Slim to None, page 18
“Jeez, man, it’s his brother,” Tillman said. “Have a heart.”
“This Russo—he’s a take-no-prisoners type, huh?”
“Total bastard. Take my advice, Manny. Anybody ever suggest you work with him, run fast as you can in the opposite direction.” Tillman shook his head. “I wouldn’t mind a nice freeway chase right about now so we can get the hell out of here.”
Russo finally loosened his grip. When the teenager tried to scuttle away from him, the detective caught him by the sweatshirt and led him to the unmarked sedan he and Chen had arrived in. Once he’d gotten the kid into the back seat, Russo squinted up at the circling chopper. He pulled a radio off his belt. His partner shielded his eyes as he followed the direction of Russo’s gaze.
“Chopper One, this is Detective Russo. You wanna get that light out of my eyes?”
Garcia panned the night sun away from the crime scene while Tillman flipped his helmet mike over to the ground channel. “Sorry. Just trying to help.”
Russo’s mouth vented a sharp puff of vapor, but he said nothing for a moment. And then, “Is that you wasting gas up there, Tillman? Go make yourself useful and find my shooter, would you?”
“You got any idea where we should be looking? ’Cause we’re not seeing much.”
“Stand by.”
Russo turned back to the kid cowering in the back seat.
“This Russo,” Garcia said, “you worked with him before?”
“Not exactly.”
“So how do you know him?”
“Let’s just say our paths have crossed. Dude’s bad news, trust me.”
“A hotshot? One of those ‘kiss up, kick down’ dicks, no time for us peons?”
Tillman only scowled.
Meantime, down on the ground, Russo’s head gave a sharp, victorious nod. He stepped away from the car. Lifting his radio once more, he looked up at the helicopter, his free hand pointing east. “Del Mar Court, Tillman. Look for an orange stucco house with a metal tool shed along the back fence. I’m calling up a SWAT unit and heading over there now. See if you can spot anything, but don’t try to flush him out before backup gets here.”
“Roger.” Tillman took one last look down. Russo had slammed the back door of the tan Taurus with the kid inside and climbed into the front, behind the wheel. Chen hustled into the front passenger seat. His door was still open when Russo peeled out.
“Lousy luck for the kid,” Tillman said, wheeling the bird away. “Killer takes out his brother and then he gets to deal with John Russo. That’s more than any human being should have to put up with in one night.”
CHAPTER
22
Hannah pulled up to the guardhouse outside Mulholland Estates. As her little hybrid came to a silent stop, the brightly colored gift bag on the passenger seat slid forward. She caught it just before it hit the floor.
A handful of show business and sports celebs kept homes in the gated enclave of multimillion-dollar estates perched high over Los Angeles. Some pretty shady characters lived there, as well. It was the perfect place for a pole-climber like her ex, Hannah thought. Once, Cal had prosecuted people who used wealth and connections to rip off the unsuspecting and the innocent. Now, he defended them with glib courtroom skills and sensational press conferences designed to paint moneyed sleazoids, con artists and sociopaths as persecuted pillars of the community. It was enough to make an ex-cop retch.
After driving up the dark, winding curves of Mulholland Drive, she found herself half-blinded by glaring spotlights that turned the roadway in front of the gatehouse from night to brilliant day. A blue-uniformed security guard stepped out carrying a pen and clipboard, another of the underpaid and undertrained rent-a-dicks the paranoid foolishly believed could keep them safe behind their high stone walls. In fact, it was L.A.’s huge freeway system that was the city’s real Hadrian’s Wall, barricading the city’s poorer eastern and southern neighborhoods, holding back the brown and black hordes that these superrich people feared so much.
The guard took one look at Hannah’s little car and practically sneered. It was a far cry from the Porsches and Ferraris that normally passed through those gates. “Help you?” he asked, like maybe she was lost and needed directions back to the boonies.
“My name’s Hannah Nicks. I should be on your clipboard there. I’m expected.”
“Uh-huh.” The guy ran a finger down the sheet on his board. “Nicks, you said. Nope, nothing here.”
Hannah fumed. Once again, Christie had forgotten to call down to the gatehouse and let them know Gabe’s mother was coming. Wasn’t it enough they’d taken Hannah’s son? Was the humiliation necessary, too? Did they think it would discourage her from coming for him as often as possible? That she’d just fade away into the sunset, out of his life once and for all?
Fat chance.
Well, two could play at this game. Hannah pulled a leather billfold from her pocket and flipped it open. The brown cowhide folder had once held her police ID and shield, and this was one of those occasions when she wished she still carried them. The P. I. license she’d gotten after she left the sheriff’s department didn’t carry the same power to impress as that gold shield, but it was official-looking all the same.
“I’m here to question people at the Nicks residence on Barn Swallow Drive.”
It was half a lie, but it had the desired effect, especially when she saw how quickly the guard’s eyes slid over the license. He might have been dyslexic or just semi-literate, because he clearly didn’t really register what was written there. He straightened his spine, nodded sharply and reached back for the switch that opened the gate. Maybe he thought she was from Homeland Security or something.
But then, just as the big wrought-iron gate began to swing outward, a delayed flash of insight furrowed his otherwise thought-free brow. He ducked low to peer at her once more. “The Nicks place? And your name is Nicks, too?”
Hannah grimaced and put the Prius in gear. “Coincidence. No relation, believe me.” She took off before he had a chance to worry his brain about it anymore. She would have peeled out to show determination to get on with her important work, but peeling was really not an option in her modest but fuel-efficient little car.
Turning into Barn Swallow Drive, she spotted a white stretch limousine—a Hummer, at that—parked at the end of Cal and Christie’s red brick driveway. Her heart sank. Laughing boys were clambering all over the gleaming white behemoth, peering through the driver’s side window, scrambling in and out of oversized rear doors, poking their heads up through the open sunroof. Whatever surprise Cal had planned, clearly it was more than just a house party.
Every one of the young partygoers was wearing what looked to be an official L.A. Lakers basketball jersey, Hannah noticed, and she suddenly remembered that Cal’s client list these days included the Lakers’ star center, Keenan Prince. A few weeks earlier, Cal had won dismissal in a criminal case in which the basketball player had been accused of raping the seventeen-year-old daughter of his girlfriend’s cleaning lady. When the victim wouldn’t be bought off, Cal made her life a living hell both inside the courtroom and out with well-placed innuendos about a mother-daughter team of gold-digging grifters. In the end, both the girl and her mother fled back to the mother’s hometown in Mexico. The D.A.’s office, lacking witnesses, reluctantly withdrew all charges.
Hannah grabbed her son’s gift bag and climbed out of the car just as Gabe’s head emerged through the limo’s sunroof. He was dark-haired, his mop a froth of tumbling curls not unlike her own when she let it revert to its natural wild state—except on him, it looked good. Maybe it was the two-hundred-dollar haircuts Christie got him at the Beverly Hills salon she frequented. Or maybe it was just that Gabe was so damn beautiful. Even now, ten years after that morning she’d first held him in her arms, Hannah couldn’t believe she’d produced something as wonderful as that young Adonis poking his head out of the Hummer’s roof.
“Hey there!” she called. “What’s happening, birthday boy?”
He swiveled toward her, his face beaming. He had Cal’s gorgeous blue eyes and a wide, wild grin that was all his own. “Mom! Hey! Isn’t this cool?”
“Pretty cool,” she agreed, tactfully sidestepping the issue of how many kids were being killed or maimed in Iraq in order to safeguard access to fuel for gas guzzlers like that. Ever since Oz Nuñez, she’d been taking every reported casualty over there very personally. “What’s up? I thought there was a party or something happening here tonight.”
“Party, yeah, but not here. You won’t believe it. Keenan Prince invited me and my friends to be his personal guests at tonight’s game. He sent over the limo and shirts for everyone. We get to go in the VIP entrance at the Staples Center and down to the Lakers dressing room and everything!” His grin turned mischievous. “Girls gotta wait outside the locker room while we check it out, though. Make sure they don’t get butt-flashed or anything.”
“That could be embarrassing,” Hannah agreed. She tried to peer through the limo’s tinted windows. “You’ve got girls in there?”
“Ew, Mom! Gross! No way.”
Hannah grinned. At ten, the prospect would seem pretty yucky, she supposed. Give it a few more years, though…
“I meant girls like you and Christie,” Gabe said. “And we’ve got primo seats for the game. Courtside, right on the floor. All of us! Can you believe it?”
“Yeah!” a couple of his hyper friends chorused. “Can you believe it?”
“Wow,” Hannah said. Why am I not surprised? But of course, Keenan Prince would be grateful. He’d been looking into the black maw of destruction just a few weeks earlier, the implosion of his career and an income that was reported to be something over thirty million dollars a year when you rolled in all the commercial endorsements. Lucky for him Cal had come along to save his bacon.
“So, you guys are off shortly then?” Hannah asked.
“We’re just waiting for Dad. He’s inside trying to find his sunglasses.”
Sunglasses? The sun had already set. But of course, Hannah thought, all the celebrities at Lakers games wore sunglasses. “Well, do you think I could give you a hug and your birthday present?”
Gabe nodded and ducked down the Hummer’s bolt-hole, emerging from the side passenger door and bounding over. Hannah wrapped her arms around him and kissed the top of his head, breathing in his little-boy scent, holding on until she felt him beginning to squirm. She cut it short before he succumbed to terminal embarrassment. His friends, she noticed, were studying her with the kind of frank, pitiful curiosity reserved for homeless street people and divorced absent parents. She was suddenly conscious of her nondescript black pantsuit and red cotton T-shirt. A sad specimen compared to Gabe’s glamorous stepmother.
As if sensing her discomfort, Gabe patted her back. “Sorry, Mom. I know you and me were supposed to do something tonight.”
She ruffled his baby-soft curls, wondering how it was that his head reached her shoulders all of a sudden. How could he have grown an inch in the three weeks since she’d left on the Beckham job? Yet another marker missed. How many were there in the four years, five months and six days since she’d lost custody of her little guy?
“This is your birthday, sweetie. It’s great you get to spend it with your friends. I just wanted to bring your present. Although,” she added, examining the pathetically cheery, tissue-stuffed bag in her hand, “maybe it’s kind of lame next to all this.” She cocked a thumb at the Hummer and the adventure it represented—not just a scrawled note from some distant sports hero, but a personal connection to an entire team of superstars.
“Thanks, Mom,” Gabe said, taking the bag.
“What have you got there?” a musical voice behind him called.
Hannah looked up to see that Christie had emerged from the Tudor-style mansion. She came up behind Gabe, peering over his shoulder at the garish gift bag, her green eyes sparkling. Stunningly beautiful, with the kind of perfectly even features and high cheekbones that television cameras loved, she was tall and slim and—
Oh, God, no! Hannah’s gaze riveted on a small mound under Christie’s slim pink knit dress. Oh, no, no, no…
Her own smile froze as she forced herself to look away from the little bulge that would never, ever be found on Christie Day’s stomach in the normal course of events. Hannah ran and worked out with weights to stay in the kind of physical condition that security work demanded. Christie, however, had a personal trainer who came several times a week to the house to supervise her workout routine in the home gym that overlooked the infinity pool and its panoramic views of the city. Her perky breasts, Hannah suspected, owed a small debt to the wonders of silicone, but they were the only part of that figure that wasn’t exercised to within an inch of its life. If a mound had appeared on Christie’s abdomen now, it could only mean one thing.
And why not? Hannah thought wearily. Christie had given up a high-profile evening news anchor job to be home during the day for someone else’s child. Getting up at 3:00 a.m. to read the morning news at a local network affiliate had probably lost its attraction by now, and like Hannah, she was turning thirty this year. Her biological clock had probably been ticking up a storm.
“Found them!” Cal’s voice boomed from inside the cavernous entry hall. He emerged from the house and bounded down the semicircular brick steps, waving a pair of Oakley sunglasses. His nut brown hair was going prematurely gray and yet, disgustingly, it didn’t age him. His vivid blue eyes were as bright as ever, his even-featured face unlined, his body trim and tight from tennis and the morning racquetball games he played with one of the senior partners at his firm—good ol’ Cal missing no opportunity to brown-nose. He had on a navy knit golf shirt and tan slacks that shimmered with that faint sheen that expensive fabrics have.
“Hi, Hannah,” he said. “You’re late. You nearly missed the boat.”
“Sorry. Would have come faster if I’d known you guys were going out on the town.” She cocked a thumb at the limo overrun with yellow and purple jersey-clad boys. “Keenan Prince is really pleased about beating that criminal beef, I see.”
Cal frowned. “The whole thing was a shakedown, way overblown by the media.”
“Yeah, rape has a tendency to get overblown, I find.”
“The charges were dismissed.”
“The victim fled.”
“The accuser, you mean. The way I see it, Keenan was the real victim here. Anyway, it’s hardly the sort of thing to be discussing in front of the birthday boy, wouldn’t you say?”
“Aw, Dad,” Gabe said, “I know what happened.”
“I know you do. But you also know that a person’s innocent until proven guilty, and that didn’t happen here. We don’t want to go around smearing Mr. Prince’s name, do we? Especially when he’s given you such a great birthday gift?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty great,” Gabriel agreed, looking back at his friends clambering over the Hummer. The uniformed driver stood by, hands clasped behind his back, a smile of pained for-bearance pasted in place.
“So,” Christie said, peering over Gabe’s shoulder, “what’s in that bag?”
“Oh, it’s just a little something,” Hannah said quickly. “You can open it later, Gabe. You should be with your friends.”
“No, that’s not right,” Christie said. “Your mom came all the way over here with your present, Gabie. You should open it.”
Inwardly, Hannah cringed. This was the problem, she thought, not for the first time. Christie was actually a fairly decent person, nicer than anyone that gorgeous had a need to be, and damned if Hannah didn’t just hate her for it. She wanted so badly to dislike this woman who’d replaced her, not only as Cal’s wife but effectively as Gabe’s mother, too. Why did she have to be so bloody gracious? She was certainly a better person than Cal deserved.
“It’s just something I had a chance to get during this last job I was on,” Hannah told Gabe as he pulled the tissue-wrapped mound out of the bag. “You remember I told you I was going to be meeting David Beckham?”
“Yeah,” Gabe said, unwrapping the ball. He studied it for a moment, and then his eyes went wide. “Oh, Mom, wow! Lookit, Dad! Autographed by Beckham himself!”
“Wow,” Cal echoed dryly.
“There’s a note from him in there, too,” Hannah said.
A few of Gabe’s friends had gathered around. Excitedly, he showed them the note and where the British soccer star had signed the ball. There was nothing Cal hated more than being upstaged, Hannah knew—although, Cal being Cal, it couldn’t last for long. Gabe threw the ball up and tapped it with a header over his buddies. One of them went for the pass, kicking it off toward a third runner.
