“How soon is ‘soon’?”
He shook his head. “This isn’t an exact science, Theresa. You’re going to need to be patient. You’ve been waiting this long to get your hands on this guy. You can wait a little longer, can’t you?”
My nearly instinctive frustration raised its ugly head, but I forced it back down. “Yes. I can. If I have to.”
“Good,” he nodded. “Because you have to.”
“Can’t you tell me anything about your plan?”
“Not yet. I need to double check on some things before I proceed. But I give you my word: I will be contacting you in short order, with likely a ton of important intel to share. So, you’ll need to be ready for that.”
I could see that arguing any further would be pointless, so I decided to let it go. After all, this was why I hired the guy, wasn’t it? To make this happen? Best to let the man do his work.
“All right,” I agreed with reluctance. “I just ask that you keep me updated.”
“I will,” he said, reaching out and taking my hand.
Just as before, there was a jolt of attraction between us, like an electric shock. It was distracting and delicious.
He held my hand a touch longer than he had before and he looked into my eyes as he did. “You’ll hear from me soon. Stay safe.”
With that, he was gone. And I was left to wonder what the hell I had fallen into.
6
The Fixer
As I made my way through town to my office, my thoughts kept going back to this intriguing and alluring assistant district attorney, Theresa Branigan.
She had steel in her, that was for sure. I had done some research and she has consistently taken on the toughest cases, the roughest customers. And the fact that she is willing to tackle Larroca…
Well, let’s put it this way: she’s no shrinking violet, that’s for damn sure.
Larroca was the worst of this kind of element: ruthless, willing to do whatever it took for him to be free and without conscience.
In some ways, it was nearly futile to try to take him in through regular channels. He didn’t care about them. And didn’t really care about anything, except completing his contract. I wasn’t sure that I even cared about being paid all that much.
He had a bloodlust. And there were no easy ways to take care of a person like that.
But I wasn’t a cop. I wasn’t a lawyer. I was something else. And I had different tools at my disposal.
I got the impression from Theresa that, as long as Larroca went down, she didn’t care what went down to make it happen. I could live that arrangement. And I’m guessing that she could too.
I finally made it back to my office, shutting the door and sitting at my desk. I needed to plan out the next steps carefully.
However unpredictable Larroca may be, he still had plenty of influence and plenty of people who were willing to report back to him, eager to be in his sphere of influence. So I need to pick who I spoke to about this with deliberate intent.
I pulled out an old address book from my desk. I still believed that the best ways to keep contacts were on paper. Some of the people in this book didn’t trust cell phones. Some of them wouldn’t allow you to store their number in your phone. Phones can be lost, stolen, hacked. Paper can be destroyed. And that number is gone forever then.
That’s the kind of security that the people I dealt with wanted. They trusted me with that information. Because they knew that I would honor it. And that’s what I’ve done in my years in this job.
I cracked it open, feeling my desk chair creak as I leaned back. There was one name I was looking for…
And there it was. Frankie J.
Frankie was a long-time informant of mine. He was more plugged in than anyone that I had ever worked with in this business. If anyone would know what buttons I should be pressing when it came to Larroca, he would.
I dialed him up and waited for two rings, then hung up. I counted out one minute, then called again.
That was the system Frankie had set up. That's how he knew it was safe to pick up.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly.
“Frankie,” I said in a low voice. “Been a minute.”
“Hey man, sure is. Haven’t heard from you in a spell. What’s up?”
“What else? Looking for intel.”
“Yeah, I figured. You gonna hook me up, like always?” he said.
“I’ve never done you wrong, have I, Frankie?”
“Nope. Never have. So, what’s up?”
I took a deep breath. He wasn’t gonna like this. “Looking for where I can lean against Antoine Larroca.”
Silence.
I expected as much.
“Frankie?”
“Are you fucking crazy?” he shouted. “You wanna mess with the lunatic? Shit, man, I knew you were tough, but this shit is nuts.”
“Take it easy, Frankie,” I said.
“Take it easy? Are you serious right now? He comes back at you, he’s gonna come at me!”
“Frankie, chill out,” I replied calmly. “I got you. Whatever I get from you, goes nowhere else. I give you my word.”
There was a long pause. I let him have it. He needed to think it out. “Never comes back on me, man. Fucking NEVER.”
“Never,” I agreed simply.
“All right,” he sighed heavily. “I got a couple names for you. I don’t know them super well, but I heard some shit. They’re not in his inner, inner circle, mind you, but they might be able to steer you right.”
“Works for me, Frankie. Tell me what you got.”
“All right. There’s this cat, named Daniel Ox.”
“Ox? That’s his real name?”
“The fuck you want from me, man? That’s the name I got!”
“All right, all right,” I soothed, “chill out. Tell me about Daniel Ox.”
“He’s the dude who launders all the money for Larroca. Everything that Larroca makes, he filters through Ox.”
“Ok, sounds good. I would think this launderer would be tight with Larroca.”
“I dunno. All I hear is that Ox is a little…eccentric.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “All right, you got a contact for me?” Frankie spelled out a number and I wrote it down before continuing. “You said you had two names. What’s the second?”
“His medic. Guy patches Larroca up whenever he needs it. Word is, Larroca is holding something over him, that’s why he does it.”
Blackmail was a good way to insure obedience, but not loyalty. That’s something I would be able to work with. “Where can I find him and what’s his name?”
“O’Neill. Don’t know if that’s his first name or last name. Everyone just calls him O’Neill.”
“All right, fair enough. Contact number?”
He gave it to me, and I put it in the book. These were two names that could be useful in the future, too.
“Nothing back on me. I got your word,” Frankie urged one more time.
“I don’t even know who I’m talking to now,” I replied and Frankie disconnected.
I rose from my desk and moved over to my cabinet, pulling out the bottle of good whiskey and poured myself a tall glass. Sitting back in my desk, I took a nice swallow, feeling the warm energy of the booze slide down my throat.