by Tim Maleeny
“I knew you designed websites,” he said, “but I had no idea you were so technically proficient.”
“This is simple compared to building and maintaining a site, especially a big one like Tamara and Shayla’s.”
“All that video,” mused Sam.
Jill smiled. “Have you checked it out yet? It really is a great site.”
“I’ve had all the excitement I can handle.”
Jill pulled him close with her right hand. “Was that a compliment?”
“Absolutely.”
Jill began to wrap her left arm around him but stopped when it brushed against something hard. She gingerly felt the contours through his jacket and frowned.
“Is that a gun in you pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
“Both.” Sam held her at arms length and met her gaze.
Jill’s eyes flicked to his side. “Something you want to tell me?”
“I had a great time last night.”
“Me, too,” replied Jill. “But that’s not what I meant.”
“I’m going to be working late. Otherwise I’d ask you to dinner.”
Jill waited for the other shoe to drop. “I thought you were retired.”
“So did I.”
Jill looked at him carefully. “You didn’t strike me as the strong, silent type.”
“No?”
“Doesn’t suit you.” Jill’s eyebrows collided in a frown. “The past few days, you’ve said more to me than my ex-husband did our entire marriage.”
“Guess I was trying to decide whether or not to tell you anything. Didn’t want you to worry.”
“Then you should’ve left the gun at home, cowboy.”
“Fair enough.” Sam took her by the hand and led her back into the living room, where they sat on the couch while he told her about Zorro and the photographs in his apartment. He left out the part where he found Walter’s corpse and his conversation with Danny. In fact, he left out a lot of things. He had always talked to Marie about his cases after they were closed but never during an investigation. Some habits die hard.
“You said you arrested Zorro before, but you didn’t say why.”
“He beat up a girl,” said Sam. “A prostitute.”
Jill winced. “Badly?”
“Very.”
“But you had to let him go.”
“The girl dropped the charges, then claimed I’d harassed her into making a complaint. Threatened to sue the city. Out of nowhere she’s got a high-priced lawyer making calls to the mayor’s office.”
“What happened?”
“I was put on forced leave of absence until the matter was resolved,” said Sam, sounding like he was repeating the exact words said to him at the time. “The charges were dropped,” he added.
“That’s it?”
Sam hesitated before answering. “The girl wound up dead in a dumpster three weeks later. She’d had both her eyes cut out.”
Jill gasped and put a hand to her mouth. Sam watched her begin to stand, then sit down heavily, as if she’d been contemplating a run to the bathroom. He waited until her breathing returned to normal before saying, “I can be the strong, silent type.”
Jill took a deep breath. “No, I wanted to know. I do want to know…really.”
“OK.”
“But did you tell the police about what happened in your apartment?”
“The police can’t do anything,” replied Sam. “This is personal. And that’s not me being macho—that’s just the way it is.”
“But shouldn’t you ask for their help?”
“The police can’t even find Zorro.”
“But you can?”
“I know someone who can.”
“Can he be trusted?”
Sam smiled, but there wasn’t any warmth in it. “Absolutely not.”
Chapter Forty-seven
“Why don’t you trust him?”
Tamara disappeared as she asked the question, her face covered by the camisole slipping over her shoulders. The white silk flowed across her almond skin like milk as it settled on her torso, the fabric straining just enough to reveal the promised land that lay within her divine cleavage.
Shayla sat in the corner of the small dressing room and nodded her approval. As Tamara pulled the top off and grabbed the next one off its hanger, Shayla took the approved lingerie item and tossed it into a bulging Victoria’s Secret shopping bag. Next to it on the floor lay an equally large pile of rejects, a graveyard of silk and polyester.
“He’s a man,” said Shayla. “Why should you trust him?”
“Jerome is a honey.”
“Honey’s something you put on pancakes.”
“I prefer syrup.”
“See?” said Shayla. “Already there’s conflict in this relationship.”
Tamara blew out her cheeks. “You saying you don’t like the company of men?”
Shayla sat up straighter on the seat. “I never said that.”
“I’m pretty sure you did.”
“I like men just fine,” said Shayla. “But liking and trusting are two different things.”
“I think you don’t respect men.”
Shayla considered that for a minute. “Maybe you’re right, but that doesn’t mean—”
“Didn’t you give me a little tongue last time we kissed on camera?”
“That was business.” Shayla shot a warning glance, but it bounced off the smirk on Tamara’s face. “And so is this, miss. Get back to work.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Tamara shrugged into the next item, a bra that seemed to lift, separate and enhance all at the same time. “How’s this?”
Shayla frowned judiciously. “Not enough nipple action.”
Tamara ran her index fingers across the front of the bra in little counter-clockwise twists. “How about now?”
Shayla made a face. “Cameras will never pick it up.”
Tamara snapped the bra open and let it drop. “I’m tired.”
“That’s why they call it work.”
“Your turn. I need a break.”
Shayla stood. The two women shimmied past each other in the enclosed space and Tamara sat down as Shayla began to undress in front of the mirror. When she undid the last button on her blouse, Shayla asked, “Besides, how well do you know him—I mean, really?”
Tamara shrugged. “I’ll get to know him. That’s part of the fun of it. But finding out where he grew up or went to school is different. There’s a difference between knowing and trusting. One happens in your head, the other in your heart.”
“He could be a criminal.”
Tamara made a face, perfect features contorted in mock anger. “We’re not the most respectable girls on the block, you know.”
“You having pangs of guilt?” Shayla raised her eyebrows. “Qualms about our arrangement?”
“I don’t have qualms,” replied Tamara. “I’m going to med school.”
“And I’m going to law school.”
“I’m qualm-less.”
“Me, too.”
“No qualms here.”
“You already said that.”
“Then why did you bring it up?” Tamara dropped her smile, held her roommate’s eyes until Shayla broke contact and sighed deeply.
“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
Tamara stood up and kissed Shayla gently on the cheek.
Shayla scowled. “Hey.”
“What?”
“Save that for the cameras, girlfriend.”
Tamara grinned. “You’re such a romantic.”
“Know where you’re gonna have the wedding?”
Tamara looked at her like she was an idiot.
Shayla asked, “What?”
“Where do you think we’ll have it?”
Shayla started to say something when it hit her. “You’re going to get married on camera.”
“Guess what I’ll be wearing?” Tamara waved her hands in front of her, the gesture sweeping past her naked
breasts to her panties.
Shayla shook her head and started laughing.
“What?”
“And you called me a romantic,” Shayla said. “You’re incredible.”
“Does that mean you’ll be my maid of honor?”
Shayla held her hands out from her sides and stood there, topless.
“Absolutely,” she said. “Hell, I already know what I’m gonna wear.”
Chapter Forty-eight
Danny Rodriguez wasn’t wearing any pants.
He sat in his boxers and a plain white t-shirt at his kitchen table, his toes drumming the linoleum floor as he doodled on the notepad. His keys were in the basket on the counter with his wallet and badge. His gun was in the cabinet directly above the counter, safely out of his daughter’s reach but within his own should anything happen.
The thought of something happening at home involving his gun sent a chill down Danny’s spine. He worked hard—and so did his wife—so they could afford to live on a decent block, send their daughter to a good school in a city where public schools were hit or miss. Not easy on a cop’s salary. His wife was a teacher, a damn good one, but she got paid a lot less than he did.
He looked around their small apartment, listened for the sound of his daughter’s breathing, his wife’s snoring. His wife claimed she never snored but sometimes that was the first sound that welcomed Danny home when he worked the night shift. It used to keep him awake, but now he found it soothing. It was there, just beyond the hum of the refrigerator. Danny began to smile but gritted his teeth as he thought about what had gone down in Sam’s apartment. The ruined pictures. The violation. Almost twenty years on the force dealing with every kind of scumbag produced by humanity’s inbred gene pool and he’d never had so much as a knock on his door. He’d never realized how lucky he was until tonight.
Danny looked at his crude drawing, the outline of Sam’s apartment building, rectangles marking the entrances and exits, a crooked line indicating the fire escape. On the roof, a lone X led to a series of dashes arcing across the page toward a lopsided oval meant to represent the penguins. A series of squares along the top of the building, one for each apartment. He’d drawn an X through Walter’s square marking the dead body. In the space where the courtyard would be were two more Xs, drawn within the crooked outline of a car.
On an adjacent sheet of paper he’d written all the names of the tenants with their corresponding apartment numbers. If this were a homicide investigation, every one of them would be a suspect. Even Walter. But this was a mess. A twisted tangle of strings that led to nowhere. For a cop, a no-win situation.
Danny had too many real cases. Open homicides he knew he could close. A dead pimp. A drug deal gone sour. A mugged tourist who died from a fractured skull. He had witnesses. Evidence. Motive. Even a suspect or two. Real Law & Order shit, maybe even some CSI crap if Twisted Oliver came through. Plenty of opportunity to improve the department’s closure rate.
Danny stood and stepped over to the refrigerator, pulled out a beer, sat back down. He looked at his list of names and resumed his stoic tap-dance on the tiles. Muttered under his breath as he reluctantly added Sam’s name to the list.
Every one of them a suspect.
Danny drew a line directly below Sam’s name and scribbled Zorro along with the names of some of his crew, at least the ones Danny was familiar with. He scanned the list and shook his head in disbelief. Zorro had no business in that neighborhood. None at all.
Or did he? Danny drank the rest of his beer and crumpled the can in frustration. Zorro was a barracuda, teeth and all, and the people in that building were easy prey.
If Zorro was really involved with these people, they should all be dead by now.
Chapter Forty-nine
“They should be dead by now,” said Julio.
Zorro nodded patiently from behind his desk, his eyelids drooping enough to make him look like a crocodile trying to lure its prey closer to the banks. Julio had seen that look before.
“Dead,” Julio repeated the word, hoping to rouse Zorro out of his reptilian slumber. Actually the word Julio used was muerto, since they were speaking Spanish. A close relative to muerte, or Death, a word that carried far greater menace in his native tongue than in English. Every word in Spanish had a gender, and muerte was female. Julio liked to think of Death as a vengeful bitch, showing no mercy or remorse, a constant presence in his life much like his beloved wife.
“Perhaps,” said Zorro.
“They put us at risk.”
Zorro nodded absently. “They have been useful, Julio. They can go places closed to people like you and me. Office buildings, banks, small companies.”
“There must be other gringos in this town who can make sandwiches.”
Zorro chewed on his lower lip as he considered the argument. “But these brothers, they make us a lot of money.”
“But at what cost?” said Julio, careful not to raise his voice. “They attract too much attention, Zorro. Two of our men, dead. The fat gringo who was blackmailing them, dead. The police will have to do something.”
Zorro put his feet on the desk, closed his eyes and nodded. He had to remind himself Julio was smarter than he looked. Just because a man weighed as much as an orca and had an unnatural proclivity for violence didn’t mean he was stupid.
“And what would you suggest, Julio?”
Julio thought he’d already made a perfectly good suggestion, so he repeated it slowly.
“We…should…kill…them.”
“Ah,” said Zorro, “but won’t that make the police even more suspicious?”
Julio hesitated. He knew how cautious Zorro could be, but he also knew the two brothers were looking for a fall guy, and Julio had no intention of taking the fall. Let Zorro think of him as the loyal bodyguard—it paid well. But when the police came, Julio was going to be the first one out the back door. The last time he was in prison, he’d promised himself it would be his last, ever. He’d kill himself before he went back behind bars.
The thought gave him an idea.
“What if they killed each other?” he asked.
Zorro opened his eyes. “Killed each other?”
“Why not?”
“You mean they have an argument…”
“…over a woman…”
“…or a double-suicide?”
Julio shrugged. “Must happen all the time in this fucking city, no?”
Zorro brought his hands together. “Maybe they were depressed.”
“You could plant some evidence—”
“—linking them to the other killings.”
Zorro took his feet off the desk. “This is a great plan.”
“It is a great plan, Zorro.” Julio emphasized the words carefully so it sounded like it had been Zorro’s idea in the first place.
“Yes,” agreed Zorro, “it is.”
Chapter Fifty
It was a great plan.
That’s what Buster thought when Zorro first told him how they were going to get rid of that hijo de puta cop who almost drove over his foot. Zorro had designed an elaborate mouse trap for Sam, and Buster was going to be the cheese.
The big cheese. That’s how Buster had been thinking of himself all day. El queso grande. The bait that would lure that meddling guardia to his grave. And that was only the beginning.
The plan had three parts. First, eliminate anyone nosy, which meant Officer Sam. Normally they couldn’t touch a guy like that. But now that he wasn’t a cop, he was fair game. Buster had even called the precinct house to make sure Sam wasn’t bullshitting about being retired.
After what they did to Sam’s apartment, it was only a matter of time before he came to them. He might act tough, but guys like that never followed through. Even the baddest cops had rules of conduct, their own code that let them think they were better than the people they arrested. Buster would act stubborn at first, then play the part of the two-faced informant, which came naturally. Then he’d give Sam an a
ddress where he could find Zorro.
Except Zorro wouldn’t be there when Sam arrived.
Julio and one of Zorro’s other soldiers, some dude named Rafael, would be waiting for Sam with a chainsaw and a box of industrial strength garbage bags. Officer Sam would be shark chum before the next high tide.
Part two of the plan involved tying up loose ends. After they had taken care of Officer Sam, there was no one to stop Zorro from cutting those two fuckups Larry and Jerome out of the picture.
Buster had frowned when he’d first heard the second part. He’d always liked Jerome, but Larry was an asshole. Typical privileged white boy, thinks he’s better than anyone with an accent, anyone who didn’t go to college. You could see it in his eyes. Even when he was so scared he was practically pissing himself, Larry managed to look down his nose at you. Too bad for Jerome his brother was such a pijo.
The third and final stage was to find two new lunch monkeys who could front Zorro’s distribution network of San Francisco office buildings. Buster figured he could hang around near The Metreon, the big movie complex on Mission and 5th, and approach preppy gringos until someone took the bait. Sell them a dime bag, start a conversation, see where it leads.
Yes, it was a great plan, thought Buster, not realizing that it contained one fatal flaw. It was a mistake so fundamental that Buster wouldn’t appreciate the irony until much later, when he was writhing on the sidewalk in agony.
Chapter Fifty-one
“Well, this is ironic.”
“Fuck you, Larry.”
Jerome tried to get his bearings but was too agitated. Zorro’s driver had dropped them off at the usual corner, next to the gas station, and Jerome remembered parking only two blocks away. But where was their fucking car?
