“Well, yeah, about that butcher comment I made at your Task Force meeting, I…”
“Relax, LaZelle, told me about it. The fact is, I think that’s the guy, your buddy Tibor Crvek. He runs under the radar but we’ve been aware of him for quite some time. ‘By the Book’ Peters won’t believe it but I think he’s our boy. Might just be dumb luck but you stumbled onto him. You had any close up dealing with that psycho, you’re lucky you’re in one piece.”
I felt myself beginning to sweat noticeably.
“But the thing is I’m still an innocent, essentially. If Karina Vucavitch, Kerri, hadn’t contacted me, and paid me, I wouldn’t be involved in any of this. I was just trying to find one missing person, not too successfully, I might add. Why me?”
“You wanna know what I think?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, no offense but you’re a bit of a known fuckup. Look, I like you, but I think she probably got you involved because she, well, they, figured you wouldn’t ask too many questions. You’d do the grunt work, take some money, and go away. You had a better chance of finding this Mathias woman?”
“Nikki,” I interjected.
“Yeah Nikki, you had a better chance of finding her than they did because, well, she’s hiding from them. If you did find her it’s probably a fair comment you would have told them where she was, taken the money, gone off, and pissed it all away in about a week. Right?”
“So,” I sounded a little more defensive then I meant to.
“Not a criticism, just a probable fact, okay. Look, you got lucky, if that’s the right word. Either way, you’ve stumbled into something and until you see it through, you are gonna have to hide.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. That car bomb, Peters didn’t set that. You got something, whether we know what it is or not is another question, but you got something and they’re gonna come looking for you.”
“But I don’t know shit.”
“But they think you do, and that’s all that counts. I’d say the key for you is Nikki Mathias. You find her, your answer, whatever it is, is probably nearby.”
“Well, I’m lying low here for the time being.”
“Hey, look, with all due respect, I found you, with one phone call. I didn’t even have to get out of bed.”
“Yeah, but Aaron wouldn’t tell…”
“I don’t know, where was he when he told me? Can they tap his cell? Didn’t you say Peters had two guys out there in the street just the other day?”
“Yeah, but I figure they just saw my car and…”
“Jesus, they might be Feds but do you think they got the resources to cruise up and down city streets just so they can locate your vehicle? Even the Feds can’t waste money like that, too often.”
“You got any ideas?”
“Matter of fact I do. May not come with some of the fringe benefits your little friend can offer you around here but no one will find you and she might be a bit safer, too with you gone. We could pool our resources.”
“What resources you got?”
“The best,” Hale laughed. “Me!”
I packed my gear, such as it was, couple of shirts, underwear, two boxes of.45 rounds, and my donut hole, cushion. I wrote Heidi a note and left with Hale.
Chapter 58
On the way over he told me a little bit more about his role in the task force.
“Our hot button is illegal aliens. What do you think of when you hear that term?”
I was on my donut-hole cushion, sitting at an angle against the back of the passenger seat.
“I guess I think of people crossing the border in the dark of night down in Arizona. Hot, dusty. If they get picked up they’re sent back down to Mexico, and they maybe try it again a couple of nights later.”
“Yeah, well, that’s part of it. I mean that’s the one that makes the news. The stuff I’m involved with is young women coming here, usually under the guise of schooling or a job waiting for them. Instead of sneaking across the border they arrive perfectly legal in an airport. Someone meets them, picks them up, gets a hold of their passport then gets them drunk, drugged. A team breaks them in, rapes them for maybe a week or two straight. Then they’re working the Internet brothel scene, hookers on call, delivered right to your door, like your little girlfriend running that escort service. That’s one of about half a dozen connected with old Braco by the way,” he glanced over at me.
“The girls complain or screw up, they’re out on the streets, strung out, hooking for a couple of bucks. They go to the authorities they’ve been told their families back in Russia or wherever will be murdered. That part may or may not happen, but after what these girls have been through, they’d be stupid not to take it as gospel. They’ve got no passport, they’re in an illegal industry, not to be too unpleasant, but they are literally fucked.”
“That’s the scenario Kerri laid out for me the other night, in my car.”
“Yeah, well take whatever that broad says with a grain of salt. She’s management. She likes to play the part of the victim but she’s Braco’s front person in a lot of deals.”
“Were the Lee-Dee guys part of this?”
“Not in so many ways. Yeah, they had an escort service. Braco put your gal Karina in there, then he just took the whole thing over. Pretty safe guess he murdered Leo Tate and Dennis Dundee, made some adjustment, and built off the Lee-Dee model. Essentially what they’ve got is a cyber-brothel. They take credit cards, advertise a full GFE.”
“GFE?”
“Girl Friend Experience. Nice way of saying a hooker. You read anything about the economies in Eastern Europe and you know Braco’s got a constant supply of new eye candy available. One of the girls burns out here and he can have two more flown over within the week. They show up thinking they scored some dream job or school course, it’s a dream all right, a real nightmare.”
Hale’s narrative didn’t get any more cheerful as we drove. Eventually we pulled into a large garage attached to an industrial building, took a freight elevator to the fourth floor and then went down a short hallway to a metal fire door. Hale took out a key and unlocked the door. We stepped into a fairly large room, a kitchen area to one side, about a dozen computers going, three guys looked up, nodded, and went back to what they were doing.
Along the far wall stood five bunk beds. A couple of couches were arranged next to the beds. A flat-screen TV sat on a card table. There were red, black, blue, and white cables bundled together and strung across the open ceiling. Behind the fire door we had just come through was an overflowing trashcan and standing next to that, a three-foot stack of pizza-delivery boxes. The place needed some airing out.
“Home sweet home,” Hale said.
“Charming.”
“I’ll give you the formal introduction at lunch time. Gang, meet Devlin Haskell, guy I told you about.” That elicited two slight nods and a grunt.
“Look, why don’t you throw your stuff on an open bunk? Top and bottom on the far right are reasonably clean, I think. You want anything, a Coke or root beer? I don’t have any hard stuff or beer cause we’re operational. Help yourself and let me check in with these guys for a bit. Then we’ll all sit down and get to know one another over lunch. Bathroom is behind the kitchen area. You on any meds or anything?”
“They gave me some pain killers after my surgery but I’ve been off them for close to twenty-four hours and I’d like to keep it that way. Damn things gave me horrible nightmares.”
Hale nodded but didn’t say anything.
I hung my shirts on the corner post of a bunk-bed, dropped my overnight bag on the floor, then put my donut cushion on a couch, settled in and watched for a little more than an hour.
Chapter 59
Lunch consisted of hot dogs and nacho cheese Doritos from a bag that was constantly passed around the table. No one bothered to just take a handful and pile them on the “Happy Birthday” paper plates in front of us. I was famished and had three hot dogs. I met Gary, Mike, and Mike.