“Okay – last question: you got any other snitches working for you?”
“No,” he groaned.
“That your final answer?” I asked, holding the bat menacingly in the air.
He struggled to get the words out through his agony. “The last one… didn’t work out so well.”
I chuckled. “You can say that again.”
“I answered your questions…” he said, his eyes searching my jacket for the heroin.
“Ohhh… you want your reward, huh?”
He looked at me. He didn’t want to admit it, but yeah, he wanted it.
“Okay,” I said, reaching inside my jacket. “Deal’s a deal.”
I took out my Colt .357 and shot him in the head.
My boys came running in from outside.
“What the fuck happened?!” Eyeball yelled.
“I got bored. Get rid of the body so nobody can find shit,” I said. I handed Eyeball the two phones I’d taken from Eddie’s house. “And get rid of these while you’re at it. Use the cremation oven at the funeral home, or a vat of acid if you can get it. I don’t want anybody to know about this, you hear me? Nobody.”
With that, I left them to handle the details while I plotted my next move.
145
Roach was a lost cause. They’d probably Guantanamo his ass until they had a case on me. But that was fine – losing a few foot soldiers like Roach was no big fuckin’ deal.
What was a big fuckin’ deal was I’d just offed a DEA agent.
Didn’t have much of a choice, really. What was I supposed to do, hand him back over to the Feds, half beaten to death?
I guess I could have quarantined him, just had him sit at home with his dick in his hand – but then I’d never know what he was up to, would I?
And now I knew plenty.
I knew the DEA’d had their sights set on me for almost three years now.
I knew I’d been careful enough that they didn’t have enough to make the bust.
I knew they’d used Venus as a snitch, but she hadn’t given them shit before I had Benjy shoot her.
And I knew that Fiona wasn’t a snitch, either.
As long as nobody ever found Eddie’s body or his phone, the DEA couldn’t prove shit.
I was safe.
146
Or at least, that’s what I thought until I got that surprise visit from Sloane two weeks later.
Shit only got worse when I got a voicemail from Einstein about what he was seeing on his surveillance cameras.
“Lou, a pickup truck is coming down the driveway – did you send anybody out here? Oh no – it’s Jack Pollari, he just got out of the truck. He’s with that blond biker guy and a hot chick – OH SHIT, they’ve got guns! – ”
I hadn’t listened to the rest of the message. I’d had to round up Benjy and the others.
Ah, Benjy – now that had been a stroke of genius. Hadn’t really planned to off the kid – well, not this time, anyway. Not if Chuck had come through. But, hey – silver lining: now I’d wrapped up that loose end, too. One less witness to testify against me for the DEA.
Speaking of the Douchebag Enema Assholes, I hadn’t mentioned them at the showdown because I didn’t want Jack and Fiona to know Sloane had clued me in. The fact that they hadn’t brought it up either all but confirmed to me what Sloane had said. Made me wonder if they were wearing wires. They might have tried to get me to admit something if I hadn’t used Benjy as a distraction.
Guess I’d never know, since Chuck had fucked up his one chance at nailing them and got shot in the head instead.
All my problems were multiplying by the hour. The DEA was after me, which was a known fact. But now they’d recruited Jack, probably to do the dirty work they couldn’t – like blow shit up with a rocket launcher.
Speaking of shit blowing up, I was out a hundred grand for the lab. Not to mention I was deep in hock, my seven best guys were all dead – four at the meth lab, the rest at Jack’s house the other night – and I had at least three angry assholes gunning for me, plus a mystery sniper. Not to mention they had the federal government on their side.
Over in the plus column, I had my remaining boys digging up three million dollars worth of ice… I had an impending business deal to sell it… and I had a wild card named Sloane up my sleeve.
Time to make a phone call.
“Rodrigo,” I said as soon as I got him on the line. “Time to move up the time table, amigo.”
147
Fiona
DEA grunts scrubbed out the back of Sid’s car so he wasn’t driving around a bloodbath on wheels. After that, and with Fordham’s permission, Sid ran out and got Jack and me whole new outfits. (“Never, ever ask me to buy you skivvies again,” Sid griped.) Considering they’d been through two blazing hot days, a fire, a meth lab explosion, and a couple of shootouts, our clothes were a little ripe.
DEA headquarters had a bathroom with a shower. After a good scrubbing and a change of clothes, I felt almost human again.
Before we left, Fordham gave us all burners – cheap, disposable cell phones – and had us transfer any contact info we needed from our old phones (well, my old phone, seeing as Jack’s had been shot) into the new ones.
“In case Chief Peters decides he wants to perpetrate some illegal wiretapping or phone tracking before you take him out of office,” Fordham said, “he won’t know to track these new ones.”
Although when he said ‘take him out of office,’ it sounded more sarcastic than confident.
As Fordham was about to let us go, Sid grumbled, “Christ, now I gotta play Drivin’ Miss Daisy to you two with fuckin’ biker gangs shootin’ at my ass.”
“I might be able to help with that,” Fordham said. “Go on out front, Semper Fi, I’ll send ‘em around to meet you.”
While Sid went out to his car, Fordham took us down a long hallway and into a motor pool, where a small fleet of shiny new SUVs, sports cars, and motorcycles stood parked.
“Take what you need,” Fordham said. “They’re seizures from drug busts and gang shit we haven’t turned over to the regional office yet.”
“Really?” I asked in shock.
“Are you serious?” Jack asked, looking at a top-of-the-line Harley.
“Well, I want them back,” Fordham said in exasperation. “These are loaners for the next couple of days, not gifts. But as long as you’re going to get shot at, you might as well get shot at in style.”
I paused beside a Lamborghini.
“Maybe try to stay slightly inconspicuous, huh?” Fordham snapped.
I pouted for a second, then chose a shiny black Escalade instead. Jack took the Harley.
Fordham got the keys from a locked cabinet in the wall, then tossed them underhanded to us. “I’m betting hard on you assholes. Don’t make me regret it.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I’ll tack five years onto your sentences if you steal them, that’s why.”
“No, I mean – ”
“I know what you meant.” He looked at Jack’s Harley. “For Eddie, partly. Because I want to nail the sons of bitches who killed him more than I’ve ever wanted anything else in my life.”
“We don’t know that he’s… well, not for sure,” I said, although I couldn’t even convince myself.
Fordham gave me an under-the-eyebrow Gimme a break kind of look. “Let’s not kid ourselves. You and I both know what Lou Shaw’s capable of.”
“You said ‘partly,’” I pointed out.
“What?”
“You said ‘partly for Eddie.’ What’s the other part?”
Fordham looked over his shoulder at the door to the offices, as though he were making sure no one else could hear him. Then he turned back to us.
“Partly for Eddie… partly because the top brass are making me close up shop, and you jokers are my only option… and partly because I’m at the end of the road. Forced retirement six months from now. I’d like to go out with a bang.”
I looked at him coldly. “So, a nice big bust to end to your career.”
Fordham fixed me with a steely gaze. “Let me tell you something, Christenson. I’ve done this for 31 years. Got in at 26 – first the marines, then college, then straight into the DEA. I could have retired at 51 with 25 years of service, but I didn’t. You want to know why? Because I like catching bad guys. And the longer I’ve done this, the more fuckin’ bad guys I’ve seen slip through the cracks. I cuff ‘em and process ‘em and send ‘em to court, and occasionally one goes away forever – but the truth is, the average motherfucker goes to jail for six or seven years, then they get out and do more bad shit. And then I have to catch ‘em all over again, but this time they’re smarter and meaner. It’s like catch and release where the fish gradually turns into a barracuda, then a hammerhead, then a Great White shark every time you bag him. And I’m fuckin’ sick and tired of it.
“Lou Shaw and the Santa Muertes are some of the shittiest lowlifes I’ve ever had the misfortune of chasing. Dan Peters? He’s just a corrupt idiot. I want him behind bars because the only thing worse than a criminal is a criminal with a badge. Fucks up people’s trust in the system.
“The Santa Muertes, unfortunately, are like weeds – pull out a hundred of them, and a thousand’ll take their place. No way to get rid of them unless you burn the whole fuckin’ town down – and even then, some more weeds from the next town over’ll just blow in, take root, and start the whole shitshow over again.
“But Lou Shaw… he’s the one I want. He’s smart, he’s vicious, and he’s the head of one particular dragon that hasn’t gotten too big to kill yet. If you cut the head off now, the rest of it’ll die, guaranteed. I either want to see him dead or serving three consecutive life sentences without parole.”
Fordham paused.
“Actually, Lou’s exactly the type that’d end up running a criminal empire from his prison cell… so no, I just want to see the fucker dead.”
“Is that permission?” Jack asked. “Or just a preference?”
“Let’s just say I won’t cry any tears if he ends up with an extra nostril or two. But if you say I said that, then fuck you. I’ll perjure myself in court, and we both know who they’ll believe.”
“Say you said what?” Jack asked nonchalantly.
Fordham grinned and pointed his finger at Jack like Attaboy. Then he got serious again. “But, just so we’re clear – I want Lou, I want Peters, and I want the Santa Muertes – or no fuckin’ deal.”
“And you think we can succeed where the DEA failed,” I said sarcastically.
“We at the DEA are hampered by rules you are not,” Fordham pointed out.
“Rules you’ll overlook if we break them?”
Fordham shrugged. “If I’m not there in the forest when the tree falls, how do I know it made a sound?”
“Never thought I’d hear a Fed say that,” Jack said as he got on the Harley.
“And you didn’t,” Fordham said.
“Understood,” Jack agreed.
I got in the Escalade. “Got a pep talk for us before we go out on the front line?”
“How’s this: get me my perps, don’t die, and you won’t go to jail.”
I rolled my eyes as I got in the Escalade. “Great pep talk.”
Why did all the guys in the DEA have to be assholes?
And then Fordham did something unexpected.
“Hey Christenson… you asked why I’m betting on you, but you asked the wrong question.”
“What’s the right one?” I asked, about as enthusiastic to hear the answer as a teenage goth girl at a knitting party.
“The right question is, why am I trusting you?”
Fordham pointed at me.
“Risked her life to go undercover to find out who killed her cousin.”
Then he pointed at Jack.
“Lifelong criminal who tried to go straight, almost succeeded… then risked it all for a woman he’d just met.”
Fordham looked me square in the eyes. “If I gotta bet hard on somebody… I’ll take you two.”
With that, he walked back inside headquarters and shut the door.
I have to admit, I was a little choked up as I drove out of the motor pool and onto the road back to reality.
148
We wanted to be sure to keep the hell out of Lou’s way until it was time for the final act, so we lit out for the territories. The ‘territories,’ in this case, being Morro Bay.
It’s a beautiful little beach community a couple hours west of Richards. We figured it was far enough away to be safe, but close enough to quickly dive back into the fray. It was also a random enough choice that Lou wouldn’t anticipate our going there.
At my request, Sid used AirBnB to rent a deserted little bungalow on a hill overlooking the ocean.
“Enjoy the bonin’,” he said as he took off for his hotel down the road.
Jack and I got a bottle of wine (for me), a bottle of high-end whiskey (for him), and a couple of deli sandwiches, then sat out on the back porch eating and watching the sun go down.
“What are you thinking?” he asked as I finished my second glass.
“Honestly?”
“Yeah, unless it’s ‘God I hate Jack Pollari so much.’”
I laughed, then shook my head. “Honestly, I was thinking this might be the last sunset I ever see – either outside of prison, or alive – so I better enjoy it.”
He got serious. “Don’t think like that.”
“Fordham doesn’t seem too hot on our chances.”
“Fordham’s a dick.”
I was surprised by that. “He’s been pretty good to us so far.”
“You mean, like every time he jokes about putting you in prison?”
“Okay,” I relented. “He’s been pretty good to us so far… for a dick.”
Jack shrugged as he took another drink. “I’ll give him that. But he’s still a Fed. He’s helping us to help himself, not out of the goodness of his heart.”
I could feel myself growing glum. “What do you think our chances are? Realistically.”
He stared out at the sky glowing pink and orange. “Well… if everything breaks our way… pretty good.”
“That’s like saying ‘If I roll two ones, I have a good chance of getting snake eyes.’”
Jack laughed. “I suppose you’re right. But with Sloane on our side, I figure we’re playing with loaded dice.”
“Are we sure they’re loaded in our favor?” I asked, skeptical.
He shrugged. “I always trust Sloane to do what’s best for Sloane. If she got a better deal from Lou, I’m pretty sure she’d come back to renegotiate terms… so for now, I’d say yeah, they’re loaded in our favor.”
“She’s a very… attractive woman,” I said as neutrally as I could.
“She’s also a bitch and a half when she wants to be.”
“And I’m not?”
“Any time you were a bitch and a half to me, you had good reason for it.”
“Sloane didn’t?”
“Not unless you think wanting to keep selling drugs is a good reason.”
“So… you two are done?”
“Yup.”
“Done done?” I asked dubiously.
“To a fuckin’ crisp.” He looked at me, trying to suppress a smile. “Why?”
“Just asking.” I looked at him from out of the corner of my eye. “Why are you asking?”
“Well, I was hoping you and I still have a long stretch of road to travel together. But I wasn’t sure what you wanted.”
My heart fluttered to hear him say it – but I tried to play it cool. “I’d like that.”
His ‘barely a smile’ turned into a full-fledged grin. “Good.”
149
I don’t know whose idea it was – I was a little buzzed by that point – but after dinner we ended up walking along the road among the cottages.
“I wanted to ask you something,” I said.
/> “Okay…” Jack said warily.
“It’s about Benjy and Ali. I just don’t see how that could have happened… he seemed like such a nice guy. Mentally slow, yeah, but he didn’t seem like he had a mean bone in his body.”
Jack was silent.
“Did you ever suspect he might have done it?” I asked.
“Yeah, I did, for about two seconds,” he admitted. “But Lou convinced me otherwise at the time. And I’ve spent the last few hours kicking myself for listening to him.”
I looked at him in surprise. “Why did you think it could have been him?”
“When a woman gets killed, the prime suspect is usually the boyfriend or husband.”
It took me a second to register what he meant.
“…Benjy and Ali?!”
“Yeah. Briefly.”
“How?! Ali didn’t exactly go after the smartest guys, but – Benjy?!”
“I got the impression it was based more on drugs than anything else.”
“…oh… why didn’t you tell me?”
“About them being involved? I thought you knew.”
“No – about suspecting him of being the shooter.”
He grimaced. “Like I said, I got the impression their… whatever it was, was based more on drugs than anything else. I never seriously thought Benjy could do something like that. So I guess I didn’t think it was worth bringing up something so…”
“Sordid?” I asked. I felt sick.
He took my hand, stopped me, and looked in my eyes. “Hey – I’m sorry. I would have told you if I thought there was even a chance that – ”
“It’s not that,” I said glumly. “It just… it sucks.”
“She was a good person. She just had her demons, that’s all.”
“What, you have demons, too?”
“We all do. Just different kinds.”
“And you think Benjy’s demons drove him to kill her?” I asked bitterly.
“No, I think Lou did. And he’ll pay for it, I swear to you. Even if we can’t get the Santa Muertes and Dan Peters, and we have to spend twenty years in prison, Lou Shaw is a dead man. That I promise you.”
Midnight Obsession: A Midnight Riders Motorcycle Club Romance Part 4 Page 33
