Murder Season (21 page)

He finished the taco and tossed the paper wrapper in the trash. When the girl behind the register asked if he wanted another, he checked on Gamble’s status and ordered two more to go. Then he returned to his place behind the Bud Light sign and peered up the street.

Loser No. 2 was in a white van parked one block up on the other side of Broadway. He, too, had been following Gamble ever since she left Parker, but was unaware of Cobb and looked too stupid to figure it out.

All the same, Cobb found the man curious. He was a busy little guy in a sweat-stained suit. And he wasn’t just keeping an eye on things. He was shooting video of Gamble. Cobb glanced at her still talking to someone on the phone, then looked back at the van. Every once in a while he could see a reflection in the rear window, the kind made when headlights from a passing car spike a camera lens hidden behind tinted glass.

Cobb had caught a glimpse of the little guy’s face when he parked the van outside Paladino’s office. He seemed familiar, but Cobb saw the cuts and bruises on his left cheek and kept drawing blanks. Either way, Loser No. 2 looked like a dickweed.

He heard the girl behind the register call out to him. Tossing two bucks and change on the counter, he grabbed the bag and moved to the door. When his eyes zeroed in on Gamble, she was just switching on her headlights and looked ready to roll.

It was okay, he told himself. As long as his knees didn’t lock up, he had plenty of time.

He waited for her to pull into the street, then walked as fast as he could manage over to his Lincoln parked two cars back. Before jumping inside, he gazed down the street and found her car in traffic. West Fifth was a one-way street with access to the 110 Freeway. She was shifting lanes and heading for the entrance about four blocks ahead. He could see the white van just pulling in behind her.

Cobb tossed the bag of tacos on the passenger seat, jerked his car into traffic and made the green light at Broadway. Within a few minutes he was cruising three cars behind the white van on the 110, traveling south. Traffic was heavy and tight, no one moving over 50 mph. Gamble had remained in the right lane and was making the transition to the Santa Monica Freeway for a return trip to the Westside. Cobb settled back in his seat, keeping his eyes on them and trying not to let his mind wander.

But he couldn’t pull it off. He couldn’t get Buddy Paladino out of his head. Gamble had spent the better part of two hours in his office. Why? What could they have said to each other that took so much time?

He played through a list of possibilities in his head. None of them worked in his favor. He wolfed down those tacos, thinking everything over from different angles and breaking into a sweat. Images of his own demise surfaced—some of them violent and bloody. Images of being tortured flashed though his mind as well—accompanied by mass quantities of pain. By the time he came out of his trance, he could see Gamble and Loser No. 2 peel off the freeway, heading north on the Pacific Coast Highway. He slowed some, giving them room as they passed through a number of signal lights. But then the road cleared, and Gamble picked up speed. It was a sudden burst of motion, like a jet at the end of a runway thrusting forward to reach air speed.

The white van dropped back and finally pulled over and gave up. Cobb tried to keep his eye on her taillights, but she was stretching the car out—a V6 with 280 horses and 254 pounds of torque—he’d looked it up.

She must have spotted them. She must have known that they were there. She must have decided to end it once she found enough road.

Cobb checked his speedometer. He was doing ninety and still couldn’t carry her bags. He wanted to hit something. Smash something. When he looked back at the road, her taillights had vanished into the night. She was gone.

33

Johnny Bosco’s house in Malibu
was on the 29000 block of Cliffside Drive overlooking Dume Cove. It was a big modern job on a narrow lot, the rooms put together like blocks, the exterior painted three or four shades darker than the sand the blocks sat on. As Lena made her approach, she noticed a gold Chrysler 300 in the drive and passed the house by.

She had expected Bosco’s place to be empty. She wasn’t sure why because it made more sense that someone would be here. Still, it threw her.

She turned the car around and kept things slow, taking another look. The lights were on in the room closest to the water, and she could see the flicker from a television in the same room. But that was about it. The rest of the house remained dark, and no one had bothered to turn on the exterior lights.

Lena pulled into the drive and got out. She could smell the ocean in the cooler air and was grateful for the breeze. As she walked up the steps, she noticed that the front door had been left partly open. The door was made of glass, the view limited to the foyer. But she could hear two men talking over the sound of the TV, and rang the doorbell.

She waited a good ten seconds. When no one responded, she opened the door and noticed that the men had stopped talking and the TV had been turned off. She called out in a firm voice, identifying herself as a police officer. When the men inside switched off the lights, she backed out and returned to her car.

She moved with determination and purpose.

She grabbed the flashlight out of her briefcase, and wrote down the plate number on the Chrysler. But when it came to making a call for officer assistance, she hesitated. Malibu was serviced by the Sheriff’s Department, not the LAPD. The station was a long way off in Agoura Hills. If their response began from there, it would take them too long to get here. She thought it over for all of about five seconds. Then she made the call and gave the deputy Bosco’s address.

After that, it was play as you go.

She jacked the slide back on the .45, moved up the steps, and entered the house. For several moments she didn’t move, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness and trying to quiet her rapid breathing. Once she settled down, she listened to the house and concentrated on the silence. Her flashlight was small enough that she could hold it against the grip of her gun. She switched it on, moving through the foyer quickly.

When she hit the corner, she noted the open floor plan and realized that Bosco’s house had been ransacked. She could see CDs and DVDs strewn all over the couch and coffee table. While the kitchen remained undisturbed, the contents of a closet beside a large flat panel television had been dumped on the floor.

The two rooms took up most of the first floor, faced the ocean, and included a massive fireplace. Lena worked her way through the darkness. The silence remained steady and true. But when she reached the staircase, she sensed something had changed, and stopped.

She could hear the waves crashing against the rocks below the cliffs. The sound seemed too loud and too clear.

She turned around, bolting through the living room. One of the sliders was cracked open. Switching off the flashlight, she looked outside and saw two men running across the lawn. The property extended all the way to the edge of the cliffs and was fenced in.

Lena raced off the terrace into the yard. Both men were peeking over their shoulders and appeared panic-stricken. She could hear their deep and rough breathing. She could see their short and choppy steps. When they finally reached the wooden fence, they made a leap for the top and used their feet to help push them over. Unfortunately for both, they were big men—too big for the climb.

Lena switched on the flashlight and raised her gun.

“Stop,” she said, “or I’ll shoot.”

The two men froze—still hanging from the top of the fence with their feet dangling above the ground. It was dark and windy. A dog was barking from somewhere in the neighborhood. Lena moved closer, shining the flashlight on them and measuring them. Several moments passed before one of the men finally spoke, his voice strained.

“I can’t hold on any longer,” he said. “I need to drop down.”

“Me, too,” the other one said.

“Then drop,” she said. “Drop and turn around with your hands raised. And think real hard about what you’re doing. You guys pull anything, you’re both dead.”

She stepped back far enough to give herself room if she needed to fire her weapon. She hoped that they weren’t stupid. Hoped that they wouldn’t force her to do something she didn’t want to do tonight. She watched them drop to the ground. It was all of about two feet, but they had to steady themselves against the fence. And they were taking too much time doing it.

“Turn around,” she said. “And raise those hands.”

They hesitated. Lena could feel her heart pounding.

“I said, raise those hands.”

Time ticked by. She couldn’t see their hands. They were stupid. They were fucking around. She pulled the trigger, driving a .45 slug into the fence one foot above their heads. Both men almost leaped out of their skins. Then slowly, as the sound of the gunshot faded over the ocean, both men raised their hands and turned around.

Lena’s heart almost stopped.

It was the district attorney of Los Angeles standing beside that goon he’d brought back from the dead. Jimmy J. Higgins and Jerry Spadell. And the ocean breezes hadn’t been very kind to Spadell. That bad dye job turned out to be a cheap toupee after all, and it was flapping up and down on his buffed head like a bird with a broken wing.

Higgins took a step toward her. “Lower your gun, Detective. This farce is over.”

Lena grimaced, feeling the anger well up from a place so deep inside her that she wasn’t sure she could control it. Higgins was two or three light years past being a piece of shit. She jerked the muzzle at him and he stopped.

“I’ll tell you when I’m ready to lower the gun, Mr. District Attorney. Let’s go into the house and talk. Same rules apply. You guys do anything stupid, and I’ll shoot.”

Her body was going numb, the situation over the top. But she could tell that she wasn’t showing it. Her voice didn’t break and her hands were rock steady. She turned to Spadell, who seemed too quiet. He was staring at her with those eyes he’d brought back from the other side. And he was a scary-looking guy when you got this close—mean and rough.

“Do you realize what you’re doing?” Higgins said, shaking with fury. “Do you understand who I am?”

Lena jerked the .45 at him again. Spadell’s eyes were still on her.

“Do what the woman says, Jimmy. Let’s go inside and talk.”

Higgins hesitated—thinking it over and incensed—but finally started walking back to the house. Spadell fell in line, with Lena keeping a safe distance. As they passed through the slider and entered the living room, Lena switched on the lights and steered them over to the fireplace.

“Okay,” she said. “Now put both hands on the mantel and take two steps back.”

“I’m the fucking district attorney, you bitch.”

“I know exactly who you are,” she said. “Now lean against the mantel and step back.”

Spadell gave Higgins a look. “Do what she says, Jimmy. Do it.”

The two men grabbed hold of the mantel and stepped back until their bodies were at a forty-five-degree angle to the floor. Lena wasn’t too concerned about Higgins, but she knew Spadell would be carrying so she frisked him first. She found the piece holstered behind his jacket—an old .38 that had the look and feel of a throw-down gun.

“Is this thing registered?” she said.

Spadell shook his head. “I don’t remember.”

“Somehow I didn’t think you would.”

He looked back over his shoulder and winked at her. Lena slipped the revolver into her jacket, patting him down quickly and tossing his keys and wallet on the floor. When she found a case containing a set of lock picks, she slipped it into her pocket with Spadell’s gun. Moving over to Higgins, she took a moment to reel in her anger before frisking him as well. Higgins remained livid, his neck and face swelling out of his shirt collar like a hot-air balloon in the middle of a long burn.

“So, what were you doing in here?” she said.

“Fuck you,” Higgins said.

Lena ran the barrel of her .45 between his legs, knocked the muzzle against his balls, and watched him take it. She couldn’t believe what she was doing or who she was doing it to. Couldn’t believe what was roiling through her veins.

“What were you doing here?” she repeated.

“Bosco was my friend,” he said, his voice seething. “I left something here. We were looking for it.”

Lena glanced at the way they’d tossed the room. “Oh, yeah?” she said. “Did you find it?”

Too exasperated to speak, Higgins shook his head.

“What did you leave? What were you looking for?”

“Stuff,” he said. “Personal stuff. It’s none of your fucking business.”

“Did you use a key to get in?”

“Of course we used a key.”

“Where is it?”

“I think I left it on the table by the door.”

Lena smiled, but there was no pleasure in it. “That’s what I would have done, too,” she said. “Only there isn’t a table by the door here.”

“Then maybe it fell out of my pocket when we were in the backyard.”

“Maybe that’s what happened,” she said. “The key fell out of your pocket when you were running away. If you had a key, why were you running away?”

He stammered. “I have no fucking idea.”

“I agree,” she said. “You don’t have a clue.”

Lena had already tossed his wallet and keys on the floor, but felt a large roll of cash in his pants pocket. Higgins flinched slightly as she wrapped her hand around the money and pulled it out. It was a roll of fresh hundred-dollar bills—the same kind that Johnny Bosco used to keep in his pocket before he was shot in the back. She went through the cash as quickly as she could. Higgins was carrying five grand.

She grimaced at the discovery, then picked up his wallet and opened it. Inside she counted three twenties, two fives, and ten ones. It didn’t take much to put it together. The district attorney of Los Angeles had found the five grand in Bosco’s house and stolen it.

“You’re so dead,” he whispered through his teeth. “So fucking dead.”

Lena dropped the wallet on the floor. “You need to watch what comes out of your mouth, Higgins. Especially when you’re speaking to a police officer holding a gun. Things can happen.”