by John Lansing
Jack wanted her to scream and slap him and carry on. He was prepared for that. He was caught totally off guard by his ex-wife’s control.
“Why?” she continued. “You’re not a cop anymore. It ruined the family, and now . . . you just ruined our son’s life. Are you proud of yourself, Jack? Can you look yourself in the mirror? What? What do you see? Everything you touch—”
And Jeannine crumbled like a sand castle. Jack reached out, and she collapsed into his arms and continued, between sobs, talking, leaning into his shoulder. Jack could feel the terrified heat radiating off her body and the ragged tears bleeding through his shirt.
“Everything you touch turns to . . . turns to . . . just shit, Jack. Everything you touch turns to shit.”
Jack held her fast; there was nothing he could say and no argument to be made.
—
Jack walked out of St. John’s to wait for his cab. A marine layer had settled in bringing with it a damp fog. Jack was numb, and needed a shower and some food. He was thinking about the metal rope-and-pulley system supporting his son’s broken arm, and then his mind drifted to the rope and the butcher’s knot that had supported the mutilated gang member and the belt used to hang Mia.
Hector. Hector Lopez was his strongest lead. Jack wasn’t an FBI profiler, but Hector had the capability and the psychological history to support Jack’s theory.
Gallina and Tompkins had stopped by on the heels of the LAPD uniforms, and showed Jack the surveillance photos from Bruffy’s Tow. The blurry images of a Cadillac Escalade, seconds before it smashed into his son, breaking his body and leaving him for dead. The driver was out of focus, obscured by the speed he was traveling, and a wide-brimmed hat that he wore raked to the right side masked his face from the camera.
Arturo Delgado.
Jack had given them all of the information to date he had on Delgado. He wasn’t optimistic that they would be successful in apprehending the man, but it never hurt to try. Jack was pleased that they were at least on his son’s case, that they realized there was a connection.
Jack checked his watch and grabbed his wrist. His hand was shaking. Pure rage. He was about to call the cab company again when a black Town Car emerged from the fog and pulled to a stop by the curb.
The back door swung open and a large, well-dressed man in an Armani suit, who was built like a defensive tackle, stepped out. He glanced up and down the empty street before saying, “Jack, friends from the old neighborhood heard about your troubles and reached out to me. If there is anything I can do, help in any way, all you have to do is call, twenty-four/seven. We take care of our own, Jack, no strings.” He handed Jack an embossed card.
“Thank you,” Jack said, making a mental note to talk to his mother about neighborhood gossip and wondering if he was now in debt for his simple words of gratitude.
“Does your son need security?”
“The LAPD left a man.”
“Can I offer you a lift?”
By way of an answer, Jack’s yellow cab pulled to the curb behind the Town Car.
“I’m good.”
“You have friends. We’re here for you.”
The man slid back into the backseat and closed the door. The car dipped slightly from the man’s weight and then silently pulled away from the curb.
Jack looked down at the card—no name, only a phone number—and pocketed it. He’d put a name with the face when the dust settled.
—
As Jack stepped off the elevator, he noticed that a single rose and a card lay neatly on his doormat. He picked up the gift and then pulled out his Glock nine millimeter after he inserted his key and discovered the front door was unlocked. It took him a second or two before he realized that, in a panic, he had run out of the loft without locking the door behind him.
He still entered cautiously and cleared the loft. Holstering his weapon, he unstrapped his rig and put it down on the kitchen island. He grabbed a coffee mug, filled it with tap water, and placed the rose in it. It was long stemmed and he had to balance it against a kitchen cabinet. Then he opened the envelope.
A short but sweet note from DDA Leslie Sager, an offer to help in any way she could, personally or professionally. And if Jack felt the need for company, he could call or stop by at any time over the weekend.
Jack wasn’t sure he’d be fit company.
He started doing the breakfast dishes from the day before. As he wiped the dried scrambled eggs off the plates, he found that his vision was blurred. When he wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve, he realized that he was crying.
38
The Holy Cross section of Bellevue Memorial was a large expanse of grass, scattered conifers and evergreens, brass name plaques, and no headstones. It had more of a park feel—except for the dead.
Bouquets of colorful flowers were placed haphazardly at different gravesites and seemed to spring up from the vast green lawn like tufts of wildflowers.
The Holy Cross area was designated for Catholic burials. It didn’t matter that you were a drug-dealing gangster, Jack thought. Jesus forgave, and the Catholic church did his work for a fee.
“So, is junior going to be living with you when he starts physical therapy?” Nick Aprea asked.
He and Jack were sitting in Nick’s behemoth Ford Expedition. They had passed the funeral procession on the road and were the first to arrive. Nick positioned them with a straight-on view of the burial site.
His SUV blended in perfectly with the other SUVs, low riders, and after-market Japanese performance cars.
Nick nursed a venti Starbucks coffee, black, no sugar, with one hand, and snapped pictures of the gangbangers’ license plates as they passed in perfect order and slow, respectful motion. They’d been sitting in the SUV for about an hour before the casket was thankfully lowered into the freshly dug hole and the first of the mourners split off and headed back toward their rides.
“I haven’t thought it out that far. But I’m hoping he won’t have to miss the entire semester of class work.”
“Well, if he does,” Nick said with raised eyebrows, “he should try some Eastern medicine along with the Western.”
“Yeah?” Jack answered.
“Hey, is that Gallina and Tompkins in the Crown Vic?”
Both men glanced to the left as an unmarked Ford drove by with as much stealth as a circus bear in a swimming pool.
“Yeah,” Nick went on. “I had some work done on my shoulder after the gunshot wound a few years back. A through and through. Muscle damage. It was okay. The guy healed me.”
“Oh yeah? What’s his area of expertise?”
“Area of expertise? You sound like a fucking cop,” Nick joked.
“What the fuck does he do?”
“Better. He’s a Korean acupuncturist. And get this. He’s blind. A blind acupuncturist.”
Jack glanced sideways to see if Nick was pulling his chain. “You putting me on?”
“That’d be hopeless.”
“Because it’s too soon, you know, for humor.”
“No kidding.”
“Then? Then . . . ?”
“He’s a fucking blind man. What can I say,” Nick said defensively. “His other senses are heightened, you know, more acute. Guy’s a genius.” Jack wasn’t buying it, and Nick added, “He healed me, for chrissakes. Only left one needle in my shoulder, one time.”
Jack couldn’t help himself and laughed. It felt good.
“I could never go back to the neighborhood, you know?” Jack said. “Hey, you hear about Bertolino, he sent his kid to a blind acupuncturist and this Korean guy played pin the tail on the fucking donkey with his boy. Not gonna happen.”
“Eh, your call.”
“See that broad?” Jack asked.
“That broad?” Nick said, feigning shock.
“Excus
e me, Mr. Enlightened.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Okay, do you see that refined woman with gang tats on her neck and tits leading with her attitude and wearing so much eyeliner I can make a positive ID from here?”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Outside the Black Stallion, trading spit with one of the pricks who tried to run me and Tommy off the road.”
“Oh, you mean the guy who’s threatening a lawsuit?”
“Really?” Jack sounded unconcerned.
“No, but he could. Your license doesn’t read 007. There are consequences.”
“I’ll remember that, Obi-Wan. Don’t lose her.”
Nick started the SUV and struggled to do a three-point turn in his beast, finally following the Toyota Corolla down the hill.
Jack had called the nurses’ station twice on the drive into town and twice been told that the doctor had decided to wait another few hours to wean his son off the drugs. They would call him in plenty of time to be at the bedside when he woke.
Johnny had promised to call, but Jack wasn’t holding out too much hope. And he didn’t expect to run into him at the funeral. If he was a party to the murder, everyone would expect him to be there, to make a statement. He’d sounded scared, not stupid. Jack would track him down if need be.
Nick followed the old Corolla as it pulled into the Black Stallion’s minimall lot and chose to park across the street. Izel switched off the key and waited as the old Corolla’s engine turned over and bucked until it finally died with a belch of black smoke.
Izel pulled down the vanity mirror, whose light had burned out years earlier, and applied another thick swatch of eyeliner.
Jack and Nick were standing at her door when she exited her car.
“Afternoon, ma’am,” Nick said with a Cheshire cat–eating grin on his face.
“What the fuck you want?” Izel said, no niceties intended.
Nick flicked open his gold shield.
“I’m Detective Nicholas Aprea and this is Inspector Jacques Clouseau. We’re looking for a Hector Lopez. We were informed that you knew his whereabouts.”
“You don’t wanna find him,” she said, with all the grace of a rattler.
“Let us be the judge of that,” Jack said harshly.
“I never heard of him. Never heard of no Hector nobody.”
“You heard enough to be afraid,” Jack said, reading her body language. “We’re not here to jam you up. Just tell us where we can find the guy.”
“I’m smart enough not to know him.”
It was a standoff.
“Give us something and we won’t have to take you down for questioning,” Nick said.
Izel looked behind her at the empty lot and the closed red door before she answered.
“You find Johnny Rodriguez, you’ll find Hector. They’re attached at the hip.”
Izel walked past them and then stopped in the center of the broken macadam lot. “You find Hector, make sure he doesn’t take you all to hell with him.”
“Explain,” Jack demanded.
“You didn’t hear nothin’ from me.”
Jack nodded his head, signaling it was agreed.
Izel’s eyes scanned the lot for a second time. Her hand raked the bruise on her forehead from the backhand punch and then she blurted out with fury, “Fuck Hector. Fuck him to hell. Ask him where he buried his father.”
Izel turned on her heel, pulled open the heavy wooden door, and disappeared into the Black Stallion.
—
Jack filled Nick in on the details of his developing case against Johnny and Hector. The interviews with the retired manager of the market, Hector’s mother, his conversation with Johnny’s sister, and the details of the call with Johnny that had come in yesterday at the hospital. And how all the pieces might fit together. Nick didn’t seem too surprised.
“Yeah, I already knew about Hector. No, I wasn’t snooping. I got a call from Mrs. Sternhagen—hey, is she from New Zealand or Australia?—and she gave you a gold star on her report for being very polite. And I knew you’d get around to telling me when the time was right.”
“New Zealand.”
“I don’t know what kind of deal you could offer if it’s a capital murder case. Multiple, at that. Have you run it by the feds?”
“You’re the first.”
“I thought so. I meant about Sternhagen being from New Zealand. I’ll nose around with a DA friend of mine about the other. Keep it vague.”
“If I can’t set something up, I’ll tell him anything he wants to hear to get him talking.”
“You’d lie to a killer? You’ll have the ACLU all over your ass. Trampling on his civil liberties and so on.” Nick mock-slapped himself on the forehead. “But, oh yeah. I forgot. You’re not a cop. You’re a PI. You get paid to lie.”
“Did I ask for this grief?”
“No, and it’s free of charge.” Nick paused, thinking, then added on a much more sober note, “One other thought. If Hector’s our man, he’s a death machine, he likes his work. If you get a drop on him, I don’t want you getting close unless I’m riding shotgun.”
—
Jack Bertolino all but ran down the waxed linoleum floor of the hospital ward. He was trying to keep his temper in check while he scanned the hallway for room 2-C. Chris had been weaned from the drug cocktail two hours ago and moved to a private room—information he’d only discovered when he arrived at the front desk.
That had to be a good sign, he thought—he prayed—as he rushed past nurses’ stations and empty hospital beds.
Jack stopped at 14-C and averted his eyes from an elderly woman who appeared to be in serious pain, and then saw the young LAPD uniform sitting in a folding chair up the hallway on the right. The door to 2-C was open. He nodded to the officer, his heart beating out of his chest. He stepped in, and almost lost it again.
Chris was sitting up in bed, a goofy drug-induced grin on his face. His braced arm jutted forward as if he was offering to shake hands. Jeannine was sitting in a chair at the foot of his bed looking relieved. An uneaten rolling food tray was hovering over his son’s lap. The room was filled with flowers, and the sun that spilled into the room created an aura of light around his boy.
Jack couldn’t talk. He stared at his son, memorizing every detail of his alert face.
“Hey, Dad, you look like shit.”
“You wanna play a little one-on-one for money?” Jack shot back.
Chris’s face twisted with mirth, then pain. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts my head.”
Jack walked over and kissed his son on the forehead, just under the gauze bandage that was wrapped like a turban around his head.
Jeannine started talking as if she was in midthought, obviously still in a state of shock. “Dr. Stein was, well, surprised to say the least. He stopped the medication, said it should take a few hours for Chris to regain consciousness. Sure enough, his eyes popped open, just like that. Chris looked at the doctor and recited his full name, the president’s name, the year he was born, and today’s date.”
“You watch too much television,” Jack said, smiling.
“Stein said he’d never seen anything like it. And then things started moving so quickly I forgot to call. Sorry.”
“I’m here.”
“That’s good, good. I’m so . . .”
Jeannine started crying again, and Chris’s eyes filled, and Jack joined the party.
“What a scare,” he said quietly.
“The doctor told me I was out for the season, but good to go for the next. So I’ll make dean’s list this year, and then wow them on the field next year.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Jack felt humbled, and unworthy of having this miracle of a young man.
“Where’s Jeremy?” Jack asked.
“Back at the hotel. Nice accommodations. Very nice view of the boats, thank you. Although they slow-cook the eggs in the restaurant and you know I don’t like runny eggs.”
Jack was so happy, her critical eye didn’t bother him.
“I told him to stay put,” she went on. “This was for family, however it turned out.”
“God, Mom, did you think I was going to end up selling comic books at Schotzy’s?”
“Only if you were the author.”
“Okay, that’s better.” Chris’s eyes flickered and closed, and he was out.
Jack looked into Jeannine’s blue eyes and remembered the woman he’d once loved more than life itself.
“Oh, no, don’t look at me like that. You’re still not off the hook with me, mister.”
The truce was over. Everything was back to exactly the same: undeclared warfare.
Jack said, a little roughly, “So, you want me to take over?”
39
The lights in the ultramodern bedroom were dimmed. Miles Davis was playing Kind of Blue in hidden surround sound speakers. On a flat screen, the sound muted, Woody Allen was sitting with Diane Keaton in a rowboat on the lake in Central Park. The black-and-white images shifted the light on an open pizza box, with a few scraps of crust left, an open bottle of cabernet, and two glasses. One had lipstick markings on the rim. Articles of clothing were draped haphazardly over a red Barcelona chair next to the bed. A slight, crisp breeze was blowing in through the open French doors.
DDA Leslie Sager stood on the balcony of her twenty-third-floor condo on the Wilshire Corridor. She wore a thick white cotton bathrobe she had picked up at Ventana’s during her last visit to the spa in Big Sur. She was feeling relaxed.
Jack Bertolino was under the covers of Leslie’s bed, taking stock of the positive turn his life had taken in the past twelve hours.
Chris was on the mend. He’d have to remain in the hospital for at least a week until Stein was sure there was no neurological damage or cranial bleeding. But he thought his son’s recovery was nothing short of miraculous and wasn’t really worried at this point, just being careful. Jack was pleased with the doctor’s care. You can’t keep a Bertolino down, Jack thought proudly.