Wolves and Men

The next few days were spent setting up his team and getting them familiar with the city of Los Angeles. They had all been there before but it had been some time. The better they knew the city the better they could move around and coordinate their efforts with each other.

Marco was pleased with his room and the view of the target. He set up his equipment and immediately starting listening to conversations and creating dossiers on the most likely higher ups that frequented the place.

Noemi had outdone herself this time. She had procured a flat black Lamborghini Diablo, a green Toyota Camry, a silver Mustang convertible, and a red Mitsubishi Galant, all paid for with cash for the next six weeks. In Los Angeles that was perfectly normal. Celebrities were often here for shooting a film and other people were here on long term, so a few weeks rental wasn’t out of the ordinary.

Meanwhile Simon had checked in with Sofia and had traced some of the money from the cargo shipments leaving the ports. There was money being lost somewhere, as well as some discrepancies in container numbers. The ship left with one hundred and twenty five containers and arrived with one hundred and twenty five containers, but some of the serial numbers would be different. Typos could account for a few of them but some were so drastically different the only explanation was that the containers had been switched. This was something that most people would over look, Sofia was a lot more detail oriented.

“So, now that we know that there is something going on with the shipping in and out of the port what do we do?” Sofia asked as she was showing her evidence to Simon.

Simon stood up straight and rested his chin on his fingertips. “Who do the ships belong to?”

“The ships are from all three Houses.” She saw the look on Simon’s face and continued quickly, cutting off his response before it was made. “But, the majority of them are House Himura.” She pushed herself away from her computer. “So, what now?”

“Now,” Simon replied casually, “we go ask the good people of Little Tokyo, if they might have an idea who may be switching shipping containers on them. They may be interested to know if they are being ripped off or not.”

The two of them got into the Galant and drove down the freeway to Marco’s hotel, deep in the heart of Little Tokyo. They walked into Marco’s room. He was hunched over a computer screen and listening intently to some head phones and adjusting his laser listening device.

Simon touched the man on the shoulder and Marco pressed a few buttons and took off his headphones. “Found out anything interesting?” Simon asked.

Marco grunted with a twist of his lips in a sardonic smile. “Not really. I have been listening to a few interesting conversations though. One of these guys’ wife is pregnant and he can’t really believe that he is going to be a dad. I call him, ‘Phil’. But his buddy is already prepping him for the hard line when little Jr. will grow up and follow in his daddy’s footsteps. I get the feeling that Phil doesn’t want his kid trapped in this world like he is. Might be worth leaning on him a bit, offer him a way out.”

“Do you think he might know anything about the docks or shipping arrangements?” Sofia asked.

“Hard to tell.” Marco gestured to his gear. “This stuff is great but I would need another guy on the other side of the building to get full coverage. Sometimes the people move and get lost in there somewhere. But from what I’ve gathered over the last few days, he’s a little higher up than just security. If he doesn’t know what you’re looking for he may be able to point you in the right direction.” Marco turned his computer screen toward him. It showed a young thirty something Japanese male with close cropped hair and a nice suit. “Yeah, that’s him. Simon, meet Phil.”

Simon nodded, memorizing the photo, and took a seat on a not so comfortable chair next to the wall out of sight from the window. The stars were not bright here in the heart of the city but the sky was clear, except for that haze that was always present.

“Is Phil still here?”

Marco put back on his headphones and made some adjustments. “I have been keeping tabs on him for a few days. He is very rigid in his schedule, as most of these guys tend to be. He usually leaves around 11:00pm.”

“When does he show up to work?” Sofia asked.

“Before dawn, every day so far, like clockwork.” Marco replied with a smile.

“What does he drive and where does he go?” Simon asked.

“He drives a white Toyota, Avalon if I’m not mistaken. He leaves here and goes south.” Marco replied easily.

“Then I guess it’s time to leave you to your work. We have a mark to catch.” Simon said as he got up from his chair. Sophia stood up and followed Simon out of the room and down to street level.

They made their way casually toward the targeted building, taking in the sights and sounds of Little Tokyo. Sophia even took a few pics with her phone. Of course, the frivolous seeming pics always seemed to be aimed at their targeted building. Simon bought some spring rolls from a street vendor and the two of them ate the fried food quietly as they put their backs to a potted tree and looked out over the mildly busy thoroughfare watching other people laugh and enjoy themselves. Simon’s eyes rarely left the building that he had scouted over a week ago.

He checked his watch and saw that it was approaching 11:00. He nodded to Sophia and they made a casual couple induced happy trek towards the building, speaking in Italian and laughing at children’s jokes. The garage barrier rose up and a white Toyota Avalon pulled out and turned south.

Simon saw only one passenger. Sophia was already headed toward the cover of a nearby alley. Simon quickly turned around and raced back to his car. In the cover of the shadows of the alley, Sophia launched herself to the roof and gave chase to the car.

The car was meticulous about speed and direction. It followed a straight path and didn’t even change lanes. Simon followed a few cars behind. He thought about Sophia and glanced at her form on the rooftops, compared to his last foot chase he gave to a car this was a cake walk. The two vampires chased the car for about forty minutes, Sophia on the rooftops and him in his Galant. Finally, Simon saw the car pull calmly into a parking garage belonging to a city building of upscale condominiums. He drove calmly past the garage and pulled into a parking spot along the street and waited.