Dying For LA

by Ian Jones

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah, I am. I really think it’s him.’

  The door opened and two soldiers walked in. Two Military Police, a man and a woman. The man was the singularly most impressive person that John had ever seen. He was huge, had to duck down through the doorway and his head practically scraped the ceiling as he walked across. But he wasn’t just tall, he was big. Really big. Massive shoulders, they were both wearing short sleeve shirts and his forearms were like John’s thighs. The woman walking next to him was dark and petite, and looked tiny alongside the giant.

  She looked across and spotted them, and tapped the big man on the hand and they headed over. Everyone made room and they sat down opposite each other on the ends. Even seated he still towered over everyone.

  He smiled and introduced himself.

  ‘Hi. I’m Captain Thomas Reed, and this is my sergeant, Louisa Gonzalez.’

  Gonzalez nodded. She was pretty, and carefully made up, but had a pinched, mean expression, while his was open and friendly. He was no older than early thirties. John imagined that for the grunt caught stealing out the stores just the sight of him would immediately bring about a change of mind.

  A waitress scurried over with more coffee, the two soldiers thanked her gratefully.

  They all introduced themselves and Reed looked at John with interest.

  ‘I just been reading some shit about you on the way here. You sure had a career,’ he said with a grin.

  John smiled back, but said nothing.

  ‘So, you know what went down in the subway station on Sunday, and we got a strong connection from that to your man getting gunned down in Hollywood last night. Like very strong, and John here thinks we can maybe place at least one guy in both locations. So, I guess that’s why we are all here, what can you tell us?’ Keane asked.

  Reed laid his massive hands on the table, fingers spread.

  ‘Well, Major Donald Hayter was what we refer to as backroom. He was one of the senior guys in the supply division at Fort Indigo, been there seventeen years, made Major nearly eight of them ago. Now I’ll be honest here, neither me or sergeant Gonzalez had much to do with him. Other than the odd theft occasionally, I never really had a need to go over there. None of us did. So, we don’t really know him. I’ve only been at Indigo six months anyway. I used to see him in the officer’s club, and at various meetings every now and then. But I couldn’t really tell you nothing about him from a personal point of view.’

  He passed over a slim folder.

  ‘Here’s his jacket, what I can tell you anyway, it’s been censored, there ain’t a whole lot in it now, like you’d expect. This is the army after all. But in truth, there ain’t much else to report.’

  John opened it and looked inside. Half a dozen photocopied sheets, top one with a photograph. He scanned through the contents, then looked up at Reed.

  ‘No active service?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Never been in combat. He was fifty-one and the word is he made major because he was at West Point back in the day with General Morgan. Always been in supply, and slow to climb the ladder. He made first Lieutenant, it took him a while, then finally Captain. He was finished at Major, wasn’t going anyplace upward.’

  John continued reading then shuffled the sheets back together and passed the folder around to Judy.

  ‘OK, thanks, but there’s not a lot in there really Captain.’

  ‘Please, call me Tom.’

  ‘OK, Tom. Not a lot there, and I understand that. As you say, you’re the army. But what’s the real story?’

  Reed smiled.

  ‘Ok, so, like I said, I didn’t know him. So I’ve been sniffing around. His father was a big noise Lieutenant General, highly decorated, Korea, Vietnam. A lifer. And Major Hayter followed in his footsteps, got into West Point and I guess that was just because of who his dad was. Graduated second lieutenant and posted to Fort Alice down in Alabama. Started working in supply and that was his career. He found his place and it suited him I guess. He was good friends with General Morgan, and served at a few bases with him. He’s been at Indigo seventeen years. General Morgan was there a while back and then returned five years ago after Afghanistan, and made CO. He’s at the Pentagon now.’

  ‘General Morgan? I’m sure I know that name,’ commented Warner.

  ‘It’s possible, he’s a high flyer. Indigo is infantry, and he is seen as a star tactician in it. To be frank, I’m sure that was true more than ten years ago but I believe him to be a liability. I was with him in Afghanistan. Dangerous. Making decisions without good reason. But that’s my opinion. He glanced at Gonzalez who shot him a warning look in return.

  ‘I’m just saying, is all,’ Reed finished lamely.

  ‘But what about the man himself?’

  ‘OK, well the word is he’s a loner and always has been. He got married just three weeks ago. Bachelor up to then, lived in the barracks. Officer’s quarters. Had a few friends around the base it seems, but not as many as seventeen years would normally make.’

  ‘Yeah, you heard about his wife?’

  ‘I did. Sergeant Gonzalez here broke the news to him.’

  ‘How did that go?’ Judy asked her.

  Gonzalez spoke for the first time. ‘Speaking plainly, as we seem to be, it was strange. He didn’t really react. Just looked at me and started making coffee. They weren’t living together neither. I went to see him at the barracks, soon as we got the news. He was just up, but no sign of anyone else living there, man or woman. I think he seemed real surprised she was in LA.’

  They all looked at each other, digesting the information.

  ‘They married in Vegas,’ Judy said, as if thinking aloud.

  Reed nodded.

  ‘They did, and he had been spending a lot of time there. In like, maybe the last few months, he was up there pretty much every week.’

  ‘That would make sense if he met Deanna, right?’ Judy said.

  ‘OK, so there’s more. I spoke to the couple of guys said to be his buddies. They never met Deanna, knew very little about her. Hayter told them they met at the casino in The Bellagio a few weeks ago.’

  Keane shrugged. ‘So?’

  ‘His buddies went up there with him a couple of times, they were real surprised to hear about The Bellagio, he stayed in a motel on East St. Louis Avenue and hung out at The Stratosphere when they were with him. Never went south at all. They said the motel was a dump, they stayed in the hotel. And it seems that he really met his wife a few weeks before he said he did. Seems she hit on him, but he wasn’t interested. Word is she kept showing up at the hotel. Captain Bryant knew and told them about it, but Major Hayter gave them a different story.’

  John had worked in Vegas a couple of years before, and spent a lot of his time there walking around. The Stratosphere is a long way north of the strip, nearly halfway to Freemont, which is old Vegas.

  ‘Deanna was a stripper in a club just off East Tropicana, down in the south; long way from the Stratosphere. She wouldn’t go wandering in there after her shift,’ Judy told them.

  ‘Well, she was in there looking for him. That’s what Tom’s telling us, no question,’ Warner ventured.

  ‘When was the last time these guys were up in Vegas with him?’ John asked.

  ‘Well, that’s a good question. Not for a while, a couple of months ago they said. But I got the feeling they weren’t real tight with Major Hayter. His only real buddy was with him last night, Captain Bryant.’

  ‘We got him with us right now, we’re talking to him,’ Keane said.

  ‘Right, well he is close, or was, to Hayter, is what I hear. He should be able to tell you more. But there is one thing that’s come out of all this. He owed money all around, ten, twenty bucks here and there, a couple of hundred to one guy.’

  ‘Gambling?’ Warner surmised.

  ‘Yeah I guess so. Vegas and all.’ Reed shook his head.

  ‘Can we get financial records for Major Hayter?’ Keane asked. ‘Wil
l the army allow it? I’m getting them for his wife right now.’

  ‘I can ask. I don’t see why not. He died in a public bar, right?’ Reed looked at Gonzalez who produced a notebook and started writing.

  ‘So, what do we really know about Deanna Hayter?’ Warner asked.

  Judy dug out a file.

  ‘OK, right, thirty-three years old, nee Clark. Born in Henderson, Nevada. Married Donald Hayter at the Happy Chapel on South Las Vegas Boulevard just over three weeks ago. Her address is shown as apartment 11d, Walt Drive, Paradise, Las Vegas, living there for six years. She’s been brought in for soliciting by the South Vegas PD on several occasions, the last one was less than a year ago, never made it to court. She was also indicted for possession of cocaine when she was nineteen. Been a stripper for a while at various places, been working at the Mile High Club for about two years.’

  She pushed a couple of photos across the table. One was a simple black and white mugshot showing a pale woman with greasy hair and dark rings around her eyes staring at the camera, and the other a creased colour photo of two people standing under a white painted wooden arch. Deanna was on the left, wearing a white minidress and a lot of makeup, but looking a million miles better than in the mugshot, her arm around the man on the right, who was bald, plump and pink and wearing a cheap suit. He was a good bit shorter than her, both had wide smiles on their faces.

  ‘Wedding photo. It was in Madeline’s bag.’

  ‘That Hayter?’ Keane asked.

  Reed nodded. ‘Yep, that’s him.’

  John looked closely at the two photos, trying to place the woman to the one he had stood close to on the platform but the truth was he hadn’t taken a lot of notice.

  ‘OK, so, where are we now?’ Warner asked looking around at everyone.

  ‘I think Deanna is the key, has to be something there,’ John replied.

  Judy nodded.

  ‘I agree. Vegas PD have let us have what they got but it doesn’t tell us much about her. I mean why was she in LA on Sunday night anyway? Louisa said she wasn’t living with the major. Maybe he wasn’t expecting her, or maybe he just got back from Vegas and she followed him, I guess we’ll never know.’

  ‘That’s a good point, can we find out if they were together during the day?’ John asked.

  Keane shrugged. ‘Could try I guess, ask around. We can maybe find out when she got into LA, if she drove or got the bus, or even flew. She was at the Metro station.’

  ‘Do we know the last time the major was in Vegas?’ Warner asked.

  ‘I can tell you exactly. He didn’t come back from Vegas on Sunday. He didn’t go anywhere. The last time he left the base was the weekend before last. Signed out at 4.11 Friday afternoon back in at 7.19 on Sunday evening,’ Gonzalez told them.

  ‘Assuming he had been to Vegas, we need to know where he stayed, and if Deanna was with him, and if they were together in LA this weekend,’ Judy said, making copious notes.

  ‘Like I said, he didn’t leave the base,’ repeated Gonzalez.

  ‘Any visitors?’ Keane asked.

  ‘I’ll find out.’

  ‘Vegas,’ Keane said thoughtfully. ‘We got a big question mark there.’

  A mobile phone rang, and as usual everyone automatically checked theirs. Gonzalez produced a beaten-up chunky unit, and answered it. She listened for a while.

  ‘Shit,’ she said, and listened more.

  ‘OK, we’re coming back.’

  She hung up, looked around at everyone then helplessly at Reed.

  ‘Er …’

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure if I should say in the present company. Sir,’ she replied primly.

  ‘Does it concern Major Hayter?’ Reed asked her carefully.

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Then out with it.’

  ‘Right. Well, Major Hayter’s billet has been searched.’

  ‘I know that. It was done this morning. I was there.’

  ‘No sir, I mean as in turned over.’ She glanced around the table, as if worried about what she was saying. ‘As in by a third party. Like the captain says, we went through it first thing. This was done since.’

  ‘Wow,’ Reed said and looked at everyone.

  ‘OK, so how can that happen?’ asked Judy.

  ‘Has to be a soldier, or soldiers. Nobody can just walk into the base, even the cleaners are enlisted men. We need to go, I’ll get back to you as soon as I find out what’s what,’ Reed told them, standing up and squeezing out from the table.

  They watched the two soldiers go.

  ‘What the fuck is going on?’ Warner wondered aloud.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Grand Marshal Yin was half listening to his assistant explaining why the operational costs on a new tank that was being trialled were spiralling out of control when there was a soulful beep from a cupboard in the corner of his office.

  The assistant went quiet and looked at Yin, both men wondering where the noise was coming from.

  Next a whirring sound was heard and Yin realised what it was. He sent the assistant from the room and walked across and opened the cupboard door. Inside was an old fax machine, a technology rarely used these days.

  Yin had kept it because it was occasionally useful for receiving sensitive information, and that is what he was hoping for now.

  Several sheets fed out from the machine and then it went quiet again.

  Yin collected all the paper up, closed the cupboard door and went back to sit at his desk. The temptation was to fan out the sheets but he made himself tidy the stack and then turn them over, so the cover page was visible.

  He read the text and smiled, then went through each sheet, his smile getting bigger and bigger. He read the last page and laughed, long and loud, getting tears in his eyes.

  There was a knock on the door and the assistant opened it, head round the side enquiring if everything was OK.

  ‘Yes. Everything is very ok, very,’ Yin replied, still laughing.

  The assistant withdrew and Yin read through the sheets again. At the bottom of the last page was the eagle wings, crown and crest of the Russian Army. He kissed it and laughed again.

  He stretched and picked up his briefcase, and took out a slim folder from inside. He opened it and placed the sheets of paper reverentially on top of the pages that were already there, and then with equal reverence closed the folder.

  He pressed a button on the desk and still grinning told his assistant to get his wife on the phone, they were eating out tonight.

  ***

  Colonel General Rostov dropped the mobile phone down on the desk and stood up, turning to look out of the window. Snow was falling heavily again, across the street he could see a beggar on the corner, his head and shoulders heaped with it.

  Rostov shook his head and then turned around, picked up the mobile and stood tapping it on his chin and thinking.

  He was running out of time and options, he knew that.

  He should never have trusted the Americans. They fucked everything up. Too busy trying to avoid doing any actual work. He had done all he could, had everything in place, but it had gone wrong.

  They were stupid.

  He didn’t have any idea what he should do next, and this was alien to him. All his life he had succeeded, had never been beaten.

  He looked out the window again, brain whirring.

  Maybe, there was still time. Time to do what he should have done in the first place.

  He looked at the mobile, and then dialled a number from memory, he couldn’t very well save it in the phone.

  There was time, he told himself. It wasn’t too late. Yet.

  ***

  Sitting opposite each other in McDonald’s, Rico was elaborately telling Sal a story about a Mexican girl he had met in Washington, and was just getting to the good part when he saw the other man jump and his eyes widen. He desperately nodded out the window at Rico, who turned to see what it was that was so disturbing. />
  Yann Voorhees was walking down the pavement looking in at them, his bulk moving like a huge tanker among the sea of people who were hurrying on their way to wherever they needed to be that morning. He stopped and pushed the door open and squeezed his way over to their table.

  ‘You still hungry?’ he asked, looking at the wrappers strewn across it.

  Both men shook their heads.

  ‘Coffee then?’

  Both men nodded.

  Voorhees turned and walked across to the counter, oblivious to the stares he was getting. Rico shrugged inwardly. Fat man in McDonald’s. Go figure.

  The two men just sat there in stunned silence, until Voorhees came back with a tray loaded with food and coffee cups.

  Rico looked at the plastic seats, no way would Voorhees fit, but the big man perched on the end of a bench next to them, making the family already sitting there move over. He delicately unwrapped a sausage muffin and took a bite.

  ‘I’m starving,’ he said. ‘Busy out there right?’ He nodded his head back toward the streets outside the window and took a drink of coffee.

  Rico and Sal added milk and sugar to theirs and took a mouthful. This was surreal, not only had they never seen Voorhees set even a toe outside of the apartment now he was sitting here as large as life, actually a whole lot larger, casual and comfortable, making small talk.

  He finished the muffin and took another.

  ‘Eat. Please,’ he told them.

  Sal cautiously took a muffin off the tray so Rico did too, and all three men unwrapped them and ate.

  ‘Thanks Yann,’ Rico said when he finished.

  Voorhees raised a hand.

  ‘Not a problem. I came here to tell you Sal is quite correct.’

  Sal spluttered while drinking his coffee and had a coughing fit.

  Voorhees watched him solemnly, Rico wondered if he should bang Sal on the back, but he calmed down and apologised. Voorhees shook his big head patiently.

  ‘Yes Sal, you are right. Karl Weiss was an asshole. I knew it when I was told he would be joining us. It was obvious just from the description I was given. But, we were shorthanded and when I spoke to him he made all the right noises. He was clever, said what I wanted to hear. He was only seeing dollar signs. And to be frank, I have been distracted by failure. But of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Wonderful. And I knew, when I talked to him, I had misgivings. But I got the call, and we had to act. There was no time to change anything. I had no choice.’