There was the Circle K convenience store and filling station that had suffered more armed robberies than the diseases carried by the meth-smoking hookers who worked out of the rear bathrooms.
And then there was the intersection of South Normandie and West El Segundo. Once when Lucky had gotten lost, training officer Bledsoe had made his wet rookie shinny up a pole and read the street names out loud for the whole block to hear.
“Driveway right there?” remarked Lucky. “Was workin’ alone when I jammed some Crips there. They were slingin’ rock down the street and hadda go back to that house for a resupply.”
“Jammed?” asked Andrew.
“Sort of a surprise stop.”
“What they do?”
“One popped off at me with a nine mil. Fucked up my windshield good. They ran up the drive.”
“And?”
“Knocked one down in the hedge over there. Other one I punched a coupla holes through while he was tryin’ to get his key in the lock.”
“You shot ’em?”
“Shot at me first.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“You kill ’em?”
“Naw,” replied Lucky, turning with just the heel of his left palm. “Shoulda. Ass clowns both up and sued me, the department, the Sheriff, the county supervisors.”
“After they shot at you?”
“Lawyers,” Lucky deadpanned.
He spun the wheel in the opposite direction, wheeling the Crown Vic into a residential alley. Another shortcut. With his right hand, he reached back into the small of his back and withdrew his model 1911 point forty-five cal and left it cradled across his thigh. Andrew didn’t miss the sudden glint of stainless steel.
“Expecting something…”
“Nope. Just force of habit.”
The alley was coming to an end at another street. When Lucky’s vehicle cleared the pair of flanking fences, the car would be quickly exposed. So Lucky re-gripped the weapon, leveling the muzzle at his own door panel while leaning forward and looking past Andrew out the passenger side window.
It was a tidy bit of tradecraft. And not at all lost on Andrew. He was at once impressed, shocked, and taken aback that there he was, seated alongside this cop who, based on his actions, was prepared to release a torrent of gunfire at the mere hint of real danger.
“That bad of a neighborhood?” asked Andrew.
“Down this way?” said Lucky. “It’s all bad.”
After ten or so minutes working a square mile grid, Lucky found what he was looking for—a Sheriff’s black-and-white carrying two uniformed deputies. The detective waved them down and flipped a U-turn to come alongside them on a north/south boulevard. Lucky identified himself as a cop out of Lennox looking to connect with the Carson crew chasing guns that night. A radio call later revealed the team was ten-seven at Jimmy J’s, an all-night taco stand known to give discounts to any first responder with a badge or uniform. Lucky was well acquainted with the joint as a Carson station cafeteria. He thanked the deputies before spinning the Crown Vic’s power steering until the muscle car was roughly aimed in the direction of the nearest carne asada burrito.
The original Jimmy J’s was little more than a hot cart that James Javier would roll from his Carson hovel to a busy corner. After his day job fixing transmissions on city busses, he’d serve homemade soft tacos and burritos from 5:30 in the evening until he ran out of the fresh tortillas and various fillings his wife Marta had prepared. Forty-four years later, Jimmy J’s was still a family business. The hot cart had turned into a full kitchen and a walkup window housed in a yellowing shack with a huge awning boasting neon-lit fiesta-colored signage. The illuminated T-A-C-O-S sign practically jutted into the intersection, the five blazing letters flanked by the faded cursive Jimmy J’s. Yet, after nearly half a century, the only seating was the four outdoor picnic tables permanently chained to ten-inch eyehooks anchored in the city sidewalk.
Before Lucky had parked the Crown Vic, he had already spotted the six Carson detectives who made up the gun crew. And there was nothing undercover about them. Each wore jeans, running sneakers, and a leather or rain-repellent jacket cut at the waist for easy access to their weapon. They were packed into a single picnic table like aluminum cans in a six-pack.
“Now you stay put,” ordered Lucky, placing the car in park but leaving the engine running.
“Tagged along all the way down here and you won’t let me go the final thirty yards to cross the street?” complained Andrew.
“Something like that,” was all Lucky said. He cut short the argument by climbing out and slamming his door shut before Andrew could form another sentence.
Lucky waited on westbound traffic before crossing without the benefit of a crosswalk or green light. In order to beat the east-moving cars, Lucky had to plant a toe and trot to the opposite curb. It was as if a piano string in his back had been plucked with a half-dollar, releasing a shock of pain that radiated down his right leg all the way to his Achilles.
Sonofabitch…
The trot turned into a semi-skip better resembling that of a lame street dog. And though he made it safely across the four-lane, he had to pause once he stepped up onto the curb, hug the lamppost and let his right leg hang to the toe until the hurt eased. He wondered if that was his sciatic nerve, informing him that early old age was a strong probability if he didn’t take on physical therapy with more seriousness than doing curls with a cup of Starbucks.
“Any of you guys Mike Blumenthal?” began Lucky once he was able to ease up on the picnic table without appearing like a complete gimp.
“Who’s askin’?” said the detective nearest him. He was the thickest of the sextet, seated at the end of the bench with half a cheek hanging over.
“Name’s Lucky. Used to be outta Lennox.”
“I heard of you,” said the cop with the caterpillar eyebrows and matching mustache. The wire-thin cop was squeezed into the center of the bench, taking up less seat space than the average eight-year-old. “Didn’t you shuffle your shit off to some boondocks backwater?”
“Worked in Kern for a few years,” said Lucky. “Now I’m just waitin’ for the reassignment to go through.”
“You put in again for Lennox?” asked the mustache.
“Soldier where they send me,” said Lucky.
“I hear that,” said the detective at the end, an average looking Joe with a strong jaw and his wedding ring on his left pinky. He toasted Lucky with his bottle of imported Mexican Coca-Cola. “I’m Mikey Blumenthal. You the guy lookin’ for that dancer girl?”
“That’d be me.”
“What dancer girl?” queried the cop with the massive shaved head which looked even more humongous in a Oakland Raiders fleece beanie.
“We talkin’ honey-strippers?” chimed the cop with the caterpillar mustache.
“Bar mitzvah,” said Blumenthal.
“You went to a bar mitzvah with strippers?” joked the one colored man in the crew. “Sign me up for a conversion to Blumey’s tribe.”
Lucky graded the darker cop as a Samoan deputy he’d met once before—a former rugby player with cauliflower ears. Probably a Mormon boy, thought Lucky. Part of the department’s good families make good cops recruitment program.
“You’d have to be circumcised,” barked the thick cop to the Samoan.
“What the hell?” said the caterpillar cop. “What’s a black dude who can’t afford to give a few inches for a new religion?”
“This kinda black dude,” laughed the Samoan cop. “Us island negroes don’t got no dick to spare.”
While the crew guffawed at their own clever banter, Lucky was hanging back, letting the conversation ride. He knew better than to wedge his own agenda into their precious lunch break. And the conversation was guaranteed to come back around to the outsider anyway.
“Forget about Mikey’s little dick,” said the beefy one. I wanna know how strippers make the card at a Bar mitzvah.”
&nbs
p; “Not strippers,” insisted Blumenthal. “Just hot little dance asses to get the party jumpin’.”
“But hot enough to be strippers?” confirmed average Joe.
“Hot enough,” corrected Blumenthal. “The young blondie thing? Wayyyy hotter. Ain’t that right, Lennox?”
“Just here to find out the when and where,” centered Lucky. “Who were the hosts of the party? Maybe I get a phone number?”
“So why’s she on your radar?”
“Runaway,” said Lucky.
“And who’s got the Lennox boys chasin’ little blonde runners?”
“Not on the job,” said Lucky. “Side gig. That’s all.”
Lucky’s eyes lifted over Blumenthal’s head and sharpened his focus to the walk-up window. That’s where he spotted Andrew, right hand stuffed in his khaki pocket and fishing for enough change to pay for the cold bottle of imported Coca-Cola.
Asshole. I thought I told you to stay in the car.
“You check the clubs?” asked Blumenthal. “Cuz with a motor like that little girl’s, ten’ll getcha twenty she’s straddling a pole somewhere.”
“Straddling a pole somewhere? Or somebody’s pole?” joked caterpillar.
“C’mon, assholes,” said the Samoan. “That’s somebody’s daughter you’re talkin’ on.”
“Shut up. Every gash out there is somebody’s daughter,” pissed caterpillar. “My fuckin’ ex-from-Hades was somebody’s fuckin’ daughter.”
“You gonna help the Lennox brother out or what?” asked the beefy cop.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Blumenthal with a half grin. “Sorry. Just gotta help me out once you find her.”
“What’s that?” cued Lucky.
“See? Hard to believe but I was once that young. You know. Thirteen?”
“And Jewish,” reminded beefy.
“Yeah yeah,” jabbed Blumenthal before continuing his special query. “Was your runaway girl at the party—and I mean if that was your runaway at the party. Was she just there to, you know, dance with everybody? Or was she some kind of party favor? For all the bar mitzvah boys?”
Lucky recalled seeing all Blumenthal’s near-perfect teeth. Both neat rows, his lips pulled back into a broad, shit-eater’s grin. His eyes were utterly fixed on Lucky’s. The stare had a caveat to it. Then, without so much as a blink, Blumenthal’s eye sockets suddenly widened to their maximum orbital before his eyelids came crashing downward over a shocking grimace. From the back of the cop’s skull came a gravity-defying explosion of fizzy black soda laced with shards of tumbling glass. As Blumenthal’s shoulders followed his head to the table, a man appeared in Lucky’s field of vision. He looked like a baseball hurler at the end of his pitching motion. Only this hurler was left holding the broken neck of an imported Coca-Cola bottle.
And it was Andrew.
19
Marina Del Rey.
“God, don’t remind me of my couch surfing days,” confessed Gabe, his fingers already interlaced with Karrie’s.
“You’re not that old,” said Karrie, gripping the man’s hand a bit tighter.
“Wasn’t saying I was old. Saying I don’t look back on those days with much affection. I ate dog food.”
“You ate dog food?”
“Wasn’t like I was starving. It was more like a dare.”
“The dry kind or that Spam-looking stuff?”
“Spam. We stir fried it.”
“Ewwww. Really?”
Gabe smiled and sheepishly nodded, those adorable dimples of his showing up even in the thinnest light. Though the sky had dried, the air was still mist-filled. The tide was receding, leaving foam bubbles on the Marina Del Rey sand with each lessening wave. Despite the cold, the pair strolled hand in hand, barefoot and with each step, squeezing off the freshly pancaked sand from between their toes.
“My feet are getting numb,” laughed Gabe.
“Pussy.”
“I’m a pussy?”
“You wouldn’t survive where I’m from.”
“Downside of being California grown,” admitted Gabe. “I had this girlfriend in high school. Her dad was being a hard ass, demanding she go to college somewhere in the northeast. I remember accusing him of being this big snob about East Coast colleges. He couldn’t have gotten more pissed at me. I remember him right up in my grill and saying ‘I want my daughter to go to a northeast school because I want her to learn that life isn’t sunny and seventy!’”
Karrie laughed. She was trying to imagine Gabe as a high school senior. Somehow she’d pictured the scene with his girlfriend’s father taking place around some sun-splashed Beverly Hills pool. Shade palms and a Spanish-speaking cabana boy serving piña coladas.
“But you actually grew up in Beverly Hills?” she innocently asked.
“South of Wilshire,” he corrected. “Sub-Beverly Hills. But yeah. Not quite 90210.”
As they continued their stroll, sometimes not talking for what seemed like eternal stretches, Karrie took comfort in the fact that Gabe hadn’t once asked about her age. She hated when guys did that. As if they needed to know that she was either under or over some magical age of consent. Sure, Gabe was quite a bit older than most of the dudes she’d hung out with.
Most.
Early thirties she gauged. But somewhere, somehow her old soul and his goofy, almost juvenile demeanor seemed to meet near the happy middle.
And when he’d reached for her hand, it didn’t at all feel forced or forward. In fact, Karrie couldn’t recall if she’d ever held hands with anybody but her mother and father. She remembered a summer farmer’s market choked with customers. She had been, maybe, five. Smaller than small. She could have easily been swallowed by the crowd. But the child was between her parents, holding each of their hands. Secure. Safe.
Since then, nobody. Well, nobody until Gabe. She couldn’t help but feel that her hand fit well with his.
“We had money,” confessed Gabe. “Then my old man met Stacy.”
“Stacy?”
“Coke whore bitch. Least that’s what my moms called her. I just called her Stacy. Anyway, she and my dad snorted the savings, our house. I was on track to go to UCLA but ended up at Valley College and driving a Starline Tours van.”
“Poor baby.”
“Do I sound like I’m complaining?”
“Just bustin’ balls.”
“So you’re a ball buster now?”
“Could be,” she teased.
“Maybe you’re a wannabe ball buster,” he smiled. “But an actual ball buster?”
“Like you know the difference?”
“Worked with enough actresses. So yeah. I do know.”
“Actresses are ball busters?”
“Star actresses.” Gabe punctuated his point with a wink. At least Karrie thought it was a wink. In the barely there light, it was all body language. It allowed her to imagine things the way she wanted them to appear.
“You’ve photographed famous people?” asked Karrie.
“Nothin’ editorial,” explained the photographer. “But I’ve got a pal who works production as a still shooter. Calls me when he needs a sub.”
“What’s a still shooter?”
“The on-set photographer. Shoot the setups. Behind the scenes stuff.”
“Actually on the movie?”
“On the set. Right there with everybody else.”
“Wow.”
“But here’s what it is,” explained Gabe. “Some actresses? You know, the really big ones? They’ve got approval over what photos you can use. What you can’t.”
“No way.”
“It’s in their contract. Called a kill percentage. Bigger the name, bigger their kill.”
“That’s crazy.”
“At the end of every day, as the still photographer you gotta submit all your pics. Every file. They go to the actresses’ people and they come back approved or not. All vanity, man.”
“Think I’d like that job.”
“Sucks man. Really.”
“I’m talkin’ about the actress,” she giggled. “That kinda power? How people treat you and how you look? What girl wouldn’t love that?”
“See what you mean.”
“Makes me wanna have a kill list.”
“Kill percentage,” he corrected.
“Same thing.”
“So what would yours be?”
“My list?”
“Percent. Most of the big stars get eighty, ninety percent kill in their contracts.”
“Oh, hell no,” zipped Karrie. “Nothin’ less than ninety-nine for this girl.”
“Ninety-nine percent kill? That’s what it’s gonna take?”
“Gotta keep my standards, ya know?”
“Way high.”
“Well, not too high.”
“Ninety-nine percent?”
“I’ll make allowances,” said Karrie. “Hey. I’m on a date with you, right?”
“Oh,” said Gabe. “This is a date?”
“And I’m lowering my standards,” she teased.
“Just for me? Wow. Thanks.”
They both laughed. Their repartee had been fun. Warm. Full of tease with pinches of substance. All the while, Karrie’s hand never left Gabe’s certain grip. There was a comfort there. A bit of peace and feeling of well-being that she hadn’t felt since…Well, after she thought on it for a moment, it was something she’d never, ever felt.
Damn girl. You are already so into this guy.
“Good place to turn around,” said Gabe.
“Sure,” said Karrie. “What’s next?”
“If you can lower your standards for a little longer, figure we can think of somethin’.”
“Ooooooookay,” said the fifteen-year-old. “Maybe just for a little longer.”
“Well, alright then,” grinned the photographer. “Let’s see what kinda trouble we can get into.”
20
The instant the Coke bottle struck the back of Deputy Blumenthal’s head, Lucky could have sworn the gig was over. As much as he might have liked the pasty-faced software mogul from Wisconsin, he didn’t imagine the business relationship could recover from a visit to county jail. Generally speaking, the brakes on Lucky’s patience ran thin on his best days.
The Lucky Dey Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (The Lucky Dey Series Boxset) Page 40