Blond Cargo

by John Lansing

  “I would like to thank everyone here tonight,” the mayor said, oblivious to the drama about to play out on the ballroom floor. “All of my friends. You are an inexorable force for change.”

  Malic’s smiling eyes shifted from the mayor to the subtle movement in the rear of the ballroom. He narrowed his eyes, not sure what he was observing. Then his smile vanished.

  Malic al-Yasiri locked eyes with Jack Bertolino.

  He took an impulsive drink of water as he watched his adversary walking in his direction.

  “And in this case,” the mayor continued, “the change is positive. We will save lives, create jobs, educate the poor, and improve the quality of life in the City of Angels. We will let our city truly become worthy of its namesake.”

  Some of the well-dressed attendees started to turn in their seats and follow Malic’s darkening gaze. The Los Angeles district attorney’s table turned as one, and the DA lurched forward, whispering something to Leslie Sager.

  She leaped out of her seat and charged over, stopping the men in their tracks.

  “Jack,” she whispered heatedly. “What in the hell are you doing? Whatever it is, this is not the right time.”

  “We’re good,” he said.

  “If you don’t turn and walk out of here,” she said, looking from Jack to Nick and back again, “you’re both finished, and there’s nothing I can do to help.”

  This was the wrong time for explanations, Jack thought.

  “No, we’re good,” Nick said.

  Leslie looked a final heartfelt question at Jack, who gave her a tight smile. Incredulous, she shook her head and walked back to her group.

  When Jack glanced up at the head table, Malic’s chair was empty. The cloth scrim depicting the Vargas Development Group’s new Los Angeles fluttered in the breeze behind the mayor.

  Jack pounded up the aisle with Nick fast behind.

  Tim Dykstra, the mayor’s head of security, and a few of the mayor’s cohorts rose to stop them, but Nick flashed his badge, running interference.

  A crash of plates from behind the scrims attracted Jack’s attention, and he ran toward the sound. Behind him the voices in the ballroom rose in a wave of panic.

  The mayor stopped talking, and if looks could kill, the cardinal would’ve ended Jack’s life then and there.

  Jack pushed through the two scrims and found a uniformed waiter on his hands and knees surrounded by broken glass, silverware, and crockery. He jumped over the man, banging the door to the kitchen open, his gun leading the way.

  A security guard was down, bleeding, his hands wrapped around the hilt of a steak knife protruding from his stomach.

  Two stunned dishwashers jabbed their fingers toward a side door.

  “Where does it go?” Jack asked.

  “The dumbwaiter. To the bar, to the basement.”

  “Call 911, get an ambulance now,” Jack said as he pushed through the door. A stairwell was located next to the small service elevator. Jack pulled the dumbwaiter’s safety door open and looked up the shaft. The dumbwaiter was headed up to the revolving bar on the thirty-fourth floor of the hotel. It was tight quarters, and already too far up, he thought, not sure Malic could have even fit.

  Nick ran in as Jack was opening the stairwell door. Jack pointed upward with his Glock. Nick nodded, pointing down. They split up and Jack started up the stairs.

  One flight up, the fire door was ajar. Jack slipped through. It opened to the fourth-floor pool deck, where a wedding was in progress. Five hundred people were gathered around a brightly lit blue pool. The bride and groom stood in front of a female minister, reciting modern vows.

  Jack held his gun down at his side as he skirted the perimeter of the pool. The groom caught his eye and gestured with his head to the side of his flower-strewn platform. The bride gave him a snarky look as two cops entered from the main doorway.

  Malic burst back through the crowd, sending a knot of unsuspecting wedding guests splashing and screaming into the pool.

  “Freeze,” Jack ordered, his gun trained on Malic’s kill zone. But Malic, gambling that Jack wouldn’t risk the shot, juked to the right, blasting through the central doors leading to the atrium.

  Jack raced after him. In a matter of a few steps he was right on his heels. Jack leaped and bulldogged his prey to the marble floor.

  Jack’s gun skittered over the edge of the walkway and splashed down into the koi pond four stories below.

  Malic twisted his body around, and Jack hammered his face with a bone-splitter, bouncing his head off the marble floor, a punch that would have taken most men out. Yet Malic answered with a four-inch paring knife he’d grabbed from the kitchen on the run. His muscled arm pistoned upward.

  Jack caught his wrist with his left hand, stopping the honed steel blade inches from his face. He landed a powerful right to the side of Malic’s head, stunning him. Jack grabbed the knife hand with both of his and, summoning all of his two hundred and thirty pounds, muscled Malic’s hand sideways, bending his arm at an unnatural angle. He pressed farther until a sickening snap occurred. The knife clattered to the marble floor. Jack snatched the weapon as Malic silently keened.

  Jack grabbed the killer by the scruff of his neck, forcing his anguished face to look directly into his eyes. Then he pressed the blade to Malic’s cheek just below his eye socket.

  “I could kill you right now,” Jack said with dangerous calm, breaking the skin and drawing a drop of blood, “but then you’d win. You’d be dead, but you’d take me with you.”

  “Do it,” Malic said, his voice gravel, his eyes taunting.

  “Not on your life.”

  Jack pulled the knife away and pushed himself up on stiff legs. The two uniformed police officers came running in from the pool deck as Nick Aprea stepped off the elevator.

  Nick holstered his weapon as he looked at the unnatural angle of Malic’s broken arm, his lifeless hand, and his face, which was devoid of color.

  “How in the hell am I gonna cuff him, Bertolino?”

  “By the neck works for me.”

  Nick let out a grim laugh and let the two uniforms deal with Malic until an EMT arrived. He’d have a police escort to the hospital and then on to Central Jail. They heard one of the cops reading him his Miranda rights as they started to walk away. Nick pulled up short.

  “So, your friend,” he kind of blurted.

  “Who?” Jack said.

  “You know . . .”

  “Who?”

  “Your bud,” Nick said.

  “Mateo?”

  Jack knew where this was headed and let Nick swing in the breeze.

  “What?” he repeated, suppressing a grin.

  “He did good,” Nick said low.

  “I must be going deaf. What?”

  “Fuck you, Bertolino. Your guy did okay.”

  “Rogues’ gallery my ass, Aprea.”

  Jack laughed and Nick turned beet red.

  “I think this is yours, wiseguy,” Nick said as he grabbed Jack’s gun from the small of his back.

  Nick handed the Glock, handle first, to his friend, and both men watched as pond water drained out of the barrel of Jack’s favorite weapon.

  49

  The press conference the next day turned a PR nightmare for the mayor into a law-and-order triumph. The headlines read, A MONSTER IN OUR MIDST and HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT.

  A sex slavery ring had been broken up, a killer brought to justice, and a treasure trove of priceless Iraqi artifacts would be returned to the National Museum of Iraq. The president of France called the mayor personally to thank him as soon as word leaked that the masterpiece La Pastorale by Matisse, a national treasure that had been stolen in the Musée d’Art Moderne heist, had been recovered.

  On a political roll, the mayor was thrown softball questions about the honor
he had bestowed on Malic al-Yasiri the night of his arrest. Brighter men than himself had vetted him, the smiling mayor said self-deprecatingly. Mistakes were made, but the greater good was served.

  Nick Aprea was front and center sharing the camera with Gallina, the mayor, the district attorney, and a beaming chief of police. They even paraded Captain Deak Montrose of the Coast Guard up on the stage, extolling the virtues of interagency cooperation. Nick reminded everybody in the room that Jack Bertolino had brought all the forces together.

  The district attorney tried to downplay Jack’s involvement, but Nick was having none of that. Gallina uncharacteristically joined the choir and announced that it was Jack Bertolino who broke the case of the Jane Does and saved the life of Angelica Cardona, who had been kidnapped by the animal Malic al-Yasiri and imprisoned against her will for thirty-eight days.

  The YouTube video had already surfaced, and the image of Angelica being held in a glass cage was enough to set off an international press frenzy. A Hollywood bidding war was in play for Angelica’s life story before the first telecast stopped rolling.

  DEA agent Kenny Ortega led a multiagency, early-morning raid, dismantling the Detroit faction of Malic’s Iraqi gang. It was initiated by information provided by Jack Bertolino, who had come into possession of a handwritten ledger that tied the Los Angeles group to their Detroit relatives. It contained an orderly accounting of drugs and women shipped across state lines, from Los Angeles to Detroit, on a monthly basis.

  Vincent Cardona and Frankie the Man had been arrested, bonded, and released. Their lawyers had been assured that all charges would eventually be dropped after the specifics of the case came to light.

  * * *

  Mateo got word from Chatty Cathy that the Vargas Development Group’s project was moving forward without a hitch. Two A-list investors had stepped forward, offering to replace the tainted money that Malic had pulled from his private reserves.

  Cruz stayed one step beyond police scrutiny, which was just the way he and Jack wanted it. The electrical anomaly that blacked out a four-square-mile section of Orange County had been chalked up to faulty wiring and an act of God.

  Kayla al-Yasiri was in hiding. Her lawyer read a prepared statement on her behalf. “Kayla asks for privacy for herself and her daughter at this time of great emotional distress. She offers sincere condolences and prayers to the victims’ families and begs forgiveness for the sins of her husband.”

  She did make a deal with the district attorney’s office. In exchange for testifying against her husband, the state wouldn’t put a lien on her property.

  * * *

  The wealthy always landed on their feet, Jack thought with some bitterness as he scored the bottom of his last homegrown tomato and dropped it into boiling water for sixty seconds before the requisite ice bath.

  The garlic, onions, and fresh basil were already working their magic, and fifteen minutes later the skinned and seeded pulp was being hand-crushed and added to the pot.

  Jack was starting to relax. The Vicodin and Excedrin had finally caught up with the harsh pain in his back, and Jack decided not to turn a victory into defeat.

  Camera crews were camped out in front of Bruffy’s Tow and the front of his loft building waiting for a glimpse of the “hero.” Jack’s mug had made the national news and CNN and would be fodder for the tabloids for the immediate future. So much for anonymity. All things being equal, he thought he looked pretty good on camera.

  Jack hadn’t tried to contact Leslie. From his point of view, she had chosen sides. She’d become the district attorney’s heavy. Tried to use her personal relationship with Jack to interfere with a righteous bust. And for the worst of reasons, he thought. Politics. Jack understood, he just didn’t like it.

  Almost twenty-four hours had passed and Leslie hadn’t reached out.

  Jack thought about calling her, had picked up the phone more than once, but couldn’t bring himself to dial the number. Best to give it some time, he thought. Let it rest, and then see how it played out.

  Tommy had once called him damaged goods from the aftermath of the divorce, and maybe the label was still apropos.

  Whatever.

  Jack crushed the last ripe tomato and put it on a low simmer. The tomatoes were so sweet they could have been served salted and lightly sautéed, but Jack liked a more complex depth of flavor, and since he was cooking for one, he could do whatever the hell he felt like.

  The only fly in the ointment was Raul Vargas.

  That asshole was sticking in his craw, invading his calm.

  Because of the Rohypnol, Angelica couldn’t remember a thing about the night she was kidnapped after leaving the club. And therefore she couldn’t incriminate Raul.

  There was still no direct linkage tying Raul to the kidnapping or any other illegal enterprise Malic al-Yasiri had been involved in. And Malic wasn’t talking.

  Raul’s cell phone had disappeared the night of his abduction. Plus, he said self-righteously, it wasn’t a crime to take a photo with a cell phone. No one could argue the point.

  No link had been found on Malic’s computer or landline or cell phone. The theory being floated was that he used a dedicated safe phone and destroyed it when things started heating up. The tech squad would tear everything apart in the coming weeks, but as of now, Raul was tanning himself at the Malibu house.

  Jack cracked open a bottle of Benziger. The taste of the rich cabernet and the smell of the sauce infiltrated his mind and teased him away from thoughts of . . . fucking Raul! Jack needed a break, that was all. Nothing a short cruise on his boat couldn’t cure . . . but his fucking boat had been scuttled.

  There was a firm knock on the door, and Jack pulled it open, too quickly, thinking it might be Leslie.

  “Yo, Mr. B.”

  Jack had to laugh. Peter’s black eye had faded to a yellow-green. “Good work with the Matisse,” he said.

  “Yeah, not bad, Mr. B. They say it’s worth ten mil. There might be a reward of some kind. Maybe a trip to Paris.”

  “One can hope.”

  The sheik’s man had started talking before the cuffs came out. When he was finished, a call went out to Kenny Ortega in Florida, and then to his man on the ground in Iraq, Bogdanovich. The fed knocked on Sheik Ibrahim’s door in the early-morning hours and arrested him on the spot. The State Department confiscated his plane at John Wayne Airport and was presently working on extradition papers.

  “Vincent Cardona understands the delicacy of your privacy issues at this moment,” Peter said, “but he was wondering if he could have a few words.”

  “I’m cooking here.”

  “Yeah, smells like Grandma’s gravy. Down at your dock, say a half hour?” Peter turned and headed to the elevator.

  Presumptuous little shit, Jack thought as he took a spoonful of sauce. It burned his lip, but he sucked it down anyway. Then he clicked off the heat and banged a cover onto the pot.

  Jack had made arrangements with Platinum Auto Body earlier in the day. They had finished replacing the door on his Mustang and agreed to let him store it on their property until the feeding frenzy died down.

  Jack jumped the wall at the back of his building, bypassing the paparazzi; picked up his car; and arrived at the marina in the allotted time.

  It felt reassuring to be behind the wheel of his own car, Jack thought as he pulled to a stop behind what looked like a brand-new Lincoln Town Car. The windows had been blacked out but couldn’t hide the outline of Frankie the Man in the driver’s seat. Frankie powered down his window and gave Jack a thumbs-up.

  Jack walked past Peter, who was standing sentry; keyed the lock on the chain-link fence; and looked down on the lone figure of Vincent Cardona, sitting in a director’s chair he had probably “borrowed” from a neighbor’s yacht. He was smoking a cigar, staring at Jack’s empty slip. A second chair had been placed next to the big m
an.

  Jack grabbed the seat.

  The two men sat in silence.

  A nice breeze was blowing, a few sailboats drifted by, a flock of seagulls mocked no one in particular. It was springtime-perfect in Marina del Rey.

  “I was gonna buy you a real boat,” Cardona said, breaking the silence, “but I thought better. I’m honoring our deal.”

  Jack took that in, not knowing how to respond.

  “There was some reward money I promised after talking to that prick Gallina. I figure, your men, no reason to punish them.”

  “I could live with that,” Jack said.

  “Big of you.”

  Jack flashed anger.

  “I’m just sayin’, good for you.” Vincent Cardona sounded tired, like a weight had been lifted and not a minute too soon.

  “You’ve got quite a daughter,” Jack said finally.

  “You’re tellin’ me. Been through the wringer. She’ll do all right.”

  Jack didn’t look at Cardona, but in his peripheral vision it looked like he was swiping at his eyes.

  “Very thankful, she is. And me.”

  Jack accepted the thanks with a nod.

  Cardona pulled a butcher-paper-wrapped package from below his chair. “Have some steaks.”

  Jack thought about Raul hanging from the meat hooks next to four sides of beef and gave his stomach an involuntary pat.

  As if Cardona could read his thoughts, he smiled and lifted his heft out of the chair. “That’s aged meat, don’t throw it out.” The two men appraised each other for the first time since Jack had arrived at the dock. “There’s something special wrapped inside.”

  Vincent Cardona took a long pull of the cigar, nodded his head, and walked up the dock, a little lighter on his feet. He stopped and turned at the gate.

  “Oh, Jack, that little contractual issue you had with the Mexicans. It’s over. Finito. Enjoy your life.”

  Cardona pushed through the chain-link gate, nodded at Peter, and stepped onto dry land. Frankie the Man, with one arm in a sling, moved to open the car door for his boss, but Vincent Cardona waved him off. He opened the rear door himself.