by David Putnam
No, don’t do it.
Lizzette turned her head and glanced back before she disappeared through the doorway to the other side. Borkow muttered in a half whisper, “Ah, son of a bitch.”
“Harold?”
“Yeah, boss.”
“I want to talk to her before she leaves.”
“You got it, boss.”
Borkow turned his attention to Payaso.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
PAYASO STOOD QUIETLY off to the side, watching by the window curtains.
“Well?” Borkow asked.
“It’s just as we thought; they are getting organized. They have already started hitting all the places we thought they would.”
“Then why haven’t they hit the Orchid?”
“They figured it the most unlikely place to find you so they set a trap. They’ve had two cars down the street watching. It won’t be long now.”
“I don’t know why they haven’t hit the Orchid yet. They should’ve hit it first. I want to get back in there. Once they hit it, they’ll be less likely to come back.”
From the other room, Harold said, “Boss, we got visitors.”
Borkow hurried over to the window and took up his perch with his head again pressed to the wall as he peeked out the slit. Ten cop cars, half of them unmarked, zoomed in and surrounded the Grand Orchid. Overkill—too many cops for just him. A black Suburban with an entire SWAT team standing on sideboards brought up the rear.
The sight of all those cops raised his heartbeat, made it race. Sweat beaded on his forehead, ran into his eyes, and stung.
Standing there naked with just a towel, the heavily armed and violence-hungry cops outside—not more than thirty or forty feet away—brought out his vulnerability. Yet he couldn’t move. He could only watch and imagine what it would feel like if he were actually standing in the Grand Orchid watching his violent demise approach. They wouldn’t bother with the warning yell “stop, police,” even if he stood with his hands in the air; they would gun him down like a dog. The sheriff’s department lost a big chunk of respectability when he’d made buffoons out of them. No, they would shoot him on sight.
Could Payaso have set all this up on purpose so Borkow could see just how serious the situation had become? The rude, insensitive bastard.
Payaso wanted Borkow to take off for Costa Rica. Hide out there for a few years while Payaso ran the operation and the heat cooled. Of course he did. If he let Payaso take the helm, he’d never get it back. And one day while lying on the beach sipping a sickening sweet piña colada, some sicario would slip up behind him and slit his throat.
Just as the men dressed in all black—the SWAT team—hurried to line up for a coordinated assault, a cowboy and a big black man dressed like a trucker exited the lead car. The two ran through the perimeter with guns drawn. The cowboy never missed a step. He grabbed a broken brick from the planter and hurled it at the double glass doors.
The door on one side exploded in a million tiny cubes of safety glass that rained down like an ice storm. The black man went in first with the cowboy close on his heels. Their actions, bold and unflinching, made Borkow shiver. Who were these guys?
It had been Payaso’s idea to buy the fitness center. What better place to hide than in plain sight in the same strip center as his beautiful Grand Orchid? Once the cops hit the Orchid, and saw that it was shut down, all but abandoned, Borkow could go back and forth from the fitness center to the Orchid with relative ease and not have to worry much about Johnny Law. He’d have a little more freedom, something he craved the most.
“Hey,” Borkow whispered to Payaso, “I am familiar enough with their procedure to know that those two who went in first are going to be in the grease for not waiting for the SWAT boys.”
Payaso watched from the slit at the other side of the window. “I warned you about this.”
Borkow looked away from the window and over at Payaso. “Tell me again.”
“You messed with that cop’s daughter. Now he’s going to come at you with everything he’s got until he puts you in the ground.”
“What? You mean that big buck dressed like a trucker is the same slug working as a bailiff in the court?”
“He’s not just a bailiff, and you’re way off-base calling him a slug. That’s Bruno Johnson.”
“Who the hell is Bruno Johnson? You say it with reverence like he’s, what, someone I need to be afraid of?”
“I would be, if I were you.”
Payaso never talked that way about anyone, not even the vicious Chinese Tong, who, two years earlier, had tried to muscle in on Borkow’s chain of massage parlors, demanding ten percent from his operation for protection. Payaso went head to head with the Tong’s street soldiers in three bloody battles and eventually beat them back.
Borkow looked through the slit just as Johnson and the cowboy came out holstering their guns. SWAT had waited, and now ready to go, hurried forward. The lead SWAT guy said something to the cowboy, who flipped him the bird and kept walking.
Johnson stopped and hesitated. He looked around, taking in the entire strip mall. His eyes stopped on the defunct Muscle Max across the parking lot.
“Shit.” Borkow pulled back from the window. “He just looked this way. Did you see that?”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you. This mayate has the instincts of a jungle cat. You should never have poked him like that.”
Borkow held his breath and focused on Johnson through the slit. He watched until Johnson lost interest in the fitness center and headed for his car where the cowboy waited.
Borkow let out his breath and waved his hand at Payaso. “Couldn’t be helped. We needed the diversion or the jailbreak would never have happened. I wouldn’t be standing here otherwise. We’ll just have to live with the consequences.”
“Don’t know if we can.”
Borkow left his perch and walked toward Payaso. “You telling me you’re afraid of … what did you call him … this, this mayate?”
“Not for me. I’m just afraid I won’t be able to keep him off you if he keeps kicking in doors like that. You just saw how he works. He doesn’t give a shit about the rules. Those kinds of cops are the most dangerous. He kicks in enough doors, someone’s gonna squeal.”
“Then take the offensive. Knock him off his game. We know his Achilles heel. Hit him again where it hurts so he has something else to keep him occupied.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“I don’t care what you would do or wouldn’t do. Get it done. Get that bailiff’s daughter. Now, where are we with my wonderful defense attorney, Ms. Gloria Bleeker?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
BORKOW TOOK HIS sunglasses from his pocket and put them on even though the moonless night hid everything or it at least turned it to dark shadow. He pointed. “Not here, you bonehead. Don’t park here—pull up away from the streetlight.” Payaso did and killed the engine. Borkow wore a Dodgers ball cap down low over the glasses and a bulky navy-blue windbreaker to further disguise his shape and size. Hell, in Hollywood everyone dressed like that.
He followed close on Payaso’s heels. Payaso moved with deliberation, as if he, too, lived in this spectacular upscale apartment complex on North Bronson, just south of Fountain. He came to a side entrance, a heavy security gate that blocked the long walkway from the street. Payaso didn’t slow. In one easy motion, he pulled a six-pound, short-handled sledge from his back waistband and gave the dead bolt lock a long sideways swing. He whacked it with a violence that vibrated in Borkow’s teeth. The dead bolt lock shot out the other side and clattered on the concrete. The gate swung open a smidge. Payaso kept moving right on through as if nothing at all had happened to slow him down.
Borkow double-timed to catch up to him and whispered, “Remind me after all this is over how easy that lock was to take out. I’m never going to live in a so-called security apartment, that’s for damn sure. Security my aching ass.”
“Sssh.”
> “Don’t sssh me. Where we going? How much farther is it?”
Payaso stopped at a crossroads in the walkway and looked in each direction, getting his bearings. He had scouted the location only hours before. He continued without a word. Every apartment was inset and sheltered from view by thick shrubs, hedges, and stunted trees. Payaso chose one and moved through to the small entry area by the front door. He put his ear up to the wood and listened. Borkow went to the right and peered through the window between the curtains and into a slice of light coming from inside. He lifted his dark sunglasses. The big-screen TV was playing an old black-and-white movie with Bette Davis. Now that girl knew how to rock a pair of shoes.
Payaso pulled back the sledge to obliterate the doorknob. Borkow grabbed his arm. “Wait. She’s on the phone. The person on the other end will hear us and ruin everything. It’ll force us to move fast when I don’t want to. Step aside. Yeah, that’s it. Move farther back there in the shadows. Now just follow my lead.”
Borkow straightened his windbreaker, checked that his hat and sunglasses were in place. He rang the doorbell. A long minute passed. He held his breath. The outside light came on. Behind him the bushes whispered as Payaso slipped back deeper into the shadows.
The curtains parted. Borkow didn’t look; he just stared at the door and pretended not to see her. The muffled words “Who are you? What do you want?” made it through the door and outside to him. He shrugged as if he hadn’t heard, reached out, and again pushed the button for the doorbell.
The locks on the door clicked. What a fool. Borkow had never heard a sweeter sound. The door swung open ten inches or so, far too wide for a cautious person. And Gloria Bleeker had more than enough reason to be cautious.
Gloria Bleeker, dressed in a gray velour gym suit, had a phone receiver with a long cord pinched between her cheek and shoulder as she spoke. “Yes? Can I help you?”
Borkow smiled. He took off his ball cap and sunglasses. Gloria’s mouth dropped open and her eyes widened. She said into the phone, “Claire, honey, I’m going to have to call you right back.” She hung up.
“Gloria, are you going to ask me in, or you going to make me stand out here all night where someone could see me?”
“What the hell are you doing here, Louis?”
“I’ve thought it over and I think the smart move is to turn myself in.”
She tentatively stuck her head out and looked around for any other interlopers lurking in ambush. “How did you find out where I live?”
Borkow raised his hands. “Gloooria?”
“Oh. Sure, sure. Come on in. It’s real smart that you want to turn yourself in. It’s the right thing to do, really. Come on in, and I’ll make some quick calls to get it set up.”
Borkow waved his hand behind him so Payaso wouldn’t follow right away. Borkow stepped in and pulled the door almost closed behind him, leaving it open just a crack.
He sunk into deep white fur carpet, like stepping onto the back of an Angora cat. He looked down at his feet. “How the hell you keep this shit from getting dirty?”
“I keep it clean by making everyone take their shoes off. Take ’em off, Louis.”
While he kicked off his shoes, he checked the place out. Her furniture looked uncomfortable, cold and without the least bit of taste; all chrome and glass and black leather, antiseptic as an operating room. The light’s reflection off all the white gave him the urge to squint. How pedestrian and sterile. He could never spend so much as an hour in a place like this.
“Are you alone?”
Her expression shifted to fear. “What?”
“Take it easy, Gloria. I just want to be sure there isn’t someone here who’s going to phone the cops before we’re ready to … to, you know, surrender. That’s the word they use, right? Surrender?” It was hard for him to get that word out. It stuck in his throat like a sideways chicken bone. No way in hell would he ever do something that stupid. Surrender, of all things. He’d leave that for the spineless pussies. He’d never go back. Never.
Gloria relaxed. “Yes, I’m alone except for Nelson. He’s in the bedroom.”
“Nelson?”
“Yes, he’s my—”
Payaso burst in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“OH MY GOD.” Gloria’s hand flew up to her mouth. She took in a deep breath to let out a screech. Payaso stifled half of it with a gut punch. She bent over and lost her dinner, which included an unhealthy portion of red wine that spattered over the white fur carpet in a splash of Technicolor.
Borkow shook his head. “Tsk, tsk, I’m betting that’ll be impossible to get out. They’re going to have to cut and patch it to make it work. I had that same problem one other time, but it was on Berber and it wasn’t red wine.” He chuckled at his little wordplay. She coughed and gagged and tried to talk. Attorneys were like sharks: if they quit talking, they sink to the bottom and drown.
Payaso shoved her into a chair and secured her hands and ankles to the arms and legs with gray duct tape.
Bleeker sputtered and choked out the words. “No, Louis … don’t do this. Please don’t … do this. I’ve only tried to help you. I have never done anything to hurt your case. I’m on your side, you have to know that by now. Please, don’t do this.”
Payaso yanked a cloth napkin off the table, wadded it up, and stuck it in her mouth. He put another piece of tape over it so she couldn’t spit it out. The napkin made it difficult for her to breathe. Her nostrils flared wide with each intake of breath. From the time he punched her to taping her mouth, less than a minute had elapsed.
Borkow hooked his thumb back over his shoulder. “She said there’s a dude in her room, named Nelson.”
Payaso nodded, pulled out his sledge, and headed for the bedroom.
Borkow moved in close to Gloria. Her eyes bulged larger as he drew near. “Glooria, you know what I’m here for, don’t you. Just tell me where it is and we’ll be on our way, lickety-split.”
She shook her head from side to side, her face bloating red.
“Really, you’re saying you don’t know where the money is? I don’t believe you, Gloooria.”
Gloria Bleeker was one of the best, if not the best, homicide defense attorneys in the City of Angels, and initially he couldn’t entice her to take his case no matter how much money he tried to tempt her with over the phone. She did agree to an attorney visit and met him alone in the attorney room of MCJ. She’d done her homework. She somehow knew all about his business, how much money it made, and more important, how much he had on hand. She demanded one hundred fifty thousand dollars in cash as a retainer and five hundred dollars an hour if his case went to trial. Then, if she did get him off, she wanted a three-hundred-thousand-dollar bonus. Well, of course it was going to trial. She wanted the money in cash so she could avoid the taxes. In her tax bracket, that would mean another thirty to thirty-five percent bump. At first, he said, “Hell no, bitch,” and left her alone at the table to ponder just how much money she’d walked away from. The massage business was all cash, so he did have that kind of green saved, but it would seriously draw down his reserves. Draw them down to damn near zero. But that wasn’t the problem—it was the principle of the thing. She had him over a barrel and was sticking it to him. He could not allow her to do that.
Someone must have ratted on him about having that much cash on hand—four hundred fifty K. When he got out, he’d find the disloyal weasel and knock the wheels off his little red wagon.
He needed the best attorney or it wouldn’t matter how much cash on hand he had or how much he hated to give in to a woman who lorded over him because of his situation. He finally agreed to the one hundred fifty thousand dollars as a retainer against five hundred dollars an hour and to the bonus. If she got him off, he’d grudgingly give her the three-hundred-thousand-dollar bonus. What price freedom, huh?
At their second meeting, bitter over the deal, he signed the agreement. When he got back to his cell and stretched out on his bunk, the idea
of losing that much green gave him a pain in his gut that would never leave.
Payaso came out of the bedroom. “Just about all of it is here, little over a hundred grand. The dumb broad had it in shoeboxes on the closet floor. On the floor, can you believe it? It’s the first place a break-in artist would look. She’s got some pretty nice shoes, loads of ’em. You want that I take them, too?”
Borkow’s mouth dropped open. “You have got to be kidding me. Dumb bitch. Now she’s going to tell us what she did with the rest of it—the fifty K. You didn’t see where she might’ve hid the other fifty K, did you?”
Payaso shrugged. “No. But that other dude—Nelson—he is a dog, a puppy, perro pequeno negro.” He put his hands out in front of him indicating a small size.
“Get all the cash. Put it in a trash bag and, yeah, go ahead and grab up all the shoes while you’re at it.”
“What about the dog?”
Borkow hated dogs. He put his index finger to his throat and slowly drew it across.
Payaso nodded and disappeared back into the bedroom. A few seconds later a puppy yelped—then stopped.
Borkow leaned over Bleeker and whispered in her ear, “You should never have treated me like I was some kinda clown, Gloooria.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
WICKS DROVE THE big Dodge. I stared out the windshield. Just after nine at night, and I should have been home with Olivia. Not being there to see that she was all right, to talk to her about Derek, hollowed out my gut and left me empty. To counter the feeling, to shove it aside, all I needed to do was think about the tape recording of Borkow talking to someone on the street, arranging to put Olivia in danger for the sole purpose of drawing me out of the courtroom. I wanted to tear Borkow apart, make him wish he’d never heard the name Johnson. And I would. He didn’t have long to wait before I came up on him, took him by the neck, and squeezed.
He had to be the first priority now.