Frank let go of Vince and turned back to the front of the car. Vince slumped in his seat breathing heavy, his heart beating fast. He’d been taken aback by Frank’s sudden outburst and it scared him. He looked at Frank and realized he was dealing with the real thing here. The man was serious and it might be beneficial if he just kept his feelings in check and listened to what he had to say.
“I’m sorry,” Vince began, softly at first, then more assertive. “Look, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to be so… pissy about what you said. I just freaked out. I’ve… never had anybody poke into my life like that and I guess I just felt… I don’t know… violated.”
Frank regarded him from his seat, his eyes dark and piercing. Vince noticed for the first time that Frank’s sudden assault had spilled some of his soft drink on his slacks. He wiped at the dampness with his hand as he put his can in the cup holder on his side of the seat.
“I am not trying to fuck with you, Vince,” Frank breathed through gritted teeth. “If you don’t want to know anymore about your mother or why she was killed, just tell me and I’ll take you back to the mall and we can forget this whole thing.”
“No,” Vince exclaimed, forgetting the stain on his pants. “Don’t do that. I’m sorry. Really. I won’t do it again.”
There was silence for a moment as the tension eased. Frank remained hunched over the steering wheel, head bowed, eyes closed. Finally he let out a big sigh and lifted his head. He looked at Vince through haunted, bloodshot eyes. “Okay.”
Vince sighed, relaxing. He felt better now that the tension had died down. “You were saying that I checked out.”
Frank nodded. “Yes, you did. From what we’ve been able to gather, they haven’t come in contact with you yet. That still doesn’t mean they don’t know who you are. They very well could, which is why I’m being such a paranoid bastard. What happened to you and Tracy is just totally unexpected.”
Frank continued with his narrative. “Before we even started looking for you, we did some checking on Samuel Garrison. That was easy. I remembered he was involved in big business, that he owned some big corporation, but I didn’t remember exactly what kind. Who remembers that kind of shit when they’re nine years old? Mike and I sifted through back issues of the Wall Street Journal and various business magazines at the library until we found what we were looking for.” He leaned forward, fixing Vince with an intense eye. “Samuel F. Garrison is the leader of this group. He’s known as the Head Devil, or the Grand Chingon. He currently sits on the board of Directors of Cyberlink Systems, Corporate Financial Consulting Group—”
At the sound of Corporate Financial Consulting Group, Vince flinched. He felt his stomach turn into a knot. Frank noticed. “Don’t think we didn’t notice that you work for them. That’s why we really went to town on your background check. We thought maybe they’d found out about you long before you applied for that position. From what we can tell, everybody at Corporate Financial is clean, from top to bottom.”
The coincidence was striking, though. And disturbing. “Go on,” Vince said. “He sits on the board for my employer. What other companies is he on the board for?
“He also sits on the board for Al Azif Oil and Commodities and he is also the CEO and Chairman of the Board of Garrison Enterprises and Real Estate. You may have heard of them.”
Vince’s mind was racing. He’d heard of Cyberlink and Al Azif; Corporate Financial was their top client. “Garrison owns most of the shopping malls in Orange County, don’t they?”
Frank was nodding. “And the land that several buildings in Costa Mesa are on, most of them insurance and financial firms. They also own the Orange Coast Theater and a string of hotels. They’re very big. But here’s the thing that worried Mike and me. Garrison once served as CEO of Corporate Financial.”
Vince blinked in surprise. A flutter rose in him. “What?”
“Yeah, no shit. You don’t know that?”
Vince shook his head. “No. I don’t. My knowledge of what happens where I work is confined to my division and the executive branch. I get the quarterly reports and stuff, and I know there’s a list of the current board of directors somewhere in my office, but I’ve never paid attention to it.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Frank said. “As you can imagine, when we learned this we freaked. It certainly made our mission more critical.”
“I can see why,” Vince said, the flutter in his belly growing colder. He turned to Frank. “Should I be worried? I mean, are you sure they don’t know about me?”
Frank nodded. “The headhunter that recruited you has no ties to any of Garrison’s companies. Their current executives have spotless records when it comes to dealing with Garrison’s former and current companies. It’s just a coincidence—a pretty fucking weird coincidence, I gotta admit, but it was too close for comfort.”
“So what about this Samuel Garrison?”
“He’s a killer,” Frank said, his face dark, unbroken by the comment. “He’s in charge of an international organization of killers, drug cartels, pornographers, white slave leaders. You name it, he has his hand in it some way.”
Vince took another sip of his Coke. “This is all so crazy. It’s like something out of Geraldo Rivera or something.”
“That’s why they’re so successful at hiding it,” Frank continued. “It sounds crazy to most people, therefore, they refuse to believe it. That enables them to carry on with their activities. They’ve also got people planted in various law enforcement and government organizations that make sure all their tracks are covered.”
It sounded like something out of the mind of a paranoid End-of-the-World wacko. Vince held his tongue.
“Once Mike and I identified the group we stepped back and started doing research at the library, looking through microfilm of old newspapers. We couldn’t find any proof or evidence this group exists. Not a bit.”
Vince shrugged. “They sound pretty secretive.”
“They are,” Frank said, taking a sip of Dr. Pepper. “I contacted the LAPD under the guise of an investigative reporter. I told him I was doing a book on unsolved crimes to connect some of the murders I’d witnessed—”
“You witnessed murders?”
“Oh yeah,” Frank said, matter-of-factly. He took another sip of Dr. Pepper. “I did.”
Vince leaned back in his seat, staring out at the park. His stomach was queasy. The more he listened, the more this was making him sick with dread.
“I got a chance to go through their files and do some poking around,” Frank went on. “I didn’t find anything. I spent a few weeks after that driving around in the Topanga Canyon area, Malibu, Mission Hills, Calabasas, Canyon Country. Beverly Hills and Bel Air. Just trying to jolt my mind. I remember spending time in a lot of those places when I was younger—Sam had a mansion in Bel Air, and I remember being there at a very young age. Anyway, I finally found something two weeks later: the house I’d lived in as a child, shortly after we moved back to Southern California.”
“Fountain Valley?” Vince asked, breathless.
“No, Tustin,” Frank said, taking another sip of Dr. Pepper. “Close enough, though. I spent a lot of time driving all over southern California trying to remember things, place locations with my memory. It wasn’t until I was driving in the Santa Ana Mountains that things started coming back. It was almost like I was being guided to the exact spot by some force. I remember driving past the cul-de-sac and something just popped into my mind and said that’s it! I made a U-turn and drove through the neighborhood and saw it immediately. My house.”