Play With Me

by Patricia Logan

  “You remember Slade Ruiz, Carlos?” Kane asked.

  “Yeah, of course. I haven’t seen him around in a while. Word on the street is that he moved up your way about a year ago. It still irks me that we couldn’t put him away. You’ve seen him?”

  “Yeah, he’s here. The thing is, we think that he might be involved in the bombing.”

  “No shit. Why would he bomb a gay bar? Ruiz is a pimp and I’m pretty sure he only runs boys so it makes no sense to blow up his customer base.”

  Kane heard the tapping of a keyboard over the phone. “We really have no idea. We aren’t sure he’d limiting himself to pandering these days. We think he may have killed one of his boys in the bar right before the bomb went off. We know he was in the bar right before the explosion because we caught him on security footage from a couple nearby businesses.”

  “Wow,” Mendez said, sounding distracted. “I never heard of him using a bomb.” More tapping of keys. “I’m in his file right now. There’s no mention of bombs or explosions. We did arrest him once with a .22 caliber pistol but down here, you know, his preferred method of taking care of things was giving one of his boys an overdose. You know how many times one of his boys washed up on the beach.”

  “Well, dumping a body in water is the perfect forensic countermeasure. No one ever said Ruiz was an idiot. This time, however, our victim was killed with a .38 before the bombing.”

  “Wow, but that doesn’t mean anything,” Mendez said. “Maybe he’s just using a different disposal method because he’s more inland now.”

  “Yeah, maybe, or he’s afraid of being tied to the murders down in San Diego if he used the same method.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So, Carlos, can I ask you a favor?”

  “Sure, Delancey,” Mendez said, sounding as though his attention was back on the phone.

  “Can you send me a copy of his file?”

  “No problem, but it’s a fat file, my friend.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “No problem, amigo. Anything to help you catch this scumbag. You know how pissed we were about not making a case. I blame the fuckin’ DA, though. Just promise to give me progress updates. Something you guys turn up might help one of our cases. You know he’s suspected in several outstanding homicides down here.”

  “I know, my man. Thank you so much. You have my email, right?”

  “Yeah, Delancey. I’ll send the file now.”

  “Thanks, Mendez. Next time I’m down south, we gotta go to Antonia’s Cafe.”

  “That’s a plan, amigo. Best Mexican in San Diego.”

  “Definitely. I swear, I’ve never had empanadas like Antonia’s Cafe even in Los Angeles.”

  “I look forward to it, my friend. Thanks again, Carlos.” Kane hung up the phone feeling like he’d accomplished at least one thing.

  ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

  Luca was finishing up with a customer when Rodney, one of Auerbach’s Jeweler’s two armed guards, walked up to the counter. Ever since the store had been the victim of a smash and grab, Stephen had been paying for two guards, Rodney and Dog, to stand just inside the front doors of the store during operating hours. They wore handguns in their shoulder holsters but even if they didn’t, they would have been intimidating. Both men were built like linebackers, even taller than Kane’s 6 feet four, and if it were possible, even wider. Rodney was barrel chested, thick around the middle, but Luca was pretty sure he was solid muscle beneath the suit he looked poured into. His thighs and biceps bulged under his clothes and it was easy to see he was powerfully built. He’d clearly been in several fights. If Luca had to guess, his nose had been broken more than once and whenever he smiled, Luca couldn’t help but notice a missing top tooth. He did have a nice smile, though.

  “Hey, Rodney. How are you?” Luca asked, reaching across the counter to shake the man’s hand as he walked up.

  Rodney grinned, sans tooth. “Good, Luca.” He pulled out his phone and looked down at it, momentarily distracted as it buzzed with several notifications. When he finally glanced up again, he blushed, realizing that Luca had been standing there watching him. He shrugged and held up the phone, wiggling it in his massive paw.

  “My girlfriend. She keeps texting me,” he offered as an explanation. “We… ah, we had a fight.” He looked away from Luca, shifting his weight from one foot to the other before glancing back at him, seeming terribly uncomfortable.

  “Oh, I see,” Luca said, offering a small smile. “Was it a bad fight?” He unlocked the watch case where he was standing and pulled out a Rolex so he could polish the crystal while they talked. Something was certainly on the big man’s mind.

  Rodney’s eyes widened and he got such a sincere look on his face, Luca had to bite his lip to keep from smiling.

  “You know, you’d think someone would know what a shitty cook their mom was and if they didn’t, you’d think they’d want someone to point that out to them.”

  “Oh, man, you didn’t tell her that her mom can’t cook, did you, Rodney?” Luca nearly groaned.

  “Maybe?” Rodney bit his lower lip. “Yes? Shit. I guess I did,” he admitted.

  “Never ever criticize the moms, Rodney. Were you born under a rock?” Luca asked, smirking.

  “Wow, I guess so. Who would have thought that she didn’t know her own mom was a shitty cook?”

  “Oh, trust me, she knows. She just doesn’t want you telling her you know,” Luca said.

  Rodney nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right, Luca. That’s why I asked you. I mean you’re always right about that kind of stuff.”

  “How do you know?” Luca asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Seriously?” Rodney turned back to look at Dog who stood obediently beside the front door, just like his namesake. When he turned back around, his face was sincere again. “What do you think Dog and I do all day?”

  “Stand guard?” Luca asked, tipping his head as he narrowed his eyes.

  “No, Luca. We watch your interpersonal communications with your customers. We both find you fascinating.”

  Luca laughed. He knew Rodney and Dog weren’t stupid, regardless of the fact that they both looked like pugilists, but to hear that sentence come out of him was slightly comical.

  “Well, I didn’t expect that,” Luca said. “You guys really must be bored out of your minds then.”

  “No, both of us are trying to learn from you. We’re both impressed with how you handle your customers. Especially the ladies. They love you, Luca, seriously. You must know that.” He grinned widely before sobering. He shook his phone as if the weight of the world was in those text messages from his girlfriend. “That’s why I wanted to ask you a favor.”

  Luca frowned slightly but he nodded. “Okay, if I can help, I will. What can I do for you?”

  “I was kind of hoping I could convince you to call Raquel—that’s my lady—and tell her I’m sorry and that to make things up to her, I want to take her purse shopping,” he said enthusiastically.

  “Purse shopping,” Luca repeated.

  “Yeah, Dog and I—we’ve both heard you tell the ladies about these great places for ladies’ purses so we were thinking that you should call and tell her I want to take her purse shopping. Maybe drop the name of some of your favorite places.” He gestured at Luca’s midsection.

  “Okay, well, I don’t carry a ladies’ purse. I carry a messenger bag and I only know the best places for ladies’ purses because my customers tell me.”

  “Right.” Rodney nodded. “So, will you call Raquel?”

  “Okay, but first, tell me why you don’t want to tell her you’ll take her purse shopping yourself,” Luca said.

  “Because if you tell her, she’ll think I’m being thoughtful. If I tell her, she won’t take it the same way,” Rodney said.

  “What way?” Luca asked.

  Rodney screwed up his features, looking pained. “You know…” He waved his hand at Luca. “Feminine.”

  “F
eminine,” Luca said. “You think taking the woman you love shopping for purses is feminine?”

  Rodney shook his head. “No, I think telling her I want to take her shopping for purses is feminine.” He gestured at Luca again. “That’s why I want you to tell her.”

  “So, I can sound feminine?” Luca asked.

  “You sound feminine all the time.”

  Luca straightened. “I beg your pardon.”

  “I don’t mean it like that, Luca,” Rodney rushed to say, pointing at his phone. “I mean you’re a lot better about the way you say things to women than the way I say things to women.”

  “I’m not so sure about that, Rodney. I’m sure there are a lot of things you’re better at saying to a woman. For example, I’ve never said, ‘I want to put my penis in your vagina’ to a woman.”

  Rodney shook his head, cracking a grin. “I’m pretty sure I haven’t said the word penis since fifth grade, Luca.” He paused and batted his doe eyes at him until Luca laughed.

  “Fine.” He held out his hand, wiggling his fingers. “Give me Raquel’s number.”

  ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

  Kane hunched over the thick file on his desk, still reading it hours after Mendez had emailed it to him. Slade Mendez was a piece of crap with a rap sheet a mile and a half long, but his story was also a tragic one.

  Slade Ruiz—born Javier Portenza-Ruiz— grew up in the desperately poor favela Provedencia, Brazil’s first and largest shantytown, built into Rio de Janeiro hillsides. First inhabited by African slaves, the “bairros africanos” were built by soldiers in the eighteenth century and ran with sewage and despair to this day. Ruiz’s immigration paper trail was tissue-thin at best, but since he’d obtained a green card somewhere along the way, it was impossible to deport him. He’d naturalized at age eighteen in 2007.

  According to depressing reports in the file from Brazil’s child welfare department, Ruiz had been orphaned on the street at age five, surviving by stealing enough to eat and support an elderly uncle who beat him every day. Slade had been raped by him for the first time at seven and had run away to become a street urchin and later a thug. He’d killed a person for the first time at eleven but had somehow managed to escape jail because of his age, only admitting to the abuse when a court ordered the delinquent into counseling. He’d turned up in the US many years later, sponsored by a famous celebrity family who’d changed his name and called him “son”. His adoptive family had long since written his adoption off as a “mistake” in viral social media posts.

  From there, his journey had become muddy. For seven years after being ghosted by his family, he’d survived however he could and then suddenly—in 2014—the history of Slade Ruiz as a full-on criminal had resumed. Police report after police report listed him first as a petty thief, then armed robber, eventually moving on to pandering since it provided a more stable income without a huge risk to him. Pandering was where he’d seemed to find his stride. He’d run a stable of women at first and then graduated to men, seemingly because they promised a greater payday. By 2018, he’d been considered a suspect in at least four murders of his boys, but the police in San Diego had never had enough evidence to try him for the crimes, which Kane already knew. When things finally got too hot for him, he’d disappeared from San Diego PD’s radar. That was shortly before Kane had spotted him at Barcelona in Los Angeles.

  Nowhere in the file was there any mention of arson or bomb-making and Kane was having a hard time slotting him into that form of criminality. Almost every bomber Kane had ever studied had been considered to be a paranoid loner. They were cowardly, putting together their bombs in secrecy and they always—ALWAYS—started off their careers by setting small fires at a very early age. They rarely, if ever, had partners in their crimes, needing to take accolades for their accomplishments alone.

  None of the mindset or criminal history of a bomber fit Slade Ruiz.

  By the time afternoon rolled around, Kane was no closer to making a case in his own mind for Ruiz being a bomber, than he had been that morning. Carlow, on the other hand, was the better prospect for being the bomber. He had the background for it, according to his service record, but Kane still anxiously awaited the profile of the behavioral analysis unit at the FBI. He looked across his desk to Kelly who sat at her own, facing him. She hung up the phone and met his gaze, then rolled her eyes.

  “What?” Kane asked.

  “That was Snow from the FBI. The BAU profiler won’t be available until tomorrow afternoon. The team he trusts is in Hawaii at the moment, looking into a serial killer who’s lopping off the heads of homeless teens.”

  “That’s fine. Why are you rolling your eyes?” Kane asked.

  “Nothing,” she said, reaching up to rub a hand over her face. “I’m just tired. I’ve got nothing new on Carlow even though I’ve been looking into everything I can think of. I even resorted to googling the guy.”

  Kane chuckled. “Wow, that is desperation.”

  “I did find out that he was stationed at Fort Mead when he was in the Army but that’s literally all my Pentagon contact would give me. You know how they are when it comes to Spec Ops guys. It’s impossible to get anything more than this redacted file. I’m surprised they gave this up.”

  “Yeah, well, we expected that,” Kane said. “What surprises me is the fact that he was dishonorably discharged. That rarely happens with Spec Ops because they’re screened so well before being offered a spot in their units. Your contact couldn’t elaborate on the discharge?”

  “No, and to be truthful, that was bugging me too,” Kelly said. “Aren’t Spec Ops guys screened for anything psychological that would make them susceptible to… I don’t know, all kinds of stuff?”

  “Yeah,” Kane said, nodding. “They’re supposedly not susceptible to torture or even PTSS.”

  “You mean PTSD,” Kelly said, frowning.

  Kane shook his head. “No, they just changed that to PTSS because it’s no longer considered a disorder, but a syndrome.”

  “Huh,” Kelly said.

  “And why didn’t you tell me you had a contact at the Pentagon?”

  Kelly smiled. “I was in a computer class with her at UCLA. We became friendly. Her name is Laurie Masterson. I haven’t seen her since she moved back east. She’s Army and has a mid-level job in IT at the Pentagon. She’s been working there almost seven years and we’ve kept in touch by email over the years. Unfortunately, she didn’t have anything to give us on him.”

  “Maybe we should contact Boston PD,” Kane said.

  “Why don’t you let us do that,” a voice from behind Kane said. He turned to find Cassidy Ryan and Mike Williams walking up. Cassidy held a thin folder.

  “That would be great,” Kane said, reaching out to shake Ryan’s hand as he stood. “What’s that?”

  “Ballistics on the gun that killed Lombardi,” Mike said, frowning at the file Cassidy handed Kane. “You’re not going to like it.”

  Kane frowned and looked down at the file, flipping it open. He read it for a few seconds before letting out a strangled curse. He looked up sharply and Cassidy nodded at him.

  “Lombardi was killed with the same gun that killed my father?” Kane asked, horror washing over him.

  “The Colt Python .357 magnum revolver,” Cassidy said. “That sucker is still out there.”

  “Well, that explains why we never found a shell casing at Marty’s after the bombing,” Kelly said.

  Kane shook the file at Cassidy, staring him straight in the eyes. “I want to bring Carlow in for questioning on the bombing. This should be enough.”

  Cassidy and Mike both shook their heads.

  “No. It’s not, Delancey. He’s not going to give us anything and we don’t have enough to charge him with anything. With only proof that he had munitions training in the Army and a security camera showing him leaving the bar that day, we won’t even be able to get a search warrant to look for the gun. Besides that, we don’t have a residence on f
ile for him. Once Moore’s pub closed down, we don’t even have a work address. I know you want him as much as we do, but if we tip our hand that we think he has Enoch Moore’s Colt, much less the fact that we know he was at Marty’s, we’re just being stupid. He’s not going to keep that Colt on him. He’s a sophisticated criminal in a lot of ways. He’s most definitely not going to help us make a case for him.”

  “You’re right,” Kane said, feeling deflated. He shook his head, holding the proof that Freddy Lombardi was killed by the same gun that killed his father… knowing that there was nothing he could do about it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kane’s phone rang as he was leaving the office a couple of hours later. After Cassidy and Mike left, he’d been in a fairly foul mood. When he saw Luca’s number pop up in his phone, he cracked a smile, the first in hours.

  “Hey, Luca,” Kane said, swiping the phone. “What’s cookin’?”

  “Me. I’m cooking dinner for you tonight so if you’re off now, come over.”

  His voice made Kane feel good. Not only that but the idea of a home cooked meal appealed to him very much at the moment. He’d grabbed a quick sandwich at the shop down the street from his station at midday, but with some surprise, he realized he was ready for another meal. Just the thought of sitting down at Luca’s small table made him happy.

  “That sounds great, Luca. Let me run home and grab clean clothes and feed the ferrets.” He glanced at his watch. “I can be to your place in an hour, more or less.”

  “Okay, I’m finishing up with work so I’ll go get the makings for dinner and then meet you at my place.”