Swim Move

by David Chill

  “You two start walking,” he yelled, waving the pistol wildly. We began to walk toward the Pathfinder and he yelled again. “No!” He pointed to the garage behind the house.

  “Wait a minute,” I said, not liking this change of plans at all.

  “No, you wait a minute, motherfucker! Do as I say or I bust a cap in your gabacho ass. Get in there now!”

  The first guy we had encountered, the one with the beer and the long scar, grabbed Phil by the arm and started to lead him toward the side of the house. I looked at the one with the pistol, who motioned me to follow. Scarface led us down a narrow, choppy driveway that had probably last been paved about sixty years ago, and was strewn with cracks. An old Chevy Impala with dents in both passenger-side doors sat at the end of the driveway. We moved into what was once a backyard but now held what might generously be called a guest house. A more accurate description would be a clubhouse for gangbangers.

  Keeping the pistol trained on us, the man opened the door and motioned for us to go inside. There were half a dozen young men loitering about, one smoking a cigarette, two sipping cans of beer, another lying on a couch taking a nap. And then there was Amanda Zeal, her blonde hair flowing freely, sitting on a folding chair, staring at us.

  “Hey, look what I caught snooping around,” shouted our new friend with the gun. “Couple o’ lawbreakers!”

  “Oh, yeah?” said the guy with the cigarette, who seemed like he was the leader of this crew. He wore a black shirt, tan shorts, and he had an acne problem. He was overweight, and his head was almost perfectly round. The closer we got, the more the acne stood out. The complexion of his face was not unlike a pile of chopped meat.

  “Caught ‘em outside,” Scarface said. “Snooping around.”

  The leader laughed and waved his cigarette at us. “Lawbreakers, huh?”

  “Hey, you know what we do with lawbreakers,” declared another, as he made a slicing motion across his throat.

  “What you bitches trying to steal?” asked the guy with the cigarette. We did not respond.

  “Hey, baby,” said the guy standing next to us with the gun, as he looked at Amanda. “You know these clowns?”

  Amanda Zeal continued to stare at us, mouth open. Her hands were at her side, and it didn’t appear she was tied up. But she clearly didn’t look like she wanted to be there.

  “What’s a matter, baby? Cat got your tongue?”

  The guy with the gun walked over to me and put the gun flush against my left temple. The gun felt cold and hard against my head. My breathing slowed as I tried to keep calm and process the situation. A trickle of sweat rolled down my rib cage.

  “That’s my dad,” she finally managed. “And a friend of his.”

  “Oh, that’s Daddy, huh?” said the guy with the cigarette, as he took a puff. “The man with the big bank account. Who don’t care if his daughter lives or dies. I got that straight, Daddy?”

  Phil Zellis didn’t move and didn’t say anything. There probably was nothing he could say.

  “Damn, none of you likes to talk, huh? Maybe we take you two hostage. What do you think about that, Mr. Beverly Hills?”

  After a long moment of silence, I spoke. “That’d be a mistake,” I said.

  The guy looked over at me, took a final puff of his cigarette, and calmly threw it on the floor without stamping it out. “Who the hell are you again? You the friend, right?”

  “Right.”

  “The friend that’s about to get his brains splattered all over the floor,” he said. “Hey, Ax. You feel like shooting this pendejo?”

  Ax was apparently the guy with the gun at my temple. He started to laugh. “Maybe I will. Let’s see him give me a good reason why I shouldn’t pop him right now. Come on, maricon. What you got to say?”

  “Shooting me is bad luck,” I said, looking straight ahead. “Just like taking us hostage would be.”

  “Oh, and why’s that?”

  “Because then there’s no one left that has any cash. You take us hostage, there goes your money. There’ll be no one around to pay you.”

  Ax jammed the gun closer to my head. “Oh, yeah? This rich guy here’s got a wife, right? Bet you she’d pay big bucks to get him back.”

  “Bet you she won’t. If you threaten to shoot him, she’ll just say go ahead. That way she’ll be the one to get all his money. And if you shoot either of us, then those Beverly Hills cops come back here. Just like they did the other day. Mister Alex Solis.”

  There was a short period of silence that hung over the room. I looked around the small guest house. It was one big, dirty room with an old refrigerator and a sink with streaks of rust on the far side. There were two doors, one that was probably a closet, the other a bathroom. Like the neighborhood, the whole place seemed as if it had seen better days.

  “How’d you know my name?” he demanded.

  “You rented the white van. You brought it over to Beverly Hills. The first time you went after Amanda. She was with her boyfriend at the time.”

  There was another moment of silence before Alex Solis got his bearings again. “You think you’re a pretty smart dude, huh? So tell us. What’s our next move, smart guy?”

  “You can still get out of this,” I lied. They really couldn’t get out of this. Not with two dead bodies associated with them. These were easy collars for law enforcement, hoodlums who had been seen interacting, even in a tertiary way, with murder victims. With no one else handy, the police would squeeze them until they confessed. And even if they didn’t confess, there was a good chance they’d be convicted in a trial. Depending on the location of the court, and getting a prosecutor who would throw enough circumstantial evidence at them, a jury was as likely to convict as not.

  “Tell me how I do that? Tell me how I, ha ha, get out of this,” he said with a fake laugh. I felt the gun move slightly away from my head.

  “Look, you’ve done nothing wrong thus far. Couple of punches thrown, no big deal. Amanda looks like she’s okay, she hasn’t been harmed. Call it a misunderstanding. If we don’t press charges, this all goes away. Just let us go.”

  “Let you go?” bellowed the guy who had been holding the cigarette. “The fuck we will. We got you here, and you’re not going anywhere. And you’ll do what we tell you to do. This bitch here owes the boss a ton of money and we’re gonna get it. If not, maybe we just use you for target practice. Then we cut you up and feed you to our dogs. Let you go, huh? No way.”

  “Yeah, but the only way you get the money is if you let us go. No one’s left to bring it to you. That’s your only play. If you want to get paid, that is.”

  “Maybe we’ll call that TV network she’s on. They might pay to get her back.”

  “I can help you negotiate that. I know some people there. Let me be your go-between.”

  There was an awkward silence before he spoke again. “You think we’re stupid? We ain’t letting you go. We ain’t doing shit,” he said, but for a moment he was at a loss for what to say next. And I knew at that moment there was an opportunity, one that might not come again. If they took us and tied us up, we were at their mercy. I still had my gun, but I did not have a good way to get to it. And even if I did, there was no telling how many of them had guns. But for the moment, only Alex had his gun drawn. It was this moment when I needed to act, because there was a distinct possibility that this moment might not come again. If they tied us up, we were as good as dead.

  Alex Solis was on my left, and Phil was on my right. There were five guys standing near Amanda. I swung my left arm quickly upward and grabbed Alex’s right wrist. Twisting it sharply, I bent his wrist back until he released his grip on the gun. I grabbed the gun with my left hand, and with my right, I delivered two sharp punches to the nose. There are few better ways to stun someone than by punching them in the nose. I transferred the gun to my right hand, my shooting hand, and grabbed Alex by the hair with my left. Alex slid backward, but I kept him upright by yanking tightly on his hair. I moved behind him,
using his body as a shield, and put the gun to his cheek, where everyone could see it.

  “Anyone moves, Alex gets killed!” I yelled as loud as I could.

  “Hey what the … ?” said one.

  “Yo, you gonna get yourself shot, puta,” said another.

  “Amanda!” I screamed at her. “Get over here now!”

  “Hey, bitch, you ain’t going … ”

  “I said now! Get over here now, move … RIGHT NOW ... or I’m blowing Alex’s face all over this floor!”

  Amanda hesitated but she was now in motion, moving toward us. I pushed the gun hard into Alex’s face and let go of his hair for a moment. Reaching into my pocket with my left hand, I grabbed the Pathfinder keys and tossed them to Phil.

  “Start it up now!” I shouted. “Take Amanda!”

  The two of them raced out the door. I grabbed Alex’s hair again. I saw one guy reach into his pocket. I pointed over his head and fired a shot that missed him by ten feet. But the shot was loud and the shot was an attention-getter. The guy stopped reaching for something. Everyone froze for a moment.

  “I’m walking out of here now! You want to see Alex alive again, nobody follows us! You got it?!”

  I didn’t bother to wait for a response; instead, I jerked Alex toward the door and waved the gun menacingly. There was confusion and no one seemed to know quite what to do. Fortunately, I did. As I backed out of the guest house, I raised the gun and walloped Alex over the head. He collapsed in a heap. I threw the gun into the next-door neighbor’s backyard and took off for the street on a dead sprint. Phil had started up the Pathfinder and was pulling out as I ran toward them. Behind me I heard some commotion and heard some cursing. The back door of the Pathfinder swung open, and I jumped in. Reaching around, I grabbed the handle and pulled the door shut. I saw the gang dash toward the street as we pulled away. Gunfire ripped through the air.

  “Duck!” I yelled, lowering my head.

  Both Phil and Amanda moved their heads forward, although Phil still needed to drive. I heard a rear tail light smash and the plunking sound of bullets hitting metal. Phil floored it, and we speeded out of the neighborhood. He made a couple of wild turns, as we wound our way back onto Rosecrans. He blew right through a red light, honking his horn at a startled motorist. We sped quickly down Rosecrans and were lucky to have a few lights turn green for us along the way. Phil pulled onto the northbound Largo Beach Freeway and gunned the engine. I watched traffic through the back window for the next mile. No one entered the freeway from that on-ramp and no one was following us.

  “Are you okay?” I asked them.

  “Scared out of my wits, but yes,” Amanda said.

  “I’m okay,” Phil said, his breathing heavy. “But I could use a drink right about now. You?”

  I took a deep breath and tried to relax.

  “Not really,” I finally said. “But we need to talk. And I don’t think we should do it in Beverly Hills. Or Culver City.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  I thought for a moment. “I haven’t eaten since five-thirty this morning. You both like Mexican food? I know a good place on the way.”

  Chapter 11

  El Tepeyac had been an institution since the 1950s, oddly situated on a residential street in Boyle Heights. This East L.A. neighborhood has been a Latino bastion for as long as I could remember, and probably for decades before that. But prior to World War II, this was actually a Jewish enclave. The main cross street was once called Brooklyn Avenue, ostensibly named to try and attract New Yorkers who had grown tired of the harsh winters. Brooklyn Avenue had been renamed Cesar Chavez Avenue, the Big Apple transplants and their offspring had long since scattered to other parts of L.A., and the desire to draw any more people from the East Coast was now quaint to even think about.

  The restaurant was a frequent haunt of cops from the Hollenbeck station, especially back in the days when uniformed cops were allowed to take a Code 7 meal break. The Code 7 was eliminated years ago during union negotiations, but it was not uncommon to see cops swing by here after a shift. The place was famous for their large portions and especially for their burritos. The most infamous burrito at El Tepeyac was the Manuel’s Special, named after the restaurant’s founder. It was a massive, five-pound mound of a meal, roughly the size of a football, and designed to feed a family of four. It was essentially a pork burrito, stuffed with rice, beans and God knows what else, topped with cheese, more pork, and some type of spicy red sauce. They also had a special challenge that any one person who could finish a Manuel’s Special by themselves in under one hour gets a t-shirt and has their picture hung on the restaurant’s wall of fame. I decided to live in obscurity and ordered the smaller, more manageable Hollenbeck burrito. Amanda and Phil went straight for the drinks menu.

  We sat at a table inside of a brick-lined archway. The waitress quickly brought a basket of glistening tortilla chips just out of the fryer, and set a bowl of salsa verde down next to it. Amanda and Phil each asked for a double shot of tequila, and after quickly throwing those back, Amanda ordered a blended margarita. Phil told the waitress he wanted another double shot. I looked at them carefully before I asked Phil for my Pathfinder keys back. I took a sip from my Coke. I was glad I had ordered it with extra ice.

  “We need to talk about what happened,” I said to both of them, but looking straight at Amanda.

  “I’m not ready to discuss it,” she replied and took a long sip of margarita through a straw.

  “Well, get ready. You’re going to talk to me, or you’re going to talk to the police. Or maybe both.”

  “Hey,” she replied, “I’ve been through a lot here.”

  “I don’t care. Whatever you’ve been through needs to be talked about. Especially in a kidnapping plot where the supposed victim didn’t appear to be bound or gagged.”

  Amanda looked down and said nothing. I continued.

  “Let me run through all this. Tell me when I’ve gotten something wrong. Or maybe fill in some missing pieces. Your grandfather plays poker each week. A couple of the guys he plays with referee college football games?”

  Amanda still looked down, but at least she nodded.

  “So, somewhere along the line last year, these refs told your grandfather about shaving points off of games they were working. Maybe throwing a penalty flag at a key moment? Or negating a touchdown, saying the ball didn’t cross the plane of the goal line? Maybe kicking a star player out of the game? Something to give the team they were betting on an edge? Make some money on the side?”

  “No,” she said, finally looking up, but her face was grim.

  “No what?”

  “No. They didn’t tell Grandpa what they were doing. He told them what to do. He made them do it.”

  I leaned back and took another sip of Coke. “How did your grandfather do that?”

  “These refs owed him some money. Grandpa had a lot of cash and he loaned it out. When they had trouble paying him back, he told them what they needed to do to get whole.”

  I took this in. “Okay. That clears up one area. But everything else still fits. These refs start making sure the right team covers the spread. Or doesn’t cover the spread. Whatever. And Grandpa told them which team to help out. Then he let you in on things. So you could make some money. Maybe look like a big shot in his granddaughter’s eyes.”

  “Yeah,” she muttered. “Something like that.”

  I turned to Phil. “And were you part of this?”

  Phil shook his head and glared at Amanda. “First I’ve heard of it. They didn’t tell me. Sometimes grandparents want to have a special connection to their grandkids.”

  “Yeah, this was special all right,” I said dryly and turned back to Amanda. “And in the beginning you were making a lot of money. The refs came through and the bets paid off. How much did you make?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Wyatt was in on it, too, I gather.”

  She looked at me oddly. “He was making some bet
s. How did you know?”

  “Lucky guess. But maybe he used some of his winnings to buy that white Jaguar?”

  She gave a short laugh. Maybe more of a snort. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Hey, Amanda got herself a brand new Mercedes, too,” Phil said, starting to feel the effects of the tequila. “I just assumed she was doing well at her job. Goes to show what the hell I knew about this.”

  “I take it you weren’t big on sharing your money with your kids,” I said to Phil. “Let them find their own way.”

  Phil’s eyes narrowed. “It worked for me.”

  “Oh, right. After your dad sent you to Vassar. You found your way into a Beverly Hills family with lots of money and a business that needed running. Nice work if you can get it. But after a while, you started skimming off the top. Setting yourself up for after the divorce from wife number one.”

  “Hey,” Phil warned, re-engaged and wagging a finger indelicately at me. “Hey, watch your mouth.”

  “Or what? You’re going to take a swing at me? Sorry, but I’ve already been shot at today, so I don’t think your threats are going to scare me now.”

  “Still,” he said, looking sheepish.

  “And then you started losing money on the bets,” I said, turning back to face Amanda. “So something must have happened.”

  “Yeah,” she sighed. “The conference started to take a hard look at the games those refs were working. In one, OSU, the team we were betting on, was favored to win by 10 points and they were up 21-7, everything looked good. But then they fumbled the ball right at the end of the game, and Fresno’s defense picked it up and ran it in for a touchdown. OSU would have still won, but it would have made the score 21-14, and we wouldn’t have covered the spread. So the refs threw a penalty flag and called something, I don’t know, illegal use of the hands on Fresno. It was totally bogus, but it wiped out the touchdown and OSU kept the score at 21-7. That’s how it ended. We won our bet. Similar thing happened a week later, so the conference started an investigation.”