Unbound

by Stuart Woods

  The Russian gazed at Bear’s thickly forested arms. “Bear,” he said, “you ought not to wear short-sleeved shirts.”

  “It’s hot,” Bear said petulantly. “What do you want, that I should get a wax job?”

  He didn’t want to think about that. “What are you doing back here?”

  “You want I should sit in the parking lot for a couple hours, doing nothing?”

  “That was the idea.”

  “They’re going to eat then go back to their house. I’m not stupid.”

  The Russian started to speak but thought better of it.

  “I like the girl,” Bear said. “I’d like to do stuff to her.”

  “All in good time, Bear. I’ll let you know when the boss says it’s okay.”

  “I’d like to make a movie with her, so I could look at it later,” Bear said. Bear had the reputation in the world of porno for the biggest equipment in California, maybe the country. His sobriquet, for billing purposes, was “The Log.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” the Russian said, “but you might get to snuff her.”

  “That would be nice,” Bear said.

  “It’s not like she could go free once she’s seen your schlong. She could identify you in a lineup, no problem.”

  “A girl tried that one time. She didn’t show up for trial.”

  “Yeah, that’s the one that Dax’s lawyer got you out of, right?”

  “Right. I didn’t think he had the guts to off her, but like I said, she didn’t show up for trial, and since I was in lockup at the time, I walked.”

  “You’re a lucky guy,” the Russian said. “What were you driving today?”

  “The Malibu, the brown one.”

  “Drive something else tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Can I drive your GTO?”

  “No, not that. Take the Crown Vic.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, go back to the restaurant, wait for them, then follow them home, and note the times.”

  “Okay.”

  “And Bear?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t touch the girl until I tell you to.”

  “Oh, all right.”

  • • •

  CARLOS RIVERA AND JOE ROSSI were having a drink at Cuffs, a cop bar, while Carlos told his partner everything he knew about what they were working on.

  When Carlos had finished, Joe was quiet for a bit.

  “So,” Carlos asked, “what do you think?”

  “What do I think about what?”

  “How should we proceed, Joe? I’m counting on your experience and your brains.” Joe, he knew, was very smart. Not many of the guys at the station knew that.

  “I don’t know,” Joe said. “What do you think we should do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “Yeah, well. I was intrigued with what’s going on here. Problem is . . .”

  “Nothing’s going on,” Joe said. “How do we stop something that hasn’t happened yet, that we have no evidence is going to happen?”

  “We’ve got Dax’s previous behavior,” Carlos said.

  “I don’t know,” Joe replied. “If I were Dax Baxter, and I sent a pro out to do a guy and my pro came back crippled, I’d think again about proceeding, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yeah, that’s what you and I might do, but not Dax Baxter. This is a guy who hasn’t heard the word ‘no,’ from anybody, for a long time. Who’s going to have the balls to give him advice? I mean, if he offed the head of the studio, they’d check his grosses before telling him he was a bad boy. Money is all those people care about.”

  “Yeah,” Joe said. “Money is the only thing that’s more powerful than love.”

  “You’re a cynic, Joe.”

  “You said it yourself—I’m experienced.”

  Carlos looked up and saw a beautiful Latina enter the bar. He was transfixed, as he had been the first time he’d seen her.

  “I think your mind just left the problem,” Joe said, glancing at the girl.

  “Nope,” Carlos said, “she could be part of the solution.”

  “You lost me, amigo.”

  “She works in Dax Baxter’s office. I saw her when I was there a couple of days ago.”

  She was joined by another, older woman Carlos had seen there, too. “The other one works there, too.”

  “I guess you’re smarter than I thought,” Joe said. “How’d you know they were going to turn up here?”

  “I’d like to take the credit, but this one is just dumb luck.”

  “A coincidence?”

  “If you like.”

  “I hate coincidence,” Joe said.

  Carlos got up and approached the two women, who had taken a booth near the bar. “Good evening, ladies,” he said. “I believe I almost made your acquaintance at Standard Studios recently.”

  They looked up at him. “I remember you,” said the younger one. “You’re a cop.”

  Carlos laughed. “And I was trying so hard not to look like one.”

  “You need to work on your impression of a civilian,” she said.

  “Would you two ladies like to join a couple of Beverly Hills’s finest for a drink?”

  “Beverly Hills cops? Wasn’t that a movie?”

  “It would make a great one,” Carlos replied.

  “We’ve got the booth,” she said. “Why don’t you two join us?”

  Carlos looked over at Joe and jerked his head a little.

  Joe pointed his thumb at himself and mouthed, “Who, me?”

  Carlos slid into the seat next to the younger one as Joe made his way across the room.

  31

  TEDDY AND SALLY left the restaurant and got into the Cayenne. As Teddy backed out of the parking place he saw taillights come on behind him as another car backed out.

  “Billy?” Sally said.

  Teddy was concentrating on getting a fix on the make and model as it passed under a streetlamp.

  “Billy!”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “Are you getting paranoid on me?”

  “No.”

  “Then what is it with pursuing vehicles?”

  “If a vehicle is pursuing me, then I’m not paranoid.”

  “Is it the yellow car?”

  “No, and it isn’t the brown Malibu, either. It’s a Crown Vic.”

  “I thought Crown Vics were the exclusive province of cops and taxi drivers.”

  “Used to be. You don’t see that many of them anymore.”

  “Does that mean something?”

  “Just that it’s the sort of car a person might pick so as not to be noticed by anybody.”

  “But you noticed it.”

  “I’m not just anybody. I have a keen eye and a very good bullshit detector, and a Crown Vic in Malibu is very much bullshit.”

  Teddy made a left turn into the parking lot across the street, then left again past the supermarket and another left back into the street.

  “Is he still there?” Sally asked.

  “Gimme a minute,” Teddy replied. “There he is.”

  “You mean he followed you around the parking lot?”

  “That’s what I mean. He fell for it.” Teddy looked ahead at the traffic light on the Pacific Coast Highway: it turned yellow. He floored the car and made a left turn under the light just as it turned red. “Now,” he said, “let’s see if he runs the light.”

  Sally looked over her shoulder.

  “Don’t do that—he can see you doing that.”

  “He stopped at the light,” Sally said.

  Teddy summoned the 520 horsepower at his disposal and was half a mile ahead by the time the light changed. He turned off the headlights.

&nbs
p; “Billy, I can’t see anything,” Sally said, alarmed. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m denying him a set of taillights to follow,” Teddy said. “Don’t worry, I can see. Enough, anyway.” As he approached his house he shifted down twice, to avoid using the brakes, then as he made the sharp turn off the highway he began pressing the remote button on his rearview mirror. His garage door opened; Teddy pulled in and pressed the button again to close the door quickly. He made a mental note to himself to remove the lightbulb in the garage.

  • • •

  THE BEAR SWORE. “Where the fuck did he go?” he asked himself aloud. He stopped and checked the glove compartment for his notebook, then looked up the address and compared it to the house number where he sat. He made a U-turn and drove back until he found the address. No lights in the house. “Shit!”

  He noted the time; he’d just tell the Russian that he followed them home.

  • • •

  “WHY WON’T YOU let me turn any lights on?” Sally asked.

  “For the same reason I turned off my headlights,” Teddy replied. “I can see well enough to get you a nightcap, though.” He made his way to the bar and poured them both a brandy. “Why don’t we take this into the bedroom?” he asked.

  She laughed. “I guess we can feel our way.”

  “I would enjoy that.”

  • • •

  BEAR DROVE BACK to the trailer park and banged on the Russian’s door.

  “Come in, Bear!”

  Bear went in and tossed the man the keys to the Crown Vic. “They’re down for the night,” he said, “at ten-forty PM.”

  “Good.”

  “Why is it important?” Bear asked.

  “We’re establishing their pattern,” the Russian answered. “What time they leave and come home every day. That way we’ll know where they are when we want to take them.”

  “Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Okay if I go home now?”

  “Yeah, pick up the Malibu and be within sight of their house at seven-thirty tomorrow morning.”

  Bear sighed. “Okay, if that’s what you need.”

  “It’s what Dax needs,” the Russian said.

  • • •

  “BILLY,” SALLY SAID in the dark as they lay, naked, on the bed, “how long is this going to go on?”

  “As long as they want it to,” Teddy said.

  “Is ‘they’ Dax?”

  “I expect so. Do you think you can stand it?”

  “How long?”

  “Until they make their move.”

  “What move?”

  “They’re following us for a reason. Sooner or later we’ll find out why, and then I’ll deal with it.”

  “Deal with it the way you dealt with the guy in Santa Fe?”

  “Whatever is necessary,” Teddy said.

  • • •

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING after breakfast, Teddy handed Sally his car keys.

  “You want me to drive?”

  “Yes, and don’t be in a hurry. I’ll follow a little later in the Mercedes convertible.”

  Sally rolled her eyes but headed for the garage. Teddy went and stood at the front door, looking out at the highway through the small window. He saw Sally back out of the garage and pull into traffic. Less than half a minute later, a brown Chevy Malibu passed. “Aha!” Teddy said, then headed for the garage.

  A minute later he was headed down the highway, passing cars whenever he could, until he was behind the brown Malibu. The figure at the wheel, he noted, was very large and had thick, curly black hair. Sally stopped at the traffic light at Sunset, and the Malibu pulled up three cars behind her in the left-turn lane.

  Teddy stayed right on him, then pulled up and stopped about two inches from the Malibu’s passenger door. The driver turned and stared at him, and Teddy took an iPhone picture of the man, then he aimed an imaginary pistol at him and pulled the trigger, grinning at the big man.

  The light changed, and Teddy turned left behind him onto Sunset and glued himself to the Malibu’s bumper. He stayed there, crowding him, and he could see the man angrily looking in his rearview mirror. Traffic stopped at the Stone Canyon intersection. The man took another look at him in the mirror, then made a jerky right turn and ran the red light, toward UCLA.

  Teddy waved bye-bye. “I expect I’ll see you again,” he said.

  32

  BEAR PULLED UP at the Russian’s trailer, got out, and hammered on the door.

  “What?” the Russian yelled.

  “It’s Bear.”

  “Come in!”

  Bear walked in in time to see the Russian put away the snub-nosed .38 that he kept in his desk drawer.

  “What the fuck you doing here?”

  “They made me.”

  “What do you mean, ‘they made you’?”

  “They took two cars to work. I followed the first one, and the second one followed me. The guy pulled up next to me and took my picture. I lost him on Sunset.”

  “He took your fucking picture?”

  “Yeah, with his cell phone. I was in traffic—what did you want me to do, shoot him?”

  “I rather you had shot yourself,” the Russian said disgustedly. He picked up the phone and dialed a number.

  • • •

  DAX ANSWERED.“YEAH?”

  “You know who this is?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bad news. Bear followed them, as usual, but the guy took a second car, pulled up next to him at a light, and took his picture.”

  “Took his picture?” Dax bellowed.

  “With a cell phone. What are your instructions?”

  “First, shoot Bear, then shoot yourself.”

  “We need Bear for later, and the guy did not take my picture.”

  “Well, he already knows what you look like from Santa Fe, doesn’t he?”

  “I was in a disguise,” the Russian said. “He don’t know me.”

  “Okay, then you don’t have to shoot yourself. Put somebody else on following them.”

  “I am running out of cars,” the Russian said. “What you want them followed for? They shouldn’t see us again until we take them. Then it don’t matter if they know Bear. We know where to find them when we want them.”

  “You have a point,” Dax admitted.

  “When you want to take them?”

  “Soon. I’ll call you.” He hung up.

  • • •

  BAXTER’S INTERCOM BUZZED. “It’s Chita. Carlos Rivera from before is here. You want to see him?”

  “Not really, but I’m not going to duck him. Send him in.”

  • • •

  RIVERA STOOD AND watched Chita look at him while she talked to Baxter. She was really something, this one.

  She hung up. “Okay, he’ll see you.” She gave him a nice smile.

  “Did you know that if you married me, you’d have the same name as that great dancer? Chita Rivera?”

  She smiled again. “I saw her once. Go in, hurry.”

  Rivera heard the lock on the office door click, and he went in.

  “Detective Rivera,” Baxter said, rising and shaking his hand. “What can I do for you?”

  Rivera sat down. “Mr. Baxter, I want you to know you have nothing to worry about.”

  “Sergeant, I have ten thousand things to worry about, and that’s just today. Which one are you referring to?”

  “In my investigation I have learned that an employee of yours was attacked in Santa Fe and seriously injured.”

  Baxter’s smile disappeared. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Rivera made a placating motion with his hand. “It’s all right. For all practical purposes, I don’t know about it either. It happened in another jurisdiction, so it didn’t happen. We�
�ll keep everything quiet and between us. I just want you to know that you’re not in danger.”

  “In danger from what?”

  “From the man who injured your employee. We have you under surveillance, so if this Barnett guy makes a move, we’ll have an excuse to grab him.”

  “You have me under surveillance?”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll never see us, but for the time being, we’ll know where you are at every moment of the night and day.”

  “Now listen . . .”

  Rivera stood up and made the placating motion again. “Don’t worry, there will be no official record of this, it’s just between you and me. Thank you for your time, Mr. Baxter.” He turned and walked out of the room while Baxter was still sputtering.

  Rivera stopped at Chita’s desk and leaned over. “I think you and I should have dinner,” he said. “Someplace nice.”

  “What a good idea,” she said. “When?”

  “Tonight?”

  “I gave you my information last night,” she said. “What time?”

  “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

  “See you then.”

  Rivera left the office and joined Joe Rossi in the car. “Mission accomplished,” he said.

  “Which one, Baxter or the girl?”

  “Both,” Rivera said. “Drive.”

  “Where?”

  “What do I care? Let’s get some lunch. You pick a place, I’ll buy.”

  “Anyplace?”

  “Within reason,” Rivera said. “I’m taking Chita to dinner tonight, so don’t go crazy.”

  “A burger is good for me,” Rossi said, putting the car in gear. “Hey, is that the Porsche 969 over there?” He pointed at the executive parking lot as they passed.

  “That’s it,” Rivera said. “I put a tracker on it earlier. The result of movement will be on my laptop or iPhone.”

  “Good idea. Why don’t we go over there and put a dent in it.”

  “That’s a great idea, Joe, but not yet. Right now we’ve got Baxter thinking he’s under twenty-four-hour surveillance. That’s good enough for now.”

  “Is that what you told him? All we’ve got is you and me, you know.”

  “I know that and you know that, but Baxter doesn’t.”

  “I like your style, Carlos,” Rossi said.