Nick was the first to break the trance. He stood. “I have to get back to work. Gabe is running down some leads, and I have a few things I need to check out. Maybe this weekend, we can get a reservation at Spanish Bay, and play some golf.”
I wasn’t much into golf, because I sucked at it, but I loved being out on the golf course. As far as I was concerned, it was the most beautiful place in the world, and the most frustrating. But nothing felt as good as hitting the ball and having it go straight and landing where I hoped it would, or at least within fifty feet of where I wanted it to. “Sounds good. Let’s not make reservations until we know we’ll be able to keep them.” I winked at Nick to let him know I had no hard feelings.
He smiled. It was weak, because I think he was exhausted, but it was a smile. All was right with the world for the time being. At least in our little space and time. The rest of the world was still so messed up.
Nick kissed me one more time on the top of the head, then scooted out the door and back to work. I guess it was time for me to go back to work, too. This sex trafficking case Charles had taken on could use some more hands at the wheel.
I contemplated jumping in the car and running through the drive - thru to get something to eat, because I didn’t have Lola in the car and I could eat in peace. Then I contemplated the leftover steak that was going to go bad because it would be a plate of mold by the time we got back from our vacation. Screw it, the steak would still be there tonight. I opted for drive-thru at a fast food joint.
Burgers and fries weren’t my go to meal, but I needed comfort food, and this sounded like a good idea to me. I stopped in at Burger King and grabbed a double whopper with cheese with a large fry and an iced coffee. I went through the drive-thru to get my meal, but I sat in my car in the parking lot to eat. There are those moments in life when you just need time alone. I turned the radio to NPR, listening to All Things Considered while I wolfed down my burger and fries like I was starving.
When I arrived at the office, Cortnie was packing equipment into her car.
I got out of my Land Rover and walked over to see what was going on.
“Do you need any help with that?” I asked her.
She must not of heard me approach, because she jumped when I asked the question. “No, I’m almost done. This stuff fits better in the van than it does in my car.”
“Surveillance equipment?” I asked.
Cortnie stopped arranging the items in the hatchback of her car, and turned and sat on the bumper. “Yes, I’m going to take a look at that house on Somo Road tonight. Once it’s darker, I’m going to set up surveillance equipment at the house, because it’s out in the middle of nowhere and sitting in a car watching the house will be too obvious.”
I looked over the items she had in the car. “I’ll go with you.”
Cortnie stood. She turned around and close the hatchback. “No need. Besides, aren’t you on your way to Italy?”
I folded my arms across my chest. “The trip has been canceled. We were going to postpone it, but decided it was better just to cancel.”
I pulled out my phone and made a note to call the insurance company. Or email them might be better. “Crap, I forgot to call the travel insurance people. I don’t want to be out several thousand dollars for a trip we didn’t take.”
“Been there,” she said. “Only I didn’t buy the insurance. I got a new job and they wanted me right away. If I took the planned vacation, I’d be unemployed.”
“That sucks,” I said.
We walked back to the back door of the Gotcha Detective Agency and up the steps. “I was wondering about that,” Cortnie said. “Gabe said they just caught a pretty messy murder case.”
“Nick was telling me a little bit about it. He said he couldn’t give any details, but that it was multiple murders and it was a pretty bad scene.”
Cortnie stopped in the kitchen and turned around to look at me. “I’m telling you, it must be bad. Usually Gabe is excited to tell me the details of any one of his murders that he’s working on, but he wouldn’t give me anything.”
I open the fridge and grabbed two bottles of water, tossing one at Cortnie and keeping one for myself. “I wonder if it’s because of who the victims are?”
Cortnie twisted the top on her bottle of water and took a long sip. “I never thought about that. Now I’m curious.”
I followed Cortnie to her office and sat in the chair across from her desk. “If things settle down enough, our trip to Italy will now be a trip to Spanish Bay and a round of golf. We’ll probably get a room over there. Maybe I can get Nick to talk”
Cortnie laughed. “Good luck with that. I know how he is.”
I had to laugh, too. As much as I liked to share the details of the cases I was working on, Nick was not into sharing details. About anything.
“Get me up to date with what’s going on with this sex trafficking case that Charles has taken on.”
Cortnie opened her MacBook. “What do you want to know?”
“I’ve got some of the details. But just to make sure, start from the beginning and tell me everything.”
Cortnie held up a finger and picked up her phone and started tapping with her thumbs on the screen. “I just need to let Charles know that you’re going with me tonight, and not Lydia. Hold on a second, I need to text Lydia, too.”
She finished sending her text messages, and her phone buzzed almost before she put it back on the desk.
“Confirmation?”
She shook her head. “No, just a text from Gabe, canceling our dinner plans.”
“Been there, done that.” With both of us being married to homicide detectives, Cortnie and I had a camaraderie that most wives wouldn’t understand. Not that I was Nick’s wife yet. Or that I ever would be.
“Ain’t that the truth? Welcome to our world.”
Cortnie spent the next twenty minutes getting me caught up on Alma Medina. I now knew the addresses of the homes we would be watching, what my mother was doing, and who she was with. I had to snicker at the fact that she was stuck in the car all day with Lola.
I was mostly interested in what Cortnie and I would be doing next.
“I’ve already driven by the house today. I told Charles I’d go by with one car, and come back later in another. That’s why we aren’t taking the van,” Cortnie said.
“And?”
“And nothing. I couldn’t exactly slow in front of the house. But with that super tall fence, I don’t think anyone on the first floor can see what’s happening on the street. I didn’t want to take a chance. I drove by, saw no one and no movement, and kept going. Then I got to the end of the road, turned right around and came back.”
“How do you want to play this? I’ll drive and you set everything up?” I asked.
“Sounds good to me. We can work out the details on the way to the house. I want to drive by first, see if anyone is home, or if there are any cars around. If there are other cars, it might make our job a little bit easier.”
I looked at my watch, then outside. “I thought you wanted to wait until it was dark?”
She looked out the window, too. “I do. It’s getting close, and I want to grab a bite to eat before we head out there. I don’t know how long it will take to set things up. I hope it’s fast, but you never know.” She rubbed her belly. “And I’m freaking starving. I work better on a full stomach.”
“And I don’t want to listen to your stomach growling the entire time,” I laughed.
“Tell me about it,” she said. “I’ll finish packing, and then I’ll be ready to go.”
“Sounds good to me. I’m just going to go check my messages. Let me know when you’re ready.”
Eight
Charles
There are periods in your life when you lose time. Like not knowing how you got from point A to point B, but yet, you got there safely. You go through the motions, do everything you’re supposed to do, but your brain is somehow on autopilot. The drive from Salinas to Oa
kland was a blur. Driving on the highway, I lost huge chunks of time while my mind was somewhere else. I didn’t even remember driving by the regular landmarks that I usually notice driving north on Highway 101. My mind was working overtime, trying to figure out how I would recognize Yolanda, and what I would do if I saw her.
One of the complications that crossed my mind was that if I did solicit Yolanda and the cops were watching, I could possibly be arrested. I don’t think explaining that I was trying to rescue the girl would sound plausible. And at this point, I had no idea how close to park for monitoring International Boulevard.
Max had called to let me know he’d be joining me. It was late enough at night that he wasn’t actually on the clock with his employer.
As I got closer to International Boulevard, I could see a change in the buildings, in the roads, in the style and structure.
Two blocks away, bars began to appear on windows, and not just the lower floors. This made me think how dangerous it would be if there was a fire. There would be no breaking of windows and jumping out. There would be broken windows and the terrifying realization you were stuck in a burning building. The stucco walls became canvases for graffiti taggers. So much graffiti that I could tell the difference between artists, and who owned what walls. Not that they owned any of the walls they tagged.
International Boulevard reminded me of East Salinas. It was an area of immigrants, and the Boulevard extended for many, many miles, from Hayward all the way down to San Jose. I could tell though, when I arrived in the red-light district. Females of all ages marked their territory on the streets. As I sat on the cross street and watched traffic, I could even tell which cars were being driven by pimps, babysitting their “property.” They were staking out their own territories, making sure their whores were working, and keeping any independent workers off the street. Nothing was worse for a pimp’s business than when a girl went rogue, and actually got to keep the money that she made.
I’d been sitting on the side street for about thirty minutes, getting a feel for the area, and realizing my car stuck out like a sore thumb, when my phone rang.
“Hi Charles, it’s me.” It was Max.
“Well, considering that my phone said Max when I looked at the number, I realized it was you.” I was just being silly, but it might have come off a little snarky.
There was a silence for just a moment before Max responded. “You know that is such shit, right? Anyone could have my phone and dialed your number, so suck it.”
I chuckled to myself. This was the least formal Max had ever been. We jabbed at each other, but he’d never really given it back to me. I think I liked it.
“Okay, okay, you win. Where are you?”
I could hear Max adjusting something on his side of the phone. “I’m in Oakland. And I’m about to close in on my target. That would be you.”
This surprised me. I looked in my rearview mirror.
“What are you thinking, driving that car up here? I’ve driven by you three times, and you didn’t even know it was me. If you had driven by me three times, I’d have been taking down your license plate.”
“Yeah, I should’ve driven another car. But I wasn’t sure any of the agency’s cars would get all the way to Oakland and back without breaking down. They all need to be taken in for servicing, and we haven’t gotten around to it yet. But you could take down my license plate; I wouldn’t have cared.”
“What do you mean you wouldn’t care? I would know who you are!”
“You already know who I am,” I said.
“Whatever. You know what I meant,” Max laughed.
“You think I’m going to sit on a stakeout and have my actual license plate on the car?” I’d have to school him in the ways of civilians doing stakeouts.
“Wow, you really are smarter than you look.” Max thought he was funny. “Do you want to cruise the streets in separate cars, or cruise together?”
I had to consider this for a moment. I really wanted Max in the car with me, I thought we could work well together, but there might be a little too much chatter. Not only that, two sets of eyes in different directions and areas would probably be a smarter idea.
“Let’s stay separate. That way, in case something happens to one of us, the other one has an out. Besides, if I find the girl, I figure we could do a hand off.”
“A hand off?” Max asked.
“Yes, one of us gets the girl in the car, then we drive off. We’d need a distraction, and switch her to the other car,” I explained.
“That sounds seriously dangerous,” Max said.
“It would be.”
I heard Max start his car. “Let’s start trolling.”
It was a good thing I filled my tank before trolling the streets. I used another half tank driving up and down International Boulevard. I felt like a teenager, cruising the main drag. Only this time, I was looking for teenage hookers. Never thought in a million years that I would say those words. ‘What are you doing tonight?’ ‘Oh, I’m trolling International Boulevard for teenage hookers.’
It was after nine o’clock by the time we realized it was a fruitless endeavor. I never saw a van that even remotely resembled the one Alma had described. I checked in with Max every fifteen minutes; he hadn’t seen anything, either. Nor had we seen any girls that look to be underage. It made me wonder if this Russian sector was doing their business off the streets. Did they have connections? At this point, I didn’t want to arouse any suspicions, so I didn’t ask around.
I called Max. “Want to call it a night?”
“I don’t think so. I think we go someplace and have dinner, then come back closer to midnight. This might be one of those places where the later it gets, the busier it gets.”
Max’s knowledge of the business made me wonder how many streets he had cruised in his lifetime. Whether it was teenagers cruising the loop, or predators cruising for prostitutes, things always got busier closer to midnight.
“Know of any good restaurants around here?”
“Not a one. Hold on a second, I’ll bet Google maps knows.” Max was silent for a moment, and I could hear classic rock playing in the background. “Ha, I’ve got a good one.”
He gave me the address, and we agreed to meet there in about twenty minutes.
Nine
Mimi
It’s amazing how after daylight savings starts, you tend to get an extra hour of sun that you got on top of the extra hour of time. Like if it normally got dark at six and you sprang forward an hour, it should get dark at seven, but it miraculously stays light until after eight o’clock.
Cortnie finally called me at nine-thirty, and we agreed to meet at my house. Lydia still had Lola, so I didn’t have to worry about her. But in hindsight, I wondered if we should’ve brought her along.
Cortnie seemed a little anxious when she arrived. She unlocked the door and I climbed in the passenger side.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?” I asked.
Cortnie put the car in gear and headed toward Blanco Road. “No, I’ll drive us out there and drive by the house. When we decide how to approach the property, we can switch places. Then you’ll drive, I’ll jump out and set up the equipment. We’ll do a test run before I get back in the car.”
By a test run, Cortnie meant that we would test the equipment to make sure we had visuals from where she had placed the cameras. “Are we going to have audio?”
Cortnie tapped out a little rhythm on the steering wheel with her fingertips. “I don’t know. It depends on what we see when we get there. There’s an eight-foot fence all the way around the property, so getting up to the house and getting something placed inside the house might be difficult. But setting up cameras around the perimeter won’t be so hard.”
We drove in silence as Cortnie turned left onto Blanco Road and headed south. At the Denny’s she turned right, and we drove past a dozen or so produce companies and loading docks, then past the old Firestone plant. This was a point where th
e road went under the highway and across, and we entered Highway 101 south from the left side. A few more miles, and Somo Road was on the right side. Collectively, we both took deep breaths as Cortnie made the right-hand turn and the car bumped over the railroad tracks.
“You seem nervous,” I said.
She took her eyes off the road for a moment and looked at me. “I am. The Russian mafia is scary. This has to be the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done as a civilian. It doesn’t seem so scary when you have the government and the military to back you up. When you’re on your own, this is scary.”
She was right. For years, I put myself in the line of fire as a Secret Service agent. If someone meant to shoot the person I was protecting, it was my job to step in front of them and take a bullet. I never thought twice about it. And I never thought twice about killing that person. But as a civilian, we didn’t have any backup. No one was coming to our rescue or keeping us out of harm’s way. And if we shot at the person who was trying to kill someone, we’d end up in court instead of in front of an investigative panel.
“If it makes you feel better, they scare the shit out of me, too. We just need to be diligent.”
Cortnie reached over and lightly touched me on the knee. “Don’t take this the wrong way, because I really like your mom, but I’m glad it’s you with me tonight. She’s still too junior for me to feel one hundred percent comfortable.”
“I understand. She’s still a rookie, but someday she’ll be that veteran that you want to have by your side. Everyone has to start somewhere.”
Cortnie had both hands back on the wheel now. “I’m glad you understand. Like I said, I like your mom, and I like working with her, but not tonight.”
We drove up past the target property in silence. The house was on the north side of the road, so it was closest to me. We didn’t want to slow down and draw any attention to ourselves, so Cortnie concentrated on the road while I got my camera out and started taking pictures. The plan was to drive to the end of the street, where it became farmland, then turn around and drive back toward the railroad tracks.
Trespassers Will Be Prostituted. Page 7
