Bolt

by Bryan Cassiday

  “No.”

  “Then why should you believe her?” she said, gazing at him.

  “She doesn’t want to jeopardize her career by losing Lyndon as her talent manager. You know how Lyndon hates publicity. Being accused of rape would be the worst PR in the world for him—short of being accused of murder. He’d terminate her contract in the blink of an eye.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  “I don’t know why she would lie about something like this.”

  “Maybe she’s making these accusations to get back at him for not getting her a part she wanted in a movie.”

  “That’s possible. However, I think I should follow up this lead and ask her more questions.”

  “I need corroborating proof. Women can destroy a man’s career nowadays with these kinds of vicious accusations. I want to be sure we can believe her.”

  He angled toward the hall to the front door. “That’s where I’m going now.”

  “You’re leaving me alone?”

  “Victor’s here.”

  “He’s outside.”

  “And he’ll stay out there after he gets his MP5.”

  “All night?”

  “You won’t even know he’s there. He’s that good.”

  Brody wondered what the feds would think if they spotted Victor on guard duty. If there were any feds out there. Peltz was a question mark. Had the FBI really fired him, as Special Agent Thomason had claimed? Or had Peltz’s firing been stage-managed so nobody would suspect he was involved in a clandestine assignment?

  And what about that NDA he had signed for Peltz? wondered Brody. If Peltz had been canned, how did he get access to an FBI NDA? Brody didn’t know who to believe. If Peltz was legit, why hadn’t his men prevented the gangbanger from entering the Foxes’ house? Were they afraid of revealing their presence? Would they go so far as to sacrifice the Foxes’ lives in order to get their hands on the secret documents in Lyndon’s possession?

  Thinking of Peltz Brody got out his iPhone and called him again. The phone rang seven times.

  No answer.

  Brody couldn’t shake the suspicion that somebody had killed Peltz. Why didn’t the guy answer his phone? Had Peltz kicked him off the secret mission without notifying him and was therefore refusing to answer the phone? But why would Peltz cut ties with him?

  Brody had loads of questions. And no answers. He couldn’t figure Peltz out.

  Brody terminated the call, put away his cell, and stormed through the front door, still annoyed at Peltz and his agents for refusing to lift a finger to intercept the MS-13 gangbanger before he had invaded the Foxes’ household.

  Who could you trust if you couldn’t trust the FBI? Brody wondered in dismay.

  Chapter 78

  Gaetano drove with Arturo and a coterie of their men on motorbikes on a dirt trail on Gaetano’s hacienda’s vast acreage. Gaetano led the puttering bikes up a tree-lined hill that bordered his property, where he could view his house below. He beamed at the sight of his magnificent hacienda as he brought his motorbike to a halt and, straddling his motionless ride, swept his eyes across his property.

  “It is good, eh, Arturo?” he asked Arturo, who was straddling his parked motorbike beside him.

  “Sí, patrón,” said Arturo, grinning.

  “And we have to keep it that way.” Gaetano paused. “Which means we can’t let the gringos take it away from us.”

  “Nobody is taking anything from us.”

  “And how do we keep the gringos away?”

  “The way we always do.”

  “Right. We need to pay off more politicians in the Estados Unidos to keep their noses out of our business and make it easier for us to smuggle our product across the border.”

  Arturo nodded yes.

  “The gringos are spending too much money on trying to secure the border,” Gaetano went on. “We need to fund their politicians that oppose border control. It’s a matter of putting our money to work in the hands of the right people, the people that want open borders.”

  “Politicians are alike in every country. All they want is money and power.”

  “They all hate us, but love our money.”

  “This is true.”

  “We’ve got the money to be able to keep them in our pocket.” Gaetano turned to look at Arturo. “How many years have we been together, Arturo?”

  Arturo thought about it. “Ocho años.”

  Seated on his motorbike, Arturo reached for a package of Marlboro cigarettes in his breast pocket, tapped a cigarette out, replaced the package in his pocket, inserted the cigarette into his mouth, produced a lighter, and lit up, puffing a cloud of smoke.

  “Those will kill you faster than the Sinaloa cartel,” said Gaetano, with a half smile.

  “No, no. I’m invincible,” said Arturo, tapping his chest with both hands and protesting with a smile.

  “You and me. We’re both invincible,” said Gaetano, proudly patting Arturo on the shoulder. “What’s all this propaganda about dying? It’s fake news. We’re never gonna die.”

  “We are CJNG.”

  Smiling wistfully, Gaetano nodded. “Eight years, you say?”

  “Sí.”

  “They’ve been good years, Arturo. Eh, my friend? Sure, we’ve had our ups and downs, but we’ve always triumphed in the end.”

  “Sí, patrón.”

  Gaetano’s expression turned serious. “But the Sinaloa cartel is growing stronger every day. We can’t let that happen. If they become stronger, we become weaker.” He shrugged. “This is a zero sum game we’re playing, whether we like it or not. It is what it is. We must show them the error of their ways.”

  “They deserve it.”

  “Did you do as I ordered?”

  “I sent Pepsi to take care of it.”

  “Pepsi. Why do you call him Pepsi?”

  “Because he always has a can of Pepsi in his hand. He can’t get enough of the stuff.”

  “Sugar, you know, is bad for your health,” said Gaetano.

  “I don’t think he cares.”

  “Does he know what to do?”

  “He does.”

  “And you took care of the Sinaloa cartel prisoners?”

  “Pepsi is driving them in the stake truck to Sinaloa territory.”

  Gaetano nodded contentedly and surveyed his rambling verdant acreage of property that spread out below him for miles.

  “I think they will understand the message when they get it,” he said, his face impassive.

  His satphone vibrated in his trouser pocket. He took the call.

  “He says he doesn’t have it,” said Jorge, at the other end of the transmission in Los Angeles.

  “He’s lying. Get it.”

  “Rakowski’s partner doesn’t have it either.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I had to make sure.”

  “Will she be a problem?”

  “Not at all. She lost the power of speech,” said Jorge with amusement.

  Gaetano terminated the call.

  # # #

  Pushing thirty, the rangy, mustachioed Pepsi drove the CJNG’s souped-up eight-cylinder Ford stake truck down the humid streets of Culiacán in the center of Sinaloa cartel territory till he found the object of his search—the office building of the local newspaper. The cup holder on the console contained a quarter-full can of Pepsi-Cola that was losing its fizz. The passenger seat beside him contained an AK-47 set on full auto.

  In the back of the stake truck on the flatbed, half a dozen Jalisco New Generation cartel members huddled, a filled galvanized steel trash can among them. In a hold in one corner of the flatbed lay a stash of an assortment of loaded MAC-10s and AK-47s, which, when combined, numbered a dozen, primed for action if the moment called for them.

  “It stinks back here,” said a heavyset member with big teeth and a raspy voice.

  “It’s Bruto’s farts,” said another, disgust on his face.

  The other men laughed.

>   The twentysomething rolypoly man known as Bruto rubbed his stomach and looked sick.

  Pepsi slowed down in front of the newspaper building, and his men sprang into action.

  “You do the honors, Bruto,” said the heavyset man.

  Bruto snatched up the trash can with both hands in the back of the flatbed, carried it to the tailgate, held it up with one arm, removed its lid with the other, overturned it, and emptied its gruesome contents onto the road.

  Ten heads of decapitated Sinaloa cartel members thudded, bounced, and rolled in different directions on the tarmac at the steps of the newspaper building. One head was stuffed in a blood-dappled white pillowcase that had Death to Sinaloa—CJNG printed on it in blood.

  Pepsi leaned on the stake truck’s horn.

  Its tires shrieking and fishtailing, the stake truck shuddered as it hurtled away, the men standing on the flatbed hanging onto the stakes to maintain their balance, as the heads rolled to a halt on the tarmac behind them like so many cantaloupes.

  Wearing red suspenders a middle-aged bespectacled reporter who worked at the newspaper dashed onto the sidewalk to investigate the commotion and gasped in horror at the sight of the human heads scattered on the roadbed.

  Chapter 79

  Brody drove to the Convent in Hollywood to meet Terri Symonds, parked in the parking lot, left his SIG and his shoulder holster in his Mini, and entered the adult club.

  Redolent of a sweet cologne, the bouncer, a muscular black guy in his thirties wearing a tight black suit, a white button-down shirt that had a collar with a knife-edge crease, and a maroon tie, patted him down before letting him pass.

  Brody paid the cashier in the foyer the cover charge.

  In the dim lighting, he spotted Terri sitting in the front row watching a platinum-blonde stripper climb a white pole and gyrate her seminaked body against it as drums thumped and electric guitars twanged and shrilled to rock. He approached her. Terri had a distant expression in her gaze, like she was dreaming.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said.

  “Hello, again,” she said. “Have a seat.”

  He sat opposite her at their round table. The music was deafening. He felt his wooden chair vibrating on account of the booming of the deep bass drums.

  “I need to talk to you in private,” he said.

  “How about a private lap dance?”

  She opened her robe a smidgen, and he peeked inside. She was wearing only a skimpy bra and a thong. She closed her robe. He told himself he had at least fifteen years on her, probably more. As so often happened, himself didn’t listen.

  “All right,” he said.

  “Two hundred dollars is the going rate.”

  “I thought it was fifty the last time I was here.”

  “The rates change depending on what time you’re here.”

  He wasn’t going to argue with her. It wasn’t like he was going to sic the Better Business Bureau on her.

  “Fine,” he said.

  “Follow the bouncing behind,” she said, summoning him with her finger as she stood up and left the table for a room in the back of the club, making a show of swinging her hips.

  He obeyed.

  They walked through a curtain of beads that was dangling from the transom of a doorway leading into a dim-lit hallway. The beads swung and rattled as they closed behind him.

  He wasn’t sure if Terri knew what he was looking for, but he had to ask. Lyndon might tell her, his mistress, something that he wouldn’t confide in his wife. Husbands had been known to do that, Brody decided.

  She led him into a small private room, not much bigger than a bathroom, which had a cushioned straight-back chair in it and a life-size mirror on the ceiling and on one of the walls.

  She removed her robe, hung it on a hook in a closet, and stood in front of him in her matching lavender bra and thong. She slewed around and admired herself in the mirror on the wall, preening.

  He told himself to concentrate on his job.

  “Me and mirrors,” she said, and turned around to face him.

  She rubbed her forefinger and thumb together in expectation.

  He got the message, dug his wallet out of his trouser pocket, and handed her two C-notes.

  “I need information,” he said.

  “Have a seat,” she said, rolling up the bills and inserting them into her bra.

  “I want to talk about Lyndon Fox,” he said, sitting on the chair.

  “Relax.”

  “Do you have an ongoing relationship with Lyndon?”

  “I already told you I have a business relationship with him,” she said, straddling his lap, facing him.

  “Even though he raped you.”

  “Why do you keep asking me the same questions? I don’t want to lose him as my talent manager.”

  She commenced sliding back and forth on his thighs.

  He felt her warm lush thighs and the curve of her butt sliding against his jeans, her cleavage inches from his mouth. He saw her nipples stiffening against the chiffon fabric of her bra. Her hair smelled of cinnamon, clove, and honey.

  He felt his mouth salivating.

  “Does he tell you anything about his family life?” he said, trying to concentrate on his reason for coming here.

  “Relax.”

  “What does he tell you about his family life?”

  “If you’re gonna come, tell me. I don’t wanna get any on me,” she said, gripping the seat back and grinding her groin against his abdomen.

  He found it difficult to focus on his questions.

  “I need to know the answers to my questions,” he said, feeling her grinding against him.

  “You got tight abs,” she said, rubbing against him like she was climbing up his body.

  “I have questions.”

  “That’s not all you have,” she said, glancing down at his lap.

  “I need answers.”

  “What questions? What answers?”

  “Does he have something hidden in his house? Something a lot of people would want.”

  “I’ve never been to his house.”

  “Why not?”

  “Are you kidding? His wife might catch on to what’s going on between him and me, if I went to his house.”

  “Does he ever talk about something he has?”

  “Some guys come under me in here. I go, what’s that’s stuff on me? It’s messy,” she said, sliding down his abdomen and lowering herself onto his thighs. “Then I gotta take a shower.”

  “I’m looking for answers.”

  “What answers?” she said, sliding back and forth on his thighs.

  “Why is somebody harassing the Fox family?”

  “How am I supposed to know?”

  “Think.”

  “Maybe it’s because of his sideline.”

  Brody pricked up his ears. “His sideline?”

  Chapter 80

  “He arranges escorts for his celebrity clients,” said Terri.

  “What kind of escorts?” said Brody.

  “Don’t be a doofus. Escorts. You know, as in escorts. They provide sexual favors.”

  “He’s a procurer?”

  “I don’t know his religion, but he hooks up models he represents with his A-list clients.”

  “Like Peter Lawford did for JFK?”

  “Peter who?”

  “Never mind. You’re saying Lyndon’s a high-class pimp?”

  “He’s a talent manager. He manages what’s beneficial to all parties concerned.”

  “Including himself. He gets a percentage of the take, doesn’t he?”

  “I’m not his bean counter.”

  “Do you know who any of his A-list clients are?”

  She shrugged, dismounted him, turned around, sat on his lap, and started rubbing her butt against his abdomen, holding onto his thighs.

  “I’m not his secretary,” she said. “He likes to brag to me, though.”

  “Who’s one of his top clients that uses his escort
s?” he said, feeling her bubble butt rubbing against him, distracting him.

  “You like that?”

  “Mmm. Try to concentrate on my question.”

  “Relax,” she said, dismounted him, faced him, and straddled him, sliding the backs of her thighs along his upper thighs while gripping the back of the chair.

  “Name some clients that use his escorts.”

  She was practically smothering him now, rubbing her chest against him.

  “The vice president,” she said.

  “Dealey?” said Brody, flabbergasted.

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “I know it for a fact because one of my model friends has gone out on dates with him.”

  “And what about you?”

  She shook her head no. “Not yet, anyway.”

  Vice President Dealey had a secret life, decided Brody. “Have you told anyone about this?”

  “No. And you better not, either. It would ruin Dealey’s career.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Haven’t you heard of the Me Too movement? Stuff like this can ruin any guy’s career, especially if he’s a politician.”

  “But it’s consensual, according to you.”

  “Paying for sex is illegal even if it’s consensual the last I heard.”

  “Does Lyndon keep a ledger of the transactions?”

  “How should I know that?”

  “What I’m saying is, do you have any evidence of these accusations you’re leveling against Dealey?”

  “I only know what I’ve heard from models at the talent agency.”

  “These are explosive charges you’re making.”

  “Relax,” she said, sliding on his thighs.

  “Dealey campaigns as a devout Christian fundamentalist who praises the importance of family.”

  “Ha,” scoffed Terri.

  Brody thought about it. “He must be paying these escorts through a shell company that’s impossible to trace back to him or he’s using cash—unless he’s an idiot.”

  “The people in the Me Too movement would raise hell if they heard about Dealey’s escorts. And those same people get tons of publicity.”

  She had a point, he decided. Could Dealey’s weakness for women be tied into the conspiracy Peltz was investigating? Did the cabal in the FBI know about Dealey’s secret proclivity? Was it giving them leverage over him? But this information about Lyndon’s sideline wasn’t what MS-13 was after. They were after something tangible. The anonymous letter Deirdre had received in the mail had just one question: where is it? It didn’t refer to a woman selling her favors.