Bite Back 05 - Angel Stakes (43 page)

“We don’t have the resources to take on Forsythe’s trafficking network,” Tarez said. “The FBI do.”

He didn’t actually order me to stop and I refused to make any comments one way or the other. Forsythe was my target. The FBI could have the rest of the network.

An hour later, Daniels’ plane landed at Santa Monica airport. I spoke to Jacob as he tracked her returning home. He found a place he could watch the gateway to her drive without being seen from the house. It wasn’t a good surveillance, but it was the best we could do. At least Forsythe couldn’t move without us seeing him.

All the time, Lieutenant Jefferson Reed was listening and storing up more questions to ask me later.

The day passed at a snail’s pace. We ordered in tamales at midday. We took turns with the headphones.

At 2 p.m., Mr. Nobody’s photo got a match. He was a guy from Arizona suspected of being a hitman for a mob operating out of Tucson. An APB was put out and the judge’s case became a suspected homicide.

Reed checked in with the captain. ADA Bailey still wasn’t biting.

But still, he started to relax. I could see gears turning in his head. Things were rolling. We were getting some breaks. It was a matter of time.

It was 4 p.m. and Reed was on headphone duty when he waved urgently at me.

Dante was talking to Willard Bryant in a stairwell.

“Thought you’d forgotten all about me,” she said.

He laughed. “I ain’t forgotten at all. Matter of fact, been thinking a lot about you.”

“Oh? Good thoughts? Bad ones?” Dante’s voice lowered. “Or like,
really bad
ones?”

“You are the biz, eh. Look, can’t talk right now. What you doing later?”

“I’m done for the day, if it’s worth it.”

“Huh. You still up for meeting Mr. Forsythe?”

“Of course. What kind of meeting d’you mean?”

“You like to party, babe? You want to get in good with the man? Real good?”

“
That
kind of party.” Her laugh was breathy, seductive.

“You got it.”

“Yeah.” She drew it out.

“Don’t sound so sure, suddenly.” He played her. “Cold feet, huh? Y’know, that’s fine, you’re not ready for the big time, girl, you’re not ready.”

“No. It’s not that.”

“What then?”

“Look, I’m not gonna end up like that stupid bitch who jammed out at StarBright. You gotta give me a heads-up first. Tell me what she got wrong. What I need to do. You know this stuff from the inside, right? Like, this is my big chance. Can’t make mistakes. I’ll go in, but I go in with my eyes open. You get that, don’t you?”

It was quiet for a few moments. Had she gone too far?

“Sure, I get that,” he said, his voice blurry and masked by background noises. He grunted, and there was a gasp from Dante. “I’ll give you the real deal, tell you what the man likes, what he needs. We’ll go slow.”

I felt sick, imagining what he was doing to her, my legs tensing to move, but it ended as quickly as it had begun.

“Sweet,” he said, his voice hoarser. “You gonna owe me. This a big deal I’m doing for you.”

“Yeah. You get me in, tell me what I need, and you—” she laughed again. It was higher and it sounded forced to me, but her voice was still steady. “You get whatever you want.”

“That some check you just signed, babe. ’Kay. I got one more job to run. An hour.”

“Then?”

“Well, can’t talk here.” His voice started to ooze with confidence. “Don’t know that I’d want to cash a check here either. We’ll go out, hit a bar. Or something.”

“You know a bar where you can cash a check? That’s cool.”

He laughed. “You’ll see.”

“I’ll listen, huh, then we see.”

“I’ll tell you what you need to know. Then I’ll show you what you need to do.”

“Deal.”

“The exit at the back of the building? The one the girls go out when they don’t want their pictures taken? One hour. Be there.”

“Sounds dope.”

“It will be.”

“Cool,” Dante said. “Later.”

It was silent for a second, and then I could hear her trotting up some stairs.

“No!” The word burst out of me. “No way she’s going anywhere with that man.”

“Chill,” Reed said.

“I will
not
chill. You’ve got a civilian in a police sting, way over her head. You’ve got no resources for this kind of operation. Pull it now. Call her, or I will.”

I got my cell out.

Reed stopped me and showed me the screen of his.

Dante had texted Reed as she went up the stairs.
Big night. Alright. No prob. CU L8r.

The agreed code for saying she wanted to go on.

“No,” I said again. “What the hell are you thinking? We follow them in a big white van?”

“I’ll get an unmarked car.”

“You can’t run a tail with a single car.” He wasn’t getting it. “What would you do if it was your daughter?”

He ignored that. “We can—”

“Guys!” The other detective slammed his hand down on the bench. “They can hear you out in the street. Try harder and they’ll hear you all the way inside the studio.”

“You know, we’ve done this kind of stuff before, in the police,” Reed said, talking through gritted teeth but keeping his voice down. “I’ll get a couple more cars.”

“Still can’t do it,” I said. “This guy may be a thug, but he’s Forsythe’s driver. He’ll know about taking precautions. You need a minimum of six cars to run an effective tail without alerting him.”

“We run tails all the time. And we have a tracker on him.”

“Which needs a big van to receive it. One that stands out like a moving billboard.”

“This may be the only way to get Tamanny Harper back, and it’s a police operation, Farrell. I’m running it. You’re here as an observer.”

I’d had enough. I got out of the van and dialed her.

“Dante, this is too dangerous,” I said. “I’m coming in.”

“No!” she said. “No, please.
Please?
Just listen to me.”

I stopped with an effort. “Okay. I’m listening.”

I had to swallow down my fear for her, along with my frustration. She was part of my House. I owed her the right to state her case.

“I need to do this.”

“I’m not agreeing, but explain.”

“You don’t see it the way…” She stopped and tried again. “Your House. Everyone has a part. A skill. I’m just the stupid girl who listened at the door. The one who thought it was all cool parties and orgies. It’s not. It’s real and it’s not fair and sometimes there are things that have to be done. And sometimes they have to be done by someone who hasn’t got all the skills they should have.”

“Yeah, skills which have to be taught, and will be. There’s no way anyone in my House is telling you that you need to do this.”

“No one except me,” she said.

“But—”

“It’s something I
can
do. Not just for you and Tamanny and all the other girls. It’s for me, too.”

“It’s not just a dangerous situation. There’s the man himself—he’s dangerous.”

“He’s about as dangerous as half the population when they think with their balls.”

“It’s not some pose he puts on to look edgy, for God’s sake,” I said. “He’s violent.”

Her voice seemed to shrink over the connection. “I know.”

“Then why—”

“Because it’s what I do for Dominé,” she said. “It’s
my
skill. It’s what I can do. I’m one of the safety valves at the club. I can handle it. I’m used to it.”

This was the stark, harsh reality of the world that Dominé and Dante lived in.

It wasn’t all sweetness and light, costumes and role play.

Sometimes it was ugly. And even in an industry where few retained their illusions, there were those who handled it better than others.

“I’ll get what the lieutenant wants. And if y’know, that means…” she went silent for a long moment. “Don’t think badly of me.”

“
Never
. Dante, you’re part of my House. If you don’t feel like you’ve earned it yet for some reason, get this: you will. Without doing crazy stuff. You don’t need to do this to prove you’re brave enough.”

“It’s not brave, because I know you’ll be there.”

“Always. I’ll be there for you.”

I tried once more, but in the end we left it that I would stop it if I heard him being violent, whether she used her code word or not, and regardless of whether we had the information we needed. And that I’d stop it if there was a breakdown with the wire.

Which left me needing to crawl back into the van and build bridges with Lieutenant Reed.

The detective who maybe knew more about a member of my House than I’d bothered to find out.

Whose permission I needed to stay involved so I could keep my word to Dante.

And who’d been listening to every word that’d been said in my telephone conversation.

Elizabetta thought Detective Reed was a good man.

He was.

I didn’t have the opportunity to start speaking.

“Let’s just shelve everything else for the moment,” he said. “I’m hearing you have a background in this kind of operation. So tell me what you think we need to do.”

He’d put aside any curiosity about the conversation he’d overheard and focused straight on getting the job done.

Still I hesitated, and he went on. “I called the captain. He’s getting Bailey back in, and we’re relaying the wire back to HQ. The moment she hears something she can use for a warrant, we close it down. We don’t get that warrant and this whole operation against Forsythe is over come tomorrow anyway.”

“Bailey’s willing to do that?”

“We’ve had to promise her everything, up to and including my firstborn.” He snorted. “She owns us.”

“If I call it, we close it down?”

He hummed. “Within reason.”

He wasn’t going to just roll over.

I had an ace up the sleeve called Yelena, who would close down this operation quicker than a SWAT team. I’d have to work her in and go ahead on trust.

“Okay, what do we need? Six unmarked cars. Two people to each car. With walkie-talkies,
not
police radio. Agreed codes. The van stays a block back and my colleague follows us on her motorcycle to help coordinate.”

“Another
civilian?
”

“Motorcycle gives you a view you don’t get in a car. She can get past obstructions. But, yes, she’s a
civilian,
just like me.”

His eyes narrowed at that, probably thinking over what he’d heard Dante say about my
House
and
skills
, but in the end, he sighed and nodded.

A text came in from Billie:
Forsythe on the move with bodyguards. Limo
.

Seems like Forsythe didn’t depend on Bryant to drive him around.

An hour later, we had four of the promised six unmarked cars, with two in transit. Dante was standing behind the studios, where we couldn’t see her. The walkie-talkies had arrived. Yelena had one. They all worked. Yay.

Reed had let me brief the team and assign the positions for the cars. One as an outrider, to shadow Bryant’s SUV from a block away. Another to follow, well back. That one we’d call our point man, and we’d swap that car around every mile or so. None of us would stay in his rearview mirror for long. The van, with Reed and me in it, would stay even further back, with one of the cars behind us checking our six.

No police radio calls. No 10 codes. A handful of simple pre-agreed codes to say what we were doing.

Big Bob, the detective I’d met at the station, was in the last car. It was his own high-mileage Mazda, and he had a short and nervous-looking colleague riding shotgun. They didn’t fill me with confidence. I hoped we didn’t have to use them.

A text from Tarez:
FBI taking over trafficking case. Agent Ingram and team on their way.

What?

Shit. No matter, I couldn’t leave Dante. If Tarez insisted and forced the issue, I’d end the operation, even if I had to snatch Dante out of Bryant’s car.

I didn’t trust Reed enough, and it was just too dangerous for Dante. If Bryant was a fixer for Forsythe and Dante made just one slip, she’d end up dead. And if she was lucky, it’d be quick.

She was relying on me.

And yet, our plan was so full of holes, I still wanted to call it off right there when I saw a black Chevy Tahoe with mirrored windows turn in at the studios and go around the back.

“We’re rolling,” Reed said.

I didn’t call it off.

We’d unplugged the headphones, and the feed from Dante’s wire was coming out of a couple of speakers.

All we needed was to hear her say the word
gnarly
. We heard that and we would go in and stop the Chevy.

“Where are the last two cars?” I asked Reed.

“Held up a few minutes. Accident on the 110.” He looked at me. “We got it, Farrell. Bryant’s head’s gonna be in his pants.”

You hope.

We listened as Bryant pressed Dante against the wall in the private area the rear of the studio and groped her for a couple of minutes before he loaded her into the car.

I still didn’t call it off.

She’d made it sound as if she enjoyed it. My stomach twisted. Her reality.

Reed studied the screen of his smartphone and said nothing.

The Tahoe pulled out and we started our chase pattern, stretching out behind them. It was getting dark and the car on point was only one car behind the Tahoe.

“Oh, real leather seats! I love the feel. And it’s so clean,” Dante’s voice came clearly from the speakers. “Is it brand new?”

“Detailed every couple of days. Boss don’t like smelly cars.”

Or cars with forensic evidence.

Dante started talking, enthusing about the industry, the show and how well she could do, if she just caught a break with Forsythe. She played the airhead well, mixing in just enough flirting to keep Bryant interested.

But after speaking coarsely when he’d been groping her, Bryant had gone quiet.

I didn’t like that. I started fidgeting with the volume, trying to imagine what it was like inside the Tahoe.

Maybe he had his head in his pants. Then again, maybe he was suspicious, and groping her was a good way for him to check if she was wired up.

Traffic was slow and we were headed north into Hollywood. Slow and busy was both good and bad—that many cars meant we weren’t easy to see, but traffic lights and cars cutting in could make it difficult to keep eyes on the Tahoe.

“If you were laying down security procedures for that driver,” Reed said, “what would they be?”

He was still making an effort to keep me onside.

“Pull over for a couple of minutes. Possibly on a side road, a quiet one. Then double back,” I said. “That’s level one—basic checks.”

“Level two?”

“Same maneuvers, but with a sweeper—a car following and watching from a ways back. Level three: everything so far and also swap cars in some turnoff where you can’t be seen.”

“You figure he’d do that if he was taking someone to see Forsythe?”

“If Forsythe wanted to be sure there wasn’t anyone watching, yeah.”

“But Bryant is on his own time tonight, thinking he’s going out to get lucky with a girl. He’s not going to have anyone else involved.”

“Maybe.”

“Bob.” Reed spoke into the walkie-talkie. “You where?”

“Three behind. Haven’t picked up any of our friends.”

At least he was keeping to the script with the agreed codes. Three cars behind us and no sign that there was anyone else following the Tahoe or us. I wondered if Bob would be able to spot a sweeper.

“Where are we going?” Dante said.

“Sunset,” Bryant said.

“The Strip?”

“Nah. The old 66 down in Echo Park.”

“Cool.”

It
was
the cooler end of Sunset, away from the bright tourist area and the Hollywood bars.

Also darker and fewer witnesses around.

“So, you know the Boss, what does he like about a girl?” Dante said.

“He likes actresses,” Bryant said. “Really good actresses that don’t need directions and give the best performance of their lives when he wants it. Girls like that do real good with him.”

His voice was lost for a second to another sound. Maybe Dante moved and her belt rubbed against the seat. I frowned. A wire was never perfect, but we couldn’t afford to miss anything.

“You think you’re that good?” Bryant was saying. “’Cause I ain’t gonna give him your name unless you are, and you gonna have to convince me.”

“You tell me what I need, Willard, and I’ll give you what
you
need.”

“He’ll have to turn east for Echo Park,” I said quietly. “When he turns, we do our first change.”

Reed relayed instructions and two minutes later, the Tahoe turned onto Melrose Avenue.

The point car followed instructions and kept straight on. Luckily enough, the outrider had been a block east and pulled out right behind the Tahoe.

“Neat,” I said. “Get number one to make their own way to Sunset.”

We didn’t have enough resources to replace the outrider yet.

The van turned onto Melrose. Other than seeing it on a map, I didn’t know the street. It was quieter than the road we’d been on. Less traffic and moving faster. My pulse picked up.

“Where are the last two cars? Can they cut across?”

Reed spoke on his cell for a couple of minutes. “They’ll get onto Sunset down in Echo Park and wait. They’ll be there before we are.”

That could work for us. People never expected their tail to be in front of them.

“He’s stopping!” That was Randall, the new point man, the only one we had that was in sight of the Tahoe.

“Keep going, Randall. Everyone else lay off.”

We all came to a halt, except Randall. If he kept to the plan, he’d drive on, take a side turn somewhere well ahead of the Tahoe, and rejoin us as the last car in our tail.

“This ain’t Sunset,” Dante said on the wire. The SUV’s engine was still running.

“Gotta make a call.” Bryant began speaking on his cell.

What he said didn’t seem suspicious. He was telling some guy he was going off the clock, out for a drink and he’d be back in tomorrow.

“I don’t like it,” I muttered.

“He could just have forgotten to do it before,” Reed said. “Head in his pants, remember?”

Maybe. I opened the side panel of the van and peered into the darkness. We were too far away, of course.

“Yelena?” I said into the walkie-talkie.

“Eyes on,” she replied, and I felt better. Motorcycles could get places in a hurry.

Bryant finished his call.

“Done,” he said. “Cell off. You too.”

“Uh…how come?”

“First lesson. When the boss tells you something like that, you don’t ask why. Get it? Me, I’m a nice guy, so I’ll tell you. We’re out for a good time and I don’t like getting interrupted.”

“I’m sorry. No problem.”

Dante switched her cell off.

Without the boost from the cell, the signal from the wire was lousy.

“Good,” Bryant said. “You want to get used to doing what you’re told with the boss.”

“I love doing what I’m told, Willard. It’s my thing.” There was a pause, full of the quiet hiss of the signal. “Is that what Tamanny got wrong?”

“Lots of things that bitch got wrong,” he said.

Reed and I leaned forward as if that would make the signal clearer.

“All tease and no please, that one. Got away with it because she was winning the competition. No way the boss will take that from you.”

“Oh, he won’t have to,” she said, her voice sultry with promise.

“Now listen to me. You ain’t gonna enjoy everything he do, and it make no fucking difference, right. He hurt you, you can scream. That’s okay, so long as when he wants it again, you give it up to him straight and ‘yes, please’, no argument, no back chat. No ‘but it hurts, Tanner’. He knows it hurts. Get it? You gonna handle that?”

“Better than that. I’m gonna like it. I’m real bad like that.”

Bryant grunted. “We’ll see.”

I could hear the Tahoe pull out, and number three in our tail called “I’m on.”

Bob overtook us to move into the next slot.

“Really don’t like this,” I said. The whole thing was making a sour taste in my mouth.

“It wasn’t a side road. He made a call. He hasn’t turned around.”

“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t a check for a tail, and this road’s too quiet. He might be suspicious.”

Reed shrugged. “If he’s looking, he’ll have seen different cars. Nothing for him to be suspicious about.” He tilted his head at one of the screens in the van, which was taking a feed from a camera pointing behind us. “There’s no sign anyone’s watching us.”

But it had changed in the Tahoe. Bryant was sounding different. More aggressive and demanding. He was starting to work on Dante, trying to get in her head.

“Oh yeah, that’s all good,” she was saying. “I guess she couldn’t handle it?”

“That Tamanny bitch? No.”

“So tell me, how did he punish her?” Her voice was breathy, excited. “I want to hear.”

“Why you want to know that?”

“I like it. That kinda thing gets to me, y’know. Turns me on. Gets me hot. Besides, I got to know what the stakes are,” Dante said. “He could mess it up for me so I can’t ever work in the industry.”

“Huh. Lot worse than that, what he got lined up for that stuck-up bitch,” Bryant said.

I immediately looked at Reed, but he shook his head. Not nearly enough.

Melrose got busier. It went under an overpass for 101 and ended at a T junction with Hoover. Between there and the Echo Park section of Sunset was a tangle of residential streets.

“He’ll go up Hoover and come into Sunset from Santa Monica,” Reed said.

Bryant didn’t. The Tahoe crossed to head through the residential area.

“Swap out,” I said.

Number three turned up Hoover, and Bob moved into the first car spot thirty yards behind the Tahoe.

Number one car was already waiting on Sunset, where we predicted the Tahoe would join. Randall was behind us. We had two new cars waiting in Echo Park.

It should be enough.

The Tahoe turned south onto Sunset, with Bob too close. Our van pulled out about a hundred yards behind him.

This end of Sunset was quieter than the Strip. No huge billboards spilling light into the streets, less neon. Darker streets, smaller restaurants, bars and clubs. Hip. Edgy.

“I used to know a cool bar around here,” Dante said. “It was called…hell, now I can’t remember. What’s the name of the place we’re heading to?”

“Second lesson. Don’t ask the boss where he’s going. When you need to know, he’ll tell you.”

“Paranoid or what?”

“Paparazzi make his life hell.”

“Well, there’s some of us wish the paparazzi would take notice.”

He grunted. “Third lesson. Drop the smart attitude, real quick, or get out now.”

Dante had slipped out of her airhead persona.

“Sorry. Sorry,” Dante said. “I’m just playing around.”

“You aren’t playing now.”

“No. I’m not playing,” Dante said. “I’m out for a drink with a big, hot guy and I’m feeling all warm and wet.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah. But I think maybe you need a little relaxing.”

Noise. Skin against denim.