Dying For LA by Ian Jones (best adventure books to read TXT) 📗

the office and then another flight into a basement. He punched in a code by a door and walked through into the custody area, then talked to a burly sergeant behind the counter.

He walked back, smiled again.

‘Ok, Bortado is being detained, they are gonna start questioning him. I’ll take you through to the viewing room.’

They walked back out the door and down a short corridor, then the lieutenant pushed a door open. It was a small room, with some chairs and a window into the one next door, with a short counter underneath. A microphone fixed to it on a bendy stalk with ‘Talk’ next to a red button. John looked through the glass, standard stuff, square table with four chairs, everything bolted to the floor. Camera on the wall and microphones on the table.

Everything was happening so quickly he hadn’t even started to try and compute the situation. Kyle Warner had been murdered by some completely random guy it seemed, and how did that fit with what they were supposed to be working on?

He sat down with his elbows on his knees and rested his head in his hands, thinking.

Kyle Warner was dead. Shot in The Mirage by one Ryan Gallagher, who had spilled the beans and was put up to do it by the guy about to be interviewed Tyrone Bortado. Where was the connection? What about Leonid Pinsky? What about 1-Too?

‘You ok John?’ Reed asked him quietly as he settled alongside.

John looked up.

‘Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just … well.’

Reed clapped him on the back.

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘What about this other guy, Gallagher or whatever?’ Reed asked.

The lieutenant, still smiling away to himself, shrugged and explained.

‘Mirage has cameras watching the elevators on every floor. Most of the Strip hotels do. They had him coming out of the elevator and getting the gun out. Eyewitness, a room service waiter walking down the corridor from the other side saw the whole thing. Gallagher banged on the door and then moved away. Kyle came out into the corridor and that was it. Three shots. PD went into overdrive, and picked him up as he was walking toward the Wynn.’

‘Towards me,’ Judy added shivering.

‘You’re ok now,’ Reed told her.

‘Yeah I know. But Kyle, he didn’t deserve it. Gallagher knew he was done for, he gave it all up, but he’ll still get life, they got the death penalty here, he should get that.’

The door opened in the room through the window, and a grizzled detective walked in, closely followed by a uniform officer who was leading a coffee coloured stocky black man in his late twenties. The officer sat him down in a seat opposite the camera and the man looked up and waved, then laid his meaty, tattooed arms across the table.

‘That’s Tibor,’ the lieutenant said.

John looked at him.

‘Sorry Tyrone Bortado. Tibor is his street name. Yeah, I know it’s bullshit. He’s been in that room more times than I have.’

Another man walked in, this one in his thirties wearing a suit. He shook Bortado’s hand and sat down next to him, pulling out a thick notepad and pen from a briefcase at his feet. The detective watched him but didn’t acknowledge either of the two men now sitting opposite.

Bortado immediately began a rant about Vegas PD and his time being wasted, the man next to him nodding sympathetically and making notes.

The detective still said nothing at all.

It was like watching a bad soap opera.

Then Bortado jumped up and stared over at the window, which would be reflective glass to him. He spread his arms out wide and smiled, beckoning.

‘Hey you fucks! Come on in here, join the party!’ he shouted. ‘I got nothing to hide, and I don’t give a shit neither!’

The cop standing by the door walked over and pushed him back onto his seat.

Still, the detective didn’t move or speak.

Bortado laughed.

John frowned, then stood up and dug in his pocket. He pulled out some rumpled dollar bills, selected a ten and laid it down on the counter in front of the lieutenant.

‘A tenner says you get nothing,’ he said.

‘What’s a tenner?’ asked the lieutenant. ‘Oh …’

Judy, still clearly upset pursed her lips and went into her purse, then laid another ten-dollar bill on top.

‘Make it twenty.’

‘No,’ the lieutenant said. ‘These guys are the best. He’ll talk.’

Reed stared hard at him, then added his own note.

‘That’s thirty.’

The lieutenant went to speak, then clammed up angrily, for the first time he wasn’t wearing the same fixed, cheesy smile.

They saw the door open again, and a tall man walked in, smartly dressed, probably late forties. He stood next to the table and looked own at Bortado.

‘Hello again Tyrone. I’d like to say it’s been a while, but it hasn’t.’

Bortado looked up at him and sneered.

‘Detective Cooper. I thought they’d retired your skinny ass, man.’

Cooper nodded and sat down then looked expectantly across at the man sitting next to Bortado, who appeared flustered and eventually introduced himself as James Winter, attorney.

John sat up straight to watch, maybe he had been wrong. He hoped he had. Cooper seemed very assured, ready to do his job.

But it became abundantly clear within ten minutes that they weren’t going to get anything out of Bortado. He was cocky and arrogant, and turned every question around, laughing as the two detectives opposite tried to get some traction. Nothing seemed to faze him, he countered everything, twisting whatever was said.

He was an expert, probably dealing with the police from very young.

Eventually the grizzled detective started to lose his temper, which really was the end of it and Cooper called time, no other option for him. Laughing Bortado was led from the room.

John looked at Judy, who was still shellshocked, desperately trying to get some sense out of what had happened.

‘Let me try.’

‘No way,’ the lieutenant said.

John ignored him, still talking to Judy.

‘We know everything Judy. Me and Tom have put it together. Bortado was involved, but it’s not his idea. It’s a Russian, name of Pinsky, and we have