by Mark Russell
Goldman knew he'd look like a dork if he stood there any longer, but he couldn't shake the foreboding that had overcome him. He forced himself up the stairs, the baleful feeling weighing him down like a knapsack full of rocks.
'That's skanky Sonya.' Trinda pointed at a photo of girl hugging a street lamp in a desperate struggle to stay upright. 'Girl, she was legless.' Trinda giggled and tapped the snapshot with her long-nailed finger. 'You should've seen her. She even offered to blow this security guard to get backstage at the Van Halen concert!'
'Oh deary me.' Michelle shook her head and touched her companion's slim chocolate hand. 'Look, I've got to go to the bathroom before I – '
'Of course, girl. It's third on the right down the hall.'
Michelle got up from the divan, waking Scarlett in the process. The pedigree cat yawned and stretched before nibbling the end of its crooked tail.
'Who's my favourite kitty, Scarlly-Warlly?' Trinda grabbed Scarlett and rubbed the animal's face against her cheek. 'You are, my precious sweetheart. You are.' She cradled the Birman Siamese cat in her arms and scratched its chin. 'Mummy lubbles you so much. Oh yes, she does ... oh yes, she does.' Scarlett could only purr from the lavish attention and Michelle could only clasp her mouth to stop laughing at Trinda's drunken display of affection towards the animal.
Michelle treaded along the carpeted hallway. She stopped at an open door and peered unknowingly into Eighteen and Trinda's bedroom. A bare bulb burned from the ceiling and discarded clothes were strewn about a carpet in dire need of a vacuum. A double mattress claimed much of the floor while an Iron Maiden poster hung askew on one wall. A concrete gargoyle Eighteen had wrenched from a cathedral roof one drunken night was perched against another wall, alongside a Marshall amplifier and a battered-looking electric guitar. Close by the doorway, a Royal typewriter rested on a graffiti-covered school desk. Michelle grabbed a typed sheet of paper from beside the typewriter:
la brea tar pits
scenes flashed from bygone millennia, mastodons devouring, condors flapping and screeching, six hundred wolves sliding into a black pit, death again and again, heralding the mayhem and murder of dead loss angeles
A faint chill crept up Michelle's spine as she returned the poem. She remembered visiting the La Brea tar pits with her parents when she was a little girl: the bustling crowd of tourists and locals, the garrulous tour guide, the detailed signs explaining the pit's ancient history.
... heralding the mayhem and murder of dead loss angeles ...
The menacing words echoed inside her as she skipped into the bathroom, locking the door. Wind whistled under upper-floor eaves as she pushed her jeans down her thighs. She saw there was precious toilet tissue on the holder, and sighed with frustration. Nevertheless she grabbed some of the paper and cleaned the rim of the seat. She lowered herself onto the toilet, its stained chute a history of passage, her feet scrunching the car and surf magazines scattered about the floor.
She looked up. Startled eyes stared back at her from the full-length mirror on the back of the door. The bubbly high of the champagne had left her. A gritty sobriety in its place. She suddenly felt alone and unprotected. More than anything she wanted to return to the security of Sandy's Hollywood Hills home.
THIRTY
Ildefonso Carrasco tapped the steering wheel of his rented Oldsmobile sedan. He'd sat in the nondescript vehicle since early evening, and from his shadowy spot could see traffic going to and from the house he had under surveillance. A black Porsche had entered the grounds forty-five minutes earlier; not long after a gurgling yellow coupe pulled into the same driveway (from early-morning surveillance he knew these two cars belonged to the residents of the house). A new-model Datsun was the last car to arrive. Going by what he'd been told by Pelayo Guttierez, the sale of the drug formula was probably taking place.
It was time; he knew.
His hands were clammy, his heart racy. Still he was equal to the task. He was after all a proven professional who'd undertaken similar operations in Mexico, El Salvador, and in his home country, Cuba. He had a basic description of the man to be killed, as well as a head shot photo General Turner had copied from Silverwood Centre's personnel files. Once inside the house, finding his man would prove a simple process of elimination.
It was an important job; he knew.
Outside the boarding gate at Baltimore-Washington airport, Pelayo Guttierez had all but threatened to kill Carrasco if he bungled the operation. For some reason the DIA general was worked up over this one. For the sake of Commando C's long-standing relationship with General Turner, the stinking DGI confrere had to be killed. No, the urgency of the operation hadn't been lost on Carrasco. With Luis Ramirez's men for backup, he would make sure the hit went down without a hitch.
However the LA faction of Commando C was largely an undisciplined lot. Most of the men who'd broken away from Guttierez's command back east were once youths on Meyer Lansky's or Santo Trafficante's payroll in pre-Castro Havana. They'd helped in the everyday running of the powerful mobsters' sugar, casino and brothel empires. By contrast, Guttierez and his more senior fellows, like Carrasco (himself an ex-army sergeant), had been police and military officers in the pre-coup Batista government.
In any case, a van load and a car load of Ramirez's men were stationed farther up the street, having recently arrived from Carrasco's radio cue.
It was time to act.
Carrasco stroked his neatly trimmed moustache and glanced at Luis Ramirez beside him. The man looked disturbed. He was unshaven and redolent of tobacco and liquor. Ramirez lit another cigarette and stared coolly at the 9mm sound-suppressed Uzi on his lap, a new Mini model with a side-folding stock. He was thirty-eight, looked older and sported raggedy dreadlocks to his shoulders. He wore steel-capped boots, Wrangler work jeans and a red-and black-checked flannel jacket. A nervous clicking sound rose from the back of his throat, while his right leg shook as if agitated by a mild electric current.
'Are you okay, Ramirez?' Carrasco asked. 'I know you've got that other matter tonight, but you've got to stay focused on the business at hand. I gave Guttirez my word we wouldn't screw up this operation. There's an awful lot riding on it.' He looked at the tiny scorpion tattooed on his colleague's hand, saw the man's badly scarred knuckles. He didn't like that Ramirez had been drinking, and would have fumed to know Ramirez had polished off a hip bottle of bourbon before leaving home.
'Look, I can smell the deal going down.' Ramirez pulled aggressively on his cigarette. 'Let's move it. Madre del diablo, I'm ready to kick DGI ass!'
'Luis, I want professional standards maintained at all critical junctures of this operation.'
'Ah, cut the crap, Carrasco. Let's rub this turkey out!'
Carrasco knew Ramirez didn't care for him. The unkempt gunman didn't care for Carrasco studying law part-time, either. Ramirez viewed elocution above that of the street as donnish delivery from an educated whacko – that is, from someone not to be trusted. Even so, Carrasco knew Ramirez had his own reasons for wanting to kill the DGI perro. Well for wanting to kill anyone remotely associated with the DGI.
For the past year Ramirez's men had surreptitiously visited their homeland in high-powered speedboats (ex-US Customs Service launches), to smuggle Cuban women back to the US, for the most part mulatto whores, or sometimes young rural girls sold by their duped parents. The women were used to work Ramirez's growing chain of inner-city brothels. On a recent visit to Cuba, a team of Ramirez's men were ambushed at a remote coastal town. Ramirez learned from his homeland spy network the DGI had tortured and killed these men. Word on the street was DGI agents were coming to Los Angeles to kill Ramirez. Carrasco knew Ramirez's hatred of the DGI was volcanic and growing by the minute.
'Luis, stay here. I'm ordering you on Pelayo Guttierez's authority to stay in this car.'
Ramirez pulled on his cigarette and stared through the lightly misted windshield, his haggard face defiant in the dim light of the Oldsmobile.
'Uni
t One, abandon vehicle and prepare for assault. Repeat, abandon vehicle and prepare for assault. Regroup inside the target grounds, to the right of the front gate. Unit Two stay behind as backup. Over.'
'Si, Carrasco,' Unit One replied.
'Si, we copy,' Unit Two replied.
Carrasco pushed aside the slim black mike of his UHF headset. 'Luis, hide your gun in those shrubs outside your door – and stay here.' He offered his bullish companion a spare radio headset. 'Report any suspicious traffic or police interest in the house.'
Ramirez looked disdainfully at the headset. Carrasco could see the gang leader hated being ordered about. Especially on his own turf.
'It's pre-tuned to channel 16.'
'Fuck you.' Ramirez jumped from the rented sedan, slammed the door shut, and sprinted across the street. He flicked his cigarette, producing bright branching sparks on the sidewalk, and entered Thirteen's lot.
'Damn!' Carrasco pounded the top of the steering wheel. He locked the Oldsmobile and followed, a silenced MAC 10 machine pistol jammed under his leather jacket. The heels of his shiny black boots clacked on the road top.
Before long eight men in all stood behind the high sandstone wall fronting Thirteen's property. In the wall's covering shadow, Carrasco designated assignments and reaffirmed procedure – though he excluded Ramirez. He didn't want to boss Ramirez about in front of the LA men. An ugly showdown could easily result. Carrasco knew the welcome mat for him was only so thick. Surprisingly Ramirez had remained silent throughout.
'Okay?' Carrasco asked the men.
'Si,' again the general response.
The visiting Commando C member breathed deeply and, in a voice freighted with urgency, said: 'OK, let's do it.'
The gunmen donned black ski masks and tight-fitting gloves. Those with radio headsets wore them on the outside of their masks. The men quickly dispersed.
Except for Ramirez who remained behind in the shadow of the wall. He cut a solitary figure as he looked at the play of silvery streetlight on his sound-suppressed weapon. In an almost reverent manner, he placed the gun on the leaf-littered ground.
That afternoon, fuelled by hatred of the DGI, he'd bought a box of 9mm Nosler Partition bullets designed to cause large wound cavities in light game. He'd used a Dillon Square Deal press in his Carson garage to saw intersecting grooves onto the tip of each and every bullet in his gun's magazine, which enhanced the gouging capability of each bullet by several hundred percent.
Ramirez looked along the sloping front lawn, his predatory eyes adjusting to the darkness. Men stole towards the back of the house. Carrasco and two men were already at the front door picking its locks. Ramirez knew how long they would be at it. Marinez and Gacha were such fumblers.
He reached into jeans and pulled out the cocaine his nephew had given him that afternoon. From past experience, he knew the Andean narcotic gave him a cutting edge for home invasion operations. He unfolded the foil, lowered his head, and snorted the drug until not a crumb remained.
It didn’t take long for a burning sensation to hit his septum and smoke-scoured throat. Strange blow, he thought with growing trepidation. The back of his throat felt like it'd been scorched with corrosive acid. His brain swelled painfully as if heating inside a microwave oven.
'What the? ...' He tossed the foil aside. Sweat broke out on his forehead and his heart hammered in his chest. 'Madre del Diablo!' He balled his hands into fists. The cocaine his cousin had paid suspiciously low dollar for at the Compton sweatshop where he worked was in fact Phencyclidine, commonly known as PCP.
Having taken a large dose, Ramirez was prone to rapid heartbeat and increased blood pressure. His inflamed Sympathetic Nervous System, responsible for the fight or flight response, now triggered a bright, engulfing signal: FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! The sledge hammering rush had credited him with superhuman strength (dilated blood vessels and opisthotic posturing) and a godlike will (his brain in temporary hypertensive crisis).
'YES!'
He grabbed his automatic weapon and unclipped the safety catch. The magazine of cross-tipped bullets awaited him like a miniature battalion of action-hungry soldiers.
'YES! YES!'
Swarming colours besieged his tunnelling vision. His ears filled with indecipherable sounds, some so piercing and shrill they cut with scalpel-like precision to the core of his brain. The night swam deceptively about him as he clasped his weapon. In no time his broken mind focused on a single vision: the chill of mildewed stone, battered comrades manacled to dungeon walls, blood-curdling screams as bones were mercilessly broken.
THE DGI! CASTRO'S STINKING, MURDERING SWINE!
Ramirez shrieked a war cry as he charged Thirteen's house. In his overextended state, he quickly closed on Carrasco, Martinez and Sacha. After picking the door's locks and using mini-bolt cutters on the door's safety chains, the three gunmen burst into the house, with Ramirez close on their heels ...
Goldman stood with his feet apart in the upstairs bathroom. He executed a Qua Choie back fist strike, followed by a Double Chung Choie series of vertical fist strikes. He breathed out and dropped his arms by his sides. The tired, tobacco smell from the concert clung doggedly to him as he stripped off his clothes and stepped in to the frosted glass shower stall.
It suddenly didn't feel right to have left Michelle downstairs. What was he thinking? Instinct counselled that he shower quickly, that he close the deal with Sorenson and take Michelle back to Sandy's. In any case he didn't want to linger once the formula was sold, in that he would have a sizable sum of cash on him. He twisted the faucets and adjusted the spurting water's temperature. Grabbing a worn cake of soap, he cursed that he'd brought Michelle along. A presentiment of harm and things not turning out like he planned plagued him as he lathered himself in the steaming stall.
Michelle wiped herself with a folded sheet of toilet tissue, the bathroom's last. She looked at the scrunched-up paper and half-expected streaked evidence of her imminent cycle. But there wasn't any. Unperturbed, she stood up and flushed the bowl. She pulled her jeans up along her thighs and sucked in her stomach before doing up the metal waist button. She washed her hands and appraised herself in the vanity mirror above the sink. It was a good face, she knew, and with proper promotion could make her serious money. Well, such was her aspiration.
With no towel in sight, she sighed and wiped her hands on the sides of her jeans. Michelle hoped Scott had finished his shower (her Australian boyfriend was nothing if not eccentric). She walked out into the semi-dark hallway, also hoping Scott would get his much-needed money before the hour was out. She couldn't wait to hightail it back to Sandy's, to see the last of Rick Sorenson and his shady friends. Though she liked Trinda. Trinda was cool. Flaky, but cool.
Michelle was buoyed with expectancy. In her mind's eye she saw the glimmering carriage of the airliner that would fly her and Scott to Europe, heard the drone of its turbine engines as the long-winged craft taxied down the runway for takeoff. That morning she'd called Alexis Models and reaffirmed the dates for her upcoming Milan shoot. The agency was quietly confident she would take part in any catwalk promotion of the spring and summer collection. Could she really ask for more? This time she would do her all to make her mark in Paris and Milan. She would reapply herself to the profession she hadn't ardently pursued as a teenager. This time she would make success happen. She would focus solely on her career and nothing else. No more Milan nightclubs and VIP lounges. No more late-night parties and reckless hankering for the good times ...
She strolled into the living room. A music documentary was on TV. Dressed in black leather outfits, long hair dangling from bobbing heads, a wannabe glam rock band showed how fast they could play their limited repertoire of power chords and two-string licks.
Suddenly from downstairs the sound of metal against metal, sharp and cutting, was heard over the noise of the television. Michelle heard heavy footfalls storming up the internal stairs. She stopped behind Eighteen and Trinda who sat on one end of the L
-shaped divan (Scarlett curled asleep on Trinda's lap). All three tensed from the alarming sounds of the intruders.
Time slowed for Michelle as she stood statue-like behind the divan. The undercurrent of desire and ambition that had her dreaming about Europe was swept aside. She was locked in the moment like an animal frozen by headlights. Holly flicked her Cartier lighter on and off and turned from the TV, looking with concern at Thirteen. The leader of Fast Cash Boys stood beside Sorenson. The underground speed chemist was still hunched over the coffee table, studying the MPA formula, a strand of rusty hair framing his brow. Sorenson's Puerto Rican girlfriend Pamela dozed beside him on the two-seater sofa.
Thirteen looked from Holly to the stairs. The sounds of the intruders grew louder. Michelle's stomach tightened as she pressed against the back of the seat. Her mind flashed back to the poem she'd read.
...heralding the mayhem and murder of dead loss angeles ...
The air was thick and grey with portent. Something bad was coming. She could feel it in her bones. Oh where was Scott? Why wasn't he with her?
Thirteen stood tall in alligator skin boots. Guns were coming for him, he knew. It wasn't the cops. They would’ve used the front door buzzer, or failing that rammed the door straight off its hinges. No, such entry had to be the underhanded work of the Black Scorpions. He couldn't believe the Chicano gang was making a move so early on in the game. They were nothing if not bold. In any case, a history of crime had prepared him for this defining moment. Thirteen clenched his hands and steeled himself for a firefight. He recoiled from the memory of his previous. The noise, the confusion, the pain, the blood, the .38 slug embedded in his thigh ... A chill shimmied up his spine. He felt the likes of icy fingers pulling him toward that incontestable shore to which the greater part of humanity had already gone and not returned, save for individuals the stuff of legend and scripture. He brushed the shivery sensation aside and braced himself for a shootout. His hand poised to grab his shoulder-holstered pistol.
