Dangerous Games

by John Shannon

  “Trade you some weed.”

  “You always got lousy yesca, man. What you reading?”

  He grinned. “Beto’s helping me with history after I had to leave Continuation. There’s good stuff to know, man. Gimme that beer.” He actually seemed excited about what he’d read, flipping some pages back and forth. “You know they really fucked over the niggers, even after slave time. They made this secret deal to pull all the soldados out of the South and then the vatos down there put on sheets and scared the niggers to death to stop them voting.”

  “Ese, sounds like that Florida thing.”

  “You don’t know your history, you doomed to have it done to you. That’s what Beto says.”

  “Beto’s a pussy.”

  “No, ese. Just ‘cause he don’t bang don’t mean he ain’t down. He showing me how to get a GED so I can go on up to City. Maybe I could learn computers.”

  “Computers is great, simon. Chente spends half his life on his thing looking at guys getting blown. He showed me some güera with a horse.”

  Thumb laughed and gave his two thumbs-up-and-out gesture. He was double-jointed and had made a little salute of the gesture, pushing the thumbs out from his T-mustache where they just fit. “Ese, I can’t look at that bad shit. I’m still sick from all the jailhouse maldad, guys so horny they wanted to fuck the little wild ratons.”

  “You wanna go hang at Lugo’s?”

  “Nah, man. It’s too close to Greenwood, they see your carrucha.”

  “I got new plates.”

  Thumb shrugged. “I don’ like that barrio. They’re all stuck up. Bluff forever. Insane respect, man.”

  They high fived, and Chuy chugged down his malt liquor and left. Thumb tried to read some more, but his heart wasn’t in it. He got to thinking about that strange morning in Greenwood territory, driving up to that Anglo guy in the yard. It was something of a blank, a teasing aggravating blank. He knew there was something there to be understood. He hadn’t meant to cap at him, hadn’t really been feeling angry or rivalrous at all. It was like the events had had a will of their own, each moment summoning the next. He had an idea about it, almost had an idea, thought he had an idea. He sensed there was a reason. This reason was like an animal waiting to be coaxed forward.

  But in the end there was no room for it inside him and it would not come out of the shadows.

  “How many of the kids you take home, you think stay there?” she asked. She was driving out a dirt two-track toward a ranch south of town where Clyde Hinman supposedly had day work shoveling out a stable.

  “I don’t take them home if I don’t think they’ll stay. I’m not on the job to create repeat business, like some dentist offering the kids lollipops.”

  “It must tick the parents off if you tell them the kid won’t come back.”

  He shrugged. “I think they pretty much know when a kid is past the point of no return. It’s not always a bad thing. But it’s always different, too. Sometimes, I can get them to come home on their own. Allow a little more time. Force a little family communication ‘til all that emotion pours out. Sometimes, you just have to let the rebellion play itself out. Easy to say when it’s not your kid. Mostly, you’ve got to find out what went wrong for the kid, look close at the home life. Nobody runs away from heaven.”

  “They say Satan did.”

  “You believe in that?”

  “No, but all those old stories have got some kind of psychological truth.”

  “I don’t believe in evil, Glor. Just sickness and sick needs in people. There’s no Satan in any kid I’ve seen, even the sociopaths. Calling something evil is just a way of not looking at it. Religious people love not looking at things.”

  She slowed on the dirt road to let a family of quail scurry ahead and then dive abruptly out of her path. The last baby quail looked back, almost as if grinning at its successful challenge to fate.

  “I don’t know, Jack. In my job I’ve seen some pretty bad kids, kids who really like to hurt people, and sometimes their parents seem pretty much normal when you meet them.”

  “Humans move in mysterious ways. I don’t know. Maybe families are always a lot more screwed up than they look. This is all too general for me, Glor. I’m used to thinking in particulars.”

  “Like Ken Steelyard.” This was her former partner who had tried to eat his gun several times and had finally pulled a reverse on the legendary suicide-by-cop ploy of so many barricaded sad sacks. He had committed suicide by bad guy, a former Green Beret. Steelyard had been a childhood friend of Jack Liffey’s, who’d done everything he could to talk him down.

  “We both did our best for him,” he said. “What part of that tangled mess would you like to call evil?”

  “Maybe just something behind the scenes, pulling strings.”

  “Nah. Ken’s misery was born of everything that happened to him from age three on. There’s no horned red devil in the bushes. In a way, I failed him, and you too. We failed him by not figuring out what he needed, but maybe that kind of failure is inevitable. We tried. He wouldn’t take antidepressants because he was afraid it would get around the office and kill his reputation as a tough guy. How can you ever know enough about someone?”

  “I can’t figure out whether you’re profound or just naïve.”

  He laughed. “If one of those alternatives makes you upset, or pisses you off, I’m the other one. That must be the ranch.”

  It was easy to see where the horseshit was being shoveled. A small trailer rested at the wide entry to a stable, and now and then a mass of mucky dirt and hay hovered just in sight before dropping smokily into the trailer bed. Gloria parked to one side, and they slammed the doors hard enough to announce themselves.

  In the dimness, a huge bare-chested man coughed once and took a break, leaning on a large flat-bladed spade, his face and shoulders covered with sweat. He had no hair at all and looked like a cartoon wrestler from the waist up, though he had to prop his skinny braced legs against the stall walls.

  Jack Liffey felt himself back on the track of a missing child. He knew what he was doing now, and there was always a returning grace in that.

  “Clyde Hinman?” Jack Liffey asked.

  “Who wants to know?” There was an over-the-top belligerence in his voice.

  They introduced themselves as a relative of Nellie’s and a friend, looking for Luisa. It was fairly easy to see him stiffen at the name Luisa.

  “I didn’t do nothing.”

  “We’re not vice cops, Mr. Hinman. If she came to your bed, it’s none of our business.”

  “Screw you, city boy.”

  “We don’t mean you any harm, sir. We just want to ask you a few questions about her.”

  Abruptly, the big man swung his spade hard at Jack Liffey’s head. He ducked, which threw the man off balance, and he staggered a few steps in his braces. Magically, Gloria Ramirez had her pistol out, the black Glock. He wasn’t even aware she’d had it under her jacket all this time, but he remembered it was L.A.P.D. policy to have its sworn personnel armed at all times.

  “Freeze. Now.”

  “Jeezus!” He dropped the spade as he caught his balance and staggered back a step. Jack Liffey noticed he was wearing what looked like a whole embalmed garlic bulb on a leather thong around his neck. He wondered if there was a vampire problem in the valley.

  “Mr. Hinman,” Gloria said evenly, “would you like to spend the next thirty days locked away for assault?”

  He didn’t say a word, but his eyes bored into her, seeking an opening.

  “I suggest you sit, right there on that mound of horseshit. Now. I’m a cop, and I can drop you where you stand, and no one will ever question it.”

  There was a degree of authority in her voice that amazed Jack Liffey. He’d seen her toughen up before but never quite like this. The big man looked unhappy but did as ordered. He tried to cushion himself with his arms but sank into the mound of horseshit.

  “Tell us about Luisa,” she said.


  “Friggin’ little bitch.” He glared back at her.

  While she was questioning him, Jack Liffey noticed something in a corner of the stable and went to look. It was a paper bag that was all greasy inside, containing a spray can of PAM. No wonder he was so belligerent, he thought. That stuff ate brain cells. He’d thought only gang wannabes, junior high delinquents and such did spray. Then he remembered the banana oil smell of Testor’s Model Airplane Dope when he was a kid, and he could still feel a faint afterglow of that feeling that said all was right with the world, and he wondered if that was why he’d liked making model airplanes so much. He took out the can and sprayed it empty into the air; the big man looked over angrily. Gloria Ramirez still looked like she was about to shoot, and Jack Liffey wandered back.

  “Did you ever get yourself so sprayed up you tried to give the girl a poke?” Jack Liffey asked.

  The man gave him the finger, wiggled it, then sucked on it.

  “Let’s go,” Jack Liffey said. “This guy hasn’t got enough brain left to remember.”

  “I’ll remember your sorry ass, city boy. You and the fat bitch here. I’ll get you some dark night.”

  “She’s not fat. Hell, just shoot him,” Jack Liffey asserted.

  The other two both looked a little shocked, but she got it first. “Good idea,” she said.

  “I’ll say he attacked you.”

  “Hey—you can’t do that.”

  “What’ll we say? He got all sniffed up, tried to kill me with a shovel. You saved my life. Go on, shoot him.”

  Clyde Hinman turned impudently to face her. “Okay, fuckin’ shoot me, bitch.”

  “I wouldn’t dirty my bullets.” She lowered the pistol and began walking back to the car, but she didn’t holster it.

  “One thing,” Jack Liffey said. “What’s the garlic for?”

  The shirtless man looked down at the pendant as if seeing it for the first time. “The bad smell keeps off flies,” he said.

  “How can they tell?” Jack Liffey said.

  FIVE

  Wuthering Heights

  Somebody had left a poster of a huge frog’s face with bug eyes and a pink tongue on the side of the cubicle, just out of sight of the little camera on top of the monitor.

  “The clock will kick in right here when you hit the button to take a customer.” His finger rapped the spot on the screen where it said 00:00:00. “After a minute, you got to make them come up with a credit card number somehow. At first, you let on it’s just to verify their age, but after three minutes you tell them about the charges. Actually, the charges start at a minute and a half. They’ll never know the difference. The clock turns yellow when the money’s rolling. Lovey-Dove, Inc., don’t get squat, and you don’t get squat before you see that turn yellow. So hook ‘em in or you’re just wasting your breath. Show a little skin, show your bra, write what the skeezes want to hear.”

  Luisa settled back in the steno chair wearing the weird peekaboo nightgown and black underwear Keith’s friend Donna had given her. She was feeling very strange and out of sorts, but somehow not frightened. Possibly, because there was a whole row of similar cubicles where a wall had been taken down between two bedrooms, and other girls were sitting in front of other monitors in an eery kind of silence, punctuated by the chipmunk chittering of keyboards, coughs, and sighs.

  She knew how to type, so they started her here, but Keith said if she did good he might have them move her up to an audio booth—she had the voice for it. He kept disavowing any personal financial stake in the business. He said he was only functioning as her business manager, to keep her away from the kinds of things Rod had her doing. He pointed to the words Hi, My name is Ginger. Do you want to see more of me? on a section of the screen.

  “All you got to do is click on the words and they move into your outgoing screen here. Saves you time. There’s dozens of scripts in here for all sorts of guys who want you to take it off, or show your breasts or use the aids there.” A row of pink and black and silver penises waited like good soldiers on a shelf. “Click on one of the keywords, and you get a different script.”

  A little menu of keywords down the side said:

  credit card

  credit card insist

  show you

  talk dirty

  be my friend

  you do something

  my tits

  my pussy

  my ass

  dick size

  toys

  up the ass

  sucking

  licking

  biting

  toes

  mommy

  sister

  boys

  my fantasy

  pleasure words

  “Get the skeeze writing back to you. Find out his name. You can add it to your answer before you send. Makes it personal. The longer you keep the guy online the bigger your percentage. A good prick-tease can make fifty bucks an hour, maybe more. Why don’t you peek over the curtain and watch how some of the other girls work it for a while. I’ll come back to get you later. Don’t worry about anything. I need to see a man about a plan.”

  The instant he closed the door behind him, there was a wave of hisses, rude noises, and other sounds rippling through the cubicles.

  “Kiss my ass, Keithie,” said a throaty woman’s voice nearby. “I got a good fart coming.”

  “Oh, the goose walk fine, the monkey drank wine,” somebody warbled.

  “Tease this, you big twerp.”

  “Welcome to Lovey-Dove, hon,” said a calmer voice, right next door, and Luisa could tell it was meant for her. “What’s your name?”

  She stared at the My name is Ginger still up on the screen. “Luisa.”

  “Welcome, Luisa. Next one of us on a break will—” The woman’s voice broke off abruptly, then came back a few seconds later. “—take care of you. These cameras snap you every 20 seconds, and you got to get used to getting back into a pose quick, like you’re in the mood. Guys don’t want to catch you picking your nose.”

  There were several laughs.

  “This guy would eat my snot, that’s for sure.”

  “Don’t think I haven’t had guys ask to eat snot.”

  “How much can the camera see?” Luisa asked.

  “You’ll see. Ooops!” Pause. “When you key on, you’ll see the camera shot of yourself in a window at the bottom. A little red light gives you two seconds to get ready for the snap.”

  “Don’t go spending that fifty bucks an hour right away,” another woman called out, which was greeted with guffaws. “Twenty-five, a good hour, that’s tops. Hello, you stupid little momma’s boy creep, you like seeing these?”

  “Stay away from Dangerous Games, kid,” someone called, with real concern in her voice. “Whatever else some prickhead pimp like that offers, say no to DG.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Just stay away, believe me.”

  There was a roar of laughter all at once from the far end of the line of cubicles. “I got a guy wants me to call him needle-dick.”

  “The first honest skeeze today.”

  The girl had agreed to meet them out at Frog Rock after sundown. She told them to head out County Road toward the hills and they’d know.

  They speculated on why she wanted to meet them at such an obscure place, and not until evening, but Clyde’s maniacal shovel assault might have had something to do with it. They passed a pokey little county campground, with spindly year-old trees and RV spaces laid out bumper to bumper. There was only one RV visible, a truck-mounted camper, and a man and boy had long ropes lashed to the top of it and were rocking it as if trying to pull the whole vehicle over.

  “Man, let’s give that one a miss,” Jack Liffey said. “It’s not your precinct.”

  “L.A. doesn’t have precincts. We have divisions.”

  “You know what I mean. Anyway, what do you think Clyde’s problem is?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “You do enough police w
ork, you see Clydes. Some of the guys call them F-DODAs. It stands for fatal dose of dumb-ass. There’s no knowing what they’ll do. These are the guys who’re permanently pissed off and so crazy they can’t even get it together to take it out on the wife. They shoot their own toes off. I had one once took a bet he’d put a pistol in his ear and pull the trigger. He won, but he’ll never collect. It’s a little worse among the poor because it’s all that much closer to the surface when you’re out of money. I think some of the projects, we’d be best off sending a crop duster over Friday nights and spray them with thorazine, calm everybody down.”

  Jack Liffey thought for a moment. “I’ve seen my share of anger. But there’s usually a logic somewhere.”

  “Trust me, Jack. There’s a large segment of the population that doesn’t live in your world.”

  “Maybe like the guy who shot Maeve.” His lips tightened.

  “Sure. Maybe that banger didn’t like your looks. Maybe he just got a new pistol with a hair-trigger. Maybe he didn’t know how to use it. We’ll get him, but it doesn’t mean we’ll find out why.”

  “I really would like to know. I realize it’s a possibility we’ll never find out, but it makes me nervous to think things might be utterly random.”

  “There,” she said, nodding. There was no way to miss Frog Rock. It had probably looked a lot like one to begin with, but someone had got at it with green and black paint to make sure you got the joke.

  “Jesus, that’s ugly.” The rock was embayed in a recess in the weathered range of low hills, as if left behind after a parade had passed by. A fire-red 1956 Thunderbird, the model with the little porthole, was parked on the dirt just beyond the frog. It even had whitewall tires.

  “That’s her dad’s, for sure,” Jack Liffey said. “No kid would value that car enough for the headaches.”

  “Don’t be hasty,” Gloria suggested. “Kids do funny things.” She parked beside the T-bird and they got out and introduced themselves to Barbara Thigpen, who was sitting on the fender of the car. The black girl would have been quite pretty with about fifty fewer pounds, but she was wearing a mini-skirt that left nothing about her thighs to the imagination. Still, that was her business, he thought. She wasn’t much heftier than Gloria.