Link to previous Chapter 8d
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Chapter 8e - 3,029 words
Wilson was sitting on the toilet when the front door was knocked for the first time. It was less a knock and more a crashing tattoo which demanded answer now and threatened the doors integrity if not.
‘I’m coming!’ Wilson yelled, catching a gap between thumps. He finished and was washing his hands when the hammering started up again. ‘Give me a damned moment!’
He opened the door and found two of Harry’s men outside. He recognised (name) from driving on Friday.
(name) said, ‘Boss wants to see you.’
‘He said Monday.’
(name) shrugged and said, ‘Well now he says today. He wants you to bring the file, he says you know which one, and any notes you have.’
‘I need to get showered and dressed. Can you give me twenty minutes?’
(name) looked at his watch and then the other man with him. He turned back to Wilson and said, ‘On the way over Chuck here was complaining about missing breakfast. Is the coffee shop on the corner any good?’
‘Erm, sure. This time on a Sunday they’ll still have pastries.’
‘Okay, we’ll go get coffee and a pastry. You’ve got fifteen minutes then you come along whatever state of dress you’ve managed. And you’d better have the stuff Mr Albarn wants with you.’
Wilson closed the door and headed straight for the shower. He rubbed a hand over his chin and decided to leave the stubble. If Harry didn’t like it, then he could make a regular appointment. He towelled himself dry, brushed his teeth, and dressed in pants and a linen shirt he’d picked up from James Perse in their last sale. Unless he got busy making money quickly there’d be little chance of getting a new one this year.
The envelope he’d gotten from Harry was on the table and he scooped the paperwork up and slid it in. All the notes he’d taken when looking over things on Friday and when he got back in the previous evening where on a legal pad. He picked the envelope and pad up, slid shoes on, and headed out.
Harry’s men were still in the café, though just finishing. Wilson looked over to the counter and called, ‘Usual to go?’ The barista nodded and turned to prime the coffee machine. Wilson looked at (name) and said, ‘Can I eat a pastry in the car? It looked kinda pristine.’
(name) shook his head, ‘Mr Albarn doesn’t like food in the car, doesn’t like the crumbs. And you’ll need to finish your coffee before you get in.’
‘Dammit.’ Wilson turned to the barista and asked, ‘Marc, can you drop it into a large takeaway, then add cold milk?’ The barista nodded. Wilson looked at (name) and said, ‘You’re an asshole.’ (name) stared back impassively.
Marc said, ‘Here’s your coffee, Wilson.’
Wilson turned, reaching into his pocket for his phone. It wasn’t there. He remembered it being on the table. He took his wallet out paid cash and took his coffee. A sip confirmed it was cool enough, and he slipped the lid off, then gulped the tepid drink down in several large gulps. He placed the empty cup on the counter, nodded at Marc, and turned to (name). ‘I’ll just run up and get my phone.’
‘No, you won’t.’
They went out to the street and headed to a car parked in a resident’s permit only spot. It wasn’t the car Wilson had ridden in on Friday, but a (popular car) without the weighty protection of the vehicle they had driven round in a few days before.
They pulled into the Sunday morning traffic and Wilson said, ‘This isn’t Harry’s regular ride.’ He made it a statement instead of a question, an acknowledgment that things were different.
(name) said, ‘Whatever vehicle Mr Albarn asks me to drive is the car I drive. Today it’s a (sedan).’
Chuck sat up front with (name). They drove to a street that had the back wall of some old warehouse on one side and a small run of mixed business on the other. (name) stopped in front of a set of doors between (check details from earlier chapter) and Chuck got out, motioning for Wilson to follow. They went through the doors and up stairs leading to more doors, these with large glass panels in the top half. The doors opened to a large open area with an old wooden floor, and a long bar along the back wall. Chuck pointed left and Wilson followed the unspoken direction.
Harry was sat with his back to the wall in the middle of three low booths. On the table before him was a laptop and three phones. He looked up at Wilson, nodded, pointed to the bench seat to his left and said, ‘Take a seat.’
Wilson sat down. He looked at Harry’s shirt, which had the appearance of having been taken out of its wrapper and put straight on.
‘You know why you’re here?’
‘Because Earl’s car was in a wreck on the freeway yesterday.’
‘So you knew.’
‘I heard about it on the way back into the city.’
Harry stared at Wilson. The room was silent apart from the two men’s breaths. Harry’s were louder, the breathing of a man whose body was under stress. He looked calm, though there were dark circles under his eyes which Wilson didn’t remember from Friday afternoon. It made him wonder if the man had slept in the intervening period.
Harry said, ‘You decided a day trip was a good plan?’
‘Out of town is where NUMEAT have their place. It seemed a good place to go ask about Earl.’
‘At the weekend? Who was even there?’
‘Not many. But I got enough that if I hadn’t had the radio on I’d have been on a flight up to Cleveland late last night or early this morning.’
‘And who at NUMEAT told you about Cleveland?’
‘Someone getting their paperwork caught up when there’s no meetings or phone calls to distract them.’
‘So you think Earl was in his car. It was a shiny new Mustang. It could have been stolen.’
Wilson chuckled. He said, ‘I’m no gearhead, but I’m pretty sure no-ones out stealing those ugly ass things. They’re no Eleanor.’
‘Maybe no one’s stealing them to order, but a joy rider, some punk our for kicks, they’re just the sort to steal a car and then slam it into the back of a trailer.’
‘Today I was going to call some of my old colleagues and see if I could get a confirmation on the body, and the rumors about the one in the trunk.’
‘I can save you the call. The driver was mostly burnt up, but they already reckon it was some kid. And there was a man’s body in the trunk, all kind of cut up. At this point, they don’t know who it is.’
Wilson frowned. He said, ‘Cut up how, like slashed about, or dismembered?’
‘Cut into pieces, my source said, like it had been crudely butchered.’
‘But nothing to identify it? So no head or hands.’ Wilson thought for a moment, then asked, ‘When your men turned over his apartment, did they find his lock up?’
Harry nodded. He said, ‘We found one. The only stuff in it was the junk that folks should throw away and never do. But if Earl’s the cannibal who’s been offing people all summer, he’s done it somewhere other than his apartment or the storage unit we found.’
‘Or maybe the car thief is the cannibal, and it’s Earl in the boot. Not that it seems likely. Someone who’s got as far as careful cannibalism isn’t likely to be boosting cars. Hmm, your police friend didn’t say if the car was being pursued at the time, did they?’
‘They didn’t. But the news never said anything about it, and that’d definitely have been mentioned.’ Earl looked towards the bar, then called, ‘Chuck.’
‘Yes, boss,’ Chuck responded, and stepped back round the corner.
‘Pour me a whisky and soda, will you.’ Harry looked at Wilson. ‘You want one?’
‘I’m still digesting my morning coffee. But if I can get a water.’
‘And a water for Wilson,’ he called to Chuck’s back. The man lifted a hand in acknowledgment. Harry said, ‘The hours have kind of drifted together the last few days.’ He shook his head, like someone trying to clear their thoughts with a physical action. ‘But you aren’t here for me to tell you about my rough weekend. You’re here because there’s a slight change in your job. If Earl isn’t one of the people dead in that car, then there’s likely to be a full on manhunt for him. If you do find him, that’s great. But you need to be looking for something he took.’
‘I figured you weren’t after him just for skipping a few days work.’
Chuck brought the drinks and placed them down.
Harry said, ‘Chuck, go stand by the bottom door for a bit. I need to have a deniable chat with Wilson here.’ Chuck nodded and moved off. Harry took a drink of his whisky. He leaned back, resting against the back of the banquette, and said, ‘I have all of my places swept for bugs every week. And I move round where I base myself, which makes it more difficult for your old colleagues to show probable cause for a wiretap.’ He drank again, then said, ‘So the cops and the feds try and lean on my employees, get them to reveal what they’ve heard.’ He waved a hand. ‘Off course, you know this. So, it means if I need to have a private talk, I have it with only the person who needs to hear. That means if someone comes with skinny on the conversation, I know who to blame. Understand?’
‘I reckon you’d already know if I’d talked to anyone.’ Wilson said, ‘My guess is you already know where I was yesterday. You’ve already got me bending rules far enough that my PI licence would be suspended or revoked before it’s even granted. There’s not much difference between looking for a person and looking for what they had.’ He shrugged, then said, ‘Just tell me what Earl took, and if you’ve anything that isn’t in the file already – like the address of his storage unit - let me know.’
‘Five million dollars.’
‘What the hell could he steal that’s worth that much?’
‘No, that’s what he’s stolen, the amount, in cash.’
Wilson thought about it for a moment. He said, ‘You already have access to his bank details. You need a specialist to investigate something like this, I reckon I know someone you can speak to, but I couldn’t even get as far as the banking information of his that you gave me – and I don’t want to know how you got it.’
Harry said, ‘You misunderstand. He physically stole five million in cash. Actual dollar notes.’
‘Then just find the U-haul he hired. It’ll be filled with them.’
‘You might think so. But if it’s hundreds wrapped up tight, and you split it into million-dollar bundles, then a large sports bag is big enough.’
‘But there’s still be five of them. They weren’t in the apartment, or the storage unit, or the Mustang. From what the neighbor said, I can’t see him entrusting it to his partner.’
‘The neighbor spoke to you?’
‘Well, one of them did. The other was just an asshole.’
‘Which one spoke to you?’
‘The one right next to the apartment, not the one on the other side of the unit.’
‘Hmm. My guys said they acted like they knew nothing. Said they’d only been in the apartment a few months and didn’t know the neighbors.’
‘Yeh, well, I saw what your guys did to the apartment door and how they left things. The cops are going to be all over that, so if they didn’t wear gloves, I’d send them to work out of state until things die down.’
Harry swore. One of the phones on the table started vibrating, He looked at the screen and lifted it to his ear. ‘Harry,’ he said. ‘Definitely him? What makes them so sure? Is that so. Huh. Right. Keep me updated.’ He disconnected the call, put the phone back on the table, and said to Wilson, ‘It was Earl in the trunk. They DNA checked against a complaint from some time he’d beaten some woman.’
‘That’s what he’d been doing to his current woman.’
Harry stared silently. He rubbed his forehead and screwed his eyes shut. ‘Then maybe she killed him and took the money. Better find her.’
‘She was in hospital Thursday morning until Friday afternoon. From the notes from your guys and from speaking with the neighbor, he was last at the apartment on Thursday. He disappeared while she was still being treated for him knocking her about.’
‘I still want her found. And speak to the neighbor again. And I still want to know if there’s another storage unit. You got three grand to find Earl, and you failed. Find the money, and you’d better not think about skipping off with it if you do.’ Harry spoke with an edge that had been missing from earlier, his eyes were still ringed with dark, creased, hollowed, but they carried the weight of his words in a hard, unyielding stare.
‘Where did Earl steal the money from?’
‘What?’
‘Well, the chances are he stashed it somewhere close to where he stole it. So, where was he?’
Suddenly Harry looked less sure of himself, like this was something he should have thought of but hadn’t. Or maybe, Wilson thought, he’s not keen on letting me know, because the part of the organisation he works for doesn’t know. And that was an insight which had never occurred to him before. The idea that Harry wasn’t the top of the tree, but a branch of it, seemed obvious when thought about but he’d always been the locus, the nexus, the wrongs Wilson had appointed himself to correct.
Making the man a part of problem and not the driving force behind it diminished the man, made him less of an all consuming boogeyman and more another obstacle to get over, or under, or round.
And Wilson figured he knew where the money had come from, the city at least. He said, ‘I guess I’m going up to Cleveland after all. Do you guys have the address of the woman Earl was seeing up there?’
‘What woman?’
‘The one he was screwing before he came home and beat his LA woman so bad she ended up in hospital. According to the neighbor it had just come out between them, and Earl didn’t take kindly to it being discovered. And now I definitely need to go up to Cleveland, because if you tell your folk up there then you’ll need to explain what the issue is, and I figure they don’t know there’s an issue yet, do they?’ Wilson had been on the periphery of a money laundering operation a few years ago, the Californian Bureau of Investigation were tracking money from a drug trafficker that was using the (coastal highway). Drugs went one way, money came the other. He made the guess this was something similar. ‘I’m guessing there’s cash collected in Cleveland, then it’s sent out this way for physical laundering. That’s the mystery job you’ve had Earl doing up there, making sure everything’s looking good. What happened, did the previous accountant get greedy, or a case of the FBI leaning on him? Never mind. So, Earl’s spent weeks skimming out hundred-dollar bills and the discrepancy wasn’t discovered until the money arrived here and didn’t tally.’ Wilson felt it opening out before him, and it really did make more sense when Harry wasn’t the kingpin, just another underling. ‘And you haven’t slept all weekend because, apart from the missing Benjamins, Earl was your guy, your recommendation to go in and clean up whatever mess the last guy left, so now you’re balls are in the vice for the money and the man.’ He sat back and reached for his glass of water, and paused with it halfway to his mouth. ‘Crap, that’s why you had be bought in, isn’t it. The guys who know about the missing money, you trust. But they aren’t that bright, and you can’t risk whoever is your boss finding out so you thought you’d go off-book to find things out. Screw listening feds or subpoenas, Chuck sweating it out downstairs because you don’t want anyone who might report back knowing what’s going on.’
‘Listen, you smart ass, just because you’re almost a PI it doesn’t make you Hercule Poirot. You know jack shit about anything. Hercule Poirot. You know jack shit about anything. You have two jobs. Find Earl’s woman, and find the money.’
‘Which of the women should I start with: The one you know about, or the one you didn’t know about?’
‘Both.’ Harry slid one of the phones across the table. ‘Keep me updated and use this phone only. Leave your other one here.’
‘My phone’s still in my apartment. Your guys hustled me out and it’s still on my table.’
‘Then give it to Chuck when they drop you off. And remember, we’re watching.’
‘Oh, I believe you are. Look, if I’ve got to fly up to Cleveland, and root out where Francine is, I’m going to need more money for expenses.’ Harry’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. Earl said, ‘If you think I’m going to stiff you for a couple of grand trying to locate your five-million, you’re lack of sleep is giving you a bad case of paranoia. If you want it done, I need cash. You say you know everything about me, well you know that right now I have enough to cover my bills, and bupkiss else.’
Harry reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his billfold. He slid the metal clip off and pushed the money across the table. ‘That’s another five-k. I expect a proper account. Now, get lost, tell Chuck you’re to be taken back to your apartment.’
Chapter Break
I wrote this post about a story where I had a first chapter written. I'm trying to push on and finish a first draft in 2024.
If you'd like to be tagged in for future chapters, let me know.
Thanks
Stuart
Link to collated chapters HERE
Link to the short story which is the seed for this is HERE
Any LA based or knowledgable folks who want to pitch in on local things I get wrong, please do. I've never been and there's only so much I can learn on the internet.
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words by stuartcturnbull pic by igorelick on Pixabay
