Blood World

by Chris Mooney

  Operating out of a house, in a rich, quiet neighborhood, had been Frank’s idea, mainly because he had insisted, even when they started out together, on living wherever he worked. Frank explained that he didn’t like leaving “the kids”—his name for the computer servers he owned and operated—or any other computer equipment alone at night, vulnerable to theft and, worse, corporate espionage. Sebastian suspected the real reason had to do with the fact that Frank didn’t care much for people.

  Sebastian, covered in sweat in spite of his Jaguar’s air-conditioning, parked in the driveway. He hadn’t wanted to drive—hadn’t wanted to do anything except lie on his office floor, because, oh sweet, merciful Jesus, sitting up, let alone standing, shot up his spine enormous bolts of pain that exploded like lightning inside his head, made his lungs feel like they were being squeezed to death. As much as he wanted to stay home, he needed to be gone in case the police showed up.

  Sebastian parked, and killed the engine, catching his reflection in the rearview mirror. I look like some junkie going through withdrawal, he thought. No sooner had he pushed open the Jaguar’s door than the front door of the house swung open and here came Frank bolting down the stairs, dressed as sharp and slick as a powerful Hollywood mogul—black suit and a dark blue shirt with French cuffs with a pair of gold cuff links, a Christmas gift from Trixie. Frank always wore long-sleeved shirts, even at the beach, even though he was in great shape, his six-foot frame sinewy with muscle. The reason, Sebastian suspected, had to do with the burn marks clearly left from cigarettes along his arms and back. Frank had never explained who had burned him, or why, but he took great pains to keep his scars hidden.

  Frank helped him out of the car and to his feet. Sebastian lurched, his knees buckling; Frank grabbed him quickly.

  “Put your arm over my shoulder,” Frank said. Sebastian did, and it reminded him of the old days after prison, drinking to the point where he could barely walk or talk. A good majority of times, Sebastian had blacked out. Frank was always there to pick up the pieces.

  “Still no signal from Paul’s phone,” Frank grunted as they made their way toward the house. “Either he shut the power off or he ditched it. But if he’s still using the phone, the moment it comes on we’ll get his signal and track down his location.”

  Provided Paul stays on the phone for at least a minute, Sebastian thought. Frank had GPS trackers and listening devices installed on the phones of every single person who worked for them, and he conducted monthly audits of everyone’s calls, texts, and emails, and even the websites they visited.

  Sebastian staggered into the house with Frank, grateful for the air-conditioning. The first floor was used as the main lobby and had minimal office space, most of the exterior walls in the back of the house made of glass. Frank eased him into the modern-looking sofa, which looked uncomfortable as hell, and was. Sebastian lay back and the pain cut itself in half and he felt like he could breathe somewhat normally again.

  “Just the ribs?” Frank asked.

  “I think so.”

  “I reached out to Maya. She’s on her way. I’ll get you some water.”

  Water? I want a Scotch, Sebastian felt like screaming. In fact, give me the goddamn bottle. A gallon of booze followed by a handful of Percs or Oxy from Dr. Dawson’s goody bag would hit the spot.

  Neither Frank nor Maya would help him out that way, the two of them having been instrumental in getting him into detox and then AA to treat his alcoholism. He had never been a pill guy, but taking any kind of narcotic painkiller would free his addiction from its cage. Within a week, maybe even a couple of days, he would be back to the old Sebastian.

  He had to resist the urge, no matter how great the pain. He needed to keep his mind sharp and focused so he could find Paul. Finding Paul and playing around with all the wonderful ways to torture him would be immensely more satisfying than a drink or a drug.

  Sebastian licked his lips. Swallowed. “Get me some Tylenol—and some Advil.”

  He wiped the sweat from his eyes and then closed them, felt the pain clawing at his nerves, digging its talons into the soft meat of his brain. He tried focusing on Paul as he listened to Frank’s footfalls, and then Sebastian was thinking about Frank living upstairs, alone, and wondered—and not for the first time—if Frank ever felt lonely.

  Ava came to him again. Not surprising, as she had been on his mind all day. Ava had been his last thought when he sank through the water, sure he was dying. He didn’t need a shrink to explain why: Ava was unfinished business. She had been the love of his life, and that life had been stolen from him because of a three-for-one taco special at the local Jack in the Box.

  The two of them had gone there to eat before hitting a friend’s house party in the neighborhood. There had been a lot of people there—a lot of friends—and he lost track of Ava for a while. When he finally found her, she asked him to leave; the food wasn’t sitting right, and she thought she was going to be sick.

  Ava lived a few blocks away. The short walk turned into a long one, Ava nauseated, sometimes stopping to catch her breath, convinced she had food poisoning. She threw up once, then twice, Sebastian encouraging her to keep walking. They were almost home when a white car the size of a boat pulled against the curb. It was a beautifully restored Cadillac Fleetwood, the paint buffed to a shine. Only one person drove that car: Paco Magic, a cholo banger who stood five foot five and always wore baggy jeans and a Raiders jersey. The door opened and here came Paco Magic, gang, occult, and astrological tats running all the way up his neck and covering his shaved head, the ink so black, he looked like he’d been dipped in paint.

  Paco had another cholo with him, a tall, mean-looking dude with a big, misshapen head and a busted, scarred face that reminded Sebastian of the pit bulls he’d sometimes see guarding junkyards—scarred soldier dogs missing fur and eyes. The guy wore a crisp white tank and, Sebastian could tell, was itching to administer a beatdown, when Paco Magic said, “Hey, Ava, everything okay?” Then, with a nod to Sebastian: “This chingado here giving you a hard time?”

  Ava said she was fine, thank you—straining to be polite and respectful because Paco was a king in training, a guy who demanded respect, and his eyes were on Sebastian when he said, “I’m gonna take your beautiful mija home. I know where she lives.” Sebastian didn’t move, said nothing, his mind stuck on Paco calling him a chingado, a fucker. His heart was running a marathon, not from the insult but from the awful reality of being nearly face-to-face with a guy who had killed at least a dozen people, according to the streets. Selling guns was how Paco made his money—and his name.

  Paco placed a hand on the small of Ava’s back and smiled at Sebastian, his teeth looking gray in the dying summer light. His smile widened as he slid his hand down and gripped her ass. Ava pulled away, and she looked at Sebastian with such terror—Don’t let them take me into that car, her expression said. Please don’t let that happen—that Sebastian stepped in front of her. Paco Magic snorted, and Pit Bull reached around his back and underneath his shirt.

  Even now, all these years later, Sebastian couldn’t remember what happened next. He had blacked out in rage, but he had fragments—hitting Paco with a solid left hook he used in the boxing ring; a jab-jab-cross that sent Pit Bull collapsing back against the car, followed by an uppercut that knocked Pit Bull sideways, off his feet. What he recalled clearly, though, even now, was Ava screaming at him to stop, Ava pulling him off Paco Magic, who lay unconscious on the ground, his face unrecognizable. Pit Bull was unconscious, too; he had cracked his head open against the curb when he fell. Sebastian learned that later. That and the fact that Pit Bull’s real name was Clarence Romero—Romeo, to his friends and colleagues within the LAPD. Clarence was an undercover cop assigned to gather intel on Paco Magic’s gun operation.

  Paco Magic should have died, the way Sebastian had gone after him. But he survived, albeit with some severe brain injuries, and wh
ile the nearly all white jury didn’t care much about a gangster who now drooled when he spoke and cried when he spilled his oatmeal, they had a much different opinion on the death of a cop. The jury delivered their verdict before it was time to break for lunch: life, without the possibility of parole.

  Frank came back with a bottle of ice-cold water and some Advil. Sebastian sat up, sweat popping out on his forehead as his ribs screamed in protest, like an angry mob. He dry-swallowed four Advil tablets and then chased them down with water.

  Frank’s phone rang. He pulled it out of his pants pocket and glanced at the screen. His eyebrows rose, which was about as expressive as Frank got.

  “Paul?” Sebastian asked.

  Frank nodded. “Take it so I can track it.” He shoved the ringing phone into Sebastian’s hand. “Keep him on as long as you can,” he said, and then he bolted across the room, heading for the stairs that would take him to his office on the bottom floor.

  Sebastian answered the call, but he didn’t speak.

  “Hey, Frank, how’s it going?” Paul asked, sounding calm and casual, like he was calling a store to see if a certain something was in stock. “Was hoping to have a word with you.”

  Sebastian sucked in air, to draw back the pain, to get some strength in his voice. “Frank’s unavailable, asshole. You’ll have to deal with me.”

  “You’re alive.” The words came out as half laugh, half surprise. “Well . . . shit.”

  “Puts a wrinkle in your grand plan, I’m guessing.”

  “You sound like you’re in a lot of pain.”

  He was, in fact, although what he was experiencing right now wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the first time he’d gotten beaten in jail. He was working his shift in the laundry room when a group of guys—Sebastian had no idea how many or who they were, it had happened so fast—jumped him and then took turns beating the shit out of him. It shamed him, how he begged and cried for it to stop, how he continued to cry after it was over. Eventually, he forgave himself for being a ponocha—he was, after all, just a kid, a terrified eighteen-year-old boy, not a man, whose life had suddenly been turned upside down through no fault of his own. He had been protecting the woman he loved—and still loved, to this day.

  But he wasn’t that scared little boy anymore. That kid had been dead for a long, long time. Sebastian had killed and buried him.

  “How badly are you hurt?” Paul asked. “You going to make it?”

  Sebastian didn’t answer. A spike of pain had stolen his breath. He gritted his teeth, swallowing, not wanting Paul to hear.

  “Maybe this is a good thing,” Paul said. “You being alive.”

  Sebastian sucked in a deep breath and looked past the glass walls, to the backyard. The evening sky was the color of a bruise. A window was open somewhere, and he could hear the soft, steady gurgling of the pool filter. The calming sound of the water, the beauty of the sky—it reminded him he was alive. Knowing that allowed him to separate himself from the pain; it was only temporary.

  “Here’s what you’re going to do,” Paul said. “You’re going to hand over your business, and then you and Frank can take all the money you’ve made and go live happily ever after together. You can stay in the real estate game, too, if you want, and you can keep your house. I’ll allow that.”

  I’ll allow that. Hearing those three words sparked Sebastian’s rage, took his pain and made it small. That was the wonderful thing about rage, how it clarified, boiled everything in life down to its simple, primitive elegance.

  Sebastian spoke from experience, said words he knew to be true. “I will find you,” he said, his voice eerily calm. He was still sweating, and the pain was still there, roaring and clawing, but his heart was no longer racing, and his words were clear. “It may take some time, maybe a lot of time and a lot of money, but I will find you.”

  “Then, what, you’re going to kill me?” Paul chuckled.

  “I’m not going to kill you. But I am going to lock you away somewhere. And each day, I’m going to come visit you. Each and every day, for the rest of your life, I’m going to personally introduce you to a new and special level of hell.”

  CHAPTER 12

  THE NIGHT—ACTUALLY, it was morning now, well after one a.m.—was cool and silent, the only light coming from the blue water of the community underground pool. Ellie looked out into the distance, trying to make out the mountains hidden behind the darkness. She had continued drinking after the police commissioner left and she felt good and numb, all the different voices in her head finally quiet—maybe because of the whiskey, or maybe because Cody was sitting next to her, or maybe a combination of both.

  They were sitting on the back porch, in a pair of cheap white plastic Adirondack chairs. They had gone through the shared relief of her being alive and in one piece and had moved on to the part where she told him about the police commissioner’s late-night house call, what Kelly had asked her to do.

  Cody hadn’t offered his opinion—hadn’t offered an opinion of any kind. Yet. He had simply listened, intently and without interruption. Now that she was finished, he remained silent, sorting through his thoughts and feelings. She felt them brewing underneath his calm exterior, radiating off him like the heat from a fire.

  Cody picked up the bottle of whiskey from the small table between them and sniffed its neck. Before coming over he had changed out of his blues, into a pair of shorts, flip-flops, and a CrossFit T-shirt.

  “I don’t know how you can drink this,” he said, his voice toneless. “Stuff smells like gasoline.”

  “Put it over some ice and let it sit for a moment.”

  “That makes a difference?”

  “Yeah. All the girls like drinking it that way.”

  He cracked a small, faint grin, and she sensed it melting some of the tension between them.

  “Sure,” he said, and got to his feet, his knees cracking. “Why not?”

  He returned from the kitchen with a glass packed with ice. Ellie had studied his face during their talk, and she studied it now as he poured, saw how calm it was—how calm he was. Like he’d already known all the key details before she had shared them. Or was he trying to be strong for her? Supportive?

  “You didn’t seem surprised by what I told you,” she said.

  “About the shooting?” Cody looked at her, perplexed. “I told you what’s-her-name, Vickers, called me. By that time, I already knew most of the details. My lieutenant had already made some phone calls for me.”

  “I meant Kelly coming by here.”

  “Oh. That.”

  The missing pieces came together, and she straightened a bit. “You spoke to him, didn’t you?”

  Cody nodded. “He called me. Told me about the shooting, that you were okay. I thought it was a bit odd, the commissioner calling, and then he explained how you helped him ID the two vics in Brentwood. Then we spoke for a bit about your remarkable ability to remember shit and your interest in the blood world.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That you’ve been interested in the inner workings of the blood world for as long as I’ve known you. Then he asked me if I wouldn’t mind staying away from your place until he had a chance to talk to you.”

  “So you knew about why he was coming here. What he wanted.”

  Cody nodded and leaned back in his chair.

  Ellie put her glass on the floor. “When, exactly,” she asked, feeling a hot coil of anger digging its way behind her left eye, “were you going to tell me this?”

  He caught her tone, saw the expression on her face, and said, “I wasn’t not going to tell you, if that’s what you mean. I wanted to listen to what you had to say first—see if you want to say anything at all or just—”

  “He asked you for permission, didn’t he? See if you had a problem with me going undercover.”

  “He didn’t use tho
se exact words.”

  “Oh? What words did he use?”

  “Ellie, we’ve been in a serious relationship coming up on, what, almost two years? It’s not a secret.”

  Ellie shook her head as she looked out into the distance, her eyes hot with anger.

  “The guy was being respectful,” Cody said, like it was no big deal—and to him, it wasn’t. He was a privileged white male, and still, after hundreds of years—even here, in California, the most liberal and ethnically diverse state in the nation—white men were considered the ruling class. “He just wanted to see how I felt about it. Truthfully, I thought it was a pretty classy—”

  “If the roles were reversed—if you had been the one asked to go undercover—Kelly would not have called me first to see how I felt about it. I’d have to learn it from you.” She propped her bare foot on the edge of her seat and then folded her hands around her shins. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “You’re not.”

  Ellie sucked air deeply through her nose as she shook her head. She had been one of the best shooters in her class and, while only five foot eight and weighing a little more than 130 pounds, she had shied away from nothing—not a single goddamn thing the academy instructors had thrown at her. Whatever came her way, she had handled it without bitching and moaning the way some of the male cadets had. And to top it off, she had handled her shit today in a real-life firefight, done everything correctly and by the book while under pressure, and—and—she had helped identify two victims. And yet the police commissioner had called her boyfriend to get his permission and blessing. Hey, Cody, it’s me, Mr. Police Commissioner. Need to speak to you man-to-man about the special girl in your life. I’m going to ask her to go undercover for us, but I want to see how you feel about it first, one privileged white guy to another.

  Cody sighed. “Ellie,” he began.

  “You don’t get it. You don’t understand because you’re not a woman.”