The Ghost Syndicate

by K R Hill

  Deutz reached for the door. “That’s all I need. If one of those guys is dirty, they’re getting paid in cash. Small bills. No records. I need something that tells me who it is. That’s why I came to you. Can you handle that?”

  “Piece of cake,” said the big Sri Lankan, fingers dancing over his sweater.

  Deutz stared at the nerd crew. After a moment he turned his attention to Kreutzfeld. “Can you do it without getting us thrown in jail?”

  The skinny technician with the ponytail raised his arms in front of him and danced in a way that was painful to watch.

  “Now you’re scaring me,” said Deutz. “Are you on medication or something?”

  Kreutzfeld laughed. “No, Lieutenant. I’m dancing through firewall security and getting the information we need. Kreutzy’s dancing.”

  The other guys laughed. One punched another’s shoulder.

  Deutz watched. He started to say something, but closed his mouth and walked out into the night. As he climbed into his car, he whispered, “I just handed them my career.”

  Chapter 20

  They walked down the marble steps of police headquarters, shook hands with their attorney, and walked to the corner.

  “This isn’t fun and games anymore,” said Bartholomew.

  “Don’t sweat it. Self-defense. We have five witnesses to confirm our story. Let it go. It’s not the police we need to worry about.” Connor stopped beside a trashcan, dropped his cell phone onto the sidewalk, smashed it with a heel of his shoe, bent down and picked up the pieces, and dropped them in the trashcan. “Give me yours.”

  “Mine?” Bartholomew pressed his phone to his chest.

  “Yes, yours. How the hell did that Zakai find us so quickly? Do you know that he doesn’t have some tracker on your phone? Do you want to run into him again?”

  Bartholomew handed over his phone.

  Connor dropped it onto the sidewalk the same way he had his own, stomped on it, kicked some of the smaller pieces into the gutter, and picked up the large ones and tossed them in the trash.

  “I guess I won’t be getting my upgrade.” Bartholomew looked in the trashcan.

  “Get your car and meet me at pop’s. Park it a few blocks away. I’ll swing by a shop and pick up a couple of burner phones. Everything we do from now on, we pay cash. Don’t get caught. I’ll see you there.”

  Forty-five minutes later, they met at the condo above the garage in Signal Hill.

  Connor waited on the terrace beside the old wooden staircase. He hadn’t been there long when Bartholomew came walking up the driveway.

  The staircase creaked as they climbed.

  “Hey,” said Bartholomew. “I remember Artie, dad’s old partner, wasn’t very tall, but had super wide shoulders.”

  Connor stopped. “Yeah, he’s not the kind of guy that blends in. Why?”

  Bartholomew flipped a thumb over his shoulder. “Well, either I’m going crazy, or Artie was trying to follow me. There can’t be two guys in the world built like that.”

  Connor looked past Bartholomew to the Street. “You’re kidding. He said he had our backs, but he wouldn’t actually follow us, would he?” He knocked a couple times and heard steps inside the condo.

  Ashley pulled him into the kitchen and rolled her eyes. “You got to get me out of here. She’s been asking me the same thing all morning: where’s my shining stars? Where are Connor and Bartholomew?”

  Connor held Ashley’s face in both hands and moved his nose an inch from hers. “I need to talk to you, but please, let me speak to Tia Alma first. She relaxes when we talk.”

  Ashley took ahold of his wrist. “Tell me you can fix all this,” she whispered.

  “I can. Let me talk to her, then I need to explain so much.”

  Connor sat beside Tia Alma’s bed and held her hand. He reminisced about the time she had marched down to his elementary school and shouted at the principal because he had administered a spanking to Connor. That story made Alma laugh, and when she stopped laughing, she asked for ice cream. Five minutes after she finished the ice cream, she had him bring a glass of water, pulled out her lower denture and dropped it into the glass. A few minutes later she was blowing air out over lips that flapped every time she exhaled.

  Connor stepped out of the bedroom, took Ashley by the hand, and led her into Tia Alma’s room. Pressed against her, standing in the corner and whispering, he said: “I killed two men last night.”

  “Oh, no, baby, Bart was telling me about it.” She wrapped her arms around him.

  “Look, that man I told you about is still searching for me and Bart. But you can get away with Tia. You two will be safe.”

  “No,” she said, pressing her forehead to his. “If you’re not with us, I’d be worried every night that they were coming. We stay together.”

  “I’ve been hiding something from you.”

  “What?” Ashley pulled away.

  “Don’t look so hurt.”

  “Are you seeing that Asian library slut?”

  He smiled because she was so far off base. “No. All I want is you. You’re a super, burning- pounding lover. But I love you for so much more than crazy sex.” He took her hand.

  She chuckled. “Burning-pounding sex, really?”

  “Well, our sex life is kinda ropes and chains kinky stuff.”

  Ashley laughed and shoved him. “Come on, tell me what you’ve been hiding?”

  Connor drew a deep breath. “I’ve wanted to ask you to marry me a hundred times, but I’ve been afraid.”

  She covered her mouth with a shaking hand. “To marry you? Really? Why were you afraid, baby? Is it this Russian thing?”

  “No. That Army case. I used to play with that boy.”

  Ashley touched his cheek.

  “I couldn’t protect him.”

  “Oh Connor, don’t punish yourself like that. Let it go. Look how your father protected you. He taught you how to protect your family, just like he protected you. That child that got murdered is on the Army. It happened on the base. That’s on the shoulders of the base security officers, not yours.”

  He nodded. “I want to marry you.”

  “Is that your way of asking me?”

  “Well?”

  “Well what? I need to know that you can get us out of this.”

  “That’s a hard answer.”

  Ashley smiled. “Well, slugger, you have to step to the plate or lose your place.”

  He laughed. “So that’s the way it is.”

  She raised her shoulders and shifted them about in a flirtatious way.

  “Listen, the Russians want a video I have. If I surrender it, we’ll be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives. The only way out is to swing for the fences and throw these mob fuckers on their ass.”

  “Will helping you make me a felon?”

  “Yes, but if we pull it off, it’ll all disappear.”

  She stepped back. “Wait a minute. You were planning this months ago. That’s why you were out all those nights when I wondered if you were cheating.”

  “I’m busted. I’ve been planning it for six months.”

  “If this is the first plan you’ve done, then I say no. I think we should take the sure way and turn over the video.”

  “If we do that, our children will never be safe.”

  “You want to have a baby with me?” Ashley cried and kissed him passionately. After a moment, she pulled away and said: “That’s what you’ve been hiding. I always felt there was something that you wouldn’t let me see.”

  “I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to protect us, and that kept twisting inside me.”

  “Tell me the plan.”

  “It’s not my first. Planning the operations is what I did in the Rangers.”

  “Show it to me, baby,” she said, flirting with her shoulders again.

  “You’re bad.” He tried to kiss her, but she turned.

  “Some guy was snooping around when you were gone. He came up the staircase an
d was standing outside the door listening. I think I scared him. I was right on the other side of the door. I was so scared. All I could do was cock the trigger of the revolver, the way you showed me. I was going to kill him if he got in the apartment. He must have heard the firing chamber click into place.”

  “He got the message. Shit. What did he look like?”

  “He wasn’t very tall, but had broad shoulders and long arms. He must’ve been about … in his 60s, maybe.”

  “Artie,” said Connor.

  “Who?”

  “My father’s partner. Why is he snooping around?”

  He led her into the living room where Bartholomew sat, and for the next two hours Connor drew diagrams, went over the plan, and had each of them repeat back to him the times, the locations, and the duties they had to fulfill.

  He knew that they had been memorizing and rehearsing long enough when Bartholomew started getting agitated and kept walking to the window.

  “Okay, let’s take a break,” said Connor, picking up Tia Alma’s notebook. He sat at the architect’s drafting table, and started reading.

  “Why are you reading that?” asked Bartholomew. “We can’t go out and track down leads.”

  “Listen,” said Connor. “If we could find a pile of cash we’d disappear. That’s why I’m reading.”

  Bartholomew drug a chair to the architect table. “But I read that whole book. There’s nothing that says where they were when she hid the money.”

  Connor turned on the lamp clamped to the edge of the table, pulled the light down close to the book, and started reading. Half way through the book, he found a folded piece of paper.

  “That’s the poem I told you about,” said Bartholomew. “I’m going to grab a bottle of water. You want one?”

  Connor held the hand written poem up to the light and set it on the desk. “No thanks,” he said over his shoulder, then glanced at the poem and noticed how the light revealed indentations in the paper, as though the author had paused here and there with their pen, pressing it into the paper.

  Connor jumped up and grabbed a pen and a pad of paper as he shifted the poem about in the light, and began writing, recording the letters and numbers that had been marked.

  “Did you find something?” asked Bartholomew, twisting off the top of a water bottle.

  “I think so. Look at this, see how certain letters and numbers have a small indentation beside them?” He moved the paper in the light.

  “I do, but this is Tia we’re talking about. Is she capable of creating a code or a hidden message?”

  Connor straightened up. “What do we know about her?”

  “Before she moved in with Dad, we got nothing.”

  Connor recorded the letters and numbers indicated, and looked at what he’d written. “Holy shit. Is this for real? I think we just found $3.5 million.” He lifted the notepad and read: Grapevine Lodge 12, Gorman.

  “Gorman California,” said Bartholomew. “Right off the grapevine, just outside of LA.”

  “Wait a minute, we’ve been there. Remember that time dad took us fishing in San Luis Obispo?”

  “I caught four albacore. You caught sea weed.”

  “Remember the drive home? Dad insisted on spending the night in that little motel?”

  “I had to carry in that Cadillac-size ice chest from the car. I remember. Is that the motel?”

  “I think it is. The guy at the front desk knew dad by name. He was an ex-cop. I think it was one of the guys I saw on the wall in Artie’s office. He was at the house the night you and Tia showed up.”

  Bartholomew stepped back, turned a circle, wiped his face and pointed at the poem. “So, there’s $3.5 million stuffed around the floor furnace, in room number 12 in that motel?”

  Connor nodded. “There’s one way to find out.”

  Ashley peeked through the kitchen door. “Please get her stars. She’s driving me crazy. What the hell are they, anyway?”

  Connor punched the air. “That’s it,” he said. “When she asks for her stars, Tia cups her hand, as though holding something.”

  Bartholomew dropped his water bottle. “In her mind she’s holding her shining stars. No! Fuck me. You don’t think—”

  “Exactly. What sparkles and is kept in black velvet bags?”

  Ashley gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth, leaned back until she touched the doorframe, and slid to the floor. “Oh my God,” she said. “Diamonds. Is this a dream?”

  “It makes sense. A Haitian General fled for his life and took what was easy to carry.” Connor wrapped his arms over his head. “The Russians must have known the money was real. Maybe the diamonds were part of some diplomatic bribe or payment to a powerful general.”

  “If the Russians know, they’ve got the scent of treasure in their nostrils, and they’re not going to back down.”

  “What are we going to do, Connor?”

  Connor looked about. “We’re going to blow this plan up in their faces. Let’s get passports so we have a way to escape if this goes sideways. Then I’ll set up a buy with my gun dealer and get what we need to pull this off.”

  Bartholomew sat on the steamer trunk, and said with a dreamy voice: “What about dad?”

  Connor glanced at Ashley, smiled and gestured with a nod to the bedroom. She climbed to her feet and walked out of the room and closed the door.

  “Hey.” Connor swiveled in the chair. “I know what you’re feeling. Dad is all wrapped up in this. He’s speaking to me, too.”

  Bartholomew turned his head one way and then the other, and tapped the water bottle on his knee. “I was a boy without a father. Monte’s rules, his world view, helped me make sense of being in America. They made me who I am.”

  Connor rubbed his eyes. “They helped me too. Without his rules I wouldn’t have made it through the army.”

  “Was Dad involved in this? What about all his rules and the stuff he taught us about how to live?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why we’re not giving up. There’s stuff we need to know.”

  “Connor.” Bartholomew turned a sad face toward him, and whispered: “Did Dad murder that general?”

  “I don’t know that either. We need answers.”

  Bartholomew shook his head and inhaled deeply, and spoke in a near whisper as he stared at the floor. “That general used to beat me and Alma. They say he killed people in Haiti.” He wiped his palms on his slacks.

  “What are you saying?”

  “You saw what I did in that bar. Maybe I’m a killer like that General. Maybe he was my father.”

  “Look, that guy was a sadist. You’re the opposite kind of person. You risked your life and saved God knows how many people in that bar when there wasn’t a chance to save them.”

  Bartholomew raised his hands and looked at them. “Maybe that’s why dad’s rules were so important. I needed to be someone else.”

  Connor stood up. “Now you’re talking crazy. Even if that was your father, you made different choices. You’re a different person.”

  “I lived a different life.”

  “I’ve seen who you are. I trust you. You’re not that guy.”

  Bartholomew nodded, stood, and wiped his cheek. “Thanks. So, back to this Russian mess. What are we going to do?”

  “The only thing we can do. Our backs are against the wall. We go on with the plan.”

  “I’m afraid of what we might find out about dad.”

  “Me too, but the only way we get answers is by fighting.”

  “The Ghrazenko’s and the fricking Russians?”

  Connor nodded.

  “If that’s the only way, then to hell with boxing. This is going to be a nasty street fight. Let’s kick the fuckers in the teeth.”

  Bartholomew texted on one of the burner phones. A few minutes passed before he got a reply. “My guy says he can do the passports. We’re supposed to meet in two hours.”

  Ashley came back into the room. “I have a question: If this all works o
ut, what are we going to do with Tia Alma?”

  “If we end up with a load of cash and diamonds, the four of us disappear and get Alma the care she needs abroad.”

  Ashley smiled and turned to Bartholomew, then looked at Connor. “Vacation? And I don’t have to go back to work?”

  Connor shook his head. “No,” he said. “And you can go to the spa twice a week.”

  “Oh,” Ashley rolled her head. “I need a spa day.”

  “Okay.” Connor stood. “Bart, let’s get those passports.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  Chapter 21

  When they reached downtown, they met at the address that Bartholomew had mentioned, and entered the building together.

  The oak door swung open like a bank vault—slow, heavy and stiff. Connor stepped into the lobby and coughed into his hand. “Who cleans floors with ammonia?” he asked.

  "I just scrubbed this; you pig." The gray-haired woman scrubbing the floor on her knees, slapped his foot with a wet rag.

  Connor and Bartholomew hurried across the lobby.

  “Are you sure your guy is here?”

  “Chen is always here,” said Bartholomew.

  They trotted up the stairs and walked along the third-floor corridor.

  “And he does quality work?”

  “Look,” said Bartholomew, coming to a stop. “Chen makes the best papers in SoCal. If you want the best, you see Chen. Everyone knows that. It’ll cost you more, but he guarantees his work.”

  “Sorry.” Connor touched the shiny wainscoting along the wall. “I’m just being careful.”

  Bartholomew slapped him on the shoulder. “We’re good. Chen always comes through. You got to love the Chinese underground.”