by Bill Thesken
Back at the room the old lady and the team had concluded their search of the motel room and were gathered outside by their cars. Some of them were scanning the outskirts of the area and I knew that they knew that they’d been set up, that I was watching them and there was nothing they could do about it.
I’d seen all I needed to see and put the scope in my pocket and slid down a pipe next to the building and disappeared down the alley into the night.
11.
They decided to have the news conference in the rotundum of the County building. It was big enough for a large crowd and had good acoustics and had the official County Seal and Motto in the background that would look good on film and make people think that the problem was being taken care of by those in power. The Mayor, the Chief of Police, the head of the protection agency, and C-Dub all walked out together to face the throng of reporters and cameras.
All the major networks were there along with most of their local affiliates. The podium was bustling with microphones fastened together like a giant gray and black mushroom flower in front of them while sound technicians held even more boom mics above the trio to capture every micro-bit of sound. Over a hundred camera lenses were pointing towards them as they walked out, the still cameras clicking with a controlled frenzy, and the police chief though highly trained in crowd control, found himself wiping perspiration off his brow as he looked out at the sea of round glass and serious faces.
The mayor started off. “As you all know, one of the most beloved singers in the entire nation has been abducted on one of our streets, and her bodyguards brutally murdered while trying to protect her. There are a few leads that are being tracked, and we are doing everything we can to get Miss Nightingale back to safety. I have the chief of police, and her manager and fiancé, Mr. Washington here to answer a few questions. So let’s keep this civil and to the point please.”
The place erupted in a shouting and shoving match as every newsman and woman in the building tried to get in the first question. The Mayor pointed at a young woman in the first tier.
“Mayor, when you say you have leads, can you be more specific?”
The mayor nodded to the chief of police who stepped closer to the microphone and cleared his throat.
“From eyewitness accounts and CCTV footage we know that four black SUV’s surrounded Nightingales’ car and the escort vehicle hemming them in and blocking them, five individuals emerged from the attacking vehicles, there was a very brief firefight whereupon the chauffeur and her three bodyguards were instantly killed and Nightingale was removed from her vehicle and placed in one of the black SUV’s. The event took less than thirty seconds to be completed, and the four SUV’s all sped off in the same direction, then split up at the next intersection heading in different directions. It was obviously a very well planned out operation.”
“Any leads on the cars?” shouted a newsman towards the back.
“There are over fifty thousand black SUV’s registered in the city,” said the chief. “We have personnel combing through the database.”
Another reporter from the back shouted, “If it was a well-planned operation as you say, maybe they just painted the cars black for the job, and now they’ve been repainted to their original color.”
All the eyes in the room turned from the questioner to the chief and his heart skipped a beat. This was exactly the kind of questioning that he was worried about facing. Detailed questioning.
“Look, we have other ways besides color of identifying the vehicles in question, methods that I cannot disclose to you at this time.”
“Bullshit,” one of the reporters said just loud enough for everyone to hear but not loud enough for him to be identified in the crowd and thrown out on his ear by security.
The chief tried to pinpoint the culprit in the crowd.
“What about a ransom,” shouted another pushy newsman from the middle of the crowd. “Have there been any demands?”
The chief nodded his head. “Yes, we have a ransom demand but I can’t get into the specifics. We’ve also had a few crank callers taking responsibility and demanding rewards, but they’ve all been vetted and we do have a few individuals in custody for making false claims.”
“What about ballistics?” Shouted another from the edge. “What type of guns were used?”
Chief shook his head. “I can’t disclose that either, but I can tell you they were military caliber.”
“Are you saying the kidnappers were military trained?”
“It could be, we’re looking into that possibility. Look, these weren’t your ordinary bad guys off the streets in East LA. They had this thing timed out to perfection, and we can’t rule out the fact that it does resemble a military type operation. We also can’t rule out that it was an operation planned in another country.”
“Terrorism?” Shouted a few reporters at once.
“No, we think we can pretty much rule that out. As I said before, we have a ransom demand and we believe this is all about money. Next question.” In his mind he patted himself on the back, he was getting the hang of it now, putting these jerk reporters in their place. Another shouting match ensued from the throng, and the chief pointed to a well-dressed reporter in the front row. One of Cole’s guys.
“Mr. Washington, what about the timing of your record company releasing the album the day after Miss Nightingale was abducted?”
The room grew quiet as C-Dub stepped forward to the microphones and surveyed the crowd. It was about time someone directed a question towards him, and he somewhat relished being in the spotlight.
Might as well get this out of the way. It was a perfect planted question.
“First of all,” he began. “My condolences to the families of those brave men who were guarding our Nightingale on that fateful night when she was brutally kidnapped by force. They went to work that night to provide for their families, and they did not return. For that we are truly saddened. You ask about the timing of the album being released the day after that awful event.”
The same reporter re-affirmed his questioning. “Yes, some are saying it was publicity stunt gone wrong, or maybe just a publicity stunt with bad intent.”
C-Dub shook his head and surveyed the crowd of reporters with anger in his eyes, and he took his time before responding.
“Well, I have to say there’s something sick about the type of people who would insinuate something as devious as that. The album was scheduled to be released on the day that it was in fact released, the wheels were already in motion long before this happened, the album was in the physical stores, the on-line stores were keyed with the digital imprint, and there was no way for us to recall the product even if we wanted to, it was already on the shelves. It’s an unfortunate event, but it was out of our control. I tried to stop the release but it was too late.”
The same reporter kept up with his line of questioning. “Do you think it would have shot to number one in the world without this ‘unfortunate event’, as you put it?”
C-Dubs’ eyes narrowed. “Are you accusing us of orchestrating this murderous event to sell albums? The hell with you.”
“I’m just asking a question Mr. Washington. We’re reporters, this is what we do, we ask questions. Do you think that this event contributed to the album’s overnight success?”
C-Dub nodded and shrugged his shoulders. “Or course it did. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t. Yes, the level of interest in the album increased with the news of her kidnapping. And yes the timing is suspect to people with overly active and suspicious minds like yourself. And yet I also believe that the album would have done very, very well without this terrible tragedy happening, and I do believe it would have eventually gotten to number one on the charts, just not as quickly as it did. However, we’re not here to talk about albums, or conspiracy theories. We’re here to talk about Gale Nighting and how we are going to bring her back safe. You have my word on that. We have a ransom demand and we are working on putting it together.”
The news reporters looked stunned.
“What?…” was all one of the closest in front could manage.
“Why would he just walk out of the hospital, what was wrong with him?” asked another.
“He has head trauma,” answered Mason. “He didn’t know who he was or where he was. He has amnesia and has no recollection of the events of the attack and kidnapping. We’re asking for your help to find him.”
The reporter up front was brutal. “So not only did you lose Nightingale, you lost an agent who was in a hospital bed?”
The entire audience looked as one mass from the questioner to Mason.
The chief felt a twinge in his chest and stepped back up to the podium, not pleased with the question. “Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our news conference, we need to get back to work finding Gale Nighting. You have the facts of the case and we’ll be updating you as events unfold. Thank you.”
The place erupted in shouted questions from every angle, and turned into a mob, the cameras and microphones like clubs and spears held aloft by an angry tribe as the Police Chief ushered his entourage out of the rotundum and through an adjacent door that was flanked by heavily armed officers.
12.
I look at my watch and note the time. It’s half past midnight in beautiful downtown Brea, and I’m two blocks over from Wilshire Boulevard on the mean outskirts of the swank section of L.A., where everyone in the world wants to be. Hollywood is a few miles to the East, while Beverly Hills is a few miles and a couple of worlds to the north.
Brea in Spanish means tar, La Brea literally means the tar. I’m standing across the street from a club aptly named ‘The Pit’ in reference to the nearby La Brea Tar Pits, the last resting place of exotic and extinct creatures such as Mastodon Elephants, Saber Tooth Cats, an American Lion, and the Camelops, which is sort of a cross between a Camel and a Llama.
I remembered going there on a field trip with my fifth grade class and going on a tour. It was one of the most fun and informative trips I’d ever been on in school, and I remembered every bit of it, every sight and sound and smell. I loved detailed history and I swam in it, soaked it up like a sponge and wallowed in it like a pig in a swamp.
Just around eleven thousand years ago at the end of the Pleistocene era and the last ice age, the area around present day Los Angeles was teeming with exotic wild life. Mankind had not yet made it this far around the globe, and was still trekking across the Asian continent to the land bridge that stretched across the Bering Strait.
While the glaciers receded at the top of the North American continent, this area was cool and moist, rivers and streams filled with running water, low jungles and grass lands. Along with the big cats and Mastodon’s there was even a strange creature called the Harlan’s Ground Sloth that grew up to nine feet tall and weighed fifteen hundred pounds.
I couldn’t imagine a fifteen hundred pound sloth meandering around on the same ground that was now covered in concrete and buildings, high rises and stores and homes.
For tens of thousands of years asphalt tar seeped and bubbled its way up through cracks in the earth and formed thick sticky pools that were covered with dirt and leaves in the middle of a semi tropical paradise, and when a large hapless animal like the Sloth wandered into the area it became mired in the black glue, hooved feet unable to move and falling over into the pit to die.
Predator animals would come from far and wide to feed on the dying or dead animal, and also became trapped. Tar pits tended to capture more predators than prey, and the pits are known as predator traps.
A human generation is measured in twenty years, and in the time since Mastodon’s and Saber Tooth Tigers and fifteen hundred pound Sloths were running all over this place eleven thousand years in the past, it boiled down to a short five hundred and fifty generations ago that this part of the world was a much different place.
How times have changed.
As I stood in the shadow of the doorway to a dark and shuttered tattoo parlor, I marveled at how far we had come as a species, how far human evolution had advanced and moved forward, since those pre-historic days.
Trash and bottles litter the street, cigarette butts, spit, projectile vomit, gum, graffiti, the works. It was all here. Humanity at its finest. A filthy bum is passed out on the corner, while another searches the trash cans nearby for bottles and cans to trade for booze or worse. Across the street from where I stand, grinding over-amplified metal guitar, grunting lyrics, and pounding drum sounds are oozing from The Pit in the early morning hours. It’s a punk rock rap club on the edge of the miracle mile.
This is the place I was heading to with the star on that fateful night. This wonderful place.
There’s a doorman at the front of the joint, checking ID’s, letting in some people and waving others off. He’s short and round with a midsection like a steel trash can, and moves pretty quick for guy his size. Maybe he was a wrestler in the past, I thought, definitely not a boxer, not enough reach with those stubby arms. He looked like the kind of guy you could pepper with jabs, but if you got too close he’d put you in a headlock and squeeze your melon right off your neck.
I’ve been watching for about half an hour and I can’t figure out his method of choosing who goes in or who gets waved off. The ones who do get the approval get a metal detector wand before they get past the bouncer and into the club. He seems to be enjoying himself, the big man at the front of a music hell candy store.
A pack of about a half dozen punkers, shaved heads, metal spikes and leather jackets get waved in, while a couple of stoned surfer types in laid back valley clothes get waved off and practically chased down the street. Then a couple of nearly identical punkers as the ones who got let in, get chased away, while some normal looking patrons get in. It’s a pretty popular spot I had to admit, but now with the time winding down and getting close to one o’clock in the morning the line had thinned out to no-one. The bouncer looked agitated, since there wasn’t anyone left for him to judge.
I decided to find out if I made the grade and wandered across the street towards the entrance. He saw me coming from far away, and I could see his eyes narrow and a faint little satisfied glint in the corner of his mouth. Another victim, he was thinking.
I smiled and nodded, then pulled out my wallet and showed him my driver’s license, the one that said Conrad Pennington III. He checked it front and back, shined a blue light on it to see if it was counterfeit and handed it back.
“Conrad Pennington the third huh, what the hell kind of name is that?”
“I don’t know, a regular name I guess.”
“You from England?”
“East L.A.”
“Bullshit.”
“Whittier memorial hospital.”
“Sure, the uppity part of East L.A. Doesn’t count, doesn’t count around here pal.”
“You gonna let me in or we gonna stand out here and talk about old times all night?”
“Why should I let you in, we got high standards around here.”
Half a block away, a drunk on the street corner was busy hurling in the bushes.
“Yeah, I can tell,” I said.
Maybe it was the sarcastic remark that did the trick. He squinted at me and shook his head. “Naw, you aint getting in pal. Ever.”
“Why not? Give me a valid reason and I walk away.”
“Simple, we aint allowing anyone named Pennington in tonight. Too much of a wuss name.”
I measured the distance to his neck, a crisp backhand would do nice right about now.
His face changed color, that really did the trick. “You’ll pay a hundred bucks to get in here?”
I nodded. “It’s all yours. Just step aside.”
“ Hand it over so I can count it.”
He counted the bills out slowly, then shined the blue flashlight on each one in turn to see if they were legitimate, and finally satisfied, folded them neat and put them in his back pocket.
I started to push past him and he held his arm out to stop me. I wanted to break it in half.
“What gives?”
“You still aint getting in.”
“What about the hundred bucks.”
“That’s for wasting my time. I’m a busy man.”
This guy really likes messing with people, and with his size probably gets away with it most all of the time. I took a deep breath and sighed, then looked around for any potential witnesses to the crime that was about to happen. A couple of young Asian guys who’d also been denied entry were leaning against a railing nearby watching the scene unfold.
“You know I’ve seen a lot of messed up characters in my day, but you take the cake pal,” I said. “What happened, someone kick you out of the sandbox in Kindergarten? Block the drinking fountain so you couldn’t quench your thirst at recess? Carrying that around with you all this time, and now it’s payback? It’s gotta be something in your developmental years that made you like this. So what was it?”
He took it all in, stone-faced and mute, and spit on the ground.
“I’ll tell you what,” he announced. “If you can get by me, I’ll let you in. I’ll even give you back your hundred bucks, how’s that?”
