by Robert Ward
“Every one of these balls is filled with prizes, my friend. Directly from Sierra Leone. Now, perhaps, I could see the briefcase?”
“Of course.” Oscar handed the case to the big German. Stein- bach swept the pool balls into their pockets, sat the case on the green felt, and snapped it open. It was filled with banded packets of hundred-dollar bills.
“Beautiful!” Steinbach snapped shut the case.
Jack smiled. “You don’t want to count it, Karl?”
“No, Jack,” Steinbach said. “I trust you implicitly.”
Jack smiled wider and reached into his coat.
“That’s your misfortune, Karl, ’cause you’re under arrest. FBI.”
He pulled his .38 out of his holster, as did Oscar.
“Drop your weapons, pendejos,” Oscar said.
There was a brief second as Steinbach’s face registered the shock of Jack’s betrayal. Jack had seen this before. In any human interchange, trust is the glue that holds things together. Now, Jack thought, Karl was not only mad that he was going to jail but had hurt feelings.
Tough luck, Jack thought. The only feeling he had for Karl Steinbach was contempt.
Steinbach looked around the room, his face a panicky pale white. Behind the piles of stacked pool tables to his left, two more Feds appeared: Agents Zac Blakely and Ron Hughes, both carrying submachine guns. Both had been there, in place, well in advance of Steinbach’s arrival.
“Drop your guns now, assholes!” Blakely said.
“Fuck you,” the Arab said, turning on Blakely, letting go with a blast from his gun. The bullets sprayed the pool tables next to Blakely, who dove to the floor for cover.
Steinbach quickly pulled his own .45 from his shoulder holster and aimed it at Oscar Hidalgo. He was about to pull the trigger when Jack threw the diamond-filled pool ball into his face. Steinbach yelled and fell backward, holding his bleeding nose.
Jack turned quickly and saw the big Welshman, Draper, raise his gun to shoot Oscar. He picked up the pool cue and smacked him in the mouth, knocking three bloodied teeth to the floor.
One of the other goons aimed at Blakely, but Oscar cut him in half with two bullets from his pistol.
Jack watched as Kafidove behind a cardboard box. Jack aimed dead center at the slogan have fun with pool and fired. The bullet tore through the box and hit Kafiin the throat. The Arab fell to the floor, flopping like a dying fish.
Jack watched as Hughes shot Draper in the back of the leg. The Welshman fell to one knee, dropped his gun, and threw up his hands.
The bald-headed goon was caught between the crossfire and he went down in a hail of bullets. The freckle-faced boy dropped his gun and held up his arms. “No more, man,” he said. “No más.” Hughes quickly cuff ed him. Now Jack turned to arrest the German, but Steinbach was already half across the warehouse floor, headed for the far exit door.
Jack took off after him, firing as he ran, but missed and watched Steinbach disappear from the warehouse into the bright sunlight of Sunset Boulevard.
They ran down the teeming street past shoppers who were lined up for the new iPod sales from Best Buy. Jack slammed into a blonde with a pierced tongue who screamed as she fell to the pavement. Ahead of him, Steinbach turned and aimed his gun.
“Down!” Jack screamed. “FBI!”
The people on the street fell to the hot pavement as Stein- bach fired at Jack. The bullet veered off to the right and smashed into a Porsche Boxster’s windshield. It shattered into a thousand pieces. The car alarm went off , screaming through the smogged- out air.
Jack aimed and fired back at Steinbach, but missed as the bullet hit a patio chair outside a furniture store, spinning it around.
Steinbach ran on, turned left, heading for the lake at Echo Park. He disappeared behind a little stand of palm trees. Jack dodged around a Mister Softee truck, moved toward the lake, keeping low, behind parked cars.
Then it happened. Steinbach made a move toward the muddy beach right near the pedal-boat rental pier. Jack fired and hit him in the right leg. Steinbach fell to his knee but turned around firing, and Jack felt the bullet whistle by his right ear.
He crouched and fired again, and saw Steinbach fall backward into the muddy lake.
He splashed around, flailing like a beached walrus. Jack heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Oscar and Ron Hughes just behind him, their guns drawn.
“The mutherfucker looks like Shamu,” Oscar said.
Jack ran forward, holding his gun on Steinbach who was up now, throwing his gun onto the beach, holding his hands above his drenched, muddy head.
“Come on outta there now,” Jack said. “And don’t try anything original or you’re gonna look like a paper target at a rifle range.”
Though wet and bleeding, Steinbach wasn’t cowed.
“That’s what you’d like, hey, Jack? Blow me up, say it was self- defense. But I’m not going to play your game. No, my friend, you’re going to play mine.”
Steinbach walked forward, hands still in the air, and a smile on his fat face.
“I love games, Karl. What’s the rules?”
“Simple. You . . . him, and the other two cops are never going to testify against me. Because, my friends, you are all going to die.”
Jack looked at his partner and laughed.
“You hear that, Oscar? We’re all dead men walking.”
“Yeah,” Oscar said. “Scary.”
But Ron Hughes wasn’t laughing. He looked at the German with contempt.
“Hey, fuck you, fatboy. You scare nobody.”
“You’ll see,” Steinbach said. “You’re all going to find out. My reach is longer than any prison cell you assholes can throw me in.”
“Creepy,” Jack said. “Now shut the fuck up, turn around, and put your hands behind your back. You’re under arrest for smuggling, and anything else you’re dumb enough to say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
Before Jack could cuff him, Hughes stepped forward, knee deep in water.
“Jack, you got his name wrong. It’s not Karl, it’s Fuckface.” He punched the German in the head and watched as he fell back in the filthy water. Then he waded out a little farther, raising his right fist to give him another little shot.
But Jack grabbed Hughes from behind and pushed him back toward the beach.
“Take it easy, Ronnie.”
“That was for my old partner, Terry Masters, who this germ shot over in Munich. We got your ass now, Karl. You’re never gonna get out.”
Jack clicked the cuffs on Steinbach and pulled him out of the water. Behind the three cops, Zac Blakely came with the remaining two live smugglers, both of them cuff ed from behind. In the distance they could hear sirens, and a paddy wagon was rolling in at the corner.
Jack pushed Steinbach down the street as a crowd gathered, mumbling and chattering.
“You guys will all pay with your lives,” Steinbach said. “All of you are going to fucking die. I promise you.”
“You’re repeating yourself, Karl,” Jack said. “Sign of an inferior mind.”
“I’ll take him from here,” Blakely said, as the wagon pulled up.
Jack pushed the smuggler toward Blakely as the paddy-wagon door opened.
Steinbach turned and looked at Jack with intense hatred.
“Remember what I said, Jackie,” he said, then turned again and stepped inside the wagon.
“He’s not a very good sport, is he?” Jack said to Oscar.
“Very bad loser,” Oscar said. “But that’s how the Germans are. My grandfather used to say, ‘Los mama huevos son en sus rodillas o tu garganta.’ Which means, ‘The cocksuckers are either at your knees or at your throat.’”
Jack laughed.
“I hope to meet your grandfather when I die,” Jack said.
“I’ll see to it,” Oscar said. “But don’t make it anytime soon, okay?”
Jack laughed.
“You kidding? And give up all this? What say
we stop into Charlie’s and get us a couple of nice cold drinks on the way home? We speed a little, we can hit there just around the end of happy hour.”
“Excellent suggestion,” Oscar said. “You’re buying, of course.” “Well, of course.”
The two men turned to break through the little crowd, when
both of them simultaneously saw an old Mexican Indian woman, dressed in a bright orange-and-black dress. She wore a scarf with orange parrots painted on it. She looked at them and shook her head mournfully.
“Qué pasa, señora?” Jack said.
The old woman stared intently at both of them, then turned and looked at the now-receding paddy wagon.
“Nada bueno,” she said. “El es malo. Señor give you the evil eye, mister. El se ve muy malo.”
“Yeah, right,” Jack said. He was going to tell her that he wasn’t afraid of such superstitious crap, but somehow the words got caught in his throat.
He looked at Oscar, who sighed.
“You go home now, señora,” Oscar said. “And thanks for the warning.”
She turned and shook her head in a concerned way.
“No es bueno, señores, es malo. Es muy malo.”
She pointed ominously to her own eye, then turned and limped away.
“Crazy old lady,” Ron Hughes said.
“Yeah,” Jack said. “A whack job.”
But as they headed back to the warehouse to gather evidence, Jack felt something like an icy finger travel up his spine.
2
THE SCENE AT Charlie Breen’s Deckhouse Restaurant was always rocking at happy hour. Bikers, surfers, beach bunnies, local businessmen, and cops all hung out there in rough harmony. And all of them were always greeted with the same laughter and pat on the back from Charlie himself. Now in his late fifties, Charlie was a living legend in Santa Monica. After a nomadic life of doing business and traveling in Europe, South America, and China, Charlie had come home and taken a ramshackle, falling- down druggie hangout, bought it twenty years ago for a comparative song and largely on the force of his personality — open, friendly, and caring — and made it into one of the most successful beach bars in Los Angeles. Jack had known him for close to ten years, and whenever he and Oscar finished working a case, Charlie’s was the first place they headed.
This night was special, however. Jack and Oscar had been working the Karl Steinbach case for close to a year. There had been many times when the two partners despaired of ever catching him. So tonight was party time, drinking, laughing, and sitting around the big circular bar, looking out on the lights of Santa Monica Bay. The two backup cops, Zac Blakely and Ron Hughes, were with them, as was big, silver-haired Charlie Breen himself, who kept the laughs and liquor flowing.
In front and above them was Charlie’s new fifty-inch plasma screen television set, with its endless games, CNN, and the local news feeds. Jack was feeling no pain as he downed his third Wild Turkey, with Hefeweizen and lemon back. Next to him, Oscar tossed back a shot of Herradura Gold Tequila. He couldn’t remember which shot it was, but he was pretty sure that number five had been some time ago.
“Hey, hey, hey, wait . . . there it is,” Ron Hughes said.
He pointed at the TV, where newscaster Trisha Toyota began her nightly news report.
“In Hollywood,” she chirped, “we’re used to seeing shoot-outs and robberies on the city streets, most of them staged for the studio cameras. But today in the Echo Park neighborhood, local residents were horrified to see the real thing unfold. In a sting operation, four FBI undercover agents took down a vicious gang of diamond smugglers.”
The whole bar had stopped talking now as Charlie signaled for them to check out the TV.
“Oh, yeah!” Blakely said.
He was referring to Jack, who was now being interviewed by Toyota, his facial features digitally blacked out.
There was a loud hoot from the denizens of the bar.
“Quiet, people,” Charlie said. “Our star is going to speak!”
Trisha Toyota smiled and turned to Jack:
“I have with me here the leader of the FBI operation, a man we’ll call Bill Kelley. I understand you chased the suspect all the way to Echo Lake.”
“That’s right, Trish,” Jack said.
“And all the while he was shooting at you,” she said in her breathless way.
“Yeah, but the only thing he hit was Mister Softee,” Jack said.
That got a big laugh at the bar.
“And he ended up in the lake,” Trish said.
“Yeah, but he was a little too late for the pedal boats, so he ended up getting all wet.”
Another roar from the drunken eager bar mates.
“But I understand that the suspect threatened to kill all of you. Doesn’t that worry you?”
There was a brief hesitation, and then Jack gave her the line:
“Yeah, Trish, my partners and I are flat-out terrified. I doubt any of us will sleep a wink tonight.”
Toyota cracked up, as did the patrons of Charlie Breen’s bar. Charlie reached over, grabbed Jack’s right arm, and held it above his head.
“The winner and still champion, Agent Jack Harper! Though I gotta tell you, you look a lot better with your face blacked out.”
There were cheers and laughs throughout the bar. Oscar held up his tequila and toasted Jack.
“To Karl Steinbach, may his punk ass rot in prison for the rest of his life!”
Hughes and his partner, a tired and curiously quiet Zac Blakely, joined in the toast. Jack felt a shot of warmth zap through him. It was great being here . . . with Charlie, with his guys . . . successful on a case. One good one made up for all the ones that got away, and during the last few years, there had more than a few of those. Ever since 9/11 there had been just about nothing but bad news for the Bureau. Leaks to the press, moles like the traitor, Robert Hansen, a guy with whom Jack had played on the Agency basketball team for three years. A guy he thought he knew. So tonight was a bit more than an arrest party, it was a comeback celebration for Jack, his guys, and the Bureau.
“Hey, Jackie,” Oscar said. “I gotta go . . . tomorrow’s another bitch of a day, huh?”
“Yeah,” Hughes said. “Getting late.”
“Come on, O,” Jack said. “Don’t wimp out on us.”
He reached over and hugged his partner of ten years. And added a kiss on the forehead.
“Jesus, Jackie,” Oscar said. “Cut that shit out, maricón.”
Jack laughed and kissed him again. Oscar pretended to fight back, then kissed Jack, too.
“Hey, Oscar,” Ron Hughes said. “You be careful on the way home, babe. Steinbach’s boys might be waiting for you.”
“Fuck him,” Oscar said. “As my old grandmother used to say, ‘El dia de las brujas en Hollywood asusta más que ese malparido tonto.’ Which means, ‘Halloween in Hollywood is scarier than that fucking mope.’”
“You got it, Osc,” Jack said. “See you in the A.M.”
The partners slapped five, and Oscar gave a quick hug to Charlie as he headed out to the parking lot.
A second later, as Jack downed his next beer, Zac Blakely signaled to him with his eyes: He wanted to have a private talk. The two men drifted over to the corner and sat down in a vacant booth.
“Forrester is starting again,” Blakely said as he sipped his beer. He rolled his brown eyes in disgust.
Forrester was Supervisory Agent William Forrester, the bane of both Jack’s and Blakely’s existence. Their immediate supervisor, Forrester was a Harvard graduate, who never tired of saying, “When I was back at Cambridge, we did things this way . . .” In addition to being a first-class snob, Forrester was also convinced that Blakely and Hughes and maybe even Jack himself were rogue agents who had their eye on stealing valuable evidence, whether it be money or jewels. It didn’t help that the last bust Blakely and Hughes had led (and in which Jack and Oscar had served as their backups), a major robbery at City National Bank in North Hollywood, had end
ed up with $200,000 of unaccounted-for money.
“Guy has some kind of major hard-on for you,” Jack said.
“I know,” Blakely said. “But Ron and I didn’t take the money. We caught Miller and his crew at the track, where they were going to lay the money off . Nailed them and brought the money to the office, processed it with Garrett in Evidence. And never saw it again. Then, when we’re going to re-count it for Miller’s trial, we find that two hundred grand is gone.”
Jack nodded his head, then sipped his drink.
“I know, Zac. You don’t have to convince me. What’s Forrester saying to you now?”
“He’s not saying anything,” Blakely said. “But he’s got guys tailing us night and day. And he’s intimated a couple of times, Jackie, that you were probably involved as a criminal accessory.”
“I know. He’s tried to rattle my cage a few times. But fuck him,” Jack said. “He’s got nothing on any of us.”
“Yeah,” Blakely said. “But it gets a little old being tailed all the time.”
He indicated a bearded man with a scar under his right eye across the room.
“Check out that fuck.”
Jack casually turned and looked over the guy, who was pretending to be looking at one of the ski bunnies who’d just rolled in.
“That guy was sent by Forrester?” Jack said. “You sure?”
“No, I’m not sure. But he’s been watching us all night.”
Jack looked over at the big man’s hollow eyes, which seemed to stare right through him.
“This the first time you’ve seen him?”
“Yeah, I think so. But there have been other guys, too. You recognize him, Jack?”
“No,” Jack said. “I don’t. But I did notice him about a half hour ago, and it occurred to me that he could have been sent by Steinbach.”
“But we just arrested him,” Blakely said. “How could Stein- bach move that fast?”
“Marvels of technology,” Jack said. “With an instant message, he can set up an instant tail. The guy has that kind of operation. He could have done it while he was running for the lake.”
“That sounds a little paranoid to me, Jack,” Blakely countered. “Yeah, well, it probably is,” Jack said. “But maybe we’re both