He felt adrenaline coursing through his body. He felt alive. The image of her stuck and bleeding white thigh engraved in his mind, he burned to shoot more arrows into the blonde’s voluptuous flesh . . .
It would have to wait.
Chapter 48
In his apartment Brody logged onto the Elysian Fields chat room.
Myshkin: Anybody there?
Margaux Hemingway: I’m here.
Caligula: Me, too.
Myshkin: How did you get epilepsy?
Margaux Hemingway: I don’t know. I think I was born with it. I never had a doctor tell me how I got it.
Caligula: I got it from kissing.
Margaux Hemingway: What?
Caligula: LOL. I had you going. That was a joke. But some people really believe you can get epilepsy that way.
Margaux Hemingway: I don’t believe you. But maybe that explains why a lot of people are scared of epileptics. They’re worried about becoming infected.
Caligula: They’re idiots.
Myshkin: How did you really get it, Caligula?
Caligula: I started having seizures after I was in a car accident. My doctor said it was possible I could have gotten epilepsy after hitting my head in an accident.
Margaux Hemingway: How did you get it, Myshkin?
Myshkin: I guess I was born with it.
Teddy Roosevelt: Most epileptics don’t know how they got it. Doctors don’t know all the causes, either. It’s not like you can avoid getting it. It’s not like the flu. If you got it, you got it.
Caligula: The fact is a lot of people think it’s contagious. So they try to avoid us as soon as they find out we’re epileptics. Which is why I don’t tell anyone about it.
Teddy Roosevelt: I talk about it only in this chat room. I don’t want to risk losing any friends by telling them about it.
Margaux Hemingway: People can be brutal when they’re ignorant.
Teddy Roosevelt: Sometimes I think they hate us.
Margaux Hemingway: It’s not that bad. Maybe in the old days, it had more of a stigma to it.
Teddy Roosevelt: I wonder why the doctors can’t figure out what causes it.
Margaux Hemingway: It’s a mystery.
Teddy Roosevelt: It drove me to drink when I was younger.
Caligula: You, too?
Margaux Hemingway: When you first find out you have it, it’s pretty traumatic.
Teddy Roosevelt: Then I joined AA. I realized when I was there that alcoholism wasn’t the problem. It was the epilepsy that was causing the drinking that was the problem.
Margaux Hemingway: So what did you do?
Teddy Roosevelt: I quit AA. And I quit getting drunk. My wife helped with that part after we talked about it.
Myshkin: What’s worse? Being an alcoholic or being an epileptic?
Teddy Roosevelt: I’m no expert on the matter. I don’t want to say. But I had a choice with alcoholism. I chose to dry out. You don’t have a choice with epilepsy. You have to deal with it.
Margaux Hemingway: Exactly. Epileptics don’t deserve to be blamed for their condition. Just like you can’t blame cancer patients for getting cancer.
Caligula: You know that. And I know that. The problem is, not everyone else does. They tend to shy away from epileptics.
Margaux Hemingway: This is starting to be a downer. We can’t kick ourselves because of other people’s ignorance.
Teddy Roosevelt: Nobody’s kicking anyone. We’re just saying.
Margaux Hemingway: My dog wants to eat, so I’m saying good-bye. He’s very demanding.
Teddy Roosevelt: Dogs have it easy. They don’t have to worry about epilepsy.
Margaux Hemingway: LOL. It’s a dog’s life.
Brody logged out of the chat room. He should be working, anyway.
He needed to collect the harasser’s volleyball at Deirdre’s house so he could have the skin’s DNA analyzed. Maybe terrorist was a better word than harasser in this case, he decided. Deirdre was feeling terror at this point. Having a mutilated man’s body part thrown in your pool would terrorize anyone.
Why stitch the genitals to a volleyball? Brody wondered. Why not a basketball or some other object? Was it some kind of insult to the Southern California lifestyle? Did a foreigner do it? Foreigners might resent SoCal’s sun-and-fun image. Which led him back to the Russian SVR.
Was Deirdre the one involved in espionage, or was it her husband? Her husband would have access to politicians as part of his job as talent manager. Brody didn’t see how Deirdre had access to top-secret political documents. And yet she was the one being terrorized. The anonymous letter asking where “it” was had been addressed to her.
Or did the letter have nothing to do with the mutilations? Was it sent by someone other than the mutilator?
At least the feds had Deirdre’s house staked out to keep her protected, so Brody didn’t have to worry about acting as her bodyguard.
Chapter 49
Wearing an olive drab tank top and black jeans in his hotel room in Hollywood, Jorge called Gaetano in Guadalajara, Mexico, on one of his burner phones.
“There’s a man helping the target family, patrón,” said Jorge.
“If he gets in the way, take care of him.”
“He is getting in the way.”
“You know what to do.”
“I want permission to recruit help from the local MS-13 gang, patrón.”
“Bueno. We’ve dealt with them before. Don’t tell them why, though. Make up an excuse.” He paused. “Do you know where it is yet?”
Jorge glanced at his wristwatch to see how long this conversation was taking. His orders were to keep cell-phone conversations brief.
“No,” said Jorge. “The crooks haven’t cracked yet.”
“When will you get this done? We need it ASAP.”
“Soon, patrón.”
The boss terminated the call.
Jorge left his motel, walked down the sidewalk till he found a Dumpster he hadn’t used before, cracked the black plastic lid, flicked the burner into the Dumpster, and shut the lid with a thump, blowing the fetid odor of rotting garbage into his face. Wiping off his hands he made for a nearby pocket park.
He found a deserted weathered grey wooden picnic table splotched with scattered white clumps of pigeon turd, withdrew another burner from his trouser pocket, sat down at the table under a shady eucalyptus tree, and placed a call to a number he had for MS-13, as leaves above him rattled in the breeze.
“This is CJNG,” said Jorge.
“Hello, friend.”
“We need your help.”
“Where are you? Are you here?”
“Hollywood.”
“How much is our help worth to you?”
“Five large.”
“What kind of a friend are you?” said the man’s voice, chuckling.
“Ten large.”
“What kind of help is this?”
“We need you to help us deal with a Zeta.”
Not exactly true, decided Jorge, but he knew MS-13 hated the Zetas as much as CJNG did.
“Is the Zeta in LA?” said the voice.
“Yeah.”
“Something can be arranged.”
Jorge told him to send someone to meet him at the Cabo Wabo Cantina on Hollywood Boulevard near the Hollywood Wax Museum.
He terminated the call, got up from the picnic table, found a trash basket, discarded his burner, and left the park, as crows cawed in the eucalyptus tree that towered above the picnic area.
Chapter 50
Brody made his way across the Foxes’ backyard to the gardening shed with Deirdre at his side.
“I’m worried,” said Deirdre. “What if this guy attacks us again?”
“There are men stationed around your house guarding you,” said Brody.
Deirdre stopped in her tracks and surveyed her yard’s perimeter. “Where? I don’t see anybody.”
Brody had to admit he didn’t see anyone either, but Peltz had
confided in him that feds were stationed around the Foxes’ house.
“They’re professionals,” said Brody. “They know how to keep hidden.”
“Were they here when Busby was kidnaped?”
Brody didn’t know if they were or not. “Uh—no.”
They resumed their journey to the gardening shed.
Deirdre opened the door to the shed and entered.
A foul, musty odor greeted them.
Deirdre screwed up her face at the stench.
“Where’s the volleyball?” said Brody.
Deirdre lifted the tarpaulin in the corner of the shed, revealing the cooler that contained the volleyball. She lifted up the cooler’s lid to show Brody the grotesque contents.
“Did you touch the ball?” he said.
“Yes. So did Lyndon.”
Brody pulled a face at the reek issuing from the volleyball.
“I know,” said Deirdre, holding her nose.
“We’re lucky the bugs didn’t get to it.”
“I put it in the cooler before they had a chance.”
He inspected the volleyball. The terrorist had stitched a circumcised phallus and its scrotum devoid of the testicles to the volleyball. The message was clear. We will castrate you.
“This was meant for Lyndon, not you,” he said.
“How can you be sure? Maybe it’s some kind of rape message meant for me.”
Brody shrugged.
“Could be,” he said, but wasn’t convinced.
“Maybe it’s meant for our entire family. Valerie was the one floating in the pool when the drone dropped this thing into the water next to her.”
“I guess it could be a symbol of rape.”
Deirdre turned away from the cooler. “I don’t want to look at it.”
Brody closed the cooler and raised it by its handle.
“It still smells,” he said, sniffing the cooler.
“I know. That odor sticks to everything.”
“OK. Let’s go.”
“Do you need to take the whole volleyball?”
“There might be fingerprints on it—beside yours and Lyndon’s. Best to check.”
They left the shed, Brody with the cooler in his hand.
“What happens next?” she said.
“The forensics guy I know will do a touch DNA test on the skin and see if the owner is in the DNA database. If he gets a hit, we’ll know who got mutilated.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“We’re back to square one—unless he can lift the terrorist’s prints off the volleyball. That’s a long shot. This guy’s a pro. I doubt he would be stupid enough to leave prints on his handiwork.”
Chapter 51
Brody drove the volleyball to his forensics friend Sam Lasko, a ten-year veteran at the forensics department at the West Hollywood Police Department.
The obscene volleyball stank up Brody’s Mini. He had to keep the windows open all the way to Lasko’s apartment on Highland Avenue, not far from In-N-Out Burger.
It turned out the thirty-seven-year-old Jamaican-born Lasko was on vacation for two days and could examine the volleyball on his own time. His family had moved to Miami the month after he was born. His mother had American citizenship so he grew up as an American.
Embarrassed about the foul odor emanating from the volleyball inside the cooler, which must not have been airtight, Brody took the stairs to Lasko’s apartment so he wouldn’t stink up the elevator.
Brody rapped on Lasko’s door.
Expecting him, five-nine rangy Lasko opened it in a few seconds, sporting wire-rim glasses, cropped hair, and three days’ growth of black mosslike stubble on his broad, coffee-toned face.
Brody entered Lasko’s apartment with the cooler.
“You’re in dire need of a shower, Brody,” said Lasko, looking sick. “Sleeping in gutters does that to you.”
“It’s not me. It’s the volleyball I want you to examine.”
“Excuse me. No volleyball ever smelled that bad.”
Brody hadn’t told Lasko over the phone what he wanted DNA tests for. He opened the cooler to reveal the volleyball.
“What the fuck is that?” said Lasko, peering down into the cooler.
“This is what I want you to do DNA tests on.”
“I repeat, what the fuck is it? Some junkie sculptor’s idea of art?”
“It is what it looks like,” said Brody, wincing at the reek of putrescent flesh and formaldehyde that escaped from the confines of the cooler.
“Is this a joke? It looks like some guy’s dick sewn onto a volleyball,” said Lasko, examining the volleyball with displeasure.
“That’s right.”
“It’s not art?”
“It was used to terrorize my client at her house.”
“What do you want me to do with it?”
“I want you to shove it up your ass.”
Lasko gave him a look.
“What do you think I want you to do with it?” said Brody.
“I’d bury it if it was up to me. The sooner, the better.”
“Stop clowning around. I want you to take a DNA sample of the skin and try to ID the victim of the mutilation.”
“What kind of sicko dreamed this up? Yuk.”
“If you help me with this, maybe I can nail the guy.”
Lasko studied the aberrant volleyball. “I never realized you white folks had such tiny dicks.”
“We’re still around. We must be doing something right.”
“You know what they say. Once you go black, you don’t go back.”
“I didn’t come here to discuss your empty sex life.”
“Eww,” said Lasko, holding his chest like he’d just been knifed. “Coming from the authority on empty sex lives himself, that hurt. What’s eating you?”
“Can you do it, or not?”
“Piece of cake, though I don’t know why I should do anything for your sorry ass.”
“I’ll be in touch,” said Brody, retreating to the door.
“You got a nasty disposition, Brody. Maybe you should get married. It might cheer you up.”
“I was married.”
Brody left it at that. He didn’t want to talk about it.
Chapter 52
Brody drove his Mini back to his apartment.
Along the way, he picked up on a guy on a motorcycle who appeared to be tailing him. The motorcyclist was wearing a New York Yankees shirt, baggy jeans, and a black helmet with a black-tinted visor that covered his face, casting an ominous aspect.
Brody kept an eye on the chopper in the rearview mirror. He realized he didn’t need to. He could keep track of it by listening to its ear-racking noise.
He braked to a stop in front of a red light.
He heard the chopper approaching with a chest-vibrating rumble on his left.
Adrenaline shot through Brody’s body, as he anticipated danger.
The motorcyclist was drawing a silenced semiautomatic pistol from his racing jacket. Brody reached for his SIG P365 snugged in its Velcro shoulder rig under his jacket, whipped out the SIG, and swung it around toward the motorcyclist, who was training his pistol on him.
Brody hit the gas. The motorcyclist got off a shot. The car lurched forward three feet into the crosswalk. Brody slammed the brakes, his head jerking forward. He snaked his shooting arm around and squeezed off two rounds point-blank into the motorcyclist’s visor, as the motorcyclist drove forward, gun in hand.
As Brody had hoped, the sun visor wasn’t bulletproof. Two rounds drilled through it into the guy’s forehead and sent him pitching to his left and off his chopper, which skidded on its side into the intersection, where a pickup T-boned and flattened it with screeching tires that left snaking streaks of black rubber in their wakes on the tarmac.
Car horns blasted.
His heart beating on steroids, Brody flicked on his flashing red warning lights, dug his iPhone out of his trouser pocket, and punched out 911 to report the shooting
and an accident.
His mouth felt dry. It could just as easily have been him lying dead from a gunshot wound.
He scoped out the motorcyclist, who was lying motionless on his side on the tarmac.
Five minutes later, a motorcycle cop threaded his way through the snarled traffic to Brody’s Mini.
Brody got out of his car and motioned to the cop.
The cop parked his motorcycle and toed down its kickstand with his black tactical boots next to the driver’s-side door of Brody’s Mini.
“What happened, sir?” said the dismounting cop wearing a white helmet, its tinted visor shielding his face.
“He tried to kill me,” said Brody, gesturing to the fallen motorcyclist.
“How?”
“With a gun.”
Brody pointed to the silenced semiautomatic that lay on the road three feet away from the dead attacker.
“Did his bullet hit you?” said the cop.
“No.”
Brody peered into his car to see where the bullet had gone. He spotted a fresh hole in his passenger’s-side door.
“His bullet hit my car door,” said Brody, pointing it out.
“Wait here for the lieutenant,” said the cop.
A traffic cop wearing white gloves and a white hat appeared and directed traffic like he was conducting an orchestra, his head held high.
The red-faced portly pickup driver who mashed the fallen chopper waited in the intersection to talk with a cop and report the accident.
“You wait here,” the motorcycle cop told Brody.
Brody didn’t protest.
The motorcycle cop swaggered in his boots into the intersection to take a statement from the pickup’s driver.
Chapter 53
Another five minutes later, Lieutenant Matos drove up in a black-and-white, parked behind Brody’s Mini, lumbered out, and approached Brody. The honking had died down, but not much. Irate drivers jammed the intersection.
Pushing forty, wearing a brown blazer, a muted blue tie, and black trousers, Matos was burly, had a shaved tawny head and a furrowed brow. He had a name tag on his breast pocket. His small dark eyes didn’t move much, like they belonged to a doll—or a shark. They held a steady gaze with unblinking lids. His eyebrows looked skimpy, like he shaved them every morning.
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