Killer Groove: A Cooper & Rockne Mystery #1 (Cooper & Rockne Mysteries)

by Dan Ames

  The two men were careless and clearly expected no trouble. They had their hands at their sides and when one looked at Rutger’s invite, the other made no move, which showed how clueless he was.

  With a nod of his head the security guard gestured for Rutger to enter the elevator. He pressed the button for the penthouse and waited. It was a fast elevator and it whisked him to the top in no time. The doors opened and he immediately heard the music, smelled the unmistakable dance-club odor: men’s cologne and women’s perfume, marijuana, cigarette smoke and booze.

  There was a hallway that led to some oversized double doors in front of which stood two more security guards, a matching pair to the ones downstairs. Rutger again showed his invite and again, they carelessly waved him inside.

  The doors opened and he stepped into the giant room. The floor was a clear sheet of quartz, dangerously slippery but spectacular, especially since it wore the reflection of the enormous picture windows at the other end of the room that were filled with the brilliant photo-like image of the Pacific Ocean. The illusion was that the floor felt like the sky and you were floating over the ocean.

  Quite impressive.

  A scantily clad server with a tray of champagne appeared in front of Rutger and he accepted a glass. The room wasn’t crowded, as it was still early, but he could see various rooms, some of them looking like temporary creations, like private booths at a club.

  Rutger sipped and began to prowl the place looking for Bulldog.

  He wasn’t here to party.

  He was here to do his job.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I like to roll ‘em in the mornin’

  And smoke ‘em through the day

  I love to pound their wicked thighs

  When they beg my boy to stay.

  -Fat Girl Blues (by Groovy Train)

  Mary met Tara for a pre-party drink, just down from Bulldog’s apartment. She’d pretty much wasted the day, doing fruitless research on the Mad Hatter, looking for the most recent photos of him. She’d scoured the local music clubs, guitar shops, drug dealers and prostitutes.

  No one had seen Zack Hatter.

  She even took a break and popped into an Internet café and armed with a triple espresso, had used some of her back door Internet tools supplied by a hacker friend and former client.

  Zilch.

  The odds of her actually seeing him on the street, or at the party, were infinitesimal, of course, but she looked for the most recent photos of him, preferably candid shots taken by snoopy fans. The professional shots, used for publicity, made him look ten or twenty years younger.

  The place Tara had suggested was a martini bar, and Mary found her new friend halfway through a drink and she was flanked on each side by men who seemed very interested in her attention.

  “Please, make room for my friend, Mary,” Tara urged the man to her left. He slid down one and Mary took his place.

  “I’ll take a dirty martini,” Mary said to the bartender, after she’d exchanged a hug with Tara, and marveled inwardly at how firm the woman’s body was. She must spend a lot of time in the gym, Mary thought.

  “How are you tonight, chica?” Tara asked her.

  “Ready for a party,” Mary said. “Un fiesta grande.”

  Tara laughed, exposing a beautiful row of perfectly white teeth.

  “Then you have come to the right place. Tell me, what kind of man are you looking for?” she asked. The men on either side pretended as if they hadn’t heard the question. “ I can tell you need one,” Tara continued. “Or your vajayjay needs one who can really take it for a pounding.”

  Mary felt herself blush just slightly. “I have very high standards when it comes to men,” she said. “They have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.”

  “We have a few of those, not many,” Tara said. “Come, finish your drink and let’s go to a real party.”

  Mary tossed down her martini and they walked a few blocks down the street and after showing the security guards Tara’s invite, they walked into Bulldog’s apartment.

  “Not bad,” Mary said. The place would fit in just fine in Los Angeles. It looked swanky. “Maybe I’ll get a place like this. Right after I become an Internet billionaire.”

  Tara snatched a couple glasses of champagne from a passing server and they strolled their way through the crowd, literally rubbing shoulders with Puerto Vallarta’s music celebrities.

  “So what does Bulldog look like?” Mary asked. As much fun as she was having, she was here to work. And she wanted to get in close to Bulldog before things got really crazy and he became impossible to find. This apartment would hold a lot of people and Mary figured they would really start flowing in once the clock struck midnight.

  “He used to be pretty hot-looking, but he may have been getting paid in tamales,” Tara said. “He’s packed on the pounds recently. Think of Andy Garcia wearing a fat suit.”

  Mary pondered that for a moment. “Okay, got it,” she said.

  Suddenly, much to her surprise, she saw someone she recognized. At least, thought she recognized.

  It was the decent-looking man Alice had practically thrown herself at on the airplane ride down here. He was standing with a guy, very overweight, with skin so translucent it looked like he was glowing.

  Mary took the opportunity to step away from Tara and she walked up to the two men. The one she recognized glanced at her and Mary knew he recognized her, too.

  “Where’s your date? The old lady from the plane?” Mary asked him.

  He looked oddly at her, caught off guard.

  She stuck out her hand. “Mary Cooper. You sat by my aunt on the plane ride down from LA. I was sitting behind you two and heard her sales pitch. Are you two going to get married down here?”

  He relaxed, smiled and shook her hand. Mary liked the look of him. Slightly above average-looking, in relatively good shape. But she liked his face, which had a quiet intelligence and a hint of a smart-ass.

  “John Rockne,” he said. “No, we’re not getting married. Since I’ve already got a wife back in the US, I think I’m going to have my way with her and then toss her aside when vacation’s over.”

  Said with a straight face, Mary wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, but then a little smirk started at the corner of his mouth.

  Yes, Mary thought. One of my kind.

  “Well, be sure to wear protection,” Mary said. “She’s got more crabs than Red Lobster.”

  “Well, I had planned to sample the seafood down here, but now I’ll think twice,” Rockne said. “What are you doing here? Vacation? Work?”

  “I’m a tuna wrangler,” Mary said. “All the sushi here in PV? It’s from me.”

  The big white man standing next to Rockne took that as his cue to move on from the conversation, departing with a look of distaste on his face.

  “Interesting,” Rockne said. “You don’t look like a fisherman. Or fisherperson. What kind of boat do you have?”

  “I don’t use a boat,” Mary said. “I spearfish. I swim out and bam! Shoot ‘em through the head with a spear gun. It’s more sporting that way.”

  “I would imagine.”

  “So what do you do, when you’re not attending hip parties down here?”

  “Plastics,” Rockne said. “I live in Detroit and supply plastics to a lot of different companies involved in the auto industry. It’s very exciting. Puts your story of spearfishing for tuna to shame. Aren’t you embarrassed?”

  “Yeah, sort of,” Mary said. “I–”

  Before she could finish her sentence, a scream erupted from somewhere in the apartment, followed by multiple gunshots.

  Mary reached for her gun but remembered she didn’t have one, and Rockne put his arm around her and together, they ducked down, but instead of joining the crowd, they both went instinctively toward the gunfire.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  You’ve never seen the wind or tasted whispered love

  Until you’ve been up
to the clouds and rained down

  From up above.

  -Lost in Mountain Grove (by Groovy Train)

  Despite his strict adherence to a patient approach, Rutger simply had no time for this.

  A bunch of obnoxious posers.

  They walked around like they were geniuses. Pretending to be great artists creating important works that would be timeless.

  Yeah, right.

  In reality, most of what they were making was ghetto crap purchased mostly by suburban white kids who wanted to be considered gangsters. Or insipid pop tracks whose sole goal was to get into somebody’s head and stick there, like a bad advertising jingle.

  The only people of redeeming quality were the women. There were a lot of beautiful women who, unfortunately, Rutger had to ignore for now.

  He was here to work.

  He could tell there was an etiquette involved, in terms of getting the opportunity to speak with Bulldog. It was like the man was holding court and small groups of people waited in the wings for when it was there chance to find a lull in the conversation and then dive in. It was practically like a wedding where people line up to congratulate the people involved.

  Rutger wasn’t about to wait.

  He strolled up to Bulldog, interrupting some black guy with a gold chain and a goofy hat.

  “I’ve got a message from some mutual friends in New York,” Rutger said. He didn’t smile, didn’t offer an apology for interrupting. He communicated the severity of his message by the delivery.

  The small group was silent. A bodyguard pushed off from the wall and started to stroll over.

  Rutger smiled as the man approached.

  The tough guy rapper immediately turned tail and disappeared. The bodyguard stopped in mid-stride as Bulldog waved him away with an I can handle this kind of expression.

  “No. You can’t,” Rutger said quietly.

  “What?” Bulldog asked.

  Rutger looked at the man before him. He had once been slim, maybe even athletic. But now he carried the extra weight of a jock gone to seed. He had expensive clothes and had fine features. Dark eyes and lashes that were almost pretty, like a woman’s.

  “Where is Zack Hatter?” Rutger asked.

  “How the fuck should I know?”

  Rutger took his silenced automatic out from the holster inside his suit jacket and shot Bulldog in the left elbow. The gun spat, like a loud cough, but it was mostly disguised by the loud music.

  Bulldog yelped and grabbed his arm.

  Rutger pushed him toward the back of the room and its floor-to-ceiling windows.

  “Once more,” he said quietly to Bulldog. The bodyguard behind him was frozen, too. Cheap security, they were the worst. “Where is Zack Hatter?”

  “Jesus. You shot me.”

  “No, my name isn’t Jesus, but you can pray to me if you want. And yes, I shot you.” He tilted the gun up and shot Bulldog in the right elbow. “Now I’ve shot you again.”

  Another scream but this time Bulldog couldn’t grab his elbow since his other arm was shattered as well.

  “He’s in Bucerias,” Bulldog gasped. “Zeta! Jesus Fuck!”

  Los Zetas? Rutger thought.

  Those were some bad dudes. He’d subcontracted a local Zetas gang in Los Angeles to do some dirty work for him years ago.

  They were horrible people.

  Worse, they were unprofessional.

  Rutger nodded, unscrewed the silencer from his pistol, glanced at the windows behind him. He pointed the gun and fired a series of shots at the window in a rough circle and then grabbed Bulldog and threw him through the weakened section of glass.

  The room erupted in screams from the booming gunfire and crashing glass and Rutger jacked a fresh clip into his automatic, turned and fired above the heads of the security guards who had finally mustered enough courage to start to approach him, but by now were being swallowed by the crowd.

  The massive panicked and fleeing herd of wannabes were Rutger’s friends, though, and he slipped comfortably inside it as the mass moved toward the exit.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Spinning out my mind and shaking all you free.

  I wonder what she did and if she thought of me.

  -Taken Street (by Groovy Train)

  I hadn’t been to very many parties in Puerto Vallarta; okay, this was my first one.

  Ever.

  But I instantly had the feeling that the shooting had something to do with the disappearance of Zack Hatter. I don’t know why. And the thought came into my head and then it was gone again.

  Instinctively, I put my arm around the woman I’d just met, Mary Cooper. She slipped out of it just as fast and I saw her reach for her waistband and I expected her to come out with a gun but her hand was empty. I knew her story about being a tuna fisherman was bullshit, and now I wondered if she was a cop. Or a drug enforcement agent of some kind.

  But I set that issue aside and pushed forward, toward the sound of the gunshots. If Zack Hatter was here, it was my job to get him.

  Horrified faces rushed past me. Drinks were spilled.

  I saw a woman running with one high-heeled spiked shoe on, and the other foot bare. A guy raced past us carrying a bottle of champagne in one hand and his car keys in the other.

  “Let’s find Bulldog,” Mary said.

  I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye.

  She wanted to talk to Bulldog, too? Why?

  “Up here,” I said. There was a short set of stairs that seemed to lead to a private seating area that looked down upon the sunken pool outside. But from here, I could get a quick respite from the flood of people pouring out from the back of the apartment.

  Finally, the flow slowed and Mary jumped back into the river of people, plowing her way forward.

  I followed her and we soon came to an expansive seating area surrounded by several gigantic television screens, a DJ booth and various sets of leather couches.

  One of the huge picture windows had a man-sized hole in it and a few security people were standing by it, looking outside.

  I walked up by them and looked out, too.

  Way down on the ground I could see a man splayed out. A small crowd had gathered around him.

  “Let’s go,” Mary said.

  We joined the crowd and followed it down the stairwell, out onto the pool deck where the body was.

  On the ground was a husky man, wearing a white suit, the front of which had several large holes surrounded by blood. His hair was slicked back and he had a vaguely handsome face, although it was now misshapen from the fall.

  He reminded me of a chubby Andy Garcia, the actor.

  Except that he was clearly dead.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  I turned and it was one of the security guards, red-faced and angry, probably feeling fairly inept. Apparently he hadn’t guarded Bulldog’s security very successfully.

  “We’re DEA,” Mary said, before I could respond. DEA? I liked it, and it made sense why she went for her gun. But if she was DEA, why didn’t she have it on her?

  “We need to know what happened here,” she said.

  “What’s it look like?” he barked at her. “Some asshole shot Bulldog. Tried to make him talk. Then threw him out the window.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “How the fuck would I know?”

  “It was something about being fatter in Bucerias,” a voice said to my right. It was another security guard, but this one didn’t have an attitude and it looked like he didn’t have an appetite for blood. He looked like he was about to toss his cookies.

  “Fatter in Bucerias?” I asked.

  Both security guards and Mary ignored me and continued to look at Bulldog’s body.

  “Are you sure he didn’t say Hatter?” Mary asked. “As in Zack Hatter?”

  “As in Zack Hatter is in Bucerias,” I said.

  “Con Zetas,” the shocked security guard said.

  “Shut your mouth,” tough guy sec
urity said. He was glaring at the guy who’d just spilled his guts because his boss’s guts had been spilled first.

  “With Zeta? Catherin Zeta-Jones? Married to Michael Douglas?” I asked.

  Mary looked at me. “Los Zetas. The gang.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I replied. “I’ve heard of them.”

  Sirens started blaring and Mary looked at me again.

  “Let’s get out of here before we end up in a Mexican prison. You’d be the flavor of the day. Every day,” she added.

  Chapter Thirty

  Move on down the line

  Move on down the line

  Jump from car to car

  But don’t go back in time.

  -Regrettin’ Train (by Groovy Train)

  Mary wanted to head back to the hotel, pack up and head to Bucerias, but first she had to confront John, if that was even his real name.

  "Okay. Who the hell are you and what are you really doing here?" Mary said.

  They had left the scene of Bulldog’s demise and were walking in the general direction of Mary’s hotel. She had no idea where he was staying, or for that matter where he lived. Maybe he lived here year-round.

  John looked at her with a bemused expression on his face.

  “I told you, I’m in plastics,” he said. “For the automotive industry.”

  “And I’m the lead ballerina at the Bolshoi.”

  “You are? That’s cool. I didn’t know you were Russian. You do have a dancer’s body, though.”

  “Why don’t you take your plastics story and–”

  He stopped looking at her and the playful expression on his face vanished.

  "I've got a better idea," he said. "Why don't you tell me who you really are? One minute you’re the world’s best-looking tuna fisherman, the next you’re with the Drug Enforcement Agency. I’m not sure I believe either one."

  Good-looking?

  “I’m a helluva fisherman,” Mary said.