willing to suck it, what is the harm?”
“The girls weren’t willing,” Mikayla said. Manny turned around to look at her. Slamming my fist on the desk, I caught his attention. I had to keep him from engaging Mikayla and getting his throat slit.
“Bullshit, Manny. Some Russian gangster tells you he has government connections and you roll over? Nah, don’t buy it.”
“A federal agent came to the club, he said it was a routine immigration check. But I knew it was a message from the Russian. He was proving his connections were real. I’m not proud of what I did, but it was what I had to do. Now if you are going to kill me, please make it look like robbery so my wife can collect the insurance.”
“You fucked me hard and dry, Manny. Killing you won’t even this score, not by a mile. No, you stay in play with these bastards. You’re my inside man now.”
I told him to keep his cell on, I’d be in touch. On the way out, I grabbed the bank bag. It was the price he’d pay for fucking a friend.
Manny had been the only father I had ever known. He was a hard, street fighting bastard. I had trusted him. My mistake.
We made it two blocks before the government car hit its siren and lights.
CHAPTER 18
“Where the fuck are the girls?” The fed’s belly hung over a rodeo belt.
“At the mall?” It was stupid, but fuck it, I was tired. I had been cuffed and on my knees for the past twenty minutes. The same question over and over.
Mikayla was gone. When he hit the siren, I jammed on the gas and let the beast roar. We hung a left so tight, I could feel the right tires lift off. He missed the turn but he wasn’t far behind. Left, right, I was running blind through Frogtown, a small area of convoluted streets, pinned between the 5 and the LA river. The last turn was a mistake. Two hundred feet down, it dead-ended into the river. Slamming on the brakes, I gave Mikayla the cash, the Beretta and the name of the motel. Then I jumped out and ran towards the black sedan. Mikayla slipped into the shadow.
“Stuck your dick in a hornets’ nest this time, boy.” I could smell bourbon on his breath as he leaned into me. “I’m tossing you a life line, maybe you should think about taking it.”
“Meet you halfway?”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
“Only one problem, chief.”
“What might that be?”
“I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.” He hit pretty good for an old guy. I fell over on my side.
“I’m sorry, damn my temper. Damn.” Lifting me back onto my knees, he started to dust me off. Something hard hit something soft. His body went rigid. His hands stopped moving. He hit the pavement with a thud.
Mikayla stood over him, a bloody brick in her hand.
Harry Clemmit, that was his name, or at least that was what his ID said. He was a Federal Marshal assigned to Homeland Security. He had eight hundred and forty-two dollars, a VIP card from Fantasia’s bikini club and not much else. He was handcuffed on the bed with a towel full of ice on his head. Mikayla sucked on a cigarette. I sucked on a Coke, wishing it was a scotch.
I had chosen the Rose Motor Lodge in Eagle Rock. They took cash and didn’t ask any questions. It was a small court of pre-war single story bungalows. His wallet and half-drunk quart of Four Roses whiskey sat on the coffee table. His Remington 12 gauge and Kevlar vest rested by the door. His.44 Bulldog was in my belt.
Harry’s lids slid open when we dumped an ice bucket full of cold water on him. Eyes darting, he tried to place himself. Navigating his way back from whatever dark place he had been, he locked on me.
“You are one sad sack dumb fuck, convict. Kidnapping a cop?”
“You look up my record?” I sipped the Coke.
“Two time loser, yeah, I looked you up. I got a sack of hammers at home that are smarter than you.” He tried to sit up, pain swimming, he leaned back down.
“This here is strike three, the big bitch. I have nothing to lose by killing you.” Another sip.
“Kill a cop, ride the needle. Is that what you want, son?” He was fighting his ornery nature to try and sound warm and fatherly. “I figure maybe I can help straighten this out, if you give me the chance. Un-cuff me, put our heads together, see what we see.”
“I don’t think so.” Setting down the Coke, I pulled the.44. He relaxed, it was as if he had seen this moment coming a long time back and he was almost relieved to finally have it here. Pushing the barrel against his head, I pulled the trigger.
The hammer fell on an empty chamber with a hollow click.
Harry was in the trunk as we drove across town. The empty gun trick had opened the floodgates of truth. He was on the pad to the Russians. He had convinced his bosses they could help him fight terrorists, that was all it took to give him free rein. Mention the T word and nothing else mattered. The Israelis worked for Mossad. The Russian mob funneled them cash. Cash used to fight terrorists. Again the big T. He told me the Israelis had Gregor and Anya held in a safehouse in Chatsworth. That’s where we were headed.
Back in the motel, I had cleaned my shoulder. Whatever Adolpho’s woman had used had done the trick, the flesh was purple with bruising but no sign of infection. I turned the shower to scalding and let the water pound down on me. I hurt from head to toe and the water did little to ease it. What I needed was a week in bed. What I got was a head full of broken glass and rusty nails. Jason B. Manny. Piper. Faces flooded my mind. So many friends lost. It had started with a simple lap dance, and a girl I fell for. That was a life ago. Now she and my last friend were both in the hands of killers and it was on me to get them back.
“These men are very good at what they do, very good,” Mikayla said as we purred up the freeway.
“Fuck them.” I didn’t look at her, we hadn’t spoken ten words since we left Piper’s.
“Look, I’m…” She was stumbling and unsure. “I’m, I didn’t mean to… Your friend, the stripper…”
“Her name’s Piper.”
“Yes, Piper… Sometimes, I wish it was all different. Not sometimes. No, always I wish, but this is who I am.” She went silent, eyes on the hills sweeping past us. Whatever fantasy I had in the desert was gone. Mikayla wasn’t ever going on a date. She wasn’t the kind of girl you took walking on the beach at sunset. The place those possibilities lived had died in her miles back down her twisted road. Maybe they had died for me, too, only I was too thick to admit it.
The sun was cresting the mountains as the new day broke over Chatsworth, redneck hell. Home of the peckerwood jury who kicked free the cops who beat Rodney King and set off the LA uprising.
At a filling station, I called Manny. He was still at the club. “Call the Russians. Ask them what it will take to get Gregor back.”
“It may take time, where are you?”
“I’m at the Rose Motor Lodge, call me when you reach them.” I gave him the number and hung up. From the parked car, I could see the dirt road Harry had mapped for us. The convenience store coffee tasted bitter. We watched the road. We waited.
Ten minutes later, a white van rolled down the mountain. We ducked down as they flew past us and onto the freeway. Manny had sold me out again. I knew he would. I was past caring. One day I might kill him, but not this day.
“I need a drink,” Harry said when we opened the trunk. His face was a bit red, but other than that, he looked better than when we shoved him in there. “Goddamn, convict, I’m six feet down and waiting for the dirt. Give me a drink or shoot me.” His hands, cuffed behind his back, were starting shake with building tremors.
Unhooking the cuffs, I handed him the Four Roses. He sat up in the trunk, back pressed against the inside of
