Dying For LA by Ian Jones (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

floor, which had half a dozen mattresses leaning against the wall, plus a sofa and arm chairs, and a TV on a small table. Everything was covered in a fine layer of dust. There was a door which led up some steel steps onto a small balcony, and then the bridge. Rico opened it and walked out, and leaned on the railings looking down.

The place was huge, from here he could see back to the gates and to the far side of the end yard. In front of him were the warehouses and beyond them many lines of railway tracks. He wondered why they decided to close it down.

Sal appeared next to him, taking in the view.

‘Man, Yann is never gonna deal with those fucking stairs.’

Rico smirked.

‘Now that is true.’

There was shout, and they headed back downstairs. Voorhees had made it up the first flight, and was breathing hard looking around him. They told him what was upstairs, and he nodded.

‘OK, so I will set up in this office. Drag down a mattress, and all the good chairs and shit to here, we’ll use this space as common ground. You guys can sleep where you like. We got electric, gas, even hot water. And this is only temporary. Get the TV down here first.’

Rico and Sal looked at each other, they had heard this before. But at least there was space, if anything it was an improvement on the tiny apartment. The busied themselves doing what they were told, moving everything around, and unloading the van. They dragged the chests into a corner of the first floor, and then looked expectantly at Yann who was sitting on the sofa watching them work.

‘Right. We need the vehicles, how many we got?’

‘The van, and three cars,’ Sal replied.

‘Right, they need to go in one of the warehouses over there, we got keys for everywhere. Nobody gonna wonder what we’re doing for now, we just need them out of sight. I got four new guys coming tomorrow, so make sure everything is ready. We won’t be here long.’

Sal nodded and he and Rico set off back to Mount Pleasant in the van, and between them they spent the rest of the day bringing the cars over to the goods yard.

Chapter Seventeen

By six, they had made rough plans and were sitting in the diner waiting for Keane, who had disappeared straight after lunch. Reed had changed out of his uniform, now wearing tan colour jeans and a green t-shirt washed so many times it was practically white.

‘You know what? You look exactly like a soldier out of uniform,’ John told him smiling.

Warner laughed heartily, Reed grinned back.

‘Well, that’s what I am. Anyways, I had to speak to General Morgan, I’ve been getting messages to call but avoiding actually doing it. He wants to know what the hell I’m doing about Major Hayter. I gave him the sanitised version of events,’ he told them.

‘Good plan,’ Warner replied. ‘What was he asking?’

‘Actually, not that much. He was more interested in what we were doing and what we found out. He was being all aggressive about it, weird I guess, but that’s how it seemed to me anyways.’

Keane finally arrived, looking dishevelled.

‘Well, I got some news,’ he said. ‘I heard from Vegas PD. Deanna Hayter’s apartment got turned over, they wrecked it so I’m told.’

They looked at each other, none of them were surprised.

‘I spoke to an officer Kirsty Casiano. She says they already looked over it, found nothing other than some coke, a small amount of cash and some sex toys and dvds, presumably their tools of the trade. Casiano works out of the Paradise precinct, and knew Madeline pretty good but not Deanna so much. But she says that they got a file on both of them.’

Judy sat up straight.

‘Really? We got nothing.’

‘No, that’s what I said, and there’s a few things we should know. Like Madeline has a daughter.’

Judy frowned, and began riffling through her notes.

‘I don’t have anything about that either.’

‘She’s fourteen, lives with her foster parents in Summerlin, which is a real nice area. Apparently, she’s a smart girl, who recently wanted to meet her real mom so the state set it up a year ago. Everything went good, and they got onto unsupervised visits. But because of Madeline’s history, child services and the PD were asked to keep an eye on it. Turns out two weeks ago there was a scene, some guy turned up threatening and the daughter called the police. State said she couldn’t visit no more, and that’s why the PD tossed the apartment.’

‘Did they get anything on the guy?’ Reed asked.

‘Both Deanna and Madeline said it was some drunk they didn’t know. They said they never seen him before. But the daughter said he was looking for someone for sure, he was white, foreign. Big. The PD asked around and got a witness, and one of the neighbours backed it up. But no, they got no ID.’

‘What, maybe Madeline was the target after all? Deanna and the major were some sort of fallout?’ Warner asked.

Keane shrugged.

‘Could be I guess. I don’t know.’

‘Can it be about the kid? Who’s the father?’ Judy asked.

‘Well, that’s also a can of worms. At the time Madeline was giving out freebies to cops to let her alone. The girl’s dad is apparently a cop called MacMillan, who’s actually in the slammer now, some big corruption scandal in Vegas a couple of years ago. But he never had no contact. None. He was married, refused to admit to anything, wouldn’t do nothing, word is he’s a real piece of shit.’

‘What was the scandal?’ Warner asked.

John coughed.

‘Er … I know about that actually. I got kind of caught up in it. It was a guy who owned a hotel, well his dad did anyway. The son was a proper scumbag into all sorts, and paying off cops on top of everything else. I met MacMillan, he interviewed me actually. FBI stepped in, Patrick sorted