TO ANDIE
CONTENTS
Hot Lunch
Bust It, Baby
Scratching the Surface
Heavy Blow
Any Naked Eye
Easy’s Getting Hard
Body English
Backwards from a Forward Point
Lying Low
The Devil’s Bed
Body Language
Madmen on the Water
Devil’s in the Bed
Third Wheel
Heavy Cover
A Hit’s a Hit
On a Dead Sea
Lucking Out
Airtight
Line in the Sand
Kicking Holes in the Night
Between the Lines
After Life
Summer Girl
Little on the Side
French Leave
Easy on the Eyes
Clean-Up Boys
Baling Out
Scoping It
Slipping Through
Balling the Jack
Knuckling Down
Right Thing the Wrong Way
Sitting Tight
Nitty Gritty
Eye on the Prize
Bouncing on the Bottom
Dragline
Eddie on Ice
Dim, Dim the Lights
Down the Barrel
Doos and Don’ts
Ojo por Ojo
Blowing to Brewster
Cinnamon Girl
Going for Takeout
Night on Fire
Horseshoes and Hand Grenades
Easy’s Getting Hard
A Hymn and a Hammer
Eye for an Eye
Little on the Side
Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
. . . HOT LUNCH
“Whoa, you see that?”
Rene Beckman told Danny Green to ease the cruiser around the corner, experienced cop eyes catching a glimpse down the alley. Two guys at the back of the Christian bookstore, a van backed to the loading dock, exhaust puffing from its pipe, middle of the night. Seven years on the force, Beck had it down in seconds.
“What’s up?”
“Bet you a Starbucks there’s no King James in those boxes,” Beck said.
Killing the lights, Danny pulled to a stop, Beck getting out.
“Want me to call it in?” Danny said, feeling on eggshells since Beck nailed two seventeen-year-olds playing Knockout last week: rich white kids preying on inner-city down-and-outs, getting kicks and manhood points by throwing fists at some homeless zombies. The game: drop one with a single punch. Leave them face down and walk away laughing.
Cornered the pair in an alley off Abbott, Beck putting his service Glock to the taller kid’s temple, letting him hear it click, asking which one’s Ali, which one’s Frazier. The kid up on his tiptoes, stain spreading across his chinos. Beck telling him about a new game, calling it Shootout, telling the kid it would start next time he laid eyes on him down in this part of town, letting the pair run off.
Turned out the one he dubbed Frazier — one Warwick Preston — snapped a telling shot with his cell phone. The kid’s doting parents suing the department for brutality, the papers making a media meal of it, the shot of Beck pressing his service piece to Kenny “Ali” Lange’s temple making the front page. The homeless vic faded into the shadows, and Beck was left with only Danny’s word, his duty status under review.
Six months out of training, valedictorian of his graduating class at Depot, Danny Green’s luck had gone straight into the shitter the day he was assigned as Beck’s partner. Backing up every play, he’d been reschooled in looking the other way and keeping his mouth shut, telling the review board no excessive force was used on the two teens playing Knockout, Beck being one righteous cop. Danny knew the kind of career move it would be to say anything different. Six months in, and yeah, Danny was learning the ropes.
That was the second time Beck had been up for review. The first time was on account of the beating he put on a guy a year back for shooting a cat off a tenth-story ledge with a BB gun, greasy fuck sitting in his lawn chair, shooting from the next building over, getting his kicks. With no witnesses, Beck got off clean, but it was different the second time around.
Used to be Beck thought he was taking down crime one asshole at a time, getting it done. But the assholes were springing up faster than the department could put them down, miles of paperwork, review boards and lawyers in pinstripes waiting by their phones.
The worst shit-hole in the country. Seven years working Beat Enforcement, Beck figured they ought to throw yellow tape all around the Downtown Eastside, pull the Listerine drunks from the gutters and find them some housing, stick extra beds in St. Paul’s and detox the junkies. Put up shelters for the battered hookers and pass out meds to the crazies. That or watch it all go to hell.
Now, hand on the mike, Danny caught Beck’s shadow along the top of the alley. Giving up on calling for backup, he flipped on his cap. He got out and went to the mouth of the alley, asking Beck how he wanted to play it.
“Go that way,” was all Beck said, and he took off down the alley. Danny moved along the street — first time he might have to draw his piece, depending what was really happening — felt the sweat under his arms.
Around the east corner of the four-story, Beck unsnapped the holster, his Glock already drawn, safety off. Allowing his eyes to adjust to the dark, he stepped past the garbage, feeling his way along the bricks. At the back corner, he stuck his head out. Light from a streetlamp gave him a bead on the two guys out back of the Jesus Factory, a dark-colored Chevy van backed to the dock, its engine running. The two guys busy loading boxes. A security bulb over the open door, a crowbar against the wall, splintered wood sticking from the jamb, both guys wearing hoodies.
Coming up along the side of the dock with the Glock up, Beck kicked a can with his shoe. Both men turned, one guy dropping his box, hand going under his jacket.
“Wouldn’t do that,” Beck said, had the guy point blank.
Danny Green came around the other side of the dock, barking, “Police. Freeze.” Jumping up the steps, hand on his nightstick, Danny was going by the book, the force-with-force rule about to be his undoing.
The guy still holding the box was shorter, turned to Danny, Danny telling him to set it down. Grabbing the other guy, Beck face-planted him against the bricks, taking his piece, dropping it in his own pocket, saying he wanted to see his hands, yanking his hood off.
The one with the box hesitated as Danny stepped up, hand on the nightstick. Tossing his box at Danny, he let the Converse fly, jumping off the dock and running full out. Danny stumbled over the guns tumbling from the box and went after him.
Snapping on the cuffs, Beck spun his man around, holstering his piece, asking for a name.
“Got them kind of tight,” the guy said, meaning the cuffs, smacking gum behind the stupid grin.
Palming the guy’s forehead, Beck bounced his skull off the bricks, the gum falling out, Beck asked, “That better?”
The guy lost the cute, saying his name was Baldie Jones, throwing in, “You got no cause . . .”
Bouncing his head again, Beck skipped the Miranda speech, saying he was arresting him for being a thieving dickhead — judging by the spilled guns and crowbar by the door, these two were robbing the real gun runners. Beck heard Danny yelling freeze somewhere down the alley.
In pursuit, Danny sprinted, hel
d the nightstick like he was in a relay race, the suspect refusing the baton. The guy jumped up the chain-link at the end, scrambling over the razor wire, getting ripped up and dropping down the far side.
“I’ll shoot,” Danny yelled.
“Right here, bee-ach,” the guy said with some kind of accent, back-pedalling, grabbing his crotch, laughing and running off.
Staring at the razor wire, Danny heard the guy’s feet on the pavement, fucker still laughing. Slipping the stick into his duty belt, Danny walked back, thinking he should have pulled his piece, knowing the shit he’d catch from Beck.
Coming around the corner, the loading dock lit by the single bulb, Danny caught Beck driving a fist into Baldie’s middle and folding him up, the guy going to his knees, hands cuffed behind him. Baldie Jones was puking when the figure sprang from the back of the van, Danny yelling, too late.
Beck had his hand on the Glock, turning.
The bulb over the door lit the face — a woman’s, dark-skinned, her body pressing into him. He felt the blade go through the Kevlar. Beck grabbed at her, going limp, the breath leaving him, looking into her eyes.
Screaming his name, Danny pulled his piece, the figure turning to him, her hood falling off. Danny fired a wild round, killing the single bulb, the night swallowing the scene. No chance for a second shot. And the woman was gone.
Then Danny was cradling Beck’s head, his own Glock down on the dock. “Oh, Christ.” Not sure what to do. Fumbling his handset, Danny told Beck to hang on, calling it in.
The guy Beck cuffed wasn’t waiting around. Baldie got up and started to run, Danny yelling and grabbing his gun, the Hogue grip kicking in his hand. Put one dead center, dropping Baldie Jones.
Danny barked the 10-33 into the mike. “Officer down.” Repeating it.
Spinning down the black hole, Beck caught hold of Danny’s arm, forcing the words through the pain, “Uncuff him.”
It took a moment, Danny putting it together, nodding, taking off the cuffs and grabbing an AK from a crate, putting it next to the guy, sirens coming past the Woodward’s building.
Paramedics rushed Beck off in the ambulance, Danny replaying it for the sergeant on the scene, saying how it went down, FIU snapping photos, a couple more uniforms holding back the late-night looky-loos and news crews.
He told it again downtown. A guy in a suit from the Independent Investigations Office took notes. Looking at his shaking hands, Danny told him it was a woman that stabbed his partner, did his best to describe her. Told how he shot the guy making a play, grabbing for an AK from the spilled crate marked Lord, Teach Me How.
Clicking his pen, the investigator closed his notebook, telling Danny it looked textbook, a righteous shoot, clapping Danny’s shoulder, telling him to try and get some sleep, hoping his partner pulled through. Going out the door, he said there ought to be a citation in it. Danny feeling like he might puke, looking down between his shoes.
. . . BUST IT, BABY
Not another boat, not a sail, not a kayak in sight, quiet for an early Friday evening. Gulls lined the rock outcrop, squawking like it was a social, a seal poking its shiny head up, porpoising, and was gone.
Waves lapped the hull, clouds milled to the north; light westerlies promised to shower the Georgia Strait.
Checking his course along the west side of Pasley Island, Beck kept her about a hundred feet offshore, Popham just due west, Little Popham to the north. Looked like rain up at Hermit. He tapped his hand on the wheel of his Grady-White, a thirty-two-footer he dubbed Triggerfish. His heart was pumping, this girl looking fine, like the Spice Girl that married the soccer star, back in her blonde days. Turned-up nose, bleached hair long in front, cropped in back. The tube top under the designer denim did her justice, shorty shorts, long legs looking oiled. Painted toes in open-toed pumps.
Pumps on a boat.
“Can’t say it was any one thing,” Vicki Moon was saying, crossing her legs on the aft seat, flipping bangs from her eyes for about the hundredth time, the breeze messing with her do, giving her an untamed look. The girl saying, “Things built up, you know how it goes?”
He said he did, turning to look at her, Vicki sipping her lime girly drink, big rock on her finger, telling him how it ended with her ex. She was checking him out: Beck at the wheel with the ball cap, snug roll-up pants, the linen shirt unbuttoned down to the scar, healed after eight months, an angry jagged line.
“Anyway, if I had to put my finger on it . . .” she said, “it started with Dimples.”
“Dimples?”
“Our wiener dog.” Her mouth turned into a smile, found her straw and sipped more drink. “Well, his really, his mother’s until she passed. Was okay at first, then Dean starts holding her up like she’s talking, you know, the way people do with their pets . . .”
“He change his voice, making it cute?” Beck knowing people like that.
“All the time. But nothing cute about it, doing it like that blues guy, John Lee Whoever, making like Dimples was singing.”
“Doing how how how and boom boom boom?”
“Yeah.” She laughed. “Wiener dog doing the blues.” She rubbed her thighs, feeling the chill.
“He do this in front of people?”
“Almost say he lived for it. Family, friends, even took the dog to work. Front of clients, front of everybody.”
Beck tried picturing it. White guy doing John Lee Hooker. “Boogie Chillen” coming out of a wiener dog. She recrossed her legs, Beck not wanting her cold.
Vicki saying, “Heard my share of how how hows, let me tell you.”
Beck aimed the bow at the cove, the Grady-White bobbing through the light chop, wind picking up a little, pushing the rain over Hermit their way. Barbecuing on the boat was out — nice fillet of spring salmon on ice. Would have been, anyway — she told him she was vegan, said she didn’t eat anything that had a pulse.
Told him she knew a vegan place they could get a bite, could go there after.
After.
Pointing out a pod of dolphins feeding on herring, Beck told her the sound was them chuffing through their blowholes. Vicki snapped pics with her cell phone, saying this was going right up on her wall.
Checking her out as she took a shot, Beck was saying, “So Dean doing his John Lee wiener-dog thing, a real mood breaker, huh?”
“You know the final straw?”
“What’s that?”
“Dimples liked to watch.”
“Watch? As in . . .”
“Uh huh. Real little perv.” She looked at him, smiled, then turned and aimed her cell at the dolphins again.
“While you two . . .” He wiggled his fingers, eased up on the throttle.
“Laid right up on the bed, staring the whole way through,” she said, tucking the phone in her bag. “Didn’t even blink.”
“That what they call doggy style?”
“Oh now you’re being bad.”
He swung the bow into the cove, narrow and curved; pines and cedars lined the rock bank, Beck thinking he’d drop anchor around the bend, take her below. Turn on the heater. Man, this could be epic.
“Anyway, I finally put my foot down, had him put Dimples out.”
“Out, as in . . .”
“Not that. Out the French doors, the damn thing yapping and scratching on the other side, clawing at the wood, Dean saying it was messing up his focus . . .” She crooked her finger.
Beck shook his head, steering for the bend.
“Told Dean he was sleeping on the couch, take his wiener with him.”
“Teach him a lesson, huh?” Beck said.
“It just got worse. A month of looking at the back of his newspaper over breakfast, Dean got himself a bachelor close to work, place allowing pets. Couple months in he stopped calling, asking if I locked the door, how I was doing; got himself a new girl, met her at
Price Chopper. Think he liked the way she didn’t speak English.”
“But you got over it?”
“What I got was a lawyer, one with razor teeth. Yeah, then I got over it.”
Beck nodded, knew how those teeth felt, having been bitten a time or two.
Her mouth found her straw. Finishing the drink, she looked at him, saying, “Getting even’s the best part, like therapy. Never having to worry.”
Yeah, this would be epic. Spoiled rich girl with the big rock on her finger. He reached for the Johnnie Walker bottle. Red Label. Unscrewed the cap and took a pull, feeling it burn.
Telling him she did a little acting, nothing big, just enough to kill the boredom, she got up, bopping like there was music. She shrugged out of her denim jacket, letting it drop, eyes closed, hands waving in the air, hips swaying. Putting on a show, dancing to him, she reached around his waist, grinding him into the wheel. “We done talking?”
“Just taking it slow, getting to know each other.”
“Slow’s okay, long as I don’t need to draw you a map.”
“Out here we call them charts.” Beck slipped his hands to her waist, lips on hers, tasting the lime drink.
Vicki letting it happen, ignoring the Old Spice, plenty of time later, teach him to spritz on some Donna Karan.
When they came up for air she forgot about the cold, Beck taking a last chug from the Johnnie, setting the bottle down. Checking the Lowrance — he had fifty feet under the hull. The carcass of a rowboat against the shore, cedar, pine and rock rimming the cove, no cottages out here. Whitecaps out in the channel, light rain tapping on the canvas top, screeching herring gulls circling.
“Little girl’s room?” She pointed below.
“Yeah.” Beck nodded, saying, “Duck going down.”
“Not fair you boys get to do it standing,” she said. Ducking, she went through the twin doors.
Switching to the trolling motor, Beck eased around the bend in the cove, closing the lid on the Weber, one rod still on a rigger. Snapping the line free, he reeled it up, pressed a button and raised the cannonball by the time Vicki was coming back.
Slipping the Hoochie’s treble on a guide, he set the rod back in the holder, the dodger fluttering in the breeze. Turning to her, he slid his hands to her hips.
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