Private L.A. Read online

  “I think she had a reason she couldn’t stay away,” Justine said, her face a mix of compassion and ruefulness.

  “What?” Mo-bot asked.

  “Miguel,” Justine said. “Last night when we were leaving Sanders’s house, I happened to be at the perfect angle, watching her hold him in her lap, both of them in profile, the left side of his face, the side not affected by the cleft palate and all the operations he’s had.”

  “You trying to say she’s his mother?” Mo-bot cried in confusion.

  “I’m willing to bet on it,” Justine said. “I just can’t bear to confront the poor woman with it. Not tonight.”

  “Wait a second,” I said. “Why would she give her baby to the Harlows?”

  “I’m guessing,” Justine allowed. “But it’s not hard to imagine Anita wanting the best possible medical care for her baby, especially when he was born with such a dramatic abnormality, one that required so many operations. You could also imagine Anita, nanny to little Malia and baby Jin, sexual slave to the Harlows, being submissive to their rights and demands.”

  “Wait,” Cruz said. “What rights and demands?”

  “Paternal,” Justine said coldly. “I think Miguel is Thom Harlow’s son.”

  There was dead silence in the hospital room.

  I could see it. Thom Harlow fathers a deformed child while acting out his and Jennifer’s perverse desires. The Harlows, with their pristine public image, don’t want any of that coming out. It absolutely will not do.

  So they offer to “adopt” Miguel, making it seem to the world as if they’re even more saintly than everybody thought. And Anita? She’s allowed to work in the house, no longer nanny, no longer sexual slave, but forced to live a lie for the sake of her son.

  “Amazing job,” I told Justine, and meant it and more. “There’s only one thing left for us to do now.”

  “What’s that?” Justine asked with some trepidation in her voice.

  “Go back to Guadalajara.”

  Chapter 116

  TWO NIGHTS LATER, around eleven in the evening on November second, Mo-bot pulled a tan Ford van over and parked down the street from La Fuente, a five-star cantina on Pino Suárez about a block from the Ministry of Justice in central Guadalajara.

  In the rear of the van, I checked the action of a Smith & Wesson .45. Pablo Cordova, the big Mexican in the long black duster sitting in the front seat, had provided the weapons as well as the van. Cordova was once a top investigator with the Mexican federal police. Now he runs our Mexico City office and is one of those guys who operate on the right side of the law.

  For the most part. When it suits his purposes.

  Cordova had met us at the Manzanillo airport about five hours from Guadalajara earlier on the second Day of the Dead, an annual celebration that involves everyone’s ancestors and lots of tequila. The streets were filled with revelers wearing skeleton masks.

  “Sci?” I said into a Bluetooth device in my ear.

  A blare from a mariachi band before Sci replied from inside the cantina. “They’re paying up now.”

  “How drunk are they?” Justine asked. She was cradling a Remington pump-action combat shotgun with a halo sight.

  “I saw them drink seven rounds with cerveza chasers,” Sci said. “But they probably had one more before I got in here because they’re not looking too steady on their feet.”

  “Perfect,” I said.

  In the front seat, Cordova nodded, said, “I’m up, Jack?”

  “Seems time,” I replied.

  Cordova tugged a skeleton mask down over his face, climbed from the van, shut the door, and started down the sidewalk toward the cantina just as Commandant Raoúl Gomez of the Jalisco State Police stumbled from the bar, followed by his drinking companion, Chief Arturo Fox of the Guadalajara Police Department.

  “This could get ugly and has big downsides,” I said. “Last chance to bail.”

  “Here we go,” Justine said, tugging down her own skeleton mask.

  Mo-bot and I did the same, despite the fact that our plan could backfire and get us thrown into a Mexican prison for a significant stretch of our lives.

  “Okay, Cruz,” I said. “They’re heading toward Independence.”

  Mo-bot threw the van into gear, came parallel and then abreast of our targets and Pablo Cordova, who was quickly closing on them. Cruz, wearing a skeleton mask and a long black duster like Cordova’s, appeared in front of the drunken cops. The right sleeve of the coat was empty. Cruz’s right hand lifted, parting the coat, revealing a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun, which he aimed point-blank at the stomachs of Chief Fox and Commandant Gomez. We eased to a stop, blocking any bystanders’ view of what was happening. I slid back the door.

  “Get in!” Cruz ordered. “Or die.”

  Chapter 117

  FOR AN INSTANT I felt sure that the police officers were going to go for their weapons, but then Cordova prodded them from behind with his sawed-off shotgun and growled, “You want to join your ancestors on the Day of the Dead, señores?”

  Chief Fox broke first, turning and lurching into the van.

  “You’re making a big mistake,” Commandant Gomez snarled as he followed his colleague unsteadily inside the van.

  “On your stomachs,” Justine said, making her voice hoarse and pointing her gun at them from the shadows.

  Cruz climbed in after them, took their weapons, and emptied them of bullets as I slid the door shut. Cordova jumped into the front seat. Mo-bot started driving again.

  “Nice easy pace,” Cordova said.

  Cruz and I meanwhile threw zip-tie restraints around the men’s wrists and ankles. They reeked of tequila and sweat but showed surprisingly little fear when we sat them up.

  “You’ll spend many years behind bars for this,” said Commandant Gomez in an angry, drunken tone. “If you’re lucky and I don’t kill you first.”

  Cruz gagged them. I blindfolded them.

  No one spoke during the drive. South of Guadalajara, near the town of El Zapote, Mo-bot turned off onto a two-track dirt road and bumped up it for several hundred yards next to a condemned building that we’d scouted earlier in the day. Sci pulled up in a second panel van.

  Still wearing the skeleton masks, we got the two men from the van and took them inside what had once been a tool and die operation, using red-lensed flashlights to lead them through the debris that had been left behind. In a high-ceilinged space deep inside the structure, we sat the two men in chairs.

  Cordova said, “We cut off the wristbands. But if you move, we will shoot you with your own guns, señores. Nod if you understand.”

  Both men bobbed their heads. Cruz used a pocketknife to slit the ties. Sci set glasses of water in front of them as they undid their gags. The second the gags were off, Mo-bot threw a switch and high-intensity spotlights glared down on them.

  Chapter 118

  “WHAT IS THIS?” Chief Fox demanded, holding up an arm to block the light glaring into his bleary red eyes. “Who are you? What do you want?”

  The state police commandant squinted into the light and demanded angrily, “Do you have any idea who the fuck we are?”

  “Sí,” Cruz said. “We know who you are.”

  “No,” Gomez insisted. “Do you really know who we are? And what will happen to you if you don’t release us?”

  “His brother-in-law is a very powerful man,” Chief Fox said. “Listen to him, my friends. You don’t want to do this. We pay our dues. We are protected.”

  “By who?” Cruz asked.

  “De la Vega,” Fox said, almost boasting. “Antonio de la Vega.”

  I felt a hand on my forearm, looked over at Cordova. We were behind the spotlights, still wearing our skeleton masks. He whispered in my ear, “De la Vega drug cartel. One bad hombre. Reclusive. Doesn’t like attention.”

  “Even better,” I said, leaned over, repeated to Justine what Cordova had just told me, and finished with: “Have at them.”

  Justine bro
ught a chair with her. She sat opposite the men, pulled off her mask.

  Commandant Gomez recognized her, first incredulous but then filled with drunken rancor. “You will never leave México alive.”

  “What is your relationship to Adelita Gomez, Commandant?” she asked.

  The state police commandant’s head retreated toward his shoulders several inches, like a turtle drawing into its shell or a snake about to strike. “I don’t know no one by that name.”

  “You don’t know Adelita?” Justine said, looking at him with great skepticism. “The Harlows’ nanny? From Guadalajara?”

  “No,” Gomez said. “Never heard of this girl.”

  Fox shook his head. “Guadalajara is a big place.”

  I took that as my cue, turned and made a cutting motion across my throat, and saw a red light blink back in the shadows. Cordova took the commandant’s pistol from Cruz and ran the mechanism as he stepped out into the light, still wearing the long duster and the skeleton mask.

  “Get a better memory, señores, or I shoot you,” he said in English. “Not to kill, but to wound.”

  They looked uncertain, but then Gomez started to say, “I don’t—”

  Cordova aimed at the front of the commandant’s left boot and fired. Gomez screamed, tried to get up, and fell to the floor, writhing in pain, grabbing at his boot, and screeching in Spanish.

  “You’re next, Chief,” Cordova promised Fox above Gomez’s agony. “But I think I’ll aim higher with you. What do you want? The shin? Or the kneecap?”

  The police chief had started to perspire. The sweat ran in rivulets down his face. “Por favor,” he began.

  “Tell us something about Adelita,” Justine said.

  Cordova ran the muzzle of the gun up the police chief’s right shin, across his kneecap and thigh, aimed it at his groin.

  “You would not do such a thing!” Fox cried in horror.

  “Try me,” Cordova said.

  Fox looked down at Commandant Gomez, still writhing on the floor, his screams reduced to moans. Fox looked back to Justine. “I’ll tell you what I know.”

  Cordova tucked the gun inside the duster. I threw a thumbs-up into the darkness, seeing that red light blink again.

  “Tell me about Adelita,” Justine said.

  “Adelita,” Chief Fox said. “She is Raoúl’s niece.”

  “You son of a fucking pig!” Gomez yelled at him.

  “Where is she?”

  “Keep your mouth shut or you will die horribly, Arturo,” Gomez grunted.

  “What makes you think you’re both not going to die horribly?” Cordova said. “Where is she?”

  Commandant Gomez struggled up to his chair. “Take me to a doctor, maybe I tell you.”

  “Where is Adelita Gomez?” Justine demanded again.

  Chief Fox glanced at the blood seeping from his friend’s boot, said, “Recovering, I think.”

  “From what?” Justine asked.

  “Plastic surgery,” Commandant Gomez hissed, his face screwing up in rage. “After what the Harlows did to her, our beautiful Adelita could not stand the sight of her own beautiful face anymore.”

  Chapter 119

  “I’VE SEEN THE films,” Justine said softly. “A terrible thing to happen to someone you love, Commandant. Where is your niece?”

  “I don’t know,” Gomez said sullenly.

  “I think you do,” Justine pressed. “I think she is with your brother-in-law. Antonio de la Vega masterminded the abduction of the Harlows. He’s the one who had Leona Casa Madre killed.”

  The state police commandant said nothing.

  “Where are the Harlows?”

  “Some things are better not known.”

  “Where is your brother-in-law, then?” Cordova demanded.

  “I have not seen Antonio in ten years,” Gomez said. “This is the truth.”

  “But you can get word to him,” Cordova said. “I mean, he is your brother-in-law. Your wife and her sister must talk.”

  “I need to see a doctor,” Gomez complained.

  I removed my mask and stepped into the light, saying, “We’ll take you to one. But then you are getting a message to your brother-in-law. We want the Harlows. We aren’t leaving Mexico without them.”

  Gomez snorted as if I were mad. “You think you gringos can just come to México and order a man like Antonio around?”

  “Actually, yes, we do,” I said, and then nodded at the darkness beyond the spotlights.

  More lights came on, revealing Sci and Mo-bot in their masks, aiming video cameras at Gomez and Fox.

  Chapter 120

  “WHAT IS THIS?” Chief Fox asked, bewildered.

  “Shut up, you idiot!” Commandant Gomez shouted, and then looked angrily at us. “You can’t use anything we just said.”

  “Of course we can,” Justine said. “The Harlow disappearance is the story of the century. Or the decade, anyway. There will be all sorts of people interested in your confession.”

  “The footage has already been sent to a safe place in the USA,” I said. “Which means you are going to go to your brother-in-law, and you are going to get us what we want.”

  Gomez looked at us as if we were insane. “My life does not matter to Antonio. Your life does not matter to Antonio. If he thinks I am to be exposed, he will kill me so I do not talk about him. Eventually he will kill all of you.”

  “No, he won’t,” Justine said. “If he kills you, if he kills any of us, the repercussions will be the same. People the world over will know of Antonio de la Vega’s role in the Harlow abduction.”

  “So what does he care?” Gomez said.

  “Sí,” Chief Fox said. “Antonio is afraid of nothing.”

  “Bullshit, Antonio’s a cockroach,” Cordova said. “And cockroaches don’t like light. They need the darkness to thrive.”

  “The Harlows are like royalty,” I explained. “If their hundreds of millions of fans find out Antonio was behind the disappearance, the political pressure will become enormous, the law enforcement pressure will become enormous, beyond anything in your brother-in-law’s wildest dreams. No amount of bribery will keep him safe. His cartel, his life, will be over. So will Adelita’s.”

  “They’ll both be torn limb from limb,” Justine said. “And you along with them, Commandant.”

  Gomez said nothing.

  “Here’s how it’s going to work,” I said. “We will be at the Hilton, waiting. If we don’t hear from you in twenty-four hours, the footage of your confession will be uploaded to YouTube and the feeding frenzy will begin for you, for your niece, but especially for Antonio. If you or Antonio or anybody tries to kill us, the same thing will happen. There won’t be a dark hole anywhere in the world that any of you can retreat to.”

  “And if he complies?” Chief Fox asked.

  “His role remains a mystery,” I said. “And your role remains a mystery. We’re only interested in bringing the Harlows to safety.”

  The commandant grumbled, “What makes you think they’re alive?”

  “If they’re not, we want the bodies,” I said.

  Chapter 121

  BEFORE GRABBING COMMANDANT Gomez and Chief Fox, we’d checked into a suite at the Hilton. Mo-bot and Sci rigged a fiber-optic camera at the suite door and linked it to a secure website that we monitored from sixteen blocks away in a shabby house surrounded by a high wall topped with glass shards.

  Cordova had rented the house from an old woman who asked no questions when he told her he’d pay five times the going rate if she left us alone.

  In shifts we watched the website. For nearly twenty hours after we dropped Gomez and Chief Fox at a hospital, no one entered the Hilton suite except a maid around eleven a.m. on November third.

  She looked around, realized no one had used the place, and left.

  “You okay?” Justine asked around eight that evening.

  I’d been staring obsessively at the screen while everyone ate burritos Cordova had brought in.
“I wish you and the others would take my offer.”

  “We’re not going to leave you here to deal with de la Vega alone, Jack,” she said. “Just not happening.”

  “This was my idea,” I reminded her. “And I’m beginning to think it was a bad one, that de la Vega might go Scarface somehow, and that I may have put us all in his crosshairs unnecessarily.”

  Justine laid her hand on my shoulder. “We’re all in this together, Jack. We’re seeing this through together.”

  But with every passing minute I was becoming more and more on edge. Time gives an opponent a chance to come up with a countermove. Had I given them too much time?

  “Shit,” Mo-bot said.

  “Double shit,” Sci said.

  I glanced away from the screen. Sci and Mo-bot looked like they were each about to birth a cow. Mo-bot was gesturing wildly at her computer, where bright-orange numbers were blinking—2, 3, and 4—alerting us to the tripping of motion detectors we’d placed inside the wall that surrounded the house and yard.

  Someone had found us.

  Make that three, maybe four people had found us.

  And they had no interest in knocking.

  Chapter 122

  THE DRAPES WERE drawn, but Cordova flipped off the lights.

  “Get low, spread out,” Jack whispered.

  In the dim light shining from the computers Justine saw Cruz, Cordova, and Sci fan in different directions. It seemed surreal to see Kloppenberg carrying one of the sawed-off shotguns. It felt even stranger to be holding the combat shotgun, her finger on the safety.

  Justine flashed on the image of Carla and had a moment of uncertainty until Jack eased up beside her, whispered, “Some people will tell you that the best thing you can do when you’re outgunned is to give up and negotiate for your safety. Nothing is further from the truth. If someone attacks you, fight and keep fighting with whatever you’ve got, especially when you’re dealing with people who have probably killed before.”