Hard-Boiled- Box Set

by Danny R. Smith

  “What? What did I say?”

  “He wants to kill that little boy.”

  Carlos didn’t respond. She looked back and forth from the road to see him sitting in silence, looking straight ahead.

  “You want to kill a little kid? That’s what you’ve become?”

  “We’re outlaws, right?”

  She shook her head slightly and drew a deep breath before continuing. “I never should have allowed you in. I don’t want to see you spend the rest of your life in prison, like your brothers.”

  He sat staring out his window, not saying a word.

  Tina slapped the back of his head.

  “The fuck?”

  “I’m talking to you.”

  “You’re talking shit. You want to treat me like a little kid, yet you’re out there smokin’ motherfuckers.”

  She wasn’t sure what to say. Should she confess to her brother her closely-guarded secret? What would he think of her? Tina thought it would be best to shut up; that’s something she was able to do that her brother wasn’t. Whatever she said to him would get back to Travis. His hero. The big, bad, war veteran who now gunned down civilians as a way to make a living—and for his kicks. The truth was, the killing was unnecessary, and she didn’t like it. But one bad decision had led to another, and now she was stuck.

  Tina thought back to the day of the flood when the decision to disappear with him seemed like a great idea. What had she been thinking? Sure, she had grown tired of the military and longed for her civilian life, but did she really think she could live a normal life if she went AWOL from the army? She didn’t know what she had thought. Though she knew when Travis killed the motel clerk that her life would never be the same. She was smart enough to know she’d go down with him if he were caught, and they’d been running ever since.

  Again, Tina began thinking about how to stop all the killing. There was only one way, and that was to get rid of Travis. She wasn’t sure, though, that she could count on her brother to help her, or even to go along with her plan. She didn’t think she could trust him to keep his mouth shut. No, she would be on her own, but she had a plan.

  Just as they pulled over across from the market, the armored car turned into its parking lot. Carlos said, “Right on time.”

  Lopes had stopped to eat and replenish his precious bodily fluids before continuing to the office. When he arrived, he walked through the back door, haggard and in need of even more coffee. He really needed a shower and a shave, but he had a ten-thirty meeting with the district attorney regarding the wire they had going on the mafia. It was the task force that had been assembled after Maria Lopez was nearly killed, and when it was learned that the Mexican mafia had not only called for that hit, but had put a hit on Dickie Jones as well. A hit on a cop got the attention of more than a few detectives and lawyers.

  He found Sanchez at her desk. She had beat him to the office, presumably leaving right after him but not stopping along the way. He thought about approaching her to get a feel for the mood. It might help him fill in the gaps as he was unclear about the events of the night, beyond having drinks at the bar. She looked up and he felt overpowered by her stare. Lopes continued past without a word and headed to the kitchen. Jesus Christ, he thought, what the fuck was I thinking?

  Back at the house Travis, Tina, and Carlos talked about how it would go down. Carlos would drive the van. Travis and Tina would ride in the back, ready to come out of the side doors quickly when the guard exited the store with the money bag. Just as the guard reached the truck and the driver popped the door open for him, two things would happen simultaneously: Carlos would take down the guard with the money, and Travis and Tina would enter the truck and take down the driver. Then Carlos would bring the van up beside the armored car, so they could quickly load the bags of money into their van. They should be finished and gone from the scene in less than two minutes, Travis said.

  “We need to practice,” Tina said.

  Carlos and Travis both looked at her. Travis said, “How do you suppose we do that, woman?”

  “I mean, we need to have a range day. Let’s go up in the mountains and do some shooting. Carlos needs to learn to handle your AR, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea for all of us to practice with the pistols. These guys are armed, and they will shoot it out if we give them the chance.”

  Travis nodded. “Okay, let’s go. Carlos, run down to the corner and get us some beer and ice. I’ll gather up the hardware. I’m always up for slinging lead downrange.”

  Carlos stood and checked his pockets for cash. He had a ten and a couple of ones, a handful of change. He looked at Travis, hopeful. Travis pulled a twenty from his wallet and flipped it toward him against the table. Carlos took the cash and crossed the room toward the front door.

  Tina waited for her brother to leave, then turned to Travis. “I don’t like it. It’s dangerous.”

  He ignored her. “Did he take you to the kid’s house?”

  “We couldn’t find it,” she lied.

  “That’s next. Before the armored car deal, we need to find that kid and kill him. Him and that fucking gook.”

  I walked into the bureau just before 10 a.m. after stopping by the crime lab to check on the ballistics evidence from the market murder. Keith in the Firearms section had provided a synopsis of his examination: the bullets recovered from both victims were 69 grain, .22 caliber. The barrel had eight lands and grooves with a right twist. Basically, it was probably a .223, and likely an AR-15. However, there were hundreds of manufacturers of this particular type of gun, added to the fact there were hundreds more ways to customize the barrel configurations. So, our data thus far was nearly useless. That was, unless we recovered a weapon for comparison. He said he’d have a report typed up by the end of the week, sooner if I needed it.

  “Good morning.”

  Josie didn’t look up from her desk. “Oh, hi.”

  I pulled out my chair, set my briefcase on the ground and set my hat on top of a stack of reports at the corner of my desk. “Want a cup?”

  “No thanks.”

  Still no eye contact. Women.

  On the way to the kitchen I bumped into Lopes coming out of the men’s room with his head on a swivel. I chuckled. “You running from someone, Davey?”

  He was drying his hands with paper towels. “No, buddy. What’s up?”

  “I don’t know. What’s everyone acting strange about this morning?”

  “Who’s everyone?”

  I felt something was going on. “You. My partner. That’s about it, so far. Any ideas?”

  We had drifted around the corner as we spoke and were just feet from the coffee pots. I turned to get a cup and offered one to Lopes. He tossed the wadded paper towels into the trash and took a Styrofoam cup from me and waited as I filled it. “Well?”

  “Thanks,” he said. “Nah, man; I’ve got no idea. I have to get to a meeting on the mafia wire. That’s all that’s going on with me.”

  “You look a little haggard,” I said. “Looks like you might have forgotten to shave this morning, Davey. Did you have a late night?”

  “What are you, my mother?”

  With that he turned and headed toward the Unsolved Homicides office. I shook my head and frowned at his back. Something was in the air, I could feel it. I hoped it hadn’t been my partner’s ankles.

  Carlos walked in with a 30-pack of Bud and two bags of ice, and kicked the door closed behind him. “Where’s the ice chest?”

  Travis snapped the lid closed on an ammo container that sat among three others on the living room floor. “You walked past it on your way in, dumbass. It’s right outside the door.”

  Carlos retreated with his beer and ice, leaving the front door open behind him. Travis grabbed two of the ammo cans and followed. He said over his shoulder on the way out the door, “Leave those cans; I’ll be back for ‘em.”

  Tina watched him continue toward the van, and then she went to work. She unzipped his “war bag” and pulled his C
olt .45 auto from its holster. She dropped the magazine, racked the slide to eject the live round, and then released the slide forward on an empty chamber. She put the fully-loaded magazine back in the gun, left the hammer back in the cocked position, and thumbed the safety on. It would appear “cocked and locked,” the manner in which he normally carried it, but if he needed it to go “bang,” he’d be in for a surprise. This was the gun he would no doubt wear on his belt while they were in the mountains shooting. Travis loved his Colt .45.

  19

  There were places you could go shooting in the San Gabriel mountains north of Azusa, and there were places you could get lost or get killed or disappear without a trace. Angelenos flocked to the Angeles National Forest via Highway 39 for a variety of reasons. If you were dumping a body, the key was finding a remote area where a hiker or biker wouldn’t stumble upon the evidence. You’d look for a similar place to go shooting if you were a fugitive, and especially if you had murder on your mind.

  Tina hadn’t been in these mountains since she was a kid. During the drive north, she was surprised by the number of cars and trucks and motorcycles traveling in both directions. Cyclists clad in neon-accented tights and sunglasses beneath their helmets crowded the edges of the winding roadway, taking their chances with the motorized outdoor enthusiasts. She knew they would need to get far off of the highway, with people seemingly everywhere.

  She glanced back at her brother who sat with his legs outstretched on the carpeted floor of the van, leaning against a duffle bag. “Hermanito, where did we used to come shoot up here when we were kids?”

  Travis, behind the wheel, glanced toward Carlos. “Yeah, Carlos, where did you and your asshole brothers go chooting when you were just a little vato?” He looked at Tina after he said it, and chuckled.

  “How the hell do I know?” Carlos answered. “You gotta get off the main road somewhere and drive on dirt for a while. There’s all kinds of places.”

  Travis smashed the heel of his hand against the horn and yelled across Tina as they passed a pair of bicyclists. “Get the fuck out of the middle of the road!”

  Tina watched one of the two flip them the bird as they dropped behind the van. She glanced over and was glad to see Travis had apparently not noticed. He was looking in his sideview mirror now, smiling as if he were pleased with himself. The wind rushing through the open window lifted his hair from his shoulders and wrapped his beard around his face and neck. She wondered if he ever planned to cut his hair or shave again and thought it wouldn’t matter if today went the way she had planned. She pictured him on his knees, begging for his life. She’d call him a vato and say “Adios, motherfucker” before putting a cap in his forehead. She was startled by his sudden glance. Though his eyes were concealed by mirrored sunglasses, they seemed to penetrate her. Could he read her mind? Sometimes she wondered.

  “What are you over there thinking about, woman? You aren’t up to something, are you? You and taco back there?”

  She frowned at him and shook her head. “Shut-up, Travis. You’re so stupid sometimes.”

  He laughed and veered toward another cyclist, again slamming his palm against the horn.

  When I got back to my desk, Josie was gone. Our team lieutenant, Joe Black, looked up from his reading and offered a smile and went back to the stack of reports. Brenda Clay, two desks down, had her arm propped on an otherwise uncluttered desk, supporting her head with one hand while holding a phone to her ear in the other. She seemed to be arguing with someone on the other end about something that had been said on Facebook. Troy Walker sat on the other side of her, mesmerized by his computer screen. It appeared he was looking at his department email, but who really knew? The rest of the bureau seemed quiet for a Tuesday afternoon, as if everyone was low on energy or was otherwise occupied. Everyone other than Floyd, who came through the back door with his shades covering his eyes, smiling, a cell phone propped to his ear.

  “I don’t give a shit, call Ghostbusters if it makes you feel better.”

  He was saying goodbye as he veered toward my desk. He slid his phone into his suit coat pocket and pushed his glasses up into his hair. “What’s up, Dickie?”

  “The hell was that all about?”

  “What?”

  “Ghostbusters?”

  He pulled up a chair, so I took my seat and set a cup of coffee on my desk.

  “Margie’s back and it’s driving Cindy nuts.”

  I frowned. “Margie?”

  “Yeah, my grandma.”

  I cocked my head to the side. I’d never heard about Margie before, and we’d been friends and partners for the better part of a quarter-century now. “Oh. You’ve never mentioned her.”

  “There’s not much to talk about, until she comes around. Then, everybody seems to be out of sorts.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because that’s the only time anyone seems to give a shit about her. Otherwise, she’s gone and forgotten and almost never mentioned. Sometimes—holiday dinners and such—she’ll come up in a story about my mom’s family in Texas, or growing up poor, or Grandpa getting thrown in jail for cracking some asshole over the head with his cane—”

  “That explains a few things right there.”

  “—but otherwise, nobody mentions her.”

  I conjured an image in my head of a small but strong Texas woman who wore dresses rather than jeans and had her hair up in a bun. I pictured a log home where clothes hung from a taut rope that had been strung from the porch to a tree over yonder. Chickens scurried about over the dirt and Grandpa rocked in a porch chair with his cane—his weapon—across his lap, a pipe protruding from his gray beard. Maybe a jug by his dirty boots.

  “Do you ever go see her?”

  “No, but she visits us sometimes.”

  “When? And why haven’t I met her?”

  “Whenever the hell she feels like it. We never know when she’s going to show up, Dickie. Or how long she’ll stay or how she’ll behave while she’s here. It drives Cindy fucking crazy, and then Cindy gets all pissed off at me about it, like I have any control over how Margie behaves.”

  “Well, if it’s causing problems with your family, you could ask her to either change her behavior or leave. Family or not, you have that right in your own home.”

  “I never see her.”

  “Well, take some time off, spend a little more time with your family. That’s what I would do if I were you with a cute wife and nice kids. And a grandma visiting.”

  “No, Dickie, you don’t understand what I’m trying to tell you. It’s not that I’m never home, that’s not why I don’t see her. I don’t see her because she’s been dead for twenty-three years.”

  I watched his eyes, looking for something to tell me he was kidding. He wasn’t.

  “But she visits you.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Oh.”

  “I don’t know what the hell to do about it. She comes and goes, does what she wants, and it spooks the hell out of Cindy. Me and the kids think it’s funny.”

  “How do you know when she’s there?” I indulged.

  “Well for one, you can smell her.”

  I held my gaze, waiting for more.

  “She smokes, and you can smell it all over the house when she’s there. Plus, she’ll turn on the TV in the middle of the night or go through the cabinets and leave shit open. What drives me crazy is she’ll turn on lights and not bother turning them off. You wake up in the middle of the night and the kitchen light is on. I’m like, ‘Jesus Christ, Marg, turn the lights out and go to bed, for fuck’s sake.’ ”

  I still didn’t speak. I didn’t know what to say.

  Floyd looked around. “It’s quiet in here today. Where’s your partner?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, and quickly scanned the squad room myself. “She was here earlier, and now—I don’t know man—she’s just gone. Everyone’s being weird today. I’ve got you and your dead grandma, my new crazy partner and her moods . . .
Jesus, even Lopes is up to something, and I suspect it might have something to do with my partner.”

  Floyd laughed. “Well yeah, dipshit. Of course it has something to do with your partner. I’m sure he’s trying to bang her, or he already has.”

  I frowned. “Why do you say that?”

  “They were out drinking last night, down at Fiesta. You do the math.”

  For some reason the comment felt like a slap in the face. “Wait, how do you know that?”

  Floyd stood and lowered his sunglasses over his eyes. It must have seemed bright in the office. “Dickie, you know that I know everything that happens around this place. Especially if it involves punani. You need to pay better attention to the office dynamics, buddy, now that you’ve got a smoking hot partner.”

  He walked away and I glared down the row of desks at Lieutenant Black whose nose remained buried in paperwork. I really didn’t need this.

  Travis and Tina finally agreed on a spot a couple of miles from the main highway down a dirt road. There was a flat, open area with a hillside for a backstop that many others before them had used as an illegal shooting range. There were metal plates, appliances, boards, and miscellaneous junk used as makeshift targets. Broken glass and perforated tin cans littered the clearing near the hillside, and bullet casings and expended shotgun shells were scattered about. They got out and gathered near the side of the van.

  “Carlos, just leave the ammo cans inside. We’ll leave the slider open and reload from there, keep shit from getting dirty.”

  Tina pictured shooting Travis as he stood at the van, reloading and barking orders at Carlos. But to do so would create a crime scene within the vehicle she and Carlos would need to get them home. She’d have to wait until he was away from the van, but she’d also wait until he needed to reload. She wouldn’t take a chance of having this turn into a gunfight. She wanted it to be quick and clean.