by Sean Black
“Not when I was with her, they couldn’t.”
“Listen, if you think I had anything to do with this you should go talk to the LAPD. They’ll think you’re as nutty as I do. I’m sorry this has happened, but it has nothing to do with me. If you really want to speak to someone outside law enforcement who might have an idea what’s going on here, then go speak to Guilen. Assuming he’ll see you, which I very much doubt.”
29
Servando Guilen was being held at the Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles. Also known as the Twin Towers, it is the world’s largest jail facility and covers one and a half million square feet.
As befitted a criminal of his standing, Guilen had been placed in the secure housing unit. It wasn’t that he needed protection. Any prisoner so much as looking at him the wrong way would face swift and decisive retaliation. His isolation came down more to a lifestyle choice on his part. He wasn’t a man given to mixing with the commoners, and the Towers had more than their fair share of those, not to mention rapists, murderers and psychopaths.
The next morning, Lock left his cell phone and everything else, apart from his wallet, in his rental car and walked the few blocks to the central reception. His identification was checked, and he got in line with the other visitors. Apart from a handful of attorneys and clergy, they were overwhelmingly female. They were also predominantly African-American and Hispanic.
Once he was through the security check, Lock followed the line of people into the visiting room. Guilen was already seated at a table in the corner. Apart from a two-day stubble, he looked the same as he did in the photographs Lock had seen of him. He was a handsome guy in his late forties, with glossy black hair and an easy smile. If you had to guess his occupation without knowing who he was most people would plump for TV news anchor or thrusting young entrepreneur, which in a way he was. It was just that his business was narcotics trafficking.
“Mr. Lock,” he said, putting out his hand. Such a move would usually have earned an immediate reprimand from a guard, who would read the gesture as a way to receive contraband. No guard so much as dared to glance his way. It was a minor miracle that he wasn’t just allowed to walk out of the place, such was the fear he inspired.
“Thanks for taking the time to meet me,” Lock said, shaking his hand.
“Please.” Guilen motioned for him to sit down as casually as he would have if they were in his boardroom in Mexico City. The immediate impression he gave was of someone who was perfectly calm and composed. “Time is one commodity that I have an abundance of,” he said. “And can I say how sorry I was to hear of Carmen’s kidnapping? I understand that you and she are very close.”
“Yes. I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on what happened to her.”
Guilen steepled his fingers in a professorial gesture of studied contemplation. “Believe me, Mr. Lock, I have my people out there as we speak trying to answer just that question. And when they find those responsible for this . . . Well, from what I understand about your life, you’re a man of the world when it comes to these matters.”
It didn’t take a man of the world or otherwise to know what Guilen meant. If and when he found the kidnappers, he’d have them executed. Assuming, of course, that there wasn’t more to it. Just because Lock couldn’t see an angle as to why he’d be involved didn’t mean there wasn’t one. Men like Guilen operated their business empires like a game of three-dimensional chess, their motives often obscured by layers of subterfuge and deceit.
“I appreciate your efforts, but if I find the people responsible before you do, you won’t have to worry about what happens to them. I’ll take care of it.”
The drugs baron shot him an amused smile. “I don’t doubt it for a moment. You know, my business could always use someone with your experience and abilities.”
“I’m sure,” said Lock, looking around the room, his eyes settling on the bars on the windows. “But I like to stay on the right side of the law.”
Guilen’s eyes crinkled. For a moment it was hard to imagine that this man had personally ordered the deaths of hundreds of people, men, women, even children. “But you like to walk close to the line as well?”
“Not as close as you. Did Carmen mention to you that she had received threats?” Lock asked.
“No. I only wish she had. I would have put measures in place to ensure that something like this didn’t happen.”
“If your people do discover anything . . .”
“I’ll make sure they inform you. Carmen is my lawyer, but she’s become more than that since I’ve known her. I regard her as family.”
Lock wasn’t sure Guilen’s was a family that any sane person would want to be welcomed into. The narco-cartels, like most large criminal enterprises, consumed their own as much as they did strangers. He wondered if he should tell Guilen about the email sent from the army base. Maybe his people could do some digging. He decided against it. Guilen could help, that much was true, but Lock wasn’t sure he could be trusted.
Lock dug out his cell phone from the center console next to the driver’s seat. Six missed calls and as many voicemail messages. Three of the calls had been from Ty. “Sorry, Ty, I was in visiting Servando Guilen. Had to leave my cell in the car.”
“Okay. Well, listen up, I got some news.”
Ty sounded hyped. Lock could only hope he’d made a breakthrough because, so far, he had the same amount of information he’d started out with—zip.
“Go ahead, Tyrone.”
“You not see the news?”
“Ty, would you just tell me what you’re talking about, or do I have to guess?”
“The news about that crazy white supremacist, Chance, carving up some rapist in prison. You know, the one we ran down in San Francisco.”
Lock remembered her all too well. His heart sank. “I thought you meant you had news about Carmen.”
“No, sorry, dude. But I spoke to a buddy who works at the base and he’s going to do some poking around for us. See if we can’t find out who sent the video.”
That was something, but a military base was a big place. Many were equivalent in size and sprawl to a small town. It was worth a shot, but it would take time, and time wasn’t something they necessarily had on their side. They needed a solid lead, and fast.
“So what’s the story with Chance?” Lock asked.
Chance was the daughter of a white supremacist and leader of the notorious Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, who had gone by the name Reaper. Freya had helped engineer her father’s escape, then led the authorities on a merry dance. It had ended in San Francisco where she had been involved in an assassination attempt on the President of the United States. Lock and Tyrone had foiled it. Chance had been sentenced to life without possibility of parole, in the process becoming a martyr to the ever-growing white supremacist movement.
“You hear about this cat called Gerard Browell?” Ty asked. “Got gender re-assignment surgery, became Ginny, and transferred to the women’s central prison at Chowchilla.”
“I heard something about it.”
“Okay, so Browell wasn’t in there twenty-four hours before Chance carved him up like a Thanksgiving turkey.”
“So what’s that got to do with Carmen?”
Ty sounded irritated by the question. “I don’t know. But it’s kind of a coincidence, don’t you think? Carmen goes missing and all of a sudden Chance is in the news.”
“You said it. It’s a coincidence. Chance is still in prison, right?”
“Yeah, but . . .”
Lock’s cell pinged with another incoming call. “Ty, listen, I have another call. Keep speaking to as many people as you can. Maybe see if your buddy at that base can talk to some of the higher-ups. Find out if they have anyone on base currently under investigation.”
People assumed that everyone in the military was on the up and up. That was the case for ninety-nine percent. But the military, like any organization, had its bad apples. The good thing, though, wa
s that service personnel were usually pretty perceptive (their lives depended upon it), so even if they didn’t always nail the odd rogue, they often had a good idea who they were.
“Will do.”
“Thanks,” he said, switching calls.
“Is that Ryan Lock?”
It was a man’s voice, but he didn’t recognize the number.
“Speaking. Who’s this?”
“Carl Galante. I’m the investigator from Carmen’s office. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. Listen, I’m real sorry about what’s happened, and I just wanted to let you know that if there’s anything you need, anything at all, you have only to ask.”
There was something. Lock had asked the cops for it and been almost laughed out of the office. “Carl, would you be able to get me a copy of the closed-circuit security cameras from the office building?”
Carl hesitated for a second. “I already looked at all the stuff. See if we’d had any visitors before the kidnapping. Or if there was anything from the abduction that the cops might have missed.”
“Carl, I’d really appreciate it if you could get me that footage. I’m in the weeds here right now.”
30
Carl Galante had a goatee, collar-length hair, and was wearing shorts and a Dogtown Venice surf T-shirt. From the checking he had done before their sit-down, Lock knew that the ex-cop came with a solid reputation. There was nothing in his past to suggest he might be involved in any way with what had happened to Carmen.
Carl slid into the booth across from him, thumped down a heavy envelope and slid it across the table to him. “I got you a copy of the threat assessments we’ve compiled over the past three years. Everything’s there. Names, numbers, background information and whether the threat was credible or not.”
“I appreciate it.” Lock picked up the envelope and placed it next to him on the bench seat. Even allowing for the fact that it covered a three-year span, there was a lot of paper.
“I also included a couple of USB drives with all the relevant video footage from our cameras,” Carl continued. “If anyone asks, you didn’t get any of it from me.”
Lock studied him for a second. “Why so helpful?”
Most people would have taken offense at such a question. But Carl had spent twenty-plus years in law enforcement. He understood Lock’s natural suspicion. Especially given the circumstances. “I like Carmen. She’s a good person with a good heart.”
“You’re right. She is.” Lock patted the envelope. “Thank you.”
Carl shrugged and took a sip of water. “I’ve been through everything, but nothing jumped out at me. I figured it couldn’t hurt to have you take a look, see if you spot anything that I or the cops have missed.”
“There was nothing recent that gave you cause for concern? No one with a grudge, or maybe someone looking to upset Servando Guilen’s defense?”
“Something connected to Guilen was the first thing I thought about when I got the news. You know, broad daylight, brazen, lots of shots fired. It’s definitely cartel-style stuff.”
“But?” Lock asked.
“If there is a connection, I haven’t found it.”
That didn’t mean it wasn’t there. “Guilen didn’t think so either, and your boss thinks it’s connected to me somehow.”
That drew a smile from Carl. “He said that?”
“Not those words exactly, but yes.”
“And what do you think?” Carl asked.
Lock had asked himself the same question. There were enough people out there who’d be more than happy to see him suffer. He’d always stayed on the right side of the law, or at least fought for the good guys, but he’d hardly been a choir boy. He believed that sometimes an eye-for-an-eye strategy was the right fit. And that some individuals couldn’t be negotiated with.
But why wouldn’t someone who wanted revenge just come for him directly? It wasn’t as if he hid away. He would have been easy enough to find if someone was determined to do so. “I don’t know,” he said.
Carl seemed to weigh that answer and find it reasonable enough. “So, Mike gave you a hard time, huh?”
Lock felt Carl had more to say about his boss. But he’d have to proceed with caution. Mike was still the guy who cut Carl a check every month, and that meant something in this economy, even for a retired cop with a good pension. “I don’t think he’s a fan,’ he said. ‘Plus I gave him a little bit of a hard time back.”
“Yeah, I heard about that.”
Lock decided to offer Carl a concession, hoping it might persuade him to open up a little more. “I may have gone a tad overboard. But you have to understand, Carmen means everything to me.” That last part was true. She did mean the world to him. He couldn’t imagine his life without her. Not now.
“I get that. She spoke about you to me once or twice. You know, in passing. She loves you.”
Lock decided to cut to the chase. Neither of them had come here to discuss how good his relationship with Carmen was. “So what’s the deal with your boss?”
“You mean why doesn’t he care too much for you?”
“Yeah.”
Carl took a breath. “This stays between us, right?”
“Of course.”
“I think he has a thing for her. Or, at least, had.”
“You mean, Mike and Carmen . . .?”
“Oh, no,” Carl said, quickly correcting himself. “Like an affair? No, this was pretty one-sided. I’m not even sure he told her how he felt, but anyone who was around the office could see it.”
That would certainly explain his hostility, but Lock wondered if Carl was trying to suggest anything more sinister. It seemed a stretch, but people were capable of all kinds of strange behavior if they’d had a romantic advance spurned. “You’re not suggesting he may have been involved in this?”
Carl laughed. “No. No way. But it does mean I can’t have him knowing I gave you any of this stuff.”
Lock reassured him it would stay between them, paid the check for the water and coffee, and grabbed the envelope. It felt heavy in his hand. He hoped that somewhere inside there would be a scrap of something he could use to find Carmen.
Out on the sidewalk, he shook Carl’s hand. “Thanks. You didn’t have to do this, but I’m glad you did.”
“Just go find her and bring her home. If I get wind of anything from inside the firm, I’ll be in touch. Although it looks like I’m going to be crazy busy after that shit-show up in Chowchilla.”
Lock froze. “Chowchilla? The Central Women’s Prison?”
Carl looked at him, puzzled. “Yeah. You know it?”
“Know the name. So how come you guys are involved with something up there? It’s a long way from Los Angeles.”
“Oh, we represent the women who killed that other inmate. You know, Browell, the rapist.”
“Wait. The firm represents Freya Vaden?”
“Yeah. Have done for about the past five years. Why?”
31
His head still spinning, Lock drove back to the west side. He planned on watching the footage at Li Zhang’s office on Lincoln Boulevard in Marina Del Rey. Not only did Li have large high-definition monitors, he also had software that could enhance any image or segment of video he needed to take a closer look at. From there he would head back to his apartment and work through the papers Carl had given him.
As he drove, he turned over what Carl had told him about their representation of Freya Vaden, a.k.a. Chance, in his mind. When Ty had mentioned her to him earlier he’d thought it nothing more than a macabre coincidence. And, anyway, she was in prison. For good.
But now he knew that Carmen’s firm represented her? He wasn’t going to lie: it was unsettling.
After Carl had dropped it into the conversation, Lock had pressed him for more details. For one, he wanted to know exactly what work the firm did for Vaden. She couldn’t have had any reasonable expectation of getting out via an appeal. The evidence against her had been as clear cut as it got.
Among other things, she had tried to kill the President of the United States, in full view of dozens of witnesses. Witnesses that included cops, Secret Service agents, himself and Ty. If it hadn’t been for them, she would likely have succeeded, and America would have been plunged into who knew what. Possibly a race war, which was what she and her allies had been hoping to spark.
No, Carl confirmed. She knew she was going to die in prison. She had retained the firm’s services to fight a series of battles as to how her son, who had been born while she was awaiting trial, was raised. Due to her own father’s incarceration, Freya had been raised in foster care. During that time she had been abused. That, and her separation from her father, had transformed her, somewhat understandably, into a very angry woman intent on taking revenge on the system. She was determined that she exert some control over her son’s upbringing.
Suddenly he could see how Carmen’s law firm would have offered their help on a pro bono basis (without taking payment). Carl had stopped him when he’d said that. They weren’t working pro bono. They were being paid their full fee.
That piece of information had stopped him in his tracks. How the hell was a woman like Freya Vaden able to pay such huge attorney fees? They would run into tens, likely hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“She has lots of friends,” Carl told him.
“The kind of friends who can cover those costs?” he’d asked him.
“I said lots, not wealthy.”
He’d explained that Vaden had become the Joan of Arc to many sections of the white supremacist movement. In fact, she was one step up from the Maid of Orleans. She was a living martyr.
Even though she was in jail for a series of homicides, and terrorist-related crimes, she was seen as a victim of race mixing. A victim who had chosen to fight back.
In a world less twisted, and allied to a less hateful ideology, even he could glimpse the power of her life story. Cast into the darkness while her father was imprisoned, she had grown up not only to aid his escape but had come within seconds of achieving the dream of many on the lunatic fringe by murdering America’s first African-American president. Now she herself was being forced to share her father’s fate, while her son was made to suffer as she had, separated from his family.