A Little Too Much

by John Shannon

  ‘Take care, Stone,’ his own dirty cop said. ‘If the Colombianos are outside now, you all blown up, boo-yah, in ’bout one half second. These guys ain’t amateurs. They got what they need. What went bad?’

  ‘It’s all shifty, E. I guess these Colombia-heads be like any tweaker. They just always want more than you got. We played them fair.’

  ‘I hear you.’

  ‘Stay in touch.’ Stoney hung up.

  ‘Be strong, gents. I’m on top of it. We got our cop, too. And we got the element of surprise. Maybe. Go hang out somewhere you never been, go to a library. Then meet me at Woody’s at noon. And keep your best straps with you. Let’s all go out the alley door right now.’

  They started to stir.

  ‘And keep Li’l Joker in mind. We can’t let no Spanic motherfuckers dance into our city and punk us out.’ He meant it, and they could all hear he meant it. ‘Get anything else you got, even old throwdown pieces, get your pals. Get bazookas. Get dynamite. This is war. Let’s make what these fuckers did to Li’l Joker be our rise-up-angry.’

  7 See The Devils of Bakersfield.

  THIRTEEN

  While the Sierra Madre is Still a Virgin

  ‘We don’ wan’ no more of these Li’l Joker pendejos to beat on,’ Orteguaza said fiercely, one drink too far lit, though few had ever openly acknowledged seeing him that way. ‘You give us Marcus Stone. The man himself.’

  Randy Sem fingered the plastic nameplate on his Inglewood Police Department uniform. Something in the room smelled like skunk. What a fucking genius he’d picked for his first foreign payday, Sem thought. With all the bright boys running contraband out of Colombia and Mexico and Belize, he got the one with a brain like a rattlesnake caught in a wood chipper. ‘Lately, Stoney has been keeping hisself off the grid,’ Sem said.

  ‘What the fuck’s “off the grid”? You a real cop or some kind a pussy just puts papers in the files by alphabet?’ The whole Colombian gang had massed in Orteguaza’s big suite on the twelfth floor of the Radisson, shouldering like kids for the best northward view of the huge overseas 747s descending gracefully into LAX right across their windows.

  ‘I told you before; you guys should be looking for a new distributor for your nose candy. I can help with that. Have you called the guy I said? No. I tell you again, revenge is amateur hour. It don’t pay no widows.’

  Orteguaza stared hard at him. ‘Norteamericanos don’ never see how important this thing is – this respeck. We don’ never back off, hombre.’

  Randy Sem shook his head. The last thing he wanted to get into here was a dick-waving war. ‘Then every chickenshit who ever stepped on my shiny shoes in junior high I got to hunt him down and kill him dead, and I’m waiting on Death Row right now.’ He saw the man’s puzzled look. ‘Never mind that, here it is: this very day, I think I can get you a new sales rep for your best base or I can find you the whereat of Mr Marcus Stone – so you can shrink his head to the size of a béisbol or boil him in a big pot or whatever you headhunters do with your enemies. I can’t do both at once. You decide.’

  ‘No, you get me both, Sergeant Sem. You wanted twenty-five big wans. You get a partner with the good stuff, you don’ ask for no twin beds.’

  This asshole would require a real mental adjustment, Sem thought. He’d have to dump him in the end, but he wanted a big goddamn taste first. You flow with it or you flow against it, but a guy like this, you just never find a way to get out of his wake. It was too much like Iraq. His captain had said the only way to live with Fallujah was to re-up right away and never expect it to be Nashville.

  The big black Colombian guy in the corner had been talking soft all the time – Special Forces soft – into one of those bulky satellite phones that cost a fortune and didn’t go through the cell towers. He made a noise to get Orteguaza’s attention. They spoke in a slangy Colombian Spanish, as if he was too dumb or too norteamericano to follow. ‘Jefe, the devil-man tell us, No, don’t make no move on the Stone clowns if we don’t got to. Unless we can grab their shiny gold. Finish our biznis while the Sierra Madre is still a virgin.’ He snickered.

  Gloria had no idea what time it was when light began filling the room, but it felt far too early to wake up. She turned face down and tried to pull non-existent covers over her head.

  ‘Party time!’ Etcheverry called brightly from the door.

  She opened one eye and saw the fat cop holding up a six-pack of Coors, as if that would interest her at all at that hour, and in her condition. Coffee, maybe. Her right arm hurt like a bastard and she realized her right wrist was cuffed to the bedframe. This was just way too much. Gone way over the high side of her toleration.

  The bed gave as he sat heavily beside her and started to unbutton the cotton police blouse, her best. ‘Let’s see what you got under here.’

  She flailed at him with her free arm, too awkward to do any harm, and he caught her wrist in mid blow and twisted it back hard. The asshole was damn strong. ‘Honey, I said you got to have enthusiasm for the party, or you just might end up down an old mine shaft. We got lots of them in the hills here.’

  ‘If you stop now, Tom, I’ll forget all about this. I promise,’ Gloria said. Until the moment I jam my pistol into your mouth, you stupid fuck, she thought. I swear you’re going down. But she knew about establishing rapport, being respectful, de-escalating. She’d talked several raging suspects down. It had just never been this personal before.

  ‘Mister John Doe, come in here now. See if you think a piece of this is worth fifty bucks.’

  Another out-of-uniform cop sauntered in, almost as big as Etcheverry. This had to be the headquarters of the Dumb Club, she thought. You could always tell a third-rate cop, she thought. The swagger and that aura of entitlement to power.

  ‘Man, you don’t want to be part of this, believe me,’ she said to him.

  ‘You’re that L.A. cunt who caught the devil-man and dissed our whole department. Yeah, I remember you. They said you joked about us. You said they’d got to send us out on patrol in threes: “’cause one of us can read and one can write and the third guy watches the dangerous intellectuals.” Actually, it was pretty funny.’ He sniggered.

  The smile evaporated and his forehead furrowed. She knew that look, a man going to war.

  ‘John Doe’ turned to Etcheverry. ‘Can I beat on the bitch a while before we fuck her?’

  ‘Another fifty buys what you want.’

  Jack Liffey knocked on the chartreuse green motel door of the Sputnik SurfRider in Malibu. He didn’t realize motels came this downmarket along the beach, but it was still probably expensive, every rat and roach itemized.

  It was Winston who opened, looking bleary. He’d called and given Jack Liffey the address. Tyrone Bird was sleeping fully clothed on the Roy Rogers bedspread, down for the count. Jack Liffey had seen the bunged-up Targa out front.

  ‘He phoned me a while ago – he needs help – and that’s when I called you,’ Winston said.

  ‘I get it.’ Jack Liffey had got even a bit more than that already. He had to push Winston gently to get past into the dreary room. ‘You have a car here, too?’

  ‘Yeah. That Impal’.’

  ‘Good. Drive west, that’s to the right on PCH, until you see a good coffee place. There’ll be one, trust me. Starbucks is OK, or Coffee Bean or some local. Get us three strong coffees and whatever sugary pastries they sell for chewing on in the morning. You have money?’

  Winston nodded.

  ‘I take it you don’t know much about Ty’s meeting with his dad last night?’

  ‘Nah, sir. He collapse. But he say his old man in big trouble – shooting-type trouble.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take it from here, but I can use your help.’ Actually, he didn’t have a clue, but Winston looked so hangdog that Jack Liffey’s heart cried out to reassure him. ‘Between you and me, we can handle this.’

  Winston smiled weakly. ‘Thanks, Mr Liff. I know you worried, too, but I need to hear all fruits
are ripe.’

  ‘Go on now. I need coffee.’

  As soon as Winston was gone, Jack Liffey sat down with the room phone and called Jenny Ezkiaga in Bakersfield. A year earlier, she’d functioned brilliantly as his lawyer, getting Maeve and a lot of other kids out of trouble. No noise so far seemed to make Tyrone even stir on the bed.

  ‘Jenny, this is Jack. I bet you remember me.’

  ‘Of course. Sonny’s here, worried about Gloria, too.’

  ‘OK, Sonny and I both know you’re the go-to gal in that town. I assume you’re both about to go out looking for her. Would you call my home number every couple hours and leave a message? You know I don’t have a cell.’

  ‘Join up with the twenty-first century, Jack, you big weenie.’

  ‘Just keep me in the picture or I’ll be right up there, riding your ass.’

  ‘Don’t even think about it. They hate you worse than Obama in this town, Jack. You got their favorite Evangelical minister killed, even if he was going nuts and sponsoring book burnings and was about to shoot you. They got wanted posters all over town with your picture, saying, “Kill this man – win a prize.’”

  ‘I don’t think so, but the sentiment is probably right. It’s a hardshell town.’

  Tyrone gave out a buzzsaw snore. Then the young man rolled over and slammed the mattress once with a fist. Still deep in a troubled sleep. What a disturbed kid, Jack Liffey thought.

  ‘And Gloria wasn’t as nice to the Bako cops as I was,’ Jack Liffey said.

  ‘We don’t have nice up here, Jack. We’ve got Jesus, instead, but our Jesus isn’t into turning the other cheek.’

  ‘If Gloria gets hurt, nobody up there gets to turn the other cheek, I really mean it.’

  ‘Yeah, you tough guys always mean it. I’ll call.’

  The snore got even louder, the fist hammered a few more times, and Tyrone Bird rolled on to his back again. Jack Liffey decided he’d better wake the man before he detonated in his sleep. He always hated waking someone who was sleeping soundly – nothing was more precious than sleep, but this ragged state of Tyrone’s didn’t seem all that precious. He shook Tyrone’s shoulder.

  ‘Sorry, man, the feature players are all on the set. Time to go over your lines.’

  One eye snapped open – an eye so turbulent that for about five seconds it seemed to be able to drag the world down into infinite darkness. Then the eye closed for another count of five, and reopened as an ordinary eye. ‘You’re Jack Liffey, I bet. I need sleep. Why did you wake me?’

  He was quick, Jack Liffey thought. ‘You can keep that as a grudge if you like. I sent Winston for coffee. We need to talk before he gets back.’

  ‘Can I wash my face?’

  ‘Sure. And I’d get rid of everything to do with that dream, if I were you. It scared me as much as it must have scared you.’

  ‘Nobody told you I’m schizophrenic?’

  ‘I always reserve judgment, son. Others say you’re a good man.’

  ‘Wow, I wonder who.’ He went into the bathroom and locked the door. The water ran.

  Jack Liffey wondered how much of the half-empty cognac bottle on the bed he’d had recently. Probably enough.

  There were no rats visible, but the room was a foul yellow-green, and a big thrift-shop painting of an impossibly tall wave with an intrepid surfer was screwed to the wall beside the bed. The glass bead lamp beside the bed was off, which was a mercy. Plenty of morning light came in through the double layer of gauzy curtains.

  Tyrone drifted back in with his face dripping. He actually had wet his face, Jack Liffey thought. That was refreshing in a city where ‘wash my face’ usually served as a euphemism for re-upping on cocaine.

  ‘Winston says you can work miracles,’ Tyrone said.

  ‘Only on Sunday. Tell me fast about your dad. Our Jamaican pal works for your dad’s friends, and I don’t completely trust him yet, though I think he’s probably OK.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s OK.’

  ‘You let me decide that. Let me decide most things for a while and I’ll get you over, I promise. What did you learn about Mr Stone?’ He was guessing, but pretty sure he was right. Jack Liffey could see Tyrone focusing on things in the room that he couldn’t. The young man tried not to let on, but it was hard for him to ignore whatever it was that he was seeing.

  Tyrone gave him the short version of Marcus Stone’s life: teaching philosophy, the Panthers, Africa, ‘Now he’s one of those guys who makes his life hell by blaming the system but really blaming himself. He’s got all the smarts to make money as a bottom-feeder. He knows he can outthink the gangbangers, and he can use them. He was never away from that old school anger long enough to find anything else that worked.’

  ‘Good quick read. I can see why you’re a big deal in Hollywood, son. But something is bothering you in this room. Are you seeing things?’

  He didn’t answer right away.

  ‘Do you need some medication?’

  ‘You bet I do. There’s one of my fragile buddies sticking his tongue in your left ear right this minute.’

  ‘Where do we get the meds? Have you got the scrip?’

  ‘There’s a whole plastic bottle full of them at home up Mandeville Canyon.’

  Jack Liffey nodded. ‘OK. Winston should be pretty good at fetching those after he gets back with our coffee. Will you miss your fragile buddies if the meds work? I’d rather not have a tongue in my ear.’

  Ty grinned. ‘Don’t ask me that. Just be my co-star for now and keep me functioning.’

  ‘Tyrone, trust me. You’re my total focus.’ Jack Liffey realized that ironically enough he was back on the job for Monogram Pictures and Meier Reston, babysitting Tyrone. But after seeing that bottomless hell in the poor man’s eyes, he’d be happy to help him for his own sake.

  ‘You have to help my dad, too,’ Tyrone insisted, as if privy to his thoughts.

  ‘That goes with the deal. Tell me more.’

  ‘That prick Etcheverry arrested her last night, but somehow he’s keeping her off the books. Apparently she broke into the zoo on a mission to release the damn bald eagle.’

  Jenny was covering the mouthpiece in the kitchen as she informed Sonny who was sitting across her Formica table. Sonny buried his face in his hands.

  ‘Shit, shit. I took her there yesterday. That raggedy-ass bird can’t even fly. They clipped his wings.’

  ‘You do remember she humiliated Etcheverry to the whole police department?’

  Sonny nodded disconsolately.

  Jenny uncovered the phone: ‘Thanks, Tomasita. If you learn anything more, let me know.’

  She listened for a while more and then hung up. ‘Some other cops were there at the arrest last night and said the thing was a bit dicey,’ she told Sonny. ‘I’m not sure what Tomasita means by “dicey”. She only works on the switchboard and in records. But Gloria’s not in the system this morning. There was no booking. God only knows.’

  ‘What would that old cooter do?’

  ‘You don’t want to think about that, Sonny. Let’s go see his partner, Efren. He’s been keeping that moron out of trouble for years. He’s out now on disability with a broken foot.’

  ‘I wish we’d just stayed in bed,’ Sonny said.

  ‘Let’s not get into that. I always figured God gave a billy goat like you a hard head and a clear conscience. That doesn’t seem to be working out for you.’

  ‘Somebody slippin’ on his game here, I think.’

  ‘We balls deep, brah.’

  They’d gathered at the plastic tables behind Woody’s, sharing beers and a few paper plates of ribs just to look like they belonged. Each had a sports bag or some other container full of weapons at his feet, a few just supermarket paper bags. Stoney could see that a lot of the guys were not in a trusting mood. In their heads, they’d been reading papers and working the TV news about Li’l Joker to death and they were scared and angry.

  ‘The best defense is a good fuck-you up in the grill,’
Crispy said. He was the oldest of the active Rollin’ Seventies, maybe twenty-five.

  ‘We got the word out,’ Stoney said. ‘We only got to find where these Colombians are hiding out. This our country. We got our own cops looking.’

  ‘Man, I hope our cops are better than their cops. The Spics can pay more.’

  ‘I don’t understand why they wanna catch a fade with us?’ Crispy said. ‘We chopped drug for them for three years, and we never took them off, not a damn penny. What is it? They way too butt-hurt in this.’

  ‘They just crazy putas, man,’ Stoney said. ‘What you expect from way way south? They so far down there it make Mexicans look like eskimoos. They upside down on the earth. They suck they own dicks ’cause they hang up. You gotta know foreign assholes ain’t the same at all.’

  A couple of them chuckled.

  ‘Stone, you been a good money-man so far,’ a young banger said. ‘I know you was a Rollin’ Seventy back in the day, but don’t you be hate on us ‘cause we ain’t been to the big college.’

  ‘You always my homies, son. I don’ forget that. If Ima be warlord here, I wanna know what we got that shoots. Nah – don’t be showin’ me. Tell me anything more interesting than the piece you took out of your momma’s purse this morning.’

  One by one, they mentioned the assault rifles and machine pistols that he already knew about.

  ‘OK, I got me a M203 grenade launcher for my M-16, and I got six cluster rounds,’ Crispy said. ‘Those rounds cost three bills each at Spanky’s.’

  ‘Tom-Tom, you got you a big grin.’

  ‘I got me a CS tear gas Cobray. They ain’t be expectin’ no gas bombs.’

  ‘Too bad it’s not nerve gas, but let’s all be ready for a little windy blowback. That stuff will make you puke on yourself. Keep your hankies wet.’

  Harper patted his long duffle. ‘I got me a D-64 frag grenade launcher, made to protect submarines against fucking frogmen.’