by Daniel Jeudy
“Swell,” Addison replied unenthusiastically.
“Come on, Mowbray, everybody knows you boys are living this case right now. A few drinks will recharge your batteries.”
“I really can’t see either of us being there,” Jed said. “Paying for watered-down whiskey inside a games room will only irritate. Perhaps if we joked our way through work in the same manner as Holbrook, then ping-pong might seem appealing.”
Rodgers slapped his thigh and laughed.
“Perkins, my man, are you still pissed with Lyn because of what she said the other day? You need to let that shit go.”
Jed hiked his shoulders. “Whatever, man.”
Rodgers offered a carefree smile. “The offer’s there. We’ll be meeting at six-thirty.”
“Are you still working the hotline?” Addison asked.
“Nah, we started catching new cases again this morning. Your buddies at the Bureau have lightened the load around here it seems.”
Addison kept his cards to himself. “Anything noteworthy?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“The case—is it fascinating?”
Rodgers made a face like he’d caught a whiff of something unpleasant. “Well, that depends,” he said.
“On?”
“Whether you find another dead beaner from the Belvedere Familia interesting or not. Anyway, good luck finding your killer. Lyn and I are heading out to East LA to go speak with the sorry bastard’s family, and we sure wouldn’t want to be late now.”
Both detectives observed Rodgers move back across the office in his customary macho stride before looking at one another and shaking their heads.
“What a dick,” Jed said. “The fucking Rhythm Room?”
Addison grunted in agreement. The kid might still be regarded as wet behind the ears by some, but he was old school cool in all the ways that mattered.
“What are you saying, partner? Are you not in the mood for a few games of shuffleboard? I didn’t think you’d pass up a chance to show Holbrook who’s in charge.”
Jed ignored the dig. “If our perp is responsible for shooting Pollock, it’s one hell of a deviation from everything he’s done thus far,” he remarked.
Addison considered his partner’s statement for a moment. “I think Pollock caught him on the jump, which forced the shooting, then he took the girl as he intended and split the scene.”
Jed peered up from his screen with a furrowed brow. “You’re set on the notion he’s organizing a meet-up?”
“Pretty much. How else can you explain him pulling in across from Jennifer Hill’s car right as she’s headed to her yoga class? There’s no way he’s just driven into that parking station on the off chance of finding a girl who fits. We don’t know enough of what happened with the first two, but past contact seems likely in the case of Jennifer and Paige.”
Jed squeezed his chin. “You reckon he might be using a Facebook profile?”
“No, I don’t think so. If he was using social media to draw them in, then how does Schneider fit? She was gay, and the Harding girl from last night had her boyfriend riding shotgun. I’m not sure how the asshole’s pulling it off, but I do believe he’s finding a way of getting them to agree to a meeting.”
Jed stretched his neck. “Maybe he pretends to buy something from them,” he said. “Or he offers them employment. We know Katherine Schneider was taking her clothes off in the name of art.”
Addison shook his head. “Surely, the tech guys would have made the connection by now if that were happening. I think he probably drives to specific locations where he searches for an appropriate target. Then he does something to prompt the next meeting.”
Jed chewed at the end of his pen while he considered the theory. “What if he organizes an accident or damages their car?”
“Like a fake injury?”
Jed winked perceptively. “Or a minor traffic incident.”
“That’s some decent theorizing, kid. We should be looking into both those scenarios. Have you got the forensic report on Jennifer Hill’s vehicle?”
“Yeah, I think I’ve got it on my computer here somewhere.”
“See if there’s any mention of damage to the car.”
Addison began envisioning how the kid’s idea might work when his mobile started buzzing on the desk. He looked down to see Rick Sharp’s name on the screen. “Howdy, Rick, I was hoping you’d get back to me.”
“Hey there, Addison, we’ve found Sarah Parker’s cousin,” Sharp declared.
“Really, who is he?”
“Name’s Frank Rivers. He owns a flashy legal firm over at Laguna Beach with his wife. He’s wealthy and almost squeaky clean.”
“Almost?”
“In 2008, a hooker named Candy Brandy filed a complaint in Vegas.”
Addison nearly laughed at the name. “What was the nature of Ms. Brandy’s grievance?”
“She accused him of tying her to a hotel bed against her will. Ms. Brandy claimed Rivers cut off one of her nipples and sucked the blood like a newborn on the tit. Nothing ever came of it because she recanted her statement a few hours later.”
Jed was eyeing Addison from across the desk. “You heard about the incident at Secret Gardens yet?”
“We only just received the intel ten minutes ago,” Sharp confirmed. “Looked like a carjacking or robbery gone wrong.”
“How are you guys planning to approach this?”
“Paige Harding has thrown a bit of a curveball at our next move. We won’t be driving out to Laguna Beach and knocking on his door. I want to put a detail on him, best guys available. Let’s follow the asshole for a bit and see where he leads us.”
It was the right play. If the FBI stormed in with the cavalry and found nothing, Rivers would likely bunker down.
“Surveillance is the way to go,” Addison agreed.
“We’ve got his two main addresses, and I can have a team ready by the end of the day. Larry Springfield is going to be flying back later this evening as well.”
Addison opened his drawer in search of Advil.
“You still there, Addison?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“You and Jed should come over whenever you’re ready.”
Addison closed his eyes to block out the lights above him. “We’ll head over after lunch,” he replied. “We’re right in the middle of something that might prove helpful.”
“I hope you boys ain’t holding out?” Sharp joked.
“We’ve started tossing a few ideas on how the perp could be following the victims, and we’re also due to meet with the lieutenant. Once that’s squared away, we’ll be there.”
“Great, I’ll see you when you get here then,” Sharp said, ending the call.
Jed’s green eyes burned with expectation. “What did Sharp say?” he demanded.
“Just that they’ve located the Parker woman’s cousin. There’s an FBI surveillance team assembling as we speak.”
“Fuck yes!” Jed said, pumping a fist into the air.
“I wouldn’t start celebrating yet. We don’t know if the guy is connected to the perp. He might be nothing more than a weak bastard who beats up hookers for sport.”
Jed’s face became inflamed. “You want me to keep looking into whether there was any damage on the Toyota from last night?” he asked, clearly enthusiastic.
Addison stood up to ease a twinge in his lower back, shifting his weight right then left from the waist down, like he used to before a game of football.
“You okay, Ad?”
He wasn’t okay. Addison truly detested getting old. “I’m going to have a word with the sergeant,” he replied casually. “If you happen to see Collins making his way back up here, let him know that we need to speak with him in his office right away.”
Forty-Eight
Edward placed the glass pipe to Paige’s lips and slapped her cheek until she inhaled the smoke, holding a hand across her mouth to ensure the hallucinogen took full effect
. Hopefully, the DMT would help him to cross-pollinate her spirit with Linda’s Ghost.
The harsh smoke tasted like mothballs on Paige’s tongue. Then everything upended while she got sucked through a vacuum where an explosion of divine color-infused her spirit. A distant wormhole revealed a molten doorway that prevented her from escaping the void. Paige floated in a realm unobstructed by time, a sphere without any origin. When the barrier began to slowly open, she tried clawing a way back into the natural, but as the smoke saturated her lungs, she blasted beyond the gate at lightning speed. Paige experienced her birth at Saint Joseph’s Hospital while her consciousness was reprogrammed inside a womb of computerized DNA. An infinite force shaped everything here, feeding her soul with mystical wisdom while Eden itself coiled around her limbs.
She saw elevations of technology in all directions, so terrifying and beautiful in their construct. The essence of perfection overwhelmed her, like a first and final breath, as she resurrected from a thousand consecutive fatalities. Interdimensional symbology glowed in platinum currents, enclosed by digital machinery that stretched on forever, forming an ultra-high-tech universe of unknowable sophistication. Angelic heralds addressed her in celestial languages as vibrations of rapture mainlined through the core of her intellect. This place felt like the nucleus of the entire cosmos, capable of exonerating every concern a person might ever know. Yet, she perceived its impermanence.
After a few seconds—or was it ten uninterrupted lifetimes?—Paige was transported back to the room with a fresh appreciation of her captivity. Realization dawned in an instant. Whatever she had just faced epitomized counterfeit piety where distorted holiness opposed all that she understood God to be; a treacherous expression of harmony from a world of false splendor to conceal the maggots squirming behind its façade.
When Edward began slithering about on top of her, she contracted into a ball to prevent him from groping her flesh, but it was as if she had just run a marathon and was now lying in a bathtub of wet cement. Paige’s muscles were listless Jell-O, and she heaved while his crotch rubbed against her body with lustful ferocity.
Something formless had started dividing her brain into compartments of dread; its consistency was melted blackness, peeling layers from her awareness as it probed her mind.
She felt the corruption of his breath whispering in her ear.
“Welcome to your destiny, sweetheart. If you embrace your new life and look beyond the veil, I will allow you to leave this prison. We could sit down and enjoy a yummy lunch together, then afterward the three of us can fuck the day away in my bedroom.”
Edward’s voice came to her in shifting pictures. Everything he rambled concerned a future he wanted her to be part of. Despite all the terror coursing through her being, Paige cried out mutely to God in her heart. She used every ounce of desperation within her soul while clinging to verses she remembered from the Bible.
Forty-Nine
The porcelain vase exploded against the kitchen wall.
“You’re a used-up ungrateful cunt,” Narek screamed. “When are you going to learn that you don’t make the rules around here, bitch? I make the fuckin’ rules. Me, no one else.”
Anna stood her ground in defiance. Her pretty cherub-like face formed a mask of disgust as she stared up at her husband’s evil brown eyes. She’d endured the piece of shit and his abusive control for nine years, nine exceptionally long years. At least the kids were out with their grandparents, so she didn’t need to consider them right now.
“Fuck off, Narek!” she shrieked. “You think I don’t know what you get up to at that club? I’m over being your slave. Move-in with one of your whores; why don’t ya?”
When the inevitable blow smashed into the side of Anna’s face, she fell to the floor with a thud, unaware of the glass shards cutting her hands. Narek bellowed his unintelligible hatred while everything swayed in drunken half-circles. This situation would only end with her unconscious and bleeding, but she couldn’t give a hoot right now.
Anna thought back to when she met her husband at his cousin’s wedding. The deceiving asshole had acted like such a gentleman, and by the time she figured it all out, there was nothing to be done. She often contemplated leaving him, but if he even suspected she might run off with the children, he’d just rape her till she bled, then cut her throat. Being married to an Armenian Mafia hitman meant there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
She raised her head brazenly, determined to speak a word before Narek turned off her lights. Tears blurred his outline, and she couldn’t string a cohesive sentence together in her mind. Anna swore at the weak bastard in Armenian as his right foot connected with the side of her head.
* * *
Narek looked down on his wife’s limp body with genuine loathing. Being married to the whiny bitch felt like a curse these days. He had provided her with the best things in life, and still, she found a reason to complain. What was the big deal if he enjoyed a bit of cunt on the side? It wasn’t like he didn’t please her in the bedroom at least once a week. Any of the sluts at Abovyan would trade places with her in an instant. They’d love to be his wife; he could see it in their eyes whenever they sucked on his skin flute.
He stepped over Anna’s repulsive shape, disregarding the crunch of glass underfoot as he made his way to the bathroom. By the time he returned home the following day, all the mess inside the kitchen would be gone. Narek slipped on a sports coat and examined his appearance in the mirror, giving his reflection a sexy grin. He looked a million bucks. Why the fuck couldn’t the stupid chent just be grateful for who he was?
Maybe he needed to show her what life on the other side of the fence offered. What it felt like being married to an average Joe who gets fat on the couch watching ESPN each night. After a week of that crap, she’d be begging him to fuck her in the ass again. Narek ran a hand through his thick hair, turning sideways for a more thorough inspection. When he was satisfied with his profile, he walked back to the kitchen and collected his wallet from the benchtop, stepping over Anna one last time on his way out the door.
His cousin’s BMW was parked on the street, and he needed to return it to the restaurant when he finished doing the rounds. The boys were going to collect him later in the evening, so there’d be plenty of time to enjoy Erik’s mouth-watering food before they headed to the club. He’d have to buy himself breakfast, though, because Anna had been in the process of making scrambled eggs when he dropped her.
Narek had tried not to think about Tigran’s final moments since leaving the warehouse or the sound his body parts made as he pulled them through Davit’s mincer, but it was fucking complicated. The boss’s titty bar presented a distraction, and there would be an assemblage of beautiful asses on display to help raise his mood. Wednesday nights at Abovyan were the best—it’s when all the top-shelf dancers began their week. The premium snatch brought bucket loads of cash into the joint, so they were never expected to fuck someone they didn’t want to. Still, none of them required much coercion when it came time to sit on his face.
Narek entered the elevator and hit the button for the lobby before leaning back against the rail while the lift descended. When the carriage doors opened, he noticed a beautiful young mother struggling with her two children and kept his arm over the sensor as she stepped inside.
“Thanks,” she said, flashing him a row of perfectly white teeth.
“Don’t mention it, honey,” he replied, watching as the doors closed and the sexy mom disappeared. He would love to know which apartment she lived in. It was handy to keep a bit of cunt nearby for those occasions when he couldn’t be assed going to the club.
As Narek made his way outdoors, he embraced the sunshine with a grin. It was a picture-perfect day for his picture-perfect life. Who’d have thought an Armenian refugee could rise to such dizzying heights? Certainly not him. A fantastic night lay ahead, and if people paid what they owed, he’d be at Yerevan by late afternoon. Narek breezed down North Central Avenue like a mythi
cal god, firing a glance up and down the pavement as he walked toward Erik’s ride.
Fifty
The Old Man looked around at Frank Rivers’s postmodern Laguna Beach mansion. There were few places he hated more than this waterfront community of tasteless real estate and spoilt children. He always suspected Frank might eventually make a very foolish decision; however, he rendered his dues on time and contributed generously to the cause. Frank was a prominent class action attorney who’d performed miracles inside big city courtrooms, but now he faced a different kind of conviction.
“I can fix things,” Frank slobbered pathetically. “Please, let me make this right.”
The Old Man considered him with a numb gaze from across the dining table, thinking of terrible things he’d like to do to the idiot. Frank was of medium height with blond hair, thick lips, and suntanned skin. His unduly whitened teeth and terror-stricken eyes gave him the appearance of a rabbit waiting to be skinned.
“That ship has already sailed. The FBI will have you under surveillance before the day is out. Larry Springfield, too, once the schmuck returns tonight. This finale I’m offering is far more graceful than what Larry will be getting. So, put the gun in your mouth and squeeze the damned trigger, or my friend here will drag you away to the compound where your death will take weeks.”
Frank’s eyes were feral as he considered his options. Ghost smiled in a Mona Lisa sort of way, a large knife in one hand and a silenced pistol in the other.
“I’ll take proper care of Sarah for you, I promise,” Frank sobbed. “I’ll make her regret the day she was born. Then I’ll leave the country; you won’t ever see me again, Clive.”
The Old Man slapped him across the face.
“If you speak my name out loud again, I’ll recant this offer and gut you like a fish. Your cousin will most certainly regret the day of her conception. Many times, over. I assure you of the fact. This is your final chance to eat the gun. You have ten seconds to decide.”
Frank Rivers would probably be regarded as dangerous by most, but right now, he looked less deadly than a kitten taking a shit in a thunderstorm. He reached for the Glock G29 on the table with a trembling hand. His breath came in shallow gulps.
