MARIE TURNED IN her seat to talk with Bruno. “So, you want to be a deputy sheriff?”
I checked the rearview. Bruno looked out the side window at the passing landscape, not interested in small talk. “Don’t be rude,” I said. “Marie and I are married and she’s your aunt.”
“Ooh,” she said. “Auntie, that sounds strange, doesn’t it?”
I looked in the rearview again. “So you really have no idea why they want me involved in all this?”
He didn’t take his eyes off the passing cars. “No.”
“If they want your father out of prison so badly, why don’t they break him out?”
He moved up in the seat and spoke into my right ear. “Why don’t you tell me the answer to that? You’re their star. You’re the one they’ve been waiting for.”
His warm, wet breath made me uncomfortable. “Sit back, please.”
He complied.
“Tell me,” I said. “Where does this group of coke distributors operate? Do the sheriffs or Feds have any intel on them? Do you know any of their names?”
He turned to look back out the side window. “One, just one. The main guy, he goes by the name of Brodie, Don Brodie. He lives in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel.”
“Where did you find that out?”
“I have friends.”
I stuck my hand out to Marie. “Babe, would you dial Mack and hand me the phone.”
“You’re driving, it’s against the law.” She said it as she dialed and handed the phone to me. I smiled at her cute comment—talking on the phone, a moving violation, an infraction, as compared to all the felonies I’d been a party to.
Mack picked up. “Yeah, Bruno?”
“I need a favor.”
“Really? That’s something new.”
I chuckled. “I know, I’m sorry. Can you run a guy for me, get all the intel you can? His name is Don Brodie, he lives at the Beverly Hills Hotel.”
Mack said nothing.
“Mack?”
“Is this about the thing you have going with your brother?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t say anything else on the phone and we’ll meet someplace.”
“Ah, shit, is it like that?”
“Yeah, it’s like that.”
“Let me call you back.”
“Bruno, don’t go sticking your nose in this until we talk.”
“I understand. Thanks.” I handed the phone to Marie, and she clicked off.
“What did he say?” she asked. Bruno moved up close to hear.
“We’re going to have to meet with him.”
* * *
An hour later we cruised by the pier and then found a spot to dump the rental in a public parking lot. We didn’t know what these criminals looked like, but apparently they had a good handle on what I looked like, so we’d let them make contact.
The sun in the sky moved past noon and started the rest of the journey down to sunset. We stood at the railing overlooking the water and watched the waves roll in, surfers zigzagging across the green faces. Lots of people strolled the beach below, the board-walk, and the pier, all of them enjoying the sunny day. I watched Bruno watch. He kept his back to the railing and faced the pier side, eyeing everyone. I’d tried to talk with him, and he’d have none of it. His thoughts had to be on his children.
An old man in khaki shirt and pants came to the railing about ten feet away and set down a pail half-filled with dead sardines. He wore his floppy beachcomber hat canted to one side, shading his face from the sun, and making it difficult to get a good look at him. He tinkered with his fishing pole, his hands gnarled with arthritis and scarred from years of hard work. I’d grown up watching The Rockford Files and this guy could have doubled as Rocky, Jim Rockford’s dad.
I missed my dad.
Bruno turned to face the water and spoke quietly. “Check out this guy’s shoes.”
I casually looked down. The man wore black lace-up boots, the kind you could buy at any military surplus. Not odd in itself, but he did keep the black leather polished to a high sheen.
I didn’t have time to respond. A woman walked up to us, a brunette with a small nose and pretty green eyes. She wore yellow shorts and a kelly-green blouse tailored tight to her body. One pocket of her shorts bulged with something that might’ve been a small gun. The sheen in her hair glinted in the sun. She looked to be thirty or thirty-five and had the legs of an athletic nineteen-year-old. She held sunglasses in her hand and twirled them. “You’re late,” she said.
Bruno moved in close to her, not a smart move tactically. “Where are my kids?”
I put a hand on his shoulder, waited a long second, then in a low tone said, “Son, let me handle this, please? You’re too emotionally involved.”
“Damn right I’m emotionally involved.” He jerked away from me and held his ground. Marie stepped in between us and took hold of both his hands. “Come on, let’s step over here and let my husband handle this. It’s better that way, trust me.”
He didn’t move at first but then relented. Marie held onto his hand, and they moved down the pier, still watching us.
The woman next to me went up against the rail and faced the water. She put the sunglasses on and looked at me. “Well, are you going to do what we asked?”
“Break my brother out of jail? No way, that’s against the law.”
“Don’t be droll with me. We know your history.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Call us concerned citizens of LA.”
“Concerned about letting a half ton of coke hit the streets?”
She smiled. “You’ve been talking with your brother.”
“What you want is impossible.”
“No, it’s not. Not for a man of your talents.”
The fisherman ten feet away wiggled a dead sardine onto his hook and lowered the line to the water. The dead sardine now returned to its home as a turncoat, to spy and lure his friends to their deaths.
“Noble,” I said to her, “was stabbed this morning. Last I heard he was in surgery and might not make it.”