Theaella

48

In killing Petro he thought he’d cut the head off the snake.

Yet what if he wasn’t fighting a snake at all?

But a hydra.

Sever one head and two more grow.

His voice sounded tight even to his own ears. “What’d you find, Theaella?”

“More wire transfers, more bank accounts. And a key to the code names for more low-level scumbuckets Petro had in place. The dirty management at his bank and the workers at the front companies—even the bagmen who courier the cash back and forth from the dogfights.”

“Okay,” he said cautiously, still trying to slow the thrum of his heartbeat. “Good work. We can get all that stuff to the cops.”

“Yeah,” she said. “About that…”

He reached into the stall and turned off the shower, a growing void hollowing out his insides. The sudden silence was unsettling. “What, Theaella?”

“Two of the names who took payoffs? Ignacio Nu?ez and Paul Brust? Are dirty cops. Looks like Petro flipped them nine weeks ago, just before Grant’s investigation started. And guess where they work?”

Already Matthew was yanking on his pants, flinging his shirt over his head, his feet slipping on the shower mat, sending the bandage rolls spinning. He fought the phone back to his face in time to hear her say, “Hollywood Station.”

* * *

Jack drifted through the Morongo Casino, his head delightfully swimmy from a few beers. An orchestral version of “Bad to the Bone” piped through the speakers, accompanied by the clang and din of slot machines. Carnival chaos reigned all around—spinning cherries, flashing coins dumping into payout trays, balls pinging around roulette wheels.

Jack cradled a brimming bucket of quarters to his chest, each step jarring a few free.

Up ahead Violet occupied her same mythical stool, but this time she faced away, a strand of silken black hair wound around her finger. Her sandals lay on the floor where she’d kicked free of them, one slender bare foot resting on the base of the stool beside her, the stool that was his to occupy.

He drifted up behind her and said, “Can I sit here?”

She didn’t turn even now, facing rigidly away, and he felt an uptick in his chest, tendrils of fear winding themselves through his ribs.

“If you’re smart,” she said, “you’ll get as far away from me as possible.”

Slowly she turned, bloodred lips pronounced against alabaster skin, her eyes dark and impenetrable. She wore a white blouse, gauzy and loose, and as he looked on in horror, crimson began to seep through the fabric above her wrists, spreading up her arms.

“I’m sorry I disappointed you,” she said.

Jack came awake with a jolt at the hand shaking his shoulder. Coiled in the plastic molded chair, he took a moment to get his bearings.

Hollywood Community Police Station. Lobby. Two faces leaning in over him, one white, one brown—officers wearing slacks and white button-ups with suspenders, badges dangling around their necks.

Jack pressed himself upright and ground at his eye with the heel of his hand. “Sorry,” he said. “Must’ve drifted off.”

The homeless man and the young woman with the black eye were gone, replaced by a few other ragged folks spread among the chairs, looking at him.

The taller of the two men straightened up, firming his LAPD baseball cap on his head. “Jack Merriweather? I’m Detective Nu?ez, and this is Detective Brust. You said you had some evidence in your cousin’s case?”

“Yeah, I do.” Jack dug the zip drive from his pocket and wagged it proudly between thumb and forefinger.

Their smiles flashed in concert, as if someone had flipped a switch. Brust turned and nodded at the desk officer, who hit the button to buzz open the security door.

“Excellent, Mr. Merriweather,” Detective Nu?ez said. “Why don’t you follow us back right this way?”

Into the Lion’s Mouth

Matthew rocketed up Sunset Boulevard in his reinforced Ford F-150, bulling sports cars out of his way. His latex-gloved hands alternated between gripping the steering wheel and wiring an electric cap and detonator into the Nokia in his lap. Because they published their circuits in their manuals, Nokias made for quick and easy receiver phones.

Miraculously, he managed to prep the bang while not T-boning any Porsches—and he got across the city in nineteen minutes flat.

Despite all that, he feared he was already too late.

Having crushed Jack’s last burner phone and ordered him to preserve the new one until after his meeting with the cops, he had no way to warn Jack that he’d delivered him into the lion’s mouth.

Which meant he had to intercept him.

He was going to raid a police station.

He’d have none of the benefits that generally gave him an operational advantage—no advance scouting of the target location, no analysis of the building’s blueprints, no disabling of security equipment.

He’d like his odds a lot better if he wasn’t largely making up the plan as he went along.

He’d been caught flat-footed when the second problem, Petro, had led to a third problem.

It was becoming a pattern.

Matthew whipped into a parking space a block away and jogged for the police station, winding an ACE bandage around his head. Feigning injury was the only way he could thwart surveillance and mask himself without drawing suspicion—or drawing fire.

Once his face was sufficiently mummified, he tucked the wrap in the back and affected a fragile, stumbling walk. He peered out through the slit in the bandages, noting the security cameras positioned at intervals around the building. Then he hovered his hands over his cheeks as if he were in great pain. Given his perennial headache, it wasn’t a terrible stretch.

He hesitated at the side of the station.

He’d carried out his share of improbable missions. But even for the Nowhere Man, this was a bit much.

He ran through the few contingencies he’d anticipated, the few supplies he’d brought. He didn’t have a gun because he’d be unable to smuggle it past the metal detectors. He’d have to get it done with the hastily rigged flashbang in his pocket, a wad of medical gauze pads in a Baggie, and more luck than he liked to count on. A wing and a prayer and not much more.

Last chance to back out.