Shadows of Deceit (A Series of Shadows) (50 page)

“It’s just a small set-back.” Dillon insisted as he lifted her out of the van and righted her on her crutch. “Good?”

“Yeah.” She pouted and began hobbling towards the house.

“He has an elevator so we can get you down to the basement without a hassle.” Dillon informed her, seemingly excited about the prospect.

“Oh goodie.” She mocked. “Maybe that means I’ll get there before Vinny retires.”

Back on the beach, behind the perimeter line established by the deputies, Niko and Yuri looked at each other and laughed. They were listening in on everything via Dillon’s watch and the medallion Niko had given Lou earlier. Niko was relieved as hell Vinny had made Lou stay in the van and he had to admit everything had gone pretty damn smoothly. They only had one hurdle to jump before he could breathe easy. All he and Yuri could do now is wait and hope.

Lou decided she liked Carlos Vargas’ beach house more than his niece’s. She wondered if the house would be seized due to the drugs and if so, for how long? That surely would drop the asking price on a fifteen million dollar beach house.

“Nice digs, Carlos.” She said as she passed him, sagging and whimpering on the sofa. “I bet your wife is gonna be pissed when she’s forced to move your kids to a double wide in Arleta after all your assets are frozen.” As Dillon closed the elevator door, Lou could hear Carlos sobbing audibly once more. She couldn’t help but grin.

They made their way to the basement where Vinny was rifling through papers on Carlos’ desk and the techs were wrapping up the last of the electronics.

“I had them wait to bag it until you got a look.” Vinny gestured to the two bricks of heroin sitting on a chair next to the wine rack.

“Well those are a couple of hefty felonies.” Lou recognized the loaf of bread sized bricks immediately. “The same as the one’s recovered from the warehouse.”

“He’s gonna spill his guts.” Vinny had no doubt. “I gotta stay here while we get things wrapped up.” He informed them. “You two take the car and bring Vargas in.”

“You sure?” Lou asked. “I can supervise here if you rather?”

“Nah. I got this. We need to make sure everything is by the book here. We don’t need his defense attorney saying you missed something because you were medicated or some shit like that. No offense or anything.”

“None taken.” Lou was offended but he was right. “Want us to stall the interview until you get there?”

“Nah. Take him to Lost Hills though.” Vinny instructed. “I don’t want him having the time it takes to get to the Bureau to rethink lawyering up.”

“Yes sir.” Dillon acknowledged then headed for the elevator.

“Thanks Vinny.” Lou said before she turned to leave. “Thanks for keeping me in on this.”

“No problemo, kiddo.” He smiled at her. “Now go crack that asshat.”

“You got it!.” She chuckled and hobbled her way to the elevator.

Back on the beach Niko and Yuri were high fiving each other. That was the last hurdle they needed to jump. Yuri walked away from the perimeter and called Frank.

“Get into position.” Yuri told him when he answered.

“Roger that.” Frank acknowledged as he sat at a bus stop on Pacific Coast Highway, about fifty yards from the entrance to the Colony. After hanging up, Frank headed across the street to the other corner and waited.

To Lou’s chagrin, it had taken them fifteen minutes to get upstairs, get Vargas up and out to the car and finally got out of there. Lou hated that she was moving at a snail’s pace and hated even more that her soundtrack for this portion of the day was Carlos Vargas’ sniveling. With Dillon at the wheel, Lou in the passenger seat and Vargas in the back, blubbering, they made their way out of the Colony, off of Malibu Road and on to Pacific Coast Highway. Instead of speeding up once they hit the highway, Dillon slowed and came to a stop. The back door opened and Frank got in next to Vargas.

“Going my way?” He joked as he shut the door and Dillon began driving again.

“Did I forget this part of the plan?” Lou inquired.

“Plausible deniability.” Dillon told her. “Also, Niko thought it best to leave you out of this part so you had less to worry about.”

“Remind me to thank him for that.” Lou chuckled.

“Don’t mind me. Nothing to see here.” Frank told them as he placed his palm on Carlos Vargas forehead.

“What are you doing?” Lou asked.

“Oh, hey. I should probably tell you so you guys don’t screw it up.” Frank laughed. “So, I am going to wipe blood from his memory. The plan is to leave only his recollection of the heroin operation.”

“But I don’t know anything about that!” Vargas stopped sobbing long enough to resume pleading with them. “I told them I didn’t want to know one single thing about that! I will not tell a soul, I swear to God!”

“As if.” Lou snorted and struggled to turn to face him, at least so she could look him in the eye before she continued. “I am going to ask you two questions and you have one shot at answering them truthfully. If you lie to us, I’ll make sure Frankie here wipes every happy memory you’ve ever had in your life completely from your mind. You understand what I am saying here?”

“Yes, yes I understand.” It took Carlos Vargas a brief moment for her words to sink in.

“You said you just did the books.” Lou needed to make sure their techs were not going to stumble upon that part of the operation, exposing the Sanguinostri to the public. “Where is everything on the black blood operation?”

“No, no!” Vargas protested. “I only kept books on the heroin! I had nothing to do with the blood! Even if I would have wanted in on that, Ernesto would never have allowed it. I facilitated the heroin shipments through Arcano channels, made sure the amount of heroin to be shipped matched with what arrived in the containers, nothing more! Ernesto’s people did the actual inventory once it got here though! I never ever personally saw any of the drugs ever!” Vargas gasped for a breath before he continued. “Your people won’t find anything on my computers either! I kept everything on a secure cloud, completely separate from anything else. I will give you the information so you can access it yourselves!”

Carlos Vargas gave them the URL and login information for the secure cloud that would most certainly seal the deal on his serving twenty to life in Federal prison. Frank quickly verified the information which left him and Lou satisfied that he was telling them the truth and had no information to give them on the black blood trade.

“Fine, now tell us where to find your brother, Manuel Rojas and Cameron Timms.” Lou moved to her second question, speaking slowly so there was no misunderstanding her.

“I...” Vargas paused, obviously wanting to make his answer as truthful as possible. “I am not sure.” Lou sighed and broke eye contact with him. “Wait!” He begged. “I know next to nothing about Timms! I only met him twice, and that was a long time ago!” Carlos paused to think, carefully. His eyes scanned the floor and his lips were moving as though he was working out a complex math problem in his head. That wasn’t very far from the truth. “Manuel would be with my brother, Ernesto, of that I am sure. But I don’t know if Timms would be with them. From what my brother let on, Timms didn’t like fraternizing with the help and that is exactly what he thought my brother and I were, the help.”

“Then where would your brother be right now?” Dillon was the one to ask the question now.

“They had a warehouse!” The possibility dawned on him.

“Had, being the operative word.” Frank interjected. “That’s no longer an option for them.”

Carlos Vargas thought a bit harder. “My father had some low income rental property in Los Angeles. Under shell corporation names. Maybe he is using one of those? I gave him a key to the corporate apartment after Casius moved to Calabassas but I don’t think he would use that.”

Lou pulled out her notepad. “Addresses, now.”

“I don’t know the addresses of my father’s places but my attorney has them!” Carlos appeared to be telling the truth. “I can give you his number! You dial and I will ask him on speaker!”

“And give you your one phone call to lawyer up?” Frank snorted.

“No! No, I know I am caught here. I know I have to pay for my sins. There’s nothing he could do for me that I can’t. I swear I am being honest here!” It was the first time Carlos had spoken without stammering so Lou felt he was on the up and up.

Frank was the one to dial and true to his word, Carlos Vargas asked his attorney to read off the addresses for his father’s rental properties and despite Carlos’ attorney’s protests, he gave them everything. Frank ended the call as soon as Lou had everything written down. “You have the address for the corporate apartment Downtown already.”

“Yeah, we have that.” Lou verified. “You are being very smart about this situation Carlos. Too bad you were not smart enough to stay out of all this crap in the first place.”

“I told you, I had no choice!” Carlos insisted. “Please! I have cooperated and I will cooperate! I swear to God I will not say one word about my brother’s other dealings! Please do not mess with my mind!”

“That’s not up to them.” Frank clarified. “You went down a path that you had no business going down. For far too many reasons, most of which I am sure you know, you cannot be allowed to remember certain things. You will be fine though, I promise.”

“Make sure he’s clueless about anything Sanguinostri related too.” As soon as she said it, she felt stupid. Of course Frank would do that. He had been doing that for God knows how long.

“Yes ma’am.” Frank grinned and put his hand back on the sniveling Vargas’ forehead.

“Sorry.” Lou apologized sheepishly. “I forgot you’ve done this a bazillion times before.”

Frank chuckled and placed his hand back on Carlos Vargas’ forehead and immediately Vargas resumed sobbing. By the time they passed Piuma Road, Frank was finished and they made the rest of the drive in silence, save for Vargas’ continued whimpering. Frank copied the addresses that Vargas had given them so that he could get the data ready for Lou for when they finished interrogating him. It was one thing for the Sheriff’s to get their hands on Carlos Vargas, he could do no harm to the Sanguinostri now that Frank had wiped them and the blood from his memory. They would need to intercept Ernesto in the same manner in order to render him harmless as well. However, given the extent he was involved, there was no way of guaranteeing that Frank wouldn’t wipe too much, or do irreparable damage. Manuel Rojas and Cameron Timms were completely out of the question. Frank had removed Timms completely from Carlos’ mind to be safe but there was no way to get around the fact that Cameron Timms and Ernesto Vargas had to be dealt with by Sanguinostri only. The black blood smuggling operation and Cameron Timms could never see the light of day. There was simply no way to sanitize it for civilian consumption and there was far too much at stake.

Dillon made a right onto Mulholland then promptly pulled up behind a Range Rover that was parked, waiting.

“Have fun kids!” Frank got out of the car and headed for the passenger side of the Range Rover. He barely had the door closed before the SUV began moving, making a U-turn. Lou saw Abby at the wheel, waving at her as they headed back onto Las Virgenes and were gone. Dillon and Lou just looked at each other for a moment before Dillon made a similar U-turn and they continued their drive to Lost Hills where they would begin the official interrogation of their freshly adjusted passenger.

Connor and Finn
were both cranking away on their computers when Finn heard a vehicle pulling up. He hopped up quickly and looked out to see Max parking Joe McAllister’s 4-wheeler in the circular driveway. From what Finn knew, that 4-wheeler hadn’t had this much use since Joe bought the thing. Finn went back to his computer and Max walked in the front door just a moment later.

“Anything?” He asked them.

“We’re doing a search on numerous possible properties.” Connor told him. “Abby gave us a list of all the Timms holdings in the U.S. and it’s a whopper so sifting through all of them is like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s going to take time.”

“Anything on your end?” Finn asked.

“Everything went fine.” Max informed them. “At least so far. Lou and Dillon are on their way to interrogation with Carlos Vargas. Niko, Frank, Abby and Yuri are on their way back.”

“Was Frank able to handle Vargas without a problem?” Connor was sure he did but he wanted to be positive.

“He’s not sure if he wiped too much, but we don’t need to worry about that.” Max examined the surroundings and noted they needed to do something about the lack of furniture. “You need an IKEA run at least.”

Connor and Finn looked up from their folding chairs and the long folding table they had set up as their work station. Other then that, there was not a stick of furniture to be had. It was a bare expanse of room with hardwood floors and sheets pinned to the empty curtain rod that ran the length of the back doors.

“Yeah.” Connor agreed. “Abby had stuff put in our bedrooms so I assumed she was going to do something with the rest of the place.”

“As if she hasn’t had her hands full enough, you guys can’t handle your own living arrangements?” Max gave them a disapproving look.

“Hey! I got this stuff from Home Depot!” Finn protested.

“Outstanding!” Max mocked him. “I bet there is a bottle of scotch in the cupboard and an old pizza box in the fridge. Say $500 on that?”

“Like we are stupid enough to take that bet.” Connor snorted and watched Max head into the kitchen.

“Ding ding ding! We have a winner, ladies and gentlemen!” Max shouted as soon as he opened the refrigerator. “For pity’s sake you two. How old are you? Stop acting like frat boys and take some responsibility for yourselves.”

Finn and Connor looked at each other, dumbfounded.

“It’s not like we’ve had time since we got back from Cuba, what? Oh yeah, yesterday!” Finn gave Max a disapproving look. “We were in the hotel before we left. Give us a break.”

Connor winced at Finn’s insubordinate tone. Despite them all being family, Max was still their Dominor and disrespect was not an option.

“Dude!” Connor tossed a paperclip at him. “Watch it, would you?!”