“Those other bozos probably tried to track the guys who used her info,” Grinner said. I heard the “tack-tack” of a keyboard, faintly. “I focused on where they got the data from, who put her shit out on the web, and who made bank off it from the jump. That’s an information channel most snoopers can’t dip too deep into…”
“… But the best-endowed hacker in the universe could,” I finished for him.
“Damn straight,” Grinner said. “It took cracking some secured files on about a half-dozen servers in about that many countries, but I got you a name. And this trail looks cherry, man.”
“Name?”
“Luis Demir,” Grinner said. I imagined him reading from a computer screen, his son held to his chest. “Born in Turkey, citizenship in Mexico, the States, U.K., all over. He’s the fucking Bill Gates of carders; he sets up huge, multimillion-dollar alliances to bring coders, phishers, and the Mobs, the guys with the money, together. They make bank, and then everybody goes their separate ways until the next caper. Given the places her information ended up on fake debit and credit cards, Demir is your guy. He’s the link to all those places.”
“Where do I find him?”
“He’s in the refugee and human-trafficking business these days,” Grinner said. “Splits his time between Greece, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and L.A. He’s doing a lot of work for the maras, MS-13, you know, those gang assholes, these days.” I heard more clicks. “He’s in the city of angels right now.” Grinner gave me an address. “Do not start a fucking war with fucking MS-13, Ballard.”
Mara Salvatrucha, better known as MS-13, was an organized crime gang with roots here in L.A. The mara, Spanish for gang, was a monster; they had juice all over America, Mexico, and Central America. A quasi-military, tattoo-faced brotherhood with the numbers and the firepower to rival an army, they owned a lot of L.A.
“Yeah,” I said, crushing out my stub of a cigarette and lighting a new one, “I might need a little muscle, here, someone I can trust. You think you can get ahold of Ichi for me?”
Ichi was a centuries-old Japanese artisan of the gun, a Gun Saint. He was one of the five Bloodhisattvas, enlightened beings who had mastered all forms of death, literal demigods of murder. Ichi had watched my back on several capers. He was the best and his word was beyond reproach.
“Shit,” Grinner said, “you ain’t paying me enough, asshole. The Gun Saint’s in London, hanging out with his daughter and his new grandbaby. You think I’m going to disturb him, you’re high. ’Sides, I thought you had backup from Ankou, this Elf knight guy?”
“Don’t trust him, he’s Ankou’s man,” I said. “Is Samnang still running the Freakz and Yeakz, out of the northeast part of L.A.?”
Grinner chuckled, and I heard keys tick. “Yeah, still fighting over some of the Tiny Raskuls’ turf back in Long Beach too. Why?”
“I need you to send him a message from me,” I said.
* * *
Vigil drove the CCXR Trevita off the freeway and down Eagle Rock Boulevard. The lights from the shop signs were smeared across the night like neon paint. The Trevita looked kind of like a black-and-silver fighter out of Star Wars, only cooler and faster. I had wanted to drive it, but Vigil had refused.
“If that trip down the mountain on Spetses was any indication,” he said, “you don’t need to drive anything, ever.”
“Hey! That’s really unfair,” I said, blowing cigarette smoke out the open window. “I lived, you lived. Unfair.”
The car stereo was pounding “Let it Bang” by A$AP Ferg. Even in a city of mind-boggling excess, we were getting looks in this car, which I have to admit, I liked, but I also kept thinking that somewhere in this city was a highly trained occult hit man sent to kill me. It made me wish a little that we had taken the shit-brown Dodge, but only a little. I mean, who honestly wants to die in a shit-brown Dodge? Maybe Vigil was as sick of me as I was of him, and he wanted to get me whacked. I wished Ichi was available. The old bastard ate Carnifexes for their high fiber content.
Despite my best efforts, I kind of liked Vigil, but I didn’t trust him, not to go deep into the shit with me. I had to try to find some local muscle I could count on to watch my back, no matter how this all shook out. I had an idea about that. I’d need Dwayne, but first things first.
“You speak any Khmer?” I asked.
“As in Cambodian?” Vigil said. “No.”
“Okay, these guys are Cambodian gangbangers,” I said. “So let me talk to them, okay? I speak a little, and I know the boss.”
“How did a redneck from West Virginia learn how to speak Khmer?”
“When I was with the Nightwise, I was in L.A. most of my career. Being any kind of cop in this town is like being a fucking UN peacekeeper. You pick up what you can of whatever language that gets thrown at you, helps keep you alive.”
“And this Cambodian gang…”
“They call themselves the Huntington Freakz and Yeakz,” I said. Vigil shook his head.
“Yeah, whatever. So this gang is connected to the Life?”
I nodded.
“You could say that. They split from a Long Beach Cambodian gang back in 1984, a crew called the Tiny Raskuls. I met their leader, a kid named Samnang Bun, my first year on the street out here. Samnang’s brother got killed by a Kru, a kind of Cambodian sorcerer. I brought the asshole down. It’s hard to do, since they’re pretty much indestructible, but I did it, of course.”
“Of course.” Vigil nodded, the smart-ass leaking out his eye holes.
“Samnang became a gang leader at thirteen, inherited the title from his brother.”
“How old were you?” Vigil
