The White Gold Score (A Daniel Faust Novella) (8 page)

It was sometime after one in the morning, pushing up on closing time, when we found our prey. He sat alone at a beer-sticky table in a Disneyland parody of a dive bar, the kind of place that worked overtime to promise a dark and seedy atmosphere to a wealthy college crowd. The distressed wood was too perfectly worn, the faux-biker bouncers too friendly, the pool table in the corner kept up to tournament-regulation standards. The bar served Pabst Blue Ribbon by the can and tiny plates of artisanal delicacies that were, the menu insisted, exclusively crafted from farm-to-table ingredients.

“Oh, I forgot,” Jennifer said, “I hate Los Angeles.”

Standing on my opposite side, Caitlin stared in dismay.

“Half the men in this room are wearing fedoras.” She looked my way. “Think anyone would miss them if a massacre just happened to break out? Hypothetically speaking.”

“Probably not,” I said, “but let’s keep our eyes on the prize.”

The prize—though I hesitated to call him that—was also wearing a fedora. Hanover had a scruffy little neckbeard, the smug smirk of a trust-fund kid, and about twenty pounds too many for the vintage suit he’d squeezed himself into. Up on a stage under cool blue lights, a five-piece band in rockabilly couture fumbled their way through a Buddy Holly cover.

“Everything old is new again,” I said, slipping into the chair at his left. Caitlin and Jennifer took the other two seats.

Hanover blinked, surprised. “Hey, private table.”

“We won’t take too much of your time,” I said. “I understand you’re a talent scout for Blue Rhapsody. We’ve got a band your boss will be interested in.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “I’m a scout. That means
I
look for
you
. If I haven’t seen you, it’s because you suck. If you’re a nobody looking for a come-up, submit a demo directly to the label and they might get back to you in a few months. If you’re a somebody, you should have the juice to get a personal meeting with my boss. In no case do you need to be talking to me.”

“You shouldn’t be surprised,” Caitlin purred. “A man in your position wields a great deal of power. It’s only natural that people would want to curry your favor.”

He straightened his hat. “Well, uh. Yeah. That’s…that’s true. But still, this isn’t how it works.”

“When there’s something I want,” I told him, “I don’t care too much for rules and regulations getting in the way. There’s an old saying, and I believe it’s absolutely true: ‘Energy and persistence conquer all things.’”

I reached into my jacket, fingers slipping into Greenbriar’s envelope and peeling off a crisp hundred-dollar bill. I set it down on the table between us.

“Know who said that?” I asked. “Benjamin Franklin.”

I saw the sudden look of recognition in Hanover’s eyes, just like I’d seen it on countless other faces. He knew what this was all about now. His confusion and irritation turned to eager greed.

“The man said some wise things,” he replied.

I put two fingertips on the bill and slid it toward him.

“He did. You should keep this, as a reminder.”

He awkwardly swept the bill into his hand, crumpling it as he shoved it down in his hip pocket.

“You understand,” he said, “that I’m a talent scout. I don’t sign artists. I don’t make deals. My job is to find promising leads and bring them to my boss’s attention, and that’s the end of it. Whoever you’re repping, unless they’re genuinely marketable, I can’t do a thing to help.”

“All we need is a foot in the door,” Jennifer said. “Just deliver our demo to the man at the top. That’s all we’re askin’.”

He rubbed his scruffy beard and eyed me like a pawnshop clerk appraising a stolen TV set. Something told me this wasn’t the first time he’d been approached like this. Now he had to choose: take the bribe, walk away, or try to squeeze me for more money.

“You know,” he said, “Benjamin Franklin said a
lot
of memorable things.”

There it was. Option number three. I wasn’t exactly surprised.

“I might remember a couple of relevant quotes,” I told him and peeled off another two bills. He put his hand on the money, but he didn’t take it.

“Maybe,” he said, “even three or four more?”

Caitlin leaned across the table, eyes narrowing.

“I believe the man had some pertinent commentary about the folly of greed,” she said, “and the dangers to one’s health that it might pose.”

“Right.” Hanover pocketed the extra two hundred, fast. “This is good. This is plenty. I don’t need much to be happy.”

“Good thinkin’,” Jennifer told him.

I took out my phone. “Give me your email address. I’ll send you the recording. Tell Dino that you recorded it at a local club, tonight, and he should listen to it pronto.”

*     *     *

It wasn’t Caitlin’s demo I sent him. We had to save that bullet for
after
Dino’s defenses were down. Instead, just before starting our barhopping expedition, I’d followed up with a second call to Pixie.

“This malware he’s gotta run,” I said. “Can you slip that into any kind of file? Like an audio recording?”

“Technically no. When you open an audio file, you’re not ‘running’ the audio; you’re running the software that plays it back. That said…” She paused. I could hear her thinking. “I
could
disguise an executable as an MP3, or better yet, write up a wrapper that’ll inject the code as a background process and—you’re not following one word of this, are you?”

“I know what MP3s are,” I said, trying to be helpful.

“Okay, lemme rephrase that. Yes. The answer to your question, for all intents and purposes as far as
you’re
concerned, is yes. You should express awe at my skills now.”

“I’ll make a big donation to St. Jude’s as soon as I’m back in Vegas.”

“Damn right you will. So what’s the source file?”

I told her what I was shopping for, and she hunted around until she found a winner: a four-song set by a decent but obscure bar band back in Detroit, filmed and tossed up on YouTube by a friend of the lead singer. She stripped the video out along with any identifying signatures and added her special sauce to the recording before emailing it to a throwaway account.

“That’s it?” I asked her.

“That’s it. One double-click and his box is mine. The malware’s designed to phone home as soon as it takes effect. I’ll let you know when I see it go active.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Pix. Can’t thank you enough.”

“Sure you can,” she said. “Pay me.”

*     *     *

Hanover eyed his phone. It pinged as my email hit his in-box, and I saw a list of unread and unopened messages bump down another notch. He didn’t bother opening mine, either.

“Easiest three hundred bucks you’ll ever make,” I told him. “Just shoot it to your boss, tell him you recorded it, and you’re done.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, pocketing his phone and downing the last of his drink. “He’ll get it.”

“Tonight.”

Hanover pushed his chair back, cheeks flush from the gin.

“Sure,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

The tone in his voice told exactly me how worried I should be. I shared a quick glance with Jennifer and Caitlin, and they were thinking the same thing.

I never faulted a man for taking a bribe. Life was a hustle, and you had to make ends meet wherever you could. That meant following through, though, and doing what you’d said you would. Taking the money and running? Unacceptable, especially when it was
my
money. I was suddenly having grave doubts about Hanover’s honesty.

We let him leave the bar. Then we silently rose as one and followed him out onto the crowded sidewalk.

He didn’t use the premium garage just up the street. Either he didn’t have the cash for the good spots, or he just didn’t want to spend it. Instead we followed him for about three blocks, down side streets where the crowds and the streetlamps went thin, to a shoebox-sized parking lot with no security and a busted light. Five bucks a spot, but you got what you paid for.

He was jiggling his key in the lock of a rusted nineties-model Volvo when he spotted our reflections in the window glass, coming up on him fast.

“Hey, guys, I told you.” He turned, giving us a plastic smile. “I’ll get it over to him, don’t even—”

Caitlin grabbed his left wrist, spun him around, and slammed him down against the hood of his car. His cheek to the flaking metal, his last word turning to a yelp of pain as she wrenched his arm behind his back.

“At this angle,” Caitlin said calmly, “it would take approximately seventeen and a half pounds of force to dislocate your shoulder. Tearing ligaments, wrenching your arm from its socket, possibly inflicting permanent damage. What you are feeling, at this moment, is exactly seventeen pounds of applied force.”

“Jesus,” Hanover groaned, “that
hurts
.”

“It’s meant to.”

I leaned over and snapped my fingers in front of his face. “Hey, buddy. Sorry for the demonstration, but my colleagues were concerned that you might think we’re stupid.”

“Stupid people aren’t too good at physics,” Jennifer said. She plucked Hanover’s wallet from his pocket, stepping back to rifle through it. “So you’d better hope my friend here knows
exactly
how much stress she’s puttin’ on your arm, or things might start going
pop
any second now. You don’t think she’s stupid, do ya?”

“N-no!” he gasped. “I don’t! I don’t think that at all.”

“I think we’d all feel better if you sent that email to your boss,” I said. “Right here. Right now.”

Caitlin let him up. He rubbed his shoulder, wincing, then took out his phone and held it in a trembling hand. I stood at his side and watched him draft the email to Dino, telling the story just right: “
Saw this band tonight, I think they’re a sure thing, we should move fast. Take a listen and let me know what you think
.”

I patted him on the back as he hit
send
. “There. Was that so hard?”

He blinked at me, wide-eyed. “What is
wrong
with you people?”

“We like to get what we pay for.” Jennifer tossed him his wallet. She held up his driver’s license, the glossy rectangle shimmering in the dark. “Fair’s fair, you can keep the three hundred. But we’re holdin’ onto this. We know where you live now.”

“And if you say one word about this to Dino…” I said. The rest of the threat hung in the air between us.

“You—you aren’t really music promoters, are you?”

I opened his car door for him and gestured to the front seat.

“Not your problem. Go home and enjoy your money. Stay cool for another few days, and we’ll mail your license to you.”

“Consider a vacation,” Caitlin told him.

We got back to our room at the Orchid Suites with dawn chasing our heels, just in time to catch a few hours of blissful sleep. It had been a long, busy day, and tomorrow—
today
, I reminded myself with a glance at the digital clock on the nightstand—was going to be even busier.

“They were all out of rooms, last I checked.” Jennifer stifled a yawn as she stretched. “Wanna kick me the keys to the Camaro? I’ll crash out in the backseat.”

“Nonsense,” Caitlin said, “we have a king-size bed. That’s plenty of room for the three of us.”

I’ll admit it: for one fleeting second, my thoughts went someplace they had no business going. A second, though, that was all it was. My short-lived romance with Jennifer had been a disaster; we’d agreed, in the end, that we made better friends than lovers. At least our friendship had come out stronger for it, and we could joke about it now.

She caught my eye and smirked. “I saw that look,” she muttered under her breath.

I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. It felt like an eyeblink later when I woke up, light streaming around the curtains and the sounds of morning traffic drifting up from the street outside. Beside me, Jennifer grumbled and rolled over. Caitlin glanced over from the table by the window, lifting a mug of coffee in salute. Bright and alert, dressed, and ready to go.

“I keep forgetting,” I groaned as I pushed myself up from the mattress, “you don’t really need to sleep.”

“Fifteen minutes, now and then, to freshen up,” she said. “I do enjoy the sensation, though.”

The blankets clung to me with invisible hands, trying to pull me back into dreamland. I fought valiantly, shambled into the bathroom, and turned the shower on full blast. Steaming hot as I lathered up, and then, just before I was ready to get out, I twisted the handle and turned the water arctic cold. The sudden freezing rush flooded the lethargy out of my body, an electric jolt of pain that shocked my brain into high gear. I stood under the icy torrent as long as I could stand it, killed the water, then rubbed down my shivering, pale skin with a fluffy hotel towel.

When you need to wake up fast, nothing beats the cold-shower cure. That and caffeine. Fortunately the room came with a coffee maker, and Caitlin had already put on a fresh pot. She handed me a mug as I stepped out of the bathroom.

“You
are
the perfect girlfriend,” I said.

She gave me a lopsided smile. “I know what you need.”

Jennifer stumbled past me, still half-asleep. I held the mug in one hand, taking a sip—strong, black, just right—and my phone in the other.

“While we wait for Dino to open that file,” I said, “I’m thinking we need to hit him on multiple fronts. Fortunately, I’ve got a guy for that.”

My guy answered the phone in a bored monotone. “Thank you for calling the Love Connection, where you can make your love connection.”

“Hey, Paolo. It’s Faust. What would it take to get you out in LA, with your gear, for one day’s work?”

“I don’t know, man. I’d have to close the shop. That’s a whole day of lost income.”

“Which is what, twenty bucks? This is the twenty-first century. People get their porn online these days, like civilized human beings, and you know it. If it wasn’t for your backroom business, that store would’ve been shuttered ages ago.”

“Yeah,” he said with a sigh, “you got me there. What would you need me to do?”

“What you’re best at. Need some custom paper done. A little Photoshop, a little stealth editing. Nothing you can’t handle.”

“And you need me when?”

“As soon as possible,” I told him.

“Have to load up the van, drive my gear out, ’bout five hours on the road each way,” he murmured, tallying the expenses in his head. “How about eight hundred, plus you cover my meals and gas?”

“You got yourself a deal,” I told him.

I was finishing up my next call, bringing Bentley and Corman up to speed and seeing if they were available for a little work, when Jennifer emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her head like a turban.

“How many people you wanna bring on board, sugar? Every extra pair of hands is less cash in the kitty for us.”

“Only as many as we need,” I said as I hung up. “Besides, the bookstore had a lousy month, and I know they’re having bill trouble. Bentley and Corman won’t take my money if they think it’s charity, but they
will
let me pay ’em for a job well done. Their end comes out of my cut, don’t worry about it.”

“
Our
cut,” Jennifer said, rubbing her hair with the towel. “They’re my friends too.”

“So what now?” Caitlin asked.

“The Dino scam is percolating,” I said. “Nothing we can do on that end until Pixie’s malware goes off and Paolo shows up with his counterfeiting gear. That gives us a few hours to work on the coke deal. I’m gonna find out what kind of muscle Dino’s bringing to the party. On the phone, he told his boy Max to start recruiting hardcore soldiers. I’d like to know what we’re up against.”

Caitlin nodded and sipped her coffee. “While you’re doing that, I’ll take a peek at the venue where Winter Court will be playing their inaugural show. That should help us refine a plan of attack.”

Tracking down Max, Dino’s tire-iron-swinging henchman, was harder than I expected. The record on Dino’s call log had given me a name: Dunsborough Security Solutions. Problem was, Google had never heard of it. No business listing, no reviews, nada. On a hunch, I hit up the California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services. The state bureau kept a database of interesting licenses, from alarm and locksmith companies to repo men and firearm instructors. No hacker needed: it was all public info, if you knew where to look.

I entered “Max Dunsborough” and struck tarnished gold: he’d been licensed as a private investigator. Past tense, since the state had stripped his license from him about two years ago for reasons undisclosed. His firearm permit? Same, right around the same time. Somebody had been a naughty boy. Something told me the lack of a legal license wouldn’t stop him from carrying a piece, though.

Caitlin took the car, intent on scoping out the concert hall, so Jennifer and I headed out to the sidewalk and flagged down a taxi to take us to the Civic Center district. We ended up on West Temple Street, greeted by burbling fountains, palm trees, and a long alabaster brick of a building frozen in the 1960s.

“The Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration,” Jennifer said, reading a plaque on our way to the front door. “You take me to the most excitin’ places.”

Slow electric fans pushed sluggish air around the lobby, while a bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln kept a tired eye on us. We followed the building directory to the records office, then waited in a shuffle-step line until one of the clerks had time to help us.

“We’re with Cowrie and Jet Family Law,” I said, offering my business card and a smile. He took the card out of polite obligation. We both knew he’d toss it in the trash can the second my back was turned, but that was fine. “We’re conducting a probate investigation. Could you pull a business registration from about two years ago, for a ‘Dunsborough Security Solutions’? Owner’s name was Max Dunsborough. I can provide his private investigator’s license number if you need it, and his firearm permit number.”

Twenty minutes later, we stepped out into the LA sunshine with a grainy photocopy of Max’s old business license.

“It’s amazing how much information is on the public record,” I told Jennifer. “You just have to know which bits you can find where, and which bits can unlock
other
bits.”

“Nice job, Columbo. So what’d that do for us, anyway?”

I brandished the photocopy, raising my free hand to hail a cab.

“Max isn’t the kind of guy who’ll let the lack of a PI license or a firearm permit keep him from doing business. His phone number, according to Dino’s call log, is still showing his old company name. I bet he’s still working out of the same address, too. If not, maybe we can talk to the landlord and get an idea where he moved to.”

The address was deep in the South Figueroa Corridor, and when we read it to the cabbie, he looked us over in the rearview mirror.

“You sure?”

“Drop us off two blocks away,” I told him, catching his tone. “Whichever direction you feel safer in.”

Jennifer leaned back in the shabby cloth bench seat and folded her arms. “Yep,” she murmured, “the
most
excitin’ places.”

“Hey,” I told her, “you could have gone with Caitlin.”

By the time the taxi dropped us off, leaving us at the edge of a weed-choked vacant lot, she was probably wishing she had. Hell, so was I. The air stank of diesel fumes, burning my sinuses, and the sun beat down on an urban wasteland so far off the beaten path it might not have been on any maps.

Jennifer took a pouch from the pocket of her artfully ripped jeans, carefully sliding out her favorite piece of jewelry: a polished razor blade dangling on a delicate silver chain. She clasped it around her neck and slipped the blade under her shirt.

When you worked with blood magic, it helped to be able to spill a lot of it, fast. More than one would-be challenger had learned the hard way that what didn’t kill Jennifer really did make her stronger.

“
Now
I’m ready,” she said.

Tract houses, yellow grass, the sounds of a cheap stereo playing from a parked Impala with the doors thrown open and the trunk lid up. Box fans stuffed in windows that didn’t fit, anything to keep the heat down in a neighborhood where nobody had central air. And eyes everywhere. I didn’t need a sixth sense to feel them. Eyes behind ragged window screens, eyes in a slow-moving rust-bucket sedan rumbling past us at five miles an hour. We were foreigners here, outsiders, and nobody knew what kind of trouble we might be bringing with us.

I kept my head up and my walk easy, hands open at my sides. Jennifer did the same. Keeping our body language a careful balance between “we’re not looking for a fight,” and “you don’t want to start one, either.”

Nobody did. We passed on through, a pair of silent pilgrims.

The street ended in the shadow of the Pasadena Freeway. A two-story roach motel crumbled away next to the overpass, flanked by a vacant lot and an old Shell station with the pumps gone and graffiti-plastered boards over the cashier’s booth. Max’s address had bars on the windows and a little gravel lot out front. The cars caught my eye: six of them, and two matched the black Lincolns we’d seen at Tanesha’s place. The others were a mix of pickup trucks and muscle cars, more expensive than anything we’d seen in this stretch of LA.

“That’s a bingo,” I said. “Looks like Dunsborough Security Solutions is unofficially still in business. And recruiting.”

Jennifer adjusted her necklace. “Let’s go say hi.”