Blond Cargo

by John Lansing

  Maggie thought she saw something cut through the moon’s reflection on the water’s surface. At the same time she heard the faint hum of an outboard motor through her screen door. Then a huge, echoing, thumping roar as a powerboat blasted through and shattered the reflected light.

  She stepped out onto her porch in time to hear the throaty sound of a cigarette boat powering out to sea, arcing left beyond the wooden pier and traveling south at a high rate of speed. Seawater rooster-tailed behind.

  Maggie hadn’t seen one of those tricked-out boats since her favorite show, Miami Vice, went off the air back in the eighties.

  It had left in its wake a low-slung boat that was motoring directly toward the black rock outcroppings.

  Pull up, she thought. “Pull up,” she said out loud. “Pull the fuck up!” she screamed.

  The wooden boat crashed into the rocks, rose up, and splintered in half. It violently ejected what appeared to be the boat’s pilot onto the rocky shore. The wreck exploded in a fireball that lit up the dark cove and then extinguished like an antique flashbulb.

  Maggie carefully set down her gin and tonic. Then she ran inside the house to dial 911.

  3

  The pink Venus disposable razor cut a clean swath through the Foamy shaving cream down the perfect curve of Deputy District Attorney Leslie Sager’s leg.

  A fine leg, Jack Bertolino thought as he watched her meticulous preparations from his bed. Hard to believe such a feminine woman could turn into a raging pit bull in a court of law.

  He laughed to himself as he looked at her array of potions and creams and cosmetics scattered around the sink. He had offered closet and bathroom space in his Marina del Rey loft, but Leslie came and went, rolling a small piece of carry-on luggage like a stewardess on an international flight.

  Their routine was irregular, usually four days on and three off, but they never took their time together for granted.

  “When did you get in?” Leslie asked.

  “After midnight. You were out cold. Chris canceled on me, so I grabbed the first flight back.”

  Chris was Jack’s son, presently attending Stanford on a baseball scholarship. The two weren’t getting along these days, because the Colombian drug dealer Jack had taken down a month ago had decided to get personal and had run Chris down in a Cadillac Escalade. One of the main casualties of the assault was Chris’s pitching arm.

  As Jack watched Leslie rinse off under one of the double showerheads in his white, subway-tiled bathroom—her shoulder-length blond hair turban-wrapped in a bath towel—he had to think about baseball stats to keep his morning libido in check.

  Oh, what the hell, he thought as he jumped out of bed, dropped his pajama bottoms, and stepped in behind her.

  “Don’t get my hair wet,” she said. It was a deep-throated challenge, not an order.

  It just got Jack hot. He soaped her back and nuzzled her neck.

  “My back’s clean,” she murmured.

  Ever dutiful, he turned her around to lather her front. He found her lips and ran soapy hands down her athletic body as Leslie found him and they both experienced early-morning bliss.

  Breakfast of champions, Jack thought, boyishly proud of himself as he toweled off, grabbed the remote, and snapped on the local news.

  He caught the tail end of a boating accident at Paradise Cove in Malibu but was already knocking back two Excedrin to dull the ever-present pain shooting down his spine. It was a chronic condition brought on by a fall from a steel girder while doing cleanup at Ground Zero. He spooned beans into the Braun coffeemaker and didn’t really catch the story. He knew if the accident was an important story, it would be replayed every fifteen minutes for the rest of the day.

  Leslie’s three-inch heels clicked crisply as she strode across the concrete floor of the loft and slid her arms around Jack’s waist. He poured a cup of coffee and turned to her, offering his lips and the coffee.

  “Minty fresh,” he all but growled after the kiss.

  Leslie took a sip of the fresh coffee and gave Jack the once-over. His black hair was longer on the sides, feathered with silver, and now crowded his collar in the back. It tempered some of his innate intensity. She approved and told him so with her eyes.

  His chiseled face had a new cut to add to the arsenal. Twenty stitches on his right cheekbone created a small crescent scar that lay flat when he smiled. The handiwork of Hector Lopez, a serial killer Jack had personal contact with on his last case. The bump on his otherwise straight Roman nose was due to a hard right from a crack dealer named Trey. Just one of many gifts he’d collected working twenty-five years on the mean streets of New York.

  “I’m relieved you’re in one piece. Ice your hand.”

  “Yes, nurse.”

  Worry lines marred her smooth forehead. “Why did you enter the hotel room when you knew there were three armed men? You could’ve been killed. What were you thinking?”

  “Things got fluid.”

  “It was a white-collar case, Jack. That’s what you signed on for. That’s what you should be doing.”

  “I’m fine.” Meaning, That’s enough.

  “Take the mayor’s offer, Jack. It’s not too late. He cornered me at the courthouse when you were up north. Seriously, he wants you on his team.”

  Jack had recently turned down the mayor of Los Angeles’s offer to join his security force as a paid consultant. He was promised autonomy and the power of the badge without having to wear a uniform.

  “It’ll end up being too political,” he said.

  “Welcome to my world, Jack. Give it some thought, that’s all I ask. You’re getting too old for this hand-to-hand combat.”

  “Ouch. I’ll give you some hand-to-hand.” Jack leaned in close, his brown eyes seductive with a flash of anger Leslie chose to ignore. She pushed him good-naturedly away.

  “You have got to be kidding me, Jack Bertolino. I’m late for work. Think about it,” she said, eyebrows raised. “Are you free this evening?”

  “Let me check my book. I am,” he said without breaking cadence or eye contact.

  “Then keep your powder dry and you might get lucky.”

  Leslie flashed her killer smile, finger-combed her hair behind one ear, handed Jack her coffee cup, picked up her briefcase, and started for the door.

  “The defense doesn’t stand a chance,” Jack said as he followed in her wake, not happy with the direction the conversation had taken. He picked up the light scent of her perfume and then the morning paper as he watched her walk toward the elevator, then locked up behind her.

  Jack threw the paper onto the dining table and paused to read the headline.

  PARADISE LOST IN MALIBU.

  4

  Jack carried a Subway turkey sandwich, a tall unsweetened iced coffee, a bottle of water, and a smile as he keyed the security gate that led to the dock in Marina del Rey where his boat was moored. The marina was always quiet during the week. Just the way he liked it.

  He stopped to admire his twenty-eight feet of heaven before stepping onto his boat’s transom and then . . .

  “Yo, Mr. B.”

  Jack never forgot a voice, which explained his reluctance to turn around.

  “Yo, yo, Mr. B.”

  Miserably persistent, Jack thought. He turned to face Peter Maniacci, who was dressed head-to-toe in black. With his outstretched arms draped over the chain-link fence, Peter looked like an Italian scarecrow. The black circles under his eyes belied his youth. The sharp points of his sideburns, his boots, and the .38 hanging lazily from a shoulder holster added menace to his goofy grin.

  So close, Jack thought. His only worry that day had been whether to eat his sandwich dockside or out on the Pacific with a view of the Santa Monica Pier.

  “How you doing, Peter?”

  “How you doin’?”

 
Jack let out a labored sigh. “We could do this all day. What’s up?”

  “That’s funny, Mr. B. How’s the boy? How’s his pitching arm?”

  Jack’s face tightened. He wasn’t happy that Peter knew any of his son’s particulars. When he didn’t answer, Peter continued.

  “Hey, nice boat. I used to fish for fluke off the North Shore. Long Island. I think I must be in the wrong business.”

  “Count on it,” Jack said. “What can I do for you?”

  “My boss was wondering if you could spare a few minutes of your time.”

  As if on cue, a black Town Car materialized behind Peter and came to a smooth, silent stop. The car rose visibly when Peter’s boss, a thick, broad-shouldered man, stepped out of the rear seat.

  Vincent Cardona. Expensive suit, the body of a defensive linebacker—fleshy but muscled. Dark, penetrating eyes. Cardona looked in both directions before leveling his feral gaze on Jack. An attempt at a smile fell short of the mark. A thick manila envelope was tucked under one beefy arm.

  Jack had been aware there would be some form of payback due for information Cardona had provided on Arturo Delgado, the man responsible for the attempted murder of his son. He just didn’t think it would come due this quickly. He opened the locked gate and let the big man follow him down the dock toward his used Cutwater cabin cruiser.

  As Peter stood sentry in front of the Lincoln Town Car, Jack allowed the devil entry to his little piece of paradise.

  “How’s your boy? How’s the pitching arm?” Vincent asked bluntly. Just a reminder of why he was there.

  “On the mend.” Jack gestured to one of two canvas deck chairs in the open cockpit of the boat. Both men sat in silence as Jack waited for Cardona to explain the reason for his visit.

  Jack wasn’t comfortable with Cardona’s talking about Chris, but the big man had taken it upon himself to station Peter outside Saint John’s Health Center while his son was drifting between life and death. Cardona’s enforcer had scared off Delgado, and that might have saved his son’s life. The unsolicited good deed was greatly appreciated by Jack. The debt weighed heavily.

  “It rips your heart out when your children have problems and you can’t do nothing to help,” Cardona said with the raspy wheeze of a man who had abused cigars, drugs, booze, and fatty sausage for most of his life.

  “What can I do for you?” Jack asked, not wanting to prolong the impromptu meeting.

  Cardona, unfazed by Jack’s brusqueness, answered by pulling out a picture and handing it to Jack.

  “Angelica Marie Cardona. She’s my girl. My only. My angel. Her mother died giving birth. I didn’t have the heart to re-up. I raised her by myself.”

  Mobster with a heart of gold. Right, Jack thought. But Cardona’s wife must have been a stunner because Angelica, blond, early twenties, with flawless skin and gray-green eyes, didn’t get her good looks from her father. Cardona’s gift was her self-assured attitude, which all but leaped off the photograph.

  “Beautiful.”

  Jack Bertolino, master of the understatement, he thought.

  “And doesn’t she know it. Too much so for her own good. You make mistakes, my line of business. Whatever.”

  “What can I do for you, Vincent?” Jack said, dialing back the attitude.

  Cardona tracked a seagull soaring overhead with his heavy-lidded eyes and rubbed the stubble on his jaw.

  Jack would have paid good money to change places with the gull.

  “I shoulda never moved out here. L.A. I’m a black-socks-on-the-beach kinda guy. East Coast all the way. Never fit in. But I’m a good earner and the powers that be decided they were happy with the arrangement. Everyone was happy except Angelica and me.

  “She turned thirteen, didn’t wanna have nothing to do with her old man. Turned iceberg cold. I tried everything—private schools, horses, ballet, therapy, live-in help; nothin’ worked. She closed up tighter than a drum. I finally threatened to send her to the nuns.”

  “How did that work out?”

  “I’m fuckin’ sitting here, aren’t I? On this fuckin’ dinghy . . . no offense meant,” he said, trying to cover, but the flash of anger told the real story. “I hear you’re an independent contractor now.”

  It was Tommy Aronsohn, his old friend and ex–district attorney, who had set him up with his PI’s license and first client, Lawrence Weller and NCI Corp. But Jack Bertolino and Associates, Private Investigation, still didn’t come trippingly off his tongue.

  And thinking of the disaster up north, he said, “We’ll see how that goes.”

  “This is the point. I haven’t seen my daughter in close to a month. Haven’t heard word one since around the time your son was laid up in Saint John’s,” he said. Reminder number two. “It’s killing me,” he continued. “I’m getting a fuckin’ ulcer. Then this.”

  Cardona pulled out the L.A. Times with the front-page spread reporting on the woman who had died when her boat crashed on the rocks at Paradise Cove. As it turned out, a second woman down in Orange County had washed up on the beach a few weeks earlier at the Terranea resort, scaring the joy out of newlyweds taking photos at sunset. Talk about twisted memories, Jack thought. As if marriage wasn’t tough enough. He’d already read both articles with his morning coffee and hadn’t bought into the pattern the reporter inferred.

  “And the connection?”

  “I got a bad feeling is all. She’s never disappeared like this before—not for this long anyway,” he said, amending his statement. “And then . . .” Cardona said, waving the newspaper like it was on fire. “It says here they were both blonds. Both about Angelica’s age. They could be fuckin’ cousins. Could be nothing.”

  “Did you file a missing-persons report?”

  Cardona gave him a hard side eye. “Jack, don’t fuck with me. We take care of our own.”

  Jack thought before he spoke. “I’m not one of yours.”

  “Semantics.”

  “What about your crew?”

  Cardona flopped open his meaty hands. “I get angina, I don’t call my cousin Frankie, who has a certain skill set but stinks when it comes to open-heart surgery. Look, I get it. You were on the other team. But this is straight-up business. One man to another. One father to another. I need you to find my girl. You got my number. Use it, Jack. Money’s no object. Find my baby.”

  Strike three.

  Jack didn’t answer. He stared out at the navy-blue water of the marina, past row upon row of beautiful yachts, symbols of dreams fulfilled, and knew they were empty notions compared to family.

  Cardona hadn’t actually spoken the words you owe me, but they filled the subtext of everything he’d said. He was not subtle. The big man had reached out when Jack was in need, and Jack had accepted the offer. Now Vincent Cardona wanted his pound of flesh.

  “This is everything I know. Last address, phone numbers, phone bills, e-mail accounts, bank, credit cards, friends, and whatnot. The whole shot,” Cardona said, holding the manila envelope out in Jack’s direction.

  “I have other commitments,” Jack stated.

  “You look real fuckin’ busy, Jack, if you don’t mind my sayin’. ” His eyes crinkled into a sarcastic grin. Vincent Cardona does charm.

  Jack accepted the overstuffed envelope with a sigh.

  “If she don’t want to come back, fine. No funny business, no strong-arm bullshit from my end. You got my word. I just need to know that my blood is alive. I’m fuckin’ worried and I don’t do worry too good. Sleep on it, Jack. But do the right thing.”

  Cardona’s eyes locked on to Jack’s. Jack remained silent. He’d take a look. No promises, not yet.

  Vincent’s knees cracked and the canvas chair squeaked like it was in pain as he stood up. He covered a belch behind his fist and rubbed his gut as he moved stiffly past Jack. The boat rocked when Cardona stepped off and walke
d heavily away, his Italian leather shoes echoing on the wooden dock.

  The weight of the world. Jack could relate.

  Peter Maniacci opened the gate for his boss and then the door to the Lincoln Town Car, which plunged to curb level as the big man slid in. Peter ran around to the other side of the car and tossed Jack a wave like the queen mum. He jumped into the Lincoln, which lurched forward before Peter could slam the door shut.

  Jack walked into the boat’s deckhouse, grabbed a bottle of water, and downed two more Excedrin. He stretched his back, which was going into a spasm from yesterday’s violence, and chased the pills with a Vicodin to stay one step ahead of the pain that he knew was headed his way.

  Jack had already decided to take the case.

  5

  Thirty minutes later, Jack pushed hard on the throttle as he exited the five-mile-per-hour zone of the protected jetty. As the boat geared up, the vibrations ran through his body, and the salty wind whipped his face and hair. Cirrus clouds knifed the bright blue sky and jagged whitecaps stretched to the horizon. As he powered through a mild wake, he felt the stability of his modest craft and started to breathe normally again.

  In the rapidly approaching distance he could see the Santa Monica Pier. Its psychedelic Ferris wheel and neon-lit roller coaster remained still in the morning light. The crowds were thin, but it was early.

  Ten feet off the boat’s stern, a formation of pelicans flew in a V pattern inches above the water, looking like prehistoric birds of prey. The sight cheered him. Jack wasn’t in a stellar mood after the unexpected visit from Vincent Cardona, but his day was definitely looking up.

  He left the pier behind in his rearview. After Cardona’s visit, there was no question where he was headed.

  Paradise Cove.

  If the incident in the news was an accident, no harm, no foul. He’d have a beautiful cruise up the Malibu coastline. If a crime had been committed, he’d better take a look before the site was picked clean.

  Paradise Cove was a special piece of California real estate befitting its name. The protected cove of emerald water was surrounded by rocky shale cliffs draped in electric-red bougainvillea and mescaline-green succulents. Eucalyptus and palm trees fanned out high overhead and framed the high-end prefab mobile homes with their million-dollar views of the Pacific and the Paradise Cove Beach Café below.