A Hard Place: A Chauncey Means Novel

by Sean Lynch

  “Hello,” said a meek voice from the speaker. “Is this Mister Means? Chauncey Means?” I didn’t recognize it at first.

  “This is Belicia. Belicia Hernandez. You gave me your card the other day at school. You said you could help me. I need help. I’m scared. I think they’re going to kill me like they killed Marisol.”

  I leaned closer to the speaker, turned up the volume, and grabbed a pen. I noted the phone number on the caller identification screen. It looked like a cellular number. The message continued.

  “I’m hiding. I don’t want anybody to know where I am. I’m staying at a house in the hills off Keller Avenue.” She said the address, which I wrote down.

  “Please come and get me. I’m really scared.”

  That was all. I glanced at my watch. According to the caller I.D. feature on my phone, the message came in at 8:33 PM. It was now 9:10 PM.

  I got busy. I fired up my laptop computer and checked the address Belicia had provided on a popular mapping program. I was familiar with the area. The computerized map enabled me to identify and examine the vicinity of the address Belicia had given me. I was even able to zoom a satellite view down to a street view of the address. Big Brother is here.

  I changed from my hoping-to-get laid attire to jeans and a sweater, and switched out my oxfords for a pair of boots. I retrieved several pairs of latex gloves from a box in the garage I kept for working with solvents when cleaning my guns. I pocketed them.

  I donned a pair of the latex gloves and unloaded the Glocks. One of the pistols was fully loaded with seventeen rounds of ball ammunition in the magazine and another round in the chamber. The other gun was five rounds short; those would have been the ones I delivered into Toby Soares and his wheelman. I thoroughly wiped the exterior surfaces of both guns with bleach. Then I reloaded the pistols and put each of them into a brand new Zip-Loc plastic bag from my kitchen.

  I put on a hooded sweatshirt and old denim coat, similar to the ensemble I’d worn when posing as a John on the Track. I placed a plastic-bagged Glock in each large side pocket. I made sure I had my knife, flashlight, and the four spare magazines Russ had given me for the Les Baer .45, which I press-checked before re-holstering. Next I grabbed a pair of police handcuffs I had from my days on the job, and a pair of 10×50 binoculars. I topped off my outfit with a dark baseball cap with no logo and headed for the door.

  The address Belicia had recited on my answering machine was actually not a Keller Avenue address; it was an address on Surrey Lane, a residential street intersecting Keller Avenue near the summit.

  Keller Avenue is a main thoroughfare traversing the Oakland hills. It connects with Skyline Boulevard; the place where a street prostitute named Holly’s body was dumped not long after I met her.

  It’s a scenic drive, and at the peak lends a spectacularly panoramic view of the San Francisco Bay. It’s also only a short drive from my house. I took Crow Canyon Road to the MacArthur Freeway and got off on the Keller Avenue exit. I drove up Keller and turned left onto Hansom Drive, one street west of Surrey Lane.

  After I parked my car I remained inside the vehicle and scanned the area for several minutes. I used the binoculars to look up and down the street into all the parked cars I could see. They were all empty. I saw nothing else which raised my hackles.

  I got out of my car and walked north on Hansom. The rear yards of Hansom Drive back up against the properties on Surrey Lane. I knew how many houses in from Keller Avenue the address Belicia gave me was from my computer mapping search.

  I whistled sharply as I passed each house. It was a trick I’d used in my days on the job. If a yard had a dog, it would growl or bark at the whistle, inducing me to avoid hopping the fence into that property.

  It was a little before ten o’clock on a Sunday night, which meant most folks would be home. I’d have to be quiet. Fortunately, there was no moon, and the neighborhood was old enough to have mature trees and lush landscaping separating the property lines; plenty of concealment.

  I reached the house that I presumed backed up against the yard which corresponded with the backyard address provided by Belicia Hernandez. I casually walked down the driveway like I owned the place. Walking around with your hands in your pockets and looking like you belong gets you ignored. Creeping furtively about like a ninja gets you noticed. The house was a one-level Spanish style home with a red tile roof and an older Buick sedan in the driveway. There were no lights on.

  Once at the edge of the house, I slipped along the side to the backyard gate. It was unlocked, and I took my time opening it; it didn’t creak. I closed the gate silently behind me and walked past the garbage cans and a kid’s Western Flyer wagon full of gardening supplies. When I reached the backyard I knew I’d gotten lucky.

  I could tell by the pristine condition of the lawn and the elaborately cared-for array of plants bordering the yard that the home belonged to an elderly person. I looked up to ensure there were no motion sensor lights along the roof and entered the rear lot.

  I walked soundlessly to the back fence line, again, like I owned the property. The redwood fence was six feet high and fairly new, which meant fairly sturdy. Standing on my tiptoes, I peered over.

  I looked into the backyard of the address given to me by Belicia. I could see a cluttered, unkempt lawn which became a concrete patio as it reached the house. The house itself was a one-level ranch style home not dissimilar to the one I was currently trespassing in, but in much worse shape. There was no sign of a dog.

  The interior lights were on, and I had a good view inside through the sliding rear patio doors. From my vantage point it appeared I was looking into the kitchen and family room area. I could see at least two people, maybe three, in the house. It looked like a dark-complexioned Caucasian or Hispanic woman, and two men. One of the men was an African-American about my height. The other was a very large Caucasian man with a shaved head. A television was on.

  Slowly, to minimize noise, I pulled myself up and over the fence. All those pull-ups and push-ups had to count for something. I lowered myself to the ground on the other side as soundlessly as possible. Once there, I crouched and waited.

  No lights came on; no dogs barked; no doors opened. After checking above the house’s roof for motion sensing lights, I walked across the lawn and stopped at the side of the patio door. With the lights on inside, the contrasting gloom outside, and my dark clothing, I was certain no one in the interior could see me. The patio door was ajar about six inches, and I could smell cigarette smoke from within and hear the canned laughter from the TV.

  I had a better view of the people inside than they did of the television show they were watching. I hoped they enjoyed what they were viewing, because I sure as hell wasn’t enjoying what I was beholding.

  The woman I’d seen from over the fence wasn’t a woman at all; she was a girl. A fourteen-year-old girl named Belicia Hernandez.

  Belicia was naked except for a pair of red, butt-floss underwear. She was also smoking a cigarette, drinking a tall-boy Budweiser, and sitting on the edge of a couch with one leg lazily draped over the armrest. She looked about as scared as Bonnie Parker in the arms of Clyde Barrow in those 1930’s-era black-and-white photographs.

  Seated next to Belicia on the couch, with one of his arms draped lazily over her bare thigh, was the African-American man. I’d never seen him before. He looked in his mid to late thirties, and was wearing a white T-shirt which exposed the ink on his forearms and neck. He was also smoking a cigarette, and had his own Budweiser resting between his legs.

  The Caucasian was seated on a chair, with his back to the wall, perpendicular to the couch which contained Belicia and the African-American guy. He was very large; maybe six-foot-five or six, and had a muscular build. He had on a ballistic vest over a long-sleeved, skin-tight Under Armour shirt; attire popular with cops in cold weather. Across his lap was a short-barreled Remington shotgun with a neoprene Pachmyer pistol-grip. The weapon is popular with police S.W.A.T. and entry teams.<
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  The Caucasian guy I recognized; I’d seen him before. It was Officer Bolson of the Oakland Police Department. ‘Bo,’ along with Sergeant Alvero Quintana, had pulled me over on International Boulevard the night I met Holly on the Track.

  I took out my phone and activated the audio recording feature. Making sure I wasn’t seen, I held the phone up and tested the device’s ability to record sound from inside the house through the crack in the patio door. I thought the television might interfere with the quality of voice traffic. Once I was satisfied my phone had recorded a sample of sound from within the interior, I left my perch and traversed the lawn to my original position near the back fence. There was a large tree and a line of chest-high bushes. I ducked behind them. I could still see the trio inside the house, but at a safe distance for sound.

  I dialed Quintana’s cell phone number. He picked up on the third ring.

  “Quintana,” he said. I could hear the cacophonous music of the Yucatan’s youth night in the background.

  “This is Chance,” I said. “I can barely hear you. Can you go into your office?” I was speaking into the phone as quietly as I could, and muffling my voice with my handkerchief over my cupped hands. I’d also turned down my phone’s volume to a nearly inaudible level. I doubted Belicia and her companions inside the house could hear me over the television, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  There was a long pause. Finally, he said, “Sure. Give me a minute.”

  I waited for Quintana to return to his uncle’s sound-insulated office. I knew he’d arrived when the music thumping from my phone’s speaker faded.

  “Where are you?” Quintana said. “I don’t recognize this number. I almost didn’t pick up.”

  “I’m borrowing a friend’s phone,” I lied. “I don’t have one myself; I hate the damned things.”

  “I seem to remember you telling me that,” he said. Another long pause ensued. “What can I do for you?”

  “When I got home, I got a message on my machine from Belicia Hernandez. She said she was in trouble.”

  As I spoke to Al Quintana, I took the former Toby Soares’ phone from my pocket. I punched in the ‘re-dial’ feature on the last call he’d received before I punched his ticket.

  “Did she say where she was?” Quintana asked.

  “That’s why I called you,” I said. “My answering machine cut off the last part of her message. I didn’t get the address. I was hoping you could trace the phone number she called from through your police sources.”

  While I was explaining my answering machine’s inability to capture all of Belicia’s cryptic message, I heard a phone ring, over my phone.

  “Hold on a second,” Quintana said. “I got another call coming in. I’ve got to take it.”

  I hung up Toby Soares’ phone.

  “No sweat,” I said. “I’ll hold.”

  A minute later Quintana came back on the line.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “Personal call. We were talking about Belicia Hernandez, right?”

  “Right. I need the phone number she called from traced to an address.”

  “What if it’s a cell phone?” he asked.

  “Then we’re out of luck,” I answered. “But we have to try.”

  “I’ll get on it. What’s the number?” I gave it to him.

  “Can I call you back on this number?” Quintana asked.

  “No,” I said. It’s my friend’s phone. But I’ll be home in about ten minutes; you can call me there. If I don’t pick up, leave a message.”

  “I’ll call back when I have something,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said and hung up. Then I reset my phone to the audio recording mode.

  I crept back across the lawn to my previous spot outside the slightly-ajar sliding patio door. Nobody inside had moved.

  I ever-so-carefully reached around into the house through the opening in the patio door and set my phone against the wall, at an upward angle. From there the phone’s miniature microphone could record the entire room.

  I had just pulled out my hand when a phone rang inside the house. Bolson reached into a pocket and withdrew a cellular phone. The African-American pointed a remote control at the TV and the sound muted. I wordlessly thanked him; their conversation would be absorbed by my phone without interference from the television. I took out a pair of latex gloves from my pocket and put them on.

  “Yeah,” Bolson said into his phone. He listened for a long time without replying. As he listened, his face scrunched in anger and he rubbed his brow with the back of his hand.

  “How the fuck should I know?” he finally snarled. Then he listened some more.

  “Yeah, yeah, I got it. I’ll wait for your call.” He hung up.

  “It’s like we thought,” Bo announced. “Toby and Chingo didn’t get it done.”

  “I told you those two dumb-fucks weren’t enough. He took out two of my top Jacks.”

  “It wasn’t my call,” Bo scowled. “If he’d have let me, I would have shot that asshole on the Track the night we met him and made it look like he was offed during a trick.”

  “If you had, two of my crew would still be breathing and I wouldn’t be losing money.”

  “Make that four,” Bo said. “Nobody’s heard from Toby or Chingo.”

  “Your crew, your loss,” the African-American said. “Evens us out.”

  “At least he made a contingency plan,” Bo said, “which is why we’re here. But that’s all fucked up, too. Apparently your bitch fucked up the message she left for Means and didn’t give out this address.”

  “You stupid cunt,” the African-American said, standing up. Belicia immediately put her hands up. It didn’t help her any.

  “I gave it out! I swear! I said the address on the phone like you told me! You heard me! I did it right! I swear-”

  Belicia’s protests were to no avail. The man who had moments before been snuggling leisurely on the couch with her began to rain punches down upon her. She went to her knees, her forearms over her head.

  “Stop it,” Bo demanded. “And shut her up. You want the neighbors to call the cops?”

  The African-American reluctantly complied. He remained standing over Belicia with both fists clenched.

  “Chill the fuck out, will you?” Bolson said. “We still got work to do.”

  “What work?”

  “He’s going to give Means the address; act like he traced the number or some shit. He’s pretty sure he can talk him into coming over right away. Apparently Means is all fired up to rescue the poor little lost girl.” He gestured with the shotgun at Belicia, who knelt silently on the floor.

  “So Means is coming?”

  “Looks like it,” Bolson said. “Get her dressed and get ready. I don’t want any more fuck-ups.”

  “How soon do you think before he gets here?” the African-American man asked.

  “He’s already here,” I answered, stepping through the patio door.

  Chapter 26

  I elbowed the sliding door closed after I moved inside. I had to use my elbows because both of my hands were occupied with aiming a pistol.

  “What the fuck?” the Afro-American said.

  Officer Bolson didn’t say anything. He tried to stand up and swing the barrel of the shotgun towards me from where it had been resting across his knees. Getting blasted by a short-barreled twelve-gauge scattergun didn’t seem like a pleasant way to end an otherwise shitty evening. So when I entered, I made sure I already had the front sight of one of the Glock pistols trained on Bo’s head. I had to go for cranium shots; Bo was wearing a ballistic vest. If I didn’t take him out quickly his shotgun would decimate me. I squeezed twice. He was down before the sound faded.

  Belicia opened her mouth to scream. “Shut up, Belicia,” I said. She stifled herself pre-shriek.

  I snapped the barrel from Bo’s body to the African-American. He stood calmly with his hands at his sides and didn’t move.

  “Mister Bullock, I presume?�
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  He grinned at me. He wasn’t worried; he’d had guns pointed at him all his life.

  “You’re Means, huh?”

  “That’s right.”

  “They call you ‘Chance,’ I hear.”

  “My friends call me Chance. You can call me Mister Means.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Now that I was up close to him, I could see the ink adorning one of his forearms formed the words ’Ghost-Town.’

  “I heard they call you ‘Drop-Dead,’” I said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Why?”

  “You gonna find out.”

  “I remember now,” I said. “They call you ‘Drop-Dead’ because you’re a big, bad, gorilla pimp who ruins little girls, vanquishes his enemies, and runs the kingdom at 42nd Avenue and International Boulevard like a Roman emperor.”

  His grin widened. “That’s me exactly,” he said. “What you gonna do now, Mister Means?”

  “Did I mention,” I said, “that I abso-fucking-lutely hate pimps?”

  “Did I mention,” he said back, “that I hate punk-ass white boys who think they’re bad-asses ‘cause they’re holding a gat?”

  “Must have slipped your mind.”

  “Tell you what,” Bullock said. “How about we make a deal?”

  “Drop dead,” I told him.

  I shot him twice in the sternum. He joined Officer Bolson on the ground.

  Belicia opened her mouth to scream again. This time I only had to look at her to ensure her silence.

  I walked over and knelt next to Bullock. He was lying on his back and hadn’t lost consciousness. Blood was gurgling from his mouth. He was fumbling with his waistband. I slapped his hands away, lifted his shirt, and pulled a Glock pistol from where it was tucked inside his trousers.

  “Preferred weapon of discriminating pimps everywhere,” I said. I tossed the weapon aside.

  “This is for Marisol Hernandez,” I said. I put the barrel of my pistol against his forehead.