Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Copyright © 2012 by Stephen Blackmoore
ISBN : 978-1-101-56313-7
All Rights Reserved.
Interior illustrations by Sean Phillips.
DAW Book Collectors No. 1572.
DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
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First Printing, January 2012
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Chapter 1
I toss my jacket on the bar, slide onto the red vinyl stool next to Julio. He’s on his sixth drink of the day, and it’s not even noon. Empty shotglasses lie scattered on the bar. Julio’s a tequila man, likes Patrón when he can get it, Cuervo when he can’t. Me, I’m a scotch drinker. I order a Johnny Walker Black, neat.
“The fuck you doin’ here, Joe?” he says, taking a sidelong glance at me through unfocused eyes. Besides the bartender, we’re the only ones here. Henry’s Bar and Grill on Magnolia isn’t the worst in town, but it’s as bad as you’ll find in North Hollywood. Everything’s done up in faux red leather and brass tacks. Looks like Hell if Satan were a lounge singer. Julio’s a regular. If he isn’t out working with me or at home with his wife, Mariel, he’s in here tossing back a few.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” I say. “You were supposed to be at Simon’s last night. You talk to the Italian? You get the stone?”
Simon Patterson’s our boss. Crazy English fucker hired us to break legs, shove hands down garbage disposals. The rest of the body, too, if need be. We’re good at our jobs. He pays us well.
“Yeah,” he says. “I talked to him.”
“And the stone? You got it?”
He shakes his head. Great. No stone, and he’s too fucking drunk to think straight. He gets a thousand-yard stare. After a moment he looks up at me, a plea in his eyes. “I can’t do it, man.”
“Do what?”
He shakes his head. “This,” he says, staring at his hands and arms. He grabs me by the collar, pulls me close. “This is forever, man. This is fucking forever. I can’t do forever. I can’t fucking do it.”
Okay, time to not poke the crazy bear. I ease his hands off me. I look him over. He’s a mess. Bloodshot eyes. Hands shaking. Hasn’t slept. More skittish than I’ve ever seen him. He’s freaked the fuck out, and that scares the shit out of me.
Julio’s the biggest Filipino I know. Six two. As bad-ass as they come. Benches three-fifty, dragon tattoos on his shoulders. Beats the crap out of Samoans for fun. Made the mistake of going a couple rounds with him at the gym, and he laid me out with a concussion and a missing tooth. If Julio’s scared, there’s got to be one hell of a good reason for it.
Last night Simon told him to lean on Sandro Giavetti, Italian guy from Chicago. Hit the wop at his hotel.
“Jesus, man. The fuck happened to you?” I say to Julio.
Week ago, Giavetti comes to Simon looking to buy things that don’t get bought. Has a job to hit a house and get some gemstone.
Anyway, Simon hooks him up with three boys good at B&E and gets a nice fat cut for being a middleman. Thing is, two of them have gone missing, third one’s dead. Blew his brains out night before last. Word is they found a clip’s worth of shell casings, but only one bullet, the one he used to paint his wall.
Normally Simon wouldn’t give a fuck. But then the rumors started up that Simon had something to do with whatever the hell went down. Guy like Simon, he works on reputation. Worth more than gold. He figures Giavetti spread the word around, and now Simon’s got to show him that that shit doesn’t fly.
Julio pours himself another shot, tosses it back like it’s mother’s milk. Stares at his hands. “Look what he did to me.”
I crane my head to look at his hands. I don’t see what the big deal is.
“They look fine, Julio.”
“No, man. They’re not. They’re not my hands. They’re his. They’re his fucking hands.”
I smack him on the back of his head. “Hey. Snap the fuck out of it.”
So Simon sends Julio over to Giavetti’s hotel. Take the old fucker out, walk off with the stone. Fuck knows what Simon wants with it. Principal of the thing, I suppose. Whatever. Point is that Julio was supposed to report back last night and never showed.
My phone chirps at me from my jacket pocket. It’s Simon. “Joe, me old china,” he says, Cockney coming through like he hasn’t spent fifteen years stateside. “You found him?”
“Yeah,” I say. “He’s freaking out. Something happened, but he hasn’t told me what yet.”
“He look all right?”
“He looks like shit,” I say. “I don’t think he’s slept. Drinking early, too.” In fact, he looks worse than he did a minute ago. I do a double take. Yeah, like his face has started to sink in on itself or something.
Julio closes his eyes, folds his hands together. Starts muttering in Tagalog.
“Talked to Giavetti, ain’t he?”
“Yeah, he’s talked to him. Least I think so. He’s acting kinda weird.”
Simon’s voice, urgent now. “He got the stone?”
I glance over at Julio. Christ, I think he’s praying. “No,” I say. “Says he didn’t get it. Look, I think I need to get him outta here.” The bartender’s giving us the stink eye, and if Julio goes bugfuck better he do it in private.
“I need that stone, Joe. I fucking need it, mate. Find out where it is. If he saw Giavetti, he saw the stone. He knows where it is.” Simon’s voice, breathless, high-pitched.
“Jesus, calm down,” I say. “I’ll find out.” Simon can be a real asshole sometimes.
“Julio,” I say. “Simon wants to—-” I jump at the sound of shattering glass. Julio’s grabbed his bottle of Cuervo and smashed it against the bar.
My instinct is to get away, though I can’t believe he’d come at me with it. I roll out of his way anyway, torque my left knee in the process.
Turns out I’m not the guy who needs to worry.
Julio grabs the bartender by the shirt, pulls him in, takes a good, long swipe with the bottle. The guy screams, flailing to get away.
Julio drags the bartender closer, his jaws snapping. Like he wants to rip through the guy’s sternum and chow down on him.
I ignore the pain in my knee and jump at Julio. Hook him in a full nelson and pull him away. N
obody’s fool, the bartender bolts for the back room.
“The fuck are you doing, man?” I yell. Julio’s only answer is to grunt and spit and wave that goddamn busted tequila bottle around.
I try to angle him so I can get him on the floor, but before I can get any real purchase he heaves forward and throws me clear over the bar. I slam into a wall of Wild Turkey and Maker’s Mark, glass shattering around me.
I hit the floor on my torn knee, cut myself on shards of glass. On the other side of the bar Julio’s pacing like a panther on heroin, swinging the bottle. Muttering and growling. Julio’s completely fucking lost it. The hell is he on?
I grab a paring knife behind the bar. It’s only got a three-inch blade but it’s better than nothing. I limp out from behind the bar, grab a stool, keep my distance.
He whirls around, sees me. His muttering turns into a scream and he charges, waving the broken bottle around less like a weapon and more like he just can’t think of anything else to do with it.
Barstool in one hand, paring knife in the other, I feel like a retarded lion tamer.
And just as he’s about to slam into me he stops.
The look in his eyes changes to something I’ve never seen before. Pleading, praying. For a split second Julio’s back. Long enough, it seems, to say good-bye.
He shoves the splintered bottle into his throat, tears a ragged gash from Adam’s apple to jugular, angles it up, and cranks it deep through the back of his throat.
Blood erupts like oil from a derrick. I drop the knife and barstool, frantic. Try to stop the bleeding. I can hear Simon’s tinny voice from my phone on the floor saying, “What? What?” over and over again. I grab bar towels, my jacket, anything that can staunch the blood.
None of it matters. Julio’s eyes roll up into the back of his head. His life bubbles red down the front of his shirt.
Frank Tanaka is smoking at me.
He’s on his third Kool since sitting down across from me in one of the interrogation rooms at the North Hollywood police station on Burbank Boulevard. They did a crappy job with the soundproofing and I can hear the traffic on the 170 Freeway a block away.
I look over at the NO SMOKING sign plastered on the wall. Frank catches my gaze. Blows smoke in my face.
“Suppose you want one,” he says. I do, but we both know he won’t give me one, and I wouldn’t take it anyway.
“Menthols are for pussies.”
Frank Tanaka’s one of those little Japanese guys martial arts students get warned about. He’s small and wiry and I have no doubt he can kick my ass, however much he smokes.
He presses a button on the small recorder sitting between us, tells it the date and time.
“So, Sunday, why’d you kill Julio?”
“Talk to the bartender,” I say for the fifth or sixth time. “He’ll tell you the same thing. Julio killed himself.” By the time the cops got their act together enough to talk to me, it was already four in the afternoon. I’ve managed to clean up a little, but there’s a stickiness on my hands that won’t come off no matter how many times I scrub. My shirt’s caked with Julio’s blood, and my knee’s swollen from where I twisted it at the bar. The damn thing throbs if I look at it funny, ever since I tore it wrestling in high school. These bastards could have given me some Advil.
At least they gave me Band-Aids for the glass cuts on my hands.
“Don’t bullshit me, Sunday.” Frank glares at me, the sleeves of his salmon oxford rolled up to his elbows, his Mr. Miyagi mustache twitching. “Julio Guerrera’s not the kind of guy to kill himself.”
He’s got me there. Four hours ago I would have agreed with him. Hell, I agree with him now. Julio and suicide are not two things that go together.
“I dunno. Couldn’t cover his bets, maybe?”
Frank knows I’m holding something back. He knew Julio almost as well as I did. God knows he’s arrested both of us enough times: suspicion of murder, aggravated assault. Tried to grab me on jaywalking once just to get me in the station. He’s never had enough to make anything stick though.
We go back and forth like this a couple more rounds, as if he thinks repetition’s going to get me to change my story. Then he drops a grenade into the conversation.
“So what’s the deal with Sandro Giavetti?” I almost jump when he says it, but I’ve been in rooms like this since I was selling pot down in Venice twenty years ago, and I’m not about to slip now.
“Sandra? Never heard of her,” I say. “Julio’s wife’s gonna be pissed.”
“I know Julio was with Giavetti last night.”
“Don’t know who you’re talking about.” Frank shuts up and does The Stare. Every cop’s got one. Look hard, say nothing. Most folks will spill their guts just to fill the void and get the conversation going again. I’m not that easy. He’s been using The Stare on me for years.
A minute later there’s a knock, and a uniform sticks her head around the door. “Counsel’s here to see him,” she says. Frank and her glare at each other with a look that screams bad breakup. Lucky me. She ushers one of Simon’s faceless lawyers into the room before Frank can so much as open his mouth.
The man’s got on a gray Armani suit, conspicuous Rolex. His haircut probably cost as much as my shoes. “Detective,” he says. He gives Frank a look like a nun catching a boy in the girls’ bathroom. “Good to see you again.”
“Counselor,” Frank says. He knows he’s got nothing on me. This interview’s over. He stands, pulls a business card from his pocket, scribbles a number on the back, and hands it to me.
“You see anything weird. Anything. Call me.” He walks out the door. Slams it behind him.
“You certainly know how to make friends, don’t you, Mr. Sunday?” the attorney asks. He sits down in front of me, places his calfskin briefcase on the table, pops it open. “Sorry to hear about your associate,” he says with as much emotion as if he’s ordering a sandwich.
“Yeah,” I say. “It sucked.”
Of everything that’s happened today, Frank giving me his card spins me the most. Arrest me one minute, give me his phone number the next. Reminds me of a bad date. I stick it in my jacket pocket just to get it out of my sight.
“Did you kill him?”
“Christ, not you, too.”
He holds his hands out, placating. “Just have to ask,” he says. “I take it that’s a no, then. The bartender gave the same story, after he was sedated enough to stop screaming. Seems to think Mr. Guerrero was trying to eat him or something. We should have you out in no time, considering that you haven’t been formally charged with anything.”
“How long is ‘no time’?” I ask.
He looks behind him at the door. “From here on out it’s just paperwork. But it’ll be easier if we sit here a few minutes. The detective’s pretty pissed.”
Chapter 2
Simon’s got a house north of the Palisades overlooking the ocean and Pacific Coast Highway. The sound of the waves mix with the traffic, a low-grade static that drowns out the noises in my head.
He’s called a meeting here, a place he uses for entertaining D-list Hollywood celebs, producers, the occasional fresh-faced ingénue. He’s behind a lot of money in L.A., though he doesn’t advertise it. You won’t see his name in Variety, and he likes it that way.
Of course, he’s late, but since he’s the boss that means I’m early. I let myself in with a spare key and an alarm code. Julio and I used this place occasionally to regroup after a job, so we always had a key.
Christ. It’s hard to think of Julio in the past tense. I’d headed home after they released me, iced my knee, rebandaged the worst of the cuts. Cleaned myself up. Spent the whole time wondering what I was going to tell Julio’s wife.
Don’t know if the cops will do it, but I know Simon won’t. She’ll be taken care of, though. Simon’s got this thing about loyalty. Once you’re in, you’re in. But no way is he going to talk to her. That’s going to be my job, like it or not.
She won
’t take it well. Julio never told her what he did for a living. She thinks he’s a manager for a construction company in Hollywood. Julio met her back in Manila where she grew up thinking she couldn’t do anything by herself. Still thinks she needs a man around to make things happen. Surprised she gets out of bed when he’s not around.
Julio told me once that she made him feel necessary. Special. I told him it was fucked up.
I called her on the way over to Simon’s. Got the answering machine. Julio’s gravelly voice told me to leave a message, so I did. Started to say that Julio killed himself, but it felt weird telling a dead man’s voice what it should already know. Told Mariel to call me later.
I’m on my fourth Marlboro and third Tecate when the front door opens. Simon I’m expecting, but Danny’s a surprise.
Danny Harrison is Simon’s—hell I don’t know what to call him. Administrative assistant? Foreman? Operational manager?
Bald guy, slick talker. Lots of tattoos. Always wears this goddamn porkpie hat makes him look like an extra in Swingers.
Simon owns a club in Hollywood where he does most of his business. Shakes up the theme of the place every couple nights. Fetish crowd one night, swing dancers another, headbangers when he can squeeze them in. Simon likes to diversify.
Danny runs the club and handles some of the less-than-legal business dealings. A real up-and-comer that Danny. I hear Simon lets him run some prostitution out of there as a sideline.
The times I usually deal with him directly are when I’m picking up a clean gun or Julio and I pull bodyguard duty for Simon at the club.
“Joseph,” Simon says, coming out onto the deck with Danny in tow. “Wasn’t sure if you were going to make it. Danny, get the man a drink.” I raise my beer, and he nods. “Then get me a drink.”
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