by John Lansing
Jack felt the first spark of excitement that came when there was a possible break in a case. It could be nothing, but it was well worth the trip to Hollywood. “Sounds good. Text me your address, and I’ll run over if that’s convenient . . . Great, I’ll see you in forty-five.”
Cruz knew from the tone of Jack’s voice something was up.
“I’ve got to make a stop in town, why don’t you shut down, catch some shut-eye, and we’ll meet up at Hal’s around five and compare notes. Good work wiring Rusty’s car.”
“Piece of cake.”
“I’ll leave a message for Mateo and have him join the party.” And Jack headed down the dock.
* * *
The El Palacio was a permanent fixture on Fountain Avenue. Built in the thirties, the white stucco Spanish-style apartment complex still had remnants of old Hollywood elegance, but the L-shaped courtyard looked tired now, the fountain dry. The glory days, when it was filled with the youthful optimism of studio actors and actresses, a shadow of the past.
Miranda’s one-bedroom apartment had white walls, high ceilings, hardwood floors, and a newly renovated kitchen and bath. “The place used to have four- and five-bedroom two-story apartments. An actress got murdered in one of the units back in the forties. The new owner chopped the hell out of the place to turn it into a moneymaker. Who can blame him,” she shouted from the kitchen. Miranda was stacking dishes into the dishwasher, wearing a blue work shirt, jeans, and pink UGGs. She dried her hands and walked into the living room. “Sure I can’t get you anything?”
“You’ve done more than enough.” Jack was flipping through the stack of magazines piled on a small desk next to a laptop, and a shoe box containing Luke’s toothbrush, hairbrush, and shaving gear.
“I couldn’t find anything on the computer, but I’m not savvy like that. I’ve seen on TV that a search can be done. If you’re interested and you promise you’ll get it back to me, I’ll lend it to you. But if you break it, you own it.”
“Deal.”
“You want to pick up some lunch on the Strip? I’ll take you to one of the new hot spots.”
“I’ve got to move on this, Miranda. We can get coffee when I drop the computer off.”
“Coffee, huh?” Knowing it was a nice kiss-off. Well, she was okay with nice. “Luke told me to take ten percent of my tips every week and pay myself first and then the bills. He set me up with an index fund. Said it might not look flashy, but in a few years I’d feel really smart. I could sure use some of that.”
Jack wasn’t sure if Miranda meant more smarts or more money, but he felt her pain.
“What kind of gangster does that?” she asked.
Jack couldn’t answer her question, not yet. He placed the magazines in the shoe box, picked up the computer, conveyed his thanks, and headed for the marina.
* * *
Jack was sitting in his favorite booth at Hal’s Bar & Grill: in the back of the room, with a clear view of the dining and bar areas. The bar was separated from the main room by large metal sculptures, and the walls were tastefully hung with contemporary pieces from the thriving Venice art scene.
Arsinio, waiter extraordinaire, was setting down drinks in front of Mateo, Cruz, and then Jack. Cruz was showing the men his surveillance shots on his laptop. Arsinio knew better than to interrupt a business meeting and made himself scarce.
“I cut out the chaff, and well, you’ll get the picture,” Cruz said, narrating the sequence of photographs. “Rusty checking his watch, Rusty back on board. Now it’s Frankie-the-Man checking his phone and then checking his watch, now belching, I think. Rusty down the gangplank, looking pissed. And here we go. Peter Maniacci pulls to a stop. Peter jumps out of his ride. Rusty gets in his face, gives a two-fisted blow to Peter’s chest. Peter pushes back. Both men start for their guns, and Frankie pulls his first and quiets the natives.”
Jack can’t help himself and emits a gruff laugh.
Cruz continues, “Then Rusty goes back on board; Rusty appears in the next shot wheeling the weekend receipts. Here’s Frankie hefting the leather satchel and heaving it into Rusty’s trunk. Rusty fires up his car, Frankie slides in, shotgun, the car bends under his weight.” Cruz looked up to see if he’d gotten a laugh. Nothing. He pushed on. “And Peter follows in his Plymouth. A few minutes later, you can see Mateo’s rental car on the surface road.”
“Where was the drop?” Jack asked Mateo.
“Both cars pulled into the alley behind Cardona’s restaurant. I waited down the block about a half hour and then followed Rusty, alone now, to his condo in Westwood. I left Peter and Frankie at the Chop House to fend for themselves.”
“There was another series I thought might be of interest,” Cruz said, scrolling through photographs and then turning his laptop so Jack and Mateo could weigh in. It was the sequence of Trent and Roxy sitting dockside while Jack was on the bridge of the Bella Fortuna, talking to Caroline.
“Good catch, Cruz,” Jack said. “They look jumpy. I wonder what that’s all about. So here’s the play: Trent referenced an Indonesian high roller who was his entrée to our gambling boat. Mateo, I want you to check out your poker buddy and see if the man is one and the same.
“And Cruz, I want you to take a look at Miranda’s computer, see if you can pull up any of the websites Luke frequented. And check out the numbers and doodles scrawled in the margins of these magazines. Could be something, could be nothing. When I get home, I’ll dive into the onboard security tapes and see if anything catches my eye. Let’s reconvene in the morning and compare notes.”
Twelve
Angelica Marie Cardona was standing outside Jack’s door, holding a single red rose in pale delicate hands, looking even more angelic than Jack remembered. And then he looked into her eyes and saw a totally different woman. Jack bent to brush her cheek, and Angelica grabbed the back of Jack’s hair and pulled his mouth onto hers. Jack was erect before coming up for air. He keyed the door with one hand and ushered her in with the other.
Angelica tossed the rose onto the kitchen island and jumped into his arms, her legs wrapped tightly around his waist. Her mouth buried in his neck, then his ear, and now his mouth. Jack moved the few steps to the bed and stripped off the duvet cover with one hand. The only thing he wanted to get tangled up in was Angelica.
Angelica pulled his black T-shirt over his head and threw it across the room. His hands flew over the top three buttons of her silk blouse, pulled it over her head and onto the floor. He slowed his breathing and pulled off her jeans, revealing a flowered silk thong. His breath came in fits and starts now as he kicked off his jeans and she pulled his briefs down and one-handed them over his feet, slowly moving back up his body, running her lips against his flesh, her teeth and tongue against his erection. Jack couldn’t breathe now and mumbled, “We really . . . should . . . slow down.”
Angelica moved up to his mouth and pulled back a centimeter. “Go as slow as you want, Jack. But don’t stop.”
Jack rolled Angelica over on her back and moved from her lips to her stomach to her sex, down her thigh to her pink manicured toes. Angelica wrapped her legs around his neck, and Jack complied. The sounds emanating from Angelica’s throat were primal, deep, and passion-filled.
Jack lifted her up and they found each other, dissolved into each other, seated, rocking, staring, eyes wide open. The room fell away and Angelica’s gaze turned smoky, the picture abstract, their breathing, and heartbeat, and power in sync. Deep and ragged and wet.
Angelica disengaged, got up on her knees, and presented her breast and her nipple, red from their friction. She squeezed him hard, rolled, and Jack entered her from behind. When Angelica turned and their eyes met, Jack understood sexual bliss. He felt her tightening, pulsing against him, around him, and gave himself to the moment. Angelica spun and he held fast and their bodies collided and rolled, and they came together. She was smiling and tears spilled, but Jack didn’t discern pain. He just drew her closer and trusted that Angelica’s wer
e tears of joy.
* * *
Angelica was towel-drying her blonde hair, and Jack watched her in the mirror, transfixed. He was dressed in clean jeans, bare-chested and barefoot. She was dressed in her jeans, also bare-chested and barefoot.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Jack, but you look like a schoolboy. Battered and bruised, but with your shit-eating grin, definitely a schoolboy.” She shook out her silk blouse, unbuttoned the front, and slid into it with the grace of a dancer.
Angelica’s coarseness was unexpected and disarming, Jack thought. “No offense taken. Wine?”
Angelica nodded, ran her lips across Jack’s, and he walked past, conjuring baseball scores to stifle his arousal. Angelica knew the effect she was having and smiled at herself in the mirror, left two buttons discreetly undone, and followed in his wake.
“I want you to let yourself go, Jack.”
“If I’d gone any further, the cops would be knocking on my door.” Jack popped the cork and poured two glasses of red. He handed one to Angelica and clinked it with his.
“You know what I’m saying.” And he did. They both took a sip and Jack again ruminated how this young woman, young being the operative word, could read minds. “There are no guarantees in life,” Angelica went on. “Surprises, but no guarantees. You taught me that.”
“Who are you? And are you hungry?”
“I didn’t come here to eat, Jack.”
“You’ve made that perfectly clear.”
Undaunted, Angelica was going to speak her mind. “Let the past go. One day at a time, Jack. If I sound like a fortune cookie, cool. Let me be your good luck.”
It sounded easy enough, but Jack wasn’t sure he could submit. His cop radar was picking up distress signals. Their relationship created complications beyond belief. Angelica was what his uncle called an old soul. Wise beyond her years. That was the upside. But her family tree had poisonous roots, and Jack wasn’t sure Angelica had the cure.
Angelica took another big sip of wine, slipped on her sandals, and took Jack by the hand. “Walk me to my car? My uncle flew into town, and I’ve been summoned for a late family dinner at the Chop House.”
Jack let go of the timing implications of the East Coast family flying into town, and walked Angelica down to her car, parked in front of his building.
Angelica jumped into her Lexus convertible, powered the top down, and turned her head toward Jack, lips slightly parted. Jack leaned in and planted a tender kiss on her perfect lips. She nodded her approval and executed a U-turn. Jack heard Miles Davis drift from her car’s stereo as she headed for Washington Boulevard. Definitely an old soul, Jack thought, which brought a smile to his face as he watched the red taillights recede and walked back into his building.
* * *
Angelica’s car and the lovers’ goodbye kiss filled Peter’s long-distance lens. Satisfied that he had documented their assignation per Cardona’s orders, he lowered the camera, turned over the engine of his new follow car, and pulled away from the curb.
Before being jobbed by Bertolino and humiliated in front of the boss, Peter might have had second thoughts about invading Jack’s privacy. He didn’t think it was relevant. But now he didn’t give a shit.
* * *
Peter’s car, a new black Toyota RAV4, pulled away from the curb and followed Angelica’s car down Glencoe. Special Agent Ted Flannery lowered his camera and let the scene he’d witnessed play out, percolating in his analytical mind, coming up with four distinct possibilities as to how it could affect the efficacy of his case. If Luke had taken the money and run, Flannery was sure there was more than the initial total Jack had reported. If he was dead, Flannery would make sure Cardona was put away and the L.A. Mafia dealt a fatal blow. If Jack was consorting with and not investigating the target, he’d be sharing cell space with Cardona. Let’s see how well he does on the inside. The thought would have made Flannery smile if he hadn’t been livid at the thought of a rogue FBI agent on his team and how it would damage his otherwise stellar career trajectory.
And then a smile did crease Flannery’s stiff lips. He was rethinking his initial strategy and had come up with a move that would be either a game changer or a career ender.
* * *
All conversation ceased as Angelica Marie Cardona entered the private dining room at the rear of the Chop House. With the arrival of the East Coast family, it was a full table, with one empty seat calling her name. It was between her godfather, Mickey Razzano, who was the capo for one of the five New York Families; and her aunt Lucille, who was Cardona’s sister and Mickey’s wife.
“Well, I’m glad you could make time for your family,” Vincent Cardona said through a forced smile.
“Hi all, welcome,” Angelica said, kissing her father deferentially on the cheek and taking in the cast of characters.
“Are you preggers?” Lucille rasped, yanking Angelica her way and planting a wet kiss on her cheek. “Lemme look at choo.”
“Aunt Lucille!” Angelica found herself at a rare loss for words but couldn’t hide the red moving unceremoniously up her face to her ears.
“You look beautiful! What, Vincent, c’mon, she has that glow. What’d I say?” Lucille had no shame.
Cardona spared his daughter direct eye contact, used to his sister’s social blunders, but his tight grin told the story.
Angelica, angered at her lack of control, and her aunt’s implication, and the invasion of her privacy, walked around the table of twenty-five, diffusing the energy, kissing cheeks and shaking the hands of uncles, aunts, first cousins, extended family, and their Mafia associates. Rusty made a show of ignoring her presence while whispering conspiratorially into her first cousin Jimmy’s ear. Jimmy winked slyly and held on to her hand a moment too long, reminding her of extended-family Sunday meals in New York City as a child. Angelica, bristling, knew she was most certainly the topic of her cousin’s conversation.
Conspicuously missing from the family reunion were her father’s men, Peter and Frankie-the Man. Frankie was being blamed for the hire of the missing Luke Donato, and Peter was probably tailing Jack. Angelica chastised herself for stepping into the middle of her father’s business. She’d be more careful in the future.
Show tunes were being belted from the piano bar, while the clatter of dishes and silver drifted into the private room, riding the wave of high energy from patrons laughing, eating, and drinking in the main dining room of the Chop House.
Angelica took her seat next to Mickey, a wiry man in his sixties with bluish circles under his stony brown eyes, thin salt-and-pepper hair and mustache, and an attitude that could snuff out a candle.
“You look good, Uncle Mickey.”
Mickey’s eyes pierced and took her in thoughtfully before speaking. This man, her uncle through marriage, held the power of life and death over his soldiers. And, ultimately, her father.
“No, you, you look beautiful. I feel younger just sitting next to you. The family is proud, taking care of that business the way you did. Right, Vincent?”
Cardona nodded seriously, conflicted over his brother-in-law bringing up such a personal subject at his dinner table. It was disrespectful. But then his eyes crinkled into a genuine smile of pride as he was reminded how close he had come to losing his daughter, the love of his life. It was also a reminder of Jack Bertolino, the man who had risked his life to save her. Jack was a complication, a thorn in the side, no doubt about it. And Vincent wasn’t sure he could ever call the debt paid in full. But it wouldn’t stop him from taking care of business.
“You made us all proud,” Mickey went on, not knowing when to stop, invoking murmurs of agreement from around the table.
“Thank you,” Angelica said politely as a waiter appeared at her side, saving her from further discussion. He offered a bottle of Italian red and a California chardonnay. Angelica chose the Barolo. The waiter nodded, poured, and the table seemed pleased with her selection.
“To family,” Angelica said, raising he
r glass. “Salute!”
The entire table echoed, “Salute!”
As glasses clinked, a cadre of waiters entered carrying plates filled with New York steaks, sausage and peppers, fresh asparagus, eggplant parmigiana, and a large bubbling tray of lasagna.
The conversation was momentarily stifled as cigars glowed in ashtrays and grunts of approval took center stage at the feast set before them. Voices grew louder as the wine loosened tongues and reached a crescendo as the party began in earnest.
* * *
Mateo strolled confidently up the gangplank of the Bella Fortuna, dressed to the nines in upscale casual, a chilled bottle of Dom Pérignon under one arm and a killer smile on his face as he took in the vision standing on the deck.
Caroline Boudreau.
A light breeze played through her hair; her chiffon dress buffeted gently as she opened the gate and welcomed Mateo onto her playground. “He came bearing gifts,” she said with approval.
“My mother taught me well.”
“In all honesty, a young man such as yourself, I was surprised you weren’t already engaged for the evening.”
“My only regret,” Mateo said, walking Caroline into the main salon, empty and dimly lit, his hand resting comfortably on the perfect curve of her waist, “was that you beat me to the call.”
“It was out of the ordinary,” and her eyes crinkled into a coy smile, “but I’m learning in life that time is precious.” After giving the statement some thought, “And the proper course of action is whatever we choose to make of it. If I’m not mistaken, you’ve proved me correct.”
“You flatter me,” he said, and he stepped close and took in her lightly perfumed scent; his lips lightly brushed hers, met no resistance, and completed the task. “Champagne?” his deep voice crooned, library-soft.
