Girl Undercover 4 & 5: Ariel & Financial Devil (16 page)

“I won’t. Again, I’m sorry, but I really didn’t have a choice. From now on, we’ll just have to not speak about this over the phone again.”

I wanted to tell him that we wouldn’t ever speak again unless absolutely necessary, but soon reconsidered. Getting that emotional was stupid. I might still need his help with my investigation. Plus, it really had been helpful to use Adler being onto us as an excuse to make him believe they or Ron had erased their email conversations. So I just gave a curt nod and said, “Fine.”

I checked the time and saw that it was three minutes to three. I needed to leave or risk being late for my client. “How much more time until it’s gone from my phone? I have a client now.”

“You can take it. The uninstallation will continue no matter where you are.”

“Great.” I grabbed the plate with my half eaten tuna wrap and the phone, leaving Ian sitting there without bothering to say goodbye.

Chapter 5

I got a call from Dante two days later, when he’d had some opportunity to talk to people in San Antonio. Especially ones who had any connection to Tabu Lounge.

“No one?” I said, pushing the phone closer to my skull as if that would change his answer. “Not a single person has heard of the target?” The idea of someone tapping my phone had made me paranoid, so I had told Dante not to mention Cardoza by name nor the places they were investigating. “How many did you and Jose speak to again?”

“Not sure, but many. Maybe twenty-five, thirty people.”

“And how many of those were involved with the club?”

“Pretty much everyone one way or another. Listen, Gabi. I really don’t think your man has anything to do with this place. Unless they’re the best liars in the whole world, I’d have noticed it if someone was bullshitting me. I’d have seen something in their faces when I mentioned his name. You know I’m good at seeing through BS.”

It was true; after all those years in the gang, Dante had developed great people-reading skills, which was why I’d wanted him to go down there for me to see what was up. He was also acutely aware of how criminals like Cardoza operated their business, having worked with such people himself for such a long time.

I sighed. Well, there was still one more to go—Mr. Rockford and his Houston steakhouse. I wouldn’t give up hope until we’d done some sniffing around there.

“Okay,” I said, “if you’re sure you’ve done all there is to be done to determine he has no ties to that club, head to the other city.”

“Jose and I will drive there after lunch. We should get there in time for dinner. I’m gonna call the joint now to see if I can get a reservation for two there.”

“Great idea.”

With those words, we hung up.

I spent the rest of the day training people, doing a floor shift, and then working out myself for an hour, lifting weights. All I could think of when my mind wasn’t occupied with clients and members was the investigation and what Dante and Jose were up to. Had I overestimated my old friend’s ability? Was
he
overestimating his ability? Had he turned sloppy as he’d left the underworld and joined us? It was after all more than five years ago since he’d managed to get jumped out of the Latin Devils. How long could one stay sharp in an area without practice? Did it last forever once you’d acquired a skill or did it go away, fading slowly with every month that passed and you didn’t have to apply yourself? There was no way of knowing. Oh, God, maybe it would have been better if I’d asked for a few days of vacation and gone to Texas to check things out for myself… Yes, that would have been so much better. No, wrong; I couldn’t afford to be away from work that long. Not as competitive as it was here these days. I was working harder than ever to get and keep clients. I couldn’t afford to be away right now if I planned on staying employed at Nikkei, not even for a few days. Not after having been at the club less than three months. Wait, maybe I was exaggerating when I told myself I’d get fired, lose my clients if I was away for a few days. It hadn’t really gotten that bad, had it?

I drove myself crazy for hours, one minute thinking I’d made a mistake in sending Dante, the other that I was overreacting and that it had been the best approach. At last I settled on the latter. Dante had a great eye for these kinds of things; surely he couldn’t have changed that much. I nodded to myself. It was only a matter of time until he called to inform me that Mr. Rockford and his restaurant were the big front. And if—a big, big if—it turned out that Dante and Jose didn’t find anything in Houston, I could always pretend like I was sick and head down there to make sure they hadn’t missed something. Acting like I’d gotten the flu was better than asking for a few days off. But I doubted it would ever come to that.

I exhaled, feeling a little more relaxed as I left the club in the evening. Before I could exit the elevator, my phone sounded with an incoming text. It was from Ian.

Still mad at me??

He must be referring to the fact that, during his session yesterday, I had barely spoken to him. I remained pissed at him for tampering with my phone without my knowledge. I had only opened my mouth to let him know what exercises I wanted him to do and how many of them. Frankly, unless something of interest revealed itself regarding our targets, I didn’t see any point for us to be talking at all.

I smiled to myself. To be honest, I wasn’t really that pissed at him any longer, but acting like I was served me well. After all, maintaining a cool distance between us should also hint to him that even though we’d spent a nice night together, it didn’t mean we were now dating.

I read the text again. I decided not to respond, instead put the phone back into my pocket. Silence spoke louder than any words ever could.

My key was inside the lock of the door leading into my apartment building by the time my phone buzzed again. It was another text from Ian.

I have something that you’re going to want to see. A major development that neither of us foresaw. Can you meet me at Aroma in twenty?

I stared at the text, unable to decide what to do about it. Was this just Ian’s poor attempt at trying to see me or was it really a major development? I chewed on the inside of my bottom lip as I tried to decide what to do. Finally, I typed a message back.

Fine. I’ll be there at eight.

His response arrived immediately.
Great.

I stuck the phone into the pocket of my hoodie and walked in the direction of the coffee shop. If he was just playing me, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to talk to him again, investigation or no investigation, because then I really would be pissed.

Ten minutes later, I entered Aroma. Having arrived early, I went up to the food counter and ordered a latte and a ham and cheese croissant. Ian arrived just as I took a seat at the bar counter along the window, far away from other patrons. He had his laptop under his arm and his eyes were ablaze with excitement.

“You won’t believe this,” he said, sitting on the barstool next to me, breathing shallowly. It appeared he had run over to meet me.

“Probably not,” I said dryly.

He didn’t reply, only put his laptop down and switched it on. I watched him as he pulled up one of Ron’s email accounts and scrolled through it. He stopped at a message addressed to Ron from someone named John Davis at a travel agency called Liberty Travels. Clicking the email open, he turned to me.

“This here is our guy,” he said.

I scanned the short email message he’d opened and could see nothing suspicious about it. All it contained was a request for Ron to have lunch with Davis at a restaurant in the meat-packing district.

“I’m confused,” I said, frowning as I looked at Ian again.

“I apologize. You don’t know what I already know, so of course this email won’t mean anything to you. Allow me to start from the beginning.”

“Please do.”

He glanced over his shoulder and took in the unpopulated area immediately behind us before he spoke again.

“I found absolutely nothing of interest on either Rockford or Geraldo online—I figured I might as well check her out too while I was at it. The more eyeballs on these people, the better was my reasoning. I’m sure you agree.”

I didn’t answer, just shrugged. I really, really hoped Ian’s claim not to have found anything of interest on our targets excluded Cardoza. Ian might not find any references to the drug lord to be pertinent to the case. It wasn’t like the Brit knew Cardoza was my main interest.

“Anyway,” Ian continued, “since I already had access to Ron’s email accounts, I went ahead and looked through his other clients a little closer. And this John Davis caught my attention.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because his emails, while there are several of them over the last couple of years, are always very short and contain the same basic information, unlike the others. All he ever wants is to meet with Ron for lunch. And all Ron ever replies is yes or no to the place and time Davis suggests.”

“Okay. So?” I had a sip of my quickly cooling latte.

“I thought that was interesting. Why were Ron so short with this particular client and not his other? I got the sense that they didn’t want to have anything of importance in writing. So I decided to look into John Davis’s background, hoping to find some connection to Adler.”

“And did you?”

“Unfortunately not,” he said, exhaling with disappointment. Then he smiled, lighting up. “But I did find other fascinating data about Mr. Davis. For example, he was once on trial for brutally raping three boys down in a small Florida town. A seven, nine and a ten-year-old.”

I grimaced, disgusted. “Really? But you’re saying he was acquitted?”

“No, he was convicted, but the judge only gave him a three-year sentence—out of which he served one.”

I stared at him, hardly able to believe my ears. “Wow… How the hell did
that
happen? After despicable acts like that, he should get life without the possibility of parole. He’s destroyed the lives of those boys.”

“Couldn’t agree with you more. Well, I assume he had a real good lawyer and an incredibly lenient judge to get such a light sentence. According to the court papers, he was released early because of exemplary behavior while in prison.”

I pushed away my untouched croissant, having lost all appetite all of a sudden. Rubbing my forehead, I muttered under my breath, “That judge should be impeached. I can’t stand those liberal bastards...”

“I hear you loud and clear.”

“What the hell is Ron doing with such a pig?”

Ian only gazed at me, not saying a word. Slowly, what he was getting at had sunk in all the way, or at least so I thought. I wasn’t sure I believed it, however. Not after having caught Ron banging his assistant so enthusiastically in that Nikkei restroom. “No… Are you telling me Ron is some kind of pedophile, too?”

“Well, that remains to be seen. It’s more likely that he’s merely working with this man to bring tourists to Caribbean islands where they can enjoy young boys in a five-star environment. See, it looks like Liberty Travels is specializing in ‘luxury pleasure trips.’” Ian smirked, looking sick to his stomach. “Those are Davis’s own words. Not that you’d ever learn what he’s up to from visiting the company website. On the surface, it appears to be no different from any other travel agency.”

I felt myself gaping I was so shocked. “Luxury pleasure trips… Are you for real?”

Ian sighed heavily. “Unfortunately, I am.”

“Oh, my God... How did you find out all this information?”

“When I saw a photo of Davis on the internet, I recognized his face. I thought he looked just like the man the FBI investigated years ago regarding an international human trafficking matter that never went to trial because a grand jury failed to indict. I remembered the case very clearly as I was part of it. And I will never forget that devil’s face…” A shadow fell over Ian’s features. “Anyway, his name at the time was Bill Coleman, which is his real name. I ran a cross search on the two photos and it turns out that John Davis and Bill Coleman, the convicted child rapist, is indeed the same person.”

“Really? When did he change his identity?”

Ian screwed up his mouth and cupped his chin. “I’m not sure. Maybe in conjunction with starting his travel agency. According to his tax returns, the agency has only been in existence for three years.”

“That makes sense. And how did you find out about his”—I could barely get the words out of my mouth, the thought of what they stood for disgusted me so much—“his luxury pleasure trips?”

“When I discovered that he’s an active member in pedophile chatrooms. That’s where he’s recruiting his customers. He speaks openly about what he does there and, sadly, there are tons of rich men yearning for his services.” Ian fisted his hands as he seemed to ponder the horror of what he’d just said. “Anyway, escaping getting charged when we first investigated him must’ve made him more confident. So confident that he now believes he’s untouchable.”

“But you think we can catch him through Ron?”

“I’m hoping. If everything goes the way I want it to.”

“Let’s make sure it does.”

The corners of Ian’s mouth turned up in a small, humorless smile. “Yes, let’s.”

***

When I left Aroma an hour later, it was with mixed feelings. On the one hand I was happy I could help try putting an end to all the horror Ian had told me was discussed in the chatrooms. Apparently, in addition to his regular clients—regular people who traveled to normal places for business and pleasure—John Davis was charging his special clients tens of thousands of dollars for a weekend with young boys that did anything the client wanted, privacy guaranteed. In order to sign up for such a pleasure trip, the client had to pay the entire fee in cash.

Without any witnesses and no paper trail, it had been impossible for the New York state prosecutor to get a grand jury to indict Davis the first time. The entire case had hinged upon a couple of escaped child prostitutes who’d later recanted their stories, refusing to witness in the end. The children had disappeared a few weeks later, and were still reported as missing. Ian believed they had been killed off at some point by people involved in the sex-trafficking scheme so that no one could ever convince them to witness what they’d had to do and what they had seen.