Blond Cargo

by John Lansing

  Vincent Cardona was standing next to the large thick-glassed meat locker, where sides of beef were butchered and steaks were air-dried and aged to perfection. He held the double-sealed door open and gestured with a nod of his head.

  “In here, Frankie.”

  His cousin roughly pushed the whimpering man into the cold room, muscled him down into a chair behind a butcher’s table, and ripped off the burlap sack.

  The young man had black hair, piercing eyes blinking wide with fear, thin fine features on a handsome face. Both of the man’s arms were tattooed with bright greens, yellows, and reds—an ink rendering of a rain forest. The bright blue tail of a parrot wound gracefully around one forearm. Yet amid the sweeping vines were the track marks of a heroin needle.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Cardona, it’ll never happen again,” he said with an upper-class French accent as he rubbed his neck where the tape had ripped off skin. “I promise you on the life of my son. Never again.”

  Cardona signaled to Frankie the Man, who backhanded their prisoner, knocking snot, tears, and spit out of every bruised orifice.

  Vincent Cardona closed the door to the meat locker, keeping the chill in and the sound out. He unzipped a fine leather carrying case and spread the flaps open onto the wooden cutting table. Five finely honed Japanese carving knives of different lengths and thicknesses were held in place by orange silk sheaths.

  “Which one’s your favorite?” Cardona asked as if he really cared.

  The young chef tried to answer, but his mouth was too dry to speak. He pointed at a small paring knife. He knew where this drama was headed, and his choice of the shortest blade almost made Cardona laugh. But not quite.

  “I’m going to be reasonable here. Not sure why. Maybe because you’re a great chef.”

  The young man’s face turned beet red. Tears started to pour down his cheeks.

  “Pick a finger,” Cardona ordered. “You know where I’m going with this.”

  “Please.” His voice was a rasping tremolo. “It’s my trade; I’ll work off the loss. I’ve got family.”

  Cardona grabbed the man’s wrists and pounded them down onto the wooden tabletop. “Which hand did you use to steal from me again? Not just me, all the other men and women who put in an honest night’s work here. Which fucking hand did you use to manipulate my fuckin’ receipts?” he said, snarling.

  The young Frenchman’s eyes started to roll back into their sockets. Cardona gave way as Frankie slapped him back to consciousness. Frankie had the skill set to beat a man just short of unconscious, keep him lucid enough to feel more pain, or hit him hard enough to end his life.

  “Think hard and clear now,” Cardona hissed. “You’ve got one last chance. You control your destiny. If it’s dealer’s choice, my choice, you’ll never hold a knife again.”

  The Frenchman screamed.

  “My left hand, my pinky finger!”

  Japanese hardened steel flashed in a lightning strike, impaling the man’s pinky finger to the wooden cutting block. He looked down at his hand, and before he could scream, Vincent Cardona pounded on the dull side of the knife with his meaty fist and the razor-sharp blade severed the joint of the finger just above the fleshy part of the hand, like a chicken bone.

  The popping sound the blade made, cutting through bone and sinew, turned the Frenchman’s red face to white. He let loose with an animal wail. Frankie slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth.

  Cardona tossed the knife onto the butcher-block table and stepped back as blood spurted from the man’s mutilated hand. He gestured to his cousin, who threw the thief a towel.

  Cardona looked down at his shirt and spotted a bloodstain.

  “Shit!” he said as he slapped the Frenchman on the side of the head. “I’m buying a new shirt and it’s coming out of your next paycheck.”

  The young man wrapped the finger with the towel and tried to stanch the flow of blood.

  “You caught your hand in the dumbwaiter. No one will believe you, but no one will steal from me again. If I didn’t like your kid, you’d be a dead frog.”

  Cardona looked to Frankie. “Get him cleaned up, take him to Cedars, and put the bill on my MasterCard.” Then he looked down at his handiwork. “Put the finger down the disposal. I don’t want them to find it and sew it back on.”

  The Frenchman was going into shock as a pissed Cardona dabbed at the stain on his silk shirt, closed the glass door behind him, and started for the stairs.

  Peter came rushing down, glanced at the scene in the meat locker and then back at Cardona. “Bertolino’s here. I said we were closed. He said he’s got news. Gotta show you something important.”

  Vincent Cardona tucked his shirt back into his pants, buttoned his sports jacket over the bloodstain, and walked up the stairs to his restaurant.

  Jack, standing at the bar, watched the six-panel wooden door swing open and Vincent Cardona fill the door frame before heading in his direction. His eyes were heavy-lidded and cold. Jack saw a red crease across the meaty part of Cardona’s hand as he thrust it forward to shake.

  Peter entered the room behind his boss but never gave Jack eye contact, which wasn’t the norm. He moved beyond the two men and slid into a red leather booth, picked up a Los Angeles Times, and buried his head.

  “I’ve got something you’ll want to see,” Jack said. He couldn’t swear to it, but he thought the big man smelled of testosterone and violence.

  “It better be good.”

  So much for small talk, Jack thought as he opened his sleeping laptop, pulled up the URL of the YouTube video, and hit Play.

  Angelica Cardona’s beautiful face filled the computer screen with dialogue from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Cardona’s mouth fell open, he stood rock still, and tears started to roll down his face. No other emotion showed. The only chink in his armor was the tears. When the video came to the end, he said, “Play it again.”

  Jack complied. When it ended and froze on Angelica’s face, Jack asked, “Have you ever seen the room that she’s in, or the room behind the television screen?”

  “Never.”

  “Does she look distressed? Does she look like she’s being held against her will?”

  “She looks different. What’s she talking about?”

  “It’s a scene from a play she was working on.”

  “When did you get this?”

  “Yesterday.”

  Cardona’s head jerked in Jack’s direction. “And I’m just seeing it now?”

  “I didn’t want to get your hopes up until I had more information for you. The video was posted three days ago, but it might have been generated six months ago. I’m still trying to ascertain a location.”

  Vincent Cardona grabbed a bar napkin and swiped the tears off his fat cheeks. The button on his sports jacket popped open when the big man raised his arm, and Jack spied a smear of blood on his silk shirt.

  “You have an accident?” Jack asked, gesturing toward the stain.

  Cardona spoke without looking down. “I was cutting steaks. You want me to wrap up a few to take home?”

  “I’m good. Do you know anybody in Iraq?”

  “One of my guys. His kid’s in the army. Why?”

  “We think that’s where the video originated. An eight-year-old boy posted it. We know the general area, but we’re waiting on an address.”

  “It was his father’s.”

  Cardona’s remark came out of the blue, and Jack said, “What?”

  “The video on the TV screen was his father’s. The kid shot it. I stole a nude picture out of my father’s drawer when I was about that age. Took it to school and got dragged to the principal’s office when I passed it around class and Mrs. Stern grabbed it. What do you think?” he asked, referring to the tape.

  “Makes sense, Vincent. That’s why we need an address. I’m working on
it. Just know, if she’s alive, I’m gonna find her.”

  “I’d like to be there,” Cardona said murderously.

  “Don’t count on it.” Jack knew how that would turn out. The guilty party would never see the inside of a courtroom. “But this is good news, Vincent.”

  Cardona stared at his daughter’s face on the computer screen. “She looks like her mother.” And then, “You’re doing good, Bertolino. I knew I didn’t make a mistake reaching out. Get her back.”

  Jack nodded as he shut down the computer and headed for the entrance. His gaze drifted to the six-panel door leading to the restaurant’s basement. His cop radar, which kicked in as he walked past, left him with an overwhelming sense of dread.

  28

  Thirty minutes later Jack was motoring down the San Diego Freeway, going over all the things on his to-do list for the rest of the day: calls to make, traces, follow-ups, surveillance to set up.

  The Marina Freeway turnoff loomed a quarter mile ahead and, at seventy miles an hour, was closing fast. As he started to merge onto the off ramp, he had a sudden thought about his son, Chris. He vividly recalled Cardona’s reaction to the video of his daughter. Following his instincts, Jack veered sharply to the left and continued down the 405 toward LAX. Everything else would have to wait.

  * * *

  The early spring light illuminated the most mundane objects from the window of the Boeing 737. Emerald-green hills were alive with development and industrial commerce surrounding the iconic skyline of San Francisco. Sailboats with multicolored spinnakers heeled to one side in the choppy waters and shared sea lanes with cargo-laden freighters. The Golden Gate Bridge glowed brightly in the afternoon sun, an architectural wonder that could put a smile on the most cynical face.

  Jack barely noticed. He was worried. He had put in two unanswered calls to Chris as he waited to board the plane and was now going to show up unannounced and knock on his son’s dorm room at Stanford.

  Chris had warned him in no uncertain terms to stay away, to let him go through his emotional trauma alone. But Jack had to make sure Chris understood that he wasn’t alone. Not in his fear, not in his recovery, not in this lifetime. He had family who loved him. Maybe his drug use was just a momentary lapse, self-medicating to make the pain in his healing arm go away. If not, Jack was going to make sure that he reached out.

  After landing, Jack checked back into the Garden Court, the only hotel he knew in town, and then walked up Campus Drive toward Klein Field at Sunken Diamond and watched the baseball team practice, hoping for a glimpse of his son somewhere in the stadium. Chris wasn’t there, which Jack found disturbing, and he still wasn’t answering his phone. Jack headed over to Florence Moore Hall, better known as FloMo. Within the asymmetrical grouping of seven separate student houses, Chris lived in Alondra. His building was all freshmen, coed, and the tab was entirely picked up by his athletic scholarship. It was a high honor.

  Jack walked through the front door and took the stairs to the second floor. It was late-afternoon quiet and Jack stood for a moment outside of room 2B, raised his big fist, and then knocked. He listened. Not hearing any movement, he knocked again, a little harder. Jack’s heartbeat started to elevate; he was getting upset, a little light-headed, not knowing where Chris was, imagining the worst. He knocked one last time, hard. A young man three doors down opened his door, looked out, saw Jack’s state of mind, and just as quickly closed the door. As Jack turned to walk away, 2B was yanked open and he heard, “What!”

  Chris appeared in the doorway with disheveled hair, torn T-shirt, red-rimmed eyes. He had obviously been asleep. At four in the afternoon. He’d dropped more weight in the past week, his pupils were dilated, and he was clearly high. Chris shook his head, exasperated, and walked back into the room. Jack followed him in and gently closed the door behind them.

  Chris turned on his father. “What the hell are you doing here?” he said with total disgust that cut Jack to the quick.

  “You’re stoned,” Jack said in a controlled tone.

  “I am not. Answer my question. What the hell are you doing here? Why didn’t you at least call?”

  “I called. I left two messages. But you were too high to answer your phone.” Jack wished he hadn’t said that, but there it was.

  “Dad, I’m not stoned!”

  “Your team is out on the field. You were asleep. You tell me.”

  “I don’t sleep at night. I told you to stay away.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” he delivered like a punch to the heart.

  “Do you know who you’re talking to?” Jack said, bringing a little attitude into play.

  “What?”

  “Do you think you’re the only Bertolino who’s got a thick skull?”

  Chris let out a labored sigh, and Jack wanted to slap the shit out of his progeny. But he fought to control himself and the energy in the room. “Has your mother ever, ever once in your entire young life done what you told her to do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “My laundry.”

  “You ask her. You’d be wearing crusty Jockeys if you ever told your mother what to do. And she’d be right. You hear me? She’d be damned right.”

  Chris sat down on the edge of his bed, his head low. The cast on his arm jutted out at an uncomfortable angle.

  Jack leaned back against the small desk that dominated the dorm room and felt claustrophobic, too large for the space.

  “You think I’m gonna be told to do anything?” he went on. “Do you think that was my reputation at work? A detective who did what he was told?”

  “No.”

  “I think it’s time to rethink your strategy here. This is not a winning strategy.”

  Chris leaned off the bed and pulled two bottled waters out of a mini-fridge that was an arm’s length away. Just about everything in the dorm room was an arm’s length away. He handed one to Jack, who accepted the offer, screwed off the top, and took a long pull, diminishing some of the heat in the room.

  “Where did you get your drugs?”

  “I’m not doing drugs.”

  “Where did you get your pills?”

  “From you.”

  That actually made Jack feel better. He knew better than to trust a user, even his own son, but if Chris was still taking the pills he stole from Jack, he might not be too far gone.

  “Tommy went through a lot of effort to set you up with good doctors, where you’d feel safe, away from campus. Now, do you have him on retainer off of money I wasn’t aware you possessed?”

  “Dad . . .” Chris sounded like a boy again.

  “Then why did Tommy do it, Son? Call in favors for you.”

  “He loves me.”

  “Why am I here?”

  “You love me.”

  “You wanna get rid of me?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jack smiled and his eyes got moist.

  “Let’s call Dr. Leland and see if she can fit you in this afternoon.” Jack knew that she’d make the time. He had called her office as soon as he landed. “I’ll drive you over. If you two don’t get along, and I think you might, we’ll find someone else. But just know, we won’t stop until you find someone that works for you.”

  Chris took a swig of water and looked out his window. He didn’t say yes, but more important, he didn’t say no. Jack took that as a win and soldiered on.

  “How’s the pain?” he asked, referring to his son’s arm.

  “Comes and goes. Two in the morning, three.”

  “Dr. Pick has an opening tomorrow at eleven. He thinks if it’s physical, it might be as simple as changing the angle of your brace.”

  Chris jumped up off the bed, red-faced. “Physical! What the hell does that mean? You think I’m making this up? It’s psychological? I’m a nutter?”


  “I misspoke! Muscular, not physical. Muscular, and not nerve damage. Chris, I’m trying, I make mistakes.”

  “No kidding.”

  “No kidding.”

  Chris turned back to the window and Jack did the same. Dr. Pick, a neurologist, could give Chris something for the pain that wasn’t addictive, if Jack could get him to his appointment.

  “What’s her number?” Chris finally mumbled.

  Jack pulled out his phone, accessed the number, and hit Dial. He handed the phone to his son, who grabbed it and waited for Dr. Leland to pick up on her end.

  Father and son stared out the window and watched normal college life pass them by in the quad below.

  29

  “The neurologist took X-rays, MRIs, the whole enchilada and said he couldn’t detect any nerve damage. He applied a new cast that was fastened in place closer to Chris’s body. He thought there was a good possibility that the pain was migrating from the strain on the kid’s shoulders and back, down his arm.”

  “How about the shrink?” Nick Aprea tossed back a shot of Herradura Silver and chased it with a bite of lime that puckered his mouth slightly and put a grin on his face.

  “Noncommittal, but he made an appointment to see her again next week. About as good as could be expected,” Jack said with a tone of optimism. He took a sip of Caymus cab, but he could have been drinking Cribari. He was spent.

  They were sitting at the Beachside Restaurant and Bar, attached to the Jamaica Bay Inn in Marina del Rey. The water was still and the small lights on the boats’ decks played off the protected water of the marina.