Private L.A. Read online

  I turned away from the others, walked off the veranda out onto the lawn beneath the live oaks.

  “Mickey,” I said, trying to sound even, nonchalant.

  “Jack, how soon can you and Del Rio be in the mayor’s office?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “How long, Jack?”

  I looked over at the helicopter parked on the Harlows’ front lawn. “Give me clearance to use the helipad?”

  “Done.”

  “Forty minutes, tops,” I said.

  “We’ll be waiting,” Fescoe said.

  “No clue, Mickey?”

  “Turn on the radio, Jack. Turn on the TV. It’s on every goddamned station in L.A., and they don’t know the half of it.”

  Chapter 18

  “WELL DONE, MR. Hernandez,” Cobb said to the killer as he stripped off the No Prisoners disguise inside the rear of one of the white panel vans.

  “Why didn’t I take her?” Hernandez grunted.

  “Because by our letting her live, the terror will rise. It has a face now, a voice.”

  “Could have been her and the kid lying there and not talking,” agreed Johnson, who was up front, driving them east toward the City of Commerce.

  “Could have been anyone,” Hernandez said, humming again.

  “People don’t like change, gentlemen,” Cobb observed. “I don’t care if you’re a Taliban in East-Jesus-Stan or a mom in Litchfield, Connecticut. People like their routines, their habits. When you threaten their habits and routines, they get upset, lash out, and do all sorts of things they would not normally do.”

  “Like take sharp terms in a negotiation, Mr. Cobb?” Johnson asked, grinning in the rearview mirror.

  “That too, Mr. Johnson,” Cobb agreed, allowing a rare smile that only deepened the lines of the spiderweb scar on the left side of his face.

  “And now?” Hernandez asked.

  Cobb’s smile disappeared. “We let Mr. Kelleher and Mr. Watson continue to execute their end of the plan. And we wait for contact.”

  “You sure they’ll try now?” Johnson asked.

  “Dead sure,” Cobb said. “Worms just can’t help themselves when they feel the soil all around them getting prickly and hot.”

  Chapter 19

  ON A SCREEN in the private office of the Honorable Diane Wills, mayor of Los Angeles, the killer rose from a squatting position in front of Sheila Vicente, his back to the camera as he exited the pharmacy.

  In a voice oddly composed given the traumatic experience she’d suffered not two and a half hours before, Sheila Vicente said, “He was humming that old Doors song before he saw me and Enrique. He was humming it as he left.” She shifted in her chair, started to weep.

  Mayor Wills went to console her while a handful of L.A.’s other high-and-mighty looked on. L.A. Police Chief Mickey Fescoe, L.A. County Sheriff Lou Cammarata, L.A. District Attorney Billy Blaze.

  Del Rio and I had come off the helicopter twenty minutes before. We’d flown down from Ojai with the Harlows’ management team and the help, leaving Justine, Sci, and Mo-bot to continue the search, at least until dark.

  For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what their angle was, calling us in on a missing persons case, then not taking our advice to bring in the FBI. But I had had little chance to think about that.

  The entire flight down we’d watched the news coverage of the shootings at the pharmacy on La Cienega. Local news interviewed a teenager who’d been inside during the killings, shopping for nail polish.

  “It was creepy,” the teen said, beginning to choke. “I never heard a thing until one of the clerks started screaming bloody murder, like Cabin in the Woods or something.”

  But that and the body count was about all we knew until we got to the mayor’s office, watched the raw footage of the killing spree, and heard Sheila Vicente describe the killer humming as he left.

  “ ‘Peace Frog,’ ” Del Rio said. “That was the song?”

  Vicente had composed herself again. She nodded at Del Rio. “You know—‘Blood in the streets, it’s up to my ankles’?”

  “‘Bloody red sun of Phantastic L.A.,’ ” Del Rio replied.

  “You were supposed to give a message to the mayor, is that right?” Chief Fescoe said.

  Ruddy coarse skin, early fifties, Fescoe is as smart as any man I know, also one of the most cunning. He’s a good cop. He’s a better politician. Which was what had puzzled me about the killings. Why were we here? Why had Del Rio and I been allowed to see the raw footage?

  “Yes, and only to the mayor,” Vicente said, looking to Wills, a tall, formidable, red-haired woman who long ago played volleyball at UCLA and graduated first in her class at Stanford Law.

  “What is it, dear?” Mayor Wills asked.

  Sheila Vicente reached into her purse and with trembling hands drew out a Baggie. I could see there was something inside it but couldn’t tell much more. The assistant district attorney started to hand the Baggie to the mayor, but Chief Fescoe was quicker and blocked the transfer.

  “Lay it on the desk,” he said. “No more fingerprints.”

  “He wore gloves, flesh-colored thin gloves,” Vicente said.

  I crossed the room to the desk, saw the lime-green card in the Baggie, and saw the printing: NO PRISONERS.

  Four yesterday. Five today. He’s on an escalating spree. Those were my first thoughts. I said, “Captain Harry Thomas with sheriff’s homicide has a card just like this, taken in evidence at the Malibu Beach killings last night.”

  Sheriff Cammarata scowled but said, “That’s true.”

  Sheila Vicente said, “Mayor, he told me to tell you that unless you comply with his demands there will be no mercy after this. None.”

  “What demands?” Mayor Wills said. “I haven’t heard any demands.”

  There was a silence for a beat, broken by Chief Fescoe, who paled considerably before saying, “I have. In letters yesterday and today, and then again on video two hours ago.”

  “What?” cried Blaze, the district attorney.

  “And you told no one?” demanded Sheriff Cammarata.

  Fescoe bristled. “At first we thought it was just some nut job writing crazy letters. We had no word that you found that calling card at Malibu last night. Until the killings at the CVS, we had nothing to say the threats were real.”

  “What threats and what video?” Del Rio asked.

  Fescoe nodded to his assistant. “The ones we got two hours ago.”

  The assistant tapped an order into a laptop computer. YouTube appeared on the big screen. The featured video on the page was entitled

  NO PRISONERS: FACES OF WAR L.A.

  “Play it,” Fescoe said.

  The slayings on the beach were ruthless, precise, and shot from the killer’s perspective. The camera work seemed remarkably smooth given the brutality of the action. The only parts of the killer you saw, however, were the gloves and the guns.

  After the last man fell dead, a warning appeared:

  IF YOU DO NOT COMPLY

  MANY MORE WILL DIE.

  NO ONE IS SAFE. NO ONE

  “Hundred and twenty-five thousand hits,” Del Rio said, tearing me from thoughts of being under the tarps the night before, looking at the burned bodies of the four men I’d just seen executed on video.

  “Comply?” the mayor said. “Comply with what?”

  Fescoe paled again, swallowed, and said, “He wants money to stop the killings. Lots of money.”

  Chapter 20

  “LET ME GET this straight,” Mayor Wills said, sinking into her desk chair. “He’s killing people to extort the city?”

  “This explains it,” Fescoe said, nodding to his assistant again. YouTube disappeared, replaced by high-res photographs of two typed letters. “We got the letter on the left yesterday morning, the one on the right this morning. Both through snail mail.”

  I scanned the two letters. Both talked about “senseless killings that could easily be avoided” and suggested
that failure to accede to the demands would result in mass terror and damage to the Los Angeles economy. “After all,” the letters read, “who wants to be a tourist in Murder Central, USA?”

  The first letter demanded a million dollars to prevent further killings. The second asked for two million and threatened that the price would rise again if No Prisoners was not contacted by ten the following morning. The letters gave instructions for Fescoe to initiate contact by posting a specific term—“tribute”—in an update on the LAPD’s Facebook page.

  In turn, the chief would get information about where and how to transfer the money. The letters also warned that failure to make contact and payment within twenty-four hours would cause the daily death toll to increase by one.

  “Using social media as one of the levers,” Del Rio commented. “You’re dealing with someone young, educated, a planner.”

  I nodded, “And ex-military, I’d expect.”

  Cammarata, a former US Army Ranger, snorted. “Why? Just because he uses the handle No Prisoners? He could have played football, as in ‘Take no prisoners.’ Or soccer, for Christ’s sake. Who is this amateur?”

  I ignored the barb, said, “Could very well be, Sheriff. That’s just the way it feels to me.”

  He nodded coldly. “We pros don’t go on feelings.”

  “Well, there you go,” I replied. “But honestly, I’m as confused as you are, Sheriff, as to why Rick and I were asked here.”

  All eyes traveled to Chief Fescoe, who cleared his throat. “In my opinion, what we have here is the makings of a first-class career Armageddon, a worse spree killer than the DC Sniper. How we handle this will pretty much determine our political fates, especially if the death count continues to rise. So what I’m about to suggest does not leave this room. Are we agreed?”

  Slowly, reluctantly, all those gathered nodded, including me.

  “I think Jack’s right in his reaction and so is Del Rio, and that’s part of why I asked them to join us,” Fescoe began. “This ‘pay to stop the killing’ angle. I’ve never seen it before. And there’s something about the way this is being done, call it a feeling if you want, Lou, but this guy is not going to stop. He’s highly trained. And he’s going to kill until we either catch him or we buckle and pay him off.”

  “We are not buckling,” Mayor Wills said emphatically. “The City of Los Angeles will not be paying any murderous extortionist on my watch.”

  “Exactly my thoughts, Your Honor,” the chief replied with a slow bow of his head. “I never for a moment considered advising you to pay. But we are faced with a double-edged sword. If we don’t pay, we must ask ourselves whether we are also dooming six innocent people to die tomorrow.”

  “You don’t know that,” Sheriff Cammarata snapped.

  “You want to take the chance?” Fescoe shot back, reddening.

  “No,” the mayor said. “What are you suggesting, Mickey?”

  Fescoe took a breath, glanced at me. “We could call in the FBI and their profilers and let them take control of this, but then the extortion campaign would leak everywhere, any way you look at it a PR nightmare for us.”

  “I sense an ‘or’ coming,” Mayor Wills said.

  “Or we can bring in Private on a hush-hush basis, as, say, consultants.”

  “Why in God’s name would we do that?” Sheriff Cammarata demanded.

  I was wondering the same thing. And I could tell Del Rio was too.

  “Because they’re not tied to the goddamned Constitution,” Fescoe said. “They can simply do things we can’t legally. They can take risks that we can’t.”

  “You mean they can cut corners and break laws?” the mayor said coldly.

  “I didn’t say that, Your Honor,” Fescoe soothed. “But consider that six lives are at stake tomorrow, and seven the day after that. Wouldn’t you cut a few corners to save those lives?”

  I held up both hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where am I legally here? Where is Private? My firm isn’t going to do your dirty work and then have you turn around and slap us with some Bill of Rights violation.”

  “That won’t happen,” Fescoe said.

  “How are you going to ensure that?” I demanded.

  “The mayor is going to grant you blanket immunity beforehand, Jack. And the district attorney’s going to sign the guarantee of that. And so are the state’s attorney general and the governor.”

  Chapter 21

  IN THE GARAGE in the City of Commerce, Watson clapped, pointed at the iPad in front of him, and roared, “Thar she blows! ‘Tribute’ on the LAPD Facebook page!”

  Cobb set down a cup of hot coffee and hurried to see. There it was: “Tribute to the fallen at CVS.”

  “You were right on the money, Mr. Cobb,” Johnson said admiringly.

  Cobb glanced at his watch. It was eight thirty in the evening. “An hour before I’d predicted, but we’ll take it.”

  He turned to Kelleher, said, “Your ball from here.”

  The big man smoothed his red beard and began typing on his keyboard.

  “Use the New Delhi and Panama crisscrosses,” Watson said.

  Kelleher’s left eye screwed up. “Who taught you about the New Delhi and Panama crisscrosses?”

  “Just saying,” Watson said.

  “No chance they’re paying us two million tomorrow,” Nickerson said.

  “Of course not,” Cobb agreed. “They’ll try some sort of scam. Why?”

  Watson muttered, “Because the whole world’s a scam, Mr. Cobb.”

  “Damn right it is,” Cobb said, feeling in the groove of a familiar rant. “Everybody’s in a scam or being worked by a scammer. Look at Wall Street. Scam. Medicine? Scam. Politics? Scam. Religion? Bigger scam. Military?”

  “Biggest scam,” said Hernandez and Johnson in unison.

  “Plunderers,” Nickerson said.

  Cobb cracked his knuckles, gestured with his scarred chin to Kelleher. “Time to work them a little harder now. Turn up the voltage.”

  Chapter 22

  I GOT BACK to my house around ten. I’d been up for forty-two straight hours, running on fumes, desperately in need of rest. The following day was shaping up to be a brute and I wanted to have my wits about me, rather than stumbling around foggy, maybe making a mistake that might cost six innocent people their lives.

  Justine called while I was brushing my teeth after a well-deserved shower.

  “I just got home,” she said.

  “Join the club,” I said, and yawned.

  “What was the emergency meeting about?”

  “Can’t talk about it. Anything new up at the Harlows’?”

  “Not at the ranch, no. Or at least nothing until Sci and Mo-bot can run tests on the samples they brought back. I don’t like Sanders and the other two.”

  “I could tell. They’re playing us somehow.”

  In the background I could hear dogs barking. “How’s the bulldog?”

  “Better,” Justine said. “Settling in.”

  “You took her with you?”

  “You think I was going to let the dog be taken hostage by Camilla Bronson and locked in some hideaway along with the Harlows’ help?”

  “Locked? That’s a little strong.”

  “Is it?”

  I knew better than to argue any further. “Listen, I’ve got to sleep.”

  “One more thing,” she said. “When I went online, I saw a story the AP picked up from a newspaper in Guadalajara.”

  I rubbed my head, which was pounding. “Okay?”

  “It says that Thom and Jennifer Harlow were spotted stumbling around one of the more notorious sections of that city last night,” she said. “Witnesses claimed they looked past the point of drunkenness.”

  “Guadalajara?”

  “Yes.”

  I rubbed my temples. “Looks like you’re going to Mexico in the morning. Take Cruz with you.”

  “But the dogs …” she began.

  A beep sounded. Call waiting. I looked, closed m
y eyes, and swore my head was being split in two. My dear brother, Tommy, was calling.

  “You’re one of the most competent people I know,” I said to Justine. “Figure it out. Get to Guadalajara. Find the Harlows.”

  I hit ANSWER, said, “Tommy?”

  “Heh,” Tommy said, laughed.

  He’d been drinking. My brother always laughs with a “heh” when he’s been drinking, another shitty trait Junior picked up from our late father. “Didn’t think you were gonna answer there, bro,” he said. “Long time no see.”

  “What do you want?”

  We hadn’t spoken in months, certainly not since Clay Harris died.

  “My mouthpiece called a couple of hours ago,” Tommy said. “That son of a bitch Billy Blaze is indicting me.”

  I flashed on District Attorney Blaze during the meeting in the mayor’s office. He hadn’t said a word to me about my brother. But then, why would he?

  Tommy kept grumbling drunkenly. “Fucking murder one on circumstantial evidence. Can you believe that, Jack? They got no gun. No forensic evidence.”

  “Other than the fact that you were picked up drunk and driving the dead man’s car.”

  “No powder blast on my coat or hands,” Tommy said.

  “You’ve always been clever,” I replied. “But anyway, sorry to hear you’re going to trial. I’m beat-up tired, heading to bed.”

  “Heh,” Tommy said, laughed with more bitterness. “My liar says Billy Blaze will be there for the arraignment. Up for reelection next month, you know.”

  “Tommy,” I began before my brother’s voice changed, became arch and knowing.

  “I get to speak, Jack,” he said. “Did you know that? At the arraignment? I have the right to speak my piece, even against the advice of counsel and all. You should be there to hear what I have to say, brother. You really, really should.”

  And then the line clicked dead.

  A few minutes later, I lay in bed in the darkness, thinking, What is there to stop Tommy from bringing me down with him? Implicating me in a murder I was in no way part of just to see me fall into the void after him? Just to see me ruined at last?