Shooters
Page 17
As I neared Malibu I could see the red glow of the fires miles away in the distance. It was 2 a.m., but PCH was packed with traffic. A steady flow of residents were vacating "the Boo," like rats leaving a burning ship. For every car heading south, there were two news vans heading north, trying to get in to pick over the burnt carcasses of wealth and fame. I turned on the radio just long enough to learn that tough guys Bruce Willis and Sly Stallone had both lost their homes to the blaze. The three hundred or so houses that had burned to the ground in Long Beach the week before were now ancient history. This fire had names.
A police barricade was set up on the Pacific Coast Highway about two miles short of my house. They were turning the majority of cars around and forcing them out of the area. I waited in line for fifteen minutes before a burly cop in his early forties came up to my car and trained his flashlight on my face.
"What's the problem, officer?" I deadpanned.
"We're not letting anyone into the fire zone," he said sternly.
"I live close to here."
"Where exactly?"
I gave him my street address on PCH. He checked my ID for verification, then scanned his flashlight around the interior of my car. Only then did he notice the blood on my clothes. He took it remarkably well.
"What the hell happened to you?" he asked.
"I've been helping friends evacuate all day. I cut myself in the shuffle." The explanation seemed to suffice because he didn't order me to get out of the car or to put my hands on the steering wheel where he could see them. The fact that the car was a Lamborghini heading into Malibu probably didn't hurt matters. A guy in a Lamborghini couldn't have actually killed two people in the last hour, could he? I don't know why I was lying to the cop. It was only a matter of time before I would be arrested again. I just wanted a few more hours of freedom. I just wanted to go to my own home and lie down in my own bed for one last time.
"Please let me pass, officer," I continued. "I've got to get my dogs. Surely the fire won't go all the way to the beach."
"There's no telling with these winds. It's already blown across Mulholland Drive and Topanga Canyon pass. The flames are a hundred and fifty feet high in some places."
"I'll just get my dogs and come out. I can't leave them there. They'll go crazy."
"What kind of dogs do you have?"
"Huskies. Two of them."
"I love huskies. They're great animals."
"They're part of our family. My wife and my little girl will kill me if anything happens to them." I was beginning to enjoy the deception. I was creating a fantasy life right there in front of the big cop. A wholesome life that I felt good talking about, even if it was all bullshit. Jennifer Joyner's white picket fence was not in my future.
"Where is your family right now?" he asked, genuinely concerned.
"With friends in Santa Monica. They're probably worried sick about me."
The cop stared at me, trying to decide if he should give in.
"Tell you what," he said. "I'll let you through. Get your dogs and get out of there as quickly as you can. You never know. Anyone stops you just tell 'em you're a freelance reporter and you've lost your ID. Those jerks have carte blanche around here."
"Thanks, officer. You've been most kind."
"Hey, I've got dogs too."
That's what I had been banking on. What cop didn't? He waved me through and shouted to the other cops up ahead to let me pass. Three fire engines and an ambulance ripped past me before I could get up to speed again.
As I pulled up to my row of houses along PCH I could see Robert Momberg in his driveway loading his Range Rover with supplies and precious keepsakes. Judgment Day had arrived after all. Robert had just the right vehicle to escape the fiery Armageddon working its way over the mountains.
I pulled my car into the garage and shut off the engine. Robert Momberg came running over, yelling my name, but the garage door descended in front of him before he could breach the entrance, cutting him off in mid-sentence. I didn't want to discuss evacuation plans with any soap-opera actors.
I sat staring at the garage wall, looking for an answer to my situation hidden in the grain patterns of the wood. Nothing was there. There were no answers to be had. I was thoroughly fucked and I knew it. I leaned my head back against the seat and stared at the ceiling. It had been the roughest of all nights in a series of very rough nights.
I entered the house and turned the kitchen light on. I was totally exhausted. Dried blood caked my clothes. I pulled the Beretta out of my jacket. It dangled at the end of my arm as I walked toward the living room. There were fresh groceries spread out all over the kitchen counter but I was too dazed to consider the implications. I shuffled like some zombie out of a bad horror movie. I aimlessly entered the living room and noticed that the lights were already on.
A voice suddenly shouted, "FREEZE!"
I looked up, shocked.
Lieutenant Archibald Di Bacco and two plainclothes detectives were standing in the living room. Di Bacco's cops had guns drawn and aimed directly at my head. Detective Thompson was noticeably absent. I guess even cops sleep once in a while.
Jennifer Joyner sat on the couch, eyes red from crying. She stared at me in amazement, too shocked to speak. The video tape of Candice Bishop's murder sat on a corner table beside her. It was wrapped in a clear plastic bag marked EVIDENCE. I realized in an instant what had happened. Like an idiot, I had left the tape in the machine and Jennifer had come home with groceries for breakfast, lunch, or dinner and had played the video while waiting for me. She put two and two together, came up with five, and called the cops. I might possibly have been able to explain it all if I hadn't been covered in blood.
"Drop the gun!" Di Bacco yelled.
I let the gun drop to the floor. I was speechless. I moved my arms in a futile, searching gesture, trying to say something, but I couldn't get anything out. I must've looked like Frankenstein's monster, desperately trying to communicate articulately, but failing. Finally I spit out, "I . . . I can explain. . . . "
I looked at myself in a nearby mirrored wall. My clothes were disheveled, torn, caked with blood, a pistol was at my feet. A murder weapon. I could explain. Sure, buddy. The lunacy of it all suddenly hit me. I let out a sickened snort of a laugh. I was totally finished and I knew it.
I wondered for a moment where the people who had done this to me were. What were they doing this very instant? Nate Boritzer was probably sitting alone in the middle of his stinking warehouse, getting ripped and staring up through his skylight at the moon. Of course I knew where David Rink and Morrie Fein were. David lay dead in our old loft. Morrie was in the alley a couple of doors down. The cops and coroners might already be zipping them up in little black body bags.
But Mark Pecchia. What about Mark Pecchia? The sick mastermind behind the whole sordid affair. I could just picture him, banging teenyboppers and doing coke off their butts in celebration. I'm sure he was very satisfied. Very content. I had cleaned up a lot of loose ends for him. Candice. David. Morrie. All of them were security risks. They were gone now and I was to blame. Could Mark Pecchia have planned it all? Even the deaths of David Rink and Morrie Fein? Was he that smart? That Machiavellian? Had I been used not just as a scapegoat for Candice Bishop's murder, but also as a weapon to clear up some bad business? I would never know for sure, but I was certain that Pecchia could not have been happier with the outcome. I could just picture the reptilian smile he'd have on his face when he heard the news of what transpired this night.
And now I was smiling too, but it wasn't a satisfied smile. It was more of an idiot's grin. Or the look a man might have on his way going over the edge.
The show was over.
This wasn't the first time a shitstorm had started over a dead bimbo and I was sure it wouldn't be the last time either. I just never thought I'd get caught the way I got caught. But then again, who ever does?
"Who'd you murder this time, Gardner?" Di Bacco asked. "Where do we look for th
e body?"
"I killed two of the guys who killed Candice Bishop. It was accidental. Both of them."
"I see," Di Bacco said skeptically. He was never going to believe this story. If I were in his place, I wouldn't either.
A knock came at my front door. One of the detectives went over and opened it. A uniformed policewoman stood in the doorway.
"Lieutenant Di Bacco," she said, "you better evacuate the area. The winds have shifted in this direction. The fire is only a mile away. We've got to get out of here."
"Soon," Di Bacco said.
The woman closed the door. Di Bacco turned and looked at me with that self-righteous glare of his.
"Anything you want to say before we take you in?" Di Bacco asked. "I know you got a right to an attorney and all, but I'd personally like to hear what you've got to say before your handlers get hold of you. Off the record, of course. It's professional curiosity. I've never seen one quite like you. Why'd you do it? You were on easy street. Why'd you screw it up? Was life just so goddamned easy for you that you got bored?"
I stared at him for a long moment, trying to think of something to say. I had so much to tell him, so much to explain, but it was useless.
"You'd never believe me, Lieutenant," I said. I was starting to get calm now, accepting my fate.
"You're probably right," Di Bacco said. He nodded at the two detectives. "Cuff him and read him his rights, nice and fresh. We don't want any fumbles on this one."
2
By the time we left the house the fire had engulfed the mountain a hundred yards north of our block. Robert Momberg was long gone. Dozens of fire engines and emergency vehicles had pulled back and created a new front nearby. Reporters scurried among the firefighters, making their jobs that much easier. Hot ashes were coming down like red and white snowflakes.
A group of teenagers decked out in retro wear were dancing in the middle of the street amid the ashes and firehose spray. A boom box near their feet was blasting away. I recognized the song as the Cult's "Sanctuary." You gotta love it when stuff like that happens.
"Better take Ms. Joyner out of here in her own car," Di Bacco said to one of the detectives. "This whole place looks like it's going to go up."
The detective started to pull Jennifer away from us, but she shrugged him off long enough to ask me one question.
"Why?" she pleaded.
I looked at her, wanting to convince her of the truth, wanting her to know that I didn't kill Candice Bishop, wanting to touch her if my hands weren't cuffed behind my back. But what would be the point? Why drag her any further into this mess? I needed to free her. I looked at the cop as he took her by the arm again. He was a handsome, square-jawed guy in his thirties. He'd help her get over me.
"Have fun," I said. I smiled, trying to appear cavalier. I probably just looked crazy to her. That would be fine as well.
Jennifer stared at me with horror and burst into a new set of tears. The cop put his arm around her shoulders and led her to her little Fiat, which was parked across the street from the house.
Di Bacco glared at me for my lack of sensitivity.
"You're all heart, Gardner," he said.
"Don't I know it," I replied.
The cop put Jennifer in the passenger seat of her car and said a few comforting words. Then he scurried around to the driver's side and got in, nervously fumbling with her car keys. He was obviously excited by his new assignment. Definitely the right man for the job. Maybe Jennifer would get the white picket fence after all. And a shotgun to protect it with.
The house at the far end of our row had caught fire and was fully ablaze. Blown by the fierce Santa Ana winds, the flames were jumping the little six-foot gaps between the crowded buildings like Jesse Owens running the hundred in Berlin. The entire strip of houses would be on fire within minutes.
"Can I get my Lamborghini out of the garage?" I asked Di Bacco.
"Why?" he asked, as if it had been a ludicrous request.
I looked into Di Bacco's beady eyes and understood. I wouldn't need a fast car where I was going.
"You're right!" I shouted over the growing noise of the flames and the firefighters, who were losing their valiant battle with nature. I looked at the expensive houses burning forty feet away from the trillions of gallons of water in the Pacific Ocean and started laughing uncontrollably.
"Gardner, you're a freak," Di Bacco said as he shoved me in the back of his plain-wrapped police car. They had parked under one of Robert Momberg's carports. That was probably what he was running over to tell me when I arrived. That'll teach me not to shut doors in my neighbors' faces. I'd try not to make the same rude mistake in prison.
An explosion rocked Teddy Vincent's house, raining flaming debris all over the area. God knows what he had in there. The firefighters scrambled and pulled back. One of them frantically yelled at us to evacuate the area. Good idea.
Burning embers were landing on the police car. Robert Momberg's house was going up quick. All those glossy eight-by-tens he had of himself must have made the perfect tinder. My house was starting to burn as well.
Di Bacco sat in the back with me and let the other cop drive. We pulled out and sped down PCH, away from Firestorm II. I looked back and watched the flames engulf my house. The firefighters were abandoning the area. They had given up. The row of beach houses was now just one long inferno. That strip of real estate alone would amount to roughly thirty million in damages to the insurance companies. They would probably manage to slip out of at least half their debt, one loophole or another. They certainly wouldn't pay me unless some judge forced it out of them. And that was growing unlikely. I didn't expect to be meeting many sympathetic judges in the near future.
I watched over my shoulder as the burning houses faded from view. I was going to jail, but actually I was heading for a kind of freedom. The last decade had been my own private prison. A prison of my own design. I hadn't really been alive. I had been acting tough and emotionally distant to protect myself and the people around me from my past. But I should have remembered one of the most dangerous risks inherent in photography.
If you pose long enough, you become the picture.
AFTERWORD
by
Lev Raphael
In the decade or so that I reviewed mysteries and thrillers for the Detroit Fee Press, I may have enjoyed lots of them, but there are only a few that I've ever bothered to re-read, and the only one I've read three times is Shooters.
My editor used to send me boxes of books from various publishers and because I got so many at a time, and was only reviewing 4-5 for my monthly column, I had to make quick decisions based on only a few pages. Shooters won me over immediately. It brilliantly captures the gleaming, seductive menace of that city built for noir in a voice that's so crisp and haunting that I've used the opening pages in creative writing workshops more than once. I can still remember scenes and lines—that's how dazzled I was.
It is in my mind one of the best LA thrillers ever written, a book that more people should know about, a book I continue to recommend wherever and whenever I can. Sexy, dark, fiercely intelligent, it's a novel of deep and lasting power.
—Lev Raphael, author of The German Money
Lev Raphael is the former mystery reviewer for the Detroit Free Press and currently reviews for The Huffington Post, bibliobufffet.com, and WKAR FM, an NPR station in East Lansing, Michigan. He's the author of 19 books that have been translated into a dozen languages and you can find him on the web at http://www.levraphael.com/
A NOTE ABOUT THE TEXT
General wisdom suggests that writers – like parlor magicians – should not discuss their work for fear of destroying what small illusion they may have been able to create for the audience. I've always been an advocate of that philosophy, despite the fact that we now live in an era that demands wheels squeak loudly or die quickly of rust. So I will try to keep this brief and leave out any details of the literary prestidigitation I may have been attempting to achi
eve with this book.
Reading SHOOTERS fourteen years after it was first published was a daunting task. I rarely look back at any of my work. What's done is done and revisiting these projects can only lead to painful realizations of mistakes made and opportunities lost. So it was with great trepidation that I looked at SHOOTERS again after all these years. It was a necessary step towards bringing it to e-publication. I had long ago lost the original files somewhere in the horde of dead computers that rest in my garage, so the novel had to be scanned. When this happens you have to read through the pages to correct all the scanning errors. So much time had elapsed since I put this project behind me that it appeared to be the work of a different person altogether as I read through the pages. I'm mystified at what the hell I was thinking back then. Mystified, and occasionally horrified. Being a notorious tinkerer, I was warned by my longtime partner, Heidi Sobel, that I should just do the corrections and not start rewriting the book, because that would be a process that might never end.
I tried my best, but....
Anyone who wants to waste time comparing the text of the 1997 edition of SHOOTERS with this e-volume will find that there are many minor changes made to the text. I've cut some lines and simplified others. Typos have been corrected (and possibly new ones introduced!). But my main contribution to this version of the story is an attempt to correct what I now consider an error of judgment made just prior to the publication of the book. My editor at the publishing house suggested that I should strip out any specific references to the time the story took place so that the novel would not date poorly (which is ironic, because I used to do that all the time). I went along with this plan and I think the book suffered for it. Clearly the story is meant to occur in October of 1993, during a period when some of the worst wildfires in the last hundred years ravaged Southern California. To remove it from that specific date causes all kinds of problems that I won't detail here, because that would violate the "general wisdom" mentioned above and possibly bore the pants off of you (if you are still wearing any).