I gave him the number for one of my burner cell phones and knew I’d have to ditch it just as soon as one of the Mongrels called it. The last thing I wanted was the FBI tracing the calls—either mine or his—and realizing we were chatting with each other. I’d be considered guilty until proven innocent if that ever occurred.
Butch stepped to the garage door and hauled on the long loop of chain, rolling it up. His strength surprised me—like a tough, stringy old rooster adept at avoiding the housewife’s hatchet. And it suddenly struck me that Butch would mummify before he’d rot. It was not a pretty image.
The two hulks outside whirled around and made brief, furry eyebrow communication with their boss. Then all three swung their legs over the saddles of their massive choppers and wheeled them out of the service bay.
Beanie helmets and goggles were adjusted. Kick start levers were jumped on, and a massive roar ricocheted inside the concrete walls of Gus’s humble establishment.
They pulled out onto the county road in formation, low and mean, without a backward glance but with a surly confidence that they were leaving the good residents of May County quaking in their boots. Three white bulldog faces glowed in the gloom just above red taillights. Their vibrating rumble was audible long after they’d disappeared from view.
That was it? Butch and his escort had ridden over six hundred miles for a two-minute, one-sided conversation? My spike of adrenaline fizzled, and I was left frowning at the empty intersection.
“You fixed his chain?” I asked.
“Bit of a ruse, that.” Gus stuffed the greasy rag in his back pocket. “Which isn’t to say his bike doesn’t need work. Pile of junk. But when he said those two muscle guys didn’t know anything, I think he was right. In spite of his appearance, I wouldn’t underestimate Butch. You saw his one-percenter patch? He’s not kidding.”
They’d all had diamond-shaped one-percenter patches on their vests. Was that like some kind of truth serum? “Could he possibly have said less for all the gibberish?” I asked.
“Punkin, you need to understand something. That was the opening to negotiations. And you just agreed.” Gus wrapped an arm around my shoulders and snugged me to his side.
His Santa Claus beard tickled my cheek as he spoke. “You’re going to need a spokesperson too—someone to handle your interests. Bargaining between outlaw motorcycle clubs involves either knives and brass knuckles, and sometimes guns and explosives, or pussyfooted gerrymandering that would make the Grand Old Party proud. I’d offer, but I think you need someone more experienced. Can you ask that Josh fellow—Skip’s friend who was fired from the FBI? His rogue reputation would give him some credence with the gang.”
I was having trouble taking it all in. I’d agreed to what? I squinted up at Gus, confusion probably written all over my face.
But he gazed back down at me, unperturbed. He certainly had a stouter constitution than I did, and he’d been entertaining those freaks all afternoon.
“Which Numero are you working on now?” Gus asked. He knew all about the problems I’d inherited by marriage.
“Ebersole is Ocho.” Clearly, though, I hadn’t been the one to take the initiative in this case.
“Let me give you my read on it.” Gus settled back onto his folding chair.
I grabbed my chair and scooted it so our knees were almost touching. And then I held my breath.
“They could’ve found you and eliminated you, but that wouldn’t get their money back.” Gus drummed his fingers on his leg.
I nodded. This was a common theme among my Numeros. I’d been blithely smart to drain the money laundering funds out of Skip’s accounts and pass it on to charities, out of reach of the original owners. It had been an unintentional life-preservation technique, due entirely to ignorance.
“Now Ebersole wants to talk to you, and I can only think of two reasons for that. He’s either hoping you can help him avoid prosecution by the FBI or he thinks he can pressure you in some way to return the money without the FBI finding out.”
Both of which were utterly impossible for me to do. Ebersole was going to be disappointed. And then he might kill me out of frustration or revenge.
“Except,” Gus held up a finger to draw my attention, “Ebersole wants this done privately. Notice he sent a retired member as his spokesperson? That gives me one more idea. He might be acting on his own, separate from the club, without the club’s sanction. Which means he might be afraid—either of a traitorous underling or of a rebellious contingent among the ranks or of something else.”
Gus leaned forward. “You can play this, punkin. I know motorcycle gangs have fearsome reputations, but they’re comprised of humans. Granted, they live with a degree of violence and bravado most ordinary people can’t imagine, but that’s also paired with an extreme paranoia. The higher a guy gets in the ranks, the more insecure he is because the risk of being toppled is increased exponentially. And toppling in their world equals death. It takes a lot of finessing or else legitimate ill-health—like our friend Butch—to effect a true retirement from the gang. Ebersole? It seems to me that he’s very worried about something. Your ticket will be to find out what it is.”
CHAPTER 3
My ticket for admittance to the warm kitchen at Mayfield was a full recounting of my impromptu summons for Clarice. She doesn’t like it when I disappear on her, for good reason.
She huffed around in her ruffled red apron, banging pans to some effect, and querying me. I shoveled in a plateful of leftover dinner and answered.
“And Gus was with you the whole time?” she grunted.
I muttered around a mouthful of scalloped potatoes. “They weren’t going to touch me in his shop.”
A grim smile put a little color in her cheeks. “Huh.”
I could tell she liked the idea of her sweetie being my protector. Standing next to Gus was one of the safest places on the planet. There was no question his large physical presence and resolute personality had a calming influence—on everyone, from roughneck mobsters to my stalwart executive assistant.
“You have those reprobates shaking in their grungy boots,” she declared.
I wished I could agree with her. “Gus’s hypothesis.” I wanted to amend her expectations. “Based on a lot of unknowns. Doing his best to make me feel better.”
Clarice smacked a spatula on the counter. “He was recruited, you know. By the Hells Angels and Vagos. Those groups like having former military members in their ranks, even better if they were special forces.”
I stared at her. Clearly Gus and Clarice had been having more in-depth getting-to-know-each-other conversations than I’d been aware of. I wondered if she’d shared her arrest history with him. For all I knew, Gus might find the fact that she’d bitten a police officer on the ankle endearing. Those two were made for each other.
“Turned them down flat,” she continued, “of course. But he knows the culture.”
I nodded, slowly smiling. Hidden depths.
“Now. There’s a little girl expecting you to read her a bedtime story.” Clarice shooed me through the doorway to our living area, and I was glad to go.
oOo
After Gus’s pep talk, I was certain I’d be hearing from the Mongrels’ esteemed leader—and soon. Which meant I had to make yet another request of a man who’d demonstrated true friendship in spite of the way my husband had used him.
Josh Freeney.
He’d been hoping to be reinstated to his previous special agent position, given his leadership and success in taking down my Numero Dos, Victor Lutsenko, with only a ragtag band of civilians as his crew. I hadn’t seen him since he’d escorted Kamala, a Laotian victim of human trafficking, to rejoin her family who’d been living in the basement at Mayfield at the time.
After tucking Emmie in for the night, I’d retreated to my attic think tank and was pacing in front of the desk where some of the old video encounters with Tank Ebersole that were still archived on Bay Area television news sites were playing
in a loop on my laptop. They weren’t reassuring.
The fact that Numero Ocho had sought me out irritated me. It meant I was getting slack.
There weren’t too many remaining Numeros on my list who were roaming free and clear. Numero Uno, Numero Ocho, and possibly Numero Cuatro, even though I had reason to hope Martin Zimmermann’s days of autonomy were limited due to the loose lips of his mistress, Angelica Temple.
And I was skating by, letting them continue their criminal enterprises unimpeded. Time to knuckle down.
I punched in Josh’s number and listened to the phone ring. And wondered if he’d switched out his own phones yet again. I actually had a lot of things to talk to him about.
“Nora.” Josh sounded pleased.
His past experience with me should have taught him to be wary, but I plunged in while the proverbial door was open. “Are you back home?”
“Uh, no. I’m still cooling my heels in Salem, staying with my sister. Federal bureaucracy moves at a glacial pace in the best of times. When an agent’s fudged around the edges of his oath, the cogs seem to freeze solid. I’ll be lucky if I’m back in the San Francisco office in three years at the rate my case is being reviewed.”
“Good,” I said. “For me, I mean—not for you.”
Josh actually chuckled. “What’s on your mind? I hate being housebound.”
“I need an ambassador with an attitude.” I explained about the shock of Numero Ocho opening diplomatic relations through his emissary.
Josh whistled softly. “Unprecedented. I’m gonna have to brush up on OMGs—outlaw motorcycle gangs—and the Mongrels in particular. But yeah. Hell, yes, I’ll do it. I still don’t have anything to lose.”
I grinned into the phone. I could understand Josh’s eagerness to see action, but I also hated that my misfortune was his impetus. It was downright chivalrous the way he came to my assistance, even if it was out of boredom.
Gus’s hypothesis was still rolling around inside my head and came spilling out of my mouth. “How plausible is it that a biker gang president is worried—so worried that he wants to talk to me instead of killing me? Or is it a setup?”
Josh considered for a long moment. “OMGs are not nearly as hierarchical as other organized crime groups. They’re a weird dichotomy of free-for-all criminality and yet they enforce incredibly strict club rules, especially regarding identity—things like their patches—and codes of interpersonal conduct within the group. Outside the group, they don’t care one bit what a member does as long as he’s loyal.”
“Loyal,” I whispered.
“Maybe Gus has something there.” Josh’s tone turned ruminative. “Any hint of weakness, and it’d be blood in the water. It’d be all over for that leader. Huh. Yeah.”
I chewed my lip, but I was going to have to tell Josh at some point. He deserved my complete honesty. “I heard from Skip again.” I squeezed my eyes shut and plowed ahead—because if I stopped talking I would surely lose the courage. “He returned his wedding ring several days ago—in the mail, sent from Twin Falls, Idaho. And there was a note.”
After the ring had fallen out of the packet and thunked on the kitchen table, I hadn’t stuck around to examine the envelope. I’d hightailed it outside for a good cry in the woods. Clarice had had the prudence to thoroughly investigate and brought the note to me later that evening.
She’d sat silently on the side of my bed with a fierce scowl on her wrinkled face—a fortifying presence—while I’d read Skip’s words. And grown so furious that I couldn’t cry anymore. At least the note meant he was still alive, even though it was all about business matters and didn’t explain his motives regarding the return of his wedding ring.
Josh remained blessedly quiet, and I pressed on. “Did Skip ever hint to you that he thought his corporate lawyer, Freddy Blandings, might be a mole? Not for the FBI, but for at least one of his money laundering clients?”
“Whoa. Back up,” Josh breathed. “First off, no. Because I had no idea Skip was working on the wrong side of the law until he disappeared. Then, hindsight, yeah, all his questions and interest in my investigations of organized crime syndicates made sense. But isn’t this Blandings guy still involved? I thought I’d heard he was contesting the declared bankruptcy of Turbo-Tidy in court.”
“Grubby-fingered weasel,” I grumbled.
“Why, Nora? Why is he making such a fuss?” Josh’s voice rose with excitement. “Think about that. Who’s he really working for? You already suspected he wasn’t really representing the best interests of Skip’s company. So he’s either working for himself or someone else.” It was Josh’s turn to speak in rapid-fire sequence. “You could turn him. Put pressure on him—financial, obviously, and maybe in other ways. I can’t get any dirt on him now since my clearances have been revoked. But it could be big. You just found out?”
Now I felt guilty about sitting on the information for over a week. But it had just been speculation. Neither Clarice nor I had been sure what to make of it.
I should have known better though. My entire, rather shaky, plans for the past couple months had been based on nothing more solid than speculation.
Josh inhaled deeply as though to steady himself, then he paced his instructions methodically. “You’ll have to go through official channels for this. Talk to Matt. He needs to get in touch with the judge handling the disbursement of Turbo-Tidy’s assets immediately. Gum up the wheels of justice with some inane paperwork to give yourselves time.”
I scrabbled to take notes. Even though Josh was talking off the top of his head, he was operating in a completely different realm.
Maybe Josh knew my husband better than I did. They’d roomed together in college and had extended the friendship into their professional careers. Josh’s excitement made me wonder if Skip was, in his remote way, teaching me how to know his—and therefore, my—enemies, including their fears. Skip seemed to have mastered the art of manipulating people, and from the tone of his last note, it sounded as though he expected me to do it too.
Josh paused. “Got it?”
I fixed my chicken scratch handwriting in a few places. “Mmhmm.”
“I’m sorry I can’t be hands-on with Blandings. But I wouldn’t do you any good there. Call me the moment you hear from Ebersole, okay? Let me handle the details in my role as spokesman.” Josh gave me a phone number to pass on to Ebersole. “I want to control the location and the time. Evasiveness on our side may actually reassure him. But the privacy he’s demanding means you’ll have to make an appearance eventually—meet him face-to-face. You ready for that?”
I gritted my teeth. “I will be.”
“Good girl.”
Next, I called Matt. Although it was difficult to tell for sure over the phone, it was possible he exceeded Josh in the amount of excitement he exuded. What I wouldn’t have given to actually see, in person, my very own FBI special agent in a delighted frame of mind, grinning from ear to ear like a little boy. Because that’s how he sounded.
“It’ll be messy and time-consuming,” I said. “Josh was talking about paperwork.”
“There’s nothing the federal government is better at than producing paperwork. Mounds of it. Metric tons. Dump trucks full. You just made our legal team’s day.” Matt might have chortled a little bit. “I’ll ask the San Francisco office to start surveillance on Blandings. We’ll know about his embarrassing foibles soon enough.”
He was still cackling when he hung up. At least someone was in a good mood.
I, however, was dealing with a churning stomach. Because something else was niggling at me.
The idea of knowing your enemies. I had the feeling I hadn’t explored a few possibilities with regard to my Numeros. And I really hoped I hadn’t missed the opportunity.
So I dialed Sheriff Des Forbes, and prepared to face his serious disapproval.
We got the usual pleasantries out of the way, and then I asked, “Can I visit a prisoner?”
Des sighed heavily. “Which one?
”
“Viktor Lutsenko.”
“I was afraid of that. He’s not in my jail anymore. Why don’t you visit Angelica Temple? Maybe she’d quit complaining for two minutes. She’s driving my custody chief crazy.”
That idea appealed to me about as much as a root canal. Visiting Lutsenko didn’t rate any higher. But my Numero Dos had the kind of ego I thought might be conducive to the shadow of a scheme that was flitting around in my head.
“No dice. It’s Lutsenko or bust. Where is he?”
“At the South Correctional Entity, otherwise known as SCORE, in Des Moines. It’s a joint jail facility for a bunch of cities up north, but they also take overflow from other jurisdictions. Not the one I usually use, but it’s more conveniently located for federal court appearances. It’s where your case manager, Matt Jarvis, wanted him.”
“So I have to ask Matt if I can see Lutsenko?”
“I didn’t say that.” Des’s voice was stiff. “What are you up to?”
“I don’t know yet. I just want to ask him a few questions.”
Des snorted softly. “I guess you have a right to do that. Since I’m the sheriff in his booking county, I can get you in. No promises he’ll actually talk to you though. Especially not without his lawyer present.”
“Oh, I think he will,” I murmured.
CHAPTER 4
There was no convincing Des that I could find the SCORE complex in Des Moines and filter through the requirements for an inmate visit by myself. He insisted on both chauffeuring and chaperoning me.
One of the upsides to his assistance was that I didn’t have to fit into the standard visiting hours. He called ahead and arranged for a private conference room. The warden would notify Lutsenko of the appointment, but Lutsenko would also have the right to decline to speak to me—at any point before or during the scheduled time slot. I hoped I wasn’t conscripting Des into a goose chase.
Tried & True (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 5) Page 2