked to Brook, who said, “Maybe we should have started this a little differently. Bowser decided to open up and share everything with me. I’ve done the same.”
“Great to hear you have a new teammate.” I looked down at the paperwork as my mind was flooded with theories on how they could know about my upcoming meeting with Nicole.
“Ozzie.” Bowser set his hand on the edge of my portfolio.
I moved the portfolio closer to me, then locked eyes with Bowser. He said, “Time is running out. Will you work with us?”
I shut the portfolio. “How did you find out?”
“We have a tap on your wife’s phone.”
“You listened to our conversation a few hours ago?”
“It’s the only way to get closer to her, uh…” Bowser again looked to Brook to bail him out.
“The man your wife has been seeing,” Brook said. “We have good reason to believe that he was your dad’s mystery client.”
I pinched the corners of my eyes. This could not be happening. No.
Brook reached a hand across the table to make sure I was looking at her.
“What?”
“You remember that murder scene I showed you?”
“Dr. Harry Clem,” I said.
Bowser jumped in. “He was the man who reported your dad.”
I sat up in my chair. “What? For what? What?”
“Your dad, apparently, tried to convince him—intimidate him—to stop saying bad things about this new miracle drug being developed at a company called Vista Labs.”
“My dad could talk a good game, but intimidation? Is this where all those charges came from?”
“Yes,” Bowser said. “But I tried telling you that your dad wasn’t our main target.”
“So you did use him.”
“I don’t like that term. We thought it might cause the person who hired him to surface.”
Heat rushed up the back of my neck, and I started lifting out of my chair. “You did it. You got my dad killed, you fucking prick.”
Brook waved me down. “Ozzie, please. Just listen.”
I saw Poppy looking in my direction. I turned back to the table and sat. “Who killed my dad? Are you saying it’s this ‘C’ guy with Nicole? Does he work for Vista Labs?”
“We still don’t know who killed your father. We haven’t been able to piece that together.”
“But it has to be this guy, right?”
“Maybe. Probably. I don’t know for sure,” Brook said. “But we have strong suspicions that he’s behind the death of Dr. Clem.”
It was all starting to make sense, at least one angle of it. “How do you know? Through this wiretap on Nicole’s phone?”
“You have to swear to keep this to yourself,” Brook said.
“I swear,” I said, holding up three fingers.
She explained that Calvin Drake, the man in the Jag, was the CEO of Vista Labs. He was a former Dallas police officer who’d befriended members of MS-13.
Bowser jumped in. “I’m putting all of my cards on the table here, Ozzie.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You sure I can trust you?”
“You can trust him,” Brook said with an annoyed look on her face.
I didn’t say a word; I was listening, seething.
He leaned in closer. “We have a guy on the inside of MS-13. He found out Drake hired a couple of gangbangers to kill Clem. And then it made sense to us. He’s the CEO of Vista Labs, and they’re awaiting final approval on this new Alzheimer’s drug from the FDA. Clem was being very public about the dangers of this new drug. Apparently, he was initially hired by Vista Labs to talk at medical conferences about the greatness of this new drug. But guilt set in, and he decided to tell the truth.”
My mind was starting to catch up. “Then arrest this asshole Drake. Nicole is in danger, dammit.”
“We don’t have a clear-cut case.”
“You just said—”
“It might not stand up in court. Our mole heard about it; he didn’t witness it. Drake is loaded, and a strong lawyer could destroy our case.”
I was trying to understand the task here. “So you want me to see if I can get Nicole to admit that she knows about her, uh…Drake killing this Dr. Clem?”
“Frankly, we don’t know what she knows. We tried tapping into Drake’s phone, but he talks business all the time. We think he might have a burner phone or something. Anyway, we have picked up a few things when she’s talked to him.”
“Care to share?” I asked.
“We don’t have time to get into the details. But when she offered to see you tonight, we saw an opportunity to bring you in on everything.”
“Can we count on you?” Brook said.
My mind was drowning with the weight of everything they’d dumped on me. I looked at the portfolio. I wanted to ask Brook and Bowser if Ray’s name had come up in this investigation. But for now, I kept quiet. It certainly wasn’t the priority.
“Ozzie, we need an answer,” Brook reiterated.
I could hear Poppy warning me about allowing my protective nature to kick in regarding Nicole. And, of course, that was exactly what happened. I had to keep her safe.
“I’m in.”
38
Looking over my shoulder from the shallow front porch of my home, I realized I’d never seen our neighborhood from this viewpoint, not at this hour of the night. Outside of a few landscape lights throughout the hilly area, darkness ruled. The sky was a blanket of black, and a cold sprinkle had just started on my way up to the door.
I rang the doorbell, wondering which Nicole would answer the door, wondering how I’d respond to either persona. Then again, this wasn’t exactly a private moment. A small mic was attached to the button on my blazer. Bowser, Brook, and a small FBI team were huddled in a van about two miles away.
A light came on above my head; then the door opened and Nicole stood there in her sweats, the ones that she always said made her look like a little boy. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
“Hey,” she said. Her eyes matched her tone of voice: kind.
“Hey.”
“I know you must be wondering what this is all about.”
I tried to chuckle, reset my feet. “Uh, yeah.”
She licked her lips, then looked upward. “I’m—” She stopped short. Her eyes became glassy. Her hand jittered as she dabbed the corner of her eye. “I don’t know what to say exactly.”
Part of me wanted to take her in my arms, bury my face in the nape of her neck, and tell her she didn’t have to say she was sorry. Whether it was Poppy’s words, knowing the FBI was listening in, or my inner voice telling me to slow down, I caught myself before I said anything. I just waited.
“Ozzie, I don’t know what happened to me the last few months. I just—” She stopped short again and looked at me with pleading eyes. My heart skipped a beat.
I clasped my hands together to make sure I wouldn’t reach out.
She sucked in air like she was about to be dunked under water. Then, “There’s a lot I need to tell you…that I want to tell you. But I’m scared. For me. And for you. Especially you.” A single tear rolled down her cheek.
I could resist no longer. I reached my hand out, and she grabbed it. Her thin fingers squeezed my hand like never before. She pulled me to her. Her eyes began to close, her lips opened. I could feel her breasts pressing against my chest.
Something slammed into th
e back of my neck. I fell into Nicole, and we both toppled to the tile floor. I tried pushing up, to see what or who had hit me, but my neck felt like it had been stabbed with an ice pick. Loud baritone voices. Two sets of feet jumped across the tile. Under me, Nicole squirmed, her eyes wide. I swung my head to the right and saw a man holding a gun. But it was his gold teeth that made my heart leap into the back of my throat. Bitch won’t live. It was him. I’d been so overwhelmed with information and so rushed, I’d forgotten to tell Brook and Bowser about what I’d seen when I passed Drake’s car earlier.
“Yo, Hugo,” Grill Man said to a guy half his size. “Tie them up; then we’ll throw them in the back of the car. Hurry up, man!”
I was just about to throw my elbow in the direction of Grill Man’s groin, when something leaped over my head. It had four legs.
“Baxter!” Nicole yelled; at the same time, I realized it was a dog. A dog who could have weighed as much as me.
Baxter, who appeared to be some type of Great Dane, clamped on Grill Man’s gun hand before his paws touched the floor. The guy screamed bloody murder, and the gun dropped. Somewhere in the canine chaos, it was kicked ten feet away. I pushed up and started to lunge for it, but Hugo had beat me to it. He was midair. I swiped a hand upward and clipped his ankle. He dropped face first into our dining room table, but his body was still between me and the gun. Grill Man shook off Baxter and threw himself in the direction of the gun. I tried to thrust my body forward, but a hand grabbed my jacket and yanked me down. I looked up—Nicole was halfway out the door.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Grill Man was on his knees, reaching for the gun.
“Ozzie!” She’d stopped at the doorway. I got to my feet and ran toward her as she yelled at Baxter. He cut between us as I grabbed the doorknob and slammed the door shut behind us. A crackle, and the door splintered just over my shoulder. To say I flinched would be an understatement.
She yelled something at Baxter, and he bolted out of sight. I grabbed Nicole’s hand. “I know where to go.” She followed me into the thick of the night.
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