Green Monster

by Rick Shefchik

  The woman at Frankie’s door stared at Heather for an extra beat. Then she glanced back at Sam with the renewed interest of a woman who felt compelled to pull herself together in the presence of a guy who could attract such a good-looking companion.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “I hope so,” Sam said. “This is Frankie Navarro’s house, right?”

  “Yes. What’s he done now?”

  “That’s what we’re here to talk about…Miss…”

  “Springs. Fawna Springs.”

  “Pretty name,” Heather said. Sam suspected she was trying not to laugh.

  “It’s my stage name, but I’m having it changed legally, when I get enough money.”

  “Mind if we come in, Miss Springs?” Sam asked.

  “Call me Fawna. Sure, come on in.”

  She opened the door, and Sam and Heather followed her past the entryway to a messy kitchen and into a messy living room with throw pillows and magazines on the floor, empty beer cans on the coffee table, and a pair of panties on the back of the couch. The walls were decorated with cheaply framed, crookedly hung movie posters—“Rocky III,” “Terminator,” and “Under Siege.” The carpet was stained with what looked, and smelled, like dog urine. Sam realized the yapping he’d been hearing was coming from somewhere in the back yard.

  Fawna sat down on a corner of the couch, pulled up her legs, and crossed them. She was wearing underwear. She lit a cigarette from a pack on the coffee table.

  “Where’s Frankie?” she said. “He didn’t come home last night. He’s not dead, is he?”

  “No,” Sam said. “He’s with Sid Mink.”

  “Oooohhh,” Fawna said slowly, as though she knew that should mean something to her, but she couldn’t figure out what. The ashtray in front of her was overflowing with butts, so she tapped the ash from her cigarette into a beer can. Sam saw what he thought was cocaine residue on the coffee table. Frankie and Fawna were certainly living the good life in L.A.

  “Here’s the thing, Fawna,” Sam said. “Frankie’s in real trouble, and we need to get in touch with a guy named Bruce Kenwood, who might be able to help him out. Recognize the name?”

  Fawna tilted her head back and blew a cloud of smoke into the air above her, holding the pose in a way that suggested she was trying to place Kenwood’s name. Sam wasn’t so sure she wasn’t just trying to piece together the verbs and nouns in his sentence to see if she could understand it.

  “What was that name again?” she said.

  “Bruce Kenwood.”

  “Uh-uh. Never heard of him.”

  “Does Frankie keep an address book, or a list of phone numbers, something like that?” Heather asked.

  “No. It’s all in his head. Frankie’s really smart.”

  Sam saw no point in getting into that debate. Instead, he explained to Fawna that Frankie was being held by Sid Mink—a rather lethal mobster who had a long-standing grudge against Frankie and was keeping him alive only because Heather was paying him to. This arrangement was subject to termination at any time. Frankie’s termination. Sam figured Fawna got the parts about money and Frankie not being dead yet.

  “What can I do?” Fawna said.

  “Let me look around the house and see if I can find any connection to Bruce Kenwood,” Sam said.

  “Frankie wouldn’t like that.”

  “No, I suppose not. But if I don’t talk to Kenwood soon, Frankie will be dead, and none of this will matter. So I don’t think he’d mind right now.”

  Fawna looked troubled. All the expressions on her face—troubled, perplexed, worried, bored, curious—seemed to be poses learned from an acting coach.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Our bedroom is next to the kitchen.”

  Sam started with the kitchen, looking for phone numbers written on scraps of paper, the cover of the phone book, or even on the wall, which wouldn’t surprise him in this house. He found one on a matchbook cover, dialed it, and got an auto-repair shop. There was nothing on the refrigerator; normal people put messages to and from themselves on the fridge with magnets, but that was the one place in the house that was free of clutter. Maybe they hadn’t heard of refrigerator magnets.

  Fawna was right—there was no address book or phone list. Sam wished he could get his hands on Frankie’s cell phone, but that was probably in a flood basin somewhere next to a freeway.

  “Where do you keep your bills?” Sam called to Fawna, who was still sitting in the living room with Heather. A conversation between the two had yet to materialize.

  “Umm…in the bedroom, I think.”

  Sam braced himself for more disarray, and was not disappointed. The bed looked like it had not been made since the sheets were new—if they ever were new. There was maybe two or three square feet of open floor space between the piles of clothes, though dozens of unused hangers dangled in the open closet. Half the dresser drawers were pulled open, with clothes falling out of them as though trying to hurl themselves onto the floor to join the party. If he hadn’t seen the rest of the house, Sam would have assumed someone had already been there ahead of him, turning the place upside down.

  There was an end table under a window next to the bed, piled with unwashed glasses, empty Miller Golden Draft cans and bottles, a clock radio running either two hours late or ten hours early, a People magazine, an ashtray, and a bra. No bills there. Sam looked on top of what appeared to be Frankie’s dresser and found a stack of envelopes—water company, power company, phone company…

  The phone bill was a month old, and the list of numbers called did not immediately reveal anything. Sam walked back into the living room and asked Fawna if she recognized any of the numbers. She looked at it with a squint, handed it back to Sam and shook her head.

  “He only calls three people, really,” she said. “Jesus, Mikey, and Gino.”

  Sam took out his cell phone and called the number that appeared most frequently on the list. He got an answering machine that said, “This is Jesus. Leave a message.”

  No point in that.

  He called the other two most-called numbers. One belonged to Mikey, whose answering machine also picked up. When Sam called the last number, he got a tremulous female voice.

  “Hello?”

  “Is Gino there?” Sam asked. He braced himself for the answer.

  “No,” the woman said, her voice breaking. “He…he died last night…”

  “I’m sorry. Please accept my condolences.”

  “Who…who is this?”

  “Los Angeles County Court. His name came up for jury duty. We’ll find someone else.”

  He hung up.

  No other number on the monthly bill had been called more than once. Sam didn’t want to go through the list asking for Bruce Kenwood, or Babe Ruth. That wouldn’t get him anywhere, and they didn’t have time for it. It would be Friday in nine hours.

  He spent another half-hour poking through the clutter in Frankie’s house—in the garbage pail under the sink, in the urine-splashed magazine rack in the bathroom, amid the piles of especially dirty clothes that had somehow found their way to the laundry room. He even did a search around the pool in the back, where he found piles of dog shit and a couple of used condoms, but no notes, letters, or phone numbers that could lead him to Bruce Kenwood.

  He went back in the living room and sat down on an arm chair that smelled like marijuana and taco sauce. Heather was perched on the edge of a folding chair, trying to keep as little of her designer skirt in contact with the household furnishings as possible.

  “Okay, that was a waste of time,” Sam said. “Now we have to do this the hard way. Fawna, does Frankie have a car?”

  “Sure,” she said. “He’s got a Mercedes in the garage in back. But Jesus usually drives when Frankie goes somewhere.”

  “Can you drive it?”

  “Sure. I mean, not very well. It’s a stick. Frankie doesn’t let me use it much.”

 
; “Good enough. You’re going to use it tonight.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Heather turned right off Beverly Boulevard and pulled into the parking lot at Pan Pacific Park, a sprawling complex on the edge of West Hollywood with ballfields, basketball courts, picnic tables, barbecue pits, and an auditorium with a faux-’30s Art Deco-style marquee. It was accessible from several surrounding streets, always busy, and the nearest public place Sam could think of for their meeting with Sid Mink.

  He had called Mink and told him he knew who Babe Ruth was—he just needed to have Frankie tell him where to find the guy. He insisted on doing it in a public place where he, Heather, and Frankie could all feel safe. Mink agreed to bring Frankie to Pan Pacific Park at seven p.m., and Sam agreed to bring Heather and $2,000,000 in cash.

  Paper bags, cups, and bottles were strewn around the half-full parking lot, and plastic shopping bags were stuck to the low chain-link fence that bordered the lighted soccer field, where two teams of teenagers were playing a game in front of about 50 spectators. Mink’s Cadillac was parked next to the fence, near a picnic table, under a eucalyptus tree. There was another black car, a Chrysler 300, next to the Cadillac, with three men sitting inside. Mink had brought even more guys. Great.

  Sam told Heather to back into a spot in the row opposite Mink’s cars. He got a gym bag from the back seat—a bag he’d found in Frankie’s closet—and handed it to Heather. As they walked across the lot, Joey Icebox emerged from Mink’s Cadillac and approached them. Sam put his arms out, opened his jacket, and allowed Joey to frisk him.

  “I’m not wearing my gun,” he said, though he knew Joey would check anyway.

  Heather was wearing a sleeveless pink tank top and a turquoise mini-skirt that couldn’t have concealed a butter knife. Joey Icebox looked as though he wanted to go in for the full-cavity strip search.

  “Take it easy, Joey,” Mink said. He pointed to the bag. “The money’s in there?”

  “Yeah. Where’s Frankie?”

  This was the part Sam had worried about. Sid Mink didn’t have to produce Frankie Navarro. All he had to do was reach over and take the gym bag. Upon opening it, instead of $2,000,000 in cash, he’d find old copies of Us and Entertainment Weekly. At that point, the shooting would start.

  But Sam had counted on Mink’s desire to find out who Babe Ruth was—who was this guy who had the chutzpah to try to pull a $50,000,000 job right under Mink’s nose? He wouldn’t find out if he simply grabbed the cash and killed Frankie.

  “Leon!” Mink yelled over his shoulder. “Get Frankie out here.”

  The back door of the Caddy opened, and Frankie Navarro got out of the car, with Leon right behind him, his right hand concealed under a jacket over his arm, prodding Frankie from behind. Frankie’s puffy face was various shades of blue and purple, with some dried red for accent. Sam could only imagine what the rest of him looked like under his jacket and running pants. Mink’s boys must have worked him over for hours. He looked worse than Stallone ever did at the end of a “Rocky” movie.

  They stood facing each other in the middle of the parking lot—Sam and Heather on one side, the battered Frankie flanked by Mink, Joey Icebox, and Leon on the other. Sam glanced over at the other car; the windows were now rolled down and three unfriendly faces stared through them at Sam and Heather.

  “Frankie, I know who Babe Ruth is,” Sam said.

  “Bullshit,” Frankie said.

  “His name is Bruce Kenwood. Lou Kenwood’s son.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “No. He isn’t. You know he isn’t. You met him in prison at Lompoc. When he got out he looked you up, found out you’d tried to blackmail Alberto Miranda, and figured out a scheme with an even bigger payday. He’s the guy who set up the kidnapping in Venezuela, and sent the extortion note to the Red Sox.”

  Sam could see why Frankie had never made it as an actor. He was trying to play defiant, but his eyes were saying the game was up.

  Mink pulled out a cigar, lit it, and blew a cloud of smoke into the air between them, a smile spreading across his face.

  “Son of a bitch,” Mink said. “Kenwood’s own kid. Makes me glad I never had any.”

  “Where do we find Bruce Kenwood?” Sam asked Frankie.

  “I ain’t telling you nothing,” Frankie mumbled through his cracked, bruised lips. He looked up at Sam with a question in his eyes: Are you going to get me out of this, or what?

  Sam had counted on that. Frankie was still holding out for the one thing he needed: his life.

  “We could beat it out of him,” Joey said.

  “Looks like you already tried,” Sam said.

  “We’ll find that cocksucker sooner or later,” Mink said. He looked up at Sam and said, “I think our business is concluded, Mr. Skarda. You got the name. I want my money.”

  “What about Frankie?”

  “His time’s up. Hand over the money, and get the fuck outta here.”

  Joey Icebox took a step forward to take the bag from Heather.

  “It’s all here,” she said. She unzipped it as if to show Joey the bundles of cash. Then she reached in, pulled out Sam’s Glock and pointed it at Joey’s forehead. Sam took that opportunity to grab Frankie.

  “Do what I say and you’ll live,” Sam hissed into Frankie’s ear.

  He and Heather backed away from Mink’s men toward their convertible. Heather dropped the gym bag in the parking lot and handed the gun to Sam just as the doors to the Chrysler 300 opened and the three men started to get out with their guns drawn. Sam squeezed off two shots, one that shattered the back windshield of the Chrysler 300, the other embedding in the driver’s-side door, which was quickly pulled closed again as the three thugs dived out of sight inside the car.

  “Keep your hands out of your jackets,” Sam said to Joey Icebox and Leon, who were glancing nervously at each other, waiting for an order from Mink, who looked indecisive. An ambush in a deserted fitness club or parking lot was one thing, but gunning people down in the daytime, with dozens of witnesses nearby, wasn’t Sid Mink’s thing. His mouth hung open as Sam swung the Glock toward him; he probably hadn’t had a gun pointed at him in 20 years.

  Sam pushed Frankie into the back seat of the BMW, jumped into the passenger seat and kept the gun trained on Mink and his boys while Heather started the car.

  “Go! Go!” Sam yelled.

  He had time to fire two more accurate shots, taking out the rear tires of the Chrysler 300, and then got off a third that whistled past Mink’s head and cracked the rear window of his Cadillac. Heather burned rubber toward the exit. Everyone at the soccer game—kids, parents, referees—had heard the shots and the squeal of tires. They didn’t need to be told to dive to the ground, cover their heads, and wait for the shooting to stop.

  As the BMW roared away, Mink reached down to look in the gym bag. He pulled out a fistful of magazines and furiously threw them across the lot, then pointed at the receding BMW and yelled something to his men. Joey, Leon, and the three guys in the Chrysler 300 all had their guns out and began firing, but Heather had already put too much distance between them. Sam could see Mink and his men run to their cars. The Chrysler 300 wasn’t going to be much use with bullet holes in the rear tires, but the Cadillac was soon following them.

  And now the timing had to be perfect. Sam knew that even with Heather’s driving skills, the West Hollywood traffic wouldn’t let them shake free of Mink. She just had to stay ahead of him for four blocks…

  Traffic was sluggish on Beverly Boulevard as Heather got to the end of the driveway and looked for an opening to make a left turn. Then, instead of turning left as they’d agreed, Heather hung a hard right and started heading east.

  “No!” Sam yelled. “What the hell are you doing? Follow the plan, goddammit!”

  “I just want to try something,” Heather said.

  Mink’s Cadillac screeched out of the parking lot, gained speed and closed on the BMW. The Cadi
llac had nearly caught them when Heather stomped on the brakes and executed a perfect 180 degree skid-turn. Leon attempted to do the same but nearly lost control of the car, fishtailing onto the boulevard and trapped sideways in front of honking oncoming traffic.

  “They never let us do that on the street at performance school,” Heather said, grinning.

  Once they turned west, Heather veered over to the far right lane, cutting off a Porsche, whose driver slammed on the brakes and the horn simultaneously. Heather then swung back to her left to get around a beer truck, while Mink’s Cadillac finally managed to merge into westbound traffic about a block behind them. Leon and Joey could not get a clear shot off, but they were closing the gap as Heather was boxed in by the beer truck on her right, a limo on her left, a minivan with South Dakota plates in front of her, and a double-decker Hollywood tour bus in front of the beer truck. The tour guide stood on top of the bus, speaking into a megaphone while pointing out locations from recent movies.

  Frankie was lying face up across the back seat of the BMW, not daring to lift his head high enough to see what was going on. Sam turned around in the front seat and peered past the headrest to keep track of Mink. He could see the Cadillac weaving from lane to lane, trying to make up the distance between them. Sam still had his gun in his hand, but he wasn’t going to risk firing a shot in traffic. He knew Sid wouldn’t feel so constrained.

  They were doing about thirty miles per hour as they crossed Spaulding, then Stanley, and approached the intersection at Genessee. Ogden would be next, but Mink’s car was now only one length behind them.

  “Remember, you’re taking a right at this corner,” Sam told Heather.

  “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t get over to the right lane. That damn bus is blocking me.”

  Sam rose from his seat. He was almost parallel to the bus driver, whose window was open. Sam heard the tour guide atop the bus telling the tourists through his megaphone, “We’re nearing the location where the lava poured down the street in the movie ‘Volcano.’ Remember how the cars just melted in that glowing red wave? Talk about global warming!”