CHAPTER 24

 .24.

A man was standing next to a black Cadillac sedan in the parking lot, not too far from where Jimmy had left the Auburn. He was in his late fifties, dressed in an expensive suit that lacked the new-money shine of Ole’s wardrobe. He had a face like a weathered cliffside: broad, heavy-set, with eyes that looked as if they had seen every bribe and backroom deal in the history of Los Angeles.

He didn’t move to step inside the car. He just stood there, his hand resting on the frame of the door, staring at us. His gaze locked onto Jimmy’s face. It wasn’t exactly the look of a curious employee or a grieving friend. If I had to guess, I’d have said it was the look of a man recognizing a debt he wasn’t ready to pay. Something in my bones told me that creature was even more dangerous than the wolf I’d met at the Karlsen mansion. A real shark.

For a few long, static-filled seconds, nothing happened. The man’s eyes flicked to me, dismissing me instantly, then returned to Jimmy with a strange, heavy intensity. He looked like he wanted to speak – to warn us, or perhaps to mock us – but then the mask slid back into place.

He stepped back, his hand dropping from the doorframe. He gave a sharp, almost imperceptible nod, and finally got behind the wheel.

Jimmy’s eyes followed the car as it rolled out of the parking lot, brow furrowed, fingers twitching against his thigh. “Who was that?” he whispered, more to himself than to me.

“I thought he was one of yours,” I said, my Stingray instincts still buzzing from the encounter. “He looked at you like he knew the brand of your undershirt.”

Jimmy shook his head, the confusion digging lines into his forehead. “I know that face. I’ve seen it… maybe at the house? Or a board meeting? It’s right there, on the tip of my brain, Ray. But I can’t place it.”

“He didn’t look like a baker,” I noted. “He looked like a man who knows where the city’s plumbing is buried.”

“Forget it,” Jimmy said, though something told me he wouldn’t. “I’ve got too many ghosts to deal with today to worry about a man in a car.”

The sound of the black car hadn’t yet died in the distance when three men stepped out from the shadows of the loading docks, wearing the heavy canvas jackets of RDP delivery drivers. Their caps were pulled low, the faces smeared with the soot and grease.

They were moving our way fast, and it didn’t look like they were there to ask for an autograph.