Gridlock: The Third Ryan Lock Novel

by Sean Black

  Outside, the Bellagio’s trademark fountains surged hundreds of feet into the night sky. A crowd stood transfixed, watching the show.

  Lock moved Raven through the crush and hailed a cab. They took off towards the airport and the first flight back to LA. The neon lights shimmered ever more brightly as night took a hold. He would have to wipe down the gun and stash it before they went through Security.

  He looked across at Raven, who was snuggled against the door, her face almost entirely obscured by the hood and sunglasses. She seemed small and vulnerable.

  What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. That had been the marketing slogan a few years back. Lock had a feeling that this time it was wishful thinking.

  Twenty-nine

  It was one in the morning and Vince Vice had been awake for forty-eight hours when the doorbell rang. These days, his sense of time was about as reliable as one of Salvador Dalí’s melting clocks. He thought for a second that it might be the blonde reporter, back to take him up on his offer of a starring role. Then he remembered that she had left seven or more hours ago.

  The coke was mostly gone and he had been upstairs, rifling the medicine cabinet in his bathroom for something to bring him down. Bottles and pills lay scattered over the black marble counter top of the vanity unit. He caught a sliver of his own face in the mirror and recoiled at the sight. Then he went to search for his gun. He wasn’t opening the door at this hour without it. Not with that crazy bitch or one of her buddies out there.

  The gun. Where was the gun? Where had he left it?

  He walked back into his bedroom where he’d been reviewing some of his old work on the plasma screen he had mounted over the bed. He’d heard on the grapevine that one of the girls he’d worked with had killed herself a few weeks back, strung out, no doubt, in some trailer back in Idaho. The idea had excited him.

  Pulling the pillows from the bed, he flung them across the room as the doorbell rang again. The sheets, so encrusted they crinkled like low-grade cardboard, joined them. Then he remembered: the gun was downstairs where he had left it.

  He grabbed a robe and put it on over his trunks and marled grey T-shirt. In the upstairs hallway he killed the lights. He didn’t want whoever was outside seeing him as he came down the stairs.

  Taking the steps two at a time, he almost slipped, grabbing the handrail at the last second. Walking fast into the living room, he saw the gun lying on the glass coffee-table. He picked it up and went to the front door.

  He peered out the glass panel at the side of the door, catching only his own reflection for a second. Squinting, he got a view of outside, the white steps leading up to the door.

  No one there.

  Looking further down the driveway he could see that the gates were open. They must have sprung back when the reporter had left and he’d forgotten to hit the button again, which would have sealed them.

  There was no car to be seen either in the drive or at the bottom, in the street. No car and no one. Yet the doorbell had rung.

  Whoever it was must have gotten bored and left.

  Vince turned and started back up the stairs. Four steps from the door the doorbell clanged again. ‘Motherfucker.’

  Now he was pissed. Someone was screwing around. Well, he’d show them. Open the door and shoot them right in the fucking face.

  He sprinted down the stairs, reached forward to open the front door and flung it open.

  No one there.

  What the fuck?

  He took a step forward, the gun in his hand level with his waist, his finger on the trigger, his nerves not wholly subsumed by rage.

  Still no one. He angled his head left, looking at the doorbell. Maybe it had short-circuited or something. But the tiny black box seemed fine.

  He took another step outside. Then another. Only then did he hear the front door begin to close on him. He turned round, getting his hand to it only in time to feel it click into place against the frame.

  ‘Shit.’

  He sighed. Just freaking great. Now he was locked out. He tried the handle. It turned but the door didn’t open. His cell phone was inside. So were his keys. All he had was what he was wearing and the gun.

  This gave him an idea. He stepped back and looked at the lock. Maybe he could shoot it out. Then he thought about what might happen if the round rebounded towards him.

  No, if he was going to shoot anything, it had better be a window. Then he could smash the rest of the glass and climb back in.

  He started round the side of the house, searching for a suitable candidate. Most of the windows were full-size sheets of reinforced glass, expensive to replace, probably three or four thousand dollars a throw. Vince knew he would struggle to explain the circumstances to his insurance company – ‘Well, you see, I was coked off my face, and then the doorbell rang, but there was no one there. Paranoid? Me?’ He laughed at the thought of how that conversation might go.

  A concrete lip ran around the footprint of the house. It was narrow. Maybe only three feet wide. Wide enough to walk as long as you were careful.

  At the back of the house the concrete lip fell away almost immediately to a steep slope and beyond that were the lights of Hollywood. Vince took a little time out to study the view. He could trace Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood’s main artery, which snaked through what everyone imagined was where the magic happened but which was in fact a low-rent neighborhood of sleaze and grifters. Most of the girls Vince worked with he found below in Hollywood – young and dumb was how he liked them.

  Damn, this was a great city.

  Along the narrow lip there was a panel of two thinner rectangular windows, which fronted the kitchen. These were ideal. He might find himself with his ass in a sink of dirty dishes when he climbed in but that would be the worst of it.

  The problem he had now was finding an angle. The Magnum was a cannon by handgun standards and he was worried that if the angle was too acute the bullet might blow through the window and the external wall on the other side of the house and end up in his neighbor’s home, which would harm more than his insurance premium.

  Holding the gun in his left hand, he could just about make it work. All he needed now was a little more distance.

  He took a single step, the gun feeling awkward in his left hand. Then one more, as the heel of his supporting leg slid out from under him, over the edge of the lip and he lost his balance.

  Vince’s heart pounded and his arms flailed like those of a tightrope walker playing for the crowds below. Then, just before he slipped over the edge and down the slope, he felt a hand fold around his right biceps and steady him. Vince weighed close to one eighty pounds but the arm held him there then hauled him, with no great effort, back over the edge. It was like a junkyard crane picking up a Pinto and depositing it in the car crusher.

  Oh, thank God. He closed his eyes, a cool tide of relief sweeping over him.

  He barely felt the gun being taken from his shaking left hand. He opened his eyes, twisting his head round, ready to thank the stranger who had appeared from thin air to save him – and a whole new terror engulfed him.

  Thirty

  The flight from Las Vegas to Los Angeles passed without incident. Raven had caught some anxious looks going through Security, but this was Vegas. People left every day of the year looking far worse. Lock had checked her over in the cab. She had some facial bruising and she was shaken, but miraculously nothing was broken.

  On the flight, she had told him that once the door had closed, her client had offered her a drink and asked her why her ‘friend’ was threatening to kill him if he ever saw her again. She assumed he meant the stalker and tried to explain the situation, but he had flown into a rage and kept demanding a name as he beat her. She screamed as loud and as long as she could until Lock had broken in and taken control.

  At LAX they had jumped another cab to Van Nuys to pick up the Range Rover. Then, both starved, they had stopped at an all-night diner for something to eat. Raven paid the bill and they headed
back to the house.

  As they got closer, Lock felt the muscles in his neck and back tighten. Something was off. He could feel it.

  He didn’t believe in a sixth sense, or extra-sensory perception, or any of that mumbo-jumbo. But he did believe that, after years in the job, your senses sometimes constructed a feeling that your brain couldn’t articulate into a single thought. You just knew you were walking into trouble. This was one of those times.

  Turning into Raven’s street, he took his foot off the gas pedal, the car slowly coasting past her neighbors’ houses. There was no one outside, although that was hardly unusual in a quiet residential neighborhood.

  About three houses back from Raven’s, and on the opposite side of the street, a grey sedan was parked at the curb, with two men in the front. White. Middle-aged. Wearing suits. They didn’t look like serial killers but their presence at this hour, just sitting there, was off.

  Lock tapped his foot on the gas pedal and accelerated past them, watching in his rear-view mirror. Nightfall made picking out their faces next to impossible, but as he drove past Raven’s home, he noticed them both moving in their seats. Their heads rose so they could get a better look at the back of his car, then turned very slightly towards each other.

  That was enough for Lock to keep driving.

  ‘Hey, you missed the house,’ Raven protested, waving towards where they should have stopped.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’

  ‘Call the house for me. Let me speak to Ty.’

  She was starting to panic. ‘What? If Kevin’s in there, we should make sure he’s okay.’

  Ahead of them the road dead-ended. If they wanted out, Lock would have to drive back past the two men. Judging from their reaction the first time, he wasn’t sure they would let him.

  ‘Ty’s with your brother. He’ll be fine. Now call him.’

  Raven retrieved her cell phone and made the call. ‘Kevin, you okay? … Well, put Ty on, would you?’ She handed it to Lock.

  ‘I have a car with two guys parked across the street. Not directly. A few houses down.’

  At the other end of the line, Ty sounded tense. ‘They just rolled up. I was about to call you.’

  Lock felt the muscles in his shoulders tighten yet another notch. ‘Look like cops.’

  ‘I already spoke to Stanner. He doesn’t know anything about it. He said the only police we should be seeing are the uniforms coming by every few hours to take a peek and make sure everything’s cool.’

  ‘Okay, sit tight.’

  Lock went to hand the phone back to Raven but changed his mind. He hit the contacts list.

  ‘Hey – what are you doing?’

  ‘You’ve got Stanner’s number on here, right?’

  ‘I don’t want you going through my address book.’

  Lock was taken back by the defensiveness of her tone. ‘Fine,’ he said, tossing her the phone and digging out his own. ‘Give me the number.’

  He jabbed in the digits as she called them out.

  Stanner answered on the third ring.

  ‘It’s Lock. Do you have anyone out at Raven’s place?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘What about the Sheriff’s Department? Or anyone else?’

  Stanner responded with a torrent of questions of his own: ‘What’s this about?’, ‘What’s going on?’, ‘Is Raven with you?’, ‘Are you at the house now?’, barely giving Lock the chance to answer before he rapidly shifted to the next. Lock took it as a sign that Stanner was panicked.

  The cul-de-sac ended with a loop of pavement. Lock spun the car back round with one hand while he held his phone with the other. ‘Slow down, would you, Stanner? I just drove past the house. Can you get someone out here to take a look for me?’

  ‘We’ll be there in under five. But give me your precise location. Okay?’

  ‘I’m at the westerly end of Pine Lane. You’ll see the car. Raven’s with me.’

  ‘Okay. Sit tight.’

  Lock kept the engine running, though there was no sign of the grey sedan coming down the street towards them. Still, something was gnawing at him. Stanner had sounded flustered, which surprised him. Surely, for the TMU, a situation in which a woman being stalked had someone sitting outside her house was about as routine as life got.

  Raven tapped her nails against the dashboard. ‘I want to see Kevin.’

  ‘You will.’

  ‘You’re sure he’ll be safe with Ty?’

  ‘Yes. Now, relax.’

  It was getting hot inside the car. Lock pushed a button and the window slid down a few inches. The Santa Ana winds were back – they’d sprung up from nowhere. In a nearby yard the wind stirred the grass and flicked at the leaves of a bank of shrubs.

  Sirens buzzed in the distance. Lock touched Raven’s hand, trusting that his gesture wouldn’t be misinterpreted. ‘See? It’s going to be fine. Whoever these guys were, they’ll be long gone.’

  ‘Can we head back? See Kevin?’

  Lock waited, listening, trying to judge the distance of the approaching police units by the volume of their sirens. He counted down from fifty in his head.

  At thirty-five, the grille of the grey sedan nudged its way across an incline in the road ahead, cruising slowly towards them, a shark fin in the water. With a couple of parked cars on either side of the street, Lock would squeeze past it, but only just.

  He flicked his headlights on to full beam, hoping to dazzle the driver as much as possible. He got a better look at him too: a middle-aged guy with salt-and-pepper hair, carrying a few extra pounds, wearing a suit.

  Lock reached down under Raven’s seat and found the handle that slid it back. ‘Get down out of sight.’

  Raven complied. ‘Usually when I’m in this position, I’m doing something other than hiding,’ she said, her grim sense of humor surfacing again.

  Lock bided his time, waiting for the driver of the grey sedan to try to obstruct them or to get out. He had no reason to do anything while the other was simply on the street – and both men knew it.

  The grey sedan drew within twenty feet, then slid past, Lock watching it all the way, shifting his eyes from driver’s window to side mirror and then to the rear-view, not allowing it out of his sight for a second.

  The sirens were growing louder. But not fast enough.

  The sedan was behind them now, its bumper maybe a car length from the rear of Lock’s car. Lock started moving again. Slowly. Wanting to gauge the reaction of the other driver.

  The grey vehicle followed, matching his speed, staying close. An LAPD radio car was heading towards them, Raven’s house in sight.

  Lock had decided what to do: he would swing hard into the drive, hustle Raven inside, leaving the driver of the sedan to do his explaining to the cops.

  Eyes flicking between the sedan and the approaching radio car, he timed his approach, adjusting his speed accordingly. The speedometer ticked over thirty then fell back as the radio car slowed, the two uniforms in front seemingly bracing themselves to make their own move.

  The grey sedan had fallen back another car length at the sight of the radio car and the cops inside. Lock grasped the moment, pumping hard on the gas pedal and spinning the wheel.

  But the radio car, rather than maneuvering round him to head off the sedan nosed in front of Lock’s car, cutting off his path to the driveway.

  ‘What the—’

  His car lurched suddenly forward as he was rear-ended by the sedan behind him. Raven, still crouched down in the footwell, banged her head against the bottom ridge of the dashboard where the glove compartment ended. She shouted out in pain.

  Then the passenger door of the police car exploded open and one officer was out, wielding a pump-action shotgun, which he was pointing at Lock.

  ‘Put your hands where I can see them – right now!’ he screamed, as Lock’s vision was filled with flashes of blue and red light. The air echoed with shouts as cops dressed in tactical gear ap
peared from everywhere.

  With a final look in his rear-view, Lock saw the driver of the sedan emerge at a saunter, one hand peeling back the side of his sports coat to reveal a gold detective’s shield fastened to his belt.

  Lock’s hands stayed firmly on the wheel as the doors were yanked open and he found himself staring down the hit end of half a dozen firearms.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ the detective yelled.

  He was pulled roughly from the car, and pushed face down on to the road.

  Close by, he could hear Raven swearing and struggling as she got the same treatment. Then she quietened and he heard a male voice start to read her the Miranda rights. Lock groaned. Whatever welcome he’d been expecting when they got back from Vegas, it sure as hell wasn’t this.

  Thirty-one

  Lock jabbed an accusing finger into Stanner’s face. ‘Why did you lie?’

  Stanner gave the kind of shrug that suggested he’d been acting under orders.

  Lock took a deep breath and a single step back. Uniformed officers were swarming over Raven’s property, and the only silver lining so far was that no one seemed to have any knowledge of what had gone down in Vegas. But he was still angry at the way in which he’d been used. Regardless of the fact that he had believed Raven to be as much sinned against as sinner, he would have delivered his client to the LAPD without hesitation if Stanner had told him they thought they had Raven down cold for the murders of Cindy Canyon and Larry Johns.

  It did clarify one thing, though. Normally any officer of the LAPD who confided details of a case to someone outside the organization was risking their career and their pension with it. So Stanner doing it had clearly been sanctioned on some level, official or unofficial. They had wanted to keep him either inside or off-balance. Lock was angry at having been manipulated, but angrier with himself for not having seen it.

  He had ignored his usual mantra. Look out for two things: the absence of the normal and the presence of the abnormal. Stanner taking him into his confidence had been far from normal and he hadn’t noted the signs.