The Lucky Dey Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (The Lucky Dey Series Boxset)

by Doug Richardson

  After a final, ninety-degree left, the double suite doors stood before them.

  “Do what you do,” ordered Romeo. His whisper was served with a little shove just below the sash of her baby-doll dress.

  All of a sudden, Jodi’s tiny feet felt like leaded weights strapped about her ankles. She swallowed and shuffled forward, aiming that ridiculous hat brim a degree or two below the level of the peephole.

  “C’mon!” harshed Romeo, pushing only air across his tongue while letting his face screw into an exclamation point. “Do it!”

  Jodi didn’t give him the satisfaction of even a sideways glance. She had every intention of following through. She needed to get high. So she lifted her right hand, curled her fingers into a tense little ball, and rapped three times.

  40

  “You broke his finger?”

  The incredulity in Cherry’s voice came with an adorably throaty squeak, all at once both amused and surprised. This came at the end of Lucky recalling for Cherry, the events that had followed their parting the night before. Not that Lucky had planned to tell his embarrassing tale. He just had no explanation prepared as to why the dash of the borrowed Crown Vic had a big hole in it, the emptied airbag hastily stuffed back into the compartment.

  “Seen some broke bones at the club,” admitted Cherry. “Always some dipshit who gets outta hand with one of the girls. Bouncers gotta bounce, you know?”

  It was still mid-morning. That seemingly endless shimmer of winter rain had wet the asphalt of Sunset Boulevard, adding to the road noise from all the thousands of rubber tires rolling east and west.

  “You don’t seem like the I’m sorry type,” volunteered Cherry.

  “Yeah? So what type do I seem?” asked Lucky.

  “Not sure,” she said. “Just not a guy who’s got a strong relationship with mea culpas.”

  “I know how to apologize,” said Lucky. “Believe me. Had plenty of practice.”

  “Preschoolers know how to say I’m sorry,” topped Cherry. “Doesn’t mean they’re sincere.”

  “Man is missing his one and only daughter. And I was over the line,” admitted Lucky. “I can be plenty sincere about that.”

  Lucky locked the Crown Vic in a parking structure that advertised the first two hours as free to the public. From there they hoofed it across the street to the Biltmore’s primary entrance and bee-lined an angle for the elevators.

  “Someday,” hummed Cherry, finishing her sentence when she caught Lucky’s sideways look. “Someday Miss Cherry’s gonna stay in one of these posh-ass hotels.”

  “So you plan on making the big coin?”

  “I’m not even gonna have to pay. Least that’s how the big stars roll. Hotel calls the paps…”

  “Paps?”

  “Paparazzi,” she explained. “Paps shoot the stars comin’ and goin’. Because the star is advertising they get comped by the hotel. It’s the food chain for the famous.”

  “Sounds like you got it all worked out.”

  “All except how to get there,” admitted Cherry. “I know it’s a long shot. But hey. Why not me?”

  The eleventh-floor elevator doors opened and before either Lucky or Cherry could make a single step forward, the lift was bum-rushed by a skinny blonde in a baby-doll dress. Her ridiculous, ungainly hat practically overwhelmed the doorway.

  “Oh,” said Jodi once she realized she was being rude. She was clipped and retreating to let Lucky and Cherry off. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

  Once the elevator cleared, Jodi spun back inside and began hammering the close-door button as if she was tap-tap-tapping a Morse code message.

  “Ugh,” said Cherry, once the doors had shut. “Skank had some nasty meth mouth.”

  “Couldn’t tell from my angle,” said Lucky, gesturing and mouthing “big damn hat.”

  According his watch, it was mere seconds shy of 10:15 A.M. when Lucky and Cherry finally arrived at Andrew’s suite.

  41

  “You’re a dirty man, ya?” asked Romeo. He was seated on the edge of the toilet in the suite’s guest bathroom. Bent at the waist, elbows resting on his thighs, that rusty box cutter in his left hand.

  “Told you…” wheezed Andrew. The awkward position in which Romeo had shoved Andrew into the dry bathtub made it difficult to breathe. Both his hands and feet were bound with clear, sticky packing tape. “I called the number cuz I’m looking for my daughter!”

  “You a pervert,” insisted Romeo. “One of dem fuckin’ pedo-peeps.”

  “I’m not I’m not.”

  “Fuckin’ hate you.”

  “Don’t hate me please I’m not that kinda man—”

  “Shut up, ya fuckin’ baby-raper.” Romeo kicked at Andrew’s bare feet. They were awkwardly propped over the porcelain edge. “I know you. All of you. What you really hate are kids. Tha’s why you do it.”

  “My daughter—”

  “Said you a baby raper so shut da fuck up!” barked Romeo, instantly lowering his voice once he’d heard it bounce back off the tile wainscot. “Hey. What happen to you finger? You get it broke diddlin’ some little boy’s asshole?”

  “Just get the money. Leave me alone to find my daughter—”

  Romeo lunged at Andrew. If only a feint, it scared Andrew so badly he began to gag and choke on his own spit.

  “Yeah, man,” smiled Romeo. “Choke on you self. Choke ‘n’ die. Cuz all da baby rapers deserve to fuckin’ choke.”

  “I’m not—” coughed Andrew.

  “Listen to me, fucker…I said listen to me!” Romeo half-heartedly stabbed with the blade. Too far. The tip pierced Andrew’s khakis, briefly burying a few millimeters into Andrew’s skin. “All of you done it to me. My sis. Fucked with us babies, man. Screwed up our heads ya know?”

  “Please please please—”

  “You don’t think you deserve to bleed? After what all you done to da worl’?” Romeo stood, using what little height he had to momentarily tower. “You tink I jus’ wan’ you money? How ’bout I take your balls, yeah—”

  Thump thump thump.

  At the sound of knuckles on the door, Romeo’s arms dropped slack while his eyes practically rolled over into the back of his head.

  Stupid whore bitch!

  “Don’ move, ’kay?” With that, Romeo eased the door shut until the hardware clicked with precision, ran his palms along his jeans to wipe clean the sweat, then tried to appear as if strolling without a care toward the door. He had promised Jodi no blood. As much as it had been a lie, he still needed her to withdraw the money. “You better not forgot the numbers!”

  Lucky’s first notion was this: though buffered by a door built from solid mahogany, the man’s voice heard from the other side hadn’t the whiny tenor he’d come to know from Andrew Kaarlsen. An oddity that might have only caused a minor question mark for the average Joe. But the cop in Lucky had already knocked on a thousand doors with an endless parade of unknowns on the other side. As if on remote, Lucky had shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, tilted his spine to eighty degrees while locking his hips for a collision.

  When the door cracked Lucky’s eyes weren’t focused at eye-level. His gaze was waist high where a weapon would be. Thus, Lucky clocked the box cutter before the lockset had cleared barely one inch.

  And that’s when Lucky launched.

  All his weight drove upward from his feet to his shoulders, plowing into the doors like a defensive lineman on the hunt for a Sunday quarterback. The hinges helped, allowing all the energy from Lucky to transfer to the solid wood door and then the unsuspecting Romeo.

  What Cherry would later recall was the distinct ting of metal as the box cutter left Romeo’s fingers, spun and ricocheted off the wet bar. The rest was a revelation of efficiency. Before Lucky pushed through the door, she had thought the heavy-duty bouncers she knew from The Rabbit Pole possessed real deal skills. Danger management. Out-of-control asshole management. But witnessing Lucky in full badass mode gave her a new definition. The
man with the razor was summarily rag-dolled by the former deputy, spun a full three-sixty before all his G-forces were released. The man’s body skipped off the marble floor—his head thumping like a melon—before the rest of him connected with that fully closed bathroom door. The impact of man versus bathroom door splintered the jamb at the strike plate, releasing the hinges to creak inward.

  The actual reveal was even more of a shock.

  Upended in the bathroom tub was Andrew, flopping awkwardly in an effort to get away from the tumult.

  “Jesus,” cried Cherry, not yet certain what she had gotten herself into.

  “Shut the front door,” said Lucky, taking an extra beat to gently touch her shoulder. “Please. Shut it now.”

  Romeo moaned, momentarily disoriented, reaching both arms around himself as if he expected to come up with his rusty razor.

  Lucky bent a knee and picked up the box cutter, flicking it closed with his thumb.

  “Who the hell is this prick, Andrew?” Lucky grabbed a handful of Romeo’s hair and three-hopped him over to the area rug where he pinned the assailant with a knee while twisting Romeo’s elbow into a submission hold. If Andrew had tried to answer, Lucky wouldn’t have heard him. He tossed the box-cutter to Cherry. “Take care of him, will ya?”

  As Cherry hurried into the bathroom, Lucky applied enough weight to make Romeo chirp.

  “Can’ breathe,” complained Romeo.

  “My man get lonely? Call for some boy toy spoon play?”

  “Not a fag!”

  “If I was gonna call you a fag I’d be way less p.c. about it,” said Lucky. “Now who are you and why are you in my man’s hotel room?”

  “They’re GD robbing me!” shouted Andrew from the bathroom.

  “Who’s with you?” asked Lucky, angling his knee sharply into the dimple of Romeo’s low back.

  “She’s got all my cards and my PIN numbers!” Andrew stumbled out of the tub, peeling what packing tape remained on his wrists.

  “What’s the girl’s name?” Lucky pressed harder.

  “Calling 911!” announced Andrew. He was spinning in place until he sighted the suite phone on the lamp stand. “How the heck do I get an outside line?”

  “Hang up the phone,” ordered Lucky.

  “Hang up the—they were robbing me at knife point!”

  “I said hang up the phone before I break your other finger!” burst Lucky.

  Andrew stood momentarily frozen. Phone receiver in one hand. Splinted finger on the other, jutting like a gauze-wrapped phallus.

  “Call 911 and you get LAPD,” explained Lucky. “It’s a crime at the downtown Biltmore so they flood the place. Lotta uniforms, detectives, statements. Then there’s the hotel security. After that their insurance guys’ll show up and want taped interviews, statements. You dial that phone and we’re here all day handling this shit instead of looking for your daughter.”

  “Thinkin’ you didn’t get the memo,” griped Andrew, not thinking while pointing that fractured finger at Lucky. “I cut you loose. Fired your butt.”

  “I’m here because she called me,” argued Lucky with a nod toward Cherry Pie. “She remembered something.”

  “…Might be, you know, somethin’ important,” stammered Cherry, unconsciously pressed with her back against the bathroom doorjamb.

  So there stood Andrew, half-shirtless, whiter than white, broken finger, bruised face, small droplets of blood streaking to his navel, room phone dangling in his left hand. He looked like he had been thrown by a roller coaster.

  “Yeah yeah, I’m fired,” admitted Lucky. “And I don’t care if you pay me or not. Just lemme find your girl. I gotta finish this. Please?”

  Andrew’s sallow chest heaved up and down. The wheels behind his eyes spun.

  “…Then what do we do with him?” grimaced Andrew.

  Lucky smirked. “What do you wanna do?”

  Andrew straightened—as if a simple posture adjustment had added a rod of steel to his spine. He searched left until he spotted a pair of penny loafers he’d left parked half underneath the sofa. Andrew twisted his bare feet into the shoes then made an about-face, squaring himself to Lucky and the immobilized Romeo. He eased nearer, flicking his eyes to meet Lucky’s. A nod was exchanged. An understanding between men. And with that wordless agreement, Lucky released Romeo and took a half-step backward.

  Romeo saw it coming. He had only enough time to react defensively, folding himself into a fetal ball before Andrew’s first foot landed. The toes of the leather loafers were sharp, driving past his forearms and finding ribs, his solar plexus, and chest plate. Air wheezed from him with each blow.

  To prevent Romeo from spinning away from Andrew’s punishment, Lucky kept his own boot secured on the assailant’s ass. It also allowed him a referee’s view. He carefully observed every blow while holding his index finger up to his lips as a reminder to Cherry to keep her lips shut. It was clear this wasn’t Lucky’s first controlled beatdown. Though Andrew was the man swinging kick after kick into Romeo, Lucky was still in control.

  Drips of spittle were forming at the corners of Andrew’s mouth when Lucky finally stepped in, calling the bout.

  “Enough of that.” Lucky had a long stiff-arm jammed into Andrew’s collar bone.

  “He was gonna kill me!” bit Andrew. “I know it.”

  “Eye on the prize,” reminded Lucky. “Let’s get back to finding your girl.”

  Andrew was sucking air, gassed and exhilarated after the beatdown. Yet he nodded. He felt better. Satisfied for the first time in weeks.

  “Yeah,” said Andrew. “Let’s go.”

  With every twenty-dollar bill the downtown ATMs spit into Jodi’s hand, the more forgiving she became. Romeo had easily extracted the four-digit PIN from that pasty-faced john. The numbers—1108—were so easy to remember and as promised, worked on just about every plastic bank card in the wallet.

  Pasty-faced john had beaucoup credit cards.

  Carefully employing the floppy hat to shield her face from capture by the ATMs’ cameras, she moved from machine to machine, half-humming and half-singing an old No Doubt song that had somehow stuck in her head.

  Jodi maximized the withdrawals on each card, the pile of twenties tucked away in the extra roomy D-cup bra she’d bought at a thrift shop for such occasions.

  To hell with rehab. I’m gonna get so high.

  Jodi guessed she had collected something around six thousand dollars from the nine bank cards and five ATMs . Her turnaround back to the Biltmore came within a tight thirty minutes from the time she had first knocked on the door of Andrew’s eleventh-floor suite. Wet but so damn giddy she no longer cared a whit about the weather, Jodi hurried back, nearly wiping out when her platform boots made contact with the polished tiles in the lobby. She accidentally skated, half-spun while losing her balance, and was heading for the deck when a sure-footed security guard interrupted her fall with a helping arm.

  “Gotcha,” calmed the security guard.

  “Oh my. Thanks,” answered Jodi.

  “Ma’am,” asked the security guard after getting a better look at her disfigured face. “Are you a guest with us?”

  Jodi wanted to lie and say yes. After all, in her thrift-store D-cup she certainly had the money to afford a room. But the serious gaze from the security guard melted every last line of her resolve. She collapsed cross-legged onto the floor in a heap of sudden tears, confessing all in a punctuation-free fusillade. The robberies. The murder at the Mayfair. And the poor pasty-faced SOB who was probably in the process of bleeding to death in room 1134.

  A quick radio call and the guard had marshaled all other hotel security personnel. Five men in all. As the front desk direct-dialed the nearby LAPD, the beefy security team piled into an elevator and expressed themselves to the eleventh floor. There they found Andrew’s suite door cracked and inviting. With zero force required, the crew entered, armed only with heavy flashlight batons and a pair of unholstered Tasers.

 
; “What the Christ—” uttered the security guard.

  Where Andrew was last seen dropping foot after penny-loafered foot into his assailant’s doughy midsection, lay only the pimp called Romeo. Alone. Gagged. Bleeding. Motionless. Hogtied with the very same clear packing tape he had first used on Andrew. Laying beside Romeo was that rusty box-cutter. Inches from his grasp. Useless as hell.

  42

  Santa Monica.

  On a normal day, Gabe would have awakened sometime shy of noon and walked to his corner convenience store where he would tank up on a brunch of Skittles, spicy Slim Jims, and a liter bottle of Dr. Pepper. After a shower, he would migrate east down Olympic Boulevard until he landed in Hollywood. Hopefully, he would have booked an afternoon’s worth of shooting headshots. Cup of hot joe, flip on a power strip, and let the photography begin.

  On this day, though, Gabe wasn’t feeling it. After a fitful night’s sleep, he had awakened at seven and spent the next two hours in bed, barely snoozing, all the while hoping sweet slumber would return. Eventually, he succumbed to the temptation of checking the messages on his cell phone. In doing so, his brain would engage and commit himself to the rest of the day.

  While still in bed, Gabe found his glasses on his nightstand and began scrolling through texts. The fourth message piqued him. It was forty minutes old from an unknown mobile number.

  Looking for sub still photog for soft p mopic shoot in SF Valley. Ur # came recommended. Noon to midnight. $300 cash. CB only if interested.

  It had been nearly a year since Gabe had pulled down a movie gig. Still photography was usually easy money but for the lousy, non-union long hours. When the offer had finally arrived for Gabe to join Local 600 International Cinematographers Guild, he had shifted his trajectory to more independent work. He was an artist, dammit. And getting paid to photograph prickly actors rehearsing movie scenes was duller than lead poisoning.