Agent Rothkopf was placing a file about the Mob-boss killing in Malibu on my desk when a group of burly LAPD detectives swaggered in. Coming in from a late lunch, I thought, checking my watch. A semiliquid one from the looks on their red faces.
Parker had already given me the rundown on the task force. There was a large federal presence. DEA, ICE, and even the ATF, but senior detectives from LAPD’s Major Crimes and Robbery-Homicide divisions were running the show. And didn’t let anyone forget it, apparently.
The tallest of the detectives eyed me coldly, then suddenly smiled as he broke off from his buddies and walked over.
“Here we go,” Agent Rothkopf said to me, under his breath. “Hope you’re wearing a cup.”
“I’m Terry. Terry Bassman,” the large thirty-something detective said, shaking my hand too hard. “You’re Bennett, right? Your federal friends here were telling me all about you. They said they were bringing in some more help, and what do you know? Here you are. The guy who lost Perrine in the flesh.”
The cop grinned back like a fool at his giggling buddies as I broke his grip. He was six foot four, about two-fifty, broad shouldered, in good shape. He popped a piece of gum into his mouth, the expression on his lean face that of a man who didn’t take too much shit from anyone. Which was pretty convenient, since he was so big that he probably rarely had to.
But what the hell? I decided to give him some shit anyway.
“It’s true, Terry,” I said, loud enough for everyone in the crowded room to hear. “I lost Perrine. But you know what? I figure it’s better to have caught him and lost him than to never have caught him at all. You know, like you crackerjack LAPD guys so far.”
That stopped the giggling pretty quick. In fact, it got so quiet, you could have heard a firing pin drop. I glanced at Rothkopf, who was biting the inside of his cheek to keep from cracking up.
I stared back at Bassman innocently. I don’t like to bang heads, but, like any cop worth his salt, I can when I have to. With the best of them, actually.
Bassman stared levelly at me, his square jaw working as he chewed his gum. Then he clapped a hand painfully on my shoulder as he smiled again.
“Well, if you need anything, Mr. Bennett-directions to Disneyland, star maps, anything at all-remember, the LAPD is here to protect and serve,” he said.
CHAPTER 44
After that rousing encounter with the welcome wagon, I pored over the case files on all the murders.
The most disturbing photos by far were of the crime scenes at the Licata home and at rap mogul Alan Leonard’s house. The pale and naked bled-out bodies were so chilling, like something out of a documentary about Nazi human experimentation. And we had no idea what had killed them. The FBI lab was still working on the toxicology of the lethal substance.
Parker stared at the horror-movie stills with me.
“I wonder if shock value is the point,” she said, letting out a frustrated breath.
“Probably,” I said. “Things have gotten so bizarre of late that Perrine has to get creative in order to grab people’s attention.”
“He certainly has mine,” Emily said. “I mean, this is simply incredible. I’ve read reports that indicate the cartels turned to all these horrors, like beheadings and body mutilations, after seeing them performed by Islamic terrorists on the Internet.”
“Bull,” I said, turning over a photograph. “Narco traffickers south of the border have always been famous for incredibly brutal killings. Where does the Colombian necktie come from? My pet theory is that this recent, really sick garbage has more than a little to do with Santa Muerte, the spooky quasi-religious death cult that many of the cartel soldiers adhere to.”
“So you’re saying it’s like a cycle,” she said. “The more the cartels rise in power, the more and more its members want to satisfy Santa Muerte’s thirst for blood?”
I nodded.
“That’s a little out there, Mike. Isn’t this about money and drug trafficking, not Perrine’s evil cult?”
“If it’s about just money and drug trafficking, what’s up with all the bodies, Parker?” I said. “Twenty-nine dumped in Nuevo Laredo. Forty-nine in Juarez. They’re hung from bridges. Bags of heads are found along highways. The victims aren’t even cartel members. They’re innocent migrant workers or people trying to cross the border into the US. To kill a mule for stealing a load is one thing, or to go after a witness. I’m telling you, this is new. Or, more accurately, old.”
“Old?” Emily asked.
“Have you ever heard of the Thuggee cult?”
Parker rolled her eyes. “Had a lot of reading time on our hands up there on the prairie, Detective?”
“A little, Parker. Anyway, in India there used to be this criminal cult called the Thuggees. They were a secretive organization of robber-murderers. They’d strangle their victims and then bleed them, offering their blood to Kali, the goddess of death. Some say Santa Muerte is a modern incarnation of Mictecacihuatl, the Aztec goddess of death.”
“So what are you saying? It’s us versus the goddess of death?”
“Kind of,” I said.
“You’ve been watching too much History Channel,” she said.
“Have I?” I said. “These cartel people are engaging in the kind of unhinged, deranged behavior usually reserved for serial killers. Is it that crazy to believe that there’s some sort of ideology behind it? I think we have to at least consider it. We have to stop thinking that this is just about a bunch of greedy dope dealers.”
CHAPTER 45
About an hour later, on our way to get a bite to eat, I knocked on the dash of Parker’s metallic-brown Crown Victoria as we pulled out of the Olympic Station lot.
“What’s up with this ride, Parker?” I complained. “As my preteen daughters would say, this car is ‘so not cool.’ You’d think, this being LA, that they’d assign you some kind of convertible, at least.”
Parker smirked at me from behind her Ray-Bans.
“Tell you what, Mike,” she said. “You bag Perrine, I’ll see to it you get first bid on his Bentley at the government auction.”
“Bentley, huh?” I said, scratching my chin. “How many passengers can a Bentley fit? I need seating for a dozen, two of them car seats.”
Parker laughed.
“Just a dozen? Aren’t you leaving someone out? What about Seamus?”
“We usually put him in the trunk, or on the roof with the cat.”
Parker shook her head, sighing.
My chop busting was, of course, just show. I actually loved the Crown Vic, the FBI radio crackling beneath its dash, even the bad gas-station coffee in the holder beside me. In fact, it felt fantastic to be back at work.
I was even more excited about our dinner plans. Parker had spoken to Agent Rothkopf, who, with the help of a cousin or something, got us reservations at some hip restaurant called Cut, in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. It was a Wolfgang Puck steak house where Tom Cruise supposedly ate from time to time. I couldn’t wait.
It was our LAPD hosts who had been less than accommodating. As I’d watched them read reports and brood about them, it’d become painfully obvious to me that the cops in this clique of LAPD heavy hitters were doing their own thing, working their own leads, their own contacts, while completely leaving the feds in the dark.
Though I’d been pretty tribal myself about my home turf back in NYC, the fact that I was now among the feds being boxed out kind of pissed me off. I didn’t come in off the farm to be a benchwarmer.
Parker’s phone rang.
“One second,” she said. “I’m driving. Let me hand you to Detective Bennett.”
“Who is it?” I asked, holding her BlackBerry against my thigh.