“Dude, you’re wheezing,” said a trainer, stepping up next to the machine and reducing both the treadmill’s speed and angle.
“Know what I’m doing,” coughed Tim.
“Bad for business if you yack and I gotta call the paramedics,” smiled the trainer. “I got nothin’ right now. How about a free half-hour session? I’ll hook you up with a circuit you can maintain.”
Tim wiped his face on his forearm, took one look at the muscle-head with the bullshit tan, shaved chest and bulging pecs, and wanted to spit.
“Did I ask for a trainer?” panted Tim. As he stepped off the moving track, he nearly lost his balance. The trainer’s arm shot out and pinched Tim’s greasy forearm, righting the heavyweight from a near spill.
“Dude. Just doin’ my job—”
“Outta my way,” spat Tim, shoving past the trainer and making a beeline for a column of perfectly stacked towels, which he knocked over with an embarrassingly awkward soccer-style kick.
Tim wouldn’t look back. He didn’t stay for a shower. And the rage he felt bubbling up within was a horrible surprise. It was as if months of resentment—from the divorce to his rejections by women to the stress of the crimes he was committing to the muscle-turd trainer in his red wife-beater—had teamed up to bust down whatever door he’d locked himself behind.
Screw me.
With his shouldered gym bag making his silhouette even wider, Tim rode the escalators down three flights into the underground parking. With every shortened breath, he waited for the heart attack to mule-kick him dead. Fell him like some sickened hardwood tree.
Would serve me right.
As his knees began to weaken, Tim instinctively began drawing air in through his nose, holding it a second, and then exhaling through his mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth. All while the escalators delivered him lower and lower. His heart rate eventually slowed. The sweat on his face turned chilly under the force from a basement air conditioning vent.
“Backtrack, Timmy,” he breathed to himself.
He mentally retraced his steps. From sending the text message to shut down the uninhibited transmission line 439C to ordering the temporary tap of power from two local middle schools. It would be days—or maybe even weeks—before the schools discovered their meters spinning from the stolen electricity. But it would serve as a quick fix until he configured another work around, collected the fifty-five thousand dollars in cash he’d hidden from his ex-wives and made a run for God knows where. It was either that or engage an attorney to preemptively seek protection from prosecution.
No way ’round it, fatso. You’re toast.
“Hey, Tim!” called the voice to his rear and left.
Tim started and twisted. He didn’t recognize the fit-looking specimen in loose jeans. He briefly wondered if it was the asshole salesman who’d sold him the gym membership. The man was flanked by a spectacular woman—onyx black and in her twenties—in a V-neck t-shirt and black jeans.
“I’m fine with my membership,” excused Tim. “Now leave me the fuck alone.”
“Slow your roll, fat man,” expressed Lucky, displaying the six-point star of the LA Sheriff’s Department. “I need you to come this way, please.”
At first, Tim looked as if he’d been cracked with a wet washcloth. Then his spine seemed to straighten as a defensive question formed.
“What’s this about?” asked Tim, wondering if they’d be able to read through his lie.
“Need to talk for a moment,” said Lucky.
“Do you know me?”
“You Tim Gilligan of the DWP?”
“Yeah, but—”
“You wanna walk over here with me?” asked Lucky, dripping with mock politeness. “Or you wanna be flat on your fat face with your hands cuffed behind you?”
It was a total authority play. All cops pretty much knew it. And Lucky had performed it a thousand times. Without a warrant, simply make a request to a suspect. If the request is denied, offer a negative choice. It wasn’t precisely a threat. Yet it worked just the same. In Tim Gilligan’s case, he slightly lowered his head in automated guilt and allowed Shia to lead him to her Kia Optima. Lucky opened the door to the front passenger seat and assisted Tim until he was comfortably situated. He shut the door then lowered himself into the backseat. He landed with a painful crump.
“This doesn’t look like a police car,” suspected Tim.
“It’s my car,” said Shia. “So do your best not to drip your goo all over it.”
“Mr. Gilligan. I’m Deputy Dey,” started Lucky. “In the driver’s seat is Deputy Saint George.”
“Okay,” said Tim.
“I would like you to tell me about underground transmission lines,” said Lucky.
“What about ’em?”
“Just one,” said Lucky. “Runs through Compton. You paid off a couple of homies at Gramercy to power it up.”
“Lawyer,” shot Tim.
“Say again?” asked Lucky.
“I want a lawyer.”
“You aren’t under arrest,” said Lucky. “We’re just havin’ a talk.”
“Still want one.”
“All I want to know is why.”
“Why what?”
“Why you powered up that old line. And for who?”
“Lawyer.”
“You said that already.”
“I have my rights, okay?” strengthened Tim. “I have wives and kids to think about.”
“Wives?” chuckled Shia.
“Know what?” said Lucky. “I can understand you not wanting to speak in front of a female officer.”
“Nothin’ do with it,” insisted Tim.
Meanwhile, Lucky caught Shia eyeballing him through the rearview.
“Understood,” said Lucky. “Deputy Saint George? Would you mind stepping out?”
Obediently, Shia popped her door open. Only she stalled, keeping her eyes in the rearview mirror. She pulled the door back shut with an atmospheric whump.
“Deputy?” pressed Lucky.
“I’m good,” replied Shia.
“I said you can step outside,” repeated Lucky.
“And I said I’m good,” insisted Shia.
There was an immovable force in her. If she’d been a man, Lucky would’ve regarded it as the moment her testicles had dropped. Only the trainee was all woman. Five full inches shorter than his beloved Gonzo, but fully female with bricks of her very own.
Lucky slid forward on the backseat, reaching both his arms around big Tim Gilligan. He fed the seatbelt from his right to left, engaging the tongue in the receptacle with a confirming snap.
“Why…why you buckling me?” asked Tim.
“For safety,” breathed Lucky.
“You can’t do this!”
“But I just did.”
“I want the fuck out!”
“The hot wire in Compton. Why and who for?”
“I asked for a lawyer!”
“You did.”
“So you have to get me a lawyer.”
“People watch too much TV,” sided Lucky to Shia.
With the little slack left in Tim’s seatbelt, Lucky quickly looped it around the engineer’s neck.
“Hey, HEY!” shouted Tim.
Forced to favor his left arm, Lucky swiveled at the waist, reached over Tim’s right shoulder and underneath the seatbelt’s sash guide and gathered a handful of belt into his left grip. Instantly, Tim felt an increase in tension beneath his chin.
“I wanna know who gets the juice,” insisted Lucky.
“Don’t know who! Don’t know why!” fended Tim.
“But you know where, right?”
“I know where it goes,” confirmed Tim.
“Swell,” said Lucky, easing back on the belt. “Now you get to show me.”
“In my office. Everything’s on my desktop.”
“Nope,” said Lucky. “You’re gonna take us to where that transmission line ends.”
“I don’t think—�
�
“You’re all buckled up,” said Lucky. “Strongly suggest you take us for a ride.”
Taking her cue, Shia strapped herself in and keyed the ignition. Only not before switching her smartphone off the video function and pocketing it in her jeans. The trainee’s ground-standing play had been a mask to covertly record the entire ugly and way-out-of—LASD policy episode of fat and afraid Tim Gilligan being threatened with torture at the hands of Lucky Dey. Shia was uncertain what kind of video she’d secured. The audio, though, would all be there, certain to give U.S. Attorney Steve Wimminger a federal ear-gasm.
“Where we going?” asked Shia, dropping the Optima into gear.
“Compton, of course,” said Tim. “Do I really have to go with you?”
As was his habit, Lucky left the dubious question unanswered. He gave his trainee the simplest of nods and leaned back, allowing his head to tilt backwards and his eyes to shut. Sleep might not follow. Yet even thirty minutes of short rest might allow his batteries a quick charge.
He didn’t know it yet, but Lucky was going to need everything in his tank if he was to survive the night.
Part V
Friday
46
Mount Washington. 1:43 A.M.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me ask you nicely,” complained Des’ree.
“I heard you fine, Momma,” returned Frosty, the warmth of his mother’s low octaved voice piped into his ear canals via a pair of form-fitting earbuds.
“But you didn’t say nothin’,” she said.
“Cuz I’m a good listener,” jested the son. “You taught me real good.”
“Don’t play me like that. I made a request.”
“Church, Momma? Really?”
Frosty shifted in the threadbare, bucket seat of the ’92 Olds Cutlass he’d borrowed from a livery driver. The car was worse than a beater with an engine so far out of sync it had already rumbled to a dead stall at two stoplights. He cursed himself for not testing the shit-mobile before deploying it on his stalk. At least it had a valid registration and the damned brakes didn’t squeak as Frosty kept a safe distance on the snaking, uphill and downhill road.
“How long it been since you took me?” asked Des’ree.
“Since you couldn’t get there on your owns,” miffed Frosty. “Your ankle was broke.”
“Had a nap today and I dreamt that you was with me at church. And Jesus was smilin’ down on us.”
“Was just a dream, Momma.”
“Woke up I was cryin’. My heart was in pieces.”
“Aw, Momma.”
“You too busy bangin’ not to give me that one thing?”
“Not bangin’,” defended Frosty. “I’m workin’ the nursery.”
“This time of night?”
Frosty was tired as hell. Tired of lying to his mother. Tired of making excuses. He was tempted to lay out his present position for her.
I’m drivin’ this dark ass shitty street in some part of the city called Mount Washington. Followin’ some thirty-five-year old cholita in her red Audi.
The preamble was the same as Frosty’s smoke-job in Tarzana, when he’d popped that old Jewish man and his fake-tittied ex-wife. Only the stalk on Cat Rincon left Frosty with constant stirrings of unease. The woman in his sights had no predictable routine. Since he’d delivered the scare message at the Rose Bowl, Cat hadn’t once returned home or repeated an action. He’d followed her for miles, covering real estate as diverse as Huntington Beach and Covina to what felt like everywhere in between. She attended meetings between all her mealtime meet-ups and made pit stops at cocktail functions and charity fundraisers with the swiftness of hitting corner 7-Elevens for coffee refills. And now he found himself on the snaking roads of Mount Washington, two miles northeast of downtown. He kept a safe distance while mentally clocking every on and off flaring of her taillights. Cat also appeared unfamiliar with the terrain, uncertain where each curve led. Making matters more frustrating, Frosty hadn’t yet received the actual green light to slay the ese chiquita.
Such was the game.
The uneven roads were rarely wide enough for two cars and only guard-railed for half of the most precarious turns. Between what appeared to be newish, post-modern homes and hippie chalets, were dark, unlit sections of dangerous blacktop. If Frosty were a careless or impatient killer, it would have taken little more than an angled fender from the heavy Oldsmobile to bumper-thump the Audi A4 convertible over a cliff and into a fatal, four-hundred-foot tumble. It could take weeks for a dead body to be discovered in the uninhabited canyons below.
As Frosty came upon a rise in the road and a meandering, left-sweeping turn around the edge of the mountain, he caught a dazzling view of downtown. The Mojave-heated Santa Ana winds had all but pushed every visible particulate out toward the ocean, leaving the night air unobstructed all the way to the twinkling shore.
“Well?” asked his momma.
“Church?” returned Frosty. “Or what I’m really doin’ right now?”
“I’ll take church.”
“Whatever,” relented Frosty. “I’ll go with ya, okay? But I ain’t doin’ no singin’.”
“Only if God inspires you to,” Des’ree smiled over the phone, pleased as Sunday punch.
“God already knows, Momma, Frosty-dog don’t sing for shit.”
“What if God don’t call out to Frosty? He may still call you Lamar.”
“Jesus can call me a no good nigga and I’m still not singin’ no Bible hymns.”
“Love my Lamar,” she sung.
“Love my Momma,” said Frosty, clicking off the call and carrying on with the stalk.
Less than a quarter mile after he’d hung up with Des’ree, the Audi braked opposite a gated stilt-home guarded by a neat flagstone wall. Frosty eased off the gas pedal. In the hundred or so yards between his borrowed Olds and the idling Audi, he could make out the silhouetted figure in the driver’s seat kissing her passenger goodnight. The passenger stepped from the car, revealing herself to be bone white, thin and raven-haired and poured into a black cocktail dress. It was nothing more than an end of the night drop-off. Cat appeared to be waiting politely for the woman to enter the gated property before she released the brake and motored on. For the next five minutes both cars wound down Mount Washington to the Pasadena freeway for a short, near traffic-free route to the Crown International Hotel.
And that was where Frosty left Cat. The remainder of the overnight stalking was subbed out to a pair of Crip babysitters on Julius’s payroll.
Yet Frosty’s apprehension remained.
If the order to kill Cat Rincon was to come that day or the next or even a week hence, Frosty wasn’t near ready. To him it was all about his careful execution of the execution and not Julius Colón’s recent and odd impulses. And without a consistent routine or pattern to plot by, Frosty would be unable to predict an outcome resulting in Cat Rincon’s certain demise and—of comparable importance—his certain escape. Anything short of perfect was plain dumb and might result in catastrophes like that reckless bullshit at the New Wilmington Gardens.
On the ride back to Compton, Frosty began cementing his own three-point plan.
Get paid by Julius.
Sever ties with Julius.
Start a nursery business and get on with the gettin’ on.
47
Tim Gilligan hadn’t needed to access his office computer. He knew the address to which he’d directed untold watts of unregulated power via that long-forgotten underground transmission line. This, despite having never once laid eyes on the location let alone completely understanding the scheme behind it.
“All I know is that it was an old aviation tire plant,” admitted the DWP manager. Still buckled into the front seat of Shia’s white Optima, he was gazing upon the shadowy address for the first time.
“What’s it used for now?” asked Shia.
Lucky was ninety-nine percent sure of what ongoing crime was concealed therein, but didn’t feel the need
to answer. It was no secret that both federal and state police agencies trolled public utilities to uncover illegal marijuana grow sites. The juice required per square foot to operate an indoor pot farm, be it in a converted one-car garage or a long-abandoned airplane tire factory, was far beyond normal consumption. The simple algorithm, once applied, was akin to unmasking a bank robber.
But not these bad boys.
By arranging unmetered and unregulated electricity, clever marijuana farmers could produce crop after crop with minimal worry they’d be discovered because of some power anomaly.
From Lucky’s vantage, the decrepit factory appeared to occupy half a city block. Rimmed in rusty cyclone fence, topped with triple strands of sagging razor wire, the defunct plant looked the part of a landlocked oil tanker. Lucky instructed Shia to circle the property, allowing him to count off four sentries. One at each corner. Crips all, each occupied as much by his phone screen as his mind-numbing job.
“Both of you stay here,” ordered Lucky once they’d parked. “I’m not back in ten minutes, call in a double-oh and make sure you get lost.” Lucky opened the back door. “Got any spare Kevlar in your trunk?”
“All I got is a furniture blanket I use for my daddy’s wheelchair,” answered Shia.
“That’ll work,” said Lucky. As he shut the car door and rotated to the rear, Shia triggered the trunk switch.
“Can I ask somethin’?” asked Tim, his words audibly timid. “What’s a ‘double-oh?’”
“Ten-double-zero,” said Shia. “It’s a call sign. Means officer down and needs assistance.”
Lucky ambled into the dark, the folded blue furniture blanket tucked under his right arm. He was feeling unusually stiff in the joints, every step a reminder of the night before. An onshore breeze had cooled the air, adding to his discomfort. He wondered if this is what old age felt like. Then just as quickly he thanked Jesus that, considering his headstrong history, he probably would never reach the age of sixty.
The Lucky Dey Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (The Lucky Dey Series Boxset) Page 85