The Fourth Gunman

by John Lansing

  “They have expensive tastes, and paying for her father’s health care can’t be cheap. And if Trent discovered their affair . . .”

  Chris nodded and rolled that around some and, with the ego of a twenty-one-year-old, discounted it with a headshake. “If the Russian is connected, my money’s on him. A simple line. He was overextended, set Luke up with one of his soldiers, who took him out, grabbed the half mil, and he’s hiding in plain sight, rubbing their face in it, playing at their tables.”

  Jack decided he’d do a one-on-one with Vasily Barinov. But it was the subtext of Chris’s analysis Jack was struggling with. “You sound like a cop,” he finally said, fighting for nonjudgmental.

  Chris didn’t deny it. “Did you ever hear the story about the shoemaker’s son?”

  “No.”

  “It was in a book on Transcendental Meditation that Elli gave me. It basically said that if you’re a shoemaker’s son, you should be a shoemaker. It’s in the blood. It frees you up to do more important things with your life.”

  Jack wasn’t comfortable with the direction the conversation was heading but reminded himself to keep his big trap shut and let Chris reveal his intention in his own time. He took an extremely healthy sip of red and waved the waiter over for another glass.

  Chris grinned, self-satisfied, and knocked back some more beer. “God, this steak tastes great. Thank you.”

  Jack didn’t take the bait.

  “Go ahead.” Chris smirked. “You’re dying to ask.”

  “What does Elli have to say to the meat eater?”

  “Aha!” Chris said, enjoying himself. “I don’t flaunt it. I told her the doctor was afraid my ligaments wouldn’t mend correctly without the extra protein.”

  “A white lie.” Father and son commiserating.

  “Right. And I eat chicken and fish when I see her. She didn’t buy the argument but let it go. She’s really intelligent, and uh, well, it’s a good fit and worth the sacrifice.”

  Jack’s heart was full with the pure love he felt for his son. They had lived through more than a few rocky years, and he was thankful to be on the other side of the trauma.

  Both men dug in to their entrées and enjoyed a moment of well-deserved, comfortable silence.

  * * *

  “No, I wouldn’t say it’s purely a booty call,” Jack said, standing on the balcony of his loft. He watched the landing lights on a string of approaching jets cut through the midnight-blue sky and disappear into the glow of LAX in the distance. He’d arrived home, showered, shaved, poured a glass of cabernet, and decided to throw caution to the wind.

  “What would you call it, Mr. Bertolino?”

  “Two consenting adults who enjoy each other’s company and can’t get enough of a good thing.”

  “And what time is it?”

  Jack’s face split into a grin. “Almost eleven.”

  “And is this the first time you’ve called me in two days?” Angelica asked coyly, enjoying the moment.

  “I believe it might be. I just got home and thought—”

  “It’s a booty call, Jack,” she said, cutting him off.

  “Busted.” He laughed. “Whatever you say, Angelica.”

  “I say get your booty over here before I change my mind.”

  “Traffic’s light, I’ll see you in a half hour.”

  * * *

  Jack was cruising on the 405, the ragtop down, the air cool, and he was feeling no pain. He hit the gas and took the turnoff east on the I-10 toward La Cienega and the bright lights of Sunset Boulevard.

  Jack was so caught up in the anticipation of the sexual liaison to come that he didn’t feel two predatory SUVs tracking him up the freeway and closing the distance.

  One car split left into the fast lane, and the other hit the gas. Jack glanced in his side mirror, and what looked like a flame caught his peripheral vision but didn’t readily compute. He slowed his Mustang to sixty as the black SUV pulled alongside, threatening to swerve into his lane. A passing motorist had Jack locked in. As he hit the horn, the SUV’s window powered down, and a man in dark sunglasses hurled a flaming bottle into the rear of Jack’s convertible and sped away.

  The Molotov cocktail exploded on impact.

  Fire inundated the back seat of the Mustang. Black smoke trailed the car like a jet’s contrail.

  Jack hit the brakes; the second SUV slammed the edge of the Mustang’s bumper, executing a perfect pit maneuver before speeding down the freeway.

  Jack went into a fiery death spin at sixty miles an hour. With flames and choking smoke billowing, the other cars on the freeway gave him a wide berth as he fought to correct the Mustang’s rotation.

  After four stomach-churning, tire-squealing revolutions and his life flashing before his eyes, Jack skidded to a stop on the shoulder, leaped from the vehicle, the back of his jacket ignited. Two strides and the concussive explosion lifted Jack off his feet and slammed him face-first onto the gravel. He rolled, then rolled again, extinguishing the flames, jumped to his feet, and peeled off his smoldering jacket.

  A secondary explosion buffeted Jack back a step. He was oblivious to the traffic that bunched up on the I-10 as passing cars slowed to view and shoot video of the carnage that would make the late-night news.

  Oily smoke curled skyward; the flames illuminated Jack’s face. Rivulets of blood dripped down his gravel-cut cheek. His narrowed eyes were darker than the smoke as he watched his Mustang burn to the ground.

  Twenty-one

  Day Twelve

  Angelica Cardona leaped from her car in the driveway of the family home in Beverly Hills. She keyed the heavy front door and slammed it behind her.

  Frankie-the-Man hoofed it out of the kitchen and met her in the hallway. He could tell she was steamed, and he knew why. “What can I do you for, Angelica?”

  “Where’s my father?”

  He nodded his melon head toward the back of the house. “Gym.”

  Angelica pushed past the big man and stormed down the hallway, her boots clicking angrily on the burnished hardwood.

  * * *

  Vincent Cardona was dressed in Nike’s finest, working up a sweat on one of two treadmills in front of the television in the pool house. The sixty-five-inch screen was set on CNN. The sound was muted and Cardona was reading the crawl. He kept his eyes on the television as his daughter stormed into the room and slammed the door.

  “I didn’t have nothing to do with it.”

  “Dad?!”

  “Listen to what I’m tellin’ you. It wasn’t my play.”

  “Is Rusty still inside?”

  Cardona was trying to calm himself down, so his response was too slow in coming. Angelica walked to the front of the treadmill, her angry eyes bearing down on her father. She kicked the power button off, and Cardona almost stumbled as the machine lurched to a stop.

  “Is Rusty still inside?”

  Cardona stepped off the machine, grabbed a towel, and rubbed down his face and neck. “Yeah. Few more days is all.”

  “Could he have had anything to do with Jack’s accident?”

  “That would be off the reservation. I’m looking into it, but I don’t think so.”

  “What about Uncle Mickey?”

  “He’d have to clear it with me first. I woulda heard.”

  Angelica went to the fridge and pulled out two bottles of water. She handed one to her father and opened the other, her hands trembling and her throat dry. She took a large swallow. Her father did the same. Her voice lost the edge as she chose her words. “Have I ever asked you for anything?”

  “No. You’re stubborn like that. Always have been. How do you think it makes me feel?”

  “This isn’t about you, Dad.”

  “No, no, I get it.” Cardona flopped down in the overstuffed sofa in the spalike workout room. “C’mon, sit down, take a load off.”

  “Here’s my deal.”

  “Oh, Christ.”

  “Don’t Oh, Christ me. Listen to me. I want you
to keep Rusty on a tight leash. Let Jack do his job and it’ll be a win-win. If Jack has any more trouble and I hear it’s generated by you, we are going to have major problems.”

  “Is that a threat?” he asked without rancor.

  “No, Dad. Just reality. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me since my abduction. You’ve been very good. But I want you to hear me. I don’t need any interference in my personal life.”

  Cardona listened to his daughter, who reminded him more and more of his late wife. He hadn’t really thought about it. Maybe it struck a nerve that he kept tamped down, and he thought maybe that was where it should be kept.

  “Jack was lucky to make it out of the car alive,” his daughter said. “Lucky he didn’t burn to death. The man who saved my life, and I’m worried that my father sanctioned the hit.”

  “You know, you’re hurting my feelings. I’ve done plenty of stuff to piss you off, stuff I’m culpable for, but you know what I’ve never done? Never once?”

  Angelica’s face gave away nothing.

  “Lied to you.” Cardona gave that a moment to penetrate his daughter’s anger. “And when you walked in here just now, what did I say? First thing out of my mouth.”

  “You had nothing to do with it.”

  “Thank you. So, is Jack in the hospital?”

  “In and out. A few stitches, a few burns. His back’s messed up. The last we spoke, he was downtown giving a statement to the cops.”

  Cardona didn’t like the sound of that but let it slide. “You’re right. Man lucked out. Would’ve been a hell of a way to go.” And Vincent Cardona had spent more than his share of time contemplating how he would go down. If Jack pointed his finger in the wrong direction, it could be him taking the fall sooner than later. It was the only reason his brother-in-law was in town. Fuckin’ East Coast family. “I’d ask if he were still on the case, but I know better.”

  Vincent Cardona would stay on top of the situation. And if Jack had to go, so be it. Vincent might have to pull the strings, but he wouldn’t be pulling the trigger. And his daughter, Angelica, would just have to deal with it. It went with the bloodline. He left her with a parting shot: “What if you’d been in the car?”

  * * *

  Mateo picked Jack up downtown at the Los Angeles Police Department Headquarters, where he’d spent five hours giving his statement to the cops and another three speaking to FBI Special Agent Ted Flannery and Agent Hunter. Jack didn’t have much to share, and no one believed him for a second. Jack chose not to speculate on his aggressors, couldn’t provide a positive ID of the man who’d thrown the Molotov, and was too preoccupied by the flames to get a license number.

  Jack’s face and the flaming Mustang were looped on all the network media outlets, and his cell was ringing off the hook. After alerting Angelica, his son, and Mateo that he was safe, he turned off his phone.

  The feds escorted him out of the building. Flannery stepped close, invading Jack’s personal space. “You’re off the case.”

  Jack glanced at Hunter, whose mirrored sunglasses betrayed nothing.

  “Stay focused, Jack. I’m in charge here, and I’m pulling the plug. You haven’t accomplished anything of substance, and I’m not going to be held responsible for keeping you alive.”

  Jack had suffered more than enough crap in the past twenty-four hours. He was pissed off and dirty, and his back was in mind-numbing pain. He clicked into street mode and wanted to knock the arrogant agent on his ass.

  Flannery assessed the situation and took a half-step back.

  Jack geared into low talk. “If you think I’m going to walk away after someone tried to burn me alive, you’re delusional. I’m done when I say I’m done. Try and interfere with my investigation, and I’ll tell Cardona and the East Coast family who my client is. You can explain two wasted years and a missing agent to Washington from your desk in Juno.”

  Jack turned on his heel and jumped into Mateo’s Beemer, idling at the curb. The seven-series peeled away from police headquarters and Jack never looked back.

  * * *

  Roxy came out of the catamaran’s bathroom dressed for work, towel-drying her hair. Trent sat shirtless on the bunk, surfing the morning news channels. He stopped on Channel Seven, where the screen filled with the image of Jack Bertolino standing stoically next to his burning vehicle on the edge of the freeway. Two fire trucks arrived, along with an EMT wagon and three black-and-whites. The news chopper’s camera pushed in tight on Jack’s tense face, then pulled back to show the first responders deploying. Fire hoses blasted amid the swirl of black smoke and ebbing flames. The chopper banked high and wide; the camera settled on a solid ribbon of white and red lights snarled in both directions. The rubbernecking traffic on I-10.

  The anger in the cabin was palpable. Trent knew better than to engage when Roxy was on one of her tears.

  “I’ve got to get to work,” Roxy said without emotion. “I’ll start a misinformation campaign on board. Someone overheard Rusty threatening to kill Jack after they got into that scuffle. I’ll leak it to Ava and it’ll be all over the ship in a half hour. Hopefully, Jack’s hands will be full for a few days, and it might give us enough time to preserve our schedule.”

  “Makes sense.” From Trent’s point of view, the schedule was locked.

  “And if we can make Rusty think Jack has him targeted, it might push him so far over the edge that he’ll choose to take Jack out of play permanently.”

  “I’m due on board at eleven. I’ll stay below, keep my nose out of the fray. You work your magic.”

  “And don’t ask me again if I’m okay, because I’m not. You handle Sukarno, because I might drown the bastard and cut our losses. If he doesn’t make a show on this trip, it might look suspicious. I get the feeling he’s worried about me because I showed some emotion, but it’s Sukarno who could take us down. He’s your man, handle him.”

  “Sukarno is not a problem. He’s our exit card.”

  “And he fucked up! Bertolino knows we weren’t in Baja,” she screamed.

  “Keep your voice down,” he hissed, walking to the stairs and peering up and down the dock. He sucked in a deep breath and in measured tones soldiered on. “And his attempt to slow Bertolino down was smarter than killing him outright and having the cops swarming the ship. Don’t be shortsighted.” Trent gave her a moment to ease the tension. “We’re fine, we’re on schedule, and we’re near completion. If you need me, if you need anything, send a text on the safe phone, and I’ll get back to you. But calm down.”

  Roxy answered Trent by striding into the bathroom and slamming the door.

  * * *

  Jack, Cruz, and Mateo were now gathered around the dining room table in his loft.

  “So who wants me dead?” Jack asked, draining half a bottle of water, his throat sand-dry. The right side of his cheek was bruised and swollen, a butterfly suture stained with dried blood, tight on his left eyebrow. His back, a solid sheet of hurt. The doctors said his shoulders would peel but not scar; the hair on the back of his head was singed, and the rank smell pissed him off royally.

  Mateo snorted a laugh. “Hey, don’t take this the wrong way, boss, but your list of enemies is growing exponentially with the cases you close. Goes with the territory.”

  “Let’s stay current,” Jack said, his eyes crinkling into a grin, happy to be alive. “I’ve got four, five maybes.”

  “Who’s your first choice?” Cruz asked. “First person who came to mind when you stood there watching your beautiful car melt into the rock.”

  “I was fond of the Mustang . . . Rusty,” Jack said with a voice as raspy as the asshole’s name. “I appear on-scene, he gets popped. That’s what he’s thinking, sitting in a jail cell, and it’s not far from the truth. We’ve got Flannery to thank for that blunder. Rusty, he’s number one.”

  Murmurs from the guys.

  “The East Coast family,” Mateo said. “They don’t want anyone sniffing around their bottom line. And they’re here
because we’re on-scene.”

  Jack didn’t disagree. “I interjected a seed of doubt about Rusty’s possible involvement in Luke’s death, but it doesn’t have legs. If the prick has a good alibi for the night Luke disappeared, they’ll circle back to me, try and finish the job.”

  “What about the Russian?” Cruz asked. “Doris could’ve run to her sugar daddy after our sit-down.”

  “The Molotov cocktail has the Russian Mob’s stench all over it,” Jack agreed. “I’ll call Hunter, if she’s still in our corner, and get the research I requested on Barinov ASAP. I’ll corner him on the Bella Fortuna and have a one-on-one.”

  “Roxy and Trent,” Mateo tossed in, as if they should be moved to the top of the list.

  “I’m still ambivalent. I could file her lie about Dad being dead under none of my business. And they’re not aware I’m eighty percent on Luke’s DNA being on her catamaran, and doing a full-court press to get the answer. Not sure they have the connections to order a hit even if they look good for Luke’s murder and have the means to pay for one. We could be looking at two different motives here.

  “Hate to say it, but the person who has the most to lose, businesswise, with me snooping around, is Caroline. She’s in bed with some very unsavory characters.” Jack threw a glance in Mateo’s direction, and Cruz stifled a laugh. “Let me amend that,” Jack cracked a smile, “she’s in business with the Mafia and has a black book full of wealthy clients with the money and networks to make people disappear. If she loses the Bella Fortuna, she loses everything.”

  Mateo didn’t blink an eye. There was no question where his loyalties lay. Everybody was a suspect until the killer was in handcuffs.

  Jack went on, “That takes care of me. Who killed Luke? Who had the motive and the means? They could have shot me dead on the freeway. Why go through the drama?”

  “To slow you down,” Mateo said.