by Chris Mooney
He didn’t offer his last name, and she didn’t ask. The man named Frank waited until she resumed her seat before sliding into Anton’s spot. He folded his hands on the table, his expression serious, maybe even dour. She caught sight of the platinum ring on his left hand—a pair of tigers or lions circling each other—and she immediately knew who he was: the man from the photo on her home office wall, the one sitting in the Buick.
He noticed her looking at it but didn’t say anything. He didn’t smile, either.
“Nice ring,” she said. “Never seen one like that before.”
“Thank you.”
“Does it have some sort of special meaning?”
He shook his head, said nothing.
Ellie forced a smile. “Such a nice place,” she said. “Fancy.”
“You like nice things?” His glare was as intense and unforgiving as an MRI scan.
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“You wear those clothes very well,” he said. “They definitely suit you.”
Ellie sensed a hidden meaning behind his words. “Did you purchase these for me, Mr. . . . ?”
“Frank is fine, and yes, I did.”
“I’m flattered,” she said. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.”
“I’m sensing a but coming.”
“Well, I am wondering what I did to deserve such a lavish gift.” The smile remained on her face as she glanced quickly to her right, across the dining area, to the hall leading to the restrooms.
“Anton won’t be joining us,” Frank said. “It’s just you and me this evening.”
Why? Ellie wanted to ask. Faye Simpson, though, simply smiled. Waited.
The waitress came with their drinks. Frank leaned back in his seat so the waitress could set them down on the table. After she did, he turned to her and said, “We’ll have the prawn appetizer to start, followed by the Kobe beef. Michael knows how I like it. Thank you.”
Then, after the waitress left with the menus:
“Anton has told me a lot about you.”
“All good things, I hope.”
“He says you’re a hard worker and take direction well.” His tone said otherwise. It practically screamed, Bullshit.
Ellie took a sip of her Scotch. It wasn’t bad. Not as good as bourbon—too peaty for her taste—but she welcomed it anyway, knowing it would help relax her nerves. Just don’t get drunk, she warned herself. You need to stay sharp.
Frank folded his hands on the table, his eyes searching hers when he said, “What is it you’re really after?”
“Advancement.”
“To what?”
“Depends on the job you’re offering.”
Frank smiled but there was nothing pleasant in it—or in the way he was looking at her now, a look she’d seen on detectives who were locked inside the box with a suspect, one that practically screamed, I know who you are and what you did, so there’s no point in lying. Only the roles were reversed: she was the suspect, Frank the interrogator, and she was being questioned inside a fine restaurant and not a small, claustrophobic room.
“Anton warned me you were direct,” he said.
Ellie sensed her bluntness had somehow pleased him. “Is there any other way to be?”
“He also told me he had you thoroughly vetted.” Frank said it in a way that caused the hairs on the back of her neck to bristle, like he’d found something and knew who she really was.
Ellie waited for him to continue. He didn’t, kept staring at her with that penetrating glare, like he could see inside her skull.
The silence grew uncomfortable—at least to her. With Frank, it was impossible to tell. She decided to wait him out, make him ask the question. Finally, he did.
“Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”
Ellie kept her tone light and pleasant. “I’m sure Anton told you about my problem.”
“Gambling, yes—I know all about it. That your only vice?”
“I like to drink here and there, but it’s not a problem.”
“Drugs?”
Ellie shook her head. “Not my thing.”
“You seeing anyone? A friend-with-benefits thing?”
“Not yet,” Ellie said, raising the glass to her lips. “But I’m working on it.”
“Why’re you here? In LA. I’m sure there’s plenty of blood work in Nevada.”
“You can’t reinvent yourself in the place where you were born. To get a fresh start, you need to be able to wipe the slate clean, right?”
Frank didn’t answer.
“This city,” Ellie said, “was built on pretending. It’s its main economy, you could say. I mean, doesn’t anyone who comes here want to be some better version of themselves—or, if not that, someone completely new and different? Someone prettier and smarter and richer? Isn’t that why you came here?”
“What, exactly, is it you want to become, Faye Simpson from Reno, Nevada?”
Ellie decided to push back, just a bit. “Any damn thing I choose,” she said.
“But there’s the matter of your debt. What’s the amount, again?”
“Two fifty and some change.”
Frank exhaled audibly. “That’s a horrible burden for someone so young. And beautiful.”
“It is what it is. I’m not proud of it, but I’m not shying away from it, either. I addressed the problem way before I came here.”
“Your payment plan.”
Ellie nodded. “I’ve been making monthly payments to the casinos for over a year. Haven’t missed a single payment or been late even once. I’m sure you checked.”
“But what if you slip? If you do, the casinos might decide to take legal matters into their hands—which they can do, if they’re so inclined. Hiring you would invite possible scrutiny into my life, not Anton’s, and that’s something I can’t afford.”
“Are you asking me to work for you in a . . . different capacity than what I’m doing now?”
“I’m considering it.”
Ellie smiled. “I’m sensing a but coming.”
“To work for me, you have to pay off your debt and be done with it.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t have—”
“That kind of money. Yes, I realize that. But I do. I could offer you a loan—a legal loan. I don’t offer the same low interest rates as the banks, but they’re certainly not outrageous.”
“And what, exactly, would I have to do for this loan?”
“We can work out the parameters later,” Frank said. “If you’re interested.”
“You do this for all your prospective employees?”
“No. Hardly ever.” Frank paused to let his words hang in the air and took a sip of his drink, Ellie noticing the measured way he did it each and every time, a man in full control of his vices. “Position I have in mind, I need someone who is discreet,” he said. “Someone I can trust.”
“Then may I suggest a trial run?”
“This sort of job requires a full-time commitment. Once you’re in, that’s it.” Frank’s meaning was clear: once she said yes, there was no turning back. And if she screwed up, she disappeared. No second chances.
Frank dipped his fingers into his suit jacket pocket. “How long have you been working with Anton, again? Three months?”
“Closer to four.”
Frank came back with a photograph. It was folded in half. She couldn’t see the actual image, but she knew it was a photograph given the card stock. He placed it on the table, the picture sitting like a small tent between them.
She was about to reach for it when he said, “There’s nothing I despise more than a liar.”
Ellie considered him, trying to read the subtext behind his words.
“I ask questions only once,” he said. “Please bear that in mind.”
He mo
tioned for her to pick up the picture.
It showed a big, mean-looking white guy dressed in military boots, khakis, and a tight olive tee with sweat stains under the arms walking across what she guessed was a desert. He had a military-issued buzz cut, his scalp gleaming underneath the sun, his monstrously developed forearms and biceps corded with muscle and veins and sunburned. The crazy, clownish tattoos she’d seen at the Vargas home were on full display.
Gingerbread Man.
Frank, she knew, was watching her closely, trying to gauge her reaction. Fortunately, she had been taught how to keep her true emotions from reaching her face, to keep her voice clear when she spoke. Lying, she learned, was an art form, one that she practiced over and over again in her time with Roland. Mastering the art of lying was the one thing above all else that would keep her alive.
Ellie placed the folded picture back down on the table and looked blankly at Frank, waiting for him to continue. He didn’t. He stared hard at her, waiting for her to confess, to break down—to do something. When she didn’t speak, for some reason she thought he was going to reach across the table and strangle her. Maybe she thought that way given the intensity in his eyes. She thought she saw a primal hunger there. A burning anger aimed at the man in the photograph.
“This man,” Frank said. “Where have you seen him?”
“I haven’t.”
She could feel Frank’s eyes searching her mind and heart.
Ellie had prepared for moments like this one. She radiated confidence through her body language and in her voice when she said, “I would have remembered meeting someone like that. Who is he? And what’s with those tattoos?”
“Have you seen him with Anton?”
“I’m not with Anton every day.”
“That wasn’t the question I asked.”
“During my times with Anton, no, I haven’t seen him. Have you asked Anton? This would be a question more suited to him, wouldn’t it?”
Frank’s gaze remained on her as he picked up the picture and tucked it back inside his suit pocket. “If you see that man, you’re to tell me right away.”
“Who is he?”
“That doesn’t concern you. I’ll give you my personal number.”
Ellie knew Frank wasn’t going to give her any specific information on Gingerbread Man. The subject was a dead end, at least for now. She said, “How about we talk about the job you’re offering? What will I be doing?”
“You’d be working for me, with high-end clients in an . . . intimate setting. Hence the need for discretion.”
High-end clients. Intimate. Frank was discussing a job that would put her next to people receiving blood treatments. Was it Pandora? Please, God, let it be Pandora.
“There would also be some managerial aspects to the job,” Frank said. “I could go over those at a later time—provided you’re interested.”
“Depends on the money.”
“It will be a significant raise. We can negotiate later—if you’re interested in the job.”
Frank was offering her a chance to get closer to the inner circle—and, she hoped, closer to finding her brother. There have to be records of carriers, some sort of database where they keep track of them, their blood types, she thought, taking a long sip of her drink.
“Are you interested?” Frank asked. “Or should I look elsewhere?”
Ellie thought of the picture of J.C. on the wall. “I’m interested,” she said, allowing the smile to reach her face and voice.
CHAPTER 18
SEBASTIAN PARKED IN the driveway, behind Frank’s Buick. It was coming up on eleven, the neighborhood quiet and peaceful, as it always was, and Frank, bathed in the soft light coming from the porch, was standing outside, pruning a rosebush and collecting the clippings in a small plastic bucket. Frank insisted on tending to all the landscaping, his only hobby besides yoga, which he did alone. Frank preferred doing everything alone.
Frank placed the bucket on the ground, and as he walked toward the car, brushing his hands together, Sebastian looked around the neighborhood. Some of the surrounding homes were dark, the owners having jetted off to one of their other homes, maybe going on another long vacation. Sebastian couldn’t shake the feeling that Paul’s sniper friend, this Guidry character, was hidden somewhere in this darkness, looking at him through the crosshairs of a target scope.
Sebastian was well protected, as long as he remained inside the car. After his assassination attempt, he had brought the Jaguar to a company that specialized in outfitting cars, trucks, limos—any type of automobile—so they could withstand pretty much any type of possible security threat. The Jag’s windows had been replaced with a glass designed with a special polymer that could absorb a round from a sniper rifle. The car had enough armor plating to withstand a bomb blast and still be driven. The new tires, if punctured by a round or a knife, would drive for almost fifty miles before fully deflating.
“Paul’s not going to make another long-distance run at you,” Frank said, after he slid into the passenger seat. “When he comes at you next, he’ll use someone we don’t know, do it in a crowded place where you feel safe and—”
“He, or she—you never know—will come up and plant two rounds in my head and I won’t see it coming. Right, I know. Where’s Ron?”
“He had to cancel. His daughter went into labor.”
“You said there’s a development regarding Paul.”
“The LAPD finally got the toxicology report back on Sophia Vargas. They found Viramab in her system. Paul’s using that in his transfusions. Now, to answer your next question, yes, I’ve put out feelers to the underground suppliers who are still in the business of manufacturing it.”
“The Armenians—at least here—are the only ones who are still using it.”
“Right. We’re looking for new purchases made over the past, say, four to six months. If Paul is smart, he’s covering his tracks well.”
“This is the big development? You could have told me all of this over the phone.”
Frank buckled his seat belt. “Let’s go.”
“Where, exactly, are we going?”
“Dancing,” Frank said.
* * *
* * *
The address Frank had given him was in West Hollywood—WeHo, as the young kids called it now, a cutesy name Sebastian particularly despised. Or maybe deep down he just despised West Hollywood, a place that, for as long as he could remember, was the cool place for cool people who didn’t have to worry about how they were going to pay for their fancy dinners and fancy drinks at the coolest nightclubs and coolest restaurants. When you grew up poor, as he had, you always carried a grudge against the rich—which was ironic given the fact that he owned an empire that was worth billions.
Their destination was on North Robertson Boulevard. Traffic was heavy on Santa Monica.
Frank pulled the phone away from his mouth and said, “Take this right up here—Hilldale. Then left onto Keith.”
Frank returned to his call. He’d spent the entire drive on the phone, coordinating what Sebastian was sure was a surveillance operation. Frank, maddeningly, wouldn’t provide details. No sooner had he hung up with someone than he dialed another number, telling Sebastian, “All shall be revealed, my friend.”
Normally it would bother him, Frank’s holding out. Sebastian, though, heard the smile in his friend’s voice, which was about as expressive as Frank got when he was excited. Frank, Sebastian knew, was working on something big—something, Sebastian was sure, that had to do with Paul.
After Sebastian turned onto Keith Avenue, he took a left onto North Robertson Boulevard. “We’re here,” Frank said into the phone. He hung up. “You’re going to want to park up there, on your right, in front of the Starbucks.”
“There aren’t any spaces.”
“There will be in a moment. Slow down.”
As if on cue, the lights of a gray Audi parked against the curb came to life. The driver pulled out of his spot and Sebastian pulled in and parked. It was well after midnight—and well past his bedtime—and yet WeHo was alive and kicking like it was New Year’s Eve, the streets packed with people bar- and club hopping.
Someone knocked on Frank’s window. He cracked it an inch, just enough to allow a white envelope to slide into the car.
Frank opened the envelope and removed a small clear baggie. It held a pair of black capsules.
“Meet Paul’s new sexual-enhancement drug,” Frank said. “MDMA, otherwise known as ecstasy, or molly, mixed with carrier blood—a pregnant woman carrier’s blood. Supposedly it gives you the most incredible orgasms of your life.”
“Does it work?”
“Hard to say. MDMA causes arousal. The sexual stimulation we heard about involving Sophia Vargas—that, most likely, was from a transfusion. All we know at the moment is that Paul has been testing his new drug out in a couple of high-end nightclubs downtown, charging about five hundred bucks for a couple of these pills.”
Sebastian took the baggie and turned on the map light. The capsules were dark red, not black, and looked sloppily put together—not by a machine but by a human hand.
“Why would Paul be wasting his time with this bullshit?” Sebastian asked, more to himself than to Frank.
It didn’t make sense; Paul said he had a product that was better than Pandora—Pandora 2.0, he called it—and went on about how his product offered all of the health and physical benefits of Pandora (although Paul didn’t technically know what made Pandora so special, but Sebastian was sure Paul had some solid ideas about it). Pandora 2.0 came with an extremely potent side effect: making the user more sexually desirable and uninhibited. Got you off way better, too.
But the real gains—and the real money—came from whole-body transfusions. Why would Paul do this nickel-and-dime shit, creating these handmade capsules to sell at—
The answer hit him, and his eyes widened. “Infrastructure,” Sebastian said.
Frank nodded sagely. “He doesn’t have the necessary money to become operational—and he needs a good amount of it to buy storage units for the blood and the necessary transfusion equipment, chemicals, and medications.”
