“All I know about her is that she’s buried in a cemetery in Hollywood.”
“That’s right.”
“I know this is personal, but I need to know what happened and when?”
He looked away from me and out the windshield. “She had a heart attack while she was swimming. She drowned.”
“Then that’s where your father is. Take me to the pool where she drowned.”
“That doesn’t make—”
“Bruno, trust me, drive.”
Bruno drove south and followed all the rules of the road. He left me alone to think, so I could recheck my facts to see if they fit. And they did. They all did.
After fifteen minutes, I pulled the Sig from under my shirt, popped the mag, and counted the rounds left. I’d fired two into Don the Don Brodie; that left thirteen in the magazine. Should be enough, but maybe not. Not with three experienced Los Angeles County Sheriff’s detectives to deal with.
“You going to tell me what’s going on?” Bruno asked as he exited the freeway. I hadn’t been paying any attention to his route or where he’d ended up.
“What are we going to do?” he asked.
“Burn down the world.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
BRUNO DROVE US right to Baldwin Hills, a district of Los Angeles that people called the Black Beverly Hills. The houses resembled estates, with big rolling front yards and Southern mansion designs. If you didn’t know any better, a person might think he’d accidently driven into Beverly Hills.
“Don’t go into the driveway,” I said. “Park and we’ll walk up like we did at Brodie’s.”
He slid up to a curb and shut her down. “Now tell me what we’re doing here? Willy is a friend of the family. I’ve been here with the kids and Mom, swimming in his pool. If you think it was murder, it wasn’t. Mom had a bad heart. She was taking nitro for it.”
“I have to ask you an important question.”
“All right.”
“Do you trust me?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“This is real important now. Do you trust me more then you trust Willy Jessup?”
This time he hesitated.
“You better stay in the car.” I pulled the door handle and bailed out of the car.
He followed me around the back to the trunk. I held out my hand for the car keys. He gave them to me.
“This is crazy,” he said. “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m trying to say Willy is not who he says he is. Willy is a cold-blooded killer who has been batting your mother around for the last twenty-five years.”
“What?”
“I’m only guessing, but it only makes sense. Papa Dee disappeared twenty-five years ago with the diamonds. Your father went to prison over killing two of Papa’s thugs outside a Stop and Go store.”
“Yeah, you did that. You arrested him. We talked about that already. And maybe with you talking smack like this, I don’t forgive you anymore.”
“Listen, I’m only guessing, but it stands to reason, with Papa Dee missing his diamonds and his dope, he went to the Department of Justice and they put him in the witness protection program. They did this because he threatened them that he’d expose the Iran-Contra deal. They gave him some plastic surgery, which they’ve been known to do, and the arrogant bastard left the program and came right back to the place he grew up. Tried to go legit. He knew the people, what they wanted, and ran for office and won.”
Under the streetlight, my nephew’s eyes went out of focus as his mind played back all this new information, checking for holes.
I reached into the trunk and pulled out an Ithaca Deer Slayer 12-gauge shotgun Barbara kept in a zippered gun bag.
“So you think Jessup drowned my mom and had his cronies with the county cover it up.”
“That’s what makes the most sense.”
“My dad loved my mom more than anything. So he figured it the same way and wrote the book to let everyone know about what happened to remind everyone about the coke and the diamonds.”
“No, he wrote the book to get twelve thousand dollars, the price of one diamond. And the cost to have it engraved with a serial number.”
The information all fell into place for my nephew. He grabbed the shotgun from me, gritting his teeth. “We talk to Jessup first. If he admits it, I get to shoot him.”
Not such a good idea, not one I could condone. Bruno didn’t need to have a body hit the floor by his gun, not at his age. Not if he could avoid it.
I reached in the trunk and unzipped the second zippered bag and took out an H&K MP5 nine-millimeter submachine gun. I stuck the magazine in and racked it. “You don’t shoot anyone, and I mean absolutely no one, unless he is shooting at you first, you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Promise me. And remember, you said you don’t lie.”
“I promise.”
“Let’s go.” I eased the trunk deck down until it latched. Bruno racked the shotgun and led the way.
“Remember, there are three of them. They’re deputies, and they are very good at what they do, so watch yourself.”
Bruno kept walking, staying in the shadows along the edge of the sidewalk, and said nothing. He guided us into the driveway of the huge mansion, the kind a sports figure would own. Three cars sat under the portico by the front door. Bruno went on past the front entrance and around the north side. The walkway turned even darker as the shrubs closed in.
A yellow light bulb shrouded in opaque glass illuminated the side door and surrounding area. Bruno bent over and picked up a faux rock.
From inside the rock, he pulled out a key. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Let me go first.”
He hesitated and then nodded.
I unlocked the door. The quiet little click sounded like a snare drum. I pushed the door open and went in with the MP5 in the lead.
Soft music massaged the air, Etta James’s lyrical voice smoothing out the night.
We passed through the laundry room quickly and into the expansive kitchen, one large enough to service a restaurant. Soft talking came from the next room, the living room. I hung the MP5 around my neck from a team sling and eased down two of the copper-bottomed pots that hung over the center island.
I kicked off my shoes. Bruno didn’t have to be told; he followed suit. The big shotgun in his hands was incongruent with his innocence. Marie’s voice in my head kept saying, This is a bad idea, Bruno.
I shuffled over in my socks to the edge of the kitchen with my back to the wall. I did a quick peek and came back. In that brief glimpse I caught it all. My brother sat duct taped to a chair, his face beat to shit. Willy Jessup sat in a huge red velvet easy chair, holding court. Two of the thug detectives who’d bum-rushed our hotel room stood by my brother’s chair. Both the men held items of torture: a phone book to beat him with and a half-empty bottle of coke to shoot up his nose.
I eased back and whispered to Bruno. The soft music covered our movement.
“Listen,” I said, “we’re missing one, the guy in the blue suit, the leader. He may not be here at all, but we can’t chance it. You’re going to bat cleanup. You’re going to stay right here and don’t come in no matter what, you understand? No matter what. You come in only when that guy in the blue suit shows himself, you understand? It’s our asses if you don’t do it exactly like I say.”
He nodded.
I moved back to the edge, took two deep breaths. I tossed the pots long and hard. They landed on the tiled hall that led to the back of the house. They clattered and banged. I stepped out into the living room.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
THE TWO DETECTIVES, experienced over the years in violent confrontations, saw me first and started to move. I fired the MP5 above their heads into the large mirror over the mantel. Glass shards went everywhere. They bunched their shoulders, ducked their heads, and raised their hands.
“Nobody move,” I said.
I hoped the five rounds I’d put in the mirror would
smoke out Blue Suit. I moved into the living room in my stocking feet. “Put your hands on your head. Do it now.”
They complied.
Willy Jessup, aka Papa Dee, chuckled, “Oh, look, it’s a nigger Rambo.”
I pointed the gun at him. “Shut up. You’d better shut up, or I will shoot you right where you sit.”
He held up his hand. “Come in, come in, join the party. You coming here saves me the trouble of tracking you down.”
Tracking me down? Was that where Blue Suit was—out looking for me? Looking for us? Was Marie still safe? I needed to call her. Mack was tied up at a different hospital, too busy to care about Marie’s safety.
“You.” I pointed my gun at one of the deputies. “You have a knife? Cut my brother loose, do it now.”
Cotton-top, Papa Dee, chuckled again. “They’re not going to do anything unless I tell them to. Come on in and sit—”
I shot one deputy in both legs. He went to the floor, screaming. I pointed the gun at the one still standing, his hands high in the air, his expression one of abject fear. He complied and sawed the duct tape holding Noble’s hands and then he went down on his knees to cut his legs loose.
Noble pulled the tape off his mouth. “Behind you!”
“Game’s over, asshole.”
I whipped around.
Too late.
Blue Suit, now dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt, came into the room behind Bruno with a gun to the back of my nephew’s head.
Papa Dee laughed. “I tried to tell you that—”
I turned the MP5 and shot him in the chest with a burst of five rounds. He slumped over dead.
Blue Suit froze, his expression stunned.
Noble, his face swollen from all the abuse he’d taken, yelled at me, “You son of a bitch. You son of a bitch. I had to do that. Me. Not you. Not you. Me. He killed my Sasha.”
I ignored my brother, who picked up a gun from the downed deputy and held it on the other one. I turned my gun back on Blue Suit, who still hid behind my nephew, his gun held tight in Bruno’s ear. “What are we going to do?”
Blue Suit said, “You’re going to tell me you don’t care what happens to your nephew?” He pulled the hammer back on his gun, a large semiautomatic. A pound-and-a-half trigger pull was all that remained from a bullet plowing into my nephew’s head. I raised the MP5. The memory of what happened not hours ago, returned vivid and clear. Barbara, in this exact situation, showed the balls and took the shot. Rebecca was not her child. Bruno was my nephew.
Out of my peripheral vision, Noble, too weak over his stabbing, the loss of blood, and the beating, wilted to the floor. I yelled at the deputy, “Don’t you move, you hear me?”
I held the gun pointed low on my nephew. I didn’t want to spook Blue Suit. “Bruno?” I said.
“Yes, Uncle.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes, Uncle. Do what you have to do.”
I looked at Blue Suit. “I’ll trade you my nephew for nine million dollars in diamonds.”
From the floor behind me, Noble said in a weak voice. “No, Bruno, don’t. Don’t do this.”
Blue Suit must’ve thought Noble meant not to give up the diamonds.
Blue Suit said, “You have the diamonds? How do I know you have the diamonds?”
“Tell him, Nephew.”
“My father told me where they were buried. I dug them up from under our porch. From under our porch on Nord Street. They were in a purple Crown Royal bag in a rusted-out Folgers can.”
“I’m calling bullshit on this. You could’ve had this story all set up in advance. Drop your weapon, now.”
“Show ’em, Nephew.” I said.
Bruno said, “I’m going to reach into my pocket, okay?”
“Move slow. And you better not come out with any type of weapon.”
My nephew came out with a fist. He held it away from his body and slowly opened his hand. The diamond’s facets caught the light and sparkled.
Blue Suit took his eyes off me and looked at the diamond.
I raised the MP5 the last few inches and shot Blue Suit right in the eye.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
I HELD THE door to the rental, another Cadillac—an Escalade this time—and with the other hand, helped my pregnant wife from the wheelchair into the front seat. I thanked the attendant, ran around, and got in. I leaned over and gave Marie a kiss and a long hug. While in the hospital, I worried the law would figure the play and come and arrest us. Now, moving in the SUV, I could breathe a lot easier.
I started up and headed for Centinela Hospital to visit Barbara Wicks—soon to be Mrs. John Mack—before Marie and I left for the Mexican border. The cops wouldn’t be looking for us there and we had our fake IDs. I wore an expensive wig, a Dodgers ball cap and sunglasses.
Two weeks had passed since the night Papa Dee went down. The media put their own spin on it:
Supervisor Willy Jessup was brutally and without motivation gunned down in his own living room. Three of Supervisor Jessup’s personal protection unit, detectives from Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Crime Impact Team, were shot trying to defend him. One died at the scene. The other two are rumored to be in line to receive the medal of valor.
* * *
John Mack said that he knew whose ear to whisper in. No way would an injustice like that happen. All the cops in three states were looking for my brother Noble. They wouldn’t take him alive, not with Brodie shot and killed in a posh Beverly Hills hotel, along with a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy and a county board of supervisor dead. They’d blame it all on Noble, a real easy scapegoat.
“It’s going to be nice to see Barbara and Mack again,” Marie said. She held my hand and squeezed it. In her free hand she held a package, gift wrapped with transparent white tissue paper. A book dropped off for Marie by an unknown admirer. The book, A Noble Sacrifice, by Johnny Noble. By tacit agreement we knew the book came from Noble and possibly contained his signature and even a nice note.
“Yeah, maybe. But I don’t think she’s going to be too happy to see me.”
“Ah, come on, Bruno, what did you do this time?”
The day after the shooting, I’d told Marie what had happened, just not who pulled what trigger and on whom. She didn’t need to have that information. Emotionally and legally, it wasn’t a good idea. At least, that’s the argument I used to explain my position to Noble and Bruno when I dropped them off at a safe motel up the coast on the night of the shooting. Noble had been mad that I’d cheated him out of shooting the man who’d killed his Sasha. He didn’t say a word to me the whole drive. I couldn’t blame him. He’d been planning all along to shoot Jessup, aka Papa Dee, ever since he found out Sasha died in Papa Dee’s pool, the victim of an accident.
Eighteen months ago Sasha had visited Noble in prison. She told Noble everything. Wept. Told him that she had continued her relationship with Papa Dee after he got out of witness protection. While Noble was in prison. She hadn’t wanted to; she absolutely hated the man. Papa Dee could be very persuasive. And to top it off, she was pregnant and alone. What Sasha didn’t tell Noble was that the child wasn’t his. She didn’t have to. Noble saw the bruises on Sasha, watched his child as he grew, saw the resemblance to Papa Dee. A secret right in front of him, one he didn’t want to see. So when Noble heard about the accident, he knew what had happened. It wasn’t hard to guess, especially since it had happened eighteen months ago right after she visited him, told him about Papa Dee. Sasha married Noble during his life prison term. They had conjugal visits, safe and secure. Then she went back to the brutality of Papa Dee. What a horrible dual life.
I’d like to think Sasha didn’t want to be with Papa Dee, that he forced her. Having a child with someone like Papa Dee would create an unholy alliance. Papa Dee and Sasha must have argued yet again and like before, when he’d beat and broke her arm, the argument turned violent. This time Papa Dee killed her. He made it look like an accidental drowning. For Noble, eighte
en months was a long time to hold a grudge.
He wrote a book, an accomplishment in itself, and got it published in order to set his plan in motion. I truly admired my little brother for his discipline and determination.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure Barbara’s gonna be a little mad.”
“Tell me.”
“I used a gun from her trunk that could be traced back to her and would open up a lot of questions she couldn’t answer, so I dropped it in the ocean.”
“That’s not that bad, is it?”
“It was a machine gun. All police departments have to register their automatic weapons with ATF, and she’s going to have to report it stolen. She’s the chief of police and she has to report that she lost a machine gun.”
“Yikes.”
“Exactly.”
We rode for a while longer.
“Do you think Noble has all of those diamonds?”
“No, I told you he sold his book to get the twelve thousand dollars to buy the one diamond to make Brodie believe he had them so Brodie would pull some strings to get him out. The whole plan took a turn Noble hadn’t figured on.”
“But isn’t there some way he could have the diamonds?”
I thought about it for a minute. “Well, based on what Noble wrote in the book, he could’ve followed Del in the shot-up Cadillac and relieved Papa Dee of the diamonds after Del crashed into the telephone pole. Not likely, though. Papa Dee would’ve had to be incapacitated or he would have fought Noble to the death over those diamonds. And if Papa Dee was incapacitated, he wasn’t in the car when the cops arrived, so Noble would’ve had to help Papa Dee get away. Nah, no chance.”
“So you’re saying Papa Dee, who changed his appearance and his name to Willy Jessup, had the diamonds all along and bought that huge house in Baldwin Hills.”
“Yep, it’s the only thing that makes sense.” I didn’t want to tell her the rest, that I thought my nephew Bruno, really wasn’t my nephew at all.
We rode in silence for a while.
“It’s going to be good to get back to the kids, isn’t it?” she said.
“Yes, it is.”
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