Dead Is Dead (The Jack Bertolino Series Book 3) Page 16

  Jeremy grimaced as he rubbed his shoulder and moved closer to Jeannine. “I stepped over that unwritten law,” he confessed. “I never should have insinuated myself into your son’s life or tried to kill his dreams. I’m ashamed of myself. I let my ego get the better of me and projected my own fears onto Chris. Who accepted my apology, by the way.”

  “You spoke with Chris?”

  “He called. We had a good talk.”

  Jeannine caught Jack’s eye, knowing who had orchestrated this reconciliation. “You’re a horse’s ass, you know that?” Jeannine said to Jeremy with more love than rancor.

  “I do.”

  “Then I accept your apology,” she said. And then, “You look terrible.”

  “You two enjoy yourselves,” Jack said, wanting to move this right along. “I booked a room for Jeannine at the Beverly Hilton for tonight. I’ll drive you over, and then I have to get to work.”

  “Oh Jack, we can Uber.”

  “I’m sure you can. You pack, I’ll drive.”

  * * *

  Toby and Dean sat on their boards, bobbing in the light surf. Toby’s mind drifted from their conversation to Eva, sitting in her Tommy Bahama chair on shore. A green and white umbrella protected her skin. She wore a pale blue blouse with cutoff sleeves and a pair of white short-shorts. Her bare, elegant legs were crossed casually at the ankles. She was reading a Sue Grafton paperback. She hadn’t been much of a reader until her incarceration, he thought moodily, then snapped out of it. Look on the bright side. Life should finally start getting better for them. No more obstacles to their happiness.

  “So, I couldn’t really remember the exact day the cop was going on about, and I told him that yeah, you were here. He seemed satisfied. Were you here?”

  “Yeah, for chrissake, Dean, you’re smoking too much weed.”

  “Don’t I wish. And I spent part of your two hundred,” he informed Toby. “I’m a little light with no product to sell. I’ll get it back to you next week if that’s all right.”

  Toby nodded his okay. He was rich now. He checked for a wave, but the ocean was still.

  “And where the fuck were you?”

  “I texted you. Didn’t you read the text?”

  “Oh yeah, yeah, your deal in Frisco.”

  “It’s all a moot point anyway,” Toby said.

  “What is?”

  “You don’t watch the news? They picked up Joey Ramirez for the shooting of Vegas and that little girl. Tied a gun in his possession to the murders.”

  “Fucking square?”

  “For real.”

  Dean reared back on his board. “That’s low, man. Killing one of your own. And killing a child. Fuckin’ low, man. Hate to be that fucker in the joint.”

  “Man must’ve been looking to move up the ladder. So, when are you going to score?” Toby asked, changing the subject. “I’m bone dry.”

  “Hard to say. If I could figure out who ripped off the shipment, I could retire.”

  “You don’t work.”

  “Figure of speech,” Dean said, annoyed, not happy to be tapped out. “Those fuckin’ Mexicans I was talking about, the short dude had his throat cut at one time in his life. Gnarly scar, dude. Ear to ear.” Dean let that hang in the air for dramatic effect before going on.

  “They offered me two hundred large for any information about the missing drugs. Didn’t seem to give a shit about the two men the Coast Guard pulled out of the water. I told them I couldn’t help ’em. Didn’t know Jack squat. They wanted to know who Jack was. I didn’t laugh, those were two scary dudes. Dead eyes. Bad news.”

  “No one’s gonna collect if Ramirez turns out to be the one who hijacked the pot.”

  “Right,” and then, “Hell, I would’ve sold my mother for two hundred thou and moved to the north shore of Oahu if I had the information.”

  Not comfortable with the direction the conversation was taking, Toby kept steering toward the information he wanted to plant. “It said on the news that he was busted with fifteen pounds. Where’d he score that if the neighborhood was dry?”

  “It’s a definite quandary.”

  Toby glanced over his shoulder, slid down on his board, and started paddling hard, Dean following suit. The swell grew in size, Dean went down, Toby was up. His callused feet stuck fast to the board. He inched toward the front, crouched low, and cut left across the four-foot face, then cut right, ripping across the apex of the swell, into the edge of the curl. With the muted sound in the pipe, the opaque baby-blue water, Toby felt like he was in church. One with the gods. When it started to peter out he muscled down, spun a one-eighty, and paddled back out to where Dean was sitting.

  He was hoping Eva had seen his ride. She said it made her hot to see him in action, and Toby aimed to please when it came to his woman.

  * * *

  Jack stepped into his loft, nodded to Cruz as he passed his work space, and tossed a quarter pounder with cheese onto the dining room table. Cruz pushed aside his computer, iPad, and yellow pad, wasting no time unfurling his burger.

  “Beautiful,” Cruz said, taking a big bite. “I forgot to eat lunch.”

  Jack set up shop on the kitchen island and pulled out the paperwork provided by Leslie. It was the list of all the witnesses called to testify from both sides of the isle in Eva Perez’s trial.

  Jack skimmed the list. In twenty-seventh place out of thirty witnesses called to testify for the defense was Toby Dirk’s name.

  Both Tomas Vegas and Joey Ramirez had testified for the prosecution. That had to have been a first for the gang members.

  He filled Cruz in on yesterday’s events while he ate some burger and pulled the tab on a diet Coke, took a big swig, and downed it with a Vicodin. He was behind the pain curve again and would have to eat standing up until the drugs kicked in.

  “So this is what I’m thinking. I want a full workup on Toby Dirk. The whole nine yards. In fact, all three brothers. They all went to Venice High, and so I want you to look at yearbooks, friends, background checks, website for the Main Street store, social media, police reports, anything and everything.”

  “I thought Ramirez was in first position.”

  “He is, and Nick and the mayor, and the police chief, all think he’s good for the shooting. I prefer to keep an open mind. Best-case scenario, we clear Toby’s name. But if Mrs. Montenegro is to be believed, and she feels straight arrow to me, then Eva’s mother was covering for Toby, and Eva should be nominated for the best bald-faced liar in a drama. The question remains, why would they yank my chain if there were nothing to hide?”

  Cruz cocked his finger at Jack. “That logic works for me.”

  “You start on the Dirks, and I’ll do a full-court press on Ramirez and see where that takes us.”

  * * *

  As Jack pulled to a stop a few doors down from the modest bungalow that Ramirez called home, his green Chevy Biscayne was being winched onto the flatbed of a tow truck. The diesel engine strained and thick black smoke bellowed out of two stacks bookending the truck’s cab. A young woman who looked older than her years because of the severity of her makeup and her unbridled fury observed the proceedings and wiped the acrid smoke out of her eyes with the back of her hand. She seemed to be having a conversation with herself, for her silent lips moved with an unconscious shake of her head. Harsh, penciled eyebrows, tight blood-red lips, and elaborate gang ink under the torn collar of her chocolate-brown sweatshirt’s scooped neck.

  “Damn shame,” Jack said as he approached her and surveyed the high-velocity damage to the vintage vehicle.

  “He loved the damned car more that me. Fuck him.”

  Jack saw an opening in her anger. “Did you get picked up, too?”

  “Would I be standing here?”

  “No, I guess not.” Jack had done better with opening gambits.

  “And
who the fuck are you, white boy? You undercover? You look like a cop.”

  “No, not a cop. Not anymore. I’m working for the Sanchez family, trying to get a handle on who fired the shot that killed their young girl.”

  That gave the woman momentary pause. “The cops have already convicted Joey. He’s as good as gone. Why don’t you get gone, too?” It wasn’t a question.

  Ramirez’s girlfriend turned on her heel and started back up the broken concrete path toward home. She was solid muscle, and wore tight-fitting jeans that screamed storm warning.

  “Five minutes of your time,” Jack said, hot on her heels. “Your life’s in danger.”

  That slowed her some. She turned back, suspicious, flat-eyed and dangerous.

  “What’s your name?” Jack asked.

  “Angel.”

  The name didn’t fit the face and she read it in Jack’s eyes. “I may not be an angel, but you sure as shit ain’t no saint.”

  “Can’t fight you there.” Jack handed her a card.

  “You’d lose. So what’s your angle, Jackie?” she said, reading his name off the card.

  “I’m trying to get to the bottom of this case, help a family out, and even though I’m no fan of your old man, I don’t think he killed the girl.”

  That gave Angel something to think about.

  “If you don’t help me, help yourself,” Jack went on. “My guess is he’s going down for the murder and you’ll end up dead. Tortured and dead. Ugly dead, Angel. The cartel is gonna want to know where he got the drugs in a dry town, and they’ve got a lethal way of getting answers. My guess, it’s part of their shipment that disappeared along with two of their men who were killed out on the Pacific. Their boat sank. It’s been on the news. I’m sure the Lenox boys are all looking over their shoulders.”

  Angel didn’t say no. She stood frozen in place. And then she made an interesting comment: “Joey gets seasick, man. He couldn’t have done those guys.”

  This was a smart woman, Jack thought. There was a chance to break through. What she left out was that the drugs weren’t the cartel’s. That was a guaranteed death sentence.

  “Tell me how it played out last night with the shoot-up and arrest. Tell me what your old man was doing two nights ago, when the boat and drugs were hijacked, everything you know. And we’ve gotta find you some place to hide out until this blows over.”

  Angel’s eyes flickered back toward the street and she got in Jack’s face, spitting fury, “Get the fuck outta my face, puto! We got nothing to talk about. Maricon.”

  Jack could see Ramirez’s buddies walking up the path at a high rate of speed.

  He shot Angel a look, accepting her unspoken message. He wouldn’t bust her in front of her friends, but he hoped she’d be smart enough to call. He spun and the two men slowed to a stop, making room for Jack but forcing him to walk through their gauntlet. Angel slammed into her house.

  Jack stood his ground. “How does it feel to be next in line?”

  Playa was the melon-headed mouth who’d sat shotgun in the green Chevy outside the courthouse. Built like a bull, with tattooed biceps the size of ham hocks, and an ego to match. “You talking to us, ese?”

  “First Vegas, then Ramirez steps up to the plate,” Jack said. “He lasts forty-eight hours, and now up from the minors, it’s you two jamokes. It’s gonna be a rocky ride, boys.”

  “You talking shit, save it for someone who’s listening,” Playa said. “We’ll finish this somewhere else, ese; we don’t need no more civilian casualties. They all swim in our pond. But you ain’t a civilian. You, we’ll take outta the game.”

  “At least your momma will have something to remember you by,” Jack said.

  “Don’t force my hand, homeboy, start talking shit about my mamma.”

  “Sinaloa boys’ll strip the skin off your body until you admit to stealing the drugs Ramirez was busted with. They’ll send your tattoos in an envelope to su madre as a warning to others and a keepsake for her. Something to remember her son by.”

  They seemed scared and Jack poured it on. “And then after you admit to killing their men, and stealing their drugs, you will tell them what they want to hear, they’ll cut your head off and leave it curbside for your boys to play soccer with. And all the time you were just trying to be a good earner and get ahead in the world. Doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Get the fuck outta here while you’re still mobile, ese.” But Playa’s threat seemed weak and the heat was lost in translation.

  “If you have an alibi for Tuesday night,” Jack said quietly, “I’d give it up. Give me something to go on, anything to prove you weren’t out on the water Tuesday night and I’ll try to make it right.”

  “Fuck you, scumbag.”

  As the bull charged, Jack grabbed the big man’s muscled forearm and, using his forward momentum and weight, yanked him past his own body like a matador, ankle-swept him, and sent him careening down onto the hardpack.

  Tito’s razor-thin body had muscles like twisted leather, severe enough to make an anorexic blink. He stood five-foot-five and Jack guessed his gunplay did most of his talking on the street. Tito flashed his most potent side-glancing stink eye and hissed, “You’re a dead man. Not here, but soon. You better grow eyes in the back of your head, ese.”

  “Say good night, Gracie,” said Jack as he walked past the seething Tito while his partner brushed the crabgrass off his knees and mumbled curses in Spanish.

  Jack exited the depressing courtyard and headed for his ride just as the tow truck rumbled away from the curb. The diesel engine belched black smoke as the shot-up green Chevy Biscayne rolled past the crowd of onlookers like a homespun float at the Rose Parade.

  Jack spun around just as a blond man with a camera snapped a photo of the green Chevy as it passed Jack’s position. Hurriedly, he turned and walked off in the opposite direction. Jack had the strange sensation that he’d been the focus of the picture, and that he’d seen the man before. He just couldn’t place him.

  Twenty-two

  Joey Ramirez was processed by noon and led to a holding cell in the 77th Street Jail, which would be his home until he was transported to the Airport Courthouse. He was scheduled for a meeting with his attorney, who would run down the state’s case against him, talk strategy, and handle his bail hearing.

  The prison guard turned and walked out of the cell, his leather boots echoing on the linoleum floor. Ramirez didn’t remember hearing the metallic click of the door locking, but was so pissed off he was seeing double and not thinking straight.

  He had to take a crap, but was damned if he’d freeze his ass off using the metal toilet in the claustrophobic cell. He’d wait and use the bathroom at the courthouse. It wasn’t the first time he’d been arrested, and in his line of work, he was sure it wouldn’t be the last. In this case, though, he had been framed.

  The rifle wasn’t his, but he was more concerned about the drugs. The wrong people could get the wrong idea, and that could be detrimental to his health. He’d send a message out to his boys through the lawyer who the Lenox gang had on retainer. Damned shyster was making more money than he was lately. That fucking pissed him off, too.

  The cell door swung open and a trustee stepped in carrying an extra blanket. Ramirez wouldn’t say no to a little warmth, and he reached for the blanket, nodding his thanks.

  In a lightning strike the trustee punched through the skin beneath Ramirez’s sternum. The honed needlepoint of the icepick penetrated his heart muscle and instantly paralyzed the life-giving organ. The state’s newest prisoner was bewildered, but dead before the trustee could pocket the icepick. He wrapped Ramirez in the blanket and rearranged his body to look asleep.

  Only hours later would anyone be the wiser.

  With its deadly message sent, the cartel had exacted the first phase of its revenge. They would still brace every member of
the Lenox Road crew until they discovered who the other traitors were. A single man couldn’t have done the job alone. When business was completed, the two enforcers would take a flight back to the city of Culiacán, Sinaloa, where the cartel was based.

  The prison guard already knew how he was going to spend the fifty grand that had been wired to his secret account by a Sinaloa CPA.

  The trustee’s family could now build that extra room his wife so dearly wanted for her mother on the family compound in Reseda.

  * * *

  Jack keyed the door to his loft just in time to be greeted with the sound of four ringing phones. Cruz, set up at his usual spot at the dining room table, grabbed the receiver. The flat-screen television was set to CNN, sound muted. Jack plugged his iPhone into the charger near the door as Cruz said, “He just walked in,” and handed the phone to Jack, who mouthed, who is it? His eyes narrowed as Cruz raised his hands, palms up, in a . . . what could I do? gesture.

  “Jeannine,” Jack said as he walked the phone into his office.

  “Hi Jack, we’re leaving for Santa Barbara tomorrow, and going wine tasting in Santa Ynez.” She sounded youthful and pleased and Jack was genuinely as happy for her as he was for himself. “Thank you for the wonderful hotel room. Jeremy and I made up. All is well. We plan on staying overnight at Big Sur, and then we’ll spend a night in Carmel before going to visit Chris. Don’t tell him, Jack,” Jeannine scolded playfully. “We want it to be a fun surprise.”

  Good luck with that, Jack thought. “I won’t,” he assured her.

  “I’m feeling so good; I wanted to share an observation, Jack. I can read the pain you live with every day, and it hurts my heart.”

  Jack let out a labored sigh that wasn’t lost on Jeannine and wished he hadn’t. “I’m not going under the knife again,” he said. “If the operation went south, I could end up in a wheelchair. It’s not worth the risk.”

  “I understand, Jack. I can’t tell you what to do anymore. I’m not sure I ever could. You never listened to half of what I had to say when we were married; why should I expect anything different now?”