Authors: Victor Methos
“If it is, then I’m only exposing myself to it. Park here.”
She pulled to a stop in front of the gate. A large Confederate flag was draped over it, next to a sign warning trespassers to stay away. Stanton stepped out of the car and shut the door behind him. He checked his watch.
“Half an hour. After that, call it in.”
He turned toward the facility. The fence easily circled a quarter of a mile. The gate, made up of several interlacing steel bars, was the only place to pass through. He peered in. A couple of women were tending to a massive garden. A row of Jeeps, motorcycles, and trucks took up a wall on the south side. A pirate flag flew over the entrance to one of the smaller buildings.
There was no intercom
at the gate. He glanced around and saw a foot and a half of space underneath the gate. He got on his belly and crawled in. He stood up on the other side and went to dust himself off but changed his mind. He began walking toward the women in the garden. They stopped talking as soon as they saw him. One of them ran to the building behind them, and the other stood and faced him.
“Who are you?”
“Jon Stanton,” he shouted. He took out his badge. It said San Diego Police Department on it, but he figured no one would look too closely. “I’m with the police.”
Several men rushed out of the building the woman had run into. Some
looked like stereotypical neo-Nazis with shaved heads and red shoelaces on black boots. Others looked as though they could have been hanging out at any mall in the country, wearing polo shirts and jeans with Nike sneakers. A younger one in a white polo shirt stepped forward. The woman shouted to him that Stanton was a police officer.
“What the fuck you want
, policeman? This here’s private property, and you’s trespassin’.”
“I just need a couple of minutes of your time
, and I’ll be outta here.”
Two men came out of a building
, holding assault rifles. The young one waved them back. They stood their ground but lowered the rifles.
“What the fuck would I wanna talk to you about?”
“Fredrick Steed. I understand that he lives here. I need to speak to him about his parents.”
Another man
came outside. He was tall and gaunt, with blond hair that hung to his shoulders. He appeared incredibly fit, and his countenance wasn’t angry like the others’. In fact, he was smiling.
“Get outta his face, Curly
Boy,” he said to the young man. He walked over to Stanton and held out his hand. “I’m Brody.”
“Jon. Are you in charge here?”
“Nobody’s really in charge, but I’ll speak for us. We can talk inside.”
Stanton
followed as the crowd separated to let him through. The men and women glared at Stanton as he passed, and he saw that many of them had the dark ink and unsteady tracing of prison tattoos. Several of the women held babies in their arms.
Brody led Stanton
into the building with the pirate flag. It was a bar. On the north side sat the actual bar, packed and messy. There were tables with worn leather chairs, Ping-Pong and pool, arcade games, and several dartboards. A massive television taking up a wall in the back was turned to a college rugby game. Brody got behind the bar and poured himself absinthe and lime juice. He poured Stanton one as well. He took it to be polite and placed it in front of him.
“I appreciate you talking to me.”
Brody took a sip. “I can tell pure Aryan blood when I see it. See, if you’s was a nigger, we would’a shot you dead for trespassing. But I can always tell pure Aryan blood.”
“I’m here about Fredrick Steed. Is he here right now?”
“What do you want with Freddy?”
“It’s about his parents.”
“Oh, yeah. Yeah, he didn’t talk much about that, but we heard. Some fucker popped ’em both on the tram.”
“I just need to talk to him about it. Nobody’s interviewed him.”
“Nah, and I don’t think anybody’s goin’ to. Freddy took off ’bout a week ago.”
“Do you know where?”
Brody shook his head. He sat up on the bar, letting his legs dangle off the edge. “People come’n go here. Some of us are permanent, but most of the people stay a few weeks and move on. Or they get busted and spend some time in the can and come back after. Or don’t. Freddy hung out here ’cause he and Tyler was really tight. They spent some time together in the can for burglaries.”
“Is Tyler here?”
“Yeah, he’s here.”
“Do you mind if I speak with him?”
He took a long drink and placed the glass down. “Now, I start letting the police talk to my men, people start asking questions. They think I’m weak, that I gave in to ‘the man.’ But if you was to gimme something, then I could say that I got the better deal.”
“That sounds like the words of a leader in a place that’s not supposed to have any.”
Brody grinned. “You wanna deal or not?”
“What do you want?”
“Simple thing, brother. Nothing you wouldn’t do anyway.”
“What is it?”
“There’s a shipment of coke coming in on Saturday to the Black Guerrillas. You heard’a them?”
“Vaguely.”
“They a nigger gang. That coke, they’re gonna sell that and buy them some weapons. None of that Tech-9 shit. They want some serious gear. I want you to send a word to the Narcs.”
“There’s no guarantee Narcotics will move on it. That’s not how government works. If someone can’t take the credit in the newspapers
, they won’t do anything about it.”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t ask you to bust it. I just said to pass the word on. There’s a captain in Metro named Stewart. You pass it on to him
, and he’ll move on it. I’d bet my nuts he’ll move on it.”
“I don’t understand why you couldn’t just tell him yourself.”
“I got my reasons. That’s all I’m asking, brother. Simple.”
“Okay. You have my word, I’ll tell him.”
“Good. Curly Boy’ll get you the address and the time of the drop.” He hopped off the bar. “I’ll get Tyler.”
Stanton watched as he left. He ran his fingers over his firearm and looked over the room. He wasn’t entirely certain that someone wasn’t about to rush in with an assault rifle. He waited a few minutes
, and when no one came, he relaxed a little. He pushed away his glass and stood up. He walked over to the bookshelf against the wall and browsed the titles. They were mostly books about Nazi Germany, biographies of Hitler and Stalin, and technical manuals on warfare and farming.
The door opened
, and a slim young kid walked in. He couldn’t have been older than twenty, and he looked frightened. He stood near the entrance as Brody looked at him and said, “You got five minutes, Jon. Then I’m gonna need you to leave.”
After Brody had left, Stanton walked toward the young man. He
would have offered to shake hands, but Tyler’s eyes were darting around the room, and he was jittery. Stanton could smell a stink that he knew well. It was somewhere between burnt light bulbs and glue that had been set on fire—the smell of recently cooked and smoked meth.
“How are you, Tyler?”
“Fine. Fine, I’m fine.” He reached to the back of his head and scratched furiously. “Brody said you wanted to talk to me about Freddy. He was a good guy. We was at HD together.”
“Is that a prison?”
“Yeah. Yeah, he was a good guy. We was cellies. I don’t know what happened to him.”
“Did he just leave one day?”
“Yeah. Yeah, didn’t say nothing to nobody. He just took off.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Few days.”
“Brody said he left last week.”
“Yeah, that’s what I meant. He left last week. I don’t know. I’m not good with time,” he said with a slight chuckle. “Anyways, he ain’t here.”
“Is there a way you can reach him?”
“No. I don’t know where he is. He’s gone.”
“Yeah, you said that.” Stanton watched him as
Tyler glanced around the room and tried desperately to avoid his eyes. Stanton ran his eyes along the door and over the walls. Behind the bar, a door led to the back. It was open a few inches, and Stanton could see the shoulder of someone who was listening in. Stanton took out his card and a pen from his pocket. He wrote “call me later if you can help” on the back of the card and set it on a table. “Doesn’t sound like you know anything, Tyler. I appreciate you speaking to me, though.”
“Yeah,” he mumbled.
Stanton walked past him and toward the door. He looked back and saw Tyler grab the card and slip it into his pocket. Outside, Brody was standing with his arms folded, a smile on his face. The men with the assault rifles had disappeared, and everyone in the commune had seemingly gone back to whatever they were doing before Stanton’s arrival.
“Get what you need?” Brody
asked.
“No, he didn’t know anything. Is there anyone else I can talk to that you can think of?”
“Sorry, brother. Freddy kept to himself mostly. Tyler was his only friend.”
“Well, I’m grateful just the same. Thanks, Brody.”
“Curly Boy wrote the address down on this.” He handed Stanton a slip of paper.
Stanton realized for the first time that Brody couldn’t read. “Thanks. The narcotics detective was named Stewart, right?”
“Yeah. Ian Stewart. White dude, goin’ bald. Kinda greasy lookin’.”
“All right. I’ll give him this.”
As Stanton walked toward the gates, his back felt itchy. He was nervous that one of them might open fire, although he knew that wouldn’t actually happen. For whatever reason, Brody needed him to talk to Stewart.
Curly
Boy opened the gate and waited until Stanton stepped outside to shut it. “Don’t you be comin’ back now. We love us some piggy barbeque.”
Mindi sat in the car, biting her
thumb nail and spitting out little pieces through the open window. Stanton climbed in. She started the car and took off without saying a word.
“Well?” she said after they had put some distance between themselves and the compound.
“Doesn’t look like we’re going to be talking to Freddy.”
“Why not?”
“Because I think he’s dead.”
33
It was nearly midnight when Alma Parr’s cell phone woke him up. He had his ringtone set to the most soothing piece of music he could think of: Bach’s
Ave Maria
for the harp. Regardless of how calm and relaxing the music was, it still jolted him awake. He grabbed the phone and looked at the screen. It was Javier.
“This better be good. I was in a hot tub with Jessica Alba.”
“Home invasion on Cal Robertson good enough for you?”
“You’re shitting me? Anyone hurt?”
“Just the intruder. Got a hole in his chest about four inches across.”
“Text me the address. I’m coming right now.”
Parr jumped up and went to the closet. He put on jeans and a tight black T-shirt before grabbing his badge and placing the chain around his neck. He put on his holster and firearm and took a leather jacket out of his closet before running out the door.
As he sped down the winding road and got onto the
interstate, he remembered his first encounter with Cal Robertson: a routine traffic stop when Parr was a rookie. Cal was driving a Ferrari over two hundred miles an hour down the freeway while getting a blowjob from a dancer who worked at the MGM. Parr wrote him a ticket for reckless driving and was going to let him go, but Cal took out a wad of cash and a vial of cocaine and tried to hand it to him. Parr hauled him in while Cal screamed that he would be out in a few hours.
Parr booked him
, and the city attorney placed a call to the sheriff, who released Cal right away and wrote Parr a reprimand. It was Parr’s first taste of bureaucracy and the power of pull. He’d learned his lesson well. The powerful could game the system, so Parr went outside the system. If he had it to do again, Parr would have taken photos of the dancer and Cal together and threatened to send them to his wife unless he sold out his coke dealer. It would’ve meant a bust instead of a reprimand for Parr. That was the last time in his career that Parr had been reprimanded.
He drove through the open gate
into the enclosed community. The homes were worth millions of dollars, but they didn’t seem comfortable, just luxurious. The entire community represented the type of home meant to impress others, despite being unwelcoming to the owners themselves. Parr found the house and parked in the driveway. He slipped under the police tape across the front door and saw two uniforms trading notes in the living room.
“What genius put tape on the front door? Get that shit down
, and one of you stand out there. Reporters can slip under the tape.”
“Al, up here.”
Parr looked up the stairs, where Javier stood at the top. He practically skipped up the steps two at a time. Off to the right, near a bedroom, assistants from the Clark County Coroner’s Office were bagging up a body. The corpse was tall, around six foot four or six five, with a large black wound marking his chest like a decoration. Parr let the assistant zip up the bag and place it on a stretcher. A forensics tech went to work on the blood spatter across the wall, and Parr stepped over him into the bedroom. On a couch in a corner of the massive space, much larger than his living room and kitchen combined, Cal Robertson sat with his wife.
“Didn’t know you were into making Swiss cheese, Cally boy.”
Cal looked up, saw Parr, and cursed under his breath. “What are you doing here? I thought you got promoted.”
“Oh, I’m never too busy for my favorite power broker. How’s the casino business? Not making too many enemies
, I hope?”
Cal turned to his wife and gently placed his hand over hers. “Dear, do you mind if we talk in private for a minute?”
“Sure,” his wife said. Parr could see the shock that had taken hold of her as she stood up and walked out of the room. She stepped over the forensics tech without looking down at the large black stain taking up most of her hallway carpet.
“Didn’t know you had it in you, you old bastard,” Parr said.
“Fuck you, Alma. What is it with you, anyway? You got a hard-on for me? You break into my charity event and arrest me like a fucking street thug.”
“You are a street thug. You’re just a rich, old street thug. I heard you pled out on the public assistance fraud charge? Lemme ask you somethin’
. How is it that a rich prick like you with a hot, big-titted wife thinks it’s a good idea to get a few hundred extra dollars a month by lying on a worker’s compensation claim? Was it the thrill?”
He became visibly upset. “I worked my ass off to get where I am
, and the fucking government is gonna take half my money and give it to welfare whores in the ghetto? You better believe I’m gonna get as much of that back as I can.”
Parr shook his head. “So,” he said, looking back
at the bloodstain, “what happened?”
“What does it look like happened? That cocksucker tried to kill me.”
“Do you know him?”
“No. I was just pulling into my garage
, and he started shooting at me.”
“Make any enemies lately? Other than the hundreds you already have?”
“I’ll tell you exactly who did this. Bill fucking James. That sonofabitch thinks he can take me out?
Me
? Well, I’m not dead yet. I got something in store for him.”
“Why would you think Bill James did this?”
“Oh, you want a story? I’ll give you a story. It’s the fucking Cubans. They’re opening back up. Back to business. Or that’s the bullshit Bill gave us. He wants to spend almost a billion dollars building two casinos and hotels on the beaches in Havana. He says he needs half the money up front as a sign of good faith. Half! The crazy sonofabitch wants to give five hundred million dollars of our money to the Cuban government without so much as a handjob in return. And who the hell knows where the rest of the money’s coming from. Well, the board didn’t go for it, and I told him what he could do with his money.”
“How do you know Cuba’s opening up again?”
“Bill says he has some insider in the government, some bullshit he fed us. We didn’t buy it, and he’s mad as hell.”
“If the board shot him down, what would he gain by taking you out?”
“There’s two personalities on that board: Bill James and me. If they don’t follow me, they’ll follow Bill James.”
Parr glanced around the bedroom. “Give Javier all the details. I’ll pay Bill a visit.”
“I want another detective on this case.”
“
Other than Javier? Why?”
“He’s a spic. He’ll only work hard enough not to get in trouble.”
“You’re the convicted felon, asshole. You don’t want us to find who did this, then don’t work with Javier. I’m sure Bill James will forget all about this little incident and not try anything else.”
He turned away as Cal said something. Javier was playing with a toothpick near the bedroom door. Parr put his arm around his shoulders
, and they walked out to the hallway and into the next bedroom, where it was quiet.
“You believe him?” Javier asked.
“I’ve had a lotta run-ins with him, and he’s never once told me the truth about anything. He’s as dirty as they come.”
“Bill James
, though … we had him for the Steed case.”
“We didn’t have anything but a motive. Cal’s got at least a hundred people who would love to put a bullet in his head. You know how he got rich? He used to push junk penny stock
s to retirees. He’d clean up on commission fees and leave them holding the bag when the stock plunged. He’s a rat.”
“We could just, you know, not worry about who did this.”
“No, we’re the law, no one else. We can’t allow fuckers to go around executing people. Even pond scum like Cal.”
“So where you wanna start?”
“Run the routine. Follow up on the body, the weapon, the ammo. He had to get here somehow, so get some uniforms out looking for abandoned cars and call the cab companies, too. See if anyone dropped him off.”
“Guy’s got a professional
-grade suppresser on the tip of that gun. Not the homemade junk. Top of the line. He’s probably not off the streets.”
“Or someone’s financing him. If he was a pro
, he wouldn’t have let some old man with irritable bowel syndrome blow his guts out. I’m thinking amateur. And if he’s amateur, he left a trail for us to find who hired him. Once you find out who he is, make sure we go through bank accounts and safe deposit boxes.”
Javier sighed. “Your wish is my command.”
Parr left the house and got into his car. He looked at the mansion in front of him. It was a den of corruption and decadence.
The greed, the absolute greed.
Cal had all this, and he still risked prison to steal a few extra bucks from the government. Parr would never understand that about people.