Doberman drove out of the protected zone and entered the slums that began two blocks away. It was hard for Vinny to feel too angry over his situation when he saw people sleeping on benches or in ratty tents, their bellies empty.
His life was paradise compared to this. When he had first met Adriana, she, too, was sleeping in a tent but was too embarrassed to tell him. They used to screw in his car or in one of several hotels in the Goldilocks Zone.
It wasn’t until he followed her home after one of those all-night sessions that he saw where she really lived, not far from the park they were passing now.
Doberman gunned it as they entered light traffic. He weaved around slower vehicles, speeding toward the hospital.
Vinny felt his phone buzz. He pulled it out and saw that it was his father.
Flashing lights in the distance distracted him—blue and red strobes from dozens of police cruisers. The cops had already locked down the area.
Doberman kept a respectful distance, pulling to the side of the road. Vinny spotted the two Mercedeses that Joey and his men had driven here. Even from this distance, he could see the bullet holes speckling the sides. Bodies covered with white sheets lay in the street.
Vinny’s cell phone buzzed again, and he brought it to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Get the fuck back to the compound,” said his father.
“On my way.”
Vinny hung up and told Doberman to pull up closer. He drove toward the taped-off area that gave them a view of the street. For a moment, they sat there, staring at the shrouded corpses of men they had fought beside for years.
Joey, only a few years older than Vinny, was a personal friend. A made guy who had helped run a dealer spot outside the Four Diamonds. Now he was dead, slaughtered by the Saints.
Vinny clenched his jaw in rage. He wondered who these men were who could be so stupid and so brave.
Were they his age? Or were they older men like his uncle and his father, men who had experience fighting wars?
Whoever it was, they were well trained and understood what it took for an underdog to win a battle. Their guerrilla tactics continued to take gangsters off the streets, and Vinny began to fear that he was next.
“My uncle was right when he said these men are wolves, but I’ll be damned if Marco gets them first,” Vinny said.
Doberman glanced over.
“The Saints might have won this battle, but we will crush them in the war,” Vinny said. “This is how I make captain, and how you get made.”
-9-
Ray Clarke nursed a coffee on his way to the hospital. He drove his Audi alone this morning. Tommy was still inside the intensive care unit, but Ray wasn’t here to check on his new partner.
He was here to see the handiwork of what could only be the Saints, and to figure out who their inside source was. After the port attack and the hijacking of the RX-4 shipment, the Morettis were going to be knocking on doors, and he wanted to have something for them when they came knocking on his. Any pragmatic man would do the same.
If he wants to stay alive.
He parked in a blocked-off area with several other city vehicles. The sun hid behind clouds and a thick layer of haze over the city, but he could clearly see the crime scene ahead. The Saints had left behind their calling card: dead Morettis.
Bloody white sheets still covered eight corpses, and the forensic units were busy working the scene. He walked past them, nodding at one of his buddies in uniform.
Dressed in jeans and a black sleeveless T-shirt that showed off the tattoos on his dark skin, Ray didn’t look much like a cop this morning, but that was the point. He didn’t want to draw attention to his unofficial business.
He took a drag off a cigarette, filling his lungs with chemicals on top of those already in the air. A bandanna hung loosely around his neck, but he didn’t bother using it this morning.
Everyone was going to die, and he had the feeling that a bullet would bring him down before lung cancer ever did.
He flipped his shades down over his eyes as the sun peeked through the clouds. Keeping his distance, he examined the scene. The road and parking lot looked like a war zone: empty bullet casings littering the asphalt, broken windows, bullet holes, and dried or drying blood.
The Saints had had one hell of a night.
They thought they were some sort of superheroes, or Robin Hood and his merry men, or some such shit. But the team was engaging in outlawry with its tactics. Whoever they were, they didn’t seek warrants or ask questions. Not that Ray did either, but still . . .
Cops had one all-important law to follow: not to fuck with the crime families. And certainly not to kill any of their men.
The Saints thought they were helping. But in fact, they were making things worse for this city and the cops, especially now. They had broken the deal between Chief Stone and Don Antonio Moretti.
That was what the assholes didn’t seem to understand. They were running through a minefield that had no end.
But why? What would drive them on this suicide mission? Ray had a feeling it was some sort of vendetta against the Moretti and Vega families. Maybe they all were just batshit crazy.
Anyone else might have said the same thing about Ray. After all, he was playing both sides, having just sold the ARX160s and GLX160s to Vinny Moretti. But playing with fire was always his thing. It made him feel alive.
He finished off his coffee and tossed the empty cup onto an overfilled trash barrel as he walked through the parking lot. The RX-4 would be long gone by now, already getting to those who needed it most. Ray couldn’t blame the Saints for that. Stealing it and giving it to the impoverished did help save lives in the short term. But it would mean more dead locals when, and not if, the Morettis retaliated.
There was a pact between good and evil in the City of Angels, and Ray was only trying to keep that contract in place. Maybe, just maybe, the Morettis would see these as the actions of a vigilante group that wasn’t connected to the LAPD, but he had his doubts. And Don Antonio didn’t forgive.
Ray glanced up at the side of the hospital as he walked to the entrance, checking which windows had a view of the road and the parking lot paved with empty brass.
It looked as though a real firefight had gone down here. And once again the Saints had made it out apparently unscathed. But even superheroes died eventually.
He walked inside the packed emergency room. People with radiation poisoning, people with injuries from domestic assaults or casual street violence—the sights were all pretty typical.
He showed his badge to a hospital guard wearing baggy pants and dirty glasses. The guy looked like a washout from the police academy.
“Go ahead,” the man said.
Medical personnel hustled past as Ray approached a checkpoint. He kept his cool, trying to blend in with the hospital staff and people visiting their families. Signs led him to the administration office, where he stopped and knocked.
A heavyset woman with very short hair studied a stack of papers on her metal desk. “What?” she asked, hardly looking up.
Ray flashed his million-dollar smile.
“Detective Ray Clarke”—he leaned in to look at her name tag—“Ms. Kingsley.”
“I already talked to the cops,” she said. “I have no idea where the RX-Four is.”
“Of course you don’t, and I’m not here to ask you about that. I’m here to see who was on duty last night.”
She glanced up, clearly annoyed.
“I already handed that over too.” Raising a brow and tilting her head slightly, she said, “You got a badge, Detective . . .”
“Clarke.” He gave her a quick look at his badge and snapped the leather case shut.
“Dr. Jennifer Collins, Dr. Abdul Hogan, and Dr. Amelia Garcia were on duty last night, but they all went home,” she said. “For a full roster of staff, I suggest you check with Sergeant Smith.”
He nodded. “Thanks for the info, darlin’.”
&nbs
p; She rolled her eyes, and Ray went to the third floor, pausing when he saw that it was the radiation ward. He hated visiting places like this. Most of these people were in bad shape—covered in lesions, bald, with failing organs. Chances were, some of that RX-4 was already up here.
He opened the door and walked past a room where a family huddled around the bed of a kid no older than his youngest boy, Jamal.
“Can I help you?” a nurse asked.
Ray looked down, obscuring his face from a direct view.
“Yeah, I need to ask your patients some questions,” he said, flashing his badge again.
The young girl looked at it and said, “About the shooting?”
“Yeah. I want to know if anyone saw anything.”
She hesitated, as if unsure whether she should talk.
“Go ahead, sweetie. You can trust me.” He smiled. Not the sly grin he used on girls, but the smile he would use on their parents.
Apparently, she wasn’t buying it.
“No one saw anything up here,” she said.
Ray shrugged it off and continued down the hallway. The next two nurses had amazingly not seen anything, either. Nor had the guy covered in lesions whose room had a front-row seat over the parking lot.
No one wanted to talk to him. Not that he blamed them. People were terrified of the cops and even more terrified of the gangsters. But someone had seen something. Nothing happened in this city without someone seeing it. He just had to figure out who would talk to him about it.
On his way back out, he stopped at the first room. The window didn’t look over the parking lot, but it did have a view of the road.
Ray knocked. The dad opened the door, and the boy looked over as Ray walked inside.
He showed his badge to the family and said, “I’d like to ask your son a few questions, if that’s okay?”
The father and mother exchanged a glance, and he gave a nod. Before they could change their minds, Ray moved to the side of the bed and knelt.
“Hey there, buddy, I’m a police officer. I’m one of the good guys, like that guy,” he said, gesturing toward the stuffed toy reindeer the boy clutched under his arm.
“What’s your friend’s name?”
The boy looked down at the reindeer. It was missing a patch of hair between its antlers.
“Bingo,” he said. “This is Bingo.”
“Nice to meet you, Bingo. I’m Detective Clarke, but you can call me Ray.”
“Hi, Ray,” the boy said. “Are you really one of the good guys?’
The question took Ray off guard, and for a fleeting moment he wasn’t sure how to answer. Lying was part of his job, but he wasn’t sure anymore which he was: good guy or bad.
“Yeah,” he replied after a pause. “And I was hoping you could tell me what you saw last night, so I can catch the bad guys.”
The kid crinkled his freckled nose and looked at his dad.
“Go ahead, Jackie,” the man said.
“I saw people in the parking lot shooting, and I saw . . .”
He looked at his dad again.
“It’s okay, Jackie,” Ray said with a smile. “Maybe you can just tell me what Bingo saw.”
The little cracked lips smiled. Before replying, Jackie gave a deep cough that rattled in his lungs.
“Sometimes, I can’t sleep at night,” he said. “And I like to watch the city. I was at the window before the shooting, and I saw my doctor out there talking to guys with black masks and baseball caps on.”
“What’s your doctor’s name?” Ray asked.
“Abdul,” the dad said. “Dr. Abdul Hogan.”
Ray smiled at the boy. “That’s good, but what did you see after the shooting started?”
Again Jackie looked to his father.
Reaching out, Ray patted Bingo on the head. “It’s okay, you can tell me.”
The mother pulled on the father’s sleeve, as if she didn’t want them to say anything. But the father shook his head.
“Go ahead and tell Detective Clarke,” he said.
Jackie met Ray’s gaze. “I saw the driver of the pickup truck that killed those guys in the street. He lost his baseball cap, and he had hair that reminded me of Bingo.”
Antlers.
“What else did you notice about this guy?”
Jackie shrugged. “He was big and had dark skin. Kind of like yours.”
Ray forced a smile, his gut in knots. He stood and patted the kid on the arm. “You’d make a good cop, kid. Thanks for the info.”
“Did I help you catch the bad guys?” Jackie called out after him.
Ray nodded, then looked back at the parents.
“Who else knows what Jackie saw?”
“Nobody,” the mother said.
“Just you,” replied the father.
Ray walked over to the closed door. “Best to keep that to yourselves. We don’t want the Morettis finding out what little Jackie Boy saw.”
* * *
Dom flipped burgers on the rusted grill. Each balcony of the shoddy postwar government housing units had one, and tonight they also had power.
He carefully turned each hunk of meat in the glow, just as he had seen his father do during their last barbecue, over ten years ago.
Moose pointed at a burger. “That one needs a little bit more.”
A side-eye from Dom shut him up.
“I asked if you’d rather do it yourself,” Dom said.
Moose grinned and turned to look through his apartment door, hanging ajar. The other Saints were inside drinking beer and laughing, celebrating their recent victory at the port.
His kids, Bryon and Tamara, played with Cayenne on the stained carpet. The dog’s tail whipped back and forth. Namid’s son, Isaac, giggled as he stroked the dog’s sleek brownish-red coat.
In the kitchen, Yolanda chopped up freshly picked vegetables with Namid’s wife, Victoria, who was three months pregnant and starting to show.
Dom worried about her and Namid living so far away with their Isaac, but Victoria had declined when Dom offered to find them a place in his building.
“Too dangerous here,” she had said.
Too dangerous everywhere, Dom thought. He turned back to the grill and flipped a sizzling burger.
“I’m gonna inhale these, baby,” Moose said, patting his belly. “I’m so hungry, I could eat a freaking dinosaur.”
Dom chuckled, prompting a cough that turned into a wheezing fit. He pulled up his face mask and coughed into his sleeve.
“That don’t sound good,” Moose said.
“It’s just the smoke from the grill.” Dom took a swig of warm beer and fought the urge to cough again. He pulled his face mask back up over his mouth and nose, but Moose kept looking at him, clearly worried.
“I’m fine, bro,” Dom said. “I’m going inside. You got this?”
“Yeah, no problem, man.”
A voice called out from the balcony. Three units down the long open space, Dom saw Lieutenant Marks in civilian clothes, walking toward them, holding two cases of Mexican beer.
“Gentlemen,” Marks said.
“Hey there, sir,” Moose replied.
Dom swallowed the coppery taste of blood and pulled his face mask down again. He had a feeling Marks would be mad over what happened at the port, and hadn’t expected to see him here.
“Thought I might find you all here,” Marks said. He looked over his shoulder in case anyone was listening. Then he joined Dom at the railing while Moose started lifting off the cooked burgers.
“We need to talk,” Marks said.
Dom tilted his head, and they walked away from the party, over to Dom’s apartment a few doors down.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Marks said as soon as Dom shut the door.
“Take it easy,” Dom said. “We left behind Russian RPG launchers and didn’t kill any civilians.”
Marks shook his head wearily. “You took a major fucking risk, and you disobeyed a direct order to stand down. You pu
t every cop on that pier in jeopardy.”
“All due respect, but they all made their choices, and they’re all still alive.”
Marks bit the inside of his lip, clearly trying to manage his anger. It had been a long time since Dom saw him this mad.
“Look, no one wanted that garbage off the street more than I did, but you have to play by the rules, Dominic. I’ve told you this. If you don’t, I’m not going to be able to protect you anymore. Even Councilman Castle is pissed.”
“I’m sorry,” Dom said, going for his most rueful voice. “I swear I did not see your text until after we attacked.”
Marks let out a sigh, then reached into his pocket. “I want you guys to find my CI and watch him. He’s the kid that told me about the shipment, and I’m afraid the Morettis are going to cap him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Sammy Reynolds. Here’s his address.” Marks handed him a piece of paper.
“No problem,” Dom said.
“There’s something else.” Marks looked agitated, his eyes flitting away before roving back to Dom.
“Yeah?” Dom asked.
“I might have a lead on Monica.”
Dom felt his heart quicken. After eight years, they actually had a lead?
“One of the guards at the Casa de los Diablos heard a former Moretti associate, one Max Sammartino, bragging about a girl he took eight years ago from the same school where Monica was taken. Max hasn’t made a peep since, and when questioned, he denied the entire thing.”
Dom stared as the realization sank in. He had always blamed the Vegas, not just for killing his dad but also for taking his sister and selling her into their network known as the Shepherds. But it had been the Morettis all along who stole Monica . . .
“I figured you’d want to ask him a few questions yourself,” Marks said.
You got that right, boss.
“I can get you into the prison, Dominic, but you’ve got to promise me you aren’t going to do anything crazy.”
“Define ‘crazy.’ ”
“If I really need to spell it out, then forget about it.”
“I won’t get caught, whatever I do.”
Marks sighed again and looked at his watch. “I’ve got to get back to the office, but I’ll be in touch as soon as I can get you in.”
Sons of War 3: Sinners Page 12
