“Everything looks good,” Mack said, his eyes still on me.
I read his demeanor, his tone, and asked, “With one exception, right?”
“Ah, yeah, that’s right,” Mack said.
“What’s wrong?” Bruno asked.
Barbara also watched my expression.
I broke eye contact with Mack and looked at my nephew. “I can only guess, but with all the cops involved, someone’s sure to recognize me. So what my good friend here is trying to say is that I have to stay in the car when we get there.”
Mack nodded.
Bruno shook the Crown Royal bag, anxious to get moving, anxious to get his children back. “Is that a problem, Uncle? I don’t see that as a problem.”
“Oh, it’s not as far as I’m concerned.” I looked from my nephew back to Mack. “This wouldn’t also be because you don’t want me involved in the takedown, would it? This is my grandniece and nephew who are in jeopardy here.”
Barbara smirked. “Bruno, every time you take a hand in something like this, the odds of someone getting shot, run over, or beat to within an inch of their life increases exponentially.”
“Hey, come on, that’s not true at all.” My mind spun back on past capers to offer up an example and couldn’t find even one that didn’t fit her description. “Dad always said you lay down with dogs, you’re gonna get fleas.”
“Bruno?” Barbara said.
“Okay, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, right?” I said. I held up my hand to stop them before they could answer in protest. “I have no problem sitting this one out.”
It hurt to say it, but the look in Marie’s eyes not ten minutes before, when she asked that I not burn down the world, carried too much weight.
Burn down the world, of all things. I never for a moment thought of it that way. When you dealt with violent suspects, what did people think would happen?
My Marie should take up writing like my brother, with those kinds of exaggerations. Burn down the world.
“Gimme the rest of it,” I said. “The intel you got from the surveillance notes.”
Mack looked at my nephew and hesitated, then said, “The task force has video of some of the midlevel guys chauffeuring around two kids. They treated them like their own kids, so they didn’t think anything about it. Taking them to McDonald’s, the park, that sort of thing. We’ll need you to ID the kids in the video, later on for the case prosecution. They also have audio on a conversation with Brodie talking in code. The task force now believes, after finding out the kids were kidnapped, the code links Brodie to these kids. Now they can take the whole top end of the organization down. That is, once we recover the kids and make the arrests.”
“Did they take the kids back and forth to any one residence in particular?” I asked. “Did they see Noble?”
“They took them to a motel in Inglewood, by Hollywood Park. No sign of Noble, but it’s only been about four hours since the accident when they grabbed him. They’re gonna have him in a safe house. Once we take everyone down, someone will roll and tell us where he is. You know how that works. With that much time hanging over their heads, they always roll.”
The way Mack talked about the kids—again more his tone than anything else—hit a wrong note with me. I knew Mack too well. “What’s going on? What’s happened?”
Mack visibly squirmed a little.
“Spill it, Mack.”
“Okay, okay, once I told them about what we had going on—”
I cut him off. “Ah, hell, they shortcut it, didn’t they?”
“What?” my nephew asked. “What’s going on?”
I looked at my nephew. “You don’t need a search warrant if there’s an exigent circumstance, and kidnapping’s the very definition of exigent circumstance.”
I looked back at Mack for confirmation.
“Yeah,” he said, “the team tried to shortcut this thing to avoid the hostage exchange, and came up empty.”
“Ah, shit,” I said. “You’ve got to be kiddin’ me.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
“OKAY, I DON’T understand, we’re still going to the pier right?” my nephew asked.
“Yes, you are. Gimme your car keys.”
He didn’t argue and handed over his keys. “It’s that beat-up gray Toyota Corolla, right over there. Where are you going? What’s the matter? Tell me what’s going on.”
“The task force got greedy,” I said. “They wanted to close their case the fast, simple way. They jumped the gun and hit the motel. They came up empty and didn’t get the kids. Now that crazy woman with her sniper knows the cops are onto her. That’s information they didn’t have before. They’re gonna change up their game based on that information.”
“How do you know that?”
I started walking toward the Toyota. “Because given the same information, that’s what I’d do.”
He followed along with Mack and Barbara in tow. “You still haven’t told me where you’re going.”
I stopped. “You have to play this thing out. You have to go to the pier just like the plan and show yourself.” I looked at Mack. “You have your own counter-snipers set up, right?”
He nodded. “Trust me, we’re good.”
“This is really bullshit, Mack, and you know it.” I took a step over, poked him in the chest. “You better take good care of my nephew.”
Barbara shoved in between us and stuck her own finger up in my face. “Don’t you dare talk to him like that.”
I took a breath and tried to calm down. “I’m sorry, you’re right. I’m sorry, Mack. You’re not the one that screwed this up.”
“Uncle, where are you going?”
“To get your children back.”
“I’m going with you.”
“No, kid, you can’t, you have to play this thing out. These people have to see you on the pier. It’ll give me the time I’ll need.”
I turned to Mack. “I need a gun.”
Before Mack could reply, Bruno reached behind and pulled a blue-steel automatic from his rear waistband. “Take mine.”
I took it from him. “After this is over, we’re gonna talk about your illegal gun possession.” The gun, a Sig Sauer model 226, fit in my hand like an old friend, the same as a hammer would a carpenter. I pulled the mag and checked the slide to make sure a round sat in the chamber. I picked my shirt up and stuck it in my waist-band, the metal cold against my belly.
“See what I mean,” Barbara said. “No good’s going to come from you having that gun.”
Barbara leaned up and kissed Mack on the cheek. “I’m going with Bruno.”
“What? Just like that, you jump ship?”
“If something happens to him,” she said, “do you want to be the one to have to tell Marie about it?”
“You’re right. Go.”
Barbara and I headed for the car, with Mack and my nephew close behind, going to another car.
Mack said, “Keep in touch by cell.”
Barbara grabbed my sleeve. “Come on, let’s take mine.” I veered toward the Honda and tossed Bruno’s keys back to him.
“Not the Honda, this one.” She keyed the fob, and the door locks popped on the black Dodge Charger.
I went around the other side and said over the top of the car, “Now, see, I would’ve thought you’d be driving—”
“I never took you for being gender biased. This is my car, so get over yourself.” She got in and started it up. “Where we goin’?”
“Head toward Inglewood.”
I punched an address—913 South Prairie Avenue, Inglewood—into the onboard GPS.
Barbara watched as she drove, and she drove fast. The big engine rumbled. “What’s that address have to do with this?”
“When I first talked with these people, they tried to set this location as the place for the hostage exchange. Then I changed it to the pier to take away some of their advantage.”
“What makes you think this location’s gonna have anything to d
o with it now?”
“Two things. First, Mack said the task force followed these guys to a motel in Inglewood by Hollywood Park. Look …” I pointed at the GPS screen “Hollywood Park isn’t that far from this address.”
“Okay, and second?”
“The woman I spoke to on the pier came off as a solid professional, ice cold, and a psycho for sure, but still in complete control at all times. I don’t think she was bluffing about anything. She said she had us all covered with a sniper.”
“So then you think this location isn’t where the kids are, but it’s a location close enough to the kids and close enough to cover the exchange in the parking lot with a sniper, right?”
“It’s just an educated guess. Robby would call it a WAG.”
Invoking Robby’s name around Barbara didn’t sit right. It came attached with a big dollop of guilt.
“Yeah,” she said, “It’s definitely a wild-ass guess, but I’ll buy it. What else do we got?” She put her foot on the accelerator and the muscle car shoved me back in the seat.
“We’ll have to get there and find this place before the meet on the pier goes down,” she said. “What do you think’s going to happen at the pier? Why do you think the kids will be at this place in Inglewood and not at the pier?”
“Like I said, it’s just a hunch. If I were in their shoes, and knew the cops hit the motel I used to be in, then I’d also know that the cops were going to be all over the meet at the pier. They won’t risk taking the kids there. The kids are evidence that proves kidnapping.”
“So you think they’re going to go through with the meet because, why?”
“They might not show at all. Or they just might lay back and see how the game plays out, how many cops and what kind of cops—county, state, or federal. Information is king, and these guys really know how to use it to their benefit. They have their ace in the hole. They have Noble, who can give them the diamonds, if they push him to push his son. That’s what I think’s gonna happen if we don’t get lucky and find this place first. That’s the only reason why I think Noble’s still alive.”
* * *
Thirty minutes later, we drove past Hollywood Park, or at least where Hollywood Park used to be. I couldn’t believe it; the racetrack, a large part of history in the Los Angeles area for the last seventy-five years, no longer existed. I moved to Central America for a couple of years and the world kept on moving along, continuing to evolve, stopping for no one and destroying historical landmarks.
Many years ago, in happier times, Dad took Noble and me to Hollywood Park to watch the horses run. Dad knew a guy who’d let us in through the paddock. A wondrous time of family and friendship, and chili dogs with onion rings and chocolate malts. I’d never lose those great memories, even if the racetrack had disappeared.
I’d also, after my childhood visit, returned once, later in life, chasing the murderer Dewayne Simpkins. Robby and I traced him to the racetrack, where he liked to burn money betting on the ponies—money he attained selling rock cocaine as a midlevel dealer.
“What happened to the track?”
“Boy, you’ve been out of touch. They closed it and mowed it down. There’s going to be houses, a shopping center, and a park. Two hundred and sixty acres of prime real estate. They’re going to leave the casino, though, and renovate it.
“Remember that night Robby shot Simpkins right there at the track? Right in the middle of the crowd, no concern at all for his backdrop. Jesus, what a dick. Remember that one?”
“Yes, I do.”
She let her eyes leave the road to look over. “That’s right, you were there.” She looked back. “That night, Robby celebrated, drank too much tequila, cooked shark steaks on the barbeque. He always cooked shark steaks after a kill. You weren’t there that night at that barbeque. And you were always there, at least for most of those shark nights.” She paused, checked the road, and said, “Some of those shark nights were yours.” She looked from the road back to me, expecting a reaction.
I didn’t oblige her.
“You wanna know what he said that night?” she asked. “He said, ‘I gunned that poor slob Simpkins. He died in a dead heat. Dead from the heat, get it?’ The bastard actually laughed at his own stupid joke over the death of a human being.” She shivered. “What a fool I was. What the hell was I thinking? What does that say about me staying so long with that callous, cynical son of a bitch?”
Barbara was obviously dealing with her own ghosts.
I didn’t want to defend Robby, not to Barbara. I wanted the conversation just to die all on its own. But that night at Hollywood Park, Simpkins got the drop on me right in the middle of all the folks waiting in the lines at the windows to make their last-minute bets. Simpkins felt no moral obligation for innocent bystanders.
Simpkins grew up in my neighborhood, a bully for sure, but we’d played together just the same.
That night, I spotted him first. He recognized me, knew I’d joined up with the cops. Knew I’d come looking for him for the brutal murder of his girlfriend. I froze for just a second. Not long, just for one second, enough time to remember in a flash our childhood together, the warm days on the swings and then later on the basketball courts. I hesitated long enough for him to grin and pull his gun. I didn’t drop the hammer on him, Robby did. Even so, I still felt obligated to make the notification to his parents, one of the hardest things I’d ever done. No shark for me that night.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
“LOOK,” BARBARA SAID. “913 Prairie Avenue is a 7-Eleven. They wanted to make the meet in that shopping center parking lot, right? That wouldn’t have been my first choice.”
I came out of my funk. “Take a left here on Arbor Vitae. Look, right there, that two-story apartment building, the Langston Arms. Those two-story apartments look right down into the 7-Eleven parking lot at what, about four or five hundred feet away? Those apartments are going to be where they’d have watched the exchange, from that high point, that position of advantage. I don’t see anything else close that fits the bill. Yeah, that’s going to be it.
“Go down, turn around, come back up, and park on Prairie. We’ll walk in.” She didn’t comment or complain, an ex-felon telling a chief what to do. We parked on Prairie and walked back. I stopped and checked out the back of The Langston. Up top, on the second story in the back, looked like the bedrooms for the units cantilevered over the parking stalls. The stalls were numbered for each apartment, starting with 101. The two hundreds for the upstairs must be around the front. I stopped and looked back down Prairie to get my bearings.
“What?” Barbara asked.
“This is it. Now I’m sure of it. The Lennox Sheriff Station is less than two miles from here. And these guys are smart and would know that if we had to, we’d check every hotel and motel in the area. An apartment is a great idea. It’s close to where my nephew Bruno works at Lennox Station, if they wanted to keep a closer eye on him. Yeah, this is it.” I adjusted the gun in my belt under my shirt, the metal warmed now, making the weapon a part of me.
We went around to the front. The place looked like an old motel converted to small apartments. Tall wrought iron surrounded the front with two openings for the occupants and visitors to enter and exit. An exterior walkway for the second floor ran the length of the building, with the front doors looking down on the parking area.
“What a great defensive position,” Barbara said. “I see what you mean. How are we going to handle it?”
“You’re the chief of police, you call the play.”
“Don’t yank on my dick, Bruno. I’m a desk jockey. It’s been years since I played on the street. Throw me out some options here. You’ve had to have run into something like this in the past.”
“I have, and they didn’t turn out as well as they should’ve.”
“Shark for dinner?”
“Yeah.”
Not so many months ago, Barbara went with me to a door to recover three children—Eddie Crane, Elena Cortez, Sandy
Williams—and Marie, who were held against their will. I kicked the door and got a chest-load of buckshot for my trouble. Laid me out flat, knocked the wind out me. The body armor saved my life. The FBI agent with us went next and fell to multiple gunshot wounds. He never made it across the threshold. Barbara, third in our entry stick, did not hesitate. She stepped right into the kill zone and continued to advance as she fired, taking out the suspect, Jonas Mabry. She should’ve been awarded the medal of valor for her actions, but as chief, the citizens expected nothing less.
No way did she qualify as merely a desk jockey. She possessed that innate street sense that great cops take years to hone to a fine edge. I’d go through a door with her anytime.
“I got an idea,” I said. “Come on.” I led the way to the end unit. Over the door, a cheap metal sign read “The Manager.”
Overhead, a naked yellow bulb illuminated us. I knocked. I didn’t have to tell Barbara; she got out her flat badge wallet and had it ready. The door opened. The manager stood back in the shadow created by the rusted-out screen door. “Yeah?” the woman said.
“Police, ma’am. Can we come in and talk with you?”
“Hell, no.” She slammed the wood door.
I pulled open the screen.
“Bruno, don’t.”
I tried the knob. It turned. I barged in.
“Bruno!”
The rail-thin woman had a mop of gray hair. She was dressed in men’s pants and a blouse that hung off her boney frame. She backed up, her eyes large. “Wait, wait. You’re not cops. Cops don’t act like that. I’m calling the real cops right now.” She recovered some of her moxie and headed to the old rotary-dial phone on the end table next to her recliner.
I took two long steps over to her, grabbed the phone from her hand, and slammed it down. “Sit.” I used two fingers pressed to her forehead to ease her into the recliner.
“You can’t do this. I’m reporting you.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “I’ll even dial the phone for you after we’re done with our business here.”
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