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  BOLT

  Bryan Cassiday

  Copyright © 2019 by Bryan Cassiday

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Bryan Cassiday

  Los Angeles

  BOOKS BY BRYAN CASSIDAY

  Riptide of Fear

  The Payout

  Force of Impact (Ethan Carr Thriller 4)

  Wipeout (Ethan Carr Thriller 3)

  Dying to Breathe (Ethan Carr Thriller 2)

  Countdown to Death (Ethan Carr Thriller 1)

  The Bus Stops Here—and Other Zombie Tales

  Two Moons Rising

  Alien Assault

  Comes a Chopper

  Zombie Apocalypse: The Chad Halverson Series

  Helter Skelter

  The Anaconda Complex

  The Kill Option

  Blood Moon: Thrillers and Tales of Terror

  Fete of Death

  Chapter 1

  The Calabrian didn’t know who he was supposed to kill yet. A sgarrista (soldier) in the ’Ndrangheta, Marcello only knew he was supposed to kill someone in Los Angeles, California, where he was bound in a Boeing 737 passenger jet.

  The ’Ndrangheta was a criminal organization in Calabria which resembled the Mafia in Sicily, except the ’Ndrangheta was more powerful. Instead of being composed of families like the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, the ’Ndrangheta was composed of ’ndrine.

  The spokesman of the ’Ndrangheta, the mastro di giornata, had given Marcello his assignment from the boss, the capo crimine, back in Calabria. It was a great honor, reserved for a select few, for Marcello to receive orders directly from the mastro di giornata.

  Pushing thirty, Marcello had accepted the contract to hit the mark, hoping it would further his career in the ’Ndrangheta, jumping at the chance to make more money in the bargain. A sgarrista in the società minore would have a much better chance at advancement if he notched a killing. He could enter the società maggiore where he could become a capo bastone, the boss of an ’ndrina.

  To enter an ’ndrina most people had to be born into it. However, a handful, like Marcello, had been able to join without having any blood ties.

  Every day Marcello thanked his lucky stars that he had been allowed to join.

  For now, Marcello would settle for being a contract killer, which included a nice bonus.

  The capo crimine had probably chosen him to go to California because he spoke English, which he had picked up from his mother, a native New Yorker who spoke both fluent English and Italian. Marcello’s father was born in San Luca, where he had met his future wife, who had been visiting the town on vacation.

  Marcello had inherited his ice blue eyes and his dirty blond hair from his mother.

  As a boy, Marcello had kept aloof from the other boys in the Italian town of San Luca where he had been born in poverty on the hillside slopes of the Aspromonte, a massif in Calabria. Despite his lack of means, he had big dreams for himself.

  The other kids had got in the way of his dreams. He never felt like he was one of them. He never felt much of anything. He had no desire to interact with the other kids.

  To this day, he never got along with anyone—which was fine with him. He always felt there was a wall between him and others, preventing him from feeling what they felt. The other kids resented him. They ganged up on him.

  To protect himself he had lifted weights and hardened himself, secure in the belief that there was a part of him no one could touch, a part of his mind that nobody could ever penetrate unless he wished to expose it. At the same time, he had realized he could not stay too aloof or they would come hunting for him and tear him apart like a pack of hungry wolves.

  In self-defense, he had pretended to feel what they felt, laughing when they laughed and becoming angry when they became angry. Since he had no reason to smile and never would have smiled if he didn’t feel the need to act like the others for self-preservation, he had to practice smiling in front of his bathroom mirror.

  He wondered if people believed his smiles. He suspected they didn’t. Maybe they suspected he was laughing at them. In any case, his bogus smiles didn’t make any friends, but they might have saved his life by not making any enemies either.

  He kept a low profile, going about his business helping his father ply his trade at his barbershop trying not to attract attention.

  Maybe he was destined to be a killer, decided Marcello. Perhaps that was why someone at the ’Ndrangheta had taken interest in him and why he had returned their interest. Perhaps Marcello had attracted the ’Ndrangheta’s attention because of what Marcello had done to Luigi, one of his neighbors in San Luca. Though Marcello had not confided his dark secret to anyone, someone in the ’Ndrangheta might have heard about it.

  He could not say for sure what had brought it about, but he had become a member of the ’ndrina in San Luca in his twenties. The ’ndrina had baptized him in their initiation rites, officiated by a capo società.

  At the baptism ceremony, a guarantor named Pasquale, a middle-aged part-time San Luca butcher with a bushy black mustache who lived down the street from Marcello and whose hands always smelled of raw chicken skin, had vouched for Marcello’s interest in the gang and offered him to a group of gang members that had stood in a horseshoe shape in a vacant warehouse on the outskirts of town ready to initiate him.

  As they had stood on the concrete floor, a stranger to Marcello, a stocky fortyish member with avaricious hawk eyes and a bulbous purple-veined nose had cut Marcello’s forefinger with a knife drawing blood that dripped on the prayer-card image of St. Michael the Archangel he had held under Marcello’s hand. The blood sacrifice to the patron saint of the ’Ndrangheta consummated, Hawk Eyes had dropped the knife, produced a lighter, and singed one of the card’s corners until it had turned brown and curled.

  At the end of the ceremony, Marcello had officially become a “man of honor” in the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta, one of the most powerful crime syndicates in Italy, rivaled only by the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Neapolitan Camorra.

  Weary from his long flight, Marcello nodded off in his aisle seat on the plane.

  Chapter 2

  Brody was eating a hamburger at McDonald’s in West LA staring at the sunbaked road outside jammed with traffic.

  Los Angeles. A rootless city that didn’t belong here. Nothing belonged here. Nothing could take root here because nothing could grow in the arid desert, which was where LA had been built. The only things that could grow here were dreams, big dreams, because dreams had no roots.

  The robber barons had moved in, hijacked the Colorado River, and mirabile dictu, Los Angeles had water, and a city had blossomed into being, home of Hollywood, the biggest manufacturer of dreams in the world.

  The cell phone vibrating in his trouser pocket snapped him out of his reverie.

  Six two, he was hunched in a tiny plastic orange chair at a white table near the window, his knee rubbing against the metal column supporting the tabletop in the center of the table, half a dripping Big Mac in his hand. He put the hamburger down on his plastic tray and answered the call.

  “Brody,” he said.

  “Are you the private investigator?” said a woman.

  “The one and only.”

  “I want to discuss hiring you.”

  “You have my attention.”


  “Where’s your office? I couldn’t find its location on the Internet.”

  “I don’t have one.”

  The woman paused in confusion. “How do you operate a business without an office?”

  “I’m an Internet PI. I operate over the Internet. It saves me the trouble of paying overhead for an office.”

  “Where do you hire clients?”

  “I do house calls. Like a doctor.”

  “I never heard of such a thing.”

  “The Internet is taking over. Like it or not, it’s the future. It’s the way everybody does business nowadays. Adapt or die.”

  “Uh.” She sounded hesitant, unsure. “Uh, OK.”

  “Fill me in on what kind of an assignment this is.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “In a nutshell.”

  “I believe somebody is trying to kill me.”

  To the point, decided Brody.

  “Right up my alley,” he said. “Where can I meet you to discuss our terms?”

  “My house is on Georgina Avenue north of Montana in Santa Monica.” She gave him the address.

  North of Montana, the silk-stocking part of town, decided Brody.

  “And your name is?” he said.

  “Deirdre Fox.”

  “When?”

  “ASAP. I don’t feel safe.”

  “No problem. I’ll leave now,” said Brody, about to hang up.

  “Wait a minute. This is just a consultation. Do you understand that? I’m not agreeing to hire you until I know more about you.”

  “A consultation,” agreed Brody.

  “As in free consultation? No strings attached.”

  “A free consultation, like you said.”

  “I’m searching for the right detective.”

  “They don’t come any better than me in this line of work. I find bodies and dig graves.”

  “Graves? What?”

  “Not for my clients. For the bad guys.”

  “Hmm. We’ll see.”

  She hung up.

  Brody gobbled the rest of his hamburger and washed it down with a swig of Coke.

  Finished eating, he sat motionless in his seat and stared out the window, rubbing his hands together like a praying mantis.

  Chapter 3

  Brody tooled down Georgina Avenue in his late-model Mini Cooper until he spotted Deirdre Fox’s address and slowed down to turn into the driveway.

  She had a two-story Etruscan villa with flesh-colored stucco and a red tiled roof. Not huge, but bigger than most houses in the city.

  Brody couldn’t park on the side of the street because of all the No Parking signs, so he parked on Fox’s blacktop driveway.

  He killed the Mini’s engine, set the stick shift in first gear, parked, set the emergency brake, and climbed out of the car. He was wearing a black blazer, black trousers, no tie. He left his white button-down shirt open at the collar. It was his business outfit, such as it was.

  He didn’t think a private detective needed to wear a suit to a consultation. PIs didn’t generally conduct business in suits, at least this one didn’t. He saw no need. On the other hand, he wanted to look professional so he wore the blazer and black trousers.

  Lush fuchsia bougainvillea ran riot on the pergola in front of the entrance to Fox’s house. More bougainvillea of varying shades of blue climbed the sides of the house devouring it.

  Brody walked under the pergola to the front door and rang the bell. He noticed a CCTV camera in an upper corner of the pergola recording his presence.

  A Hispanic housekeeper in her forties in a neat white uniform answered the door and said hello to him with sensuous lips.

  “What is the nature of your business?” she said.

  “I’m Scott Brody. I have an appointment with Deirdre Fox.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, and let him into the lobby.

  The living room had a cathedral ceiling, he noticed. A marble-tiled floor in the hall led to a sweeping staircase.

  He picked up on movement in the living room.

  Wearing a scarlet dress that clung to her lithe figure, a blonde with a bobbed do was stirring near a plush leather sofa, studying a cell phone in her hand. She looked up and saw him.

  “Are you Mr. Brody?” she said.

  “At your service,” he said.

  “Come into the living room.”

  As he rounded the corner, he noticed a sixteen-year-old brunette girl strutting around the room in an orange string bikini, showing off her toned body, a pair of headphones covering her ears.

  “Meet my daughter Valerie,” said Deirdre.

  “Hello,” said Brody.

  Snapping her fingers to an inaudible beat, Valerie didn’t spare him a glance.

  “She probably can’t hear me with those headphones on,” said Deirdre.

  A massive grey Great Dane entered the living room via the hall, its claws clicking against the marble.

  Brody froze. He had no idea if the dog liked strangers.

  The Great Dane looked at him.

  Deirdre approached the animal and, smiling, pet his head. “Good dog, Busby.”

  Busby wagged his tail happily.

  “Nice dog,” said Brody.

  He didn’t trust dogs. He knew they could turn on you in the blink of an eye.

  “He is that,” said Deirdre, finishing petting Busby.

  Busby walked over to Brody and sniffed Brody’s leg.

  “Does he bite?” Brody asked Deirdre, trying not to show fear because he knew dogs could smell it and didn’t take kindly to it. He made no attempt to pet the creature.

  “Not unless I tell him to,” she said, eying Brody. “After all, he’s a watchdog.”

  Busby finished sniffing him. He couldn’t tell if the dog liked him or not. Brody didn’t care one way or the other, as long as it didn’t attack him. He wondered if the dog sensed his indifference.

  It retreated to Deirdre’s side, preferring her company.

  Brody breathed easier.

  “Let’s get down to business,” said Deirdre, taking a seat on the sofa. “Have a seat,” she said, tapping the cushion beside her with her open palm.

  Busby sat on the carpet beside her, opened his mouth, and lolled out his sloppy pink tongue.

  Brody wasn’t looking forward to having the dog watch their consultation.

  “He’ll keep you honest,” said Deirdre with a smile, picking up on Brody’s unease.

  “I’m honest to a fault.”

  He sat on the sofa two feet away from her.

  “I hope not,” she said, cryptically.

  He didn’t know how to take her remark.

  She smiled at him, without exposing her teeth.

  “Where shall I begin?” she said.

  “I’ll leave that up to you. I need to know as much as possible about your problem.”

  Valerie rummaged in a desk, withdrew a joint, inserted it into her mouth, lit it, inhaled, held the smoke in her lungs, and sauntered over to Brody.

  “Wanna a toke?” she said, exhaling a cloud of marijuana smoke and offering him the joint.

  “I’m on the job,” he said.

  “We’re busy now, Val,” said Deirdre.

  Valerie shrugged.

  “I’m going to the pool,” she said, swinging her hips provocatively as she headed out of the living room, toking the weed. She pulled on her thong and snapped it against her butt cheek.

  “You’re not the first detective I hired,” Deirdre told Brody, who was watching Valerie.

  “Oh? What happened to the first one?” said Brody, turning his attention back to Deirdre.

  “He’s dead.”

  Chapter 4

  “How’d he die, if you don’t mind my asking?” said Brody.

  “Somebody killed him.”

  “Did it have to do with your case?” said Brody, with some concern.

  “I can’t say for sure, but I think so.”

  “What did you hire him to do?”

&n
bsp; “The same thing I want you to do,” said Deirdre, crossing her legs, showing some knee, her nylon stockings hissing.

  “Which is?”

  “I hired him to follow my husband and see if he’s seeing another woman.”

  “What did the cops say about the killing?”

  “They don’t have anything to do with it.”

  “You didn’t tell the cops about the murder?” said Brody, finding it hard to believe.

  “I told you this is a long story.”

  “I’m still here.”

  “Me and my husband flew down to Cabo for a vacation last week. I believe my husband is playing around. We’ve been to Cabo before, and he disappears occasionally. I believe he’s seeing another woman.”

  “In Cabo?”

  “There and elsewhere. I’m telling you this because the detective I hired followed us to Cabo so he could keep his eye on Lyndon—”

  “Your husband.”

  “Right. Lyndon is my husband. He’s a talent manager at a Hollywood talent agency that represents actors and actresses and other celebrities.”

  “And he flies all the way down to Cabo to fool around? You would think he’d have plenty of opportunities in his line of work right here.”

  Deirdre fidgeted on the sofa. “I suspect he’s seeing another woman here as well.”

  “A serial philanderer.”

  “I believe so. But I haven’t got any proof. I hired the other detective to find out for sure.”

  “Does Lyndon know this detective?”

  “No. I hired him on my own. I found him on the Internet, like you.”

  “He flew with you down to Cabo?”

  “He took a separate plane.”

  “Did you see him in Cabo?”

  “We met at a café to discuss his assignment. Lyndon, of course, wasn’t with me at the time.”

  “How do you know he was killed?”

  “I saw it on the local TV news. They reported that somebody shot an American as he was walking down a sidewalk.”

  “And you think Lyndon might’ve found out the guy was tailing him and shot him?”