Into the Fire(33)
He stayed at her bedside. She clutched his hand a bit tighter.
He let her.
* * *
In the Vault, Evan plugged his RoamZone into one of his computer towers and uploaded the close-up he’d taken of Ida’s necklace. Seconds later an enlarged version appeared on the OLED screens mounted on the wall in front of him.
He isolated the piece, removing the background, and then crisped up the pixelation with a digital enhancer.
He dragged the image into a visual search engine and set the parameters. If the item appeared online for sale, he would receive an alert.
He glanced over at the wall to his left, where the Google Earth view of the abandoned TV station waited. The headquarters of Terzian’s quartet.
Evan had plenty of time to get over to Hollywood and scout the surrounding area. And the area around that. The Third Commandment: Master your surroundings.
At nightfall they’d be expecting Papazian.
They’d get the Nowhere Man instead.
19
Not That Fight
The useful thing about TV stations, if you’re a money-laundering murderous thug requiring headquarters, is that they are generally enclosed. The cluster of drab concrete structures—offices, studios, a cafeteria—was protected by barbed-wired chain-link that, like the buildings themselves, had seen better days.
The neighborhood at the edge of Little Armenia was not a nice one. Evan had plenty of time to absorb it, spending six-plus hours in the seat of his Chevy Malibu. He’d observed the buildings from enough vantages that he could have rendered each in a cubist painting.
The disused property showed signs of having been recently overtaken. Chicken wire sutured up slashes in the rusting fence, and shiny new chains and padlocks secured the access points. A rolling gate protected the driveway and a rear entrance.
Terzian had arrived about an hour ago, tossing a laden Dickensian key ring to a neck-challenged bouncer type at the rear gate. Over the following ten minutes, Terzian’s three compatriots had appeared, easily identifiable in their German sedans and aura of ill-gotten privilege. Evan had studied them in the Vault and knew well the ugliness that lay beneath the designer suits. The four principals had retired to the front office building, leaving a dozen hired men in charge of operations. The men seemed to be readying the cafeteria for a big event.
It looked like tonight was fight night.
Sure enough, the next hour saw a stream of gamblers pour through the choke points, all men exuding a cagey excitement. Anticipation electrified the air, the promise of blood spilled and money won.
Evan moved the car once again, sidling up to the curb several blocks distant, the grille angled for a quick getaway. Across the street a group of boys played basketball with a frayed soccer ball and a shopping cart hung on a dumpster as a hoop. A spray-painted tag on the dumpster’s side read AXP, the Armenian Power tag.
These were the streets that Terzian had graduated from.
Evan got out. An old man with skin the color of mahogany sat in a weather-beaten recliner on his porch, smoking a pipe, a Chihuahua nestled in his lap blanket. As Evan passed through a sweet drift of tobacco, the man removed the pipe from his mouth and tilted it toward him in greeting. Evan nodded back.
Nearing the former station, he joined a band of young men crossing the street. Redolent of beer and liberally applied cologne, they chattered excitedly. “—best motherfucking fighters in L.A.—”
“—taking the over-under on Tiger going a full minute—”
They logjammed at the rear entrance, the bouncer types eyeing everyone and shooing them all quickly inside toward the cafeteria. The young men around Evan held up their cell phones with e-mailed invitations, but the bouncers barely checked them.
Evan brought up the photo of Ida’s necklace and waved it past the nose of the nearest bouncer, timing it when the man’s attention was split between two other gamblers.
He was ushered through.
As he passed, he brushed up against the bouncer, bump-frisking him. No gun, which confirmed Evan’s suspicion that they were low-level rented muscle.
A few more bouncers were positioned along the walkway, herding people toward the cafeteria. Evan could hear a buzz of voices inside, the crowd preparing for the fight.
He walked past the open doors, catching a glimpse of the space. Stacked bleachers framed what looked to be a sunken court in the center. The flooring had been torn up, an arena dug into the earth itself, a street-fighting competition that was literally underground. From the doorway Evan couldn’t see the bottom of the pit. The bleachers were about a third filled. The rest of the attendants mobbed a betting station formed of folding tables.
Evan kept on past the open door, turning the corner sharply and backing to the wall when he heard someone approaching. One of the bouncers swept past, carrying a shrink-wrapped block of hundred-dollar bills. That helped fill in the picture of how Terzian generated the huge amounts of cash he’d been laundering.
Once the bouncer’s footsteps faded, Evan stole to the front office building, where Terzian and his three lieutenants had holed up, conveniently segregated from the others.
There was no guard out front. The door was unlocked. Here in his domain, Terzian the Terror was confident.
As Evan eased inside, he heard voices in the back. He breezed through the lobby.
In a glass-walled conference room, the four men sat in a row behind a table. An expansive one-way mirror of a window overlooked a concrete path and the cafeteria beyond. Before each man was an old-fashioned phone and an open ledger. They were all on calls, receivers pressed to their faces, scribbling notes, their sleeves cuffed up to display the patterned scars beneath.