Dead Is Dead (The Jack Bertolino Series Book 3) Read online

  “Is Ricky J cool?” Toby asked.

  “He apologized for ruining our day. Said to keep him in mind if anything else comes down the pike at a much later date.”

  “He couldn’t really cash in without risking his own life. The cartel would torture him to find out how he knew it was us. See if he was telling the truth. Is he cool?”

  Sean gave that some serious thought. They’d been thick as thieves at Lompoc, and had done some substantial business through the years, but honor among thieves was as fallacious as his own story about cows.

  “Not two hundred grand cool.”

  “Who’s gonna tell Terrence?”

  “It was my call. I’ll take the heat.”

  Sean weighed their options, absently nodding his head as he heard Toby say: “We’ve got some cleanup to do.”

  * * *

  Jack was dead on his feet. His back was in spasm and he belted down two aspirin from the craft service table, but knew a heavier drug was in order when he got back to the loft. He glanced over his shoulder at the behemoth Stage D at Sony Studios in Culver City, where Done Deal was filming. The studio, steeped in history, had been MGM back in the golden age of Hollywood, turning out some of the classic black-and-white noir films Jack favored.

  Jack walked Cruz into Susan’s mobile home and set him up with his computer.

  “You are now officially Susan Blake’s bodyguard. She okayed you, thinks you’re cute. I told her I had other business to attend to.”

  “She has to be on her phone.”

  “Not a problem. She gets off set and makes calls to unwind. I need phone numbers. She was arguing with someone the other night and is being tight lipped. I can’t do my job unless I’m in the loop. Do your best.”

  “I feel a little uncomfortable.”

  “It’s impossible to protect her without knowing who, or what, she’s afraid of.”

  That seemed to appease his young associate.

  Tommy was set up at video village, where he could watch Hollywood magic being made. True to his word, he had reached out to the FBI agent in New York City who had been assigned to Susan Blake’s stalking case. The agent agreed to help in any way he could. Jack was waiting on a return call.

  Jack exited the building seconds before an alarm bell rang and a red light flashed, alerting all that the set was alive and cameras would begin to roll, or whatever digital cameras did these days to capture a moving image.

  Jack grabbed a breakfast burrito from the catering truck, and as he headed for the parking lot his cell phone rang. It was a New York area code.

  “Agent Jameson, thanks for returning my call.”

  “How can I help you?” Jameson asked.

  Jack could hear horns blaring in the background and thought the agent was probably out on the city streets.

  “Here’s what I’m dealing with. It appears that Susan Blake’s stalker has followed her to L.A. I believe she’s legitimately frightened. He did a drive-by when we were shooting on location, but I have the suspicion that she waited until he couldn’t be ID’d before alerting me. And when I requested she sit down with a sketch artist, she refused. We had another incident last night at two a.m. Susan sounded the alarm, I ran over, the police responded, and she claimed there had been an attempted break-in at her home.”

  “What was the upshot?” Jameson asked.

  “Again, she was honestly rattled, but the police couldn’t find anything on scene to corroborate the allegation. Called it an honest mistake.”

  “And you’re not sure?”

  “You got it,” Jack said.

  “All I can say is my experience was similar,” Jameson said. “Something about her story never rang true. And unless I caught her stalker in the act of harassment, I had nothing substantive to go on. If you come up with anything of interest, I’d be happy to run the leads from my end, but personally, I hit a dead end and had to move on. Send my best to Tommy.”

  Jack thanked the agent for his time, belted down the burrito, mounted up, and drove west toward the marina.

  * * *

  Ricky J pulled an olive-drab canvas rucksack out of his closet, heaved it onto his bed, and checked the contents. Neatly freeze-wrapped bundles of cash. Three hundred fifty thousand dollars, to be exact. He would have made a killing on the Dirk deal, but it wasn’t worth his life. Felt bad screwing his friend, but what the hell? As he dragged the bag down the hallway and opened the rear door, his cell phone trilled.

  “Shit,” he said, running back to the bedroom. He didn’t see his phone, so he followed the sound into the kitchen, where he grabbed the cell phone off of his counter and clicked On before it went to voicemail. He checked the caller and grimaced, “Yeah?”

  “Where’s the love, Ricky J? Look, I’ve been driving all night. I’m totally fried. Throw some burgers on the grill and we’ll get caught up before I head back.”

  “I thought you were already turned around,” Ricky J said, alarmed by this change in plans. “Listen, it’s not a good idea. I’m not even at the house.”

  His Boston terrier appeared and started whimpering for food. “Shut the fuck up.” Ricky pushed him away with his foot.

  “What’d you say?”

  “Somebody’s dog, sorry.”

  “I thought we had the day carved out. How’d you get so busy?”

  At least this lie was in his hip pocket. “You know the business. Have to jump through hoops to make a buck.”

  “You want me to drive into a ditch? I’ve got no one to spell me. And I don’t trust leaving the van in some no-tell motel parking lot.”

  “You know I love you like a brother, but—”

  “Cut the shit, Ricky. I can see you standing in your kitchen. Put on a fuckin’ shirt and crack open a couple of beers.”

  “What?” Ricky J spun around and tweaked open the louver blinds. Sean’s van was parked in the driveway. He gave a quick wave.

  “You prick,” Ricky said, trying for lite. “Why didn’t you tell me you were here? Gimme two seconds to put on some shorts and turn the alarm off. I thought you were down in Salinas by now.”

  “Make it quick, I’ve gotta take a wiz.”

  Sean’s unexpected appearance was setting off all sorts of trip wires. Ricky clicked off the phone, grabbed his pistol out of a drawer, and slid it under his belt in the small of his back. He hurried into the bedroom and pulled on a T-shirt, making sure it covered the weapon. All the while his dog remained underfoot and barking.

  “Shut the fuck up!” he hissed. Ricky started back and remembered the bag of cash. “Mother fucker.” He spun and hoofed it down the hallway, bent down to grab the bag of cash out of the open doorway.

  When he straightened, he was staring down the barrel of Toby Dirk’s .22.

  The tight bore of the .22 looked massive, was Ricky J’s last thought. He saw the flash before he could react. Two small holes painted his forehead. His eyes widened in surprise and then were extinguished. Ricky J was dead before his knees buckled.

  Toby pulled him out of the house and onto the grass before he could bleed out on the hardwood floor. The only witness to the crime, Ricky J’s Boston terrier, appeared unfazed.

  * * *

  Sean and Toby did a systematic search of the backyard. The large evergreen shrubs and old-growth trees that surrounded the perimeter of the property offered total privacy from the road and houses beyond. They had left Ricky J propped against the detached garage next to a four-by-six green-and-gray Rubbermaid garden shed. At first glance he looked like he was sleeping.

  Sean had been sitting in the van with the windows rolled down when he heard the pop pop. Could’ve been anything, but Sean recognized it as the sound of sudden death. When he was sure all was quiet in the ’hood, he walked around to the back of the house.

  “He said he’d never risk being arrested again without having a
bag of cash in the ground somewhere for bail,” Sean said. “It would have to be close, don’t you think? Where was he dragging the bag?”

  “Maybe to his car?”

  “Wells Fargo didn’t dry-wrap the cash. And he’s in a cash-and-carry business. Where the fuck is it?” Sean directed to the very dead Ricky J.

  And that’s when he saw it.

  A line of dead grass, two inches wide, ran the width of the shed. Sean put his shoulder to the six-foot-tall plastic structure. It slid smoothly away from Ricky J, revealing more dead grass and then the top of a steamer trunk buried in a neat hole, flush with the grass. Toby sprang toward it and pulled open the hinged metal top.

  The trunk was filled with cash.

  Neat parcels of money. Lots of them. Dry wrapped and theirs for the taking. Sean stooped down and rubbed the back of the dog’s head as it stood by his side peering into the hole. He waited for his heart to stop pounding before getting to work.

  The brothers found rubber cleaning gloves in the pantry and put them on. They went through the house taking cell phones, iPads, and computers. They grabbed Ricky’s phone book, anything that could tie them to the dead man.

  Toby discovered the hidden security system in a closet. He shut off the power and pulled out the disk. In its place he inserted a blank.

  They worked silently and efficiently. Sean bagged the money and stowed it in the back of the van. Both brothers were needed to bend Ricky J at the waist and slide him into the steamer trunk. The lid closed with a click, and the realigned shed served as his makeshift headstone.

  The dog whimpered when the brothers stepped into the kitchen for one last look around.

  “What do we do with the dog?” Toby asked, picking him up and cradling him in the crux of his arm. The dog nuzzled in the warmth of Toby’s black hoodie and gave him a soulful stare. “Should we take him with us?”

  Sean pulled a large bag of dry food from the pantry. He liked dogs too but he pointed out, “He’s probably chipped. First visit to the vet and they can trace us back to Ricky.” He emptied the kibble in a mound on the floor.

  Toby saw the sense of that. He lifted the dog, face level, looked at him eye-to-eye, and set him down. He grabbed a large bowl, filled it with fresh water, and placed it next to the pile of food.

  Sean and Toby walked out the back door, made sure the doggy door was unhinged before locking up behind them. Sean grabbed the hose and washed the blood spatters off the grass and dirt on the edge of the garden bed. After pulling off the rubber cleaning gloves and tossing them into the bag along with the electronics, Toby picked up the .22 shell casings from the grass and the two men hit the road.

  Toby pulled the Mercedes van out of the driveway, heading toward I-5 South and what was sure to be a hellish drive back to L.A. He’d been tired enough when they arrived. Sean pulled the battery and memory card out of the phone and iPad, tossed them out the window before hitting the freeway entrance.

  “That’s it. We were never here.”

  Fourteen

  An athletic man dressed in black jeans and a tight black T-shirt sauntered into Susan’s modest office overlooking the police department’s bullpen and stood in front of her desk. He was the detective who had frozen in the doorway during the location shoot in Venice. Susan didn’t offer the chair.

  “Do you know why I called you in, Steve?”

  “I’ve got a pretty good idea,” he said wryly, with a grin that turned into a smirk.

  “Do tell,” Susan said, smoldering now.

  “Uh, to apologize?” And the grin was back.

  Susan’s brow furrowed and she fought for control.

  Steve was on a roll. “You stepped on my effin heel outside the door, Lieutenant. I almost took a header.”

  Susan’s voice got so quiet, Steve had to lean in to hear. “Are you living in an alternate universe? You compromised the warrant. Endangered my men.”

  “Two sides to every story, babe.”

  Susan’s hands tightened into fists, but she stayed seated. “Here’s your choice, Steve. You put in for a transfer to something less strenuous or I write you up and your career stalls.”

  “We all know why you were promoted out of turn. Your skirt. Listen to me, babe—”

  Susan shot out of her chair, muscled Steve against her office wall, her forearm pressed against his throat. A picture of George W crashed to the floor; the glass frame shattered. Steve’s eye started bugging, his face turned beet red.

  “You call me babe again, I’ll twist your balls until you’re singing soprano in the Chiefs choir. You got that?”

  Steve’s cool dissolved as he fought for breath and nodded his head.

  Susan pushed a little harder and then: “Cut!”

  She backed off, breathing heavily.

  “What the fuck, Susan?” the actor said, rubbing his throat, out of character now. “Uh, what we were doing? It’s called acting.”

  “It’s called growing a pair,” she snapped.

  “Okay, people,” Henry Lee shouted from behind the monitor, trying to defuse the tension. To the script supervisor he said, “Print that. Good work, you two.”

  Susan turned off the anger like a light switch being thrown. “Shit! I am so sorry, Matt. No sleep. You’re right, sorry. Won’t happen again.”

  “No harm no foul . . . babe.”

  Susan’s eyes flashed with anger, but she covered it by turning away.

  “That’s a wrap, ladies and gents. Moving on,” the first AD intoned.

  * * *

  Susan strutted along the wide aisle of her million-dollar mobile home, sipping Perrier and talking on her cell phone. She was playing to an audience of one, and she knew she was killing, enjoying Cruz’s discomfort.

  “Cruz Feinberg,” she said, flirty. “A man protecting me from danger.”

  The pink blush on Cruz’s neck worked its way up to his ears that turned bright red.

  Susan stifled a laugh, not wanting to embarrass Cruz any more than she already had. She’d never seen him this jumpy. “No,” Susan went on, flying high on adrenaline from the success of her on-camera scene. “They’re rigging the lights for the next shot. Matt’s pissed off because he had to do a little acting . . . no, he’ll recover.”

  All the while Susan was talking, Cruz’s fingers flew across his laptop. He looked up after hitting Send and blushed a second time when he realized Susan was trying to get a look at his screen. He quickly opened his dashboard to hide the evidence.

  Susan’s makeup artist came and went, and while Susan nursed a latte and did a little online bill paying, Cruz kept digging. She had no idea they were visiting the same site as he surreptitiously retrieved her bank statements for the past six months.

  * * *

  “Old man Diskin was cool?” Sean asked as he passed an eighteen-wheeler on the highway and pulled back into the right lane. Above all, he wanted to blend with the flow of traffic. The van was now filled with drugs and cash, more than enough for a long stretch in the big house. Not a scenario Sean was eager to relive. The brothers were traveling just outside Sacramento talking to Terrence over the van’s Bluetooth system.

  “He’s leaving for Italy next week. Said to enjoy the view. Thinks you boys deserve a rest. Called us the hardest-working young men in L.A. He doesn’t know the half of it.”

  The three brothers chuckled. Gallows humor.

  “Head down the five and take 152 West,” Terrence went on.

  “No worries, I’ll plug into the GPS,” Sean said.

  “If you get to Esalen, you passed the driveway. The key’s hidden at the base of the third fence post on the right as you drive toward the gate.”

  “Cool,” Toby said.

  “I promised to reupholster that sectional in his yacht we installed last year for being so supportive of the family,” Terrence went on. “Again, he d
oesn’t know the half of it. The man didn’t say no, left me the keys. And Toby, dump all of it, I’m not kidding. No trace, nothing that can lead back to us.”

  “Neighbors?” Sean asked.

  “No direct sight lines onto the property. You’re a hundred feet above the deck.”

  “It’s a lot of product,” Toby said wistfully.

  “No time to get greedy. You did good, my brothers. Stay light on your feet and we’ll come out the other end of this rich men. Have yourselves a nice dinner at the Post Ranch Inn when business is completed. Use the store credit card—the story is you had a furniture pickup in San Francisco. I’ll create an invoice and send it up to Rob. Tell him you stopped by and missed him. He won’t remember, but he’ll cash the check.

  “Buy a piece of art at the Hawthorne Gallery in Big Sur. Spend a few thousand. You know the room we’re doing for Daphne? I’ll send the color palette. Pick out a few things that work with our design, text me your choices, and we’ll make a decision before you pay.

  “And, Toby, you had a visit from the LAPD. A Lieutenant Gallina and a Detective Tompkins. We knew they were going to show up sooner or later. Nothing to sweat. You’ve got Dean to cover you on the Vegas hit, and I told them you’ve spent the last two days picking up furniture and art for one of our clients. He left a card. I told him you’d call when you got into town. He seemed okay with that.”

  “Sounds good,” Toby said, then added, chuckling, “Your head’s gonna spin when you see the cash.”

  “Just stay focused until the job’s done. I’m proud of you both.”

  Sean and Toby took the compliment to heart. The feeling of being in a gang, an organization founded on blood, made them greater, more powerful, than the sum of their parts.

  “Air out the van before you head south,” Terrence went on. “Diskin said to strip the beds and leave the linens in the laundry room.”