Into the Fire Read online

  Michael Papazian had given him the names of those who constituted the money-laundering scheme that Grant Merriweather had been closing in on. Four men, led by David “The Terror” Terzian. Though they kept more hired muscle beneath them, they were the only ones with operational knowledge. The money itself wasn’t generated from drugs or guns. But from gambling. The Terror had been running a hugely profitable underground fighting ring. Bets taken in cash were then mainstreamed through the operation.

  Within seconds Evan filled the screens cloaking his walls with criminal histories, rap sheets, case files, investigative trails, court cases, social-media profiles, and related news stories.

  Terzian was a burly man, thick with muscle. A close-shaven beard roamed high on his cheeks, crowding within an inch of his eyes. Early photos from his Facebook page showed him to be your basic street soldier—loose plaid shorts, white undershirt, gold-tinted sunglasses, a big cross around his neck. He had AP tattooed by one temple with three attendant teardrops for the enemies he’d dispatched. He liberally flashed gang signs—“OK” thumb circles held against his chest right side up and upside down like German quotation marks.

  He and his inner cadre—the three other names Evan had extracted from Papazian—had been investigated for a variety of crimes. Drugs. Extortion. Kidnapping businessmen from the community and ransoming them back to their families in various stages of intactness. Set plays straight out of the Armenian Power playbook.

  The gang was a newer addition to L.A.’s underworld, forming in Hollywood, North Hollywood, Burbank, and Glendale during the eighties to offer immigrant students protection against the more established Latino gangs. Strength on the streets eventually meant numbers in the system, Armenian Power gaining a solid foothold within the state prisons.

  As Evan scrolled through Terzian’s digital history, he noticed a transformation taking place. Terzian and his cadre began to move into more sophisticated financial crimes. Medicare and mortgage fraud. Debit-card skimming. ID theft. Bank-account-draining scams run on elderly homeowners. Rather than tattoo their flesh, they started to carve it, overlaying lines of ink with scarification. Bringing a more menacing look to softer targets meant tilting the scales even further to their advantage. Wolves roaming among sheep.

  A rare conviction had ensnared Terzian two years ago. He’d beaten his girlfriend severely and then forced her to cover her head with a pillowcase when he was home so he wouldn’t have to look at her damaged face. Simple battery, a misdemeanor that carried with it a two-thousand-dollar fine and six months in L.A. County.

  To Evan that seemed an exceedingly light punishment.

  Since Terzian’s release, records of his activity were sparse. That was presumably when he’d graduated to richer pastures, a new money-laundering scheme that kept him off the radar and returned millions of dollars a month.

  Evan was not surprised to find Lorraine Lennox’s name on the byline of several journalism pieces pecking at the edges of Terzian’s domain. Though much of her work was unrelated—a dognapping ring, a secret cabal of unidentified city leaders doing secret-cabal things, the rising risk of shark attacks in Malibu—she had deep-dived into the criminal networks gaining traction in Hollywood. She’d been sniffing around, getting familiar with the topography, which was undoubtedly why Grant had chosen her to receive the cache in the event of his demise.

  As Evan closed out the open windows, he did his best not to note how much his processing speed lagged behind Joey’s. Then he clicked to the Google Earth images on the address Papazian had coughed up.

  The location was a local TV station abandoned several years ago in the wake of a merger. Buried behind high fences in a run-down part of Hollywood, it was an ideal criminal headquarters. Evan zoomed in on several buildings on the lot, everything looking dusty and disused. Papazian claimed that he was due to report back to the team there after dark tonight, which was when they generally met up.

  Evan would get there early to observe. And then approach.

  For now his work was done. Which gave him the rest of the morning to relax.

  He logged off and exited the Vault, stepping through the shower stall and heading into his bedroom.

  A safe distance from his floating bed, he removed his treasonous boots. Then he sat in the middle of the mattress in a slant of morning light, closed his eyes, and focused on his breathing.

  The coolness of the air at his nostrils, in his windpipe, filling the crevices of his lungs. The weight of his bones tugging him down. A heightened awareness where the air met his skin, where his skin met the bed.

  He’d not yet fully descended into his meditation when an image intruded.

  A grown man punching Ida Rosenbaum in the face.

  Tearing free a necklace from around her neck.

  Her fragile bones striking the sidewalk.

  He opened his eyes. Looked at the door.

  “Goddamn it,” he said.

  18

  The Terrible Intimacy of the Mundane

  With a single knuckle, Evan tapped gently on the door to 6G. In the event Ida Rosenbaum was sleeping, he didn’t want to wake her.

  He gave it a well-I-tried moment and then backed away.

  Before he could get two steps, the door opened.

  Mia leaned through the gap, the door and frame pinching her shoulders on either side. She wore a white blouse that looked a size too big and a brown pantsuit befitting a Baby Boomer congresswoman.

  Her head cocked with puzzlement. “What are you doing here?”

  “I heard what happened and wanted to check in on her.”

  Mia let the door hinge open. “She’s pretty shaken up. I called a detective to handle it, a West Bureau guy I like. He just left. She wanted me with her while she gave her statement. It’s important that everything gets handled properly.”

  He wasn’t sure, but it seemed Mia’s gaze was a bit loaded. She stayed in the doorway, not giving him enough room to enter.

  “I’m handling this,” she said. “Don’t go near it.”

  “Why would I?”

  She studied him a moment longer and then stepped back.

  As he crossed the threshold, he realized he’d never been inside Ida Rosenbaum’s condo. Or anyone else’s at Castle Heights, save Mia’s.

  The place was dimly lit, heavy velveteen drapes drawn against the morning sun. Furniture crowded the living room, as if the Rosenbaums had kept too many pieces when they’d downsized from a house. Porcelain bric-a-brac covered most surfaces, impeccably arranged and free of dust. An array of Lladró figurines held unlikely poses of daintiness.

  Spotlit on the mantel, a ballerina swooned over crossed arms, her swanlike neck bowed. Evan came up short before the figurine, wondering at the circumstances that compelled someone to put an item like that on beatific display. He supposed that if you had a mantel, you had to put something on it.

  The complexities of everyday life never ceased to fascinate him.

  Ida’s voice powered up the hall, holding no small measure of irritation. “Well? Who’s that, then?”

  Evan caught Mia’s eye. “I see the assault hasn’t left her overcome with newfound humility in the face of life’s vicissitudes?”

  Mia’s mouth curled up on one side. “I think that’s safe to say.”

  He followed her back.

  Mia’s jacket still held creases from being folded or shipped. A transparent sticker down the back of the sleeve listed the suit’s size.

  He reached for it and peeled it off.

  At the sound, Mia turned, and they faced each other in the narrow hall. Close enough that he could feel her breath on his neck. He had to remind himself not to look at her lips. Instead he held up the tag, and Mia said, “Shit. Thanks. Now that I’m downtown, I’m in court so much I had to rush-order some new outfits.” She gave a half turn. “I think this color’s wrong. Does it make my hips look wider?”

  Evan said, “Yes.”

  Her mood, which he’d interpreted as mildly flirtati
ous, immediately shifted, lost behind a glower. But then a laugh seemed to catch her off guard. “You don’t know anything about women, do you?”

  Shaking her head, she turned away and continued down the hall, veering through a doorway at the end.

  Evan stepped in after her.

  Ida rested against a fan of pillows. Geriatric bruising mottled her right eye and cheek, the papery skin the color of eggplant. Orange pill bottles crowded her nightstand, penguins jockeying for position above shark-infested waters. A sterling hairbrush held a place of prominence on the old-fashioned vanity beside a peacock burst of framed photographs.

  The largest, an eight-by-ten with a color palette that suggested the seventies, captured husband and wife side by side on the prow of a cruise ship. A short, stubby man with a dignified bearing, Herb wore a gray flannel suit and tortoiseshell eyeglasses. They’d been a matching set, he and Ida, in the way of couples of a certain era. Same height, same build, same aura of fortitude. Ida’s hair, gray even then, was taken up in loose curls. Resting over the buttons of her shirtwaist dress was the purloined necklace, marcasite and amethyst gleaming in the pelagic sunlight. Tucked in the Tiffany picture frame was a cruise-ship ID card in Herb’s name.

  A sense of trespassing gripped Evan. The bedroom hadn’t likely seen a visitor for a decade and change, and here he was amid the terrible intimacy of the mundane, disturbing the air, gawking at personal possessions. A faint whiff of dried sweat reached him from the pillow—the smell of aging, of death, of the inevitable future.

  Ida raised a hand self-consciously to cover her bruised face. “What do you want?”

  He said, “To see that you’re okay.”

  “Do I look okay?”

  “Actually, yes, ma’am.”

  She scowled. “I don’t need any help.”

  “I’m sure you don’t. You never have before.”

  At this her lips pressed together with satisfaction, maybe even delight.

  “Since I’m here anyway,” Mia cut in, “why don’t I get another cold compress for you?”

  Ida said, “Fine.”

  Mia padded out, leaving them in awkward silence.

  Evan said, “What did he look like? The guy who attacked you?”

  Ida said, “He wasn’t a black, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  “That’s not what I’m implying.”

  “He had one of those hooded sweatshirts that the kids all wear. The hood was pulled up. I couldn’t see his face. Just this dark oval, and then…” Her lips trembled, and she turned away.

  Evan took the opportunity to orient back toward the vanity. Holding his RoamZone low at his waist, he zoomed in on her necklace in the photograph and clicked a picture. He’d just pocketed the phone when Mia reentered with a soaked washcloth.

  She moved to set it on Ida’s face, but Ida took it from her roughly. She dabbed at her swollen temple. Then her free hand clutched at the sheets by her side and a dry, graceless sound escaped her.

  It took Evan a moment to realize that it was a sob.

  “Herb would be so embarrassed by me,” Ida said. “Swanning around with that necklace like I was something special.”

  Mia was taken aback, literally on her heels.

  Evan crouched and took Ida’s arthritic hand. He said, “You are something special.”

  “No,” Ida said, using the pretense of the washcloth to keep her eyes covered. “I’m an eighty-seven-year-old widow. That’s about as unspecial as you can be. And that young man today … That young man proved it.”

  “I don’t see it like that,” Evan said.

  She took a few wet breaths. “No?”

  “You get through each day by your own strength. You live according to your principles. And you do it alone. The guy who assaulted you is nothing in the face of that.”

  Ida’s diminutive chest rose and fell, rose and fell. “Nonsense,” she said, but her tone was softer. And she didn’t let go of his hand.

  He could sense Mia’s gaze on the side of his face. Intense, as if she were seeing him for the first time.

  Ida dropped the washcloth and lowered her hand beneath her neck, touching the place where the necklace would have been. “I just wanted to feel close to him again,” she said, her voice cracking.

  He stayed at her bedside. She clutched his hand a bit tighter.

  He let her.

  * * *

  In the Vault, Evan plugged his RoamZone into one of his computer towers and uploaded the close-up he’d taken of Ida’s necklace. Seconds later an enlarged version appeared on the OLED screens mounted on the wall in front of him.

  He isolated the piece, removing the background, and then crisped up the pixelation with a digital enhancer.

  He dragged the image into a visual search engine and set the parameters. If the item appeared online for sale, he would receive an alert.

  He glanced over at the wall to his left, where the Google Earth view of the abandoned TV station waited. The headquarters of Terzian’s quartet.

  Evan had plenty of time to get over to Hollywood and scout the surrounding area. And the area around that. The Third Commandment: Master your surroundings.

  At nightfall they’d be expecting Papazian.

  They’d get the Nowhere Man instead.

  19

  Not That Fight

  The useful thing about TV stations, if you’re a money-laundering murderous thug requiring headquarters, is that they are generally enclosed. The cluster of drab concrete structures—offices, studios, a cafeteria—was protected by barbed-wired chain-link that, like the buildings themselves, had seen better days.

  The neighborhood at the edge of Little Armenia was not a nice one. Evan had plenty of time to absorb it, spending six-plus hours in the seat of his Chevy Malibu. He’d observed the buildings from enough vantages that he could have rendered each in a cubist painting.

  The disused property showed signs of having been recently overtaken. Chicken wire sutured up slashes in the rusting fence, and shiny new chains and padlocks secured the access points. A rolling gate protected the driveway and a rear entrance.

  Terzian had arrived about an hour ago, tossing a laden Dickensian key ring to a neck-challenged bouncer type at the rear gate. Over the following ten minutes, Terzian’s three compatriots had appeared, easily identifiable in their German sedans and aura of ill-gotten privilege. Evan had studied them in the Vault and knew well the ugliness that lay beneath the designer suits. The four principals had retired to the front office building, leaving a dozen hired men in charge of operations. The men seemed to be readying the cafeteria for a big event.

  It looked like tonight was fight night.

  Sure enough, the next hour saw a stream of gamblers pour through the choke points, all men exuding a cagey excitement. Anticipation electrified the air, the promise of blood spilled and money won.

  Evan moved the car once again, sidling up to the curb several blocks distant, the grille angled for a quick getaway. Across the street a group of boys played basketball with a frayed soccer ball and a shopping cart hung on a dumpster as a hoop. A spray-painted tag on the dumpster’s side read AXP, the Armenian Power tag.

  These were the streets that Terzian had graduated from.

  Evan got out. An old man with skin the color of mahogany sat in a weather-beaten recliner on his porch, smoking a pipe, a Chihuahua nestled in his lap blanket. As Evan passed through a sweet drift of tobacco, the man removed the pipe from his mouth and tilted it toward him in greeting. Evan nodded back.

  Nearing the former station, he joined a band of young men crossing the street. Redolent of beer and liberally applied cologne, they chattered excitedly. “—best motherfucking fighters in L.A.—”

  “—taking the over-under on Tiger going a full minute—”

  They logjammed at the rear entrance, the bouncer types eyeing everyone and shooing them all quickly inside toward the cafeteria. The young men around Evan held up their cell phones with e-mailed invitations, but th
e bouncers barely checked them.

  Evan brought up the photo of Ida’s necklace and waved it past the nose of the nearest bouncer, timing it when the man’s attention was split between two other gamblers.

  He was ushered through.

  As he passed, he brushed up against the bouncer, bump-frisking him. No gun, which confirmed Evan’s suspicion that they were low-level rented muscle.

  A few more bouncers were positioned along the walkway, herding people toward the cafeteria. Evan could hear a buzz of voices inside, the crowd preparing for the fight.

  He walked past the open doors, catching a glimpse of the space. Stacked bleachers framed what looked to be a sunken court in the center. The flooring had been torn up, an arena dug into the earth itself, a street-fighting competition that was literally underground. From the doorway Evan couldn’t see the bottom of the pit. The bleachers were about a third filled. The rest of the attendants mobbed a betting station formed of folding tables.

  Evan kept on past the open door, turning the corner sharply and backing to the wall when he heard someone approaching. One of the bouncers swept past, carrying a shrink-wrapped block of hundred-dollar bills. That helped fill in the picture of how Terzian generated the huge amounts of cash he’d been laundering.

  Once the bouncer’s footsteps faded, Evan stole to the front office building, where Terzian and his three lieutenants had holed up, conveniently segregated from the others.

  There was no guard out front. The door was unlocked. Here in his domain, Terzian the Terror was confident.

  As Evan eased inside, he heard voices in the back. He breezed through the lobby.

  In a glass-walled conference room, the four men sat in a row behind a table. An expansive one-way mirror of a window overlooked a concrete path and the cafeteria beyond. Before each man was an old-fashioned phone and an open ledger. They were all on calls, receivers pressed to their faces, scribbling notes, their sleeves cuffed up to display the patterned scars beneath.