Darcy Walker - Season Two, Episode 2

by A. J. Lape

  “Sonovabitch,” Lincoln cursed.

  I fell into the wall because I didn’t have faith my legs could continue to stand. Calling up the video on my phone, I zeroed in on Kirby York’s friends who were with him the night he tried to stab Dylan the first time in the club. Two of their arms were clean of tattoos. The third was behind the both of them—his arms completely out of sight—but he had a nasty broken nose that had never been set. This was a bases-loaded-and-two-outs kind of thing. I could show Willow and take my chances he was the guy, or I could ensure he never bothered Dylan and our friends again.

  Chapter 8

  I SQUIRMED LIKE A WORM ON A HOOK.

  “I’m having some tea, Jester. Lavender and rose hips. Would you like some?”

  “I’m more of a coffee person,” I mumbled.

  Twenty Bucks poured himself a cup of tea out of a little white pot and slid behind his desk. “I’m not used to being summoned. I’m the one who normally holds that power.”

  I’d snuck back out to my 4Runner and shuttled over to Twenty Bucks’ lair in the Century City district. It was well past my bedtime, but I needed him to twist some arms to get information fast on Kirby York and the unsub who was still at-large. I’d phoned I was coming, and hopefully in that short amount of time, he had what he’d promised to get. I’d given him the video when I’d seen him last weekend, and to the best of my knowledge, he’d planned to run it up or down the flagpole to see what he could uncover about York and those with him. Just an observation, but I’d begun to think he didn’t take me as seriously as Jaws did. I suppose there was a likelihood he thought I’d go away, or perhaps the task at hand had proven more difficult than what he’d originally anticipated.

  My leg bounced up and down as I watched him speak with the person on the other end of his phone. Dressed in gray workout gear, Alejandro Gutierrez was never someone I’d place in the normal businessman category. Despite a surprising poise, the tattoos on his knuckles reminded me of the oath he’d taken to the deadliest gang of all time, AVO. Somehow, he’d made a legitimate (or what on the surface was legitimate) business for himself in Los Angeles, the specifics of it appearing to be real estate related. Taller than most of his ethnicity, once again, he was a man who wasn’t who you would expect him to be. But again, the man killed or ordered people to be killed on a regular basis. No matter what he’d done or would do for me, that was a sobering fact I could not forget.

  My eyes found the same worn black leather moto jacket…in the same spot over the back of a leather chair. It had been deposited with great care. Unlike before, he tracked my eyes with a flare of interest but offered no explanation for why it was there.

  Not able to sit still, I traveled to the candy bowl on a table and plunged my hand inside, removing half a dozen or so Hershey’s Kisses. The man had upgraded to chocolate, maybe at my request—I wouldn’t say thank you. Clumsily unwrapping them and tossing them in my mouth, I squirmed like a worm on a hook—not realizing I’d butt-dialed Dylan until I heard his voice. Once I reassured him I would phone the next morning, I stood and started pacing the office. I picked up books, straightened magazines, ran my hand over a dusty end table and wiped the grime on my jeans. Hidden away behind some phony potted plants, I discovered an old-fashioned Victrola record player. Lifting the lid, my jaw dropped when I stared at a twelve-inch Tommy Dorsey vinyl of “Tea for Two.” Flipping the “on” button, I lifted the needle and watched the antique roar to life with Dorsey’s orchestra playing an instrumental version. Humming along to a strange song for a mobster, I finally made my way back to the jacket. I didn’t dare touch it. A shadow existed around it—a shadow I knew instinctively also lay inside Twenty Bucks’ heart.

  A door was situated at stage right in his office. I stared at the heavy, wooden door while Twenty Bucks was occupied. This is where he hides dead bodies, I thought. Those he chopped up and used as garnish for a meat platter. My friend, Bodhi, had been ushered out of that room when he’d been revealed as human collateral, and it never once dawned on me to ask him what had been behind that door. Twenty Bucks never indicated that room was off-limits, so right or wrong, I padded toward it and twisted the knob. I had one foot through when I heard him cradle his phone, telling me to sit back down. Here was what he said. There were some open cases of drive-by shootings in Arkansas, and York had been questioned but released—with no charges—while in high school. Ergo, no mugshot was available online. Perhaps Battle knew. Perhaps he did not.

  “Okay, good to know, but what about now? Is he in a gang or not?” I asked.

  Twenty Bucks took a sip of his tea and then opened the top drawer on his desk, removing a hand-rolled cigar. Pulling it to his lips, he cut the tip with a silver cigar cutter and then lit the end with some expensive lighter encased in mahogany just like his desk. After one long puff, he released the smoke into a cloud over his head. “Kirby York is in an organization known as 3 Bulls,” he murmured. “Those tattoos on his forearms were the bottom part of three bull rings in three bovine jaws. My source believes York had something to do with the death of Silver Nash.”

  That name meant nothing to me, so Twenty Bucks explained Nash was a famous money launderer in the southeastern part of the United States. Nash embezzled some of 3 Bulls’ dirty money and funneled it into a Swiss bank account all for himself. Management of 3 Bulls understandably didn’t like his sticky fingers and ordered a hit.

  “What exactly was York’s part in the murder?” I asked.

  Twenty Bucks dragged in an even longer puff on his cigar. “He’s a leg breaker, Jester,” he answered, again blowing the smoke above his head. “He incapacitated a man, so someone else could do the scrub.”

  “That’s sick.” Almost made me think York enjoyed playing the role of voyeur. “Who told you this?”

  “The area man of a neighboring organization. He claims York is one of their trophy boys. They like him…and they want him out of jail in a bad way.”

  “If he was the leg breaker for Nash, then who did the kill?”

  According to Twenty Bucks, York was doing the Nash job with the man who pulled the trigger—a guy named Travis Hewitt. York allegedly pulled a gun on Hewitt on their way back to a 3 Bulls meeting and killed him. York’s story had been that 3 Bulls’ competition, Cell Block D, jumped them, and as a result, they’d had a turf war for four years.

  “Many lives have been lost on both sides over something that didn’t even happen,” he said.

  “So York not only works for 3 Bulls but he double-crossed one of their own?”

  “I would call two bullets at close range a double-cross, yes.”

  And personal. Worried about the one who got away, I wondered if he’d been with York the first night he’d fought Dylan. “Did your source say if the other guys in my video were 3 Bulls members? Five are in custody, but one is living in the wind.”

  Twenty Bucks said his source analyzed the video and said he didn’t recognize any of York’s friends except the one whose arms were hidden. The source claimed that particular guy was definitely in 3 Bulls too, recognizing him by his broken nose. His name was Mark Malone. Could he be the guy who held Willow down?

  “So maybe the prosecution can cut a deal with those in custody?” I said. “Get them to roll over on York and maybe the guy who is at large?”

  Twenty Bucks gave me a look like easier-said-than-done, adding the grunting snort of a man who was tired of dealing with the twisted way things oftentimes rolled. He reminded me of my father at that juncture—their mannerisms and gruffness were the same. Their belief systems, however, were diametrically opposed. “My guess is they’re going to choose the breath in their body, Jester,” he said, exhaling a reed of smoke. “They’ll chance the judicial system rather than go up against York and his particular organization. If, that is, they know who York is…and honestly, they probably don’t.”

  “Why?”

  “The Bulls wouldn’t allow York to out himself stupidly. Let me make some calls,” was his next sta
tement.

  “What does that mean?”

  Another puff of cigar. “It means I will pick up my phone and dial some people who can help us.”

  “And what will happen when you talk to them?”

  He placed his hand on his landline, lifting the receiver. “I’ll do things slowly, control the bleeding, so no one suspicions anything.”

  Jesus. Lord. This has assassination written all over it.

  I leaned forward in my seat. “No!” I shrieked.

  He blinked at my unexpected reaction, cradling the telephone. “You’re not asking me to take care of it?”

  “I asked you to verify my suspicions. You did. I’ll take it from here. Everything doesn’t get solved with a bullet.”

  “This one needs to be. And you need six bullets if my math serves me correctly.”

  Right about then his computer dinged, signifying he had new mail. When he called me over to his desk, my jaw dropped when he unveiled video evidence of York in the background of the Nash murder scene. He stood next to a man who I assumed was Travis Hewitt. Both had looks on their faces like they were just ensuring a file was closed. There was a brief pause in the video, and not long after, a new video surfaced of York standing overtop a dead Travis Hewitt with the proverbial smoking gun in his hand. The first video had been captured by surrounding security cameras—the second could only have been shot by someone stalking York and Hewitt. That video alone suggested the videographer had suspected something to be amiss in York’s and Hewitt’s relationship—a theory accented by the sick, sadistic look of pleasure on York’s face as he stood over Hewitt’s bleeding body.

  Here was the interesting thing: York had no tattoos on his forearms then. So when exactly had he been initiated into 3 Bulls? And what had the initiation entailed? Did he do a specific job and those tattoos came later? As far as I knew, AVO was the only gang requiring a murder to enter and a murder to exit. When I polled Twenty Bucks if the “area man” he’d spoken with had also provided the video evidence, he paused a really long time before answering. That made me fear what he’d promised the man to get the information I needed. After a lull that left my stomach twisting, he confirmed it had been, adding on that the area man had been keeping it to end the war between 3 Bulls and Cell Block D whenever he wanted it to end.

  In other words, the area man was letting 3 Bulls and Cell Block D annihilate each other for his own gain. If so, then why give me information to right the wrong? And furthermore, why was he allowing me to use it?

  After a number of clicks and drags, Twenty Bucks copied the contents onto a jump drive.

  I held out my palm, frantic at what this information could mean. “I’ll take that now, please…and thank you,” I added before he actually handed it over.

  He smirked, holding out his hand and placing it in my palm. “Are you sure about me not handling this myself, Jester?”

  I dropped the jump drive into my purse, zipping it up in an inside pocket. “Yes.”

  His dark eyes hardened. “Wrong call,” he said coldly.

  “Why is it wrong?”

  “Your friends are not safe.”

  Twenty Bucks then told me York’s father was an infamous gambler…bets big…loses bigger.

  I lifted my shoulders in a shrug. “So he gambles. So do I. What’s that have to do with my particular problem?”

  “It wasn’t that he won…it’s who he gave his earnings to. My source recently received word Judge Thomas Kurt has had a substantial increase in his bank account, who if I’m not mistaken is the judge assigned to Kirby York’s case.”

  My eyes tripled in size. York’s father had already bought off the judge.

  “I’m going to throw up,” I gasped.

  Another puff on his cigar. “Not on that new rug,” he quipped. “I just had it replaced.” He referred to the Oriental rug Domino and I dropped one of his double-crossing employees on. Delivering up that lifeless body—although we hadn’t directly killed him—left a major bloodstain. Twenty Bucks raised from his chair and cautiously paced to my side. “They will be coming for your boyfriend, Jester,” he reminded me softly. “It’s what 3 Bulls does. They protect their own. Much like all of us do.”

  I read his mind. The only hope Dylan had was for me to prove York had murdered a member of 3 Bulls and to find the accomplice living in the wind. If I did that, they wouldn’t be so keen on revenge. But what about the Mark Malone character? If in fact, he’d been the one to hold Willow down, he might want to harm Dylan and the others simply to keep his identity underground. Willow could possibly recognize him, but she said she’d only seen his face briefly. Problem was, if I handed the information to her, she would give it to Detective Battle. Did I trust Battle to protect my boyfriend and friends like I would? Not at all. Call me cocky, but my arrogant alter ego wouldn’t allow me to relinquish my ace in the hole. And how, pray tell, could I admit who I’d received the tip from anyway?

  Twenty Bucks made a move to hug me.

  I backed out of his grasp, not comfortable with the warm and fuzzies. “Still too soon?” he murmured, dropping his arms.

  “Still not there yet.”

  “Uh, Jester?” he said to my back as I hoofed it to the door. “Did you bring my cash?” I didn’t turn around but remembered I had one month to repay…that in all honesty had dwindled into three weeks and some change. “I’m not a quitter,” I mumbled and closed the door behind me.

  Chapter 9

  I FLICKED THE SWITCH TO FIRE HIM UP WITH FIFTY THOUSAND VOLTS OF KISS-MY-ASS.

  I’d barely slept the night before. I’d picked up the phone to call Monroe Battle half a dozen times, but what did I have really? Information supplied by a mobster and his informant? Would that even be admissible in court? I needed something substantial, so a prosecutor could obtain a search warrant of York’s father’s bank account. And the only way to do that was to travel back to Gainesville—reverse engineer the crime to see what I could come up with. If I didn’t go, it could be a missed chance. A Robert Frost road less traveled. A what-if scenario I would look back on at Dylan’s or someone else’s funeral and regret.

  My problem was I had to do it quickly. Both Dylan and Finn were still in the hospital, and Willow was in Los Angeles with Lincoln on the premises. All victims were covered as far as security went…for now. The second that changed—the moment Willow flew back to Florida and Dylan and Finn were released—I would be forced to hand over my information. If anything, to keep security around them.

  At the end of class on Friday, Grumpy followed me back to the Taylors’ for dinner, and we were playing a round of tennis on their private court before he went back to the stage four carcinoma in his life—i.e., Ivy Morrison.

  “Prepare to be schooled, Walker,” he bragged.

  Grumpy played tennis like a blind man. Worry wouldn’t even enter the equation.

  “I’m ready, stud,” I said while he swung his racquet. “Listen, I’m going to Florida…on the down-low. And I need someone to play Dwight Schrute to my Michael Scott.”

  He stopped his swing. Frowning. “This weekend?”

  “No, next year.” I rolled my eyes. “Of course, this weekend.”

  “Why?”

  I told him my suspicions…all of them…down to who had supplied the information and that my informant had an unnamed source—both bottom dwellers in the sea of life. “Can’t,” Grumpy drawled, resuming an uncoordinated swing. “I’m going to enjoy something more relaxing this weekend. I heard The Conjuring has a marathon going on, and I’ve been dying to cozy up to Annabelle again.”

  “Har-har,” I said. “I’m serious. I’ve got a bad feeling.”

  Back to the swing. “I wake up with bad feelings, but the LAPD doesn’t exactly rubberstamp off-the-leash behavior. Besides, look who gave you the intel. You believe it to be true?”

  Grumpy was on that high-horse of good morals. Perhaps I’d been desensitized, but honestly, I didn’t have a problem having friends in low places if they held
the answers. And regarding it being true? Since Twenty Bucks was mafia, that was exactly why I believed the information he provided. He didn’t have a dog in the fight. Once more, I opened my mouth to seal the deal but was struck with the reality Grumpy traveled all the way across the country to follow his dream—much like I had. So if I went down, I didn’t want him to be collateral damage. I allowed him to believe the idea had died on the vine…and likewise I’d give Battle everything I had.

  Grumpy’s phone buzzed in his duffle, and by the eye roll he tried to hide when he scanned the screen, I knew it to be Ivy. In a rare moment of transparency, he’d told those at our lunch table today—Coker, Faulkner, and Park—how they’d had a blow up larger than the Great Barrier Reef. Ivy caused all their fights, and they resulted in a subsequent deep-freeze where Grumpy ended the standoff first, apologizing for something he didn’t do. This was a first with her calling to make peace, but as predicted, Grumpy eventually said all the cliché things to her caterwauling.

  “I’m sorry. I should’ve known better. I was selfish,” he muttered dryly.

  No doubt his words were sincere but still…

  Pixie chose that moment to bound outside in a tiny yellow tank top and jeans tighter than a camel’s bum in a sandstorm. She’d headed straight for Grumpy until she put two and two together who he was talking to. “I’m going to pull her nasty, bitch-ass little claws out of him,” she snarled to me.

  Pixie. Always eloquent. “Good girl,” I told her. “I like your persistence. Hey, I need a favor.”

  “Shoot,” she said, still eagle-eying Grumpy.

  “I’m going to Florida…on the DL.”

  She spun around, rubbing her hands together like a mad scientist. “Oooh. Come with?”

  “No,” I said. “That’s why I need the favor. I can’t take my phone.”

  She frowned, dropping her shoulders. “I don’t follow.”

  “I need to keep my phone here, or Dylan will be able to track me.”