Fun and Games ch-1

by Duane Swierczynski

  Hardie picked it at random. Lane looked up at the exterior. “You really want to hole up in a hotel room?”

  “If they’re after you, they’ve probably been watching you. They know your friends, your family, everybody. But they don’t know me. I don’t have friends or family here, and I only go to the houses I sit. I have no pattern. I’m nobody. So this nobody is taking you somewhere random. Just until I can call for help.”

  “No, you’re missing my point. They can trace credit cards. They ask for ID. This isn’t the nineteen fifties, where you can scribble I. P. Freely in the dusty ledger on the desk.”

  “Who said anything about checking in?”

  After getting out of the hospital, Hardie spent over half a year living in hotels. When you boiled it down, there were two kinds of hotels: ones with ice machines and ones where you had to call room service. Hardie stayed in the hotels with ice machines. After a while they began to blur together. Same plastic ice bucket, same flimsy plastic liner that took you a while to pry apart. Same thin bars of soap, same sample-size bottles of allegedly luxury shampoo that refused to rinse out of your hair. Same rug. Same phone. Same flat-screen TV. Same shows on the TV. Same A/C. Same smell. Same theft-proof hangers. Same No Smoking signs. Same key-card door locks.

  Absolutely the same in almost every hotel.

  Hardie had mastered those key-card door locks late one night after walking back from an Applebee’s across the street and realizing that, at some point, he’d lost his plastic key card. The sensible thing would have been to approach the front desk, produce identification, and ask for a replacement card. Hardie had not been in a sensible frame of mind. He’d been downright contrary, in fact. That night, he’d downed three double bourbons, seven (maybe eight) pints of Yuengling, and then somebody down at the other end of the bar started buying shots of Jäger for somebody’s promotion at some firm somewhere, and Hardie joined in, then realized that he should probably hold that all down with another double bourbon, or two, just to settle his stomach. So by the end, Hardie reasoned, he couldn’t form the words to ask for a replacement key card. His tongue had begun refusing commands from his own brain.

  But his hands still worked.

  And he could fish a wire hanger out of the trash, run it under his own door, and open the handle with a quick jerk.

  Hardie didn’t want to burglarize an occupied room; they needed an empty room. The easiest way to do that would be to check the maid’s pencil charts. There was usually some kind of floor diagram, printed each morning, to tell the maids which rooms to bother cleaning and which had gone unsold for the night. It was late afternoon, but the cleaning staff was still out working the floors. After only a few minutes of roaming the halls, he found a cart, helped himself to the floor list. A lot of empty rooms on the floor, which was great. Room 426 was open, and near a staircase. Even better.

  Once inside, Lane announced:

  “I’m going to take a shower.”

  “Okay. I’m going to make that call. And hey, help yourself to whatever’s in my bag. There’s nothing fancy in there, but at least they won’t have blood and smoke all over them.”

  She gave him a deadpan look.

  “You think you have something in my size? Maybe a bra, too?” Hardie looked at her and smiled.

  “Now we’re really delving into personal territory.”

  Finally Lane cracked a smile. A big, unabashed, toothy smile. And God, did it make her look stunning.

  When Lane rooted through Charlie’s luggage, she saw a tiny leather bag. She unzipped it. There was a plastic deodorant stick—Momentum. A metal razor with replaceable blades. Worn toothbrush. A small hard-plastic prescription bottle made out to Charles D. Hardie. Vicodin. Lane glanced over at Hardie. He wasn’t paying attention. She grabbed a T-shirt and tucked the bottle inside, then stepped into the bathroom.

  She was tired of being hunted, of having the guilt gnaw away at her heart. If it came down to it, Lane would go out on her own terms. She wasn’t going to hurt any more people.

  And she wasn’t going to let Them win.

  Hardie sat on the edge of the king-size bed, listening to the springs groan under his weight, trying hard not to think about Lane undressing on the other side of the flimsy door.

  He wanted a beer—just a little bracer—before calling Deke. Maybe he should go out and get one. There had to be a tavern or bodega somewhere nearby that would sell him a single or a six. He’d earned it. God, how he’d earned it. Maybe there was even a liquor store that would sell him a bottle of Jack.

  But he stayed put. A sliver of sun blasted through the dirty gold blinds. Dust motes floated in the air, suspended by some unseen forces. On the other side of the door, she turned on the shower.

  Time to call.

  Hardie really wanted a beer.

  Usually he didn’t mess around with beer. He went right for the bourbon. Beer sloshed around in your gut and only numbed the brain in the faintest of ways. Good old American bourbon knew how the brain worked, knew which wires to pull, which to leave on. But Hardie didn’t want his wires pulled. Not yet. He wanted a beer.

  Yet he couldn’t leave the edge of the bed.

  If he stood up and walked out the door, maybe all of this would disappear and he’d wake up on a leather couch with a bottle resting in his crotch and he’d realize this was all a dream. And as awful as things had been, he wasn’t ready to accept all of this as a dream. Not yet. Not until he figured it out.

  Behind the door, a door slid open, then slid shut. She was inside the shower now.

  It was as if he were a corpse slowly coming back to life. Blood surging through veins that he’d long thought withered away. Brain cells in the animal part of his mind suddenly shocking themselves back to life. Charlie Hardie Frankenstein. It’s alive!

  Hardie stood up suddenly and walked to the bathroom door. Listened to the water hiss from the shower fixture. He should have gone for that beer. Instead, he picked up the room phone and dialed a number collect.

  It was three hours later in Philadelphia—Eastern Time Zone. Deacon “Deke” Clark was turning over some carne asada on his backyard grill, nursing his second Dogfish Head Pale Ale, when his cell phone buzzed. Never failed. He didn’t recognize the area code either.

  “Deke, it’s me. Charlie.”

  “Hey. How ya doing, Hardie.”

  Deke knew how terse he sounded. He just wasn’t a phone person.

  “I’m kind of fucked, Deke, to tell you the truth. You don’t think you could get out here sometime tonight, do you?”

  “Where’s here?”

  “Los Angeles.”

  Deke paused, tongs in hand, smoke rising, coals burning deep hot. “What’s going on, Hardie?”

  Hardie started speaking quickly, about a house-sitting gig and finding a squatter inside—then realizing there were people outside the house trying to kill the squatter, and how they barely escaped with their lives. We shouldn’t have escaped, Hardie said. It was a ridiculous miracle that we did. And somehow, it seemed to be related to a three-year-old hit-and-run case in Studio City. A kid named Kevin Hunter was the victim.

  “You’re not putting me on, are you?”

  “Would I really make this up?”

  “You seriously telling me this is about The Truth Hunters people?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Oh, right. You’ve unplugged yourself from the modern world. So you have no idea that there’s this true-crime reality show called The Truth Hunters, created and produced by the father of Kevin Hunter, who was killed in a hit-and-run three years ago.”

  Sure, he’d heard about it. Just this afternoon, from Lane herself.

  “She told me about it.”

  “And you’re saying this is part of it? The actress was involved?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Got any evidence?”

  “Not a shred. But then, that’s what these Accident People do. Cover up all traces.”

  Deke knew how much Hardie
drank. What he did with his life. How he’d removed himself from everybody and everything. This was all a lot to swallow in one phone conversation.

  “So, let’s make sure I have this right: these shadowy agents or whatever want the actress gone before she tells the truth, right? Hell, if they’re already going through all this trouble, why not just bump off the Hunters, too? They’re the ones pushing for the answers. They could even do it on live TV.”

  “I know how this sounds, Deke. About ten hours ago, I wouldn’t have believed me either. But this is real.”

  There was a painfully long pause as Deke looked at his sizzling meat and tried to figure out the best move.

  “Look, Hardie, how about I send somebody? A good man I know lives in West Hollywood, works at Wilshire. He can help you sort this out. And if the actress is in some kind of real trouble, and not drugged out of her mind, he’ll give her protection and get an investigation started. His name’s Steve—”

  “No. Only you, Deke. You’re the only person in this world I trust, and right now that means everything. They’re smart, they’re connected, and it’s only a matter of time before they find us again.”

  “You sound a little paranoid, Hardie.”

  “You can call me whatever you want. And I’m guilty of a lot of things. But have you ever known me to exaggerate?”

  Not while sober, no. Deke had to admit that. Not even while drunk, come to think of it.

  “And one more thing.”

  “You means besides dropping everything and traveling to Los Angeles?” Deke asked.

  “This is serious. Triple the protection around Kendra and Charlie. They know your address. If they can find you, they can find them. Do you understand?”

  “What do you mean they know my address?”

  “Swear to God, Deke, I’d only been around these fuckers for maybe a half hour, and it was like they had a complete dossier on me. They know I have a family. They know where I send checks. They’ve either got sponsors who are connected or have enough money to buy connections.”

  “Hardie, what have you gotten me into?”

  By the time Deke thumbed the Off button on his phone, he’d agreed to drop everything and fly to Los Angeles. He had a go-bag in the closet; he could probably book a flight on the way to the airport—they tended to cut FBI agents slack when it came to last-minute travel. But what the hell was he going to tell his wife? Here, enjoy this plate of carne asada all by your lonesome while I go off and help a guy I’ve bitched about nonstop for three years now?

  Hardie placed the receiver back on the base and stared at it for a few moments. There was no man he trusted more than Deke Clark. The agent was essential to his family’s survival. But he knew that Deke didn’t like him much. And never had. Some things, though, transcended the personal.

  After a while Lane came limping out in nothing but a towel and started picking through Hardie’s suitcase. She asked if he minded. Hardie said no, of course not, and tried hard not to look. None of his jeans would fit her, of course, but one of the T-shirts worked. Black, advertising a Northeast Philly bar called the Grey Lodge, coming down to midthigh.

  Hardie said, “You look a lot better.”

  “Ugh. I’m banged up and cut and scraped to hell. I’m finding bruises I didn’t even realize I had this morning. Guess I won’t be on any magazine covers for a while.”

  “But you’re alive.”

  “I am alive.”

  Hardie saw her differently now. Not just because the grime was gone, or because she was wearing his T-shirt. All day he’d more or less dismissed her as a snotty bitch who’d gotten herself into trouble. But for the past three years, their lives had been more similar than Hardie ever would have guessed.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Hardie said.

  “I know.”

  There was an awkward moment of silence before Hardie excused himself and walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. The off-white tile walls were still damp with condensation from her shower. Hardie put his palms on the enamel sink and looked at himself in the mirror. Hey, tough guy. How handsome are you?

  He stripped off his dirty, bloody clothes—ripping the rest of his T-shirt, actually, because that seemed easier than pulling it over his head. He stepped into the shower, cranked up the water. The pressure sucked. The water spat out in a weird pattern that hurt his skin but didn’t actually get him very wet. But it didn’t matter. As long as he could wash off most of this day. The crusted blood, the smoke, the dirt, the film of sweat. His wounds still bled but at least he could replace the old blood with some new.

  After tucking the bottle of Vicodin under the pillow, Lane lay back on the bed and allowed herself the luxury of closing her eyes for a moment. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that without worrying about something—her choices, her career, the incident. Usually when she closed her eyes, the demons would pounce. The middle of the night was the worst. That’s when she’d pop awake and think about all the things that could go wrong in the world. Everything from never working again to drinking too much to a global pandemic to catastrophic financial meltdown to an asteroid smashing into the ocean and obliterating every living thing. She hated the night. The morning sucked, too, because most days the pounding behind her eyes was relentless. But at least it wasn’t night.

  Now, though, she felt a little more at ease.

  Because after three years, God had finally called her on it.

  Her worst sin.

  And she was still breathing.

  He hadn’t reached down from Heaven to smite her in a flash of blinding white. Maybe he’d tried with the Accident People, but if so, it wasn’t a full-on, full-court-press try, because she was still alive.

  Still breathing.

  Until she chose not to.

  The air conditioner hummed in the corner, and the water beat against the shower tile steadily, incessantly. She wondered if she could fall asleep. Just for a few minutes. Her protector was in the next room. They were hidden away, at random in the middle of nowhere L.A. Maybe she could indulge herself, just a little.

  The total blackness and icy numbness came faster than she thought.

  But it wasn’t the kind she’d been hoping for.

  24

  This time it’s personal.

  —Tagline from Jaws: The Revenge

  HARDIE TURNED the cheap metal handle to the Off position. He used mostly cold water so the steam wouldn’t make him sweat, and the cold was nice and bracing and had the curious effect of calming him down a little. After patting himself dry, he took a stab at taping up his chest wound again. As soon as Deke made it here, he’d go have it checked out. He promised. But in the meantime, one little Vike couldn’t hurt. Hardie rooted through his toiletries bag, trying to feel for the familiar round shape of the bottle. Nothing. He looked. Everything else seemed to be here. Toothbrush, razor. No painkillers, though. Great. He probably left them behind at the last gig.

  So instead, Hardie busied himself with brushing his teeth, halfway through when he realized that all his clean clothes were in the suitcase out in the other room. He wasn’t about to wrap a towel around his midsection and go parading around out there. The towels were ideal for preteen girls, not for a guy the size of Hardie. The actress might get the wrong idea. So Hardie put on his smoky, torn, blood-splattered jeans again and looked at himself in the mirror. He was a big mess. But at least it was better than the towel. His mouth still felt metallic, stale, so he squeezed out more toothpaste and started to brush again and had just opened the door when something pinched his neck and he found himself, inexplicably, on his knees.

  Someone whispered:

  “Shhhh, now.”

  Hardie’s arms felt like rubber. The toothbrush started to slip out of his fingers. Tightening his grip didn’t work. His fingers didn’t want to do what they were told. The toothbrush slipped completely out of his fingers.

  A gloved hand caught it before it hit the carpet.

  More
gloved hands picked him up.

  The lights were off.

  But he could see what they had done to Lane over on the bed.

  Factboy had put a standard trace on all calls and e-mails coming to Special Agent Deacon Clark, Philadelphia office, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Home, office, and cell. Again, not hard to do with the magic of the Patriot Act, even when the subject was a federal agent. Hell, Clark’s being a fed made it easier. Still, Factboy couldn’t believe it when a hit popped up almost immediately—a call from a hotel room in Los Feliz, near Hollywood.

  Not only was Mann’s new team already assembled, but they were rolling up and down the streets of old Hollywood already. The hotel was two minutes away. They were pulling up within forty-five seconds.

  Mann actually thanked Factboy and told him he did good work. Factboy was too stunned to reply and stammered something about the trace being a good one (like what the fuck did that even mean?). The line disconnected and Factboy wondered if he was actually done for the day, if he could go upstairs and rejoin his family. That’s what he really should do. Try to smooth things over with the wife, look at his kids and tickle their bellies and tell them that he loved them. That he did all these awful things because he loved them.

  Isn’t that what all fathers did?

  Lane was there, on the bed, waiting for him. She’d been stripped naked. Only her panicked eyes seemed able to move, along with a slight up-and-down motion of her chest. They’d let her continue breathing. For the moment. Hardie tried to look away but a gloved hand pushed on his jaw, facing him forward.