“Why should they mess with me?”
“You’re ’Ndrangheta. You’re a competitor.”
“How do they know I’m ’Ndrangheta?”
“Word on the street gets around. I’m just telling you to be on the lookout for them.”
“I’m ready for action now.”
“Good.”
“Who is my target?”
“We aren’t sure yet.”
“Why’s it taking so long to find out?”
The mastro di giornata terminated the call.
They never told him anything, Marcello decided. He wanted to get on with the hit now that he had found out he had competition from the Mexican cartels. Was there a bounty on the target? Could his target be a sicario? Was he supposed to whack out a Zeta?
Zetas had a reputation for ruthlessness. He had heard stories of a Mexican priest who had defied the Zetas, challenging them for taking over his town. The Zetas had tortured and raped his niece in front of him and tortured him. In the end they had made him eat his own fingers and his dick before they killed him in front of a group of his parishioners.
Not that the Zetas scared him, decided Marcello. After all, they didn’t exist. Only he existed. Everyone else was a pawn in the incomprehensible virtual-reality game he was playing, a game whose rules were arbitrary and in flux.
He didn’t want to second-guess the capo crimine, but why did the guy send him here before he even knew the identity of the target?
Marcello didn’t know what was going on. But that was the normal state of affairs in his line of work. He never knew what was going on. He did as he was ordered. No explanations given. How could you figure out the meaning of a game that had no meaning? It was best not to think about it.
Chapter 26
When Deirdre returned home in her tennis outfit, Valerie met her at the front door of their Etruscan villa.
“I can’t find Busby,” said Valerie, clad in a tight chartreuse blouse and stonewashed jeans with holes in the thighs.
“Is he still missing?” said Deirdre, closing the door behind her.
“I don’t know where he could be.”
“Maybe he’s hiding.”
“How can you hide when you’re as big as him? Why would he hide anyway?”
“Maybe he’s ill. Sometimes when animals are ill, they want to be by themselves.”
“Could he have run away?”
“Why would he run away? He’s happy here. We love him.”
“I’m getting worried,” said Valerie, and walked out the door.
Lyndon stormed into the living room, brows knitted, running his fingers through his hair.
“What happened?” said Deirdre.
“I can’t find the blue suitcase. Where is it?”
“I didn’t touch it. Why are you accusing me?”
“It didn’t grow two feet and walk away by itself.”
“Maybe you moved it somewhere else, and forgot.”
“Maybe you’re the one that moved it and forgot.”
“Why would I move it?”
Lyndon shook his head. “Where’s the maid?”
“This is Lupe’s day off.”
“She just had a day off.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“There are valuable papers in that suitcase.”
“Could you have forgotten it in Cabo?”
He looked stunned. “What?”
“Could you have forgotten it in Cabo?”
“What do you know about Cabo?”
“I was there with you,” she said, puzzled. “Don’t you remember?”
“Of course. What are you saying?” he said, with a trace of suspicion.
“I’m saying, maybe you left your suitcase there.”
He gathered himself. “Uh, no way. I distinctly remember putting it in my bedroom closet when we returned from our vacation.”
Deirdre threw up her hands. “Why does everyone ask me where everything is? Why am I supposed to know?”
“Who else am I supposed to ask?”
Sighing, Deirdre collapsed on the sofa. “Busby’s missing, too.”
“Busby?”
“Maybe we better print up fliers and circulate them around the neighborhood to see if any of the neighbors have seen him.”
“He probably wandered off somewhere. He’ll come back when he’s hungry. Where else can he go?”
“I don’t like this. He’s never done this before. He’s not a puppy anymore.”
“I need that suitcase,” said Lyndon, preoccupied, pacing around the room, head bowed in thought.
“Why aren’t you at work?”
Lyndon came to a halt and searched Deirdre’s face. “Have you considered seeing a psychiatrist?”
“A psychiatrist? Why?” she said, sitting up straight, caught off guard by the suggestion.
“Maybe you’re getting absentminded—moving things around and not remembering. You could need help.”
“You’re the one that needs a psychiatrist. You’re the one that lost a suitcase.”
“Throwing a fit isn’t gonna help matters.”
“Who’s throwing a fit?” said Deirdre, bolting to her feet.
“You seem upset.”
“I was fine till you came in with your problems.”
“Get ahold of yourself.”
“The problem is you’re messing with my head.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Lyndon, striding away from her.
“You’re not the one sending me anonymous letters?”
“What?” said Lyndon, wheeling around to face her in astonishment.
“Never mind,” said Deirdre, turning her back on him and walking away.
“I don’t know anything about anonymous letters. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
Deirdre said nothing. She regretted having brought up the subject in the first place.
“I need to find that suitcase,” said Lyndon, and stalked out of the room.
Why was he doing this to her? wondered Deirdre. Phony accusations. Lies. Was he gaslighting her? What was happening to their marriage? It had to be that other woman he was seeing. She was pitting Lyndon against her and her family. That woman had to be stopped.
When she found out the woman’s identity, she would confront her. Deirdre couldn’t allow the home wrecker’s arrangement with Lyndon to go on any longer.
Chapter 27
At her request, Brody met Deirdre at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in downtown LA on Wilshire Boulevard.
He saw her sitting alone at a bench wearing sunglasses in front of Andy Warhol’s painting of Campbell’s Soup Cans on loan from New York’s Museum of Modern Art, as visitors milled around, quietly inspecting various modern artworks hung on the walls. He sat down beside her.
She looked tense.
“Lyndon’s ramping up his attacks on me,” she said.
“How so?” he said.
“He’s accusing me of moving his stuff around so he can’t find it.”
“Are you?”
“No. Why would I?”
“Is he abusing you? If he is, you can get a restraining order against him.”
“He hasn’t struck me, if that’s what you mean.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“He needs to stop blaming me for all his problems.”
“I know a guy who’s pretty convincing.”
She studied his face. “What are you talking about?”
“He can send Lyndon a very persuasive message.”
“I’m not following you.”
“I can tell the guy to give your husband the message to lay off you,” said Brody, keeping his voice down so as not to be overheard.
“And why should Lyndon listen to your friend?”
Brody lowered his voice a few more decibels. “He’s good at using a bicycle chain and a padlock inserted into a sock.”
“What’s that got to do with Lyndon?”
&n
bsp; “In the right hands those items can be very persuasive.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Brody remained silent as a plump Chinese tourist with a camera hanging from a leather strap around his neck waddled up to Warhol’s painting like a penguin and admired it, his hands clasped behind his back, rocking on his heels with pleasure. The tourist waddled out of earshot a minute later.
“The guy I know could persuade Lyndon not to harass you anymore,” said Brody.
“I don’t see how.”
Brody stopped beating around the bush. “He could rough Lyndon up a bit, send him a message.”
“I don’t want Lyndon beaten up,” she said, taken aback. “What is your friend? A thug?”
“He’s a professional. He won’t cause permanent harm. He knows what he’s doing. He can inflict pain with surgical precision.”
“He sounds ghastly.”
“That’s his job.”
“I don’t want anybody hurt.”
“He can be very persuasive. You’d be surprised.”
“Is this legal?”
Brody ducked the question. “Sending someone to stalk you isn’t legal. We need to play hardball against this guy.”
“Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
“Sometimes you need to fight fire with fire and act proactively so you’re not subjected to even worse harassment in the future.”
“Such as?”
“He might be preparing to kill you,” said Brody, making sure nobody in the museum could hear him.
Deirdre shook her head in agitation. “I’m not even sure he’s the one that hired the stalker.”
“And had Rakowski whacked.”
“We’re not sure of that.”
“If Lyndon’s behind it, things could get worse for you. A whole lot worse.”
“Like how?”
“You don’t want to find out.” Brody paused. “What I’m offering you is an effective deterrent.”
“You really think mugging him will make him stop harassing me?”
“Yeah.”
Deirdre chewed it over. “What about taking out a restraining order against him?”
“If you take out a restraining order, California law will prevent you from buying a gun.”
“Why do I want to buy a gun?” she said, hiking her eyebrows.
“Self-protection. If things get really hairy. Or do you own one already?”
“I don’t.”
“I expect things to get a lot worse for you.”
Her eyes wide, she took a deep breath. “Are you trying to scare me? You’re doing a good job of it.”
“Harassment starts with little things and keeps building and building—”
“Enough,” she said, standing up. “I’m not even sure Lyndon hired the stalker or is responsible for what happened to Rakowski. Did you find any fingerprints on that anonymous letter sent to me?”
“The only prints were yours. I’m not surprised. You were the one that opened it, and the guy that sent it knows how to stay anonymous.”
“What about DNA on the mucilage?”
“My friend doesn’t have those results yet.”
She heaved a sigh.
Brody got to his feet, eying the Warhol painting with distaste. “I was never a big fan of Warhol’s. A bunch of soup cans. Really?”
“You’re old-fashioned.”
“I like van Gogh.”
“So do I. The Starry Night is one of my favorites.”
“I gather you don’t want me to hire the persuader I know.”
“I want you to catch my husband in the act and find out if he hired the stalker,” she whispered, leaning toward him.
“No deterrents?”
“I’ll be in touch.”
She clattered away on her pumps.
She hadn’t said no, but she hadn’t said yes, either, decided Brody. He would wait and see what happened.
He found himself gazing at Warhol’s insipid painting of rows of soup cans and decided to leave.
Chapter 28
Jorge, a twenty-five-year-old sicario for the Jalisco New Generation cartel was lying supine in bed dressed in jeans, an unbuttoned short-sleeved checked madras shirt, and a white T in his Hollywood motel room watching an old black-and-white sci-fi movie about giant bugs on the flat-panel HDTV bolted to the wall opposite him.
At the foot of his bed, beyond his naked toes, stood an aluminum-framed nylon folding luggage rack, which supported his suitcase.
He was waiting for his next orders.
Jorge had been born in poverty in the small town of Coahuila in Baja California. His father had run a struggling local bicycle dealership. As a teenager Jorge noticed girls didn’t pay any attention to him. He figured it was because he had no money. Gang members seemed to do better with girls.
To become a gang member he stole cars and got involved in the drug scene. The gang was small beer, strictly local.
However, to his dismay, it gave him the opportunity to see firsthand how the big-time cartels operated.
Two of his neighborhood buddies, both gang members, Juan and Xavier, got in over their heads when it came to drug dealing. Trying to increase their profits they stepped on their bosses’ toes by cutting their drugs with harmless additives. Such people were quick to respond.
Juan and Xavier were summarily tortured and shot to death with AK-47s by Sinaloa cartel sicarios dispatched by their bosses, who resented being shortchanged by spear-carriers. The sicarios beheaded Juan and Xavier and mounted their heads on stakes posted outside the gang’s hangout on the outskirts of town, where the heads attracted swarms of hungry flies and nauseated curious onlookers.
Grief-stricken and furious, Jorge burned for revenge. He joined the Sinaloa cartel’s rival, the Jalisco New Generation cartel, the first chance he got.
In the span of a couple of years he had graduated from grand theft auto to plying his trade as a sicario for the Jalisco New Generation cartel. Now he was the one posting enemy heads on stakes or rolling the heads down the streets in the middle of town.
With CJNG he learned that sicarios weren’t just killers. The most important part of their job was to intimidate by torture. Killing by the sicarios sent a message. However, the cartels knew that death by itself wasn’t a strong-enough message. The murder had to be accompanied by torture. Some people did not fear death. But everybody feared torture. Everybody could relate to excruciating pain while being mutilated, and they were scared to death of it.
As a youth he had heard a story about Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug kingpin, whose brother owned a Paso Fino racehorse. It was a magnificent horse and boasted a grand reputation throughout the country.
Pablo Escobar’s enemies Los Pepes (People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar) wanted to get back at his ruthless cartel headquartered in Medellin. Instead of killing him, they stole his brother’s horse and killed its jockey. They returned the horse to Escobar. But it wasn’t the same horse they had stolen.
Now it was castrated.
The Pepes were paying back Pablo Escobar in his own coin—intimidation. In effect, they were castrating him, not just his horse.
The most important mission of a sicario was not to kill, but to sow terror, Jorge learned. Terrorize and intimidate were the key words of the most successful cartels. Murder was a means by which to accomplish these two ends and retain power.
As instructed by CJNG, Jorge had initiated his acts of intimidation against the new targets, but they were nothing compared to what would follow. Each act would be worse than its predecessor.
Pretty soon the targets would regret the day they were born.
Chapter 29
When Deirdre returned to her house she decided to cast around for the missing blue suitcase that Lyndon had told her about. She couldn’t understand how it could be missing. A suitcase wasn’t exactly small. Why would somebody take it? What would anybody want with Lyndon’s business documents? Not something Lupe would be intere
sted in. Besides, Lupe was bonded and trustworthy. She had worked for Deirdre for going on eight years.
Making for the master bedroom Deirdre met a worried Valerie walking out of her bedroom and down the corridor.
“Have you seen Busby?” said Valerie.
“Is he still missing?”
“I can’t find him anywhere. I think we need to print up posters and spread the word around the neighborhood to keep an eye out for him.”
“Why would he go wandering off?”
“Maybe he got lost.”
Bemused, Deirdre frowned. “He’s not a puppy anymore. He knows the way home.”
“I think he ran away.”
“All right. Go ahead and print up posters on the computer so we can post them on trees along the street. Somebody must’ve seen him. A dog that big can’t avoid being noticed.”
Valerie returned to her bedroom.
Deirdre entered the master bedroom and rummaged around in search of Lyndon’s blue suitcase. She started in his closet, where he said he had stored it. She found two suitcases, neither of them blue.
She also found something else.
A tulle pink chemise was bunched in the corner of the closet behind one of the suitcases.
And it wasn’t her chemise, she realized as she squatted and retrieved it.
She backed out of the closet to inspect it. She had never seen it before. Holding it up she didn’t think it would fit her. Whoever this belonged to was taller than her. Could it be Valerie’s? Why would it be stashed in Lyndon’s closet? Did she dare think the unthinkable? Would Lyndon molest his own—no, she didn’t believe it. Her suspicions were turning her into a paranoid basket case. She banished the thought from her mind.
“Val,” she called.
“What is it?”
“Could you come here for a second?”
“I’m trying to create a poster for Busby.”
“This won’t take long.”
Valerie entered the master bedroom. “Yeah?”
Deirdre held up the chemise for her to inspect. “Is this yours?”
“I don’t like that shade,” said Valerie, taking the chemise out of Deirdre’s hands, feeling the material, and scrutinizing it.
“Well?”
“Nice material. Gucci. Ooh la la.”
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