by John Lansing
“Anyone in particular?”
“He got into a scuffle once with Rusty, but nothing major. Donato was better with the books than he was with a gun. We had an incident, and Rusty thought Donato was a little slow to participate in the action, if you know what I’m sayin’.
“I think maybe Luke was a little too good with the numbers and left Frankie holding the bag. My guess, Frankie’ll do what he can to help you ’cause it’ll go a long way to helping himself. That and the good work you did on the Angelica front. Nobody will forget that, Jack. I won the medal, but it should’ve gone to you.”
Jack evaded the compliment. “So, you gonna be tailing us?”
“Pretty much so, yeah. What can I say? This is my new cell number,” he said, handing off cards to Jack and Mateo. “You get in a jam, give a ring. I’ll never be too far away. Mangia.” And Peter got up from the table and strolled up Canon with the ease of a white shark trolling for seal.
Nine
WP24, Wolfgang Puck’s Asian fusion restaurant, was located on the twenty-fourth floor of the Ritz-Carlton. It boasted spectacular views of the downtown skyline. Lights were twinkling on and the mirrored buildings stood in stark contrast against the cloudless, darkening sky. The sun had just dropped below the horizon and the pale ascending moon was opaque, tangerine, and full.
“I need this job,” Miranda said through red lips pulled tight against even white teeth. Her perfect skin, the color of mocha. “You should have called before dropping by.”
“Would you have talked to me?” Jack asked.
“Order something and I can give you a few minutes.”
“A glass of cabernet.”
Miranda’s brown eyes flared. She turned with attitude, her stylish braids fanning wide as she strode toward the bar. Her gravity-defying six-inch stiletto heels made the walk muscular and impressive.
The rooftop deck was filling with young, well-heeled men and women from the financial district. Brokers, real estate agents, hipster wannabes, showbiz types, and models, all looking to hook up after a tough day in the Los Angeles trenches.
Miranda was back with a glass of wine and a setup of mixed olives, cloth napkin, and silver. And a cup of coffee for herself. She sat across from Jack and blew the steam over her cup. “I’ve got a ten-minute break.”
“I’m just trying to get a handle on Luke, what he was all about, what he was capable of,” Jack said without preamble. He took a drink of the cab and raised his eyebrows in appreciation.
“Well, he was dating me. What does that tell you?”
“That he had good taste,” Jack said without blinking. Not enough to melt the thaw but maybe enough to crack the door open. “Did you spend most of your time together at your place or his?”
“Mine. It’s out of the way. I was never sure if he was worried about running into an old girlfriend, members of his crew, or the police. His line of work, he had an erratic schedule.”
“His employment . . . it didn’t bother you?”
“I work in a club where the martinis are twenty-five bucks, dinner’s a month’s rent . . . I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I feel like I’m talking to a damn priest.” But she didn’t stop talking. She looked at the well-dressed patrons, her eyes hardened, and she continued. “I never could differentiate between mobbed-up guys, showbiz muscle, hip-hop gangsters, MBAs who’d steal you blind, and self-made men and women who’d step over people like me to get to the top.”
“L.A.’s a confusing place,” Jack said in agreement, wanting to keep her on track.
“Luke . . .” She paused, searching for the words. “Well, he was one of the good guys even if he was a wiseguy. We didn’t talk about his day-to-day business; he thought the less I knew, the better. I didn’t argue the point. After an eight-hour shift in these heels, I didn’t need the aggravation. We shared a few laughs, he was good in the sack, and he’s been paying my rent for the past six months. I was finally starting to get ahead. He’ll be missed. I’m rooting for him.”
“So, you think he’s alive?”
“He’s smart. I get an email from Belize, I’ll turn in my cocktail tray and jump on a plane.”
“What about the late-night screaming matches that were reported by neighbors?”
“Effing busybodies. I’m very vocal, okay? And Luke knew how to push my buttons.” Miranda looked up, swiped a tear from her eye as the manager crooked his finger in her direction.
Jack saw the action, pulled out his credit card and his business card, and asked her to call him if Luke got in contact or she had any thoughts, anything, that might be helpful. “If he does get in touch and wants to stay hidden, I’ll respect that. My client just wants to know he’s alive.”
When Miranda returned with the check, she had penned her phone number on his receipt. He smiled when he saw the total. Twelve dollars for the olives and twenty-three for a glass of Clos du Val.
Jack signed for the check, left Miranda a crisp twenty on the tray, and steeled himself for the sea of headlights he was about to confront on I-10 west and the trip back to Marina del Rey.
* * *
Heel-toe, heel-toe, four miles per hour on the 10. Jack went over the facts as he knew them. Luke Hunter was missing, along with $475,000. If Agent Liz Hunter really knew her brother, it seemed unlikely he was in the wind. More likely a shallow grave somewhere or buried at sea. Jack would enlist the feds to check the financial statements and credit card receipts of the entire crew of the Bella Fortuna. All that money wouldn’t be easy to hide, and the temptation to spend would be large. It was thin but a starting point.
He planned on dividing and conquering the crew. Get someone talking off campus. Jack was being given carte blanche with Vincent Cardona’s blessing, but if he didn’t come up with an answer soon, the East Coast families would be paying him a visit. He’d alert his team to keep an eye out for trouble.
Jack knew he should put in a call to Agent Hunter and keep her up to speed. Her boss was probably worried about the ten grand. He planned to return the seed money and play on the house.
Jack sighed as he looked across two lanes of traffic and caught sight of a ’78 green Plymouth Fury in his side mirror. The aging muscle car crept past Jack in the fast lane, doing five miles an hour. The driver slid low in his bucket seat and averted his face, but his black sideburn, cut to a sharp edge, gave the driver’s identity away. It was Peter Maniacci, and his car was locked in tight.
Jack saw an opening and cut hard across a lane while horns blared and expletives hurled. He did a tire-burning exit onto Robertson Boulevard, hung a tight left off the freeway, and a right onto Venice, heading for home.
He hadn’t noticed the Plymouth following on the trip downtown, and he’d been on the watch. He’d have Cruz check the Mustang’s undercarriage for bugs. Peter was getting a little smarter, but not smart enough.
Jack laughed out loud, thinking about the panic filling Peter’s car. He hoped no pedestrians had suffered in the process but was satisfied he’d inflicted a little anxiety and pain on his tail.
* * *
Jack decided to deal with the bug himself. He pulled his right tires up onto the curb in front of his building and found the GPS tracker in thirty seconds, attached to the side of his gas tank. As he slid out and brushed the knees of his jeans, the bass rumble of a Harley turned him toward Bruffy’s Tow and Police Impound, located across the street from Jack’s building.
J.D. owned the business and helped Jack out on occasion. He was a man of few words, but the deep lines that creased his face like knife slashes told the story. And despite the faded jailhouse tats and weathered skin, his hazel eyes still had a youthful intensity.
He pulled up next to Jack’s Mustang and spoke over the bapbapbapbapbap of the Harley’s idling engine. “Jack.”
“J.D., heading to Vegas?”
“Damn, Jack, you know me better than my old lady. Yeah, I’m like an old fucking clock. Leave Thursday night to beat the heat. Two hundred milligrams of Viag
ra in my pocket, three grand I can lose, and my main squeeze waiting in a suite at the Hard Rock.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“What can I do you for, Jack?”
J.D. was nobody’s fool, and his ability to read people was uncanny. Jack handed him the GPS bug Peter had planted. J.D. looked it over.
“Can you toss it out in the desert just shy of Vegas?” Jack asked.
“Done.” And then, “You got one dark sense of humor, my friend.”
“If you can’t laugh . . .” Jack said, letting J.D. complete the thought.
“Watch your back, Jack.” J.D. slipped the Fat Boy into gear and thundered down Glencoe Avenue, setting off car alarms in his wake.
Jack grinned as he eased his car off the curb and into his building’s parking structure.
* * *
“You’ve got interesting friends, Jack,” Agent Liz Hunter said, leaning against her government-issue gray Ford sedan. She might have been smiling behind her mirrored sunglasses, but Jack wasn’t sure and didn’t much care. He was tired of people appearing unannounced. He did wonder what she meant by friends in the plural, but let it go.
“What can I do for you, Liz?”
“Check in on a regular basis. You know the drill, Jack. What’s your gut tell you?”
“Too early to speculate.” Jack popped open the trunk of his car, pulled out a thick envelope, and handed it to Hunter.
“Flannery will be relieved,” she said.
“I live to make him happy,” Jack said, bone-dry.
“I’m sorry, Jack. I won’t push, but . . . I’ve got to do something. It’s my brother. You of all people should understand.”
Hunter was referencing the reason Jack had worked a case for Vincent Cardona in the first place. Cardona had provided information that helped Jack take down the Colombian cartel boss who had tried to kill his son. He’d owed a blood debt to the mobster and paid in full.
“Stay in touch.” Agent Hunter yanked the car door open. She stopped to still her beating heart, back ramrod-straight, lips pulled tight against her teeth.
“Liz.”
The agent turned, face stony.
“When your brother disappeared, so did a half a million of the Mob’s money. Check the bank statements and credit card receipts for the entire crew. I’ll get a list of the vendors, their drivers, and shoot them over tomorrow.”
Liz nodded, afraid that if she spoke, she’d reveal too much emotion.
“Good,” Jack said, “and I’ll be better at keeping you in the loop, but I need room to move. I’m three weeks behind the eight ball.”
“Consider it done.”
Jack turned and was stopped with “Jack.” Liz took off her mirrored sunglasses. Her eyes were guarded, but Jack could read the pain. “Thank you.” Hunter jumped into her car and turned over the engine.
Jack headed toward the lobby as Liz powered out of the lot.
* * *
The elevator dinged open, and as Jack rounded the corner, he was stopped in his tracks by the sheer mass of Frankie-the-Man, standing uncomfortably in front of his door.
“I hope you didn’t scare my neighbors.”
“I made nice.”
Jack wasn’t sure if Frankie’s nice was normal people’s nice, but took the big man at his word, keyed the door, and let Frankie in.
“Vincent told me I should bring you up to, ah, my speed, or you know, fill you in where I can be of help. Nice place, I wouldn’t have thought it was, ah, your, ah, kind of . . . Nice place.” And Frankie left it at that.
“Can I pour you a glass?” Jack said as he headed for the bar, opened a bottle of Benziger, and poured one for himself.
“Rough day, huh?” Probably the only sensitive words the man had ever uttered to Jack. “And yeah, you got vodka?”
Jack pulled the bottle of Grey Goose he kept in the freezer for Mateo and poured a double for Frankie.
Frankie knocked the shot back with a flick of his meaty wrist. Jack poured again, set the bottle down on the kitchen island, and waited for the big man to speak.
“So,” Frankie said as if he were midsentence. “The night in question, I walked Luke down the gangplank to his car that was parked out front, engine running as per usual. I always let him do the heavy lifting, ’cause it was his job, am I right? And he heaved the weekend’s take into the back of his Camaro, slammed the trunk, same as always, no attitude, nerves, whatnot.”
“Did you see anybody else in the parking lot? Anything out of the ordinary?”
“Empty. Pin-drop silent. Regular. So, Luke, he cracks wise about going to Vegas and bettin’ it all on red, and the prick peels out before I can read him the riot act for even fuckin’ around. As far as I know, he’s headed for the drop-off.”
“But he never arrived.”
“You’re fuckin’ brilliant, Jack,” Frankie said, and then sucked back his anger, realizing he was the one under a microscope. “Whatever,” he said, more to himself than to Jack. “So, if Luke’s not dead, he will be, I’ll see to it myself, but Jack, here’s the thing, I ain’t feeling it. I’m feeling plenty of other things. Like shit for one. But I’m not feeling him, like, in the wind. Something’s off. Something’s not right here.”
Frankie walked over to the kitchen island, grabbed the bottle, and poured himself another heavy round.
“What’s your take on his girlfriend?” Jack asked.
“Who the fuck knows. I’m not pickin’ up any scam in her. She works for a living is all’s I can see. Hot, but a worker bee. But Luke, fucker must be hung like a water buffalo, ’cause he was ruling the roost. Reminded me of me, back in the day.”
Jack wondered what day, on what planet, Frankie-the-Man was talking about, but let it slide.
“Luke had his pick of the litter, everyone wanted a piece of him.”
“That might piss off some of the guys. You know, getting first pick and all. Getting to the front of the line.”
Frankie rolled that notion around, wondering how much honesty would sink his fat ass, but knowing that if he didn’t rely on Jack, he was already a dead man.
“Rusty had a bone to pick. Who knows?” Frankie tried to sound noncommittal as he gave up his best bet.
Jack went with the flow. “Guy gets pissed off enough, maybe sets up the competition to take the fall. Disappears that guy and makes off with the cash. You pull that off clean, it’s a win-win.”
“Like I said, who knows? I ain’t tellin’ anyone what to do, but if it was in that someone’s interest to get to the bottom of this thing, I’d say maybe you should look into it.”
“Thanks, Frankie.”
Frankie understood an exit line when he heard one and started for the door. “Jack, I’m lookin’ bad here . . . I got guys waitin’ to crawl over my back. You need anything . . .”
Jack nodded, no sympathy felt, and left the big man walking toward the elevator, harboring thoughts of doom.
Ten
The Bella Fortuna looked like a precious gem in the distance, floating gracefully on the calm waters of the Pacific. The ship’s underwater lights created a halo the color of Capri’s blue grotto sea cave, Jack thought. His helicopter circled once and then set down for a soft landing on the bow of the ship. Jack was late to the party, and Mateo had called in a favor.
Jack stepped from the chopper, ducked below the spinning rotors, and watched as the pilot lifted off, back toward terra firma and Long Beach Harbor. He straightened his tux, hand-combed his hair, and grabbed the proffered glass of champagne from the cocktail waitress who was there to greet him.
“Welcome back, Mr. Bertolino. We’ve been expecting you.”
“Thank you”—Jack glanced at the nametag—“Doris,” and, to the muted, crooning voice of a young Sinatra, he followed the trim woman into the main cabin. Mateo was seated at the central poker table and, to judge from the formidable stack of chips, doing quite well. He nodded imperceptibly, no eye contact; Jack chalked it up to his focus on the game.
Angelica Marie Cardona.
A natural-blonde beauty who radiated strength. Tall, athletic, porcelain skin, and like her namesake, an angelic face. But her green eyes had witnessed more of life than any twenty-three-year-old deserved, and Jack could read her emotional scar tissue. Still, Angelica was the total package. The kind of damaged soul a foolish man would jump out of a plane to protect or, in Jack’s case, his Cutwater cabin cruiser at twenty-eight knots.
She was also Vincent Cardona’s daughter.
Angelica never broke eye contact as she walked toward Jack, grabbed a glass of champagne, stepped up, and brushed his lips with a kiss, the same way she had on Jack’s dock the last time he’d seen her. Angelica slid her arm through the crook in Jack’s, and they walked past the bar and out of the main room toward the aft.
Their reunion wasn’t lost on Caroline Boudreau or Rusty Mannuzza, a thin man with feral eyes and a cruel smirk who stood at her side, overseeing the gaming tables. Rusty was wound too tight, and it was clear there was no love lost between the two. He pulled a cell from his pocket and punched in a number as he disappeared out of the main salon and strode toward the bridge, where the captain piloted the ship and multiple security screens were located.
Caroline’s brow furrowed slightly as she watched Roxy pouring a Manhattan and missing the cocktail glass. She appeared uncharacteristically edgy, Caroline thought, and wasn’t sure if it was the spill or Jack and Angelica’s presence, but Roxy wiped the bar and then her expression clean. Caroline chalked it up to her bartender’s perfectionism and watched as Mateo added a stack of chips from the center of the green felt table to his growing pile. She decided it might be fun to take a closer look at the rakish Colombian.