by John Shannon
I was actually happy that day. In remission from all the Halloos. But being happy creates its own problems – it leads you to take on responsibilities you can’t handle. A Skinny pokes his impossibly thin face into sight in front of my windshield, frowning. Time to go back to the motel, or time to force myself to meet him, or time to drive down to the movie set. Whatever – I’m not in very good shape.
Gloria walked out into the underground parking with Maeve in tow, looking a bit dazed.
‘Why don’t you stay with us tonight, hon,’ Jack Liffey suggested as Maeve got in the back.
‘Yeah, we kind of worked that out,’ Maeve said in a half-dead, half-frightened voice. ‘Gloria was pretty strong in there. She can sure talk the talk.’ Gloria didn’t add anything. ‘Love you, Dad.’
‘Me too.’
‘Sorry, this time I was really shook up,’ Maeve said and she leaned back and closed her eyes. She seemed to be trying to rub something off her face. ‘I was talking some guy down from his muddle, I’m not sure. His eyes were just starting to focus. Then they killed him right in front of me.’
‘Sweetie,’ Gloria said – and she couldn’t keep a harsh tone out of her voice. ‘What you’re calling a muddle was a crazy man shooting up a campus with hundreds of kids in range. Put yourself in the place of people trained to protect the public from threats like that.’
‘I try to, honest, Gloria. But he was looking like such a confused little kid. I don’t really blame the police. People do what they have to. But I don’t think I’m some sort of outlaw for trying to save the guy’s life.’
‘Maybe we’re a family of outlaws,’ Jack Liffey said out of the blue. Jealousy was making him ridiculously contrary, he could feel it inside. All he could really touch was petulance. He had to get a grip.
‘Shut up, Jack,’ Gloria snapped. ‘A man died today, and no one is happy about it. SWAT doesn’t have celebrations when they have to kill somebody.’
Everybody was on edge, for various reasons. ‘You’re right. Every posture has its consequences. Including my bad moods.’
They all sat silently as Gloria drove toward home. Maeve opened her eyes and watched the two of them as if she sensed that something other than her own experience was going on here.
‘Hush, everybody. I had a moment of hope there,’ Gloria said. ‘I’m trying to bring it back.’
‘Thanks for interrupting your course to come get me out,’ Maeve said, and when nobody took up the thread, she let it lie, knowing something was really wrong.
The sun wasn’t up yet, but the Porsche Targa up the street whooped a few times as it started and then warmed up, or at least gave some hotshot the sense he was warming it up. Winston Pennycooke figured there was no longer any question that this was the guy who was dogging Harper’s bossman. The guy had waited there in his hot car most of the night watching the house. Winston started up his own rental Impala. He’d never keep up with a Targa on a racetrack, but the big throaty V-6 would be just fine for city traffic unless he got caught at a light, and he wasn’t going to let that happen.
He almost criss-crossed the street to the wrong side as headlights came uphill at him, but he got himself together in time. Remember to stay right side, ma’an. Luckily the Porsche had distinctive low pointy taillights that he could follow through the L.A. traffic.
Cha, my friend. This a great big dread American street cruiser and I can rumble with you bumpy little German turtle any time you want.
I’m pretty well disgusted with myself by the time I get back to the motel, the sun just offering its first eastern glow. Why go AWOL from the movie if I’m going to get right up on Pops’s crib and then turn chickenshit? Today? Tomorrow, sometime – I got to face Pops, if it is Pops. I’ll probably know just by looking at him.
I should probably call my shrink, Dr Rosen, to help kick me over this last bridge, maybe let him know I’m finally tracking the old man down, but there’s a freedom in being away from the world of good sense and good advice. Rosen can’t come with me on this quest anyway, firing his healing arrows at my head as we go – wap, wap, wap. No more running away, Ty – and maybe the Skinnies will hold off, too. Yeah, I see you peeking. All’s I got to do is walk straight up to the man and say – what? Sir, I’m Melanie’s son. Melanie Ocean Bird.
But I have too much imagination. Look kid, the man replies, every swingin’ dick’s got Melanies in his life. Did she play the skin clarinet? Was she that one-night stand in Oakland?
In my head the scene plays out in a dark doorway so I can barely see him.
I’m your son! Don’t be so mean!
Do you really think I give a shit, kid? I got a hundred bastards just like you all over the country.
Several Skinnies saunter into the room, prancing around, too many to dismiss now. Fatherhood is nothing, they link arms and sing out in their falsetto chorus. But we’ll always be with you. We’re your pals.
Who are you to me? I say audaciously. You’re all just halloos. Figments.
Ty, don’t you know the truth?
That was the Skinny with the ghostly blue eyes. It smiles and dips its head as another takes its place, the one with the floppy hair. We always help you get home safe, Smart Ty. Your moms sends us. Have a drink right now to get your butt calmed down. Just a little one, and maybe another little one right after.
Look at me! I shout in my head. My father is real!
Maeve went off to cuddle Loco and drag the dog into the guest room that they kept available for her – still her room really. Which left them alone in the kitchen, and neither was sure they wanted to be alone together just then.
‘Let me thaw some burritos for all of us,’ Gloria said.
He nodded, not trusting himself to reply. The word thaw opened up too many possibilities of sarcasm.
She handed him a 7-up and opened a bottle of dark Indio for herself. For its name alone, she’d taken to drinking the hard-to-find beer from Monterrey in eastern Mexico. The wrapped burritos went into a plastic bag in a pot of water in the sink, and she sat opposite him at the green Formica table covered with its little flying kidney shapes. She worked assiduously on her first Indio.
‘So?’ he said.
‘It’s hard,’ she said. ‘I really care for you, Jackie. You been so very good to me.’
‘Do you want me out of your house?’
‘No no no no. Please. But I got to ask something even harder.’
He did his best not to panic. He tried to focus on what he knew of her dreadful childhood, her pain and her own needs, and her exact words now. You’ve made your mistakes, Jack. Atone now, he thought. It wasn’t that easy. What about me and my needs, he thought.
‘I’m asking you to be stronger than God,’ Gloria said. ‘Let me run with this thing a little longer and find out what it’s about.’
‘We’d better be clear,’ Jack Liffey said. ‘You mean Sonny Theroux?’
She nodded, and his heart plummeted all the way to the floor and then bounced sickeningly. A one-night fling with some handsome cop in Vice was one thing, but a smart guy that he respected and liked – or used to like – really frightened him. She was saying she wanted to go on fucking Sonny Theroux. ‘Can you tell me about it?’
‘Jackie, you’re not Superman. You’re not meant to sit there and listen to me talk about a guy. That’s for some girlfriend. I’m really a mess. I have to get drunk a little to get over my shame when I see him.’
And when you see me, too, he wondered.
‘I can say this much. He wants it to last, but I don’t think it will. I don’t think it can. I don’t know what it is. Just an angry old woman’s last infatuation? One last admirer before I fade to black. I’m a fat fifty-year-old, Jack. It’s not even proper.’
She was silent for a minute, and he didn’t know what to say. I’m sixty-three and I’m really scared of being alone now, he thought.
‘And that house of his is so comical – that pint-size Gone With the Wind thing. It’s like being wooed in Di
sneyland.’ She drained the beer, and he saw it wasn’t the first drink she’d had tonight. He wondered where she’d got the others – if she’d started hiding bottles.
He smiled a little, before he realized he didn’t feel very much like smiling. It had pleased him momentarily that she’d had the same reaction to that ludicrous house that he’d had. Alcohol would have helped him deal with this event, too, he knew that. Maybe he should make an exception. ‘You’re going to go back up and see him again?’
She nodded gravely. ‘I got to, Jack. You know, the sex part maybe doesn’t mean so much no more. It’s not that.’
Yeah, Jack Liffey thought with dread. Sonny was trying to reach things inside her not many men had reached before, and he could only hope that the man failed. He’d sure tried hard enough himself. He did his best to be sympathetic – to force himself to remain in some suspended emotional state. Think of her.
Some acid was eating away at her self-respect way down inside, and he’d done his best to scoop it out. It didn’t seem to help any more to say it was just being a Native American who’d been fostered by a couple of fucked-up old Latinos who’d taught her contempt for her own people. The pace of her life, a cop’s life, the service to others, day after day, had made it almost impossible for her to examine her own feelings calmly and carefully. And she wouldn’t go to therapy because she said it was the kiss of death to your career if word got out in the department.
Her, he thought. She’s on a knife-edge, and you can be strong for her. If you want her, you’ve got to be. Demands won’t work. Anger will make it all worse. He did his best to keep his ill will under control.
‘I hope Sonny helps you learn something important,’ he said, and he knew that saying those words, even in his most rigid, controlled voice, was giving his permission.
She fetched a fresh bottle of Indio and looked at him skeptically over it. ‘Will you feel the same way when I drive away from here to see him?’
‘I don’t know, Glor. Don’t ask me to be made of stone. I’ll do the best I’ve got. I’m scared to death for myself, but I care about what you need, too.’
There was a bustling sound, and Maeve followed Loco into the kitchen just in time. ‘I’m sorry, we’re both dying of hunger, folks.’
‘Mr Bigs Harper,’ Ratchet said on the phone. ‘I-an-I move forwud fe find dis guy bother you and de boss. Las’ night he wait in his likkle Porsche at de man’s house, sitting dere all night. But big surprise for you. Listen up. Dis Porsche guy, him a famous star in de movies, for true. You no wan’ him tek some licks, I tink. Or you get all de coppers in Babylon mash doun on you.’
‘Wait a minute, wait a minute, Mr Rude Boy. Tell me all this shit in English. I know you’re a smart boy. You found our nosy guy?’
Ratchet was enjoying messing with Harper’s head with the deepest Jamaican dialect he could muster. ‘OK, dis de guy you wan’. Mr Big Movie Star man – name Tyrone Bird. You no see Law’n’Disorder? Avenue on Fire? I see all a’ his movie back on J. I watch dis Tyrone Bird las’ night. At Mr Stoney house in Woodland. Just sittin’ an’ a thinkin’. Him broodin’ on somet’ing. I follow de ma’an back to his motel. You want I fe speak wid him and tell him back off – OK, I do it strong. But I know you no want no dread beat an’ blood, not on Mr Famous. Dat bring da downpressor.’
‘Jesus fucking Christ. Are you sure, man? Ty Bird? You’re not fucked up on one of those two pound sticks of weed or something?’
‘Nah true. No ganja for I-an-I. Dis big movie starman – I know him like me own mama. Tyrone Bird is tops in J, everywhere. He numbah one. You still wan’ me fe tell him back off?’
‘Jesus, no. Don’t even go near him, but watch him. I’ll talk to Stone.’
‘OK, I’m ga’an. Me link you up layta.’
‘Wait—’
The phone clicked off.
Pussyhole, Ratchet thought. He laughed out loud. We ragamuffin win dis likkle game all de time.
The only man he’d met in the States who wasn’t an idiot was that old white guy – what was the name? – Jack Liffey. He didn’t seem to need a pretend hard guy standing up inside him, like so many on the streets. And the man had helped his brother and his brother’s girl. Honor, ma’an. I-an-I do what honor is all about.
EIGHT
The Deal
It wasn’t hard to find the symbol – the heart with shepherd’s crooks for handles – that the Colombians had painted on the parking spot at Costco. It was starting to wear away now but marked the place they had used several times as a handover point.
Stoney knew that Jhon Jairo Orteguaza and his boys would have rented a car or two of their own by now, and he and Harper had no real idea what to watch for coming through the entrance – except maybe that Porsche Targa that Ratchet had warned them about, the wild card. They’d been damned careful getting there. To follow them, this movie star, whatever his game, would have had to run a couple of red lights and then make himself pretty obvious by doubling around a suburban block, twice. Even high-priced stunt drivers couldn’t get away with that.
Stoney guessed Orteguaza would be favoring a big Lincoln or maybe a ridiculous Humvee stretch limo, if anybody rented out those things any more. No Honda Civics. Nobody would ever accuse the Colombians of modesty. They were nuts about show-off commodities of all kinds.
Without making a point of it, Stoney lightly touched the Israeli Desert Eagle .50-caliber under his left shoulder, just for comfort. It was really too big a pistol to walk around with, but it would put a bullet right through any rental car door they were likely to meet, and then continue on through at least two Colombians and maybe even out the other side, so it did make him feel better. He knew Harper had his own comfort pistol, whatever it was, and probably an Uzi or a Steyr spray gun under the seat. Lord knows what his Rollin’ Seventies pals had if they were indeed back there. He had forbidden Harper to turn around and look for confirmation, but they’d texted him of their presence on his BlackBerry. Probably they carried old rusted AKs and shorty MAC-10s. Ghetto straps – cheap and wildly inaccurate, but intimidating enough with their rapid fire so they could blow away a few infants in the houses nearby.
‘Man, you either trust your boys or you don’t,’ Stoney said. ‘They said they’re here.’ They were both wearing fairly discreet bulletproof vests of Honeywell Gold Flex. It wouldn’t stop a round from an assault rifle at close range, but it’d cope with most handguns. You just couldn’t go around in Marine body armor without looking ridiculous. Stoney felt he’d done his due diligence on this deal all the way around. He’d arranged for everything on their side except artillery and air power.
‘Did our Rastafarian friend give the slightest hint what this movie star in his Porsche is all about?’
‘I thought it best to keep them apart, Stone. That Pennycooke family has a rep for squirting ginger beer up your nose to make you answer questions. You don’t want no shit like that right now.’
Stoney turned to study his younger partner, all bright eyes and little glints of fear – that strange persistent blink he had – and he decided not to ask about the ginger beer. The man had been called Blinky on the street until he threatened to bust a cap on the next person who called him that. ‘Harp, when you’re right you’re right.’
‘This whole place is mad bait, Stoney. I don’t like it here.’
Marcus Stone made a face. ‘It’s been cool so far. The Panchos have been straight. We’ve been careful and straight. It’s so public nobody sane would start trippin’ here. Of course, who says these assholes are sane. You want to do the talk when they come?’
‘You not dumpin’ me headfirst in some shit, Stoney?’
‘Man, don’t be paranoid. You my number one. My word is on it. I just want you to get some experience dealing with the big world.’
They touched fists below the level of the dash. ‘Sometimes I worry about all that intelligence working overtime in there,’ Harper said. He tapped a finger on Stoney’s forehead.
&nbs
p; It was annoying, and Stoney didn’t forget the feel of the taps of that finger.
‘You do the talk, Stone. You Mr College.’
* * *
A half hour ago, they were doing their best to lose me – or lose anyone. If I hadn’t done most of the driving in the movie Hard Down they’d have lost me ten times over. Connie McKay – one of the world’s great stunt drivers – with two Oscars and dozens of broken bones, was my tutor on that one, and I demanded him from then on.
He showed me all that splendid bold driving that old Hollywood specialized in before the computers took over – think ahead, Connie insisted, think every turn way ahead and every brake, anticipate every move. People are gonna tell you you’re a terrific driver. You ain’t. Nobody, not me, is too good to make a mistake. Guys did a little street racing in a rice-burner at eighteen and think they’re hot shit. Driving hard on streets is a skill almost no swingin’ dick values enough to work at it. Except stunters and some track drivers, mostly Formula One. Them Indy guys and NASCAR, they don’t do shit but turn left and turn left again.
Connie let me in on a bit of the lore when he had to, but not too much. Figuring where a car was probably going and shifting a block over to hide yourself. Easy enough, he says, if you got a really hot machine so you can do a U-ey and catch up when you’re wrong. Connie taught me the moonshine-runner’s handbrake turn, a hair-raising one eighty at full speed, yanking on the handbrake to rip the wheels loose. Making sure to keep far enough from the curbs so you don’t tick them even a little in the turn and roll. Even with all that training and all the Targa’s edge in acceleration and handling, I would have lost them this morning when they did a rope-a-dope twice around a block that would have shown me clear if I’d followed, but I just stopped to watch and here I am down in the parked-up mass of cars at the Costco in Inglewood. With Mexican families pushing big flat carts of goodies past me. Strange that these two black guys think they’re so invisible sitting out at the periphery all by themselves in that Escalade. They look like giraffes sitting in a cathedral. And, strangely enough, in my silver Porsche Targa, backed into a slot between a big Tahoe and a Corolla, I’m the one who’s invisible.