Complete Corruption (Corruption #1-3) (84 page)

I was going so fast, I slammed into a bank of phones on the back side of the Sequoia parking lot. First one broken. Second dead. The third had gum in the change slot. I picked it out. It wasn’t quite hard yet. I spit on it. Pulled it off.

I had Daniel’s two jukebox quarters. I jammed one in the slot. Pushed it past the sticky residue with the second quarter. They both fell in.

I stopped myself before I touched the keys. I had to dial right because I didn’t have more quarters.

Twoonethreesevenfourtwothreethreeohnine.

Ring.

Ring.

“Daniel?”

The sheets rustled. “Theresa. What time is it? Where are you?”

“Late. Early. I need your help. Like, now.”

He took a deep, waking-up type breath. “Yes. Okay. I was worried about you.”

“Valentina’s here.”

“You found her?” He jumped at the chance to ask, “Is she all right?”

I caught sight of Antonio’s wife scuttling toward me. “She’s fine. She asked about you.” I didn’t know why I felt the need to soothe Daniel’s ego. Maybe I needed to feel something positive in the middle of a shit storm, or maybe I needed a coin of goodwill in a pocketful of resentment.

“What do you need?” he asked.

“It’s… I mean it’s so bad. There are so many moving parts. You just have to trust me. They have Antonio at Donna Maria’s. They’re going to kill him, or they’ve killed him already.”

A breath. More sheets rustling. “Theresa, I can’t do much. My credibility is shot.”

“I can’t get there. I don’t even know where it is.”

More sheets. A crisper voice. “She lives in the preserve, past the federal parkland. It’s a point of contention, but slow down. How do you know?”

“Valentina overheard them. Please, please, I’ll tell you everything. I’ll tell you how I know. I’ll tell you about Paulie. Just get someone over there.”

“That’s the problem. It’s not accessible to local authorities. It’s three miles into Turner Canyon.”

“You can’t call federal marshals? Are you serious?” Desperation forced my voice a few octaves higher.

“If I send them, anything they find could land him in a courtroom.”

“Save his life, Daniel. Please.”

“How did it all end up like this?”

“Will you or won’t you?” I needed confirmation. I needed it nailed to the wall so I could stare at it and make sure it was real.

“I’ll try. I’ll make the calls. I’ll throw my weight around. What little I have left. Just… she overheard them? What did she overhear? I can’t send them without a reason.”

“
Sbudellarlo
,” I said. The phone clicked. I didn’t know why. I’d used a payphone twice in my life.

“Ah, I heard of that when I prosecuted the Taorminas. I’m sorry. I kind of liked him after the other day.”

“Don’t you ever speak about him in the past tense,” I growled, but he said nothing. “Daniel? Daniel?”

The phone was dead. My money had run out.

theresa

 need your car keys,” I said.

I had to get somewhere quickly in Los Angeles, and I had no car.

Margie wasn’t taking the urgency seriously, arms folded, sensible shoe tapping the hospital linoleum. “Why?”

“Because.”

“That car is registered to me. If it’s going to be used in the commission of a crime, I could get disbarred.”

“Give me the keys and report it stolen. But give me half an hour to get across town.”

“You just admitted you’re committing a crime.”

“I did not. I was trying to make you feel better. I’m going home. I’m going to bed. I’ll be back in the morning to visit Jonathan.”

She twisted her bag around so she could reach inside and yanked out a string of keys. She popped off a black key fob and put it in my outstretched hand.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Leave me some gas.”

I walked away.

“Theresa,” she called, and I turned. “Your jacket. In the back.”

I reached behind me and felt cold metal. My jacket had slipped behind the gun, exposing it. I didn’t thank her. I just got into the elevator.

She got in front of the doors. “Theresa.”

“It’s all right. I’m just tired.”

“Be good. As good as you can be. Okay?”

I was about to promise her I’d be good, but the doors closed before I could lie.

theresa

alentina had been waiting in the lobby like a lost puppy I couldn’t get rid of. She’d gotten in step behind me and followed me to Margie’s car.

I thought of shaking her but decided against it. She was a grown woman, and I didn’t have time. She got in the car as if I’d said it was all right, her sense of entitlement as unshakeable as a holy sacrament.

“He could be already dead,” she said from the passenger seat.

I got hot everywhere. My hands. My back. My face must have been a searing shade of purple. I’d never felt so angry in the face of the sheer emptiness of the world.

I was supposed to do something when I felt like that. Breathe.
Respira
. Touch the St. Christopher medal.

Of course, touching the medal did nothing. It did not fix the situation. It did not change the danger Antonio was in or transmit his whereabouts into my head. It only reminded me that I was capable of anything, and that even in my savagery, I was a child of the universe and loved by God.

That’s all.

I tapped the GPS on the dash, getting a satellite picture of the slice of wilderness between Whittier and Hacienda Heights. Take the 10 east to the 605 South. Off on Beverly. Left. Right. Left onto a dirt road, along a drive into a nondescript house with no address. That had to be the one. It was the only structure in the area large enough to be a house and small enough to be hidden.

“What will you do if he is?” she asked. “Dead, that is.”

“Kill all of them.” I didn’t check for her reaction. If she got to ask off-the-cuff questions about what I’d do with my life, then I got to answer in the immediate.

The 10 was empty, but I stayed a little over the speed limit. Getting pulled over wouldn’t get me there any quicker, and I had a loaded gun in the glove compartment.

“Do you know how many men he’s killed?” she asked. “Would you like to count? How many wives he left crying? How many children he left without fathers? This isn’t something we have to like, but maybe it’s justice.”

“You left your own son without a father. Where’s justice for you?”

“Antonin is better off.”

I didn’t know how to get through to her. I didn’t know what to say, because she was right. Antonio had been damned before he ever set eyes on me. He’d made years’ worth of choices that were beyond deplorable. He’d let his rage set his mind to murder again and again, trying to set the scales straight and only making the weight of his crimes greater and greater. There would be no forgiveness for him, not in this world or the next.

“You said he was sweet when you met,” I said.

“He was so nice,” she said wistfully. Had she been like this when they met? Or had he destroyed her too?

“He said you were gentle. He said you were innocent and beautiful. I think he thought you could save him,” I said.

“I kept trying.”

“And he kept getting worse.”

She nodded.

“He’s done everything wrong,” I said. “I know he has. He was in the life, and he killed… I don’t even know how many men inside his organization. Too many. One is too many. I’m not excusing it. But I think he can be saved. I think we can get that man back. The one you married. Maybe not totally. He’ll never forget these years. But that man who brought you strawberries and was gentle and kind? He’s still in there, and I think he’s ready to be free.”

“I’m so confused.”

“You’re right to be.”

“Do you think he can come back?”

“I do.” I didn’t warn her that he wasn’t coming back to
her,
and if he did, then she and I would have a deep, long-standing problem. “He was trying to get out of the life. There’s nothing he wants more than an end to it.”

“I wish he really was dead,” she said, staring at the edge of the morning skyline. It wasn’t even close to sunrise, and the city was as quiet as it ever was.

“Yeah, I get that.”

I did truly understand. She’d come to Los Angeles to pay respects to a husband she hadn’t seen in ten years and wound up at the center of a mob war over a bride he’d abandoned for another woman. If he’d been dead, she’d have closure. If he’d been dead, she could grieve and let go. He’d never change. He would be the subject of her prayers for years to come. I saw her so clearly, and I felt nothing but compassion.

“If you want to leave and go home to your son, I think you’ll be forgiven. At least by me. Whatever happens will happen without you.”

“Everything already happened without me,” she said as I turned off the freeway.

More would happen without her, because whatever I was stepping into, she would be a liability if she came along.

I remembered the map and turned down the dark routes and ways without much trouble until I hit a high fence with barbed wire on top. I parked the car to the side of the road and shut off the lights. The moon was diffused by the rainclouds, which had closed the sky to a slight drizzle.

I should have left Valentina at the hospital, or the freeway entrance, or anywhere but in the middle of nowhere.

“You should stay here,” I said.

“Yes,” she replied with a sharp nod. “I will.”

“I’ll be back with Antonio.”

“Yes, you will.”

“If one of us isn’t back by the time the sun is up, can you drive?”

“Of course I can drive. I’m not stupid.”

“I’ll leave the keys in the ignition.”

“Go. Please.” She pushed my shoulder with one hand and pointed out the door with the other. “Save him.”

“Thank you, Valentina. You’re all right.”

“You may call me Tina.” She shook her hand at the door again.

I took a deep breath and got out.

theresa

he fence was high enough to be a real obstacle. I’d never climbed a fence, but what I lacked in skill, I made up for in not giving a shit. I was careful, because the chain link was wet from the rain. I got through a gap in the barbed wire right over the entrance hinge while staring into the camera because honestly, I wouldn’t trick myself into thinking I knew how to get in without anyone knowing.

I dropped onto the mud and took the gun out of my back waistband. I had no idea how many bullets I had in it. It was heavy, so I knew it wasn’t empty, but beyond that, I was at a loss. Yet another place where my instincts highlighted the gaps in my knowledge. If we lived, we were going to laugh about this.

Respira.

The rain had stopped, leaving clear air and good visibility, as little as there was. I took a deep breath and ran. It was dark as hell, and I lifted my feet to clear the mud and tree roots. I was sure I was running in the right direction. I had no cause to be sure, but I was. So I ran faster, and when I saw a dim light ahead, I knew I had been right.

Run. Run like this is the last hour of your life. Run as if there will be nothing left to run to tomorrow. Crush the ground. Pull it off its moorings. Make your mark in this world because it is your last chance. You are about to die. Take off. Fly
.