Lillian Zoller
Deputy United States Attorney
A twist of the doorknob and Lucky was through the door, catching Lilly’s assistant, Jenna, sucking back the leftover broth from her microwaved Cup O Noodles lunch.
“Are you Lillian?” asked Lucky.
“Sorry,” said Jenna, scrambling for her napkin. “Lilly’s not in. Are you on her appointment sheet?”
“No,” said Lucky, showing his badge. “I’m from Kern County Sheriff’s.”
“Oh my God,” said Jenna. “The Pepper Ellis case, right?”
“No,” said Lucky. “The Anthony Dey case. You know, the dead deputy up in Kern County?”
“Right, right,” said Jenna. “Same thing. It’s just that—”
“What about Pepper Ellis?” asked Gonzo, well aware of the teen queen’s TV show. That’s because her twelve-year-old son, Travis, watched too damn much TV when he wasn’t playing too damn much Xbox.
“You’re from Kern and you don’t know?”
“I’m from LAPD,” said Gonzo. “He’s from Kern. And it was his brother who was murdered.”
Lucky snapped a don’t-speak-unless-I-tell-you-to look dead at Gonzo. His eyes were unblinking, cocked and loaded with an unmitigated threat.
“Oh, Lord,” said Jenna. “I’m so sorry.”
“Well, if it’s none of your business then you don’t have to be sorry,” said Lucky.
Jenna bit her lip and composed herself, then dug deep to find her most professional character.
“Officer?” began Jenna, hoping Lucky would finish her sentence.
“Detective Dey.”
“Of course, if there’s anything this office can do…”
“So you guys are on this, yeah?”
“Just what the FBI reports to us—”
“Why I’m here. FBI gets involved it’s usually cuz they think they’re ahead of the curve. Just trying to get a jump here.”
“We’ve uh…this office?” continued Jenna. “We refer all investigation inquiries to the FBI. I’m sure if you need assistance they’ll be—”
“If I wanted to talk to the FBI I’d be in Westwood,” said Lucky, referring to the Bureau’s Los Angeles offices inside the Federal Building some fourteen miles due west down Wilshire Boulevard. “My guy at County said the person to talk to was Lillian Zoller. That she was runnin’ the investigation.”
“Honestly,” defended Jenna. “This is the U.S. Attorney’s office. We don’t investigate crimes. We prosecute them.”
“Just tell me when she’s gonna be back.”
“Could be ten minutes. Could be after lunch. I’m sure—”
“How’s this? Got her number? Tell her I’m here.”
“Detective. Without an appointment…”
“You’re right. I can wait. Couch here looks comfy enough.”
“Of course, you’re welcome to. But I can’t promise she’ll see you.”
“Because why?”
“Because she’s a Deputy U.S. Attorney and doesn’t have to?” said Jenna in a tiny voice. That question mark at the end of Jenna’s sentence had a pleading quality to it. Lucky was making the former Laker-Girl-slash-underling feel more than uncomfortable.
“Maybe…” added Jenna.
“Maybe?”
“There’s an FBI liaison who works out of a satellite office in this building. Special Agent Dulaney Little.” Jenna began searching through a disorderly top drawer to find a card.
“And if I don’t wanna talk to the FBI?” asked Lucky. “If I choose to wait for your boss?”
“Probably a waste of time,” said Jenna, at last coming up with one of Dulaney Little’s government-issued calling cards. “Cuz Lilly’ll just tell you the same thing. Talk to the FBI.”
Go ahead and say it.
That’s what Gonzo was silently saying over and over to herself. Mentally goading Lucky to utter his anti-federale credo.
The FBI can suck my white dick.
But none came as Lucky chose to forgo the elevator for seven floors of metal stairs. Gonzo trailed again, this time stopping to check texts on her phone. She knew the dangers of driving and texting. Walking and texting was practically as dangerous. Years back, Gonzo and her son had nearly been killed when her boy had followed her into a busy Simi Valley intersection. She had been reading an email from her attorney, sadly informing her that her permanent disability claim had been rejected by the LAPD.
The stairs switched-back downward. While Gonzo stopped to read an email twice forwarded—once from robbery homicide and again from her supervisor—she listened to the heavy clanging of Lucky’s boots covering the stairs. One floor down… Two floors down… Then the squeak of a heavy fire door opening. Once the email was read, Gonzo started her own descent, counted off the two floors, and stepped into the fifth floor corridor, fully expecting to find Lucky impatiently waiting. Instead, Gonzo found a hallway as equally sterile as the others, devoid of humanity, and deadly quiet.
“Shit,” uttered Gonzo, half-suspecting she’d been ditched by her Kern County charge. Then again, maybe she hadn’t counted Lucky’s footfalls well enough as he charged ahead of her. Now what? she asked herself.
Gonzo upped her pace, sneaking innocent peeks through whichever office doors were propped open. The corridor turned at the elevator bank, then dead-ended at a pair of restrooms. Of course, she hoped. Lucky was probably taking a leak. She twisted the knob to the men’s room until she heard the latch release, pushed it open five inches.
“Detective?” asked Gonzo, not certain she’d spoken loud enough. She pressed the door harder, widening the opening. “Yo. Dey!”
“No detectives in here,” said the voice, deepened by the hardscape acoustics.
Gonzo was preparing an apology when she heard the sharp sound of fingers snapping. She turned to see Lucky leaning from a nearby office door, quietly beckoning her.
“Hurry,” mouthed Lucky.
“Where’d you go?” asked Gonzo.
“Shhhh. Just stand here at the door and tell me if he’s coming.”
“Tell you who’s coming?”
“FBI guy.”
“Why?”
“Stop askin’ and keep yours eyes open,” said Lucky, leaving Gonzo to pull sentry duty at the threshold.
Gonzo scanned both ways, then shoved the door wider to get a look inside. She’d seen closets bigger. Four walls, no windows, a bulletin corkboard on a large easel, a collage of framed, family photos hung under a smoke detector, and a cluttered, tank desk so broad and cumbersome she wondered how the hell the movers could have gotten it through the door.
Lucky was behind the desk, flipping over papers, reading handwritten notes.
“Sweet,” said Gonzo. “Nothing like a warrantless search to give me an appetite.”
“FBI property,” said Lucky. “I’m a taxpayer. So it’s my property, too.”
“Just outta curiosity,” asked Gonzo, “What’s an FBI guy look like?”
“Building fulla lawyers,” said Lucky, not looking up from his snooping. “Look for a guy in a cheap suit.”
“Family pics are your three o’clock.”
Lucky twisted ninety degrees to his left, sighting down the photo collage.
“Male usual,” said Lucky.
“Tell me you didn’t just say that.”
“Offended? How’s this? He’s F.B.I. Stands for Fuckin’ Black Investigator.”
“Know what? I’m trying real hard to feel sorry for you. You know, your brother and all. But the racial stuff, I can’t—”
“Aw hell!” Lucky found the fed’s BlackBerry underneath a legal pad chock-full of red-penned doodles.
“So he left his phone.”
“No. He’s on the phone. Blue light means—”
“Bluetooth. Crap. Gotta be really close.”
“Probably in the shitter. You run block. I’ll meet you in front.”
“We’re both going… Now!”
“Not yet. And he’s three
seconds from dropping a call.”
Before Gonzo could think to argue, Lucky had popped the battery out of the back of the FBI man’s mobile phone and was photographing the electronic serial information with his own cell.
“God you’re somethin’,” pissed Gonzo, fed up with Lucky’s antics.
“Still standing there?”
No. Gonzo had already broken away and was charging back down the hall on a scud path toward the men’s room. She had no clue what she was about to say or do. She only knew she had about twelve strides and forty feet to come up with something.
Special Agent Dulaney Little was like most men suffering from ulcerative colitis. With his prescription and a nearby toilet, he was a-ok. Perfectly normal. He’d become so accustomed to his condition that he had started a practice of dialing and receiving calls from his porcelain throne. It bothered nobody but his wife of twenty-one years, Shanti, who was more than annoyed by what she considered a disgusting habit. That and the man seemed to always be holding conference calls from one of the only two bathrooms in their small yet busy Reseda home.
Where Shanti had it right was the dollar factor. Since Dulaney discovered the joy of multitasking from the nearest commode, he had dunked two BlackBerries at a replacement cost of more than two hundred dollars per device. It was Shanti’s idea to buy him the Bluetooth earpiece, thus freeing her husband of further cell phone fumbles. So used to using the wireless earbud—and so powerful the connection—Special Agent Dulaney Little would simply get up from his desk and continue his conversation as he strolled to the men’s room, closed and locked the stall door, and carried on without missing a beat. His nifty Bluetooth repeater even had a mute button which he employed when it was time to flush, leaving the person at the other end of the call without a hint of suspicion that the FBI man had all the while been evacuating his bowels.
“Detective?” asked the voice from the door.
“No detective in here,” answered Dulaney from inside the stall.
“Who’s that?” asked Shanti. Dulaney’s wife was in her car, connected to her husband via her own hands-free device while hurrying home with a carload of groceries before beginning her school pickup routine. As it worked out, the Mister and Missus Little had four children attending four different schools, miles and miles apart, which made for hectic days and significant gasoline bills.
“Dunno. Someone lookin’ for somebody else,” answered Dulaney.
“You’re on the toilet, aren’t you?”
“Don’t start.”
“And that was a woman in the men’s room?”
“Don’t think she came in. Just cracked the door and called out for some guy who’s not here.”
“Uh huh,” said Shanti, busting her husband’s balls.
“You were saying?”
“My car just kicked over two hundred thousand miles.”
“New benchmark.”
“Said we get a new one at one-fifty.”
The discussion continued on down a familiar road with talk of finances, property taxes, retirement and college funds, and a conclusion to revisit the Shanti-needs-a-new-car subject twenty-five thousand miles further down the proverbial road. And at the rate Shanti racked up miles, that twenty-five thousand miles would take less than nine months.
Dulaney washed his hands in the sink. As he dried them, he examined himself in the bathroom mirror. The collar of his dress shirt was showing years of wear, fraying with a fine fuzz near the points. The third lousy shirt he’d noticed in a week.
At least the damn tie looks new.
Then there were the gray hairs. A year earlier, those telltale signs of age that had begun to appear above his ears had turned into a bumper crop highlighting his entire scalp. Hell, thought Dulaney. This is why men shave their heads in order to preserve a younger look. It all depended on the shape of the skull, he reasoned. A bad bone structure required hair. But Dulaney felt his skull shape was reasonable. So why the hell not give it a go and surprise his family?
Or you can just color it with Grecian Formula.
Decisions, decisions. Dulaney rolled his eyes at himself in the mirror, then headed for the door. No sooner had he swung it open than he found himself face to face with a six-foot Hispanic Amazon. Kinda hot was his first instinctive thought.
“There another guy in there?” pressed Gonzo.
“Your detective friend?” asked Dulaney, recognizing Gonzo’s voice from her first syllable.
“Not my friend. But he owes me an explanation.”
“Sorry. Nobody in there.”
“But he was in there, right?”
“Not in the past…” Dulaney checked his watch. “Ten minutes?”
“He ask you to cover for him?”
“Miss, I…”
“Detective,” corrected Gonzo.
“You too. So you’re looking for your detective partner?”
“You’re covering for him,” accused Gonzo, trying to keep him on his heels. But inside her head, she was counting off the seconds she was buying Lucky. She hoped like hell he’d gotten out of the fed’s office and was heading down the stairs.
“Special Agent Dulaney Little.” The FBI man introduced himself, offering his open palm. “I washed, by the way.”
“Are you being weird on me?”
“No. I just—”
“The men’s room. Show me it’s empty,” said Gonzo.
“You’re serious?”
“Just show me he’s not in there.”
“Take a look yourself.”
“Right. So now you’re inviting me into the men’s room?”
“I didn’t say that. You don’t believe me…” Dulaney put his hands up in confused surrender. “Look. Don’t know you. Don’t know who you’re looking for. Don’t care, either. Now, if you’ll please excuse me.”
The stalling game was over. But for drawing her weapon or grappling Dulaney down to the industrial grade carpet, Gonzo was fresh out of ideas of how to keep him from returning to his closet of an office. Gonzo kept up the ruse by entering the men’s room on her own, briefly stopping inside to castigate herself for playing a part in the con. She counted to ten, turned a one-eighty, then headed back toward the elevator bank. She didn’t so much as glance away from her heading when striding past Dulaney’s office. Best she could garner from her periphery vision was the door was closed. Inside of which, Special Agent Dulaney Little was likely hiding from that crazy lady cop. When she arrived at the elevators, Gonzo triple-pounded the down button, yelled, C’mon, c’mon from within her own skull. And after an eternity of thirty seconds, the car arrived with a benign ding.
“That was so many kinds of stupid, it’s not even worth counting!” shouted Gonzo, slamming the passenger door of Lucky’s Charger.
“Guess that makes you an expert,” said Lucky, turning the air conditioning fan to high and aiming the center vent directly into his face.
“How do you go from first wanting to talk to the FBI? Then since he’s not in his office, picking over his desk for God knows what?”
“Didn’t wanna talk to the FBI. Wanted to talk to the U.S. Attorney. The FBI can—”
“Can suck my you know what.” Gonzo was ready to surrender. She was downtown and a short walk to the subway that would deliver her back to Pasadena and her car. “What the hell am I doing here?”
“Hell if I know.”
Gonzo was more than tempted to call her boss again and further explain the situation all the way down to the dirty deed perpetrated against the FBI man. She wagered against herself, betting it would be a fifty-fifty proposition whether her supervisor would allow her to cut loose or order her to arrest Lucky on felony tampering and trespassing charges. Gonzo reckoned she would be better off bolting and taking the rest of the day to concoct a reasonable excuse for ignoring the directive to assist the bereaved Kern County detective.
Then again, there was that email pushed to her from robbery/homicide.
“So while you were exercising your
hate-on for all things FBI,” shifted Gonzo. She gestured with her phone. “I got this B.O.L.O.”
“Yeah?”
“Shooting in Lynwood. Everything sounds gang related except for this one witness said something about a black-on-black refrigerator truck.”
“My truck?”
“You’re looking for a black semi,” shrugged Gonzo. “You get anything better outta that office snoop?”
“Enough, okay?” defended Lucky. “You seem like a smart enough chick to know fed policy is never to share shit with local unless they absolutely have to.”
“You wanna get to this bad guy before the feds do. That what this is about, right?”
Lucky smirked, dropped the Charger into gear and lurched the vehicle into traffic.
12
Twenty hours, eleven minutes, and twenty-three seconds, twenty-four seconds, twenty-five…
Beemer couldn’t stop himself from obsessively counting off the time since he had initiated his one-man blood heist. He had first calculated a maximum of twelve hours from the Reno break-in to shipping out of the Port of Long Beach. He had prepared a small paper sack full of cash for Rey Palomino to split with his accommodating older brother in exchange for shipping the frozen blood products under the guise of exported frozen corn.
Twenty hours, twelve minutes, forty-two seconds…
The clock would continue ticking in Beemer’s head. And he knew it wouldn’t stop until his cargo was loaded and steaming for the Panama Canal. All because of dead Danny’s dear daddy—Rey Palomino, the cool pool guy. Beemer remembered the stories that the sunny young Danny would tell of his father. All those summers sweating it out on his father’s pool construction sites. Racing vintage Porsches on the weekends. Oh, how that boy idolized his pops.
Twenty hours, fifteen minutes, zero seconds.
Enough about Danny Palomino, thought Beemer. He needed to rewind his brain back to the afternoon. The idiotic mistake he had made in Lynwood and that extremely dead Motherfucker #1.
After Beemer had put the incident in his rearview mirror, he had started driving a new loop until he had cleared the stickiness out of his brain. The first leg was the 405 freeway north, through where it splits Westwood and UCLA from the city of Santa Monica, over the Sepulveda pass and into the San Fernando Valley. At the crest, where the busy artery descends into the suburban mecca, Beemer could see the waves of heat reflecting off the valley floor, obscuring the pristine visibility of a nearly smog-free day. Instantly, the temperature outside the semi rose fifteen notches to 109 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Lucky Dey Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (The Lucky Dey Series Boxset) Page 9
