Private: #1 Suspect

CHAPTER 104

I was still at my desk when my cell phone buzzed. It was Del Rio.

“How’d it go?” I asked him.

“Mission accomplished,” he said. “Which means our troubles are just starting.”

“Where’s the van now?”

“We’re in it. On the road.”

“Did you put the tracker inside?”

“It’s under the seat. Way under.”

I said, “Good,” told Rick to stay on the line, and called Noccia from my desk phone. I had a ringing phone in one ear, traffic sounds and Del Rio and Cruz talking together in the other.

Noccia picked up.

I said to the Mob boss, “We’ve got your delivery. It’s intact.”

We agreed on a place just north of Fry’s Electronics Paradise in Burbank.

I said, “Del Rio has some names for you, Carmine. The guys who jacked your van.”

“That’s more than I expected,” Noccia said to me. Then he hung up.

I wanted Del Rio and his crew out of that vehicle. It couldn’t happen fast enough for me. I hung in with Rick for a half hour of pure screaming adrenaline overload as Noccia got a couple of his goons out of bed and we waited for his guys and mine to meet up on the shoulder of a highway.

Rick said to me, “My date is here,” and a few minutes later he said, “They’re gone. Headed north on Five.”

I told Rick to call Aldo for a ride, and had just hung up when the phone rang again, a 702 area code. Vegas.

“Carmine. Is everything under control?”

“Very under control. I’m going to sleep like a kitten tonight. I wired your fee into your account. Six million even.”

“Thanks.”

Noccia said, “No problem. Good job,” and hung up.

My throat was dry. My hands were shaking. I drank down a Red Bull in one long swig and I dialed out. I got Chief Mickey Fescoe on the third ring.

I told Fescoe that a van with a fortune in illegal pharmaceuticals was headed north on 5, that it belonged to Carmine Noccia. I pictured Fescoe, my sometimes friend, shaking off sleep, jumping out of bed, dying for me to fill in the blanks.

“What did you say?”

I repeated myself and then gave him the details. Fescoe punctuated every fifth word with “Holy shit” and “You’re kidding ” as I connected the dots for him. I drew a straight line between the three members of the Noccia crew who had been found shot dead on a highway in Utah to the Ford transport van holding a street value of thirty million in OxyContin.

I said, “There’s a GPS transmitter in the van. The receiver is in Fry’s Electronics parking lot. Yeah. Inside a trash can under the flying-saucer marquee if you want to send a car for it.”

“I’ll send someone now. I might get it myself.”

“If I were chief of police, I’d tip off the DEA. And take them down with a traffic stop, Mickey. Keep me completely out of it.”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Fescoe. “Hey, Jack, how did you come into all this information?”

“I can’t say.”

“Right. It’s private. Sorry I asked. I don’t need to know,” said Fescoe.

I said, “Not that I’m keeping track, Mick, but don’t forget that I helped you with this.”

Another way of saying You owe me a big one.

“I’ll help you if I can,” said Fescoe.

Another way of saying I’ll help you if I can, but don’t count on me if you killed Colleen Molloy.