With that, Shia stopped struggling. She breathed. Tried to summon an answer.
“I…I don’t know where we are,” she finally admitted.
“Then I’m dead,” said Lucky, releasing her and returning to his seat. “I bleed out waiting for EMS. You’re dead, too. All mommy and daddy have left of you are your two masters degrees over the mantle.”
“They’re divorced,” she sighed.
“Sweet. So they fight over diploma custody. At least they have proof their baby girl was book smart. But still not smart enough to stay alive on her first night on the job.”
“Shit.”
Lucky swiveled The Box over to Shia.
“Code Six us so you can investigate our location,” ordered Lucky.
“I can see it right here,” she pointed at the monitor. “Lime. Fifty yards south of Rosecrans.”
“Bullet grazed the antenna. GPS compromised.”
That’s when she looked at him. Hazel-brown eyes and narrowed eyebrows as if to say, so this is how the next five months are gonna go? Lucky gave back nothing. He snapped the plastic lock off an Arrowhead water sports bottle, sucked back five quick ounces, and waited.
Shia swung her door open and climbed out into the dark. Lime Street was pretty much black but for the moon and distant spill of streetlamps coming from Rosecrans. Shia took in a quick three-sixty sweep of the landscape, adjusted her tactical belt an inch lower onto her hips and strode toward the boulevard. Lucky followed in the black-and-white.
When Shia arrived at the intersection, she stuffed the impulse to gesture like a Price is Right model, mocking the assignment while revealing a task completed. Code Six was defined in the call book as out of the vehicle for investigation.
So I’ll investigate, she reasoned. Since investigations required evidence, it was incumbent for the first uniformed officer on the scene to ascertain and gather. Out came Shia’s smart phone. She snapped digital images of both street signs. It was when she was considering a third angle of the intersection that a strange sound caught her attention. It was a rattling. Loud and closing fast. Wheels on rough asphalt and the vibrato of clattering metal and glass.
Shia touched her gun and spun toward the noise. From under a streetlamp appeared a swerving shopping cart hauled by four panting mongrels. At the helm of the odd contraption was a small black man in a beanie and a pair of plastic carpentry goggles.
The trainee cop threw up a hand, signaling for Mush Man to stop.
“Whoa, whoa—pussy-crack-whore-pussy,” called out Mush Man.
“Sir, may I please talk to you?” asked Shia, angling across.
“You wanna talk to me?” stalled Mush Man. “I wanna talks to you all about the damn river I found—nigga cop, nigga cop.”
“You don’t need to use foul language, sir,” calmed Shia, trained to handle aggressive words after working the jail. “Lemme ask you a quick question. Can you please tell me where we are?”
“You askin’ what?” snapped Mush Man. “If you’s in Compton? You lost or somethin’?”
“No. And yes, we’re in Compton,” confirmed Shia, switching her phone to video mode. “I was just wondering if you could confirm for me that we’re at the intersection of Rosecrans and Lime.”
“Some kinda candid camera thing?” he asked, before his chin jerked left. “Cock-suck, cock-suck.”
“Sir. Please.”
“So how about this—shitferbrains?” offered Mush Man. “I tell you which intersection you at; then you lemme show you where I found—bitch, bitch, bitch—a river going right through the middle of the hood.”
“Like the LA River?” Shia was referring to one of the many, massive drainage arteries that run through all parts of Los Angeles, funneling rainwater and just about everything else that flows to a final destination in the Pacific Ocean. Every channel, no matter where, bears the same name: The LA River.
“I know me the LA River,” replied Mush Man. “And this ain’t that—fucker, fuck-fuck-fuck-ASS.” Mush Man cleared his throat as if that would cleanse his verbal palate. “Place I’m talkin’ ’bout used to be jus’ this plain ol’ regular street—”
“As I live and breathe,” sounded Lucky. “Is that the Mush Man?”
“Hey, now!” grinned Mush Man. “Lucky-fuckin’-fuck-fuck-Dey! And wearin’ him his park ranger duds at dat!”
Lucky released an easy laugh, acknowledging one of the biggest knocks on the LA Sheriffs—that their uniforms of forest green pants and khaki shirts appear more like those of U.S. Forestry Service Rangers than actual street cops. A stark contrast to the LADP’s sleek, blue-black togs.
Shia found herself startled by Lucky’s clean rows of white teeth. Only then did she recognize that in their hours together, Lucky hadn’t revealed more than a smirk. She now witnessed Lucky’s hardened eyes light up with warm recognition at the vagabond and his sled team of matted mongrels.
“What you doin’ all the way down here?” asked Lucky.
“Ran outta sidewalk up Lennox way,” said Mush Man. “Me ’n’ my dogs needed new streets to beat—sweet-bitch-bitches.”
“That Miss Oprah as lead dog?” Lucky dropped to his Neoprene knee pads much to the dog’s excitement. Oprah nuzzled up like she knew him.
“Was her time to step up,” said Mush Man. “Had to put ol’ Freddy Douglas to sleep, you know. Buried him right next to Jesse.”
“And I remember Rosa,” said Lucky, greeting the number two dog with a cheek rub.
“That there’s Hank,” introduced Mush Man. “After Hammerin’ Hank, of course—big dick nigga man. And the newest fella here is Thurgood.”
“They look healthier than you, Mush.”
“We all shares equal. And jus’ like me, they don’t get no brain poison.”
“Head clear?” asked Lucky despite knowing otherwise. An unmedicated schizophrenic was often a danger to himself and others. But he knew Mush Man had enough of a hold on his disease to shelter in place when he lost all sense of control.
“Clear as nightingales singin’ in church,” declared Mush Man. He self-mockingly rapped the heel of his palm against his skull. “’Cept for the—you know—the bad words.”
“Just makes you colorful,” admired Lucky.
“So where you been? You get lost, then come back as a street sweeper?”
“Tried doin’ the deputy dance up in the boonies,” admitted Lucky. “Didn’t stick. I’m back as a training officer.”
“Her training officer?” Mush Man was pointing at Shia like she was fifty feet away instead of only five. “Cunty-cunty-cunt-cunt.”
“He is colorful,” smiled Shia, uncomfortable, but zeroing in on the hitch in Mush Man’s mental bent.
“Then you listen and learn from Deputy Lucky,” implored Mush Man. “Nobody knows better at bein’ the po-po than Lucky Dey. And he badder than all the bad boys I ever seen—here ’n’ over in Towelhead country.”
“That so?” teased Shia.
“Got him the tat that proves it.” Mush Man kicked at Lucky’s left calf before his voice lifted into a shuddering falsetto, “Eat-me-now-brown-cow.”
Shia turned away, working every ounce of herself not to burst out in laughter at poor Mush Man’s expense.
“First night back in the black-and-white,” revealed Lucky. “Don’t go scarin’ my rook.”
“I know, I know. Mush Man’s mouth’s got a mind of his owns,” confessed the dog sledder. “But you gonna check out my river, right?”
“River?”
Mush Man nodded along while Shia explained what he’d reported.
“We’ll check it,” assured Lucky. “You got a roof down this way?”
“You know me. Say I’m shelter-resistant. But we gets by,” winked Mush Man. “Now you get on protectin’ and servin’.”
“That’s LAPD,” reminded Lucky. “We say, ‘A Tradition of Service.’” He pointed out the door of the Interceptor where, just underneath the county sheriff’s logo was a decaled word strip in black curs
ive.
“Tradition, yeah?” laughed Mush Man. “I can think of a tradition of somethin’ else. And I’m gonna leaves you with dat—nigga bitch bitch bitch.”
Mush Man whistled softly, bringing his dog team to attention before urging them forward. Oprah, the lead dog pulled and the rest followed, snapping Mush Man and his urban shopping sled onto two wheels. The slight vagrant balanced on his running board with expert grace, much like a teen skater flexing his skills. Mush Man then righted the cart and angled the clattering throng across Rosecrans and up the wheelchair ramp onto the opposite curb.
“Like dogs, sir?” asked Shia before correcting herself. “I mean, Lucky?”
“Like ’em just fine. Too bad they don’t like me. Allergic. Quick stop, Planet Benadryl. Then we find this river.”
Part II
Tuesday
5
Topanga Canyon. 2:49 A.M.
“Holy God,” breathed in the boy wonder, eyes wide orbits and desperate to savor the moment. It was, quite possibly, the greatest moment of his life. Or at least he couldn’t imagine anything that came close until one particular memory flashed. And that might have been the look on the faces of those privileged doubters at The Buckley School who’d laughed when fifteen-year-old Atom—then named Adam Blumquist—had announced he was not only going to be a famous movie director, but the most successful movie director in Hollywood history.
After Atom gifted Buckley’s development and scholarship funds with a mid-six-figure donation, the headmaster had asked the boy wonder to deliver the commencement address at their most recent graduation ceremony. From the dais, Atom had not only made a point to stare down each of those teachers who had lacked faith in his talent, but had the balls to call them out by name.
Yeah, man. That moment and this moment.
The present moment was both a collection of images as well as a flood of feelings. Though feelings weren’t entirely important to the boy wonder compared to his beloved moving pictures. The picture frame was everything to him. And, from Atom’s perspective, his life deserved to be experienced in theatrical widescreen glory. Thus, the backdrop he’d chosen for the present moment—the view from atop a Topanga turnout overlooking the West San Fernando Valley. Below, a blanket of lights curtained by distant mountains glowing in the spill of their candlepower.
“Don’t stop,” begged the naked swimsuit model splayed face down on the hood of his blood orange Lamborghini. Her sweaty hands smeared disappearing palm prints on the finish, aptly named by the automaker as Arancio Borealis.
The boy wonder dug in with his python-skin cowboy boots, gifted to him by the cast of young stars who’d populated his most recent action opus, Roadkill 3: TransAmerica. As the worldwide gross crossed the billion dollar threshold, Atom celebrated the night with a bottle of rare tequila and a panoramic round of unprotected outdoor carnality. Still, his thrusts were less about below the waist pleasure than his rocks-off-between-the-ears fantasy.
I’m king of the world! he wanted to shout to the heavens and anybody else within earshot.
“Harder,” urged the girl, barely eighteen—he hoped—blonde and demonstrably experienced.
The boy wonder briefly wondered if she’d really meant it. If she was indeed experiencing her own fantasy of being rear-mounted by a famous movie director while across the hood of an exotic Italian car. Or was she just selling? Why not and who cares? he figured. In Hollywood, everyone’s selling. And this was Atom’s unholy fairy tale.
He bent his knees and briefly lay across her, tasting her sweat with a tongue he’d sometimes wished was as abrasive as a cat’s. A breeze kicked up and rustled the leaves of an overhanging oak. He felt the rush of air cool against his bared ass. If this were a scene in a movie, he wondered how he would cover it. With multiple cameras, making certain not to miss an angle of ecstasy? Or with a single camera, allowing himself to record the moment over a period of hours instead of minutes, savoring every drop of her perspiration onto film and keeping her goose-pimpled and naked until the sun breached the horizon.
Thank God I popped that Viagra.
Thank God, indeed. Otherwise the moment might have ended that much earlier, putting a cap on the fantasy and leaving the experienced model sexually unsatisfied.
“Tequila,” she demanded, twisting her body, neck, and face enough for him to spill a shot from the open bottle into her mouth.
Atom followed by guzzling back a swig for himself. That’s when he got the idea that he might pour a bit of the expensive juice onto her creamy back for him to lick. With that, he turned the bottle and splashed some on her. She wriggled with excitement and made an ooooohhh sound. It set off a surge in him. Adrenalin. As if he’d just been fuel-injected with an extra hundred cc’s of lust. The boy wonder lifted his heels and dug at the dirt from the balls of his feet for more leverage. The girl beneath wanted a pounding and damned if he wasn’t going to give it to her up to the hilt.
“I’m king of the fucking world!” Atom finally shouted, arms spread wide like James Cameron at the Academy Awards. Only instead of holding an Oscar in one hand, he gripped that bottle of expensive Don Julio Real.
Then reality happened.
Cowboy boots, python-skin or otherwise, aren’t known for their traction. The leather soles, relatively slick from a lack of true wear, slipped against a surface of sand and decomposed granite. Once the g-forces of Sir Isaac Newton took over, any hope of Atom regaining his dignity was lost.
In order to maximize the moment for his demanding eyeballs, Atom Blum had parked the Lambo up against a ravine. He had been so keen on getting the busty eighteen-year-old out of every stitch of her clothes, he hadn’t noticed he’d left barely two feet of sandy ledge for himself to orchestrate his sex scenario.
Then there was the tequila effect. The boy wonder later recalled the feeling of his feet giving way, yet the next part of the fall was barely a blur. Consciousness quickly returned as Atom felt himself tumbling backward, crashing through thorny brush and pointy dead oak leaves for some fifty feet until he hit the rock-covered bottom. All the way, his boots remained on as did as his designer dungarees, tangled and torn around his ankles.
There were cuts and scrapes and his skin stung. The only part of Atom that didn’t seem to hurt instantly was his chemically enhanced member which, he couldn’t help but notice, was still unsheathed and pointing awkwardly to the sky.
The swimsuit model screamed like she’d discovered her own nakedness, grabbing at her clothes until she heard Atom shouting from down in the ravine. At first, his was a stream of foul and angry invectives. Each loaded with blame for anyone but himself. Eventually came a pause and a plaintive whimper of a request.
“Call 911!” squealed the movie director.
If he’d thought to check his watch, Atom would’ve known the exact time he lay there drunk, half-naked and exposed at the bottom of the ravine before he’d begun to form anything resembling cogent thought. The girl, whatever her name was, had only once dared a look into the dark chasm. Since his demand that she dial 911, he’d heard nothing from her. He’d first imagined her leaving the gravel cutout for the blacktop of Mulholland, dutifully waiting to flag down the responding paramedics. As his mind played out how he imagined his rescue occurring, clearer thinking prevailed. Most likely, both police and fire departments would be scrambled. There would be a public record of that, all the way down to the 911 call. Had the girl used her name? Or even more terrifying, had she dropped his name?
Fuck!
The boy wonder knew how the online tabloids monitored emergency alerts that might involve a celebrity. And they weren’t beyond paying for and publishing the slightest hint of scandalous innuendo. Had the girl already sold him out? How many hours before the dirty details of his sex fumble were bannered across the front page of TMZ?
Fuck! Fuck!
As was his narcissistic habit, Atom began to shoot the scene in his head. With a crane to start. A booming camera shot that would capture the flashing lig
hts of police and fire crews surging to the rescue. As the trucks and cruisers pulled into the cutout, the crane would track and lower into a tight close-up of a gritty, first responder. Next, Atom would continue the scene with a chasing, point-of-view shot as the paramedics raced toward the edge of the ravine. Lastly, he imagined the visual pay-off as he’d direct the camera to tilt and zoom into the rocky chasm. Flashlights would search and suddenly focus on a skinny and scared thirty-five-year-old man with a Beverly Hills haircut and barely the strength to shade his eyes from the glare. Still stunned from the fall, the poor accident victim hadn’t the awareness to pull his pants back up to cover his awkward nakedness—his glistening and chemically charged prick.
Firemen and police would be certain to chuckle to themselves before roping in for the final rescue.
Fuck that shit.
With that, the boy wonder rediscovered his mojo. He straightened his legs and only half-hitched up his ripped pants before beginning his climb out. To avoid slipping any further, he abandoned his pricey cowboy boots, leaving the python-skinned pair where his bony tailbone had come to rest.
“Fuck those boots,” slurred Atom aloud to nobody but the snakes and lizards.
The calf-high silk socks tore almost instantly, leaving his soft and manicured bare feet seeking a grip against the rocks and decomposed granite. Atom was far more inebriated than he realized. The climb forced his heart to race. The crevasse spun. And almost as if he’d imagined rerunning his own bad movie, he skipped and bumped his way back down to the bottom. Back where he had started and seeking some calm behind his closed eyelids. Perhaps when he reopened them he’d discover it was only a nightmare.
The sky above him lit up, penetrating his thin-skinned shutters in a flare of veiny red—the thumping Atom imagined betrayed by his own damned ears. He found his hands instinctively protecting his face from the super-kilowatt lamp that turned the crevasse from black to white hot.
“THIS IS THE LOS ANGELES SHERIFFS,” boomed a voice from a speaker mounted to the undercarriage of the helicopter. “ARE YOU IN NEED OF ASSISTANCE?”
The Lucky Dey Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (The Lucky Dey Series Boxset) Page 65