Nature of the Game

by James Grady

  The machine held nothing about Jud. As Nick began to understand the world to which Jud admitted him, he’d vetoed any inclination to take notes. It was dangerous for the people Nick met to even think he’d taken notes, kept records.

  “Even I wasn’t that green,” he told the computer.

  Of course he’d taken notes on specific journalism stories Jud fed him, including the one that sent a grim Deputy Secretary of Defense scurrying to Peter Murphy’s office with a national security plea for Peter to kill Nick’s story. Peter did.

  The tree limbs waved in the wind, wiped a decade away.

  And Nick remembered the ten thousand swimming pools of Los Angeles glistening below his jetliner like turquoise flakes in a gravel patch. The smell of his leather jacket in the cool metal air of the plane. The drone of the engines and the pressure in his ears as the flight sank toward the city.

  The fat man sitting next to Nick fanned himself with Time magazine. The cover featured the Shah of Iran and the CIA’s failure to predict the revolution that deposed him. Nick wondered if Jud would finally tell him about his Iran days; if he was doing anything now about the fifty-two American hostages the Ayatollah Khomeini had grabbed in November. Time magazine wondered if the hostages would be home before the end of 1979.

  “You going to L.A. for Christmas vacation?” said the businessman, eyeing Nick’s blue jeans, sports shirt, and sweater, the leather flight jacket on his lap. “Go to college in D.C.?”

  “I’m going out on business,” answered Nick.

  “Yeah? I work for TRW. You know them?”

  “Yes,” said Nick. TRW supplied the CIA’s spy satellites. Four years earlier, in 1975, a dreamer named Chris Boyce went to work for TRW, saw cable traffic on the CIA’s interference with Australian politics and labor movements, grew disillusioned with his country, and along with his friend Daulton Lee, who needed to support his heroin habit, sold American secrets to the Soviets.

  The plane wobbled, descended.

  “Great place, TRW. Who do you work for?”

  “I’m a writer. A reporter, too, but I’m on a sabbatical and I doubt I’ll go back.”

  “Do your own thing, huh?”

  “Something like that.”

  “What’s in L.A.?”

  “A producer who likes an idea of mine.”

  “You going to write a movie?”

  “I’m going to try.”

  “Bet you get to meet all the blondes!”

  “That’s not my end of the business,” said Nick.

  “You married?”

  “No.”

  “Hell, then you should be in hog heaven in L.A.”

  A sudden acceleration sucked them back in their seats.

  “What hotel are you staying in?” asked the fat man.

  “I’m staying with a friend.”

  How smart was that? Nick wondered. How safe? and could he have said no to Jud’s insistent hospitality?

  No problem, thought Nick. He knew what he was doing. Sure he did. Seeing Jud … That edge, that intoxicating, enlightening edge. Seeing Jud, he could walk along it cool and walk away clean with savvy and stories he could earn no other way. That was his job, that was what he was supposed to do, wasn’t it?

  Besides, Jud was his friend. On the day that plane brought Nick to L.A., he’d known Jud three years. There’d been three different “bases” for Jud, though he always kept in touch: that first year when he lived in D.C., the next year when Jud was in Miami, and now this third year, when Jud was in L.A. Nick always took his calls, caroused with him during his visits when men in sunglasses and suits followed them until Jud got bored and shook the tail. As a Washington reporter, Nick knew dozens of allegedly powerful, fascinating people, but they all lived and worked in sterile worlds of paper and rhetoric. Jud was a man at the end of their abstractions; his hands were the squeeze of power. Nick’s colleagues had begun to warn him about his mystery monster. Nick told them he knew what he was doing; that learning from and about Jud was his job; that Jud was his friend.

  Or at least a magnet Nick couldn’t resist.

  The stewardess announced the final approach. The landing gear locked into place. Nick watched the shadow of his plane skim over flat roofs, endless streets.

  “What’s your friend do?”

  “Yeah,” said Nick.

  The plane bounced twice, roared along the runway.

  “Welcome to Los Angeles,” the stewardess announced over the intercom, “where the correct local time is six P.M.”

  At the gate, Jud stepped out from the shuffling crowd, big as a bear, broad shoulders and massive chest straining a white shirt, blue jeans and cowboy boots. He crushed Nick’s hand in the 1960s brotherhood grip, frowned when Nick said he’d checked a bag.

  “Always carry what you got,” Jud told him. “But don’t worry about it. You didn’t know.

  “I got things to do before we head home,” said Jud as they walked through the parking lot. “Lorri will be there.”

  “You serious about her?”

  Jud laughed, nodded to a midnight-blue Chevrolet Impala parked beside a Mercedes. “In L.A., nobody steals a Chevy.”

  He threw Nick’s bag in the Chevy’s trunk.

  “Guess who it’s registered to?” said Jud.

  Nick shrugged.

  “The lay leader of a Mormon church!” He laughed, tapped Nick on the chest. “Ain’t it a gas?”

  As they drove out of the parking lot, Nick asked, “Are you working for the same lock company as the last time I was here?”

  “Those days are over,” said Jud.

  “What are you doing now?”

  Jud looked at him sideways; smiled slowly.

  “You’re still with the Company?” guessed Nick.

  “Did you think I ever left them?” said Jud.

  They laughed.

  “We have an understanding,” said Jud.

  “Do they know about me?”

  “They know what I want them to,” said Jud.

  “No problems,” he added. “Haven’t I always covered you?”

  The beeper clipped to Jud’s belt went off. Jud checked the digital readout as he drove, frowned. He scanned the streets. Saw a gas station in the block ahead.

  “Just be a minute,” he said as he parked, ambled to the pay phone on the gas station wall.

  Sunset colored the world crimson as Nick sat in the car and Jud made his call. Two young gas station attendants laughed and snapped at each other with oil rags. Traffic whizzed by on the busy street leading to the airport. Jud hung up.

  Drove back into traffic the direction they’d come.

  “We have to meet a man,” said Jud. “I don’t have time to drop you off.”

  “Who?”

  They drove three blocks before Jud answered.

  “One of my men,” he said. “Works for me.”

  “Can I ask doing what?”

  “You can ask,” said Jud. Nick knew it should have been a laugh line, but Jud’s voice was flat. He stared through the windshield. No jokes, no stories, no lectures.

  The world rushed past Nick’s window.

  The road they were on cut through an industrial wasteland surrounded by the glitter of L.A. City blocks gave way to open land imprisoned in barbed wire fences. They drove past white oil tanks. The hills turned gray with the shadows of twilight. Streetlights along the highway glowed. Jud turned on his car lights. He took a right off the main road, drove past green iron oil pumpers, their outstretched metal arms seesawing in a steady, unyielding beat. In the smog rushing past his open car window Nick smelled bare earth. The breeze was cool.

  The road curved like a banking plane. Jud took a right onto the paved lot in front of a tin shack. A bare bulb glowed above the shack’s padlocked door. In the lot, a watch light on top of an aluminum pole dropped a pale cone of light to the cracked asphalt. A black motorcycle waited inside the light.

  “Is that his?” whispered Nick.

  Jud parked by the bike, s
hut off his engine.

  Unseen oil pumpers beat a steady whump-whump whump-whump.

  “Keep your hands out of your pockets,” Jud said casually as they got out of the car.

  Nick complied. Instinct drew him around to Jud’s side.

  Gravel crunched in the night. From the darkest shadows at the edge of the shack emerged the shape of a man.

  “Be cool!” whispered Jud. Louder, he called, “Dean! It’s okay! This is Nick. Remember me talking about Nick? The writer?”

  “I remember.”

  The man shape walked closer, stayed outside the light.

  “Nick’s visiting from D.C.,” said Jud. “Old friends.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that.”

  Dean stepped into the light. He was about thirty, six feet plus of dense muscle and long simian arms. Nick saw his gun. And his eyes.

  The gun was a revolver. Dean’s leather jacket was unzipped, clear of the pistol stuck in Dean’s black jeans. Guns are the girders of American fantasies, and fantasies were Nick’s business. He’d grown up with guns, hunting rabbits in the fields of Michigan. Guns didn’t scare him.

  “Here we are,” said Dean.

  In Dean’s eyes, Nick heard the crackle of burning flesh.

  “You’ve got trouble,” said Jud. “The LAPD knows about your damn hobby. They’re watching. They don’t have your name, but they want to take you down.”

  “Their problem.”

  “Your problem. They try it, my problem.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “I don’t worry,” said Jud. “I take care of trouble before trouble gets worse. You’re fucking up, endangering our operation for nut bar games. I won’t tolerate that. Get real.”

  The two men stared at each other. Dean’s face was smooth. Handsome. He smiled.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “I covered your ass on this one,” said Jud. “Me. Because you’re a friend of mine. Don’t forget it.”

  “Sure.”

  “Everything else all right?”

  “Eddie won’t be a problem anymore.”

  “Good,” said Jud. “We’ll talk about it later.”

  Dean’s gaze floated in the emptiness beyond Nick and Jud.

  “Nice night.” Dean sniffed the air. “Cool. People on the streets.”

  “So what’s your new number?” said Jud.

  “You got a pen?”

  Jud didn’t.

  “You’re a writer?” Dean said to Nick. “Make up books?”

  Nick nodded. Dean handed him a pen.

  “It’s good making it up, isn’t it?” said Dean. “Making things be what you want them to be.”

  “I like my work,” answered Nick.

  “Yes,” said Dean. “Work. Ever go to a morgue?”

  The oil pumps kept up their steady beat while Nick groped for an answer.

  “No,” he finally said.

  “Oh.” Dean smiled. “Got something to write on?”

  Jud slapped his pockets, came up empty. Nick found nothing also, then remembered the address pages of his wallet.

  “Here,” he said, opening the black billfold.

  “It’s all right for you to be afraid,” whispered Dean.

  A tumbleweed bounced across the parking lot.

  “He’s got me,” said Jud. He kept his voice flat, his hands still, and his eyes on Dean. “What’s there to be afraid of?”

  “Life is a big thing,” said Dean.

  “Tell us your number,” ordered Jud.

  Dean dictated a number Nick wrote on the C page.

  “Somebody’s coming,” said Dean, his eyes focused on the road.

  Nick and Jud stared at the distant headlights.

  “Everybody stay put,” said Jud.

  The oil pumpers beat a steady whump-whump.

  The air by Nick shifted. He turned, looked: Dean had vanished. He and Jud stood alone in the glow of the yard light; two men, a Chevy, and a motorcycle.

  “Shit!” hissed Jud.

  The headlights on the road followed the curving loop toward them. When the car turned onto the asphalt lot, they saw flasher lights mounted on the roof, lettering on the doors, and the waving black line of a whip antenna.

  “Me,” ordered Jud, “it’s all me.”

  Nick’s heart beat furiously against his ribs. Dampness cooled his back, but his neck and forehead were hot.

  Play it out, he told himself. Play it out and it will be fine. Too late for another choice.

  The car rolled into the cone of light, stopped ten feet from Nick and Jud, blinding them with its headlights. Two car doors slammed and a radio crackled. The headlights died.

  “Well,” said the older of the two men who climbed out of the car, “what do we got here?”

  They wore gray shirts, badges. Holstered revolvers.

  “Rent-a-cops,” whispered Jud.

  “What’d you say?” snapped the younger hired gun.

  The sign on their car door read GUARD-ALL SECURITY.

  “What are you doing here?” yelled Jud.

  “No, man!” whined the younger guard. In cowboy boots, he was a head shorter than Nick and Jud. His fingers drummed on his holster. “That’s our question! This is our job. Our turf.”

  “Easy, Tom.” The older man leaned against the patrol car. “Tom’s a tiger. Gotta hold tight to his leash.”

  “So I see,” said Jud.

  “You boys are on oil company property,” said the older guard. He spit tobacco juice on the ground by Nick’s feet.

  “We didn’t see any signs,” said Jud. “Sorry.”

  “What’s the matter with him?” Tom nodded toward Nick. “Cat got his tongue?”

  “He’s shy.”

  “What about you, tough guy?” said Tom.

  Weeds crackled in the shadows.

  Tom whirled, his hand on his gun as he peered through the darkness toward Hollywood’s distant glow.

  “You hear something?”

  “Yeah,” replied the older man. “Werewolves.”

  “The moon ain’t right.” Tom laughed. “Maybe we should get us some silver bullets.”

  “So, boys,” the older guard said to Nick and Jud, “what are you doing in nowhere-ville?”

  “Minding our own business,” said Jud.

  “What is that, ‘xactly?” The old guard spit again. “This close to the airport, you running dope?”

  He waited, but Jud said nothing.

  “Nah, I don’t figure you two pretty boys for that.”

  “Let me ask ’em, Win,” whined Tom.

  Behind the two men, by the shack, Nick saw a shadow move.

  “I figure you for the bike,” said Win, nodding to Jud.

  “Sure,” said Jud.

  “Piece of shit.” Tom stepped toward the motorcycle.

  “Don’t touch the machine.” Jud’s words were jagged ice.

  Tom’s fingers brushed his gun butt. “You can’t tell me what to do!” His whine trembled.

  Dean stepped into the glow of the bulb above the shack’s door. Behind the guards. His long arms hung down his sides; his hands were empty. He was smiling.

  “What do you want?” said Jud. Nick knew he saw Dean, too.

  “We get what we want,” chimed in Tom.

  “Since you ain’t answering our questions,” drawled Win, “since you’re red-handed caught trespassers, maybe we should radio the sheriff, get a cruiser out here to find out what’s what.”

  Dean slowly drew his revolver.

  Stop it! Nick wanted to scream. I’m a reporter! A writer! I’m not in this! They’re not killing us! They’re doing their job!

  “You don’t want to do that!” Jud called out loudly.

  “Why not?” snapped Tom.

  Gun dangling from his right hand, Dean grinned.

  “He, ah …,” stuttered Jud. He hung his head, shyly flicked his hand toward Nick. “He’s got a wife.”

  “So what?” said Tom.

  “Ah,” said Win,
narrowing his eyes.

  “We needed someplace quiet. To meet. Talk.”

  Win smiled. “Ain’t you heard of the telephone?”

  Jud pointed his face to the ground, but his eyes stayed on the two guards; on the man with the gun behind them.

  “Please,” whispered Nick. Bolster the scam.

  “You sweethearts make me sick,” said Win. “Too cheap for a motel.”

  “Creeps!” hissed Tom, getting it at last.

  “Seems like there’s lots of laws you’re bustin’,” said Win. “Sheriff will love running you in.”

  “This is California. Nobody prosecutes that.”

  “They don’t have to prosecute a fellow to make him pay.” Win smiled. Spit tobacco juice.

  Behind them, Dean let his gun hand float up. He sank into the two-handed-grip, horse-riding combat stance.

  “We’re okay!” Jud yelled.

  “Then what the fuck are you doing here?” Win yelled back.

  “Ten bucks,” Jud said quickly.

  “What?” said Win.

  “Ten bucks. We’re doing nothing you care about. Ten bucks, your boss never knows you’ve been bonused.”

  “You think that’s what we’re worth?” said Win. “Or is that what you’re worth?”

  Tom snickered.

  “So we got a deal,” Jud said loudly.

  “What are you shouting for?” asked Win.

  Dean’s face twisted into a slack-jawed grin. His mouth worked as though he were panting or whistling, only no sounds came from his thick lips. He sank lower into his stance.

  Thumbed back the revolver’s hammer with a loud snick.

  “You hear something?” said Tom. He started to turn.

  “Twenty bucks!” yelled Nick.

  Tom locked on him.

  “Here!” Hands shaking, Nick pulled a bill from his jeans. “Twenty bucks. Go. Leave us alone.”

  His trembling hand held the money toward Tom.

  “I want the big guy to give it to me.” Tom smiled.

  Jud slowly took the twenty-dollar bill from Nick’s hand. He held it high where Dean couldn’t miss it. Jud kissed the bill, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it to the ground by Tom’s cowboy boots.

  Nick watched Dean’s body tremble; watched his face contort. The gun was steady.

  “I’ll pick up a fool’s money any day,” said Tom. He scooped up the bill and stuck it in his shirt pocket.

  “Let’s go, Tom.” Win edged backward toward the driver’s door. Tom kept his eyes on Nick and Jud as he backed to the car, climbed in.