Below the Line

Fiction Dark Rage Marker Toss Nonfiction Masquerade: A True Story of Seduction, Compulsion, and Murder Forever and Five Days The Bobbitt Case—You Decide (under pseudonym Peter Kane) Eye of the Beholder House of Secrets For Machine Johnny, Bobby, and all the boys in the playhouse. Copyright © 2023 by Lowell Cauffiel All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018. First Arcade CrimeWise Edition This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Arcade Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected]. Arcade Publishing® and CrimeWise® are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation. Visit our website at www.arcadepub.com. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file. Cover design by Erin Seaward-Hiatt Cover artwork: © LPETTET/Getty Images ISBN: 978-1-956763-48-5 Ebook ISBN: 978-1-956763-49-2 Printed in the United States of America Contents 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 About the Author 1 THE JOB WAS IN LA—a city he considered highly overrated. Above all he loathed the traffic. Everyone in a goddamn competition. Cars blasting their horns, switching lanes with no signal, fighting for a lousy car length in yet another five-mile-an-hour freeway backup. Warren Poole thought, the laid-back, Southern California lifestyle? Shit, man, that ended at the asphalt. He was lost. And pissed. He’d sped across 250 miles of desert on the I-15 in three hours from Las Vegas, only to crawl for another three on the I-10 for the last sixty miles into Los Angeles. When he finally reached downtown, a web of interchanges and confusing signs spit him out into a neighborhood past the Los Angeles Convention Center. Now he was driving around in circles in the dark, looking at street signs and trying to get back on the I-10 to Santa Monica. He was looking for Figueroa Street. The theme for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was distant at first: the flute open, followed by the vocal wah wah wah part. Not the whole song. Only two bars of it. It became louder when he turned onto a street of run-down storefronts, Latinos on the sidewalk and a couple of soul brothers on the corner. He had no problem with the scenery. He worked with a Mexican and a black dude on his first crew back in the day. If you were going to operate in certain neighborhoods, you had to employ some diversity. Warren Poole heard the theme again. Poole buzzed down his window. Now he not only could hear the song but muddled words that followed. It was coming from a loudspeaker somewhere. He looked around, guessing it was from a storefront. But he was doing twenty-five and the tune was following. He checked his mirror, a Chevy truck behind him. The theme maybe coming from behind the truck. And then he clearly heard the words after the music: “Move it along, dog.” A red light ahead, Poole stopped. The truck rolled by him and took a right at the cross street. He turned on his dome light and looked at map he got from the Auto Club, trying to figure out where the hell he was. People told him he should get a smartphone with navigation. But he liked burners. He didn’t want a number tied to his name, let alone anything that could track him. He looked up from the map and noticed lights in his mirror. A white Chrysler 300. Pimped out with a chrome aftermarket grill and blue undercarriage lights. The theme sounded loudly as the Chrysler pulled up. Then, “Move it along, dog.” Pool realized the music was the horn on the 300. He’d seen horns like that once in a car stereo shop, the kind of place where people bought novelty add-ons for their rides. He saw a horn that had the roar of Godzilla and another with cartoon sound effects. The light still red, Poole looked at the map again, his eyes straining to find Figueroa in the maze of lines and street names. The car sounded its novelty horn. “Move it along, dog.” Poole looked up at the signal, the light green. They moved forward together, Poole driving slowly, looking at street signs, the 300 so far up his ass he could no longer see the grill or the glow on the pavement from the undercarriage lights. The horn: The flute and wha wha wha. Every couple of seconds now. Move it along, dog. Poole slammed on the brakes, the Chrysler screeching to a stop behind him. He took a deep breath and thought about the situation for a few moments, weighing the options. Finally, he decided. He reached down under his pant leg and removed a Beretta Tomcat from his ankle holster and slid the .32 into his windbreaker. He walked slowly to the 300, his eyes scrutinizing the driver. He was going to rap on the tinted side window with his knuckles. But the driver beat him to it, buzzing it down, a cloud of pot smoke wafting out. The soul brother’s dreadlocks hung off the back of his head down to his shoulders, the front