Hard-Boiled- Box Set

by Danny R. Smith

  When Floyd and I left the Outback they were closing the doors behind us and sweeping the floors beneath our feet. As I drove us back to the office, we recapped all of the brilliant ideas, conclusions, and planning that had been born over many pints of cold draft beer and a couple of medium-rare steaks smothered with grilled onions and mushrooms and accommodated by a loaded baked potato for me and fries for my idiot.

  “Well, I guess you better get cracking on that search warrant, Dickie.”

  “Wait, why would I write the warrant? This is your case, pal.”

  “I don’t have a case. You heard what the dead man told you, he and his lovely bride. Nothing happened there. Speaking of lovely brides, do you ever hear from Val anymore, or are you two never speaking again? And what’s the status with you and the shrink, what’s-her-ass? Also, are you hot on your new partner?”

  “Katherine. Doctor James to you, asshole. No, I never hear from Val, and that’s probably best. Katherine is out of town; her mother is in the hospital and it looks bad. Dad’s not doing well either, I guess. I’m not even entertaining your other question.”

  “Sorry to hear about the shrink’s mom.”

  “Thanks. And it’s your warrant because the only way you prove Cedric ain’t lying is to pull bullets out of that wall and compare them to the bullets from Ho’s place. And that is your obligation. You swore an oath pal, an oath to the County of Los Angeles and its citizens, so stop trying to weasel out of doing your job.”

  “Have you ever been partnered with a broad before?”

  I looked over at him. “What?”

  “Have you ever had a chick for a partner?”

  “Yeah, I heard what you said, I meant what, like, where the hell are you going with this?”

  “The odds are very high that in mixed gender partnerships a romantic interest will grow over time.”

  “I think you’re a mixed gender if we’re going to be honest about everything.”

  “I’m just trying to warn you, Dickie. I know you’re not up on these social situations and changing times, and I don’t want you to be surprised when you catch yourself admiring her ass, or her eyes, or whatever it is that draws you to a woman other than a well-stocked liquor cabinet.”

  I glanced over and shook my head. “You’re such an asshole.”

  Floyd, straight-faced: “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  We arrived at the office to pick up Floyd’s car. Both of us needed to make a recycled beer deposit down the hall, and we each wanted to grab a cup of coffee for the road. On the way out, I checked my desk to see if I had left anything behind or if there were any notes or phone messages or if I had any reports returned from dictation that needed their final touches. There were none, so I turned to depart but caught something from the corner of my eye. My computer’s keyboard was not located in its assigned position. Close, but not exact. Someone had been at my desk.

  This I pondered for part of my drive home and concluded it had been my partner. Often someone will pull your chair from your desk to visit with somebody else nearby. That was to be expected. I didn’t like it, and I had marked my chair so that I would always get mine back if it did in fact accidentally get switched with someone else’s. But when something like that occurred, there would never be an attempt to return the chair to its perfect positioning at my desk in the manner in which I would always leave it. So, whoever it was that caused my keyboard to be slightly askew on my desktop, didn’t want to leave any evidence of their visit and had tried hard to conceal their intrusion.

  Which meant it had to have been Josie.

  No doubt it had been a routine integrity check, and I didn’t blame her for it. In fact, I admired her for it. She was a smart girl.

  I was reminded of what Floyd said about partnerships and romantic feelings. For a moment, I could see his point. It wasn’t uncommon to see partners of the opposite sex becoming involved personally. But I dismissed that thought and knew I’d never admit to Floyd that I had even considered it. Nor would I admit it to myself, or anyone else.

  Floyd. Jesus, this guy.

  10

  Tina Ortiz arrived at the house in South Long Beach to find her man, Travis Hollingsworth, and her brother, Carlos, preparing to flee. At least that was how it appeared to her. She closed the door and stood looking around a living room cluttered with half a dozen military duffle bags. All of them appeared to be full, and some appeared heavy, the shapes of large and bulky items poking at woven fabric from inside.

  “What is all of this?”

  Travis sat down on the couch and picked up a beer from the table. Carlos stood with his hands gripping his slender hips, looking around the room as if trying to figure out what she was referring to.

  “Are we moving out?”

  Travis took another swig of beer before answering. “We were getting ready to go, in case you didn’t make it back.”

  “I called and told you I was on my way back, and that I didn’t have a tail.”

  “As far as you knew. Did you look up? Besides, we weren’t going to take a chance after you said the detectives were right there. Jesus. Then Carlos tried calling you back, and your phone went straight to voicemail.”

  Her dark eyes darted around the room. “It was off.”

  Neither Travis or Carlos responded.

  Tina hadn’t thought to check for helicopters as Travis had previously cautioned her to do. He had told her about the various types of surveillance she needed to be aware of—more than once. He called it counter-surveillance tactics, and he would teach her maneuvers such as making several turns on side streets before getting onto a main boulevard, and crossing through parking lots or driving down dead-end roads and stopping to watch for a few moments; that was how you spotted a tail. For a moment she felt stupid for not even thinking about aerial surveillance, and she could tell by the silence that Travis was irritated with her because of it. He likely knew from the look on her face when he asked if she had looked up.

  “Nobody followed me and there weren’t any birds up either. They aren’t looking for us, Trav; they’re investigating a robbery. That’s what they do when someone gets robbed. Detectives go and talk to the victims.”

  Carlos turned to walk into the kitchen and Travis Hollingsworth called out for him to bring another beer.

  “Besides, I was right. The chino is still alive.”

  After she said it, the boy was on her mind. She fought the urge to tell him. It would gain favor with Travis if she came back with a positive report, but then she would have to answer as to why she hadn’t tried to take him out, or why she hadn’t tried tailing the cops to see where the boy lived. She decided nothing good could come of mentioning it. Besides, she was completely against the idea of killing a kid.

  Travis got up from the couch and walked over to her. She tried to read him but wasn’t sure if he was drunk or sober, mean or horny. The closer he got the more she had to look up. He towered over her at nearly six feet, four inches tall, compared to her five feet, four inches. Finally, he grinned, which told her he’d had just enough booze to still be nice, but that meant he’d also be wanting to be with her soon. His small, tobacco-stained teeth barely showed through the wiry brown mustache and beard that concealed his face. Scraggly hair framed the whole mess, and Tina had often thought back to when she met him and how he was clean cut, clean shaven, and lean. A good-looking man in a rugged way, which she liked. Now he looked like a mountain man, or a biker, and she didn’t like it at all. In fact, she was generally repulsed by him, and that was a feeling that seemed to grow daily.

  “What do you say, little woman, that you and I spend a little time alone tonight? Maybe go have a shower and then some drinks in bed.”

  He reached for her hair, but she pushed his arm away and walked past him. “Maybe later. Right now, we need to clean this place up. We aren’t running again. Not yet. Not unless we have no choice. I like it here and if we don’t have to go, we won’t. This is the first time in two years the
three of us aren’t crammed into a one-room apartment.”

  The big man raised his voice. “Yeah, and how do you suppose we can continue to pay the rent here if we keep fucking these jobs up? How hard is it to whack a fucking gook and take his fucking money? I used to slit throats for fun, for Christ’s sake. Now we can’t kill ’em with a rifle and a sawed-off shotgun.”

  “The last job was good.”

  “What, two grand, that’s good?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Your brother needs to pick up the slack, get his hands dirty. No more pussy-footing around.”

  Tina glanced over at Carlos. “He’s just a kid.”

  “I was in Ranger school by time I was his age. He’s old enough.”

  He’d failed Ranger school by that time, he meant, Tina thought.

  “I’m ready,” Carlos added.

  Tina shook her head and disappeared into the hallway. She closed the bedroom door behind her and leaned her back against it, pausing to collect her thoughts. Carlos was her little brother, the only family she stayed in touch with. The only family she claimed now, besides her grandmother. She didn’t want her little brother killing. She wished there was another way for them to live, she and her brother, but the choices she had made with Travis had cemented a certain lifestyle that offered no future. There were few options available to them.

  She locked the door and took a seat on her bed.

  Life seemed almost unfair, how one decision would completely alter the course of your life. And then another decision shortly after would spin you off in another direction. But never did it seem you could look at a map and chart your course and find your destination. As a kid, all she thought about was being a doctor. She did well in school and felt she had a legitimate chance. She avoided gangs—she was the only one in her family who had—and she was the first to graduate from high school. The first in all of her family, ever, as far back as anyone knew.

  But college was a dream not easily realized by someone with no support from family. Even with all of the grants and scholarships that were available to her, it didn’t seem to be enough. Someone had told her about the military and free school, and three months after receiving her high school diploma, she was in the army and on her way to earning free college.

  Tina loved the white boys; she always had. After joining the army, she found herself surrounded by them. Most were fit and sharp and motivated. Some were cocky and had the respect of younger soldiers for their various accomplishments, the rewards for which they wore on their chests. The more ribbons a soldier wore—chest candy, they called it—the more action that soldier had seen. And everyone seemed to be enthralled by those who had seen combat.

  After completing Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, Private First Class (PFC) Christina Ortiz shipped off to Fort Hood, Texas, home of the legendary 1st Cavalry Division. That was where she had met Travis Hollingsworth, a salty sergeant whose swagger had caught her eye. His stories of combat and his propensity for violence excited her greatly. Her MOS (military occupational specialty) was a motor transport operator (88M), and she found herself driving for Sergeant Hollingsworth, who never stopped telling her and the others about his adventures overseas. The first night they were together socially, he had scared her so badly she nearly had a panic attack. It was in a pool hall not far from base where military personnel would oftentimes mix with bikers, cowboys, and farmers. There would often be tension, and sometimes the nights would end in disaster. That night, Travis found himself in a disagreement with a biker after gambling on a game of pool. The two went out back to settle their differences. Tina had followed them outside as did several of the biker’s friends. In the very first moment when the biker had begun to posture, Hollingsworth struck out with lightning speed and punched the man in the throat. The biker dropped to the ground, grasping his throat as blood spilled from his mouth. One of the other bikers had started to step up but stopped when the barrel of a small pistol was shoved into his face. She was sure she was about to witness a killing. Perhaps she already had, it occurred to her, as the first biker was on the ground gurgling blood. The bikers backed off and Travis took her by the arm and they were gone.

  They stayed off base that night in a dingy motel and the love making was passionate to a degree she had never experienced. It occurred to her in the following weeks and months that she was addicted to danger; she was an adrenaline junkie. Suddenly all she would think about was violence, and at times she made sure it would happen. Travis was the jealous type, and it didn’t take much for her to get him into fights. She loved it, and the passion continued. But she also discovered that fights were not nearly enough to satisfy her craving. She often thought back to the biker they had left in the alley and she wondered if he had lived or died. The idea of it stimulated her sexually, and she needed more of it, more of the violence. She also became aware of her desire to partake in the violence, and slowly, but surely, she did. One night, Travis had knocked a man down in a barroom with a single punch to his face. She had no idea what came over her, but Tina began stomping the man’s head as he lay unconscious on the floor. She found that to be more exciting than anything she had ever experienced, and she had insisted Travis make love to her in their car before fleeing the scene. Fortunately for them, when the cops arrived, they went straight into the bar and never bothered with checking the parking lot. Travis had insisted they flee, but the presence of the cops sent her further into ecstasy, and she was having none of a premature departure.

  While assigned to Echo Troop, 1-7 Cav at Fort Hood, Tina had been attracted to a commissioned officer but hadn’t intended for it to go anywhere. Initially, it had been the excitement of Travis’s jealousy that spurred her on. Travis hated the lieutenant, and the lieutenant clearly had an interest in Private First Class Ortiz. There had been endless flirtation and then a chance meeting in town—away from the base, the army, the jealous boyfriend—that led to drinks and a night of dancing. She slept with him that night and found something she hadn’t expected to find, something she believed may have been her only encounter with true love. But she would never know, and it could never be. Not after a decision made on the second day of June, two long years ago.

  A knock on the bedroom door startled Tina. “Who is it?”

  “It’s your daddy, little girl. Now open the fucking door.”

  11

  Saturday morning the sun rose over the San Gabriel Mountains, casting an orange tint across the Southland from the Mojave Desert to the Los Angeles Basin. Many Angelenos slept while others were just beginning their days. Some of those whose day had just begun embraced the crisp morning air as they jogged or rode bicycles for exercise. Others sat on patios and decks sipping coffee or tea, embracing the short reprieve from the sounds of a busy metropolis. But for some, it was just another work day.

  Such was the case for cops and firemen, nurses and doctors, cooks and waitresses, and a host of others including Jimmy Ortiz, a two-strike convicted felon who made his living primarily by burglarizing homes during the day and businesses and cars by night. He was an equal opportunity thief who did not discriminate as he strove to feed his methamphetamine addiction.

  This morning he pedaled a stolen bicycle while packing a .38 Special; he had lifted both the day before during a residential burglary not far from his North Long Beach home. He had also picked up some jewelry which he fenced for thirty bucks, and used that to score some meth. Now he had been out all night—tweaking—and riding through alleys and quiet streets with some new ideas about scoring his dope. Jimmy knew it would be more beneficial to use the gun to get cash from a variety of individuals than it would be to fence it once for fifty bucks, or maybe twenty. After all, either way—just one more felony conviction—he was going away for good. Why not live large until that day came?

  It was in North Long Beach that he saw his first target, a young lady walking away from a car left running at the end of a driveway, parked in a manner that blocked th
e sidewalk. Jimmy slowed as he approached, and finally stopped in front of the adjacent property in the shadows of a maple tree. He thought about dropping the bike and taking off in the car. It was black and shiny and probably not very old, and he figured he could get a couple grand for it, or at least a couple hundred. That would give him a week off from his work. He looked around to see empty streets and the quiet homes of still sleeping neighbors. Just as he made his decision and started to drop the bike, the woman returned to her car.

  She was young, an attractive Latina with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She wore black yoga pants, bright white tennis shoes, and a gray windbreaker with red and black accents and some type of logo over the left breast. She carried a purse over one shoulder and what appeared to be a gym bag over the other. She seemed focused, maybe in a hurry, as she walked to the rear of the idling car and opened the trunk. Jimmy started peddling toward her, and as he did, he made up his mind. This would be his first robbery. An easy target.

  In those brief moments between the time he decided to make his move and when he arrived at the would-be victim’s car, Jimmy saw himself sticking his gun in her face and demanding her purse. He knew with the gun, she wouldn’t resist. There would be fear in her eyes and she would want to scream, and he would have to tell her to be calm. He’d get her purse and pedal away before she could fully grasp what had just happened. Or maybe he’d drop the bike and drive off in her car, taking her purse with him. Or maybe he would put the bitch in the trunk and take her, the car, and the purse, back to the detached garage behind his grandmother’s home where he lived just a few blocks away. He wished he had more time to consider it all.