Free Mojo by Tim Tharp

kidnap her.”
    Nash thought about that for a moment and even looked like he might have an idea, but if he did, he wasn’t sharing anything specific. “Who knows? Anyone who wants a bundle of money the easy way, I guess. You haven’t heard of any real hard evidence that something violent might have happened to her, have you?”
    I wanted to mention that blue running shoes didn’t just take themselves off, but he looked too genuinely worried, so I said, “No, I haven’t heard anything like that. Just have to take all the scenarios into consideration, you know? You’re probably right. A ransom note will probably show up, and she’ll get back home just fine.”
    “I hope so.”
    “But there’s one other thing I was wondering about,” I said.
    “What’s up with this Gangland deal? You know anything about that?”
    “Gangland? Where did you hear about that?”
    “Oh, I hear things. That’s part of my job.”
    “Hey, Nash,” his buddy Holt called from the other side of the pool table. “It’s your turn.”
    “Already?” Nash stepped over and eyed the remaining balls, then proceeded to run the table.
    “Oh yeah,” he roared. “Yeah, baby, yeah, baby.”
    I looked around to see if his celebration pissed off the regulars, but no one seemed to care. Huy and Tommy only shook their heads and took out their wallets. I couldn’t see how much money they paid off on the bet, but it wasn’t small change.
    “You give us a chance to get some of that money back, right, Nash?” Tommy asked.
    Nash slapped him on the back. “You know it.”
    I was finishing off my Vietnamese lemon drink when he came back over. It wasn’t bad.
    “So, you want to know about Gangland?” he asked. “I’ll do better than tell you about it. I’ll show it to you.”

CHAPTER 14
    According to Nash, it wouldn’t take us fifteen minutes—depending on the traffic lights—to get where we were going. “There’s one rule,” he said.
    “You can’t write about this in your paper.”
    “You mean
nothing
about it?”
    “Well, I don’t care if you mention something vague like that you went to a party, but you can’t say where it is or even mention the word
Gangland
.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because it’s special. It won’t be special if everyone knows about it. Besides, it doesn’t have anything to do with Ashton.”
    “Okay, sure,” I told him. “I guess that’s fair.” And I really did figure it was fair—as long as he was telling the truth about the connection, or lack thereof, to Ashton Browning.
    We rode in his Lexus SUV along with Holt while Audrey and Randy followed us. And I wouldn’t be lying to say this vehicle was
ripped
. Black inside and out. Leather seats. A console that looked like it belonged in a flying saucer. I was like,
Who needs a ’69 Mustang? I’m a Lexus man now
.
    Nash had good taste in music, but he blasted it a little too loud. He pulled a half-roasted joint from the ashtray, lit it, and took a deep drag before offering it to me.
    “No thanks,” I said. “Have to keep my wits sharp when I’m on a case, you know.”
    “Probably all for the best,” he said, then passed the joint back to Holt.
    This was unexpected. Somehow you just don’t figure on a rich-kid wide receiver also being a stoner.
    “You know,” I said as the weed smoke billowed around me, “I would’ve thought the cops would question you—you being one of the ex-boyfriends and all.”
    “Who says they didn’t?”
    “This weed has an evergreen-like, almost sweet taste to it,” Holt said. “Not too sweet and not too harsh. A decent pre-party blend.” He sounded like a wine connoisseur.
    “You mean the cops did talk to you?” I asked Nash.
    “Sure. They talked to a lot of people.”
    “What’d they ask?”
    “Oh, you know, the usual—
Why did you and Ashton break up? Did she have any enemies? Where were you when she went missing?
That kind of thing.”
    Of course, I’d thought of asking him where he was when Ashton