“Where are you?” Vida said. “We are in El Monte, just before the Peck Road on-ramp. We need you here now.”
“Thirty seconds,” a voice told her.
Moments later, she could hear them coming. The dozen-strong motorcycle pack that had passed her earlier suddenly poured off the expressway, their big Ninja and Hayabusa bikes raging and growling like starving grizzlies.
They were the insurance plan, Jorge’s buddies, MS-13 members, their backup in case things went to shit. And, boy, had things gone to shit.
Her soldiers, still under the overpass, dropped their guns and rushed forward and hopped onto the backs of the now-halted bikes. Vida counted heads and waited until Jorge and everyone else was accounted for before she hopped onto the back of one of the Jap bikes herself.
Then they all were accelerating, leaving the wreckage and dead Triumph Dragons and sirens behind as they roared out onto the expressway.
That’s the way it’s done, Vida thought as they zipped down the shoulder, the hundred-mile-an-hour wind ripping at her short hair. Stick and move. Get in, do damage, get out. Manuel wouldn’t have done it any other way.
Vida allowed herself a tiny smile as she snuggled tighter into the driver. He opened it up, and LA warped into long streaks of white lines and yellow light.
CHAPTER 24
Six hours later, coming on two a.m., Vida Gomez was behind the front wheel of a new stolen SUV, a Toyota Land Cruiser that was parked in West Hollywood about three blocks south of the iconic HOLLYWOOD sign.
No rest for the weary, she thought, listening to music thump from a brightly lit glass house up the scrubby hill from where they were parked.
Keeping her eyes glued on the raucous Hollywood party, Vida took a sip from the stainless steel travel cup at her elbow. Instead of coffee, the cup contained tejate, a traditional energy drink from her native Oaxaca. Made from corn, cacao beans, mamey seeds, and rosita flowers, it was far more potent than anything from Starbucks.
With the unflagging pace she was clocking, she needed the energy. There’d been barely enough time for a shower and a hastily eaten dinner at the safe house in La Brea. Now they were back at it, back out again on the street.
They had one more job tonight, one more hit, which was even more audacious than the last one, if that was possible. The house just up the winding road belonged to none other than celebrity rap music performer and producer Alan “King Killa” Leonard.
Some rap music record producers only fronted like they were gangbangers, but King Killa was actually the real deal. In addition to being a celebrity, he was the leader of a Bloods contingent that ran most of the cocaine trade in the Greater Los Angeles area. It was said that his influence even ran into the LAPD’s infamous CRASH gang unit, where he had several officers on the payroll.
Like most of the gang leaders in the city, King Killa had recently been approached by Manuel’s cartel to become his gang’s new drug supplier. The gang leader had immediately and vehemently refused. Killa had even roughed up Manuel’s representative and had gone so far as to put a gun in his mouth.
Bad move. That was why they were there. Decisions had consequences. Manuel’s order was explicit. Grammy awards or no Grammy awards, tonight, King Killa was to be executed.
At the safe house, Vida had reached out to Manuel via encrypted cell phone to make sure that he felt this second scheduled hit was prudent, after the unscheduled firefight with law enforcement in El Monte that was all over the news.
Manuel had texted back immediately.
Prudent? It is now more necessary than ever!!!! You are in Hollywood, Vida, are you not? The bigger the splash, the better!!! The biggest mistake when you are winning is to stop! Forward, my beautiful Vida. Forever forward.
Vida brought up the message on her phone again and frowned. She’d been afraid he would say something like that. They had gotten lucky once tonight. In her opinion, they were pushing it.
But what did her opinion matter? Nothing. She was smart enough to know not to question or even to comment on an order, however odious, if it came from Manuel himself.
CHAPTER 25
THE MUSIC SUDDENLY SUBSIDED ten minutes later, and the first of the cars triple-parked in front of the ostentatious glass house started down the hill.
They waited another half hour, until the traffic jam of limos and Jags and Mercs and vintage Porsches and other obnoxious automobiles rolled down, away from the house, before they stepped out of the Cruiser and into the darkness.
It was only a four-person job this time. The driver, Vida, her most trusted soldier, Estefan, and a pudgy soldier named Eduardo, who was an expert with the materials.
It took about half an hour to infiltrate. They would have done it much more quickly, but they encountered a thick chain-link fence at the rear of the property’s perimeter that they had to bolt-cut through as slowly and quietly as they could. Past the hole in the fence was the basement door, which Vida scrub-picked herself in less than a minute.
Then they were actually inside King Killa’s famous Hollywood house, which had been featured on MTV’s Cribs. Vida had watched the episode several times in order to memorize the interior layout.
They found the utility room next to the one for the swimming pool pump. The HVAC unit was forced air, its blower humming busily as it circulated cool air throughout the house.
Eduardo knelt beside it and then gave an A-OK sign.
At the signal, Vida and her men quickly put on the Airhawk breathing suits they’d brought. Then Eduardo shut off the HVAC unit and unclasped the silver hard-pack case containing the material.
They had used canisters at the mobster’s house in Malibu, but they now used the deadly material in a very fine powder form. Eduardo removed the air filter from the unit and then dusted the filter liberally with the poison. Then he carefully slid the filter back into the unit and turned the blower on high.
Vida checked her watch as the fan hummed. They sat in the dark, waiting. After ten minutes, Eduardo repeated the process, powdering the filter a second time. Exactly twenty minutes after that, Vida nodded, and they headed up the basement stairs.
Inside the first bedroom they entered on the top floor was quite a surprise.
The surprise wasn’t that the room’s occupant was dead. They’d used enough poison to easily kill a hundred people, so of course she was dead. The surprise was that the woman lying in her own blood and snot in a fetal position on the carpet was Alexa Gia, the famous singer.
Was she seeing King Killa? Vida wondered. She didn’t know. She only knew that the beautiful woman known as the Latina Madonna had recorded eleven number-one dance music hits in the eighties and nineties. Vida had actually danced to one of the singer’s pop hits at her own quinceañera. Go figure.
Manuel wanted a big splash? Vida thought. He was about to get one. The death of the singer would be huge. About as high profile as it got.
Vida made sure to get a close-up of the singer’s face with the video camera before they left. Of course, she was filming everything, as per the plan. Why Manuel wanted the grisly footage, she was unsure. She knew better than to inquire.
Well, if anything, the substance had worked even more potently than it had the last time, Vida thought as she toed King Killa’s cheek, resting on the floor of his bathroom down the hall. The six-foot-six, three-hundred-thirty-pound man had made it only halfway to the toilet before he’d bled out of all his orifices like a butchered hog.
“OK, that’s it. All the other rooms are empty,” Eduardo said, tapping her on the shoulder. “Time to go.”
“Wait, one thing. Just a moment,” Vida said, spying something.
She carefully stepped around the blood pooled around the fallen rap impresario and knelt and removed his sparkling signature twenty-one-carat diamond earring.
Though it wasn’t part of the plan, she would make sure to ship it out to Manuel first thing tomorrow morning via FedEx.
Manuel will like that, she thought with a small s
mile. The only thing he appreciated more than subtle gestures was unexpected gifts.
CHAPTER 26
The next morning-early, of course-we were at Aaron Cody’s farm, getting the milking going, when the old farmer pulled me and the rest of the Bennett boys aside.
“Gentlemen,” Cody said, looking us over, “I got a call early this morning, and I was wondering if you all might be able to help me with a special assignment.”
A special cattle-farm assignment? I thought. What could that mean? Sounded organic, and not exactly in the Whole Foods kind of way. Where was that guy from Dirty Jobs when you needed him?
“Involving?” my skeptical son, Brian, asked.
“Touchdown,” Cody said solemnly.
“Touchdown?” Trent said, suddenly wide-eyed. “Oh, no. That’s bad.”
“Bad? What do you mean? What’s touchdown?” I said.
“He’s the bull, Dad,” Trent said. “That big boy I showed you the other day. You know, the orn-ry big boy.”
“That’s right,” Cody said. “Like it or not, Touchdown needs to go on a road trip today, and I was hoping you could help me get him out of the bull pen and into his trailer.”
After we helped Cody hitch a trailer to his pickup, the boys piled into the truck bed, and we drove over to the bull pen.
Cody backed the trailer opposite the gate of the bull pen and got out and dropped the trailer’s ramp.
“Trent?” the farmer said to my son as he removed a stafflike metal pole from the truck bed.
“Yes, Mr. Cody?” Trent said.
“I see that Touchdown is way over there on the other side of the field, grazing. Why don’t you hop on over that fence and see if you can’t get his attention.”
“Really? Oh, wow!” Trent said. “Can I really? Dad, is that OK?”
“I guess,” I said. “But you better be ready to do some quick climbing back when he sees you.”
“This is going to be good,” Eddie said, hopping up onto the fence as Trent lowered himself into the pen.
“Hey, Touchdown!” Trent called as he did some jumping jacks.
The truly massive black Angus bull kept on grazing until Cody made a yodeling call. At the sound, Touchdown suddenly stopped chewing and popped his head up and over in our direction like a dog being called by its master.
It was obvious Cody hadn’t needed Trent’s help but just wanted to get my seven-year-old involved. I smiled. The more time I spent with Cody, the more I liked the old farmer.
“Ah, you don’t scare me,” Trent said, waving at the bull some more. “I’m over here, dummy! Nanny, nanny!”
Trent hadn’t gotten the third nanny out when Cody yodeled again, and the bull turned and started to approach. We laughed as Trent shot up the fence. A squirrel couldn’t have done it quicker.
As Touchdown drew up, I suddenly understood why spectators screamed so loudly at bullfights. They were terrified. It was truly monstrous, a ton or more of pure muscle snorting viciously as it trotted toward us.
I instinctively stepped back from the fence while Cody stepped forward. He shot a hand out over the railing and grabbed the huge, door-knocker-sized ring drooping from the beast’s nose. Then he attached the ring to a clip on the end of the metal pole he was holding.
I thought the thing would go nuts and rip Cody’s arm off, but instead it just grunted a few times and placidly looked at the farmer.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Cody said calmly to the bull as we all stood there in shock. “Mike, could you get the pen gate open so I can lead Mr. Touchdown into his trailer?”
I ran over and followed instructions. Pulling on the pole like it was a leash, Cody walked the bull along the fence and out the gate. The bull paused for a moment on the trailer’s ramp, but then Cody let out with a cowboy “Yeehaw!” and the bull moved his massive bulk the last few feet into the creaking metal trailer like he’d been booted. The septuagenarian slammed the trailer gate closed and ran the bolt. Only then did he unclip the pole and pull it out through the slats in the trailer.
“OK, everybody,” he said. “Count all your fingers and toes. All there?”
We nodded.
“Excellent job, then. Well done, boys. Trailering a dairy breeding bull is about the most dangerous thing done on a cattle farm. Thanks for the backup.”
“How’d I do, Mr. Cody?” Trent asked.
A wide smile creased Cody’s weather-beaten face as he put his big hand on Trent’s head.
“You did fine, son,” he said. “Just fine. We just might make some good country stock out of you city boys yet.”
“Mr. Cody, where is Touchdown headed, anyway?” Trent wanted to know.
Cody looked at me. After a second, he took off his hat and scratched at his bald head.
“Well, he’s got a … well, a date, I guess you’d call it.”
“A date?” Eddie said, giggling. “Touchdown has a girlfriend?”
“He sure does,” Cody said, nodding. “Why, just two farms over, the prettiest little cow you ever saw is right now waiting for him to get over there.”
“What are they going to do when he gets there? Hold hooves and go bowling or something?” Trent asked, beginning to really crack up.
Great. Here we go, I thought. It was too early in the morning for cows and bulls, let alone the birds and the bees.
“Something like that, Trent,” I chimed in before Cody could explain things in more minute detail. “Look at the time. Last one back in the truck is a rotten Homer!”
CHAPTER 27
As we were bumping our way back to Aaron Cody’s farmhouse, towing the four-footed, twenty-five-hundred-pound bachelor of the month behind us, I noticed on my phone that I’d missed a couple of calls.
I blinked at the screen, not knowing what to think. I didn’t get many calls these days. Actually, I guess I had a bit of an idea. Both of the calls were from the same person, Emily Parker of the FBI.
I wanted to call her back right there and then, but I knew I needed some privacy. My little, and not-so-little, Bennett pitchers had big ears, and if it was something important, I didn’t want to get everyone riled up. Or more riled up than usual.
When we met back up with Seamus and the girls, who were done with the milking, I told Mary Catherine that I was going to walk the mile and a half of country road back to our house.
“Any particular reason for the sudden return to nature?” my sharp-as-a-tack nanny wanted to know.
“Just need a little exercise,” I said.
“Is that right?” Mary Catherine said, her blarney detector obviously going off like gangbusters. “Whatever you say, Mike.”
Gravel sprayed as she drove away with my brood. I slipped my phone out of my pocket as the car crested the hill.
“Mike,” Emily answered on the second ring. “I assume you’ve heard what happened.”
“Assume I live with cows, Parker,” I said. “I couldn’t be more out of the loop if I tried. What’s up?”
She proceeded to tell me about the previous night’s amazing events in Los Angeles. A half-dozen men with automatic rifles had opened fire in a suburb east of the city. Two LA County narcotics detectives, along with four members of a notorious Vietnamese gang, had been murdered in the middle of a busy street.
I hadn’t even begun to digest that when she told me about the even bigger news, the home invasion and murder of the celebrity rapper King Killa and singer Alexa Gia.
“I’m at the home invasion right now, Mike. It’s the same exact M.O. as with the mobster in Malibu. The victims were poisoned with the same still-unknown substance, through the ventilation system. I’ve been to crime scenes, but never in an astronaut suit borrowed from the Centers for Disease Control.”
“So it’s Perrine,” I said.
“No question. The Vietnamese and the rapper both had strong ties to the drug trade. Perrine has some kind of elite paramilitary hit team treating LA County like it’s a war zone.”
“It sure seems like it,” I
said. “So how do I fit in?”
“Don’t be obtuse, Mike. My phone’s been ringing off the hook. The director himself wants you put on this now, more than ever. We need you to come back. Perrine needs to be stopped. He needs to be found-not tomorrow, but now.”
I let out a breath as I kept walking. I looked out at the miles and miles of Cody’s completely empty, tan-colored land. The reddish mountains in the distance beyond. For all my griping, we were safe here. Being in the middle of nowhere had its benefits.
“Mike? Hello? Are you still with me?”
“What about my family, Emily?” I said. “You know the price Perrine has put on my guys. I go traipsing out hither and yon, looking for this bastard, who’s going to watch my family? I can’t risk something happening to them if I’m not here. I won’t do it.”
“Please, Mike. Perrine is outgunning us, outthinking us. Screw the bureau. I need your help. Can’t you come down and just talk with our people, at least for the sake of morale? I’ll get them to fly you down, you give a pep talk, and I’ll have them fly you back. You’ll be gone two days. I promise.”
I let her hang for a few seconds.
“I’ll call you back,” I said, and hung up.
CHAPTER 28
“Ok, family meeting!” I yelled when I finally made the last country mile back to the farmhouse. “Listen up, people. I need to talk to you.”
I poked my head into the kitchen and saw all my guys already arrayed around the kitchen table. They were all staring at me, too. I was waiting for them to yell Surprise! or something, except it wasn’t my birthday. What was this?
“Oh, there you are. What’s this? A second breakfast?”
“No,” Seamus said. “We’re sitting here waiting for you to tell us what’s about to happen next, Detective. You don’t think we can tell when something’s up? Find out anything on your little nature walk that you want to share?”
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