“Oh, no. You’re not going anywhere without me.”
“But it’s been almost an hour since she called.”
Eric nodded. “Call her. Tell her the officer outside her house is going to take her downtown. We’ll meet her there.”
“She’ll never go. She doesn’t trust cops.”
“This is way beyond that now, Angel. Convince her.”
“No. Just tell him to bring her here. I’ll go and make some coffee. I’ll make some chorizo and eggs, too, enough for your friends.”
She hurried to the kitchen even as Eric yelled her name after her.
He turned toward the crime scene officer, who was smiling like a gossip columnist who’d just found the scoop of the century.
“So, Neal, did you just happen to be driving around the block and saw a dummy hanging from the door?”
“Screw you, Collins.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. She’s a hot little number.”
Eric narrowed his eyes and the man stepped back and cleared his throat. “Sorry. I just thought…”
“What do you have on the dummy?”
“Nothing. No prints, not a thing. The note was spit out of a laser printer. I can get a tag on it, but I need something to match it to.”
“Don’t bother. I know who did it. Or, let me rephrase that, I know who it was done for. I’m sure by now the machine it was printed on is in a dump somewhere.”
“Sorry.” Collins shrugged his shoulders, then cocked his head and sniffed. “Is that chorizo I smell?”
He pushed past Eric, who blew out a breath and put his hands on his hips.
“Collins! We have work to do. Remember?”
He got no answer, nor did he really expect one. Two of the uniformed officers who were outside were sticking their noses in the door, sniffing and looking around with hunger in their eyes.
“In there,” Eric said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder. “Eat, and then get your asses back to work.”
* * * * *
Angel put a tortilla filled with eggs, chorizo, and cheese in front of Khayia Black Hawk. The woman’s hands where shaking as she took up a fork. It hovered above the food; then she set it back down without cutting into it.
Her children didn’t have that problem. Three of them, from ages fifteen to eight, were more than halfway through their second plate of food. She was sure they didn’t know why they had been rousted from their beds before six a.m. But, she was also sure their home life was so unpredictable, that they’d learned to just go with the flow.
She put another plate of chorizo and egg burritos on the table and turned to Eric, who was standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room, his cell phone plastered to his ear.
He was nodding and had a very serious look on his face. She studied him and smiled. He looked more handsome now than he had the first day he’d walked into her shop. His eyebrows were drawn together and there was a scowl on his face.
Had that been only a two days ago that she’d met him? Her life had changed so drastically in those two days. Of course, the change had started when someone broke into her shop. Someone associated with Dustin Jaymes. She’d never met the man, never even heard of him. And he’d turned her world upside down.
The only good thing to come from the break-ins was Eric. She felt her cheeks grow hot as she thought about the things they’d done last night. She’d been pretty kinky in her life, but being fucked by candles by a man who insisted she call him Sir was by far the most erotic, and the most pleasurable thing she’d ever done.
“Angel. Do you think something’s happened to my Joseph?” Khayia’s hands shook as she put a cigarette in her mouth and began to rummage in her purse for her lighter.
“Of course not. Let’s go outside. You don’t want to smoke around the children while they’re eating.” She helped the older woman stand and propelled her toward the backyard.
The sound of Eric’s cell phone clicking shut told her his conversation was over.
She turned to him and lifted her eyebrows in question. He smiled in return and held up his index finger, then flipped the phone back open and moved toward the counter.
Outside, Khayia was already surrounded by a cloud of smoke.
“Did Joseph ever mention the named Dustin Jaymes to you, Khayia?”
“No. But he was gone most nights, lately. At first, when he was working for you, he’d bring home food for the kids. But that changed the last month or so. He’d give me a lot of money at the first of the week, for food. I’d hear him coming home at two or three in the morning, and then getting up for school the next day.”
Angel felt a pang of guilt because Joseph had obviously changed in the past few months, and she hadn’t even noticed it.
“How much money was he giving you?” Eric’s voice sounded from a few steps away.
Khayia shook her head violently. “None. Just what he made at Angel’s store.”
Angel put her hand on Khayia shoulder. “It’s OK. Eric’s my friend. And if you want to help Joseph, you have to be truthful with him.”
“My Joseph’s a good boy. He’s done nothing wrong.”
“Mrs. Black Hawk. He’s stolen money from one of the biggest crooks in the city. The man wants his money back. How much had Joseph been giving you?”
The woman’s eyes clouded with tears. “I didn’t spend all of it. Just enough for food and rent.”
“How much,” Angel said softly.
“A thousand dollars a week,” she said softly. “Until Monday. Monday, he gave me five thousand.”
* * * * *
“Where does an eighteen-year-old kid get five thousand dollars?” Angel asked Eric in a soft voice.
“He steals it from his mobster boss,” Eric replied. “And puts a death sentence above all their heads. I’m sure he never thought about that. It’s a miracle those four people are sitting at your table right now.”
“Surely he wouldn’t kill children?”
When Eric raised his eyebrows at her to show her that yes, he would, she shuddered.
“By the way, what are you doing with all this chorizo in your refrigerator? You had to have fed fifteen people in the last three hours and there’s leftovers. You always keep ten pounds of sausage?”
“No,” she said with a laugh. “I was going to stay home this morning and work on some recipes. I’m catering a Quinceañera a week from Saturday. I wanted to try out some different dishes. The mother and daughter were coming into the shop tomorrow morning to taste them and make a choice for the breakfast at their house in Rio Rancho before mass. Then, I’m making all the cakes and pastries for the dance that evening. The father wanted to do the barbeque himself.”
Eric nodded. He knew the coming of age party was a big event in a fifteen-year-old Hispanic girl’s life. He didn’t know Angel did catering. He didn’t have the heart to tell her they needed to make sure this was all cleared up before she thought about doing any catering, though.
He pushed her hair back from her face and leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You do know we have a problem here that’s not going away.”
“What can we do?”
“Well, we’re going to have to ruffle a few feathers. Visit Jaymes and ask him some questions. Pull his guys in for questioning about why their fingerprints were on your backdoor. His goons will come on even harder when that happens.”
“I’ve already called Carmen. Everything’s fine at the store.”
“Do me a favor. Talk to Mrs. Black Hawk. She’ll open up to you. See if anything strange besides the phone call has happened. I’m going outside and make a phone call to a friend of mine who works for the state police. Can you do that?”
The disgusted look she gave him said he’d insulted her.
“Sorry. I know you know can. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He went outside and punched Ward’s number into his cell phone. As the phone rang, it hit him Rodney Baker had not visited his dreams last night. Nor had
he made an appearance that morning. He vaguely wondered if it was because he was so busy thinking about Angel and keeping her safe that he hadn’t thought about Baker.
But still, even now, the man didn’t appear and sneer at him.
“What?” Ward’s voice was heavy with sleep and Eric checked his watch. Just after seven.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for work?”
“I’m hanging up now, Neal.”
“Don’t. I want to talk to you about Dustin Jaymes.” Eric told Ward about Khayia’s phone call, and about the dummy on Angel’s door. When the officer spoke again, all traces of sleep were gone from his voice.
“Let me make a phone call or two. I’ll get right back to you.” He disconnected and Eric shook his head. He glanced around the neighborhood. People were coming awake, coming out on their front lawns to pick up papers.
The sight of three police units sitting in front of Angel’s house had attracted attention. Husbands were calling to wives to come outside and check things out, crowds were gathering on lawns. They would need to canvas the neighborhood to see if anyone had seen or heard anything.
Of course, he’d been inside the house and hadn’t heard a thing. Some cop he was. He’d been more worried about making Angel come and getting his dick sucked, even knowing she’d had two break-ins at her store that week.
Maybe Jaymes’ men knew he was in there, too, and that’s why they hadn’t tried to come inside. He knew the phone call Khayia had received this morning wasn’t her first contact with them. Hopefully, Angel could get information out of her that he never could.
“Where are you, Joseph?” He whispered the words and shook his head. Then he turned to the porch. Officers were dusting the railings around the porch. He knew it was futile. They’d come up with dozens of prints, and wouldn’t be able to prove when any of them had occurred. He called them around him.
“We need to talk to neighbors. Reassure them nobody’s dead, and just say she had a small problem. Don’t go into details. Ask if anyone heard anything.”
The uniforms nodded and gathered to make a plan of attack. At that moment, Angel came out onto the porch. She looked beautiful with her dark hair hanging loose around her shoulders. And she looked scared and worried.
She hurried over to him. “You were right. Jaymes’ men visited Khayia every day. They told her Joseph took something that belonged to Jaymes, and he wanted it back. She tried to give them the money and they said it wasn’t money. They gave her until today to produce him, then promised to start killing her other kids.”
“Son of a bitch. Why the hell didn’t she call us?”
“They don’t trust cops. I told you that.”
“Well, you would think…” His phone rang and Eric snatched it up. “What?”
“You know, you could be nicer, seeing’s how you woke me up and dumped a shitstorm in my lap.”
“Ward. Talk to me.”
“The Black Hawk kid you’re looking for did more than steal money. According to one of our officers working on the Jaymes case, he took books, as in ledgers of accounts. They list different gambling halls he’d set up, how much money they’d made, and how much money some very influential people owe him for gambling debts.”
“Holy shit.” Eric felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.
“Exactly. I’m surprised the mother and kids aren’t dead yet, or the kid’s boss. Jaymes usually doesn’t pussy-foot around. If you ask me, his waiting meant he thinks he can get the books, and then just kill the kid. When he figured out he couldn’t do that, then he started to go after the secondary players.”
“Yeah, we’re going downtown. Can you guys take the mother and kids into protective custody?”
“Sure. You’ve got the boss handled, right?”
Eric narrowed his eyes at the tone in Ward’s voice.
“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means everyone knows you spent last night getting kneaded by a baker. Lucky son of a bitch.”
Eric heard the phone click. He flipped his own shut and turned to Angel. “We have to convince Khayia to go into custody.”
He told her what Ward had said, cautioning her that she couldn’t tell anyone else.
“I think she’s scared enough that she won’t put up much of a fuss,” Angel said softly. “What about the store?”
“I have an officer inside and two outside. They’re eating up all your profits, I’m sure.”
She laughed. “I don’t care about that. I just want Joseph to be safe.”
“Sweetie, I have to be honest with you. Joseph did a very dumb thing. You don’t mess with Dustin Jaymes. Maybe, though, we can use this to catch him and put him out of business. Just maybe.”
“How does a man like him stay in business? Gambling is legal in New Mexico. Why do people go to his illegal places?”
“They’re people that have been banned from the casinos for cheating. People who have no money, but have a gambling addiction. Jaymes fronts them the cash, for a hefty price, and that keeps them hooked and coming back for more. He makes a very tidy profit, and he’s smart enough to do things so he doesn’t get caught. Keeps things moving around and tells people one night it will be here, or there.”
“How do you move a building with slot machines and poker tables?”
“Simple. You have several manufactured buildings sitting around in the middle of nowhere. You move the machines in the dead of night. You stay one step ahead of those who are trying to bust you.”
“That sucks.”
Eric pulled her close to his chest, then kissed her forehead. “Yes, it does. But maybe, if we can get those books Joseph took, we can use them to shut him down. Permanently.”
Chapter Ten
“Our man on the inside said he took a week’s worth of books,” Ward said, sliding into a chair in Ortiz’s office. He started talking without offering a greeting. “Here’s what we know about how that works. Jaymes’ men keep the books from their different locations. They gather them on Friday evening in a central location and take them to Jaymes. The ‘accountant’ starts to work on the books on Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning, depending on how his weekend is going.”
“They didn’t notice they were gone until then? When Joseph didn’t deliver them on Friday night?” Eric shook his head. “Idiots.”
“Let’s just say Black Hawk’s smarter than I thought he was. The books are just ledger books, available at any office supply store. Joseph went and bought replacements to put in bags so the guy thought they were there. Until he opened them and found them blank.”
Eric laughed. “Smart kid.”
“You think? Now, we know from what your new friend told us Jaymes’ men visited the mother on Sunday afternoon and tore the house up looking for them. When they didn’t find them, they moved to the store and looked there.”
“I’m confused as to why they didn’t kill anyone then,” Eric said. “That’s their style, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Ward replied. “But, I really think he thought, he’s just a kid, and killing the mother and kids would attract too much attention. He wanted to get the books back and keep it quiet, before we found out.”
“Where are you taking the mother and kids?”
“Farmington,” Ward replied. “It’s hell and gone from here and Jaymes has little reach in that part of the state. Don’t worry. They’ll be safe. Where’s you new friend?”
“Sitting at my desk, pissed as hell because I wouldn’t let her come in here.”
Ward chuckled. “She won’t close down her store for a few days?”
“Nope. Says she can’t afford to, especially since she has to pay for damages not covered by the insurance.”
The phone on the desk rang and Captain Ortiz grabbed it. He barked a greeting, and then handed the phone to Eric.
Eric frowned and took it. “Yeah?”
“Where’s my mother?”
“Joseph?”
“Where’s my mothe
r? And my brothers and sister? You fucker, where are they?”
“Joseph, calm down. Jaymes threatened to kill them. We’re keeping them safe.”
A soft sob broke from the young man’s throat.
“Where are you?”
“Yeah, right, so you can arrest me? Tell me where they are.”
Eric made sure his voice sounded reassuring. “Joseph. I can help you. You have to trust me.”
“Fuck you.”
The line went dead and Eric muttered his own expletive. “Screwed that one up.”
“Let’s just hope he comes in before Jaymes finds him,” Ortiz said. “So, Eric. You and Angel Vega have become close, huh?”
“Are you asking about my personal life?”
“No. I’m thinking you can go with her to Jaymes’ gambling house tonight. Pay him a little visit.”
“Are you kidding? You think I’d put her in that much danger? Plus, he would know I’m a cop. Are you forgetting my photo was all over the paper a few months ago, when I killed Baker?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Ortiz replied. “This isn’t undercover work. Take her in there and play some games, see if Jaymes approaches you. See if we can scare him just a little bit.”
“Scare him into doing what? Putting more heat into finding Joseph? Into scaring Angelica? Fuck, no!”
“How about the fact this would just reinforce the fact we’re on to him. We know he’s up the creek and we’re going to pounce.”
Eric looked at Ward. “Shouldn’t that be your job?”
“If you go in there with Angel, it looks more relaxed,” Ward said. “If we go in, he panics and starts either tearing things down, or eliminating people who can finger him.”
“In other words, he won’t be scared of me because I’m a nobody.”
“Exactly,” Ward said.
“Thanks so much.”
When Ward had left, Eric and Ortiz sat together in silence. Finally, Eric broke the tension.
“I don’t know if…” But Ortiz didn’t let him finish the thought.
“You’re a good cop, Eric. You can handle this, you know that. In the past few days I’ve seen the real you slowly creeping back.”
Tygers 2: Sweet Perfection Page 7
