The Ghost Syndicate

by K R Hill

  Chapter 23

  Connor picked one of his favorite places in Long Beach to meet Bartholomew. Although the building was located downtown, there were a lot of trees around, and old houses with large front yards covered with grass. With all that green around, coming to the Y was almost as good as getting out of the city for a bit. He had first come to the Y with his father. And just as his father had, Connor felt as though he was helping his community by volunteering to referee ball games.

  The YMCA had left the aluminum bleachers sitting out next to the basketball court, and a six-man pickup game was going on. The squeak of tennis shoes on concrete, men shouting to teammates, added background noise. Connor sat on the bleacher and watched the game. A gentle winter sun was shining and the temperature—in the mid-70s— was perfect for an outdoor game.

  He watched Bartholomew walk along the chain-link fence and turn onto the court. Even from where Connor sat on the bleachers, he noticed the bulge beneath Bartholomew’s windbreaker.

  “Is that my 9mm you’re carrying under your arm?” asked Connor.

  Bartholomew craned his neck, turned around and searched the parking lot. “I don’t go anywhere without it, boss.”

  “How are the girls?”

  Bartholomew shrugged. “Good as ever. You know, Tia keeps asking the same questions. Ashley has started wearing ear buds so she doesn’t have to listen. All is well.”

  “Good. I have to head down to LA and meet the gun guy. Once I’m done, we’ll have everything we need to jumpstart this thing.”

  “I’ll come if you need back up.”

  “No, you can’t come. This guy spooks too easy. If he sees you tagging along, I don’t know what he’ll do. I’m just going to drive down and pick up the gear and head right back. I need your word you’ll keep Tia and Ashley safe.”

  “Don’t worry, but if you need help, text me and I’ll come running.”

  Bartholomew and Connor bumped fists, and Connor hurried along the court, crossed the parking lot, rushed along the sidewalk and climbed into the Mustang.

  As he was backing out, he heard his phone signal that a text had arrived. Are you coming up from Long Beach? it read.

  He typed that he was, and got a quick response saying that the sender would see him soon.

  Connor went into that hypnotic state that he always visited when driving, and didn’t refocus until he turned off the freeway and dropped down into LA. He laughed because they called this the Arts District now. He remembered how the area used to smell of rotten meat and diesel fumes. That was back when the eighteen-wheelers worked the loading docks. In that era many of the truck drivers sweetened their loads with hidden contraband. Good old free enterprise it was called. Back then, his old man used to say, a driver could find cases of stolen tools, cartons of cigarettes, or high-fidelity audio equipment being sold by shady characters in the back alleys all around the loading docks.

  It was getting dark as he drove around searching for a parking space. Then he saw a woman leaning through the door of an SUV as she strapped in a child. He stopped and turned on his blinker, waiting for her to pull out. Once the SUV drove off, he backed into the spot, locked his doors, and shoved a few coins into the meter. Merchants were rolling down metal doors and snapping padlocks into place, securing their businesses as he passed.

  A cool breeze was coming off the ocean, sending leaves and bits of paper along the sidewalk. Something about rustling leaves: the feeling he got looking at the buildings around him made him remember walking with his dad when he was a boy, big cop and little cop, just cruising along, keeping the city safe.

  He heard a rumble and a car screeched to a halt beside him.

  The ‘67 Malibu, jacked up in the rear, spots of gray primer here and there, one door a different color, revved its engine. Behind the wheel sat a large black man, sergeant King, Ted King, one of the few surviving members of Connor’s Ranger squad.

  The driver shoved the passenger door open and shouted, “Get your ass in here. These streets are hotter than Bogotá.”

  Connor jumped in and hadn’t closed his door before the car burned rubber, rose up and slid a bit sideways, and took off up the road. “You fucker. Let me get in before you take off.”

  “Fuckers tried to burn down my crib. They’re still out here prowling around, sniffing after my ass.” Ted looked in the rearview mirror, turned right and left, glancing at each side mirror, rocking from side to side as he stared at the street ahead.

  Connor braced himself with both hands on the dashboard. “Slow down. You’re doing like seventy. Watch the car!” A small white sedan came out of a side street, raced up the road and skidded sideways in front of them.

  “That’s them,” shouted Ted, stomped on the clutch, downshifted and stepped on the gas. The Malibu rose up in the front as that big block engine came alive, and flew around the import.

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me, Connor. They tried to burn down my crib.”

  Connor tugged on the seat belt five or six times before it released, and he wrapped it around himself and latched it into place. Just as it latched, he looked up and slammed both hands against the dashboard and shouted, “People. Watch the people. Ted, if you want to do this at a different time, I understand.”

  Ted glanced at him as though he was insane. The Malibu slowed down and turned right, then headed up onto the freeway. “You’ve been after me for six months for this gear. You know how many favors I had to call in to get that sniper’s rifle? I’ve been searching and calling in favors for months. I finally get it the day that my crib gets attacked, and I go out of my way to help out a former squad member, and you ask if we can do it another day? Why, I ought to shoot you myself. Where’s my fucking gun?”

  Connor laughed and thumped Ted on the shoulder. “You haven’t changed a bit. Man, it’s good to see you, brother. You know Dalton asked me to do this little gig, right?”

  “Lieutenant Dalton. That name takes me back to our Army days.”

  “Good and bad memories.”

  Yeah, I heard he asked. That’s Dalton, still trying to solve that murder.”

  “We swore we’d find the guy.”

  “I remember. I was there,” said Ted. “If you find the guy, you best be thinking about letting me know.”

  “I’m sorry you have people after you. I understand if you need to get out of town.”

  “Me? I don’t run.” Ted shot him that are-you-crazy look again. “You shut your mouth. You were in my squad. You’re family. We’re just driving down to my storage shed. I got all your ladies there.”

  They drove to one of those low-budget storage places on Pacific Coast Highway in Hermosa Beach. The building was painted purple and gold, and looked as though it had once been an apartment building.

  Connor followed Ted across the dimly lit lobby, and stopped at a counter pieced together with scrap wood and painted gloss red. Ted wiped the surface with a handkerchief and tapped on it with a knuckle.

  A guy with hair only around his ears, looked over from a hazy TV screen. “Ah, the third floor is no access,” he said with a Russian accent, pulling a bowling shirt over a hairy belly.

  “I’m in a hurry, Ivan.” Ted slapped his hand on the counter. “I don’t have time for any bribe tonight. Give me the key.” Ted unzipped his windbreaker.

  Ivan’s stare shifted to the 9mm hanging in Ted’s shoulder holster. The attendant jumped to his feet and hurried to the counter. “Oh,” he said. “Mr. Ted, I didn’t see it was you.”

  Ted snatched the key. “Geez, what is it with people in this town?”

  Connor climbed the graffiti-covered stairs and stood watching as Ted unlocked the six padlocks on his storage unit door. As soon as he pushed open the door, Ted reached inside and pulled the light chain, turned and picked up a crowbar. He walked to the far corner, scooting along a path between boxes and plastic containers and an old Magnavox stereo. Against the back wall he found a crate that scraped and made a terrible noise as he dragged it across the fl
oor. When he got to the front door, he released it. Between two pieces of lumber he shoved in the crowbar and tapped it a few times with the palm of his hand, and pried.

  Connor grabbed his arm. “Hold on,” he said, walked to the door, looked up the corridor and stepped back inside. “Hey Ted, can you get word to Dalton? I sent an email, but I don’t know if he got it. I got Russians, Serbs and cops flanking me. I need more man power.”

  Ted nodded and waved the crowbar. “I’ll pass that along ASAP. I’d come down and help you, but I’m trying to keep my head above water myself.”

  “No problem.”

  Ted shoved the crowbar back between the planks and applied his weight. The lid moaned as nails pulled free. “You might be surprised how quick Dalton replies.”

  Connor stepped close. “Is he in the States?”

  “You know I can’t say where he is. But what I can say is that I got a little surprise for ya. You’re really gunna like her.”

  From inside the crate he lifted four handguns and pulled back the action on one. From the other side of the crate, Ted picked up five hand grenades.

  “Whoa.” Connor threw his hands in the air and backed away. “What the hell is that?”

  “I threw these in to sweeten the deal.”

  Connor weighed one in his hand. “I haven’t held one of these since I left the army.”

  “Well, I’m sure you remember how to throw them. We were ripping it up in Colombia, weren’t we?”

  “Yeah, until they got Sanchez.”

  “Dalton will find who did it.” Ted walked to the other case and pried the lid off. He flipped it open and the lid dropped to the concrete floor. Ted rubbed his hand along the stock of a sniper rifle. “I just hope our lady here gets us one step closer to the killers.”

  “What the hell is that? I asked for a Barrett .50. You told me three times I was getting the .50. Ted, I’ve been planning this op for months. You can’t change the sniper rifle at the last minute. Fuck that!”

  Ted picked up the rifle, rubbed his hand along the wooden stock, and sighted along the barrel. “This was the only thing I could get into the country. I’m doing you a favor. You can hang it up in the back of your pickup truck and not look like you’re trying to kill the president. The cops will think you’re on a hunting trip.”

  “Fuck, Ted. Six months I’ve been planning this! The Barrett has twice the range. Why do you think I asked for it?”

  Ted picked up the crate lid and slammed it on. “Then don’t take it. I risk my butt driving all over town to get a sniper rifle for an old pal. I had my house attacked today. I got people searching the streets to kill my ass, and you’re giving me shit?”

  Connor wrapped his arms around his head. “This changes everything, Ted.”

  “I know I didn’t come through with the Barrett, but I added a lady with some special talents. Take a look at this baby.” Ted reached into a crate and took out a futuristic shotgun with a barrel-sized magazine attached to the underside.

  Connor shook his head. “What is that?”

  “That my friend, is the Origin SBV, a fully automatic shotgun with a thirty-round magazine. With this lovely lady you can clear a path right through the jungle.”

  Connor snatched the firearm and shoved it back in the crate. “I asked for a specific snipper rifle. Not a shotgun.”

  “No appreciation.”

  They carried the crates down the staircase, bumping the walls as they went. The bowling- shirt watchman didn’t look up as they passed.

  Once they got to the parking lot, they stacked the crates. Ted pulled the Malibu over and fiddled with the trunk key.

  “Open the damn trunk. We got crates of weapons sitting here. Crap. What is it with you and locks?”

  Ted held up the key. “My baby is temperamental.” He stroked the trunk lid.

  “You Chevy guys are strange.”

  “Oh, you gunna start that Chevy/Ford thing?” Ted stepped close like a drill sergeant about to shout in the face of a new recruit.

  Connor grabbed the key and shoved it in the lock. “Hell, you pat your car. You talk to it. If it was a Ford, you’d turn the damn key and away we’d go. Next time, we take the Mustang.” He turned the key, but the trunk didn’t open, so he smacked the lid and it popped open.

  “Don’t ever do that.” Ted bent over, searching for a dent.

  “Hey, it felt good to slap a Chevy.” Connor stepped back and looked down the side of Ted’s car. “What happened to that super clean Malibu you used to drive? I mean primer gray is okay, but that one you used to have was sweet.”

  Ted jerked up straight and looked at the moon. “That fucking Dalton. I loaned it to him, and he got my baby all shot up like nobody’s business. It still pisses me off. I was leaking coolant, and when I looked, I found a .357 slug stuck in the engine block. In the block.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I’ll drop you at your place. I gotta get off the streets.”

  “Drop me? I left my car in LA. How am I going to get it?”

  Ted raised a hand. “Hey, you drive a Ford. You should be used to taking the bus.”

  Connor climbed into the Malibu. “That’s cold.”

  “You started it.”

  “What about your car? Are you sure it’ll start?”

  Ted shook his head.

  “Should I shake the key and talk to it first?”

  They stared in silence, then laughed and shook hands.

  Chapter 24

  Police Headquarters, Long Beach

  “Oh, man,” said Deutz, biting into a pastry.

  “Geez, Harry,” scolded a secretary as she hurried past. “If you’re going to eat in the squad room, bring some for the rest of us.”

  A young sergeant with gold stud earrings, maneuvered around witnesses and prisoners and worked her way over beside Deutz. “Sir,” she said, “we just put your prisoner in room number three. Captain Troken was asking for you.”

  Deutz turned the pastry before his face. “It’s still warm. A Frenchman married a Mexican woman, and that union produced these magical pastries.”

  A young staff member with spiked, shiny black hair, hurried past with a stack of files against his chest, and said, “I love how his eyes roll back in his head when he eats.”

  Captain Troken marched into the squad room and clapped his hands. “Listen up. This is it. It took two years to find the witness. But you found him and brought him back. We got his statement. With that statement, Deutz arrested Hugh Radcliffe on the charge of murder one.”

  Staff members cheered and stood up.

  “Okay,” said the captain, raising his arms for silence. “The DA is meeting with Radcliffe and his attorney right now. I think we got this guy sealed up tight. That was some mighty fine police work it took to find the witness. This was a high-profile case and we came through with shining colors. Any minute now were going to find out how the DA is going to prosecute this. And if any of you are heading over to Joe’s after work tonight, the first round is on me.”

  Another cheer went up as a woman in uniform came running down the hall behind the captain. She stopped and whispered into his ear. Captain Troken nodded, thanked her, and walked over to Deutz.

  “Well, Harry, this one’s in the bag. We did it. Radcliffe’s attorney has changed his plea to guilty. The DA and the attorney are negotiating a deal now. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off and celebrate a little?” The captain slapped him on the back.

  ***

  Deutz almost ran from the police building and drove home to get his wife and celebrate.

  He stopped at a vintner and bought a bottle of the most expensive champagne. As he pulled up to his apartment building, Deutz thought of the candlelight dinner he would enjoy with Alona. With such thoughts playing through his mind, he walked to the front door.

  Strange music came down the hall. His daughter had long since moved to the university, so it must be Alona doing her aerobics to the stimulating beat. The fro
nt door pushed open when he placed his key in the lock. How many times had he told her to lock it? Stepping inside, he detected an unfamiliar odor. His heart raced when he recognized it as marijuana. In his house!

  He heard voices in the bedroom and walked to the door in a daze. Without turning on the hall light, he turned the knob, pushed open the door, and looked inside. Alona had been doing aerobics. Her body suit hung from a bed post. He closed his eyes and heard the deep voice of the man in Alona’s embrace as they wrestled and writhed. In memory he again saw the man’s glistening back, the beads in his dreadlocks clicking together each time he thrust.

  The bottle of champagne struck the floor. Harry Deutz staggered down the hallway, memories and love and emotions sending sparks through his brain. Two hours passed before he realized that he had driven his car to a park. There he sat in the dark, staring at the lake and the geese floating about.

  After a few hours, he called the office. Citing personal reasons, he requested a few days’ leave and checked into a hotel. The entire first day he lay in bed drinking Yukon Jack and eating ice-cream. But on the second day, he busied himself with exercises and started remembering clues to Alona’s infidelity: her new vitality, the nights she “went for a beer with class mates,” and her sexy new underwear.

  Every time he paused between exercises; he remembered the bedroom scene. At one point he collapsed on the floor and lay in the fetal position, but that did not make the memory vanish. And then he did something he hadn’t done since university: he grabbed the nearest note pad and wrote down his feelings.

  ***

  Three days later, as Harry Deutz walked along the corridor of the Long Beach Police Department, he combed his messy hair with his fingers and wiped them on a wrinkled shirt. Through a stubble of beard, he scratched his cheek and glanced at his dusty leather shoes.

  “You coming from a party, Lieutenant?” The secretary looked him up and down.

  “Insomnia, Cheryl. It was a rough night.”

  “Rough weekend, by the looks of you.” She chuckled and walked away.