“I paid good money for that.”
I turned. “You bought it on the street. That’s a felony. You wanna be a cop?”
He came over to me. “That’s none of your damn business. Come on, let’s go.”
Out front, he automatically got in the back seat. I drove. I didn’t want to take him with us. The situation didn’t need a hot-head. But I knew better than to try and stop him.
I didn’t have near enough time on the drive to Santa Monica to talk and get to know him. Not like I should. I should’ve already known my nephew.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said. They’ve been waiting for you to get here. The words didn’t make any sense. No matter how I tried to fit them into the puzzle, those words just didn’t make any sense.
CHAPTER THIRTY
MARIE TURNED IN her seat to talk with Bruno. “So, you want to be a deputy sheriff?”
I checked the rearview. Bruno looked out the side window at the passing landscape, not interested in small talk. “Don’t be rude,” I said. “Marie and I are married and she’s your aunt.”
“Ooh,” she said. “Auntie, that sounds strange, doesn’t it?”
I looked in the rearview again. “So you really have no idea why they want me involved in all this?”
He didn’t take his eyes off the passing cars. “No.”
“If they want your father out of prison so badly, why don’t they break him out?”
He moved up in the seat and spoke into my right ear. “Why don’t you tell me the answer to that? You’re their star. You’re the one they’ve been waiting for.”
His warm, wet breath made me uncomfortable. “Sit back, please.”
He complied.
“Tell me,” I said. “Where does this group of coke distributors operate? Do the sheriffs or Feds have any intel on them? Do you know any of their names?”
He turned to look back out the side window. “One, just one. The main guy, he goes by the name of Brodie, Don Brodie. He lives in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel.”
“Where did you find that out?”
“I have friends.”
I stuck my hand out to Marie. “Babe, would you dial Mack and hand me the phone.”
“You’re driving, it’s against the law.” She said it as she dialed and handed the phone to me. I smiled at her cute comment—talking on the phone, a moving violation, an infraction, as compared to all the felonies I’d been a party to.
Mack picked up. “Yeah, Bruno?”
“I need a favor.”
“Really? That’s something new.”
I chuckled. “I know, I’m sorry. Can you run a guy for me, get all the intel you can? His name is Don Brodie, he lives at the Beverly Hills Hotel.”
Mack said nothing.
“Mack?”
“Is this about the thing you have going with your brother?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t say anything else on the phone and we’ll meet someplace.”
“Ah, shit, is it like that?”
“Yeah, it’s like that.”
“Let me call you back.”
“Bruno, don’t go sticking your nose in this until we talk.”
“I understand. Thanks.” I handed the phone to Marie, and she clicked off.
“What did he say?” she asked. Bruno moved up close to hear.
“We’re going to have to meet with him.”
* * *
An hour later we cruised by the pier and then found a spot to dump the rental in a public parking lot. We didn’t know what these criminals looked like, but apparently they had a good handle on what I looked like, so we’d let them make contact.
The sun in the sky moved past noon and started the rest of the journey down to sunset. We stood at the railing overlooking the water and watched the waves roll in, surfers zigzagging across the green faces. Lots of people strolled the beach below, the board-walk, and the pier, all of them enjoying the sunny day. I watched Bruno watch. He kept his back to the railing and faced the pier side, eyeing everyone. I’d tried to talk with him, and he’d have none of it. His thoughts had to be on his children.
An old man in khaki shirt and pants came to the railing about ten feet away and set down a pail half-filled with dead sardines. He wore his floppy beachcomber hat canted to one side, shading his face from the sun, and making it difficult to get a good look at him. He tinkered with his fishing pole, his hands gnarled with arthritis and scarred from years of hard work. I’d grown up watching The Rockford Files and this guy could have doubled as Rocky, Jim Rockford’s dad.
I missed my dad.
Bruno turned to face the water and spoke quietly. “Check out this guy’s shoes.”
I casually looked down. The man wore black lace-up boots, the kind you could buy at any military surplus. Not odd in itself, but he did keep the black leather polished to a high sheen.
I didn’t have time to respond. A woman walked up to us, a brunette with a small nose and pretty green eyes. She wore yellow shorts and a kelly-green blouse tailored tight to her body. One pocket of her shorts bulged with something that might’ve been a small gun. The sheen in her hair glinted in the sun. She looked to be thirty or thirty-five and had the legs of an athletic nineteen-year-old. She held sunglasses in her hand and twirled them. “You’re late,” she said.
Bruno moved in close to her, not a smart move tactically. “Where are my kids?”
I put a hand on his shoulder, waited a long second, then in a low tone said, “Son, let me handle this, please? You’re too emotionally involved.”
“Damn right I’m emotionally involved.” He jerked away from me and held his ground. Marie stepped in between us and took hold of both his hands. “Come on, let’s step over here and let my husband handle this. It’s better that way, trust me.”
He didn’t move at first but then relented. Marie held onto his hand, and they moved down the pier, still watching us.
The woman next to me went up against the rail and faced the water. She put the sunglasses on and looked at me. “Well, are you going to do what we asked?”
“Break my brother out of jail? No way, that’s against the law.”
“Don’t be droll with me. We know your history.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Call us concerned citizens of LA.”
“Concerned about letting a half ton of coke hit the streets?”
She smiled. “You’ve been talking with your brother.”
“What you want is impossible.”
“No, it’s not. Not for a man of your talents.”
The fisherman ten feet away wiggled a dead sardine onto his hook and lowered the line to the water. The dead sardine now returned to its home as a turncoat, to spy and lure his friends to their deaths.
“Noble,” I said to her, “was stabbed this morning. Last I heard he was in surgery and might not make it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THE WOMAN JERKED her glasses off, her smile gone. “What?”
“I guess you’re a little behind on the old information pipeline. What difference does it make if Noble tells me where the coke is while he sits in jail or if he’s out here when he tells you? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, it doesn’t, and it’s not for you to try and figure out. There’s a lot more in play here, big man. Believe me, more than your chick-enshit little part. So do as you’re told and we’ll get along just fine. You don’t, and those kids won’t be the only losers.” She pointed with her sunglasses over at Marie.
My Marie.
I snapped.
Without thinking, I grabbed her by the throat with one hand and shoved her up against the rail. Her eyes bulged. Her mouth made a little “O.” Her hands gripped the rail as her feet came off the wooden pier.
“You will leave my wife out of this, you understand?”
The fisherman put his foot up on the lowest rail and looked down into the water. He spoke loud, almost a yell. “Throw the bitch ove
r, save you a lot of trouble in the future. Trust me, I know.”
He hadn’t been close enough to hear all of our conversation, not in the low tones we’d been talking, and must’ve thought the woman and I had had a little lover’s spat.
Marie started over to us with a concerned expression. I waved her back, still holding on to the crazy extortionist.
“We understand each other?” I asked. I made sure she didn’t try and reach for the object in her pocket by holding onto her other hand.
The woman couldn’t speak and just nodded.
I let her go. Her feet hit the pier. She bent over and coughed and rubbed her throat. “Are you crazy? Are you outta you mind?” Her voice rasped.
“Yes, I am, when it comes to my wife. You had best keep that in mind. Now, tell me why I’m involved. Tell me why this all started now, twenty-five years after the fact? What’s happened to dredge all this mess up?”
She regained her composure and continued to rub her neck as she stared at me. “You lay your dickbeaters on me again, cowboy, and I’ll kill you. Do you understand? I’m the one callin’ the shots here, not you. You play along and you might get the kids back safe.”
I nodded. I knew I wouldn’t get any additional information, but had to try.
For emphasis, she moved in on me, up close, to show she wasn’t afraid of me after I’d taken her to the edge, let her feel her own vulnerability. The woman had grit, or, as Robby Wicks would have said, “Big hairy balls.”
“There’s a guy with a rifle,” she said. “And that black melon of yours is in his sights right now. I could’ve given him the signal to take you out. You do that again, and I’ll do it. I swear to you I will.”
I smiled. “Take it easy, babycakes, we’re just talkin’ here, havin’ a nice easy conversation tryin’ ta get to know each other a little, that’s all. We’re gettin’ the ground rules laid down so we all know where we’re comin’ from.”
“Don’t you ever call me that again. And there’s only one set of ground rules, and those are the ones I give you. You understand?”
“I’m beginning to.”
Her face, red and bloated from the throttling I’d given her, started to return to normal.
“You have two days, just forty-eight hours from right now, to get that swingin’ dick outta jail. Not one minute more, you understand?”
“I understand, but that’s not a lot of time. And even if he makes it through surgery at all, he’s not going to be walking on his own two feet.”
“Again, your problem, not mine. You worked in that same jail, you know its layout, you still have connections there. You can get this done without any problem at all. We have faith in you.”
“Are those the reasons why you brought me into this? Is that really the reason why you forwarded those letters from Tommy Tomkins, sent them on to Noble and my father?”
The smile returned, not a pretty one, more the kind you’d see on a psychopath who’d forgotten to take her meds. “You’re a lot more dangerous than I gave you credit for. Don Brodie told me to watch out for you.”
“The feeling’s mutual.”
I didn’t know that’s what they’d done with the letters and had only made a wild guess.
“Any more questions?” She asked. “Your time’s up.”
“How do I get a hold of you when we do get my brother out?”
“You don’t need to worry about that, we’ll know.”
“Just in case, say we accidently lose you, gimme a number to call.”
She reached into her back pocket and came out with a business card with a phone number and Los Angeles Consolidated Freight and Design embossed on expensive card stock.
“Thanks. My brother’s not in jail, he’s in the jail ward at LCMC. I’ve never worked there.”
“Again, not my problem, bro. Deal with it.”
I nodded. “Okay, then, I’m going to need proof of life.”
“Contrary to what you may think, asshole, we’re not in the business of hurting children. They haven’t been harmed in any way, and they don’t even know they’re being held. They think they’re just staying with some friends because their daddy had to work. They’re so young, they don’t know any better.”
“I’m supposed to believe you?”
She reached into her shorts for the object. I took hold of her wrist.
“Easy, cowboy.”
I held onto her hand in her pocket and stared at her for a moment, then let go.
She brought out a small set of binoculars. “Here, see for yourself. We don’t hurt kids, not if we don’t have to.”
I took the binocs from her. “Where?”
She pointed down the beach. “Two children, down that way, about a hundred yards. They have their shoes off, playing in the sand right at the water’s edge. They’re building a sandcastle with a friend, my friend. My friend’s wearing a pink-and-orange Aloha shirt.”
I found them right away with the glasses. Easy with a shirt that bright and obvious. Only the glasses weren’t strong enough for me to make them out clearly. I wouldn’t have recognized them even if I could. I brought them down and waved to Bruno. He came over. “What?” he asked. He shot the extortionist a scowl.
I handed him the binocs and told him the same information. He shoved up against the rail, in a hurry, extending out as far as he could to get, a few inches closer, perched precariously over the edge.
“Is it them?” I asked. “Can you make them out?”
He nodded. His Adam’s apple rose and fell as he continued to look and swallow hard, swallow down his emotions. The kid didn’t want to cry in front of me.
I looked down the beach and watched without the glasses. Her friend in the Aloha shirt rounded up my grandniece and grandnephew and started across the sand toward the parking area. I had not seen the extortionist beside me give any kind of signal to the guy in the Aloha shirt to make the move. That lent credence to her statement about a sniper. These people came organized and ready.
Dangerous people.
The big downside was that I didn’t think we’d be able to successfully trade Noble, not without giving Noble to them and letting them walk with him. Once they got the information from Noble, they wouldn’t need him anymore. I knew my brother, he’d want to make that kind of sacrifice, make it without a second thought.
Bruno dropped the binocs and ran down the pier, right past the woman, past all the tourists who watched him, as he headed for the beach. He didn’t have a chance on getting there in time. I understood how he felt, how he had to try.
I hurried to catch up to the woman, who’d started walking back to the highway.
“Don’t follow me. Don’t you do it,” she said “You have forty-eight hours, don’t waste a minute of that time.”
“One more question. Only one.”
She stopped.
“Why now?” I asked.
“That’s a dumb question. Ask your brother. He’s the one who wrote this fucked-up playbook.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
WROTE THE PLAYBOOK? A football analogy? Did that mean Noble called the shots, called the plays on this thing?
The extortionist continued on down the pier toward the highway.
Marie caught up to me. She’d stopped and picked up the binoculars from the wooden deck. She took hold of my hand and tugged, halted us. “Don’t follow her. I know her type. She’s one cold-hearted bitch, and she’ll do exactly what she says she’ll do.”
“What kind of playbook?” I asked of no one.
I looked at her. She’d brought the binoculars up to her eyes and was scanning the terrain. She said, “What did she say about your brother? Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“The police, they’re comin’ fast. Someone must’ve called 911 when you choked her. You know, for the record, I wasn’t too keen on my favorite husband when he put his hands on her like that. She’s still a woman.”
“She has a foul mouth, she took our grandniece and grandnephew,
and she said she was going after you next if I didn’t do exactly what she asked.”
“She has a foul mouth? You’re right, next time throttle the bitch.” She smiled.
I took her hand. We had to get off the pier and across the highway before they blocked off our exit. We walked fast and tried not to look out of place. I fought the urge to look down the highway at the approaching cops. “How far away are they?”
“We’re not going to make it in time.”
“Smile and laugh,” I said. I scooped her up, my arm under her legs, and swung her around.
“This is really getting to be a habit,” she said. “I like it.”
She continued to smile and rub my head and kiss me on the lips as I walked to the end of the pier.
Ahead, the extortionist made it to the end just as a cop car screeched up. The female patrol officer jumped out and confronted her. Whoever called 911 must’ve given call intake a description of her kelly-green silk blouse. She stood out. A mistake, a bad one for a professional.
I walked on past the cop talking with the extortionist as I carried my wife. The extortionist wore her sunglasses, smiled, and waved a carefree hand at the patrol officer, pretending to be a good citizen just out enjoying the sunny day, and not some lowlife criminal trying to appropriate, by extortion, a half ton of cocaine.
We crossed the street on the green light. “What about Bruno?” Marie asked.
“He’s a big boy and street smart. He’ll figure it out.”
“This isn’t the way to the car.”
“Look.”
Down the highway, more cars came from both directions. Santa Monica fielded a lot of cops and didn’t leave us an option.
“Set me down, you big lug.”
I set her down. My biceps trembled from curling my wife too many times in the last few hours.
I took her hand.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
I again resisted the urge to look back to see if any of the cops had peeled off to come after us. “We’ll go over here to the Third Street Promenade. It’s an open-air mall. I know this area a little. Me and Robby once chased a murder suspect to this city.”
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