by Dani Amore
“Who’s there?” he said.
Silence.
Jake fought down the panic that wanted to overtake him.
“I know you’re there. Who are you?”
Silence. And then a long exhale.
“My name is Nina,” the voice said.
Thirty-one
Mary saw the unmarked detective’s car idling outside her office.
Her heart skipped a beat, thinking it was maybe, finally, Jake. She would hug him, kiss him, then kick him in the gonads. Repeatedly.
Mary approached the car and just about vomited when Lieutenant Arianna Davies, “the Shark,” exited the car and faced Mary.
The woman was dressed like always: dark slacks, a dark shirt, and skin so pale Mary was certain the Zombie Apocalypse had begun.
“I need a minute, Cooper,” Davies said.
“You need a lot more than that,” Mary said. “A better embalmer for starters.”
Mary watched as the woman ignored her. Arianna Davies was tall, extremely thin, and had jet black hair.
“I’ve gotten word you’ve been in the vicinity of several homicides recently,” the Shark said. “It would be interesting to hear your explanation.”
“Several?” Mary said. “Try one.”
“Misinformation, your stock-in-trade,” Davies said. “I wonder why there’s a perception that you’ve been involved in at least one other murder? Are you once again keeping information from the police?”
“I’m surprised such a silly question merits a personal visit from a rising star in the LAPD,” Mary said. “Unless you’re here to talk to me about something else. Or just harass me enough to merit a call to my attorney.”
The Shark seemed to assess Mary for a moment.
“Have you heard recently from Jacob Cornell?” she said.
Now Mary was surprised by that question.
She narrowed her eyes at the Shark, and then she realized what the question meant.
“You’ve fucking lost him, haven’t you?” Mary said. “Why the hell did you send him undercover? He’s all wrong for that kind of thing. Of course, most men who’ve slept with you probably look for the most dangerous activity they can find immediately after. To banish the memories.”
“Have you heard from him?” Davies repeated.
“He called awhile back complaining about crabs. I told him to smear some cocktail sauce on his crotch and give you a call,” Mary said.
Davies held out her card.
“Always so pleasant, Cooper. If you do hear from him or learn anything about his current whereabouts, have someone call me immediately,” she said.
Mary watched in disbelief as her own hand reached out and accepted the lieutenant’s card. She briefly thought of setting it on fire, but she didn’t have a lighter.
Besides, the woman was worried about Jake too. She should respect that, right?
Mary watched as Davies got back in her car.
Thirty-two
Mary turned to go into her office, but a vague shape caught her eye.
She turned and caught a glimpse of the black Tahoe behind her.
“Fuck,” she muttered under her breath.
Mary went and got back into her car. This was too much. Following her to her office, to Alice’s, probably all over Los Angeles?
No, that wasn’t going to work for Mary.
She pulled out, drove into the heart of Venice, then turned onto Ocean Park. Mary took a right on Lincoln, then goosed her car to put a few extra cars between herself and the Tahoe.
When the opportunity presented itself, she shot off Lincoln onto a side street then ducked and threw it into reverse, backing into a driveway that was across from an alley.
The Tahoe roared down the street, and Mary shot out into its path.
The big SUV had no choice but to veer into the alley, where it crashed into a pile of garbage cans.
Mary pinned the nose of her car against the Tahoe’s rear bumper and shut off the car.
She popped the trunk and took out a seven iron.
She didn’t golf, but a club in the trunk occasionally came in handy.
Like now.
Mary went to the side of the Tahoe and swung the club into the tinted window. It shattered. She pulled the club out, taking chunks of glass with it.
A man threw the driver’s door open and got out. He was a big guy, with close-cropped dark hair and aviator sunglasses.
“What the fuck?” he said. He had on dark slacks, a black T-shirt, and a black sport coat.
Mary saw him slip a hand inside his sport coat toward the area where a shoulder holster might be located.
She swung again, the club cracking his forearm with an audible thunk.
“Fore,” she said.
The man clutched his forearm, his face turned red. “You’re making a big mistake,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I don’t think so,” Mary said. “I don’t see you reporting me. What kind of story would you tell? That the woman you’ve been following all day got scared after you tried to run her off the road?”
“You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” he said.
Mary waggled her fingers at him. “Oooooohhhh, scary,” she said.
The man produced a cell phone in his good hand and dialed a number.
Mary swung the seven iron upward, like an uppercut. It hit the man’s elbow and the cell phone shot into the air.
“Oh, sliced it a bit,” she said. “I’ve got to remember to follow through.”
Mary caught the phone and glanced at the screen.
The man had dialed a name that was familiar to Mary.
Derek Jarvis.
Thirty-three
Mary punched the number for Derek Jarvis into her phone and when he answered, she asked if they could meet. He gave her the address of his gym, where he said he was currently working out.
It was off of Abbott-Kinney, just a few minutes from her current location.
She left the man with the Tahoe, throwing the seven iron into her backseat.
Minutes later, she pulled into the parking lot in front of the building bearing the address Jarvis had given her. It was a nondescript steel shed, with a glass door and a security keypad.
Mary pressed the button.
“Yes,” said a voice through the speaker.
“Bruce Willis here,” Mary said.
The door buzzed and Mary opened it, then went inside.
The sound of metal clacking together, the faint drone of heavy metal music, and a combined odor of Febreze and sweat assailed Mary.
She spotted Jarvis among a stack of weights and bars. He had on workout shorts and a muscleman shirt.
His arms and shoulders were impressive, Mary had to admit. But she still didn’t like the guy.
Jarvis spotted her, and he walked over.
“Let’s chat over there,” he said, pointing to a small room with a hardwood floor and a bunch of exercise balls.
Mary went inside and leaned against a stack of plastic platform risers used in step aerobics.
“So did you change your mind?” Jarvis said. He squatted on one of the exercise balls. Mary noted how his thigh muscles bulged as he steadied himself. He probably thought he was turning Mary on, but the effect was quite the opposite. She wished she could drape a serape over him while they talked.
“The only thing that changed was my opinion of you. It got worse,” Mary said.
Jarvis seemed not to hear her.
“Oh that’s good,” he said.
“Why are you following me around?” Mary said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“Bullshit, Muscle Boy. Either you or one of your boyfriends paid a visit to Trey Williams in the restroom at Styx. It doesn’t surprise me; you seem like the kind of guy who hangs out a lot in men’s bathrooms.”
Jarvis rolled back and forth on the ball, seemingly transfixed by his own thigh muscles.
“I have no idea who Trey
Williams is. Besides, you give me too much credit, Miss Cooper,” he said. “I don’t have those kinds of resources. I’m just a freelancer, like you,” he said.
Mary shook her head.
“Look, asshole,” she said. “Back off. I’m not cooperating with you on my investigation. I’m not sharing. I am, however, sick of seeing your people following me. Call them off. Or I’ll start seriously fucking them up, not just their vehicles. Got it?”
He got to his feet.
“Your information is wrong, Cooper. I haven’t been following you. And I don’t have ‘people.’ It’s just me and a cell phone.”
“Look, I know you and your mystery bulges are full of crap,” Mary said. “One of your boys practically ran me off the road, and I’m sure he already called you to let you know I was coming by to chat.”
He shook his head, the veins in his thick neck coiling and uncoiling with the movement.
“Wrong again,” he said.
Mary laughed.
“Okay, I believe you. I’ll let you get back to your overcompensating.”
She walked out past him.
Thirty-four
The door opened, and the bright light made Jake wince. He forced his eyes open, and through the water that filled his eyes, Jake could make out the shape of a man. He had on a white shirt and a blue baseball cap.
“Bring them,” the voice said. He had an accent.
Someone placed a blindfold on him and then grabbed Jake by the arm. He heard Nina cry out as she must have been jerked to her feet.
Jake was pushed forward hard, and he tripped over something, then landed hard on his chest.
“Get up, cop,” the voice said.
One of the others laughed.
Jake struggled back to his feet and allowed himself to be led forward. They walked through what Jake figured to be the same main warehouse in which they’d been working. He heard no sound, so assumed it was the middle of the night.
A door opened, and Jake felt the change in air. They were outside.
The rumble of engine was the only sound, and he smelled exhaust.
“There’s a step, cop,” the voice said. Jake felt with his foot until he detected the metal ledge, he stepped up, and then hands pushed him forward. He fell again, and this time he knew it was the back of a truck.
The girl landed next to him, and she whimpered. He could hear her crying.
“Don’t worry, Nina. We’ll get out of this,” he said. Jake had no idea how, but he tried to put as much assurance in his voice as he could.
It sounded hollow, even to him.
Thirty-five
Mary decided it was time to clamp down on Vince Buslipp, owner and Chief Executive Asshole of ExtReam Productions. She staked out the production company’s office starting just before five. She didn’t know where Buslipp lived, and she figured he was the kind of guy who would mostly be found at work anyway, playing with his dirty movies.
Mary waited until almost seven o’clock, and when there was no sign of anyone coming or going, she got out of her car and rang the bell at the door.
She waited, remembering the woman who’d answered last time. As Mary recalled, she’d been a big-boobed, big-lipped woman trying to look twenty years younger than she really was.
Mary checked her watch. She leaned against her car and waited. After ten minutes, she rang the buzzer again.
Nothing.
Just out of curiosity, she pulled on the door. It was locked.
Mary leaned in against the window. She saw a pair of leopard print shoes sticking out from behind the receptionist’s desk. She pulled out her lock picks, worked the door, and let herself in. Her gun was in her hand.
She walked down the hallway, glanced at the woman behind the receptionist’s desk. Her chest was a mess—bloody and torn to pieces, with a pool of blood spread out on the concrete floor behind her.
Mary reconnoitered the rest of the office space.
She got to Buslipp’s office and saw that papers were knocked off the desk and onto the floor, stacks of DVDs had been tossed around the room, and the furniture was slightly askew.
A struggle?
Mary went back to the receptionist’s desk.
No message slips.
No appointment book.
Nothing.
Mary glanced up at the ceiling above the front door.
No sign of any security cameras. Which also meant there would be no record of her visit to this shithole.
Mary let herself out of the building. It didn’t matter if there wasn’t a single clue pointing to who had done the murders here.
She already knew.
Thirty-six
All she really had was the Tahoe. Mary had jotted down the license plate before she’d attacked the gas guzzler with her golf club, figuring it might come in handy.
Now was the time to put it to use.
Back at her office, she used a program on her computer that matched license plates with addresses, via a highly questionable link-feed installed by a former client.
While she waited for the program to do its work, she thought about the scene at ExtReam.
Gruesome. A lot of dead bodies piling up around the disappearance of Nina Ramirez.
And Derek Jarvis. The guy stunk, even though Mary couldn’t pin anything on him just yet.
Jarvis was either getting frustrated at a lack of information, or he’d gotten the necessary insights and was now cleaning up any loose ends.
On cue, the computer dinged with its completion of the assigned task.
The address came back: 200 North Spring Street. Los Angeles.
Mary looked at the address. Why did it seem so familiar? She stared at it: 200 North Spring Street. It gave her the impression of being something very official.
It took her a minute, but eventually it came.
City Hall.
She leaned back in her office chair.
City Hall.
A black Tahoe.
A guy like Derek Jarvis.
It all came together with one giant, resounding rush.
Mary rocked forward in her chair.
Thirty-seven
How often does a mayor actually stay in his office? Mary had no idea. Most of the time, she figured, the mayor avoided his office, just like everyone else.
Besides, she’d seen plenty of pictures of Los Angeles’s current mayor, Thomas Baxter. The images captured the man at golf tournaments, expensive restaurants, and other charity-focused events around the city.
Mary thought about what she knew regarding Mayor Baxter.
He’d been a B-movie actor in the 1980s, mostly playing supporting roles as a quiet, peace-loving bystander. He was a teacher in an HBO series set in a high school. Another time, Mary seemed to recall he was a delicatessen owner, being shaken down by the Mob.
It was the look Baxter had—steadfast, reliable, sort of good-looking but not too much so—that had helped pave the way for his political career.
He was in his second term as mayor.
And like any mayor, he probably had a very vigorous security staff that most likely drove black Chevy Tahoes and felt, on a certain level, above the law.
Mary pulled into a parking structure a block from City Hall and walked to the building.
It was a classic, southern-California day: beautiful blue sky, no breeze, the faint tinge of smog like a smoky flavor on a set of ribs.
Mary went through security, then made her way to the mayor’s office.
It came as no surprise that the mayor’s office wasn’t really an office. It felt more like a library.
There was an anteroom, done all in natural wood with a large table and several people, including at least one cop, sitting facing the door.
When Mary entered, the cop looked up.
“May I help you?” he said.
“Yes, I’m looking for a member of the mayor’s security detail,” she said. “I’m not sure what his name is, but I can give you a description.”
The cop looked at her, then glanced at the woman next to him.
“And what do you need to see him for?” he asked.
Bingo, Mary thought.
“I’m a firearms instructor he’s hired for his team. I came by because he forgot to sign a release that I absolutely have to submit today in order for the exercises to begin next week. He asked me to come by today for the signatures.”
The cop looked at her, looked over her ID, then buzzed her through the security checkpoint.
“Have a seat,” the cop said.
Mary glanced at the magazines on the table. Travel & Leisure. Cigar Aficionado. And Golf Digest. The trifecta of mayoral duties.
A door to the left of the entry way opened, and Derek Jarvis stopped when he saw Mary.
“Well, hello there,” Mary said. “Glad I was able to catch you at work.”
His face set into a mask before he was able to muster a slick little smile. He said something into a microphone on his lapel, and soon, two more security guards were behind Jarvis.
“I’m afraid you have me mixed up with someone else,” Jarvis said. “Let me escort you safely from the building.”
By now, the people surrounding the entry had joined the party.
“You’re not going to follow me around some more?” Mary said. “Demand information about Nina Ramirez?”
Mary placed a lot of volume behind the girl’s name.
“Let’s move,” Jarvis said. He came at Mary with his two goons.
“What? I don’t get to meet the mayor?” Mary said. “That sucks!”
She let the group push her back toward the door. Her work here was done. She’d established Jarvis’s real role in the case, and she’d delivered a message.
“If you ever come back here, you’ll be arrested,” Jarvis said.
“Oh, I’ll be back,” Mary said. “But when I do, I have a pretty good feeling I won’t be the one getting locked up.”
Thirty-eight
Mary knew from news reports that Mayor Baxter had chosen not to live in the official home of the mayor—Getty House in Hancock Park.