“A funny one! I love it. No, I don’t ‘just live’ with Daddy. I can’t believe Archie here hasn’t told you, considering he’s so -”
“We’re here!” Archer shouted, jumping out of the cart before it came to a stop. Before Jo could even open her mouth, he was pulling her out behind him.
“He’s in the games room,” Mal said, then peeled off without so much as a goodbye.
“That was bizarre,” she snorted, trying to keep her feet under her as Archer dragged her up some marble steps. “He’s your brother?”
“Half brother,” Archer corrected her. “Same dad, different moms.”
“So he’s not Mal Calhoun?”
“No, he’s Malcolm Rodriguez. Calhoun is my step-dad’s name. Mal was raised by my real father.”
“Malcolm, Mal,” she repeated his name softly, but she wasn’t really paying attention. Archer was rushing her through an amazing home. A stained glass dome over the main entrance, a split staircase curving up the sides of the walls, gold inlaid everywhere. Such opulence.
And women. So many women, just wandering around. Bikinis everywhere. Jo knew she was good looking and had a good body – to work at her job, a person had to look a certain way – but the women surrounding her actually made her feel a little self conscious.
On top of that, they all seemed to know Archer. They called out greetings, leaned in to kiss his cheek. A few even tried to hug him. He shrugged away from them all, explaining that he was in a hurry, that he was only there to speak to Santana.
“Who’s Santana?” Jo asked, struggling to keep up as they practically ran up a flight of stairs.
“My dad. Santana Rodriguez.”
He stopped her outside a huge pair of double doors. Laughter and giggling could be heard from the other side of them, and the sound of pool balls clacking and clinking together.
“Your dad’s name is Santana?” she laughed.
“It’s a nickname. Jo, I just … remember what I said outside, okay?” he asked, and he was staring at her again. She stopped laughing and nodded her head.
“Okay, Archer. I promise.”
“Remember, and trust me,” he added. She frowned.
“Okay, but you’re making me nervous.”
“You’re about to get a lot more nervous.”
He didn’t give her a chance to respond, he just turned and opened both doors.
The way he’d been talking, she hadn’t been sure what to expect, but the scene in the room looked pretty normal. Three more bikini clad women stood around a pool table which sat in front of a curved wall. Big windows behind it let in lots of sunlight, negating the need for any lamps or overhead lighting. Against one wall were shelves full of basketballs and tennis balls and volley balls and soccer balls – basically just a lot of balls. The opposite wall was bare, and painted on the hard wood floor in front of it was a shuffleboard.
An impressive space, for sure, but not enough to distract her from the only other man in the room. He was wearing a cream colored linen suit, no tie, and when he came out from around the table, she was surprised to see he also wore no shoes. His thick, long brown hair was brushing his collar, and a trim beard obscured the bottom half of his face.
Still, there was no mistaking who he was; Malcolm Rodriguez may have looked nothing like his younger brother, but Santana Rodriguez looked exactly like his younger son. It was uncanny. He was an older version of Archer. The tan skin, the generous smile, the broad shoulders. When he got close enough, she could see he also had the same gorgeous hazel eyes.
“My boy!” his dad laughed loudly. He even had the same laugh as Archer. “I was wondering where you’ve been all weekend.”
“It’s been a rough one,” Archer sighed, then she felt his hand pressing against her lower back. “Dad, this is Jodi Morgan. Jo, this is my … dad.”
Jo automatically stuck out her hand, but Mr. Rodriguez ignored it and pulled her into a great big bear hug, picking her up off her feet. She grunted as the air was forced from her lungs, and she managed to turn her head to shoot a worried glance at Archer. He couldn’t see her, though, because he grumbling and staring at his feet.
“Finally!” his dad laughed again as he set her back down. “I’ve been bugging this kid to introduce us for a while now.”
“Uh …” Jo responded articulately.
“I know, I know, sounds a little weird. Archer here has mentioned you a time or two. Has shared some of your wilder adventures. Gotta say, I was annoyed at first, thinking some little flirt was stealing my son away right after I found him, but eventually I could tell it was the real deal,” he told her. She raised her eyebrows.
“Real deal?”
“Oh, he may not have said it yet, but Archer here is head over -”
“Dad,” Archer practically shouted. Everyone in the room turned to stare at him. “Sorry, it’s just … shit has been really crazy this weekend, and I have a lot to fill you in on. In private.”
“Geez, why didn’t you say so? C’mon, my office. Jodi, feel free to stay here, or you can -”
“She goes where I go, I’m not leaving her alone in this house.”
Jo wasn’t sure why, but she got the impression Santana Rodriguez wasn’t someone who was often interrupted, and now Archer had done it twice. The two stood still, staring at each other. Archer had maybe an inch or two on his dad, but Mr. Rodriguez had a steely confidence that only comes with age and extreme wealth. He narrowed his eyes at his son.
“It’s okay,” Jo said quickly. “I can wait here, Mr. Rodriguez.”
There was silence for a second longer, then his dad grinned again. His arm wrapped around her shoulders, hugging her to his side, and he started walking out of the room.
“Please. My father was Mr. Rodriguez. Everyone calls me Santana, the boys call me Dad, and my name is Carlos. Take your pick,” he offered as he guided them out of the room and down a hall.
“Ah, I get it,” she laughed nervously. “Santana. Carlos. Carlos Santana.”
“I love a good guitar player,” Santana sighed.
They walked into his office, which was filled with lots of leather and wooden furniture. Heavy drapes were covering the windows, making everything dark and masculine. Large, expensive looking leather chairs were pulled up to a huge rosewood desk and Santana deposited her in one of those chairs. Archer sat next to her and immediately leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“We have a real problem,” he sighed.
“Seems like it,” his dad agreed, sitting behind the desk and opening a drawer. He rooted around in it for a second before pulling out a large cigar.
“Like I said, it’s been a shit weekend. I left here Friday and did that job for you over in Marina Del Rey,” Archer started.
“Yeah, seemed like it went well.”
“Perfect, no problems. Then I went home and changed and …”
Jo was confused. He’d been in Malibu and Marina Del Rey on Friday? He’d told her he’d worked all day Friday, which should have meant he’d been at his construction site in Reseda – that’s where she’d assumed he’d been when she’d tried to get a hold of him all night Friday. Had he been on a different site in Malibu? She wasn’t sure why, but she was pretty positive the answer was no.
“Are you a contractor?” she suddenly blurted out, interrupting Archer. Both men turned to look at her, and she could tell Archer was upset with her question, but she didn’t look away from his father.
“What?” Santana asked, blowing a stream of smoke over his shoulder.
“He said he did a job for you – he works construction. Are you like a contractor, does he work at job sites for you?” she asked. Nothing had been said, so she couldn’t be sure why she felt sick, but her stomach was definitely cramping up. Nerves were setting her entire body on edge, and not in a good way.
I bet Archer’s never even been on a construction site …
“Construction?” his dad asked, chuckling as he glanced at his son. “Is that w
hat you said?”
Archer groaned and turned towards her.
“Please, please, please don’t freak out,” he urged. “Let me just get this over with, and then you can freak out all you want. But right now, please just -”
“What do you?” she spoke through him, still staring at his dad. The older man sighed and leaned forward, setting his cigar in an ornate crystal ashtray.
“I know this isn’t what you wanted, Son,” he said. “But best just to get it over with.”
Archer ignored his dad and reached across the space between the chairs, gripping onto her hand.
“Please, Jojo,” he whispered.
“I’m an entrepreneur, I guess you could say. I have a lot of real estate, some shares in some production companies, a trucking business,” Santana explained. Jo blinked and glanced at Archer.
“That seems pretty normal.”
“I’m also one of the most successful cocaine dealers in the greater Los Angeles basin.”
Jo sucked in air so hard, she started choking. Archer jumped to his feet and began pounding on her back, but she shooed him away. When she finally caught her breath, she stared at Mr. Rodriguez.
“I’m sorry,” she breathed. “I’ve had a weird weekend, I’m half deaf from listening to gun shots. What did you say?”
“I import cocaine,” he said, resting his arms on his desk and lacing his fingers together. “Vast quantities of it, from Colombia and Mexico. And then I turn around and distribute it to gangs and lower level drug rings. Some premium clients, we deal with ourselves. I set up the deals, and Archer and Malcolm facilitate the trade offs.”
Jo stared at him for a moment, then turned to stare at Archer. He was holding her hand so tightly, she was starting to lose the feeling in her fingers.
Ten years around each other, and I don’t even know this person.
“You’re a drug dealer,” she stated in a loud clear voice. He winced.
“Jesus, don’t say it like that, it’s not like I’m lurking around high schools, selling to kids,” he argued.
“Oh, I’m sorry. You’re a rich drug dealer,” she corrected herself.
“Jojo, stop.”
“Don’t call me that,” she hissed, yanking her hand away.
“I’m sorry you had to find out this way, I hadn’t realize Archer was keeping it a secret from you. I told him from the get go leading two lives was virtually impossible. He was right about one thing, though; it sounds like we don’t have time for you to ‘freak out’ right now. You will have plenty of time later to rake him over the coals. Right now, sounds like you’ve both got a problem you need help with,” Santana said.
“The problem is a dead drug dealer in my trunk!” Jo yelled. Santana’s eyebrows shot up, his eyes bouncing between her and his son.
“Someone we know?” he asked in a casual voice.
“Bernard Krakow,” Archer sighed.
“Hmmm. One of Danny’s guys,” Santana grumbled. Jo held up her hands.
“You know him!?” she shouted.
“I never met him,” Archer spoke fast. “A guy named Daniel Nguyen runs a drug ring out in West Covina, mainly dealing meth and coke. But recently he’s been edging into our territory. Krakow started running drugs for him around Hollywood, that’s when we first heard his name. He only popped up in Van Nuys a month or two ago.”
“You knew him,” she breathed, at a total loss. The moment was surreal. She briefly wondered if she’d never actually come down from the ecstasy she’d had yesterday.
“So now he’s in your girlfriend’s trunk. How did he get there?” Archer’s dad asked.
“I’m not his girlfriend,” she snapped.
“Jo, shut up,” Archer groaned. “And we … we don’t know. Jo and I were at a club downtown Friday night, the dude drugged her drink and tried to take her outside. Next morning, he’s sleeping off a couple bullets in her trunk. We’ve been on a wild goose chase ever since. Found out he’s been stalking her, lurking around her work, was the one pulling the strings to get her to the club he met her at.”
“Did you know any of this was going on? That he was following her?” Santana asked.
“No. You told me to leave him alone, so I left him alone. Seems like he didn’t want to return the favor.”
“She mentioned gun shots. How big of a mess am I going to have to deal with?” Santana sighed.
“That’s the thing,” Archer’s voice got animated as he scooted to the edge of his seat. “Wherever we go, these assholes keep popping up! Big heavy dudes. We’re at her work – they come in asking about her. We go to our apartment building – they’re there tossing the place, even shot at us when we tried to get away. So we go to Krakow’s apartment. I figured I could search the place and figure out what’s going on – they turn the place into Swiss cheese the next morning. We had to jump out a four story fucking window into a pool.”
“You dropped me out a window,” Jo corrected him, clenching her teeth together so hard she halfway expected one to crack.
“Jojo here pointed out that they keep magically showing up everywhere we went, which I was like yeah, that’s pretty fucking weird. So I take us back to our building and while I’m checking to make sure they’re not hanging out downstairs, I made a call,” he said.
This was news to Jo. She’d sat in the car while Archer had made sure the entrance to their building had been clear. She’d assumed he’d just checked the stairwell and the elevator, she hadn’t realized he’d been making phone calls.
“Obviously not to me,” Santana noted. “I’m a little upset to hear you’ve been getting shot at for two days straight and you didn’t think to tell me. You know better, Archer. I could’ve helped.”
“I didn’t know we’d end up getting shot at. And …” his voice trailed off as he looked back at Jo. “I thought I could postpone this moment for a little longer.”
“Can’t postpone the inevitable,” his dad pointed out.
“Besides, I didn’t think I’d need your help because I thought I already had help. Someone I’d been messaging all weekend. So when we got back to our building, I called my little helper and told him where I was and what we were doing. Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes later, guess who shows up?”
“Nguyen’s thugs?” Santana guessed.
“Yeah. Wound up pinned down in her bedroom. I had to set the fucking apartment on fire.”
“I thought I saw something on the news about a building fire in Van Nuys.”
“That would be us.”
“That would be when he threw me out a window for the second time in two hours,” Jo added, glaring at Archer.
“Well then,” Santana sighed, leaning back in his chair. “We knew we had a double-cross. Sounds like you found him. Do I want to know?”
“I don’t think you’ll even believe me,” Archer replied.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Jo tried to catch up. “You’re a big time drug dealer, and Archer is a little mini-drug dealer.”
“Mini-drug dealer!” Santana laughed. “Archer took to it like a duck to water, he’s my second in command. He’ll inherit everything one day, if I can ever get him to leave Van Nuys.”
“He’s a second in command drug dealer,” Jo continued talking. “Whatever. And you guys have someone working for you who’s been double crossing you for this other big time drug dealer, Danny whoever. Danny, who probably sent Krakow after me, all because Archer is a drug dealer, too. And yet, some how, bringing me here seemed like a good idea!?”
She had turned in her seat while she’d been speaking, and when she finished, she was staring straight at Archer. He stared right back, but he was rubbing at the back of his neck. She knew him well enough to know what that gesture meant.
I don’t know him at all.
“It was a good idea, because it means we can plug up the leak we seem to have, and then we can deal with your little problem, as well. Who’s the leak?” Santana asked.
“Mal,” Archer said simply.
“What does Malcolm know?” Santana looked confused.
“No, Mal is the leak,” Archer sighed. “I told you he’d been weird lately. Not showing up to jobs, shady late night meetings. He’s the only person I’ve been talking to all weekend. Every time I texted him what was happening or what we were doing, fifteen minutes later we would be surrounded. It has to be him. Literally no one else knew where we were.”
There was a long silence. As upset as she was, even Jo knew better than to interrupt it. Father stared at son, clearly not wanting to believe what he’d just heard. Jo didn’t know Mal at all, but the accusation didn’t surprise her. Santana may have been some kind of drug lord, but he also seemed genuinely nice. Malcolm Rodriguez, on the other hand, had “bad guy” written all over him.
“How can you be so sure?” Archer’s father finally asked. “Your little girlfriend here could have been texting any -”
“Check my phone, I’ve used it once to make exactly one phone call all weekend, and it was to a stripper named Beeshonn. I doubt she’s in on your little drug war,” Jo snapped at him.
“And I haven’t spoken to one single other soul besides Mal,” Archer said again.
Santana let out a long sigh and stared up at his ceiling. It probably wasn’t easy, hearing that his first born was not only a traitor, but had also pretty much tried to get his brother killed. Living a life of crime clearly wasn’t as glamorous as movies made it out to be.
This is why I don’t get involved with drug dealers or pushers or addicts or bad people in general, ARCHER. YOU FUCKING DRUG DEALING BAD PERSON!
“I didn’t want to believe it. I’ve had my suspicions, even before you brought up yours. Ever since I brought you into the fold, he’s had issues. He’s always been jealous. Apparently it finally got the better of him,” Santana sighed. “So he’s working for Nguyen. They’ve been specifically poaching our long term clients, now we know how and why. And now Mal’s using Krakow and Nguyen to come after you. Probably because he thinks if he gets rid of you, he’ll inherit everything.”
“And Krakow and Nguyen were into some fucked up shit. I found all this stuff on Krakow’s computer. Jo wasn’t the first girl he’d followed around. He’s been doing this kind of thing for a while, kidnapping chicks and keeping them. Torturing them, killing them.”
Just a Little Junk Page 16