by Jacob Stone
Mrs. Granauche, a seventy-two-year-old widow, complained that the dog’s late-night barking had woken her. Lori apologized profusely and promised it wouldn’t happen again. Mrs. Granauche grudgingly accepted this and disappeared back into her apartment. Lucky, for his part, stood in the hallway sniffing, his barking having turned into a low, rumbling growl.
“What was it?” Lori demanded.
The dog fixed his yellowish-red eyes on her and whimpered.
She wanted to take Lucky outside to see if he could sniff out whoever it was that had set him off, but she didn’t have her keys, so she had to first run back inside to get them. Once she had her apartment locked up and secure, she brought Lucky to the elevator. The dog was still sniffing in the air as if he were trying to pick up the scent of what had spooked him so badly. He continued making his aggrieved rumbling noises as they rode the elevator down to the lobby.
Once she got him outside, the dog stood sniffing in the air, searching for a scent he couldn’t find. She lived in a residential area, and at that hour there were no pedestrians walking about and no cars driving away. If it was her boogeyman who had upset the dog, he had since disappeared. It occurred to her then that Lucky might’ve only had a nightmare. After all, he had his own baggage, and God only knew what abuse the poor thing had suffered before ending up at the rescue shelter. Lori stood silently as she scratched the dog behind his ear and studied him.
“Is that what happened,” she asked, “you had a bad dream?”
Lucky sneezed, the action loud and violent.
“Or maybe something in the movie spooked you? What was I thinking playing anything called Furious after what we’ve been through?” She watched as Lucky looked at her with utter befuddlement, as if he had no idea why he had gone Defcon One minutes earlier. “What do you say we go for a long walk? See if we can rid ourselves of these bad dreams?”
Lucky sneezed again, this one seemingly an agreement to her suggestion.
Chapter 13
Scalise was doing the chauffeuring. He explained earlier that night that he loved driving. “It don’t matter to me whether I’m stuck in traffic or cruising the freeway at eighty,” he had told Chandler, “where else am I going to be that’s as comfortable as the front seat of my Lincoln?”
Chandler didn’t share Scalise’s appreciation for driving around Los Angeles, but he tactfully agreed with him. What the hell, it meant he didn’t have to drive.
Soon after leaving Palace 21, Scalise’s mood darkened. It came quickly, like a thunderstorm blowing in, and as the gangster sat brooding behind the wheel, the tension seemed to roll off him in waves. It became suffocating, and Chandler almost asked to get out of the car, but he was curious about what was behind this change. What held him back even more was that filming for his new gangster movie started Monday, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to channel the necessary bravado on set if he chickened out now. He tried to ignore his growing unease, but after several minutes he couldn’t help himself from nervously asking Scalise if something was wrong.
Scalise gave the actor a quick sideways glance, a glint showing in his dark eyes. “Why should something be wrong?” he asked in a soft, menacing voice.
The implied violence in Scalice’s tone was unmistakable. “I don’t know,” Chandler stammered, his voice dropping to a whisper. It wasn’t just a single butterfly fluttering around in his stomach but a whole swarm of them now. “I just thought you looked worried, that’s all.”
“What was it you said? I couldn’t hear you with the way you’re mumbling under your breath.”
Reluctantly the actor repeated himself.
“So you’re telling me you can just look at me and know that, huh? Or are you saying you’re a mind reader?”
“Neither,” Chandler said.
“You’re sure you can’t tell what I’m thinking right now?”
“That I should keep my mouth shut.”
“What do you know, you can read minds after all.”
Scalise’s brooding continued until he stopped the Lincoln in front of a shuttered warehouse advertising that it was available for rent. As quickly as someone snapping his fingers, his moodiness lifted and he returned to his earlier buoyant self. He gave Chandler what appeared to be a playful punch in the shoulder, but the pain from the blow radiated all the way down to the actor’s wrist.
A grin cracked Scalise’s face. “Benny boy, you look like you’re about to get sick. What’s wrong, you can’t take a joke?”
Confused, Chandler asked, “What was the joke?”
“The way you’ve been acting like I’m some sort of mob guy, I thought I’d play the part and give you my best Joe Pesci from Goodfellas. Look, I’m no gangster, I just know a few people from the old neighborhood, that’s all. This errand shouldn’t take no more than five minutes, and afterward we’ll go to the poker game I’ve been telling you about. While I’m busy, I need you to stay in the car.” Scalise’s eyes dimmed as a thought came to him. He added, “If you see some clown sneaking up on me, hit the horn. You got it?”
If you see some clown sneaking up on me… The actor didn’t trust himself to speak. He knew his voice would crack if he said anything, so instead he bit his bottom lip to keep his emotions in check. This had long ago stopped being fun and games, but now this? What had he gotten himself into?
Scalise slapped him playfully twice on the jaw, both slaps making Chandler wince. A deadly smile froze the gangster’s lips as he pulled the car away from the curb and drove onto the shuttered warehouse’s driveway and continued to a parking lot in back. A man was leaning against a car parked along the far end of the lot. The headlights hit his face, and Chandler recognized him. Bobby Gallo, Big Joe Penza’s right-hand man. He had the reputation of being a full-blown psycho. His friend Billy Dunn had promised him that while Vincent Scalise was colorful and an evening with him would be memorable, Chandler would walk away with at worst a few scrapes as long as he behaved himself. That promise was the only thing that had kept Chandler from jumping out of the car earlier. He knew the same wasn’t true of Bobby Gallo. But both men worked for the same boss. This was just a quick errand. There was no reason for Chandler to be feeling cold sweat dripping down his back.
Scalise stopped the car fifty feet from Gallo. The keys were left in the ignition with the engine running and the car in neutral. A growing sense of terror took hold as Chandler realized this meant Scalise thought there might be a need for a quick getaway. His nerves weren’t helped any when he saw Gallo looking past Scalise so he could stare right at him. He thought about opening the door and running, but his leg muscles had turned to jelly and he knew he wouldn’t get far if he tried. Instead he watched Scalise approach Gallo and then the two men engaging in what looked like an amicable conversation. When a third man emerged from the shadows behind Scalise, the actor froze. Before he remembered the horn, the man grabbed Scalise in a bear hug. Gallo stepped forward and pulled a switchblade from Scalise’s pocket. The Lincoln’s headlights glimmered off the steel blade as it sprung open. Chandler watched as the blade was plunged into Scalise’s stomach and then as it sliced upward. He stared dumbfounded as Gallo pulled a big-ass gun from a shoulder holster and started moving in his direction.
Chandler woke up from whatever stupor he had drifted into and dropped so he was out of sight. In one of his movies, the character he played found himself in a similar situation. What his character did when the bad guy came running at him spitting bullets from an Uzi was reach across the driver’s seat and push down on the gas pedal with one hand while using the other to shift the car into reverse so he could drive away. In the movie, this was done by a stuntman. This time Chandler did it, and the car shot backward like a rocket until it slammed into a retaining wall.
The crash jolted him, but he was otherwise unhurt. He looked up enough to see Gallo was still chasing him, but he had put more distance between them. Whatever dam
age he had done to the car, it wasn’t enough to keep it from driving. While still lying across the driver’s seat, he spun the steering wheel enough so he could maneuver the car out of the parking lot and onto the street. Only then did he risk putting the car in park and climbing onto the driver’s seat. He floored the gas pedal and ran red lights after that.
He had spent weeks researching his upcoming role, reading everything he could about Big Joe Penza and his organization. The one recurring theme he kept coming across was that anyone who came forward to testify against Big Joe or his top guns ended up dead well before trial.
He had no idea where it would be safe for him to go. All he knew for certain was that he was in big trouble.
Chapter 14
Lori woke up the next morning with Lucky treating her face like a tasty lollipop. She pulled away from the wet, sandpapery tongue and struggled to open her eyes against the sunlight flooding the room. As she realized why her face was wet and what Lucky was doing to her, she bolted upright, fully awake. A double espresso wouldn’t have worked as well.
“Ugh, I’ve been kissed by a dog,” she said, giggling softly to herself as she repeated Lucy van Pelt’s line from the old Peanuts TV special that she had watched every year as a kid. Lucky cocked his head to one side and stared at her as if she were crazy.
“Yeah, I know, you big galoot, kind of silly of me, huh?”
She squinted at the alarm clock on the shelf next to her. It was past ten o’clock. She hadn’t slept this late in ages. Of course, it helped that she and Lucky had gone on a two-hour hike around West Hollywood last night and didn’t get back to her apartment until after one. Not only did the walking tire them both out, but it was liberating, especially watching one particular predatory-looking dude cross the street after seeing Lucky.
“Let me guess, your bladder’s bursting?”
The dog made a noise that was part growl, part whimper. Lori rolled out of bed, put on a pair of running shorts and a T-shirt, made a pit stop herself, and then took an increasingly impatient Lucky out into the hallway. She spotted Mrs. Weinstein by the elevator with her Pomeranian. The little fur ball started yapping up a storm as if he wanted to take on the bigger dog. If Lucky wanted to he could swallow the Pomeranian whole, but for his part he watched silently, his head cocked to one side. Mrs. Weinstein shot Lori an accusatory look, as if this was her doing. Well, discretion was the better part of valor. She abruptly turned away and led Lucky toward the stairs, and the big galoot didn’t put up a fight.
They made a quick trip around the block while Lucky watered shrubs and killed swaths of grass, and other dog owners they passed hastily crossed the street and stared at Lori as if they were blaming her for bringing this unsightly beast into their neighborhood. She smiled back as if everything was fine in the world. Heck, their dogs were the ones straining at the leash to get at Lucky, not the other way around. After looping the block, Lori stopped off at a nearby bakery to get herself a croissant and coffee and a blueberry muffin for the big galoot. Her plans that day were to go to the office and get a head start on her assignments. She figured she owed Alice that for being so good about letting her bring Lucky into work. First, though, she needed to take a shower.
As she watched Lucky gobble up the muffin, she wondered again about the way he had acted the other night. Bad memories. That had to be it.
* * * *
The plan was to tire the big galoot out at the dog park so he’d snooze later when Lori brought him to work. Earlier in the week she had bought a ball thrower—a plastic thingamajig with a long handle and a cup to hold a tennis ball. She counted seven other dogs of varying sizes at the park. While Lucky appeared indifferent to them, she had no idea what he’d do once he was off the leash, since she hadn’t taken that step yet. It would be terrible if he attacked one of them.
“What do you think, big guy, are you going to be good?” she asked.
Lucky gave her an inscrutable look.
She kept him on the leash and introduced him to each dog and was relieved that he behaved himself, although two of the owners came running over to drag their dogs away.
“So I can trust you, huh?” Lori asked.
She felt certain that if a dog was capable of shrugging, Lucky would’ve done so right then. She unhooked his leash, loaded the ball thrower with a tennis ball, and let it fly. The salesclerk had told her she’d be able to throw a ball a hundred feet with it. The ball sailed farther than that, maybe as much as half the length of a football field. Lucky took off after it, his long legs making deer-like strides. Lori watched with amazement at how fast he ran, but he didn’t stop when he reached the ball. Instead he kept running straight at the three-foot-high fence bordering the park. Instead of turning back, Lucky effortlessly leapt over it. Soon after that he disappeared from sight. Lori knew he wasn’t coming back.
Chapter 15
Monday afternoon, Parker kept Morris company while he sat in his car and staked out a downtown warehouse on Seventh Street. He lowered a pair of binoculars, almost strained a jaw muscle yawning, and made a face after sipping coffee that had gotten cold an hour ago. His cell phone rang. Detective Marty Wright.
“I got what you asked for earlier,” Wright said. “Big Joe Penza is shopping for clothes right now.”
“Marty, thanks for coming through. Drinks on me wherever and whenever, you name the place and time.”
“Don’t think I won’t be collecting,” Wright threatened. “I plan to put a heavy dent in your wallet. Or your expense account. Whatever it is you hotshot private cops use these days.”
“Whichever it is, it will be a tax write-off. Where’s Big Joe shopping?”
“Some fancy-ass shop on Rodeo Drive. I’m not even going to try to pronounce the name.” Wright spelled out the name of the store and gave the street address.
Lemmon was on assignment in San Diego, and last Morris had checked, Polk had tracked a suspect in a fraud case to Long Beach. He didn’t want to give up on his stakeout, but he also didn’t want to miss his opportunity to talk with Penza. He called Felger, and MBI’s computer and hacking specialist sounded excited to do fieldwork.
“Bring a thermos of coffee, otherwise you’ll be dozing off in an hour. Also bring an empty jug so you can return the coffee. I need you to watch for a van with the following license plate.” Morris read him the plate number he had scribbled on a scrap of paper. “If it shows up, mark the time and take photos of it. Greta will get you a camera. How quickly can you get here?”
“Fifteen minutes?”
“Make it ten. Call me when you’re in your car and I’ll give you more instructions.”
He started the engine and pulled away from the curb. Parker lifted his head and gave him a questioning look. There was a chance the van would show up before Felger arrived, but if it did, he would still catch the van on its way out. It couldn’t be helped. Morris needed to talk to Penza, and he wasn’t going to miss his opportunity.
* * * *
The name of the fancy-ass store that Wright didn’t want to try pronouncing was Hjälte, which Morris figured meant something in either German or one of the Scandinavian languages. He brought Parker with him. The place looked more like a modern art museum than a clothing store. Abstract paintings decorated the walls, and light-colored woods and chrome filled the store’s interior. The merchandise was discreetly hidden away in sleek cabinets with not a single mannequin in sight—which Morris guessed would’ve been too gauche. He spotted two thick-necked types standing in the back by the dressing rooms, but before he could get very far, a salesclerk intercepted him. The man was a featherweight and impeccably dressed in one of the store’s chic suits. He also must’ve correctly appraised the value of the seventeen-year-old suit Morris wore and came to the conclusion that Morris wasn’t the caliber of customer that Hjälte wanted. He looked genuinely apologetic as he informed him that dogs weren’t allowed in the store, whic
h was as good an excuse as any. Morris flashed him the badge the mayor’s office had provided the MBI investigators so they could do work for the city.
“That’s okay. The dog’s been deputized,” he said with a straight face.
He walked around the flustered salesclerk. Parker, who was wagging his tail, let out one of his happy pig grunts. The two thick-necked types guarding the dressing room area weren’t as impressed by the badge. They stood blocking Morris’s way, and they weren’t about to budge. Given their sizes and apparent low centers of gravity, it would’ve taken a hydraulic jack to move either of those human boulders.
“I just want to talk to your boss for five minutes,” Morris said.
“Mr. Penza’s busy. Beat it.”
Parker let out an impatient grunt. The hired muscle glared at the bull terrier to show that he wasn’t impressed by him either.
“How about you give him my name and see if he’s willing to talk to me?”
The hired muscle refused to take Morris’s business card and demanded a photo ID. Reluctantly Morris handed over his driver’s license, and the muscle disappeared into the dressing room area. The other thick-necked goon took his place. It didn’t take long for his partner to return and signal with a tilt of his head that it was okay for Morris to pass. The goon stepped aside, and Morris passed him and collected his license from the other hired muscle. This one warned Morris that he might want to leave Parker with him.
“Mr. Penza doesn’t like dogs,” he said.
“I’ll keep him with me. Besides, how could anyone not like this little guy?”