“I want Diet Coke. Just need a lemon to go with my Diet Coke.”
“No lemon for Diet Coke.” The old woman punched up the order on the cash register. “Twelve dollar, twenty-six.”
“How about I order a small iced tea with a lemon slice? Plus the Diet Coke. Plus the Philly steak.”
“You change your order now?”
“If it gets me a lemon slice.”
The old woman stiffened, arms akimbo, her sagging skin jiggling where her biceps should’ve been. Her face was screwed into a churlish question mark.
“Why you like lemon with Diet Coke?” she persisted.
“I dunno,” said Johnny B., too tense to shrug. “Cuz it tastes good?”
“Well that’s your mouth!” she accused.
“Philly steak,” began Johnny B. again.
“There’s a line, you know?” sounded a heavy-set voice, two customers behind Johnny B.
The eighteen-year-old heard the man, gauged the voice as someone much older, with some authority, and probably unafraid to get physical. Violent, even. Johnny B. hated being touched. Without his special cocktail of psych meds, he might scream out loud if anybody pressed into him for anything longer than a brushed back or an “excuse me” while in line at an amusement park like Six Flags Magic Mountain. But Johnny B. wouldn’t—or couldn’t even half-turn to acknowledge the impatient people behind him. If he did he might lose his place, or his patience, or his sketchy temper.
“Philly steak,” repeated Johnny B., peeling off a twenty-dollar bill from his rubber-banded roll of bills. “Thirteen-inch. No cheese. Small iced tea with a lemon slice. Large Diet Coke.”
“I no care no more,” mumbled the old woman. She cleared the order, re-added the total and handed the change to her blockish customer. “Takeout order wait over there, okay?”
“It’s cuz I’m Armenian,” stated Johnny Boy. “I’m not stupid. Nobody likes the Armos.”
“Next customer please,” ignored the old woman.
Johnny B.—a.k.a. Johnny Boy—or John Bartholomew Kasabian as it read on his driver’s license—sidestepped from the counter and stood uncomfortably against a round metal pillar, holding his receipt in both hands, and focusing on his calm place. His face felt hot and flushed. Though that could’ve been from spending the day at Zuma Beach. He thought perhaps he’d stood out like a sore toe, not having thought to bring beachwear. In his black Wranglers and black t-shirt, Johnny B. was always comfortable. His redundancy in clothing was both his trademark and his armor. His mother called it his daily superhero outfit. On his feet were always a pair of Converse Chuck Taylors and his hair was a monthly Supercuts dark brown spaz of ethnic pride. With that, his stocky build and walk, and the freshly inked Armenian Power cross on his right forearm, anybody who knew Johnny B. could see him coming from a mile.
People know ’n’ respect me cuz I’m known and I’m certified Armo badass.
From behind the cooktop swerved a Korean man, equally slight as his co-owner wife, only inches taller with a drawn face under a disposable paper chef’s cap. He spoke in a foggy whisper while handing Johnny B. the to-go sack.
“Wife not happy since hysterectomy,” croaked the old man. “Sorry about lemon slice. I give you extra inside bag.”
Nodding an expression-free thanks, Johnny B. accepted the bag and both drink cups before dumping the iced tea into the garbage bin next to the side exit. He was hungry, his stomach had been grumbling since it had long ago digested his usual morning meal of a Starbucks frap and two apple fritters. Passing three more storefronts until he reached the street corner, Johnny B. stood at the stoplight and repeatedly rabbit-punched the crosswalk button. With every strike it beeped for non-existent blind pedestrians. The Ventura Boulevard traffic washed past, the flow of cars and trucks hustling east and west in an ear-throbbing crush of Los Angeles white noise. For the moment, the ubiquitous sound drowned out his gastric bombast.
The sun had just dropped below the horizon, leaving the boulevard in shadow and the October sky with streaks of pink and vanilla. Opposite Johnny B. was the Walk/Don’t-Walk display. It appeared permanently stuck on its red-letter denial. On the side street across from the Chevron station waited Johnny B.’s ride, a black Ford Shelby Mustang so damned new it still bore the dealer’s stickers.
And this badass can’t wait to stink up the new leather with a hot Philly steak.
Johnny B. could smell the sub through both the foil wrap and the bag. His eating instincts—sometimes described by his two siblings as those of a starved coyote—invited him to chew right through the paper sack and sink his incisors into the hot sandwich. He was eighteen, though. A legal adult. With that he’d nearly learned to delay his gratification. While traffic hauled past and the Don’t Walk sign continued its electronic indifference, Johnny B. chose to give himself a tease. Unrolling the top of the bag, he lowered his nose into the cavity and inhaled fully.
His nose curled in autonomic disgust.
Cheese!
“Korean bitch!” he screeched.
Without a thought or intent beyond his momentary expression, Johnny B. balled the sack between his meaty hands and sidearm chucked his dinner. In that instant, he saw little more than red, yet seemed to feel the million slights he’d suffered since he could first remember. The sandwich was an afterthought. No more. And his mind would have instantly switched to some other flavor of fast food satisfaction if it hadn’t been for the piercing pitch of squealing tires and gnashing metal annoying his hypersensitive ears.
The Philly steak sandwich, balled into a projectile, then blindly hurled, had sailed across three lanes of traffic before exploding in a red meat and mayo smear across the windshield of an eastbound Hyundai Accent. The startled driver, a cosmetician and part-time coed at nearby Pierce Community College, recoiled in shock. When she reflexively stomped on her brakes, her skidding car drifted left and into an oncoming Mercedes S-class coupe. The heavier German car practically swallowed the Korean compact. Despite the imparting G-forces, the deployed airbags should have saved both drivers. Only the Hyundai’s roof sheered and released like a horizontal guillotine. The sheet metal and carbon fiber Frisbee cut through the Mercedes’ windshield and neatly decapitated the Malibu Barbie mom behind the wheel in an eye-blink.
Johnny B. had witnessed every slow-motion frame of it. And the shock of sound to his ears was closer to that of a grand piano dropped from ten stories than of two cars colliding in an ugly spray of metal and shattered safety glass. The smell though—that puke-worthy cheese and meat mélange was replaced by burnt rubber and gasoline. It fouled his senses and nearly blinded the bulky teen.
With traffic stalled and both drivers and passengers in shock or counting their lucky stars or hopping from their cars to rubberneck or call 911, a scared Johnny B. took the opportunity to run across the street. His stride lacked the coordinated grace of most eighteen-year-olds. He edged between stalled cars and past the smoking rear of the wrecked Mercedes until he had a clear path to his hot black Mustang. There, he shut himself inside with a distinctive Detroit thunk and waited for the change in air pressure to equalize his nerves. The silence of the interior calmed him. The new car perfume soon replaced the odor of the street horror he would leave behind. Johnny B. push-buttoned the ignition, geared the Ford into drive and slung the vehicle east and onto Ventura Boulevard. Miles ahead was Glendale and his bedroom in his parents’ 1920’s Spanish hacienda. The safety of home beckoned along with his PlayStation and turntable. But first, a fast food drive-thru to temporarily distract his guilt as well as satisfy his gastronomic pangs. Perhaps an In-n-Out burger—double meat, animal style and please-oh-please, no Goddamn cheese.
Pasadena. 7:32 p.m.
From Lucky Dey’s perspective, Los Angeles and thereabouts were suffering from an overpopulation of headshrinkers. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d visited any form of office tower of three stories or higher that didn’t sport at least a dozen psychotherapists on the legend. The Los Angeles Sh
eriff’s deputy had turned it into a bad habit bordering on superstition or OCD. He’d enter the lobby of a random building and, even if he knew exactly which floor of whom he was visiting, check the resident list and search for initialisms following a name. PhD, LCSW, CCMHC, MEd-LPC-CDVD. Most of the titles left him without a glimmer of whatever psychology degree they represented. A simple detective’s deduction might conclude that there were too many post-graduate programs punching out too many degrees for too many couch-friendly analysts.
“You were saying?” cued Dr. Anna Sandalwood from her soft perch.
“Not sure I was saying anything,” replied Lucky, wondering if he’d lost his place while staring out the eighth-floor window. The picture frame pane revealed the final streaks of what had been a bluebird day. The late October Santa Ana winds had blown hotter than usual—from across the desert—leaving cotton-ball clouds bearing little moisture hanging low, their fading shadows still dotting the San Gabriel mountains in ever-moving spots.
“Think it was my turn,” said Gonzo, sharing the corduroy couch with her live-in lover, common-law husband, and emotional co-dependent, Lucky Dey. The space between the pair wasn’t nearly as wide as the gaping divide in their relationship.
“Okay,” shifted Sandalwood, moving one of her leggy limbs underneath herself. It left one of her favorite heels empty on the floor.
The redheaded psychoanalyst, a former volleyball spiker from Cal State Fullerton, was every bit as tall as Gonzo. It made Lucky wonder why women tipping six feet felt the need to add even more stilt to their already towering frames. Had they been so used to intimidating boys that the fashionable four inches added by their designer footwear gave them an exponential advantage?
“I feel like we’re static,” revealed Gonzo. “Not moving forward or backward.”
“Like you’re stuck?” asked Sandalwood.
“I like progress,” said Gonzo. “Something quantifiable beyond days or months.”
“Commitment,” clarified the doc.
“Not like he needs to put a ring on it,” said Gonzo. “We’re supposed to be a family. But it feels like we’re all just really good roommates.”
Family.
Lucky had a love/hate conflict with the word. He had no trouble using the word as a reference. He shared their Altadena bungalow—the former rental which they’d finally bit the bullet and purchased—with Gonzo, her fifteen-year-old son Travis, and Lucky’s emancipated charge, seventeen-year-old Karrie Kaarlsen. But in his stubborn mind, Lucky still saw the family as something ad-hoc. Made up. Did that make the family only something between temporary and for real? Or was it just Lucky holding Lucky back?
Lucky didn’t dare offer that terrible tidbit in that, their third couple’s therapy session. He was still sussing out the therapist’s office trappings as if he were investigating something. To Dr. Sandalwood’s right was a small, built-in desk on top of which was a large computer running a screensaver slideshow of pastoral photographs. To her left was a bookshelf unit stacked with books on far-ranging subjects—from criminal sociology to climbing Mount Everest. Haphazardly strung in and around the bookcase, was an electric garland of friendly ghosts and jack-o-lanterns. It was a reminder that Halloween was fast approaching, and also that Dr. Sandalwood’s practice wasn’t for couples or adults only. Children had played in that room, on that same couch. Traumatized. Troubled. And like Lucky, itching to bolt for the door.
“Bought the house,” deadpanned Lucky. “That’s a commitment.”
“And it was practically a deal-breaker,” shot Gonzo. “Like you and rehab. You did it only because I threatened to leave.”
“Is that true?” asked Dr. Sandalwood.
“Probably,” said Lucky.
“Lucky,” pressed the therapist. “Do you need to be pushed in order for you to feel something?”
“Excuse me?”
“Threatened,” clarified Sandalwood. “Pressured. Do you require ultimatums for you to reach down and find your emotional self?”
“I don’t really know,” said Lucky. “Not on the street or the job.”
“You know,” said Sandalwood. “You’re not the first police officer who’s been on that couch.”
“She’s a cop, too,” deflected Lucky. “We’re a cop couple. You’ve seen many of those?”
“No,” Sandalwood replied. “You’re my first. But where I was going had to do with something I’ve seen in other police officers. They’re guarded. What’s that stuff you wear to protect you from bullets? Bulletproof Teflon—”
“Kevlar,” corrected Lucky.
“Kevlar,” she repeated. “That’s right. Cops are often covered in Kevlar. Not just on the job. But once they step across the threshold of their homes. Their families find it hard to get through to them.”
Lucky gave a half-exhale and faced Gonzo.
“Do you have trouble getting through to me?” asked Lucky.
“I want to go on a vacation,” said Gonzo. “And two nights in Vegas isn’t what I’m talking about.”
“You said that was fun,” reminded Lucky. “I remember you saying—”
“You. Me. Travis. Karrie,” Gonzo counted off on her fingers. “The four of us. Far away. Anyplace we can’t drive to in a day. A cabin. Anything. With no TV and cell phones. I want quiet and board games.”
“Bored games,” Lucky joked. “And Travis hates ’em.”
“So do you,” argued Gonzo. “And don’t use Travis as your excuse. That’s not cool at all.”
“Travis thinks I’m plenty cool,” segued Lucky.
Gonzo twisted away, arms crossed and shaking her head as if to punctuate her point.
“I believe what Lydia is saying—”
“She’s Gonzo,” corrected Lucky. “We all call her Gonzo.”
Gonzo agreed with an annoyed nod. Having been called Gonzo by nearly everybody but the Department of Motor Vehicles since grade five, Lydia Maria Gonzalez, her birth name, might as well have been someone else’s official moniker.
“What she’s saying,” continued Dr. Sandalwood, “is that she needs a connection. Your family needs to connect. All of you to each other. Board games. Hikes. Anything analog you all could do together—as family—might lend itself to repairing those bonds.”
“And if the bonds are already okay-fine?” asked Lucky.
“They can always be made stronger,” suggested the therapist.
“My daughter,” Lucky switched before turning to Gonzo as if to prove something. “You see. I said daughter. Karrie. She’s got a lawyer because she wants to legally take my last name. Does that count as a bond?”
If there were answers from the therapist or Gonzo they would have to wait until the following week. The leggy shrink had already slipped back into her empty pump and stood for the session-ending cross to her desk. Though it was only the third appointment, Lucky had already clocked some of the therapist’s physical cues, the most obvious being her way of lowering a curtain on the appointment. Instead of the de rigueur “That’s all the time we have for today” employed by so many psychologists, the ex-volleyballer would simply rise and pivot to her desktop where she summoned an electronic calendar.
“Next week?” confirmed Sandalwood.
The cop couple walked in silence to the eighth-floor elevators, both with their emotional skin rubbed slightly raw.
“Where we going with this?” ventured Lucky.
“It’s not supposed to be easy,” shouldered Gonzo. “Just show up, okay? Go with it.”
“Go where?”
“Wherever!” annoyed Gonzo. “It’s a process.”
“Feels more like a train headed over a cliff,” deadpanned Lucky. He triple-tapped the down elevator button again.
“You wanna keep this going?” reminded Gonzo, “You and me? This is what it’s gonna take.”
“Forgive me if I don’t get how peeling off each other’s skin helps anybody but Dr. Ka-ching back there.” The reference was to the shrink’s hourly fee.
“Know what?” stalled Gonzo. “I’m not up for this shit. You keep the car. I’m gonna Uber back to the house.”
“Suit yourself,” shrugged Lucky, both trying and succeeding to appear as if he didn’t give a rip—defensively indifferent to a fault.
No sooner had Gonzo turned her back and swerved toward the stairwell than the lift mechanism dinged a familiar signal.
“Elevator’s here!” Lucky called out.
Gonzo’s response was no more than the sound of the stairwell fire door automatically sealing shut with a secure kuh-shunk.
About the Author
Doug cut his teeth writing movies like Die Hard 2, Bad Boys, and Hostage until sharp enough to pen the Lucky Dey crime thriller series. He’s currently writing his fifth Lucky Dey Thriller: The Night is Never Black. He lives in Southern California with his wife, two children and four mutts.
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The Lucky Dey Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (The Lucky Dey Series Boxset) Page 93