“I know one person who should have connected both those names. Someone who hated them,” he said aloud. “Rydell Price and Glenn Finch. Even if not those two, Tanya’s death should have made the association.”
Trent nodded. He’d figured it out too. “Yeah. And he’s on the goddamn task force.”
12
Several hours later, Silk managed to escape his friends. It wasn’t lost on him that he was running from a new life of plenty straight back toward the old, lonely desolation, in quite the opposite direction to the way he should, but his heart held sway when it came to the old days. It always would. Even Jenny had called twice, something she never did when he was on a case, but right now he didn’t feel like calling her back.
He’d made his decision.
As the day slowly waned, Silk returned to the old haunts. A city within a city, Inglewood was much more than that. In the depths of its turbulent heart beat many more singular identities, each group fighting its way to the fore and either trying to be noticed or just trying to stay ahead. The organizations, good or bad, or just plain existing, did their best to stay apart. Inglewood was one of the toughest parts of LA, frequently namechecked by gangsta rappers. But despite its grittiness it also boasts one of the best art scenes in the city. Galleries were thriving and even international street graffiti artists have made their mark there.
Silk left his car in a secure parking garage and began the journey on foot. After so many years of absence he was amazed at what he recognized. On the outside, Inglewood had been spruced up, old facades and dour features renovated. But on the inside nothing had changed. Even the old graffiti, he saw; a rusty, rattling fire escape; a battered dumpster. And the faces. The individuals had changed, but the faces stayed the same.
He moved with purpose. It would be unwise not to. And he carried a gun for the same reason. The place he was going did not forgive the foolish. More than once he stared down a challenge. Darkness began to fill the narrow voids above his head and the spaces between buildings. It melded with the shadows and helped empty the streets. By the time he crossed into his old neighborhood, night had fallen and he had picked up at least two shadows that weren’t natural.
“Eddie Coleman,” he said, stopping and moving out into the road. “I need to speak with him.”
Three figures materialized out of the darkness. “Watchoo want wit’ him?” one spoke up. Another hissed, “Eddie who?” at the same time.
Silk faced them, arms by his sides. “Eddie Coleman. Runs the Sunseteers. My old boss.”
The three looked him up and down. One said, “You run wit’ de gang?” as another again hissed, “What Sunseteers?” in perfect sync.
“Guys, you have to get those routines up to scratch. Take me to Eddie and I’ll make up your quotas for the day.” Silk rustled his pockets.
The figures went still. “We done jus’ gonna take dat shit from y’ now, whitey.”
“Maybe.” Silk shrugged, sensing the knife edge of danger. “But not without some pain. I did once run with the gang. And do you really want to hurt a friend of Eddie’s?”
They stopped as one. Silk discerned little difference in the way they were dressed, though their accents revealed their racial disparities. The third man, wearing a thick bobble hat low over his eyebrows, had yet to speak.
“Do we have a deal?” Silk pressed, thinking of some unknown killer sitting at home, having so far gotten away with viciously ending the life of an amazing woman, maybe even plotting the next.
“Not exactly.” A knife blade can flash, even in the dark. Silk saw it uncovered now, reflected by a hundred empty windows.
But the man in the bobble hat held up a hand. “You one lucky dude, you know that?” He removed the hat, letting Silk catch a glimpse of grizzled old features.
“Do I know you?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But I remember you, Silk, or the boy you were. I guess you’d remember me better if I still had the axe in my hand.”
Now Silk grinned. By axe the old timer meant guitar. “ZZ pot.” He laughed. “Wow, of course I remember you. Those awful old tunes used to keep me up all night.”
“Far as I recall that din’ seem to bother you and that cute little girl o’yours.” ZZ walked into the road now, holding out a hand. “You sure lucky, dude,” he repeated. “These pair of lowlife’s woulda gutted you.”
Silk inclined his head. “That’s sort of why I’m here.”
“To be gutted?”
“Nah. To see Coleman. About Tanya.”
ZZ whistled. “Now I see. Ole Tanya Jazz. Used to flirt with me she did, then steal my quota. Never did mind though.”
“She was special,” Silk managed.
“And now she be dead.” ZZ pointed ahead. “That way, Silk. I’ll come with ya. You two fucks!” He turned back to the darkness. “Get back to work.”
Silk found himself wandering along the white lines, the darkness, silence and company making a thick surreal soup of it all. “How’s work?” Silk thought light-hearted would be best. “Recession hit you at all?”
“Hit everyone,” ZZ grumbled. “Quotas are down everywhere. Coleman though—he’s mellowed. These days he only breaks one bone if ya come in short.”
“Good to hear.” Silk nodded along. “Tell me, ZZ, do you know what happened to Freddie Knott?”
ZZ looked up to the skies, brow wrinkled in thought. “Knott? Wasn’t he the part-time psycho? Type of guy who one day would feed yer bunny and next day eat it?”
“Your memory is gold, old man.”
“Huh. Less of that shit. Tell you one thing, Silk, even after a lifetime of pot I can still riff it out with the best of ‘em. Hendrix. Zeezee. Zeppelin. ACDC. None of that new-fangled pretty-boy crap. Rock is rock when it gets down and dirty and honest, not when it prances around wearing a three-hundred-dollar haircut.”
Silk laughed. Truth be told, he didn’t remember ZZ all that well. He’d tried to forget most of the old days. But he was starting to wish he’d paid just a bit more attention.
“So? Freddie?” he prompted.
“No clue. Probably dead. Probably from falling on his own knife.” The old man directed him down a few more alleyways then stopped, pointing ahead.
“Ya see? Ya remember?”
Silk stared. The old house was nothing more than a rundown abandoned building that Eddie Coleman had made home. To Silk’s knowledge it had never been anything else, though one day some kind of business had surely toiled out of there. Windows were solid shutters. Peeling paint was left to hang. Crumbling walls were purposely designed. But despite all the secrecy Coleman never tried to hide this place. The cops knew all about it. They also knew that he ensured nothing too shady ever went on there. Nothing worth risking a cop’s life for anyway.
“Nothing’s changed. Nothing at all.”
“You really think it woulda?”
“Eddie still in the same office?”
“Yeah. I’ll get you through the door, then you’re on your own.”
“Thanks, ZZ. Say, do you have your quota tonight?”
The homeless never willingly gave up a gift. “Can’t say a bit more wouldn’t help.”
Silk filled his pockets with notes before they reached the house. ZZ pushed ahead and addressed the closed door. “It’s me.”
A rattle of bolts and the thick metal sheet swung open. ZZ motioned and Silk followed, the sense of déjà vu making his head reel. For a moment he almost stopped and asked ZZ to take him to his old room, the one he and Tanya had shared, but then the urgency of his mission made him cast the whim aside.
“All the way,” ZZ waved at a spiral metal staircase, “to the top. And Silk, be cool. Eddie might be a few years older now, but he’s still one dangerous ol’ boy.”
“Understood.” Silk thanked ZZ again then turned away.
The staircase clanged with a hollow sound like death knells, swaying slightly as Silk ascended. At the top he ran into a few guards, told them his name and waited. It didn’t
take long. Presently he was ushered through an unremarkable door.
Eddie Coleman hadn’t altered more than a bit. The master of the house liked to assume a certain character for display—that of a Peter Pan lost-boy-loving benefactor, sharing the fortune and sheltering the weak. Behind closed doors all that changed. Coleman was more like a sniveling scrooge, a man who would bend his own mother’s arms behind her back if she tried to palm a quarter. Blessed with a shrewd wit and businessman’s vision, he was also a harsh bully and always leapt in gleefully to enforce his will, thus earning himself the moniker Bonebreaker.
At least he used to be. Silk hoped he might have changed more than ZZ let on, but as he studied the greasy-haired, stick-thin man bent over his big oak desk like a menacing praying mantis, he saw the same nasty greed present that had always twisted the man’s features.
“Adam Silk?” The voice was whispery, like paper blowing in the breeze.
“Eddie,” Silk said evenly. “Been a while.”
“It has hasn’t it? But then my door is always open to my old . . . associates.”
Silk allowed his gaze to stray. The far side of the room was taken up with Eddie’s little glass-case collection of poisonous creatures: a small black scorpion, a viper and a tarantula. Sometimes, when Eddie got a visit or talked to one of the house ‘guests’ he let the tarantula sit on his desk. The thing didn’t move much, but it certainly helped to crush a visitor’s focus and concentration, making him more compliant. Especially when Eddie casually muttered the immortal line: ‘Didn’t know the damn thing could jump until recently’.
“How’s Traci?”
Eddie glanced toward the cases. “All good, all good.” The hiss was as soft as slowly dripping blood. “You here ‘bout Tanya Jazz?”
“Not just her, Eddie. Rydell Price and Glenn Finch are dead too. I take it the cops haven’t been around yet.”
Eddie didn’t respond to Silk’s statement. A tongue flicked over his thin lips. Silk stared hard to see if it was forked.
“Your old crew? I’d be lying low, Silk, if I was you.”
“Freddie Knott. And idea where he ended up?”
“Krueger Knott?” Eddie’s features twisted into the approximation of a grimace. Knott had been nicknamed Krueger because he enjoyed stabbing things. “I don’t keep tabs on the boys, Silk. Didn’t keep tabs on you.”
“Cops are wondering if the gang’s involved. So are the feds.”
“And you walked right in here by yer lonesome. Brave man.”
“Not really. I don’t think you’re involved. And Tanya’s worth the risk.”
Eddie nodded fast. “Yes, yes. Sure stirred a lot of hearts, that girl.”
“Ever hear of a drug dealer named Jimmy Hansson?”
“All this information,” Eddie said in typical manner. “Don’t come cheap. Watcha got for me?”
“Nothing.” Silk said. “’Cept the forewarning.”
“The feds? I can handle them.”
“Sure. But whoever is killing our people, they’re hurting you too, Eddie. You don’t wanna be in the spotlight.”
“Our people?” Eddie’s lazily lifted glance, his deep-set eyes, as hard and unfathomable as moon rock, portrayed cynicism.
“Always.” Silk shook his head with defiance. “I know where I came from.”
Eddie watched him for a few moments longer then seemed to come to some kind of decision. He turned his back on Silk and stepped over to the far corner of the room, staring down at his pets.
“Knott lives over in Sun Valley these days. Don’t ask me where, I don’t know. Prob’ly changed his name by now. You leave this area, doesn’t matter where you go. Might as well be Mexico. We ain’t keeping track. I never heard of a Jimmy Hansson. As for Rydell and Finch, well that ain’t no loss. Rydell couldn’t blink without being high on something and Finch, well y’know—not the brightest lad. As for Tanya Jazz . . .”
Eddie turned around now, fixing Silk with a challenging gaze. “She was special. I knew that. She prob’ly the reason you alive today, my man. So get out. And find out who killed her.”
Silk felt his face relax. Eddie had just come about as close as he was ever going to get to an honest affirmation. The master of the house did care, at least sometimes.
“Thanks, Eddie. I’ll do that. And let you know.”
Eddie spoke as Silk turned away. “Don’t bother. I’ll know anyway.”
*
Trent breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Silk exit the rundown house. Though they’d tailed their friend cunningly through the streets, once Silk had entered his old master’s lair they couldn’t follow. At least, not straight away. Trent had decided to wait it out. As he and Radford stole through the dark they saw no signs of the FBI. Collins had told them she’d be checking Eddie Coleman and his gang of thieves out, but maybe something else had come up. Trent remembered the agency days too well—being pulled from pillar to post between cases and operatives and never having enough time to devote the proper attention to any of them.
When Silk walked free, Trent sent his gaze toward Radford. The other man was barely visible in the dark and crouched with his shoulder right up against a crumbling dumpster. They were so quiet even the scrabbling rats thought they’d left.
“Don’t like the way he did this alone,” Radford whispered. “After all these years I thought better of him.”
Trent shook his head. “It’s not that. He isn’t excluding us on purpose, Dan. He has to. This is his past, the good and bad of it all, and too personal to share. We shouldn’t intrude.”
“But we can look out for him.”
Trent left the hiding place first, treading warily. “Always.”
*
Claire Collins also watched Silk leave the old house, and then Trent and Radford sneak along after him. Despite herself, she had to smile. Those guys were priceless; old schoolers without being too old, absolute professionals content to break the rules. The agency must have been crazy to cut them loose.
Or desperate.
She shifted slightly, the noise echoing through the empty rubbish-strewn room. Her window overlooked Coleman’s place. The FBI had set up surveillance earlier, but Collins had allowed Silk to get there first, knowing and hoping that the old child-thief might extract more information from Eddie Coleman than an entire team of federal interrogators ever would. Yes, she was using her own asset in the field, but didn’t think he’d mind all that much. Silk was a bullet headed right toward the target; there would be no stopping him. She just hoped he didn’t get too banged up along the way.
She glanced down at her cell, lying on the dusty floor by her knees. With a swift movement she jabbed the call button.
Silk answered immediately. A man desperate for information always did. “Who’s this?”
“Your FBI liaison. What did you learn from Coleman?”
Silk sighed. “I get it now. You let me go in first.”
“Finally beginning to realize you’re not the best anymore, eh?”
“The game’s not where my head’s at right now.”
Collins considered revealing that Trent and Radford had also been there, but decided against it. Her best option would be to not cause or create friction between the three men. Let them work it out for themselves.
“Well?”
“Yeah, right.” Silk repeated all that Eddie Coleman had told him. Collins reviewed the information quickly.
“Shit. We’re no closer.”
“I don’t think you’ll get any more out of Eddie.”
“I’m sure you’re right. But the purpose of our visit isn’t entirely about Tanya Jassman. These occasional visits also serve to remind people like Coleman who’s the real boss.”
“Sure.” Silk remembered the visits from Reggie Rosenthal. Still, Agent Collins wasn’t at all like the vindictive old cop. “He knows you’re coming.”
“Thanks,” Collins returned drily.
“Is there anything else?”
“Just thi
s. And I want you to put your hurt and your skepticism aside for one minute, Adam. I want you to take this in. You got me?”
Silk bowed under the demanding tones. This was Collins in pure work mode. “What?”
“Don’t give me what, just listen. You’re a target, Silk. You hear me? A target. Stop being a macho son of a bitch and understand.”
“I’m not being macho.” It wasn’t in Silk’s make up.
“Then you’re being a plain fucking idiot. Protect yourself. You might be next.”
Collins ended the call, letting the mask slip only when she was sure no one could see or hear her.
Why the hell do I care so much?
13
Silk threaded his way through the black-veiled streets of LA, avoiding the glittering thoroughfares as he wended his way back toward the Hills. The events of the night slid and twisted through his thoughts like poisonous snakes searching for somewhere to nest. Eddie had appeared blissfully unaware that three of his former gang members had been murdered. That wasn’t entirely suspect; the man didn’t give a shit about nine tenths of the people he sheltered, only that they met their quota every day. And once you were out, you might as well be dead to these people. Most of the memories were very short term. Only lifers like old ZZ remembered individuals and occurrences older than the previous week.
The fact that Collins had used him was of some interest. It proved that she could think outside the box and, whilst not approving of their methods, at least saw that they worked. His respect for her had risen several notches.
A red stoplight brought him to a halt. Somehow he had to find Freddie Knott over in Sun Valley. He wouldn’t leave it to the FBI, and still didn’t want to get Trent and Radford too involved. There were some deeper revelations they didn’t need to know, and Silk had a nasty feeling that long-buried things were about to be unearthed.
The red glare of the light filled his vision, a warning. He suddenly realized where he was going and what Collins had said.
Protect yourself.
You might be next.
The Disavowed Book 2 - In Harm's Way Page 6