One Week Later
West Hollywood
Three black Cadillac Escalade SUVs came to a halt outside the restaurant in West Hollywood. Lock emerged from the front passenger seat of the middle vehicle and stepped back to open the rear door. The doors of the other two Escalades also opened kerb side. Lock ushered Triple-C’s lead rapper, Dwayne Dikes, and his date through a small knot of paparazzi towards the entrance. Ty did likewise with his principal. It was a perfectly choreographed routine, which, in this instance, was effectively there to make the principals look good. The biggest threat Dwayne was under this evening was from some undercooked scallops.
Inside the restaurant, the maitre d’ escorted the two rappers and their dates to a table in the middle of the room. Lock and Ty took a small table by the window, ordered mineral water and settled in to wait. This was close-protection work as Lock knew it: watching someone else have a good time while you waited for them to finish.
He paid for the mineral water up front, a habit he had acquired over the years. You got a drink or food and asked for the check at the same time. It meant you could leave in a hurry if you had to.
Out on the sidewalk, three lone paparazzi went back to smoking and talking and sipping their lattes. On the patio, Lock recognized a certain Hollywood actress and her buffed movie-star date, neither of them heterosexual but both with a movie on upcoming general release.
The lead Escalade pulled out into traffic. The other two followed it. Per Lock’s instructions, they would circle the block and wait around the corner, ready to pick up their charges as soon as they were finished with dinner.
Across the street there was another vehicle, a red Honda Accord with tinted windows. It was watching Lock and Ty, part of an ongoing surveillance operation. It would have been nothing for them to walk across the street, or get behind it, pull it over, haul out the driver and find out who he was working for and why he was following them. Easy, but redundant. Lock knew who it was. He knew why it was there. He welcomed its presence in the same way that he had welcomed the little black box planted in his Audi. Covert surveillance was a problem when you didn’t know it was taking place. When you did, it was a gift from the other side.
He sipped his mineral water. For a change of pace, Ty had ordered a Sprite. When the waiter brought it, Lock gave him some shit to break up the wait: ‘That stuff’ll rot your teeth.’
That was how their conversations had gone in public for a week now. Sports. Current Affairs. Trivia. No mention of Melissa Warner and what had happened to her. Definitely no mention of Charlie Mendez. Not in public. Not where there was any chance they could be overheard. Both men were thinking about the girl who had paid with her life in trying to reach Lock, but they didn’t talk about it unless they were alone and knew it was safe to do so.
In truth, Melissa was more on their minds today than any other. Lock saw her face when he closed his eyes. She had pushed Carrie to the edge of his unconscious mind and he wasn’t sure whether to be resentful or grateful.
Today, more than three thousand miles away, Melissa was being laid to rest at home in Delaware. She was to be buried next to her father. Lock had received an invitation to the funeral. He had placed it in his pocket. Then, outside a clothing store in Burbank, with the red Honda Accord across the street, he had torn it into a few pieces and tossed them into a nearby trash can. That would ensure its retrieval and send a message that, as far as he was concerned, the girl was history, a violent yet random interlude in his life, certainly not worth risking his life over, especially now that she was dead.
The charade had continued, extracting its nightly toll, but he did not waver. His anger burned so hot that when he needed strength he could warm himself by its flame.
Across the restaurant, the rap stars had ordered a three-hundred-dollar bottle of champagne. Their dates giggled. Ty gave them a sour look.
‘Could serve those dudes this,’ he said, raising his icy glass of Sprite, ‘and they wouldn’t know the difference.’
‘Hey, they’re paying you good money to sit in this fancy restaurant sipping Sprite.’
They settled back into their seats and waited out the appetizers, entrees and dessert. As the entrees were cleared, Lock noticed movement across the street. The red Honda Accord nudged its way out into the traffic on Pico Boulevard. It had been rented to a private detective working out of Van Nuys, an ex-cop. He would have been hired by an intermediary who had in turn been instructed by another. A cover story would have been concocted to explain the surveillance. A cheating wife with a penchant for guys like Lock, something of that nature. He would probably never know that he was working for the bad guys and Lock wasn’t going to tell him. He was merely a piece on the board. Let him get on and do his job.
Lock checked his watch. The guy had either quit for the night or the week’s surveillance that he’d been paid for had expired. He wouldn’t know whether it was the former or the latter until tomorrow. He guessed it was the latter. Keeping eyes on someone when nothing was happening would lead to questions and whoever was ultimately paying him had probably had enough of questions.
Lock ordered another glass of mineral water and reflected that sometimes the best thing you could do was nothing, though for him it was also the hardest. The rappers were arguing over whose Amex Black card, supplied by the record company, would be used to pick up the check. Neither Lock nor Ty had the heart to tell them the company was simply making sure that they would pay for every dollar’s worth of their extravagant lifestyle. They would learn the hard way. You never got something for nothing. Everything in life came with a price.