Blood World

by Chris Mooney

  Ellie stayed the course. She was no closer to finding out anything about Frank’s blood business—or the fate of her brother.

  * * *

  * * *

  Her boyfriend’s name was Max Evans. She didn’t know his real one, just knew he was a Fed around her age and, for the time being, worked as a physical trainer at a swanky fitness club called Imperial, a place where the staff catered to every client’s need, including wiping away their sweat with the finest Egyptian cotton towels imported all the way from France. He lived with his single mother, also a Fed, in a modest suburban home in Glendale.

  Max delivered her information from Roland. Sometimes, when Max was hugging her, he’d whisper quick instructions in her ear. Mostly, Max, like her gambling sponsor, Jon Carlo, who she also met with on a weekly basis, would slip her instructions written on scraps of paper. Paper was old-school but safe in this world where everything except your inner thoughts could be captured by technology. Paper could be burned or flushed down the toilet, even swallowed.

  Max reminded her, on a daily basis, that the two of them were constantly being shadowed. Watched. It wasn’t safe for her to meet with Roland.

  That changed during her fifth week on the job. Late Saturday morning, Roland was smuggled in an SUV driven by Max’s mom. Once she drove into the two-car garage, Roland entered the house. The blinds had been drawn in advance, in case someone was watching.

  And someone was watching. Like during those first months with Anton, Frank had put people on her to make sure she checked out. Like Anton, Frank had moved her into a place closer to where she worked, a beautiful sunlit apartment she suspected was bugged. And like Anton, Frank had given her a copy phone, which she also suspected came equipped with all sorts of hidden software that tracked her movements, listened in on her conversations, monitored each and every email, call, and text she sent and received.

  Roland was in a gregarious mood, his dry wit on full display as the two of them ate Chinese takeout on plastic plates in the upstairs bedroom. “He’s an interesting guy, our Frank,” Roland said. “On paper, he’s pretty vanilla. Forty-eight, lives in Beverly Hills, drives a Buick. Owns a conservative mix of stocks and mutual funds, decent balance, nothing that will raise any alarms. He’s funded his portfolio using income from his job, which is in IT—you know, computer servers and cybersecurity, shit like that.”

  “And he can afford to live in Beverly Hills?”

  “He works for a real estate company called Kane and Associates. He’s got a deal in place where he lives there. They don’t outsource the company servers. Everything’s in-house—literally. The real estate company operates out of a converted house.”

  “He using the company to launder his blood profits?”

  “Hard so say at this point. To find out, we’d have to conduct a proper forensic accounting audit. That will come later. We’re more interested in the guy who owns the company, Sebastian Kane. They’re close friends, he and Frank. Grew up together in the same shitty neighborhood in East LA. Both were raised by single mothers. From what I’ve read, Frank never met his old man. His mother died when he was twelve—heroin overdose—and Kane’s mother took Frank in so the kid wouldn’t be kicked into the foster care system.”

  “And this Kane guy? What’s his deal? Anything interesting?”

  “Oh yes, most definitely.” Roland wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “When Kane was nineteen, he killed an undercover cop working in one of the big taco gangs running guns and drugs in East LA. It was self-defense—guy was protecting his girlfriend, this smoking-hot Latina.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Don’t go all ‘Me Too’ on me now. I like to be thorough and descriptive.” Roland grinned as he dipped a dumpling into a container of soy sauce. “The judge assigned the case had to play along with LAPD and side with the cops, and Sebastian got handed life without parole. Two years into his sentence, some pro bono liberal lawyer who worked for the Innocence Project thought nineteen-year-old Sebastian Kane got a raw deal because of being brown, and decided to take up the cause, do a little digging, and discovered someone on the jury was married to a cop. Showed bias. The real kicker was that the judge knew the deal about the juror and turned a blind eye. Case was overturned, and Sebastian was free to go.”

  “I’m more interested in his connection to the blood world.”

  “Oh, I’m sure Kane is involved.”

  “What about the woman who owns the Health and Wellness Center? Maya Dawson.”

  “You didn’t google her?”

  “Are you serious? I don’t google anyone, just in case Frank is tracking everything on my phone.”

  “It was a trick question. You passed, by the way.” Roland plopped another dumpling into his mouth. “Dr. Dawson had a kid who was a carrier, her son, Bradford. He was six when he was taken. She was away at a dermatology conference in San Diego when someone, maybe a group of people, broke into her house during the early-morning hours. Kid was snatched from his bed and the husband was dead asleep when someone pumped a round from a .38 into the back of his head and turned his brain into scrambled eggs. This was twelve, maybe fifteen years ago? She’s at the conference, wondering why her husband hasn’t returned any of her phone calls or texts for the past few days, when San Diego PD came to the hotel and broke the news to her. She still doesn’t know what happened to her kid. No one does.”

  Ellie thought about her brother and wondered if the woman had, like her, purposely gone into the blood world in order to find her son. Had she discovered Bradford was dead, or was she still looking for him now, fifteen years later?

  “Dawson had some sort of nervous breakdown,” Roland said, “and squirreled herself away for a few months inside a private psychiatric facility in Denver. Then she decided to come back to LA, where she went from popping zits to running a high-end luxury facility that specialized in tit and nose jobs and laser peels and all that other fancy shit—and, I’m sure, blood treatments for discreet clients with deep pockets. You’ve met her, I take it.”

  “Just in passing. What about the people shadowing me? You haven’t said anything.”

  “They’re from a private security outfit owned by a gentleman by the name of Ron Wolff. Mr. Wolff, it seems, has found a good number of carriers who have been abducted. He also works with—or for—Frank and Sebastian Kane.”

  “That’s . . . interesting.”

  “It’s genius if my theory holds true. Would you like to hear my theory?”

  “If Sebastian, Anton, whoever, abduct carriers, have them missing for a bit, and then Ron Wolff finds them, it gets Wolff in the good graces of the criminally overworked, underpaid, and overstressed LAPD. Cops are grateful for any help from the private security companies that are springing up all over the state. Ron Wolff offers to help the cops working the Blood Unit on other cases—maybe the carriers Frank and Kane have. Wolff can keep tabs on any developments in those cases.”

  “Look at you, being a detective, putting all the pieces together,” Roland said. “I also have a solid theory as to why there’s all this security on you and your boyfriend, Max. He a good kisser, by the way? I tried to get you a good kisser.”

  “Speaking of which, when am I going to see Cody?”

  Roland waved his hand and sighed theatrically. “I need you to keep your mind on the job and not on sex. Think you can do that for ten minutes?”

  “I’ll try my best.”

  “Good. Now, let’s talk about that explosion in WeHo. You hear about it?”

  “I read about it online.”

  “What did you read?”

  “Police said the homeowners were out of the country—Asia or something—and that some local drug dealers knew that, because the owners posted all their travels on Facebook, and then broke into the house, used it as a temporary meth lab, and had an accident.”

  “One of those shake-and
-bake deals, supposedly.”

  Roland swiped a napkin across his mouth, then said, “That explosion happened hours after you had dinner with Frank. The next day, you start working for him, and you’ve got teams of people on you. I thought that was odd, so I made some phone calls. First off, it wasn’t a meth explosion. Residual testing from the lab came back yesterday—no traces of meth anywhere.”

  “Then what caused the explosion?”

  “ATF is leaning toward a bomb made of fertilizer. The three people who were killed in the explosion—they practically had to scoop up their remains using spatulas, what I was told. Anyway, it took some time to ID the bodies. Here’s where it gets interesting. The three vics were men, all employed by Ron Wolff. You started work the next day after the explosion, and Ron’s doubled the amount of people on you—and Anton. They’re watching him very closely, too, and I believe it all has something to do with this fine gentleman.”

  Roland reached into a suit jacket pocket, came back with a four-by-six photograph, and handed it to her. The picture showed a white male with a squared-off jaw dressed in a Marine uniform.

  “That the same guy in the photo Frank showed you?” Roland said.

  Ellie nodded. “Gingerbread Man. Can’t see the tattoos, though.”

  “But you’re sure this is your shooter?”

  “One hundred percent. You got a name?”

  “Paul Young. He was a military man, once upon a time. Then he went back overseas, back to camel country, only this time as private security, which pays much better than the government. I guess you could call him Sebastian Kane’s stepson.”

  “You guess?”

  “Kane never officially adopted him. He did, however, live with Paul’s mother, Trixie—yes, that’s her legal, God-given name—for a long time. Paul was four when he and Mom moved into Kane’s home. Paul doesn’t live there. We don’t know where he lives, honestly, or where he currently is.”

  Roland plucked another dumpling up with his chopsticks. “So, we know Paul is your shooter, and that he is most likely the one behind the death of the two carriers you saw in the house. So it stands to reason that Paul is involved in the blood world—more specifically, Frank and Sebastian’s business. Our operating theory is, Frank and Sebastian are actively looking for Paul because he has become a liability or a threat, for reasons that have something to do with Brentwood.”

  “Was Paul behind the explosion in West Hollywood?”

  “That has yet to be determined.”

  “Have you bugged Frank’s car?”

  “No. We can’t get close enough to do the actual work. We need twenty minutes, minimum, to do it, and it has a car alarm, which is another complication. Every night he parks it in the garage of his home, which is the real estate office. We can’t get to the car, and we don’t want to ask a judge to sign off on a wiretap warrant, because we’re afraid that it will get back to Frank, Kane, or Wolff. We have, however, installed a tracker on Frank’s car.”

  “So where was he that night?”

  “With his BFF, Sebastian,” Roland said, beaming. “The night of the explosion, they took Sebastian’s car—he drives a Jag—and drove to West Hollywood.”

  “To do what?”

  Roland tapped his chopsticks against his paper plate. “When you agreed to go undercover, I gave you my word I’d always level with you. So here’s the deal: we’re having what you could call staffing issues. I don’t have to tell you there are a lot of moving parts. The organizational chart we’ve created—it takes up two walls and gets bigger by the day. We’re collecting a lot of information on this Ron Wolff guy, the people who work for him—the list of people keeps growing and growing and we’ve run out of bodies on our end. It’s costing us a pretty penny, this operation, and it keeps getting bigger, along with the government’s tab.”

  “And the federal bean counters got their panties in a bunch and are complaining to the top guys.”

  “Not just our bean counters, but also the LAPD’s. Remember, this operation is supposed to be a joint expense. What’s happening now is a lot of people on the top of both food chains are arguing about who’s paying for what instead of splitting the tab fifty-fifty, as was agreed. You going to eat that last dumpling?”

  “Help yourself,” Ellie replied, distracted. She wasn’t a stranger to bureaucratic infighting—she had dealt with it, albeit on a minor level, as a patrolwoman, and she had heard her fair share of stories around the station about the penny-pinching ways from the desk jockeys whose sole job was playing around with Excel spreadsheets. But this was the first time she had been involved in something that directly affected her—not just her career, but possibly her life.

  Roland said, “It’s a minor hiccup, happens all the time.”

  Ellie nodded.

  “Hey, look at me. You’re our prime asset. I won’t let anything happen to you, okay? Me, the team—we’ve got your back. We watch over our own.”

  Ellie wanted to believe him—had to believe him. What other choice did she have?

  Roland said, “Let them argue who’s gonna pick up the tab. We’ve got more important matters—like celebrating. Remember the choker Anton took from you?”

  “How could I forget?” For weeks Ellie had lived in fear that Anton had taken it apart and discovered it was bugged.

  “The cheapo son of a bitch gave it to his Russian girlfriend as a gift. She’s been wearing it, and she’s been bragging a lot to her girlfriends about how Anton is going to be making some big move soon that’ll make him—and her, she believes—ridiculously rich.”

  “Details?”

  “Not as of yet. But we’re watching your boy Anton—and Frank and his crew are watching him, too. Keeping a very close eye on him, as a matter of fact. When’s the last time you spoke to him?”

  “About a week or so. He keeps asking about the job—just general ‘How’s it going?’ stuff—and reminds me that I can come back to work for him if I want. I’m giving it some serious thought.” Roland shot her an Are you out of your mind? look and Ellie said, “I’m bored out of my skull. Frank’s got me doing paperwork and babysitting a bunch of Barbie and Ken dolls.”

  “It will change. At some point he’ll invite you into the inner circle, have you working with the actual blood clients. Just don’t push him on it.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “The three guys who were killed in the explosion—these guys had military training. So it stands to reason they went into that house, at that hour, to find someone. I’m guessing that someone was Paul. Only the house was rigged. So Frank and Sebastian are spooked, playing it safe, taking no chances. The surveillance on Anton and, therefore, you, since you worked for him—Frank needs to know if he can trust you, see if you’re feeding information to Anton. I think, by the way, Frank is sort of hoping that happens. The building where you work? A lot of Ron’s people are watching it—especially at night. I think they’re hoping Paul comes there, you know, maybe tries to sabotage it or something—which is why you need to keep your eyes and ears open, keep reporting everything you see and hear to Max. Speaking of which, I need you to be—how can I say this?—more intimate with your make-believe boyfriend.”

  “I’m not sleeping with him.”

  “Wasn’t asking you to,” Roland said. “Although if you kids did, neither I nor Uncle Sam would stand in the way of young true love.”

  “I’m being serious.”

  “So am I. The way you kiss him, a quick peck on the lips, the way you hug him and hold his hand, it’s like you’re afraid you’re going to catch a major case of the cooties. Is that what you young kids call it? The cooties?”

  “Nobody has said that. Ever. And I want to see my real-life boyfriend.”

  “And I assure you, my good woman, I am currently working on that. In the interim, with Max, it’s important to keep up appearances. You’re not Ellie Batista
; you’re Faye Simpson, and Faye Simpson has got a love interest, and you’ve got to act the part—and look natural while you’re doing it. You’ve got a lot of eyes on you, and I’m not the only one who has picked up on the way your body stiffens when you’re in physical contact with Max.”

  “I had to do it once, for Anton, for the blood carrier.”

  “McDouchebag,” Roland said.

  “It left me feeling . . . Carrying lies for Faye Simpson is one thing. But kissing another man, fooling around with him, even if it’s job related—no matter which way you cut it, it’s cheating. Cody didn’t sign up for that, and I’m having a hard time sitting with it.”

  “Of course you are. If you didn’t feel that way, you’d be a sociopath.” Roland’s eyes searched hers for a moment. “We talked about this before you went undercover, that you’d have to find a way to put Cody to the side.”

  Ellie nodded. They had talked about it. At great length.

  “You’re playing a part, no different from an actress,” Roland said. “But right now, you’ve got to keep your head in the game, and that means keeping up appearances. It means allowing Max to stay over at your place every once in a while.”

  “And in my bed.”

  “Ellie,” Roland sighed, “all I’m asking you is to sleep with him in the same bed. I’m not asking you to have sex with him. It looks odd, you never having him stay over at your place, is what I’m saying.”

  He sounded frustrated, but she saw a lot of compassion in his eyes. “Look,” Roland said, “this is a curveball, adding Max into the mix in order to deliver you messages and asking you to pretend you’re really into him. I get it. Frank moved you into that nice apartment, so it stands to reason he probably owns it, and that it’s bugged with mikes and cameras. Just up your game with Max, okay? Pretend he’s Cody, some movie star, or football stud, whoever—I don’t care. Just act like you’re excited to see him—to be with him. Frank and his buddy Sebastian are paranoid by nature—they have to be, in order to have survived this long in the blood game. Now, though, three guys dead from a bomb—it screams setup. It says someone is after them. Maybe it’s Paul or the Armenians or the Mexicans, maybe all three. Frank and Sebastian are in a watch-and-wait mode, putting everyone under the microscope, so let’s not give them any reason to suspect you might not be who you say you are, okay?”