The Kill Club

by Wendy Heard

  Chen hustles off. He goes back to his car for evidence bags. They return to the truck at the same time, Chen with a set of rusty-looking pliers. “Got them from over there,” she says, nodding to a makeshift workbench.

  Nielsen works carefully, not wanting to disturb fingerprints, and at last twists the bolts out so the box comes free. He bags it separately from the bolts and jumps up. “Keep an eye on Forensics,” he tells Chen. “I gotta get this down to the station. Make sure they pay attention to the whole undercarriage. Prints, DNA, everything.”

  “Will do.”

  He hops into his car and starts the engine. He pulls his phone out and dials Patel. When she picks up, he asks, “You got the kid?”

  “We’ve got teams searching for him now. He doesn’t have a phone or anything else for us to track, so we’re looking for a Hispanic teenager in LA. I need coffee. Or a drink. And maybe soon, I’ll need a new job. I hear Walmart is hiring security guards.”

  “Here’s some good news. I got a tracking device off Jasmine’s truck.”

  “Are you serious?” she gasps.

  “Bringing it in now. Say goodbye, little Blackbird.” Nielsen pulls away from the curb, waves at the row of uniforms and makes a U-turn. “I’ll get coffee if you get IT ready to receive this. I want info on this fucker tonight.”

  “Yes! Where are you coming from? I want the real stuff. Hipster coffee, nitro cold brew.”

  “Well, it’s ten p.m., so you’re getting Starbucks. I’ll hit up the one north of Central and be there in twenty.” He hangs up. The little silver box rests peacefully on the seat next to him in the clear plastic evidence bag.

  Gonna get you, Blackbird. Your time is almost up.

  Starbucks is a ghost town, only a few cops and party kids in line for coffee at this time of night. He gets Patel a venti cold brew and himself a venti red eye. He almost has to flash his badge to get the creamer pitcher away from a tweaked-out college kid with blue hair who’s taken up residence at the condiment stand, but he’s back at the station in exactly twenty minutes just like he’d promised.

  Patel is waiting for him in the conference room, typing rapidly on her laptop. When he hurries through the door, she flashes him a grateful smile. “You’re the best secretary a guy could ever ask for,” she says, and he tries to give her a smack on the head, which she ducks away from. She grabs her coffee and takes a long sip. He chugs his own bitter brew and sets the little silver box on the conference table, on top of a pile of witness statements from the church. She raises her eyebrows at it. “How’d you know to look for it? That was smart thinking.”

  “I was trying to figure out how Blackbird has known everywhere Jasmine has gone or would go.” He feels proud; Patel doesn’t give praise easily. He sprawls out in a rolling chair, takes another long sip of coffee. It tastes especially bitter, like it’s been sitting for too long, but it warms him up from the inside out. “How’s the team? Where is everybody?”

  “Gonzalez has taken over kid duty. She’s going door to door to Joaquin’s friends’ houses. No luck so far. They’ve got a couple of people on phones, working with uniforms. We just sent someone over to Jasmine’s apartment to canvass the neighborhood in case he headed there. Everyone’s on top of it, but we’ve got nothing yet.”

  That’s how this case has been. Everyone working at top speed but nothing happening.

  “We’re going to get something off the GPS. I can feel it,” he says. He’s flushed with excitement, hot on the trail.

  She sets her coffee down with a grimace. “Ugh. I need to eat something. My stomach feels like bloody shite and this tastes terrible.”

  He checks his watch and takes another deep swig of coffee. “Where the fuck is IT?”

  “They should be here any minute. I told them to get their asses down here. I can call them again.” She presses her hands to her face and wipes her eyes.

  “What’s up with religious nut mom?”

  “She’s still here. Threatening to call lawyers and senators and the newspaper and whatever head of the bloody denomination.”

  They laugh together, a dark, grim sound. The kid could be dead. They both know it.

  He drains the last of his coffee and tosses the empty cup in the trash can by the door. It topples out of the can and tumbles to the floor.

  “There’s no future for you in basketball,” Patel says. Her voice is thick, and she wipes at her eyes again. “I’m so tired. It just hit me. Maybe I should grab a nap on one of the cots.”

  “Now? You don’t want to see what IT says about the tracking device?”

  “Right,” she slurs, like she’d forgotten. She sounds drunk with exhaustion.

  “Look at you.” His own voice sounds foggy.

  “What about me?”

  “You’re a mess. This is why the draft should never include women. You’re lost without a good night’s sleep.” He gets out of his chair to fetch the coffee cup from the floor. The room tilts, and he drops to his knees. His stomach roils; he’s going to throw up. He crawls toward the trash can, but the floor tosses him like the rodeo, and he collapses on his side.

  “Dave?” Patel asks, from across the universe, using his first name, which she never does. “Dave—” and then a thud as Patel hits the ground.

  He tries to push himself up. His hand fumbles for his belt, for his cell phone.

  Across the room, Patel croaks out a scream of pain.

  MONDAY

  34

  JAZZ

  I’M SHIVERING EVEN though I have the heater on. Through the windshield, the dark city is coming slowly to life. The windows of Starbucks glow golden as employees arrive and turn the lights on. I’m parked right out front, in a spot that becomes illegal at seven o’clock. I’ve been here for hours.

  I wrap my arms around myself. I’m cold.

  The Starbucks is open now, and two women go inside and order drinks. I watch them, waiting for some sign that they’re from the murder club, but they get their coffee and leave. Two cars pull up, one in front of me and one behind, releasing their occupants into the lightening gray dawn.

  I feel like a bug in a spiderweb. I can struggle, but I’m about to be wrapped up and devoured.

  I check the time on the console. It’s six o’clock. Another handful of people arrives, one after the other. I watch them, anxious, wishing I could see where they all parked. I count them obsessively, one after the other. They all leave with their drinks. None of them stays to hang around.

  And suddenly Sofia is here, dressed for work in slacks and a button-down with a zip-up sweatshirt on top, her high-heeled steps brisk on the sidewalk. She glances around and lets herself in through the glass door. How is she so put-together at six in the morning? When I work early shifts at Trader Joe’s, I look like an orphan in a Christmas movie.

  I get out of the car, check around me for anything suspicious and enter the Starbucks a minute behind her. A couple of women are ordering drinks at the register. Neither of them looks at me. I make my way past them, past the condiment stand, to the bathroom at the back of the store. I knock on the door a few times.

  “Jazz?” Her voice is muffled.

  “Yeah.”

  The lock clicks and the door swings open. She looks tired and pale under her makeup, like she hasn’t slept. I slide inside and lock the door behind me.

  “Hey,” I say. I move forward to give her a hug, but she steps back and takes my hands, pins them in front of me. Her grip is hard enough to hurt, and she squeezes my fingers a few times, fast. I look down in confusion. Written on her hand in black pen, at an angle so I can read it, are the words They’re watching us.

  What the fuck. There’s a camera in here?

  “Are you okay?” she asks. Her voice has an anxious edge.

  “I’m fine.” I sound guarded.

  “Good. I’m so glad you’re okay.” She g
ives me a quick hug, pulls away and squeezes my hands again. “Where have you been?”

  I hesitate, not sure what the murder club is looking for. Why is Sofia doing this? Are they making her? What do they want? At last, I say, “I’ve just been here and there. How are you?”

  “I’m fine.” She takes a breath but doesn’t release my hands. I can feel hers getting sweaty. “Jazz, have you told anyone about any of this? Have you spoken to the police or friends or anything?” Sofia squeezes my hands hard a few times, and I glance down. She’s turned her hand over so I can read something written on her palm. Say no.

  Duh, Sofia, I’m not an idiot.

  This is what they want. They want to find out who else I’ve told so they can murder them. I want to rage, to rush out of this room and go...go what?

  “No, of course not,” I tell her. “Who am I gonna tell? The cops? Why, so they can pin the murders on me?”

  “I thought maybe you’d told some friends or your bandmates or something.”

  “I haven’t told anyone,” I snap, and it’s fear in my voice now. “I haven’t told my bandmates. I haven’t talked to them at all. I don’t even have my iPhone, so I don’t have anyone’s phone numbers.” As I’m saying it, I realize this is probably why they took it. Fuckers.

  She nods. Her face is scared, and mine probably is, too. I know this isn’t her fault, but I’m mad at her, hurt by her saying these words on their behalf.

  A little puff shoots out from a wall-mounted air freshener, and we jump.

  She unzips her sweatshirt. “This is yours. I accidentally stole it.”

  “It’s fine. Keep it,” I protest, but she puts it around my shoulders and I slide my arms in. It does feel amazing. She’s wearing a long-sleeved white button-down under the sweatshirt, so she probably isn’t as cold as I am in my tank top.

  She looks at the door. “I have to go. I’m going to an all-day training that starts at eight, and I have to get on the road.” She kisses me lightly on the cheek. Her hair is soft and smells delicious. She pulls the door open, steps through it and looks back at me. Silently, she shows me the palm of her hand that has no writing on it. She slides it into the pocket of her pants. Her face is intense, like this means something.

  She’s doing this outside the bathroom. That must mean they have a camera in the bathroom, and she’s showing me something she doesn’t want them to see.

  She pantomimes putting something in her pocket again, nods at me and lets the bathroom door swing shut. I’m alone.

  I have to act like I don’t know there’s a camera in here. I go to the sink and look at myself in the mirror. I look haggard and drawn, like I need to eat a meal and take a shower. I wash my hands and leave the bathroom. On my way out, I stop at the counter to buy a cup of coffee. I carry it to the rental car and am behind the wheel, about to take a sip, when I think—how do I know they didn’t poison this?

  I stare at the white lid of the cup, and then I pull it off, open the door and dump the coffee out on the pavement.

  I start the engine and remember Sofia, putting her hand in her pocket. Why did she do that? Did she slip something in my jeans pocket when I wasn’t looking? I check my pockets, front and back, and then I remember the sweatshirt. I put my hands in the pockets and encounter a hard, slim rectangle. I’m about to pull it out when I remember this car was sitting here on the street for at least ten minutes while I was inside. What if they got in here and left a recording device? What if they put another tracking device on this car?

  I groan internally.

  I hate them.

  So now what? I have to get a new rental car?

  I leave whatever it is in the sweatshirt pocket and pull away from the curb. I head north on Laurel Canyon toward the Burbank Airport. Assholes. If they want to make me switch out my rental car every day, so be it.

  It’s not until half an hour later, when I have a new rental car from a totally different provider and am behind the wheel of a Kia, that I pull onto a small suburban street near the airport and take the rectangular object out of my pocket.

  It’s a laminated ID badge with a little clip attached, the kind you wear at work. Sofia’s picture looks back at me. She’s smiling her professional work smile, her high, sculpted cheekbones beautiful against her wavy caramel hair. Above her picture, the logo for LAUSD is printed on the white plastic, and below her picture it says Sofia Russo.

  A thin stack of Post-its is stuck to the back of the badge. I pull the stack off and read the words printed in tiny, neat handwriting.

  They said they’d kill my daughter if I don’t help them get their hands on you. I need to talk to you away from them, where they can’t see or hear us. They want to make sure you haven’t told anyone else about them, and then I think they’re planning to kill you.

  Ya think?

  The next Post-it reads, Meet me downtown at the LAUSD Central Office building. It’s got tight security; we can talk there. Make sure you aren’t followed. Be there at 8am. That’s when I told them my training starts.

  What follows is a series of directions to a parking garage downtown and a set of instructions like “Use the badge to get into the parking garage” and “Walk across the bridge to the door with the keycard entry.”

  I get the new phone out, ready to program the address into the navigation, and then cough out a dry laugh. It doesn’t have navigation.

  The address is on Beaudry. I know that street; it’s close to my apartment. I check the time. It’s seven fifteen. I need to hurry.

  A plane roars overhead, so loud I think it’s crashing. I look out the windshield and see the underside as it flies south and gains altitude. My ears ring in the silence it leaves behind.

  I take the 5 and make pretty good time. By seven forty-five, I’m off the freeway and cruising up and down Beaudry, starting where it intersects Sunset and heads toward downtown. It’s hard to read the building numbers; most of the structures on this street are under construction, boarded up or have been turned into charter schools. All the homeless people are starting to wake up, and I pass one old dude who already has himself a 40 in a paper bag and is drinking it happily on a bus stop bench. He’s having a way better morning than I am.

  The address sneaks up on me. It’s a massive triangular skyscraper that towers over the 110 freeway on a hill just north of the Financial District. It backs up to a high school with a track I run on sometimes.

  I swing into the adjacent parking structure. There’s a little keypad that controls a security entrance with a swinging gate arm. I search for a ticket dispenser but can’t find one. In the next lane, a lady beeps herself in with a rectangular badge, and the gate arm rises to let her through. I grab Sofia’s badge and use it to beep the keypad, and the gate arm swings open.

  The parking garage is ten stories high and must fit thousands of cars. I follow signs for LAUSD and find a spot on the third floor. The only other people I see are two tired-looking women lugging tote bags to the elevators.

  I take the elevator to the eighth floor. I follow the ladies through rows of cars out an exterior door, and suddenly I’m on a bridge. It stretches above a street from one building to the next, and I can’t help but pause in the middle of it to admire the downtown skyline. The sky is golden around the edges, and the city feels fresh and clean in the cold morning air.

  As I watch, a red-tailed hawk plucks a pigeon from the sky, wings flapping in an aerial dance of death. I’ve watched this happen before, but today I have to look away. I don’t ever want to see death again.

  Am I stupid for coming here? Am I sure I can trust Sofia?

  I don’t know what else to do, so I take a breath and head for the building.

  I beep a glass door open with Sofia’s badge, and I’m in a large tiled hallway with security guards and hordes of businesspeople bustling around. Sofia’s instructions tell me to follow this hallway to a stair
well door at the end. I continue on, past a window in the wall that says Building Management and into a door marked Stairwell B. I let the door close heavily behind me.

  A set of lights flickers on. I’m in a dank, concrete stairwell with metal stairs stretching up above me. The note tells me to meet her on level nine.

  I walk slowly up the stairs. I don’t like this. I feel like this is an A+ place to murder someone. A door opens on the fourth floor, scaring the shit out of me, and a man pops into the stairwell. He nods politely and walks ahead of me up to the fifth floor, where he lets himself out of the stairwell by beeping his little badge on a keypad next to the door.

  The ninth floor is a sort of landing. The walls are lined with pipes and valves, and Sofia is standing in the corner, out of sight from both the stairwell leading up and the stairwell leading down.

  I stop when I see her. I feel wary.

  She pushes off the wall. “Hey.”

  “Let me see your hands.”

  She puts them in front of her, palms up. “Why?”

  I approach her slowly. She doesn’t have a bag that I can see, nothing to conceal a syringe. I can’t imagine how I could find a little tiny camera or anything in the vents and pipes. Maybe that’s on purpose. Maybe Sofia brought me to this floor because there’d be so many places to hide a camera.

  I say, “Come on. We’re going to somewhere I pick, not you.” I take her by the hand and pull her toward the stairs going up. She has to work to keep up with me in her heels.

  “Why are we going up?” she asks.

  “Because I don’t know if I can trust you.” That shuts her up. I drag her up three flights of stairs to floor twelve. The landing here is small, just a turn in the staircase, with no hidden corners or crevices. I spin around. “Where’s your purse?”

  “I didn’t bring it. Just my keys. I was worried they might have put something in it.”

  “Show me your keys.”