The Filthy Few: A Steve Nastos Mystery (14 page)

Nastos wanted to be careful in case Radix was being monitored by Professional Standards or wasn't talking in private. Professional Standards could have gotten a warrant and be monitoring Radix's phone conversations on the slightest of suspicions. He played along. “Listen, Radix, I don't want to say what this is about on a cellular telephone. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I don't trust cops, no offence. I don't even trust my neighbourhood tattoo guy, and I've been going to him for years. I'm sure you know all about the tattoo guys.” The phone was silent. Nastos plugged an ear then held the screen away to see if it was still active. “You know what I mean?”

“Sorry, you cut out there. . . . Okay, I might have a bit of time to help a private investigator with an investigation. Where did you have in mind?”

“You pick the place. You and Morrison, me and my partner, Carscadden. Noisy, quiet, dark, bright, public, private, think it over and give me a call at this number when you decide.”

18

Vince had the two women sitting next to each other on the bed. They were still half naked, covering themselves with the bed sheets. He never said they couldn't get dressed, all he had said was
Sit down, shut up and listen.
The rest they figured out all on their own.

“You two didn't see anything. No coke, no guns, no fight, nothing.” He pulled out his phone and took their pictures. “I can find out your real names and hunt you down.”

They kept their eyes down.

“Now get your clothes on and fuck off.”

They did what he said and were out in less than thirty seconds. When the door clicked shut Vince turned on Christian. “If you weren't so drunk and stoned, I wouldn't have had to fight them off myself.”

Christian stood up. “You better remember who the fuck you're talking to. I make one phone call and your number gets called in.” Christian took a step forward, a bravery fueled by cocaine that otherwise would be tempered by a Darwinian instinct for survival.

Vince struggled to hold back the pent-up hostility that had been building for months. “You're the one that wanted to spend a few hours at the peelers when we could have taken care of Walker. It was you who wanted to puppet-master the cops. That little game is over. Today. We're going to turn them against the assholes who were just here, then that's the end of it. You've had your fun and snorted most of it away. Now it's over.”

He turned his back on Christian, passive-aggressively attempting to draw him into the first punch.
Here's a perfect opportunity, asshole, make my fucking day.
He dialed a number and waited. “It's me, asshole, now listen. I'm going to ask you to do two last things and you are out of this thing clear, hear me?” He reached for the wallet that he had recovered from the fight in the room with the intruders. “Guys' names are Steve Nastos and Kevin Carscadden. Kill them and this is done.”

Carscadden parked at the Cherry Beach Park. There were dog walkers and high-school kids who should have been in school. The sun was strong and it was beautiful out. They had arrived there first. Nastos slid out of the car and leaned against the passenger door. He stared out over the water to the horizon. Between the blue sky and blue water there was a serrated line of waves glinting in the sun, separating the two by the thinnest, sharpest margin. Carscadden slammed his door shut and joined him, arms crossed, his head tilted up to the sky.

Nastos watched him as he stood there, his eyes shut, meditating. “If you're beginning to wonder if we've finally crossed the line and gotten ourselves into serious trouble, I gotta tell ya, buddy, I have a bad feeling about this one.”

“Well, that makes me feel better.”

“I'm just saying, we owe each other one hundred percent honesty here. If you want to bail out and call the cops, if you want to leave town with Hopkins until I can sort this one out, if you —”

Carscadden turned to him aggressively, sticking his finger in Nastos' face. “Shut up. Jesus Christ.”

Nastos backed up, his hands reflexively raised in surrender.

Carscadden continued. “What the hell does it take to get through to you? We're in this together. Trust me, I wish that ex-bitchfriend of yours never dragged her boney ass into our office but what's done is done. Hopkins and Josie are with Viktor, that's okay for now, but we've pissed off a violent biker gang, Steve. There's no telling how this is going to end, but one thing is for sure. Josie needs her dad. So we don't have much of a choice on what to do here. We have to find some way of taking these guys down. And the only way that's going to happen is if we keep our heads and work together.”

Nastos dropped his hands to his sides and turned briefly back to the water before answering. “You know the cops aren't going to be able to protect us. They sure as hell didn't do much for Ann Falconer or Rob Walker.”

Carscadden stared at the ground, arms crossed again. “Trust me, with my life in danger the last thing I trust to protect it is a government bureaucracy.”

“Okay then, the solution is the solution. We're going to have to kill them before they kill us. It's that simple.” Nastos sat in silence repeating to himself what he had just said aloud.

Carscadden balled his hands into fists and pressed them against his forehead before releasing them. “Okay, then. Forget the investigation. Let's just get out of this one alive.”

Carscadden locked eyes with Nastos before turning and leaning back against the car. His eyes watered up. He squeezed his eyes shut, turning his face to the sky again.

Nastos left him to his prayers and made a few of his own.
Josie, I promise you right now that I'm going to make it out of this. And Maddy, if you're out there somewhere, if that's really you I feel behind me sometimes, if that's you, Maddy, that Josie giggles with in her sleep, help me through this, baby. I'm listening.

He felt a thick hot tear roll down his face and his nose was getting congested. He quickly wiped away the tear and sniffed.

Carscadden opened an eye. “You know, people in the park see two guys on the brink of tears and they're going to think we're breaking up.”

Nastos averted his eyes. “I was thinking of Maddy.”

“Yeah. I know.”

A pickup truck turned into the parking lot. Nastos and Carscadden turned to face it. Two men were inside: Radix and Morrison. The truck jerked to a stop next to them and the window rolled down.

Morrison was in the passenger seat. “Get in the bed.” He thumbed backward.

Carscadden put his hands on his hips, defiantly. “Are you kidding me?”

Morrison burst out of the door, getting in Carscadden's face. “Listen, man, just get in the truck. We don't know who you are or what you think you know about us but if we do this, we do it our way.”

Nastos stepped forward. “Let's get this over with.”

Radix drove north to Commissioners Street, then swung south again behind a factory. It was secluded from the public, bordered by tall grey walls and rusted garbage dumpsters covered in fresh graffiti. Nastos noted the busted, black-framed windows that had littered their broken glass on the asphalt. The truck backed up to a corner alcove, the entrance to one of the buildings. The thick metal doors that had been protected from the natural elements didn't stand a chance against the jacked-up crack-heads and homeless who had apparently used bricks and pry bars to peel the door back far enough so they could get their scrawny weather-ravaged bodies inside and out of the summer heat or winter chill. Litter on the ground was a collection of hyp0dermic needles, orange caps, rubber tying bands and Band-Aids from harm reduction kits.

The engine stopped, the smell of exhaust dissipated. Radix and Morrison hopped out of the truck cab and approached the back. Carscadden straddled the lip then jumped down, straightening his suit. “Nice spot. Smells a little like piss, though.”

Nastos stepped down more slowly. A quick glance from Radix to Morrison showed which one was running the show. He turned to Radix. “We know about the druggie in the park. Rob Walker? And we know about Ann Falconer, his girlfriend.” There was some kind of non-verbal exchange between Radix and Morrison, something like a shrug but not as obvious. When Nastos turned back to Radix he saw the gun pointed at his head. His hands shot up. “Hey, wait, we're on your side.” He felt his heart begin to thump and he became dizzy.

Carscadden took a step back. “Whoa, whoa. Easy, easy. Jesus Christ.”

Nastos tried to take a step toward Radix. “Listen, give me two minutes, that's all I need to explain.”

Morrison said, “Okay, two minutes. It better be good.”

Radix grimaced. Nastos figured that Radix didn't want to pull the trigger and knew it would be harder for him to do with each passing moment.

“We know about the men following you. We know about the bikers.”

Radix and Morrison exchanged a glance. Radix asked, “Bikers?”

“We were spinning you at the tattoo parlour. While you were taking care of business, two men were watching and recording everything you did. We followed them to the King Edward Hotel. They were bikers. We know they have something on you. I guess they're blackmailing you to do things.” Radix began to lower the gun. Instead of pointing it at Nastos' head, it was now down at his chest. “We want to help.”

Radix raised the gun again and jabbed it forward. “Why?”

“Because when we confronted them we barely made it out alive. They took our wallets, they know where we live, they can get at us and, more important, they can get at the people we love. You have to see that we're in this together now. And if we work together we can take care of them before they take care of us.”

Morrison asked, “Why should we trust you?”

“Because I used to be a cop just like you. Something that was bigger than me and beyond my control took it away or I'd still be carrying a badge right now. These guys you're up against are dangerous. Too dangerous for you. They have you doing everything except their laundry.” Nastos remembered the loss that Radix's girlfriend said he had suffered and thought fast. “I have a young daughter, Josie, and I don't want to see her hurt. Since her mom died, I'm all she's got. I can't imagine how hard it would be on her if she lost the last of her parents to assholes like this.”

Carscadden raised his hand, showing the swollen knuckle. “I got this from one of their faces. If the one guy wasn't too drunk to fight, we'd be dead by now.”

Radix turned the gun on Carscadden. “And who the fuck are you?”

Carscadden shrugged. “I'm Kevin Carscadden. I'm a lawyer and work with Nastos here.”

Radix turned back to Nastos. “You're Nastos? Detective Nastos?”

Morrison chimed in. “Holy shit, it
is
you. I've seen you on
TV
. You punched Dimebag on live
TV
.” Morrison smiled.

Carscadden finally found the confidence to take his eyes from Radix's gun. “As your attorney, Nastos, I'm cautioning you not to make any comments since that matter is still before the courts.”

Radix jammed the gun toward Carscadden. “Shut your face, lawyer.” He said
lawyer
like the word tasted like battery acid.

“Face shut,” Carscadden replied.

To Nastos he said: “You two assholes were at my house. You said you were Professional Standards.”

Nastos rested his hands on the lip of the truck's bed. “Can I put my hands here for a sec? I'm getting tired.” He took a breath and tried to show that he was relaxed, thinking that if he didn't show any fear, Radix and Morrison would calm down too. It didn't work, but Nastos' perception of Radix began to evolve. Radix began looking younger, more fragile than hostile. Morrison too. Between the two of them they had less than five years on the job. The blind leading the blind. And they had been taken advantage of, their fears used against them, digging themselves in deeper while they tried to buy time. They were like junkies who haven't realized that they've already hit rock bottom.

“Listen,” Nastos began, ignoring the fact that he had been at Radix's house, “He's my lawyer. Anything I say to him is in confidence. It's legally protected. If he were your lawyer too then this whole conversation would be protected. We could all talk about what we know and none of it could be used to bite us in the ass.” Nastos pointed around at the sky. “If somehow we were being recorded, none of this could be used against us in any way.”

Morrison looked around, Radix didn't.

It was a conscious choice by Nastos to use the word
we
as much as possible, a psychological technique called “forced teaming.” The more Nastos sold Radix and Morrison on the notion that they were all victims of the same men, the more likely it was that Radix would put the gun down. “I say we go someplace more private —”

“We stay here and we don't need a fucking lawyer.”