Ludo nodded. “Mom, you going to bed anytime soon?”
“Naw. I want to clean this then I’m going to watch a bit of TV. The hospital hasn’t called. Guess they don’t have any news on your brother, Cavan.”
“Please don’t call him that.”
She finally looked up at me. “You’re right. We’ll just call him Jackson.” She bent her head again.
We kissed her goodnight and went to our room. In spite of all the stress and tension, we reached for each other and began ripping clothes off before we’d even shut the door. Ludo unleashed a host of growls that never failed to turn me on as he hunkered over me on our bed. He licked my face, then kissed his way down my body. His eyes seemed to ignite as he got to my cock. He began to suck me furiously and my body went into instant rapture.
I don’t know why, but I thought of the stone wolves at Venice Beach and mentioned that the big gray one had vanished.
He came off my cock and frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Felicity told me.”
He shifted away from me.
“It’s worse than I thought,” he muttered. He began to get dressed. He winced as he stuffed his cock into his black boxer briefs.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
His expression turned bleak. “I’ll be back,” he said. “You need sleep.” He glanced at the door. “Call Dina in the morning and ask her to stay with Mom tomorrow. I know our girl can take care of herself but I want the cabal to know she has protection.”
“Shit. You’re not coming back until—when?” My cock was still hard, and damned anxious for him.
“Put that away,” he said, giving my cock a predatory smirk. “We have time for that later.”
“Do we?” I asked. We exchanged warring glances.
“Of course.” He stroked my cock a few times, then pulled back. He was already beginning to shift. His whole body vibrated with a strange, hypnotic shimmering light when his wolf side claimed him.
I lay back on the bed and thumped the mattress as I heard the front door open and close. Me and my big mouth. I glanced at the window. The blinds were down but I could see the moonlight through the green bamboo slats. I walked over to the window and raised the blinds. Where had he gone tearing off to?
I was exhausted, torn between trying to coax myself to sleep because I needed it and what I called my “office mind” that insisted I should make better use of my time. I’d come off a long double shift and whilst my division had a damned good track record, we had our share of crazies.
I reached across the bed for my laptop and fired it up. I checked our crime ledger. As I’d suspected, the full moon had brought out the madness in some folks. Three current reports. My brother’s attack was on the ledger but no details had been recorded. Instead I saw a note: Press conference scheduled for 11A.M. at Cedars-Sinai.
Great. How typical of Veo. Any chance, any old cause in a storm to get his mug on camera.
I read the other two public reports listed. A bicyclist had been severely injured in a hit and run. Our division’s patrol units were looking for the vehicle that struck the man.
We’d also had a drug addict tottering along Sunset Boulevard weaving between moving vehicles. When a patrol unit tried to rescue him he pulled a knife on them. He was now sobering up fast in a jail cell.
There was another case that intrigued me. It was mine. This one had not been publicly announced since we were still developing our data. It had been assigned to me and my partner. Theft was probably the West Los Angeles Police Division’s biggest problem and this one was a beaut. Our safe zone reputation had become tainted by the strange case of a well-dressed young woman who kept approaching people parking in a well-defined area between Santa Monica Boulevard to the south, Sunset Boulevard to the north, San Vicente to the east and Barrington to the west.
Her MO was the same each and every time. She wore a suit and high heels. So far the reports were that she wore one of two suits—a red one and a pink one. She was always immaculate and clean, her blonde hair beautifully coiffed. She always held a Prada purse in her hands and she’d approach people emerging from their cars, pointing to her own. She would tell them she’d locked herself out of her car and needed to get AAA to come and help her. She’d always act nice and polite saying she’d used up her allotment of calls to the car service agency but they’d come and slim jim her window for twenty dollars. Could the person she approached help her out?
With AAA calls limited to two a year for most people, not many offered her the use of their own club service call. The few who did were rebuffed. It was obvious she wanted money. Some people have given it to her…and there was the problem. A few trusting souls—or were they stupid?—believed her promises to send them a check to their PO box or whatever. Of course she never did.
Others reported that they would see her “working” the same block and not recognizing them. She has hit up some people more than once.
The latest twist in this elegant panhandler case was that we’d been receiving numerous complaints about her. Some people had bought into her “dilemma,” giving her a few bucks toward an AAA call. They’d then spot her calmly opening the door to her late-model black Honda Civic and getting inside once she thought the coast was clear. Our residents were suffering from donor fatigue and, as one pointed out to me, when was the last time any of us went to the grocery store without being accosted to give money, buy Girl Scout Cookies or sign a petition?
The elegant panhandler had stepped up her efforts in the last two weeks. Many callers to our division called her aggressive and some used the word relentless. My partner and I had talked to many people, including store owners who believed she was homeless and living in her car. We didn’t have the Honda’s license plate though…so Erik and I had made discrete sweeps of the streets but so far hadn’t spotted her.
I turned off the computer and eyed my cell phone. I supposed I should call the hospital and check on my brother, but if there had been news they would have called me. I put my arm around the empty space usually occupied by Ludo. Working hard to sleep, my mind wouldn’t quit. I opened up my laptop again. All of the computer games I’d downloaded were time management ones…stressful. That wouldn’t work. Too much like a real job. I e-waddled over to Twitter and read some funny posts.
ted@itsrealted had tweeted: I wish I could sleep…but my damn a.d.d kicks in & well basically.1 sheep, 2 sheep, cow, turtle, duck, ol McDonald had a farm…hey macarena
That made me laugh out loud. Dang. I must have needed it. I lay back against the pillow remembering my own attempts at dancing the macarena. I’d been with Vince then and he loved to dance.
Now he was stalking me.
I turned over again. Good thoughts chased by chaotic ones…until I gave up on the idea of sleep. It was four A.M. I got up, pondered taking a run, but chose to take a long, hot shower instead. I contemplated playing with my doo-dah but that was no fun these days without Ludo. I was so tense and I knew it was because of him. I would die if anything happened to him. Beyond my desire for a relationship with him was my utter concern for his well-being.
Since he’d come to live with us, he’d never taken off before. Not like this. We even ran together. He had been acting antsy and upset for sure…but this…
What if I never saw him again?
I had to quit panicking. I changed into jeans and a V-neck sweater and made coffee, sipping a cup in the silence of the kitchen. It felt weird not to have Ludo fussing over my lack of breakfast. And not getting a blow job. He was big on giving me a blow job before I went to work. Pain filled my heart. I couldn’t stand the images now taking shape in my mind of Ludo being ambushed…tortured…hurt.
Worse.
I slapped a second cup of coffee into a thermos. I had a car filled with thermoses containing coffee I never got around to drinking…today would be an exception. I needed the caffeine. I left a note for Mom, sent my sister a text asking her to come over and take care of her and walked outsid
e.
It was still dark since it was a little before five so I didn’t spot it at first. I felt it. I swear. It was a stone wolf. Sitting to the right of the two short steps as I trotted down the walkway. I stopped, turned, almost doing a pirouette and stared. No mistaking it.
A wolf.
What the…?
I kept staring at the wolf. No mistaking it. The creature sat like a dog…a guard dog, actually. I walked back to it and touched it. Stone all right, but it was warm. It was an odd sensation as if the animal waited to pounce into action. I checked up and down the street but saw no cars I didn’t recognize and caught no sign of movement. I returned my attention to the wolf and tried to lift it. It was impossible. It was as if it was cemented to the walkway.
This is weird.
I stepped back and looked around the wolf. It seemed similar to the ones that decorated the Venice Beach gallery. I checked my watch. I could make it there in twenty minutes. It was stupid…crazy…but no crazier than being in love with a cursed werewolf…somehow one of the stone wolves had left the gallery and come to my house.
Why?
At Ludo’s request?
Was it Ludo?
I whispered his name to the statue. Of course there was no response. I bent to take a closer look and saw a glimmer of red in the wolf’s eyes. I shook my head. Felicity had told me a big gray wolf had gone missing from the Venice building. This was a small white wolf…well, smallish. I took a photo with my cell phone, jumped into my car and drove to the beach.
On the way, I listened to the radio. No news on the man found at the house in the hills. There was bigger news. Yet another wacko had gone mad, shooting sixteen people in a church.
I swerved off the freeway on Washington Boulevard and through the beach community’s fog layer, focused on my drive west to the ocean. The streets were almost empty, giving them an eerie feeling. In an hour, they’d be bedlam. Pure and utter chaos. I made a left on Speedway, parked, and walked the last few feet to the gallery.
Was I shocked? It’s hard to honestly say how I felt when I looked up and saw that each and every last wolf was…
Gone.
Chapter Five
To prove to myself that I wasn’t crazy, I took photos of the building’s exterior. It was so strange to see it without the wolves. Yes, there was a sensible explanation…maybe, but what if there wasn’t? I’d check the online images and call the gallery’s owner at a more reasonable hour.
It was close to six by the time I got back to my neck of the woods so I decided to stop at McDonalds and get myself a pancake breakfast. The drive-thru at the restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard was closed due to some voice-over system glitch, according to the hand-written sign posted on the black box beside the ordering menu. I grumbled and groaned and pulled into the parking lot. The restaurant had just opened and was doing brisk business already.
I was halfway across the parking lot when a black Honda almost mowed me down. The driver was wearing a pink jacket. She was blonde. I shook my head, mentally slapping myself. It couldn’t be the elegant panhandler. Lots of women wore pink jackets and drove Honda Civics.
She parked and trotted into the restaurant right behind me. I glimpsed her reflection in the glass door as I joined the line at the counter. She dovetailed into the women’s restroom with a small bag and…holy cow, a red suit over her arm. I blinked.
When I reached the counter I got chatty with the food server.
“The lady in the pink suit…she just went to the restroom…do you know her?” I asked.
She kind of rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Last of the big spenders. She comes here every morning, washes herself…practically has a bath in there, changes her clothes…” She leaned closer to me and I got blasted by her bad morning breath. “She even washes her smalls in there. Then she buys herself a small coffee and maybe a breakfast sandwich. She’s all about the dollar menu, that one.”
Bingo…this had to be our woman. I kept my expression black. “Why do you put up with her?” I asked.
The woman’s irritated expression faltered. “She’s homeless. They took her kid away from her a few weeks ago. We feel sorry for her. We all know she’s trying to hang on to her job.”
I nodded. That tallied with the reports that she’d gotten more aggressive with her panhandling in the last couple of weeks. I grabbed my pancakes and tray and walked outside. I took note of her vehicle registration number. I took a photo of her car then returned to the restaurant. I ate my pancakes at a table where I could keep my eye on the restroom, the counter line and also the exterior of the restaurant. She was in the can for almost half an hour.
When she emerged, she eyed the line. There were two now and neither moved. She didn’t skip a beat. She walked right outside, the pink suit over her arm, her bag over her shoulder and some wet garments in her left hand kept at a discrete, low angle.
I dumped my now empty food packet into the garbage bin by the door, then slid the tray on a rack on top with a few others already there. Outside, I saw the elegant panhandler putting her sopping garments onto hangers, which she positioned on hooks in the backseat. She drove off. I followed. I needed to be at work.
As I passed her near Barrington I made an executive decision to report my findings to Veo and to get the woman some help. By all accounts she was making good money panhandling. She also had a job…and no overhead apart from her vehicle. Where was the money going and why had she lost her kid?
At the station I parked in the lot. It was creepy to see the Porsche that had followed me, Veo, and Ludo the previous night in the police lot. Two crime scene techs were going over the vehicle, the trunk raised.
I gave them a friendly wave and walked inside the station. Veo was already there getting makeup applied in his office for his press conference later that morning. Oh, brother. He was ready for his close up, Mr. DeMille.
“We found blood stains in the trunk of the Porsche,” he told me as swung around in his office chair, forcing the makeup artist to scurry to his other side with her big, fluffy brush. “We’re sending them to the state crime lab.” He frowned and suddenly stopped swinging. Yep. He definitely couldn’t walk and chew gum…
“What have you found out about the activities at the house?” he asked. “You were going to find me some names.”
“I have one name, sir. So far. Cornelius Teru.”
“Who he?” God, which was more obnoxious, Veo being Veo or Veo trying to be hip?
“He’s apparently involved in this…cabal. They round up men to fight one another…and um…” Deep breath. “Dogs. Sort of the opposite of dog fighting. The men are used as bait.”
Veo nodded. “We have reports of dog hair…actually wolf hair is what the hospital is telling me, all over your brother’s clothing. He has a couple of bite marks, too, but these were not what’s put him in the shape we found him in. The torture inflicted on him was done by human hand.”
He leaned forward, elbows on desk, staring up at me. The makeup artist backed off and waited for him to finish with me.
“What else you got?”
“Nothing that can be revealed to the media, sir.”
He stared at me. “Nothing?”
I shook my head. “It would compromise our investigation, sir.”
He didn’t blink, didn’t move a muscle. He seemed to be giving it his full thought, or perhaps he was weighing which was his best camera side.
“Stacey, can you give us a few minutes, please?”
“Sure,” she said. She picked up her purse, leaving her makeup kit on his desk. She walked out of the office with a vaguely hostile glance in my direction.
“What have you got?” he asked me.
“Ludo gave me the name Cornelius Teru. He’s an apparently violent, sadistic man who recruited what he calls fuerte, that’s Spanish for strong men, to fight for him in these underground matches.”
“Against…wolves?”
I shook my head. “If you recall, Ludo was found with wolf hai
rs on him…but he was traumatized and has no memory of wolves. But Teru obviously has access to them.”
“We get wolves in California,” Veo said in a musing tone, “though I would imagine these are captive wolves, bred for fighting. I wonder just how big this…cabal is. How frequent these fights are.”
“That’s a good point. I might have a way of finding out. My mother got a visit from my estranged brother some months ago. He asked her for money. We haven’t heard from Jackson for years, but she gave him forty thousand dollars. He signed off on it, agreeing that this would be his share of any inheritance he might expect from her.”
Veo was staring at me so I went on. There was a knock at the door. It was Erik.
“Okay to let him in?” Veo asked.
“He knows everything,” I replied.
Veo blinked, a trace of rebuke in his features, but he gestured to Erik to enter. He walked in, gave me a small, tight smile. I knew him well enough to figure out he was tired. Both tired and worried.
We brought him up to speed on what we’d already discussed and I went on. “My mother gave Jackson the money. He told her he was opening up a security firm. She said he was very excited about it. I’d like to investigate this angle.”
“You think he was hiring tough guys for fights?”
Veo wasn’t as dumb as he looked.
“Yes.” As he nodded, I went on. “That’s not all. He’s been following me. I have footage from next door of him putting tracers on my vehicle. Two of them. I’m pretty certain he’s after Ludo.”
“Why?”
Before I could respond, he said, “Ah…the one that got away.”
“That’s my thought.”
“Where’s Ludo now?”
“I have no idea. Haven’t seen him since late last night.”
“Is he okay?” Veo seemed concerned.
“Sir, I don’t know. I sure hope so.” I glanced at Erik. “I’d like to follow up. I know this is irregular since Jackson is my half-brother, but I am not emotionally invested in his well-being. I’m sorry to sound crass, but it’s the truth. I do care that somebody hurt him and inflicted an awful, sustained torture on him. Because whoever did it, will do it again.”
Savage Page 6