Gun Games

by Faye Kellerman

  The poor kid just nodded.

  Decker took out his wallet and showed him his badge and registration. “Even this could be fake. So the next step is to use your cell and call my name into LAPD. Because I could be anyone, right?”

  The kid nodded like a bobblehead.

  “Who does it say I am?”

  The kid read the registration. “Lieutenant Peter Decker.”

  “So then you call up LAPD and get my badge number.”

  “You want me to do that now?”

  Decker smiled. “Don’t bother. I am a police lieutenant.” He regarded the license. “Where are you going?”

  “Just hanging out with some of my friends.”

  Decker gave him back the license. “I’ll let you go with a warning, but get that fixed.”

  “Yes, sir. Right away. I mean, first thing tomorrow. I think all the garages are closed—”

  “Just get it fixed.” Decker took in the kid’s fearful eyes. “You know, Joey, I recognize your name.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah, you were a friend of Gregory Hesse’s, right?” The boy didn’t answer. “One of my detectives left a message on your cell about Gregory Hesse. You haven’t called him back. Neither has your mom or dad. Any reason for that?”

  The kid started shaking in earnest. Even in the dark, Decker could see the ashen complexion. The last thing he wanted was for some teenager to whine to his parents about police brutality.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Decker said. “I’ll call your parents again.”

  “No, no, don’t do that!” the boy implored. “I was gonna call, but it was already like Friday night and I figured no one was in.”

  “The police do work on the weekends.”

  “Yeah, of course. I know. That’s stupid.” He hit his head. “Greg was my best bud. We can talk about it. Not now. It’s not a good time, I mean place. I mean, place or time.”

  Decker said. “Give me a time that’s good for you and your parents.”

  “I’d rather leave my parents out of it.”

  “Any reason why?”

  “You know how it is . . . they know stuff, but they don’t know everything.”

  Decker regarded the teen’s face. “Joey, do you believe that Greg committed suicide?”

  The boy licked his lips. “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “Was Greg upset lately?”

  “Not upset. Different.”

  “Can you define different?”

  “Distracted. Something was on his mind.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Nothing that I can put my finger on.”

  Decker said, “How about we talk on Sunday? That way it doesn’t interfere with your schoolwork. Do you want to come to the station house?”

  “That would work. Can we make it at eleven? No . . . sorry.” He banged his head. “I’m so messed up. That’s Greg’s memorial. It’s gonna last a while. You want to meet on Saturday?”

  “That won’t work for me. How about later Sunday afternoon, four or five?”

  “Five would be okay.”

  Decker handed the boy his card. “If you get hung up, call this number. Where’s the memorial?”

  “First Presbyterian on Tanner Road.”

  “I’ll stop by.” Decker scribbled something down on his notepad. “Here.” He handed the boy a piece of paper. “This is for the taillight if you get pulled over again. It says I let you go with a warning and you’re going to get it fixed over the weekend.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The teen looked at Decker, but didn’t say anything.

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “Um . . . did you really just happen to know my name or were you, like, following me or something?”

  “Your taillight is broken, Joey.” Decker smiled. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  Chapter Six

  From the backseat of a cab that reeked of tobacco, Gabe texted her at 1:23 in the afternoon.

  I’m here.

  A minute later, Yasmine texted back: running a few minutes L8. B there soon.

  A few minutes stretched to five minutes. Compulsive and punctual, Gabe was particularly antsy when waiting.

  As a young child, he was always waiting: for his mom to finish up at her school, for her to finish her homework, for her to cook for him, for her to read to him, for her to tuck him into bed. Mom was always busy, busy, busy.

  The five minutes turned to ten, then to fifteen. At 1:45, he texted Yasmine again.

  It’s getting L8.

  sorry. B right there.

  It was only in retrospect that he realized how hard his mother had been working. Every spare minute of her time was taken up with her education or making ends meet. He never knew when she actually slept because she was always up before he was and went to bed after him. When he was a preschooler, they lived in a shithole studio apartment in Chicago with minimal heating in the winter. He distinctly remembered being smothered under a pile of blankets while he slept. He hated the weight. It made him feel like somebody was on top of him. But as soon as he took off one or two blankets, he was freezing. He could vaguely remember the warmth of his mother’s body, sliding into their shared bed, all of it in a fog of childhood and sleepiness.

  It wasn’t until he was around five that Chris came into the picture.

  No matter how he now felt about his dad, Gabe felt gratitude for Chris’s intervention. As soon as he came on the scene, they moved into a two-bedroom apartment and life became livable. They not only had more food, they had better food—chicken, fruit and vegetables, and even cookies—a far cry from his previous diet of milk, white bread, peanut butter, and macaroni.

  In the back of his mind, he remembered eating a lot of noodles before then. Sometimes he’d eat noodles for days. Most of the time, Mom joined him, but there were times where she fed him and just watched him eat. He realized even at the age of two or three that Mom wasn’t eating with him. He remembered thinking that maybe she was hungry and he should share. But he was so hungry himself. And before he knew it, he had eaten up his entire bowl and drank all of his milk. And his mom would kiss his head and tell him he was a good boy. And those nights, he never saw her eat anything except drink coffee.

  He sighed.

  After disappearing from his life for almost an entire year, she had reached out to him. And he had blown her off. He suddenly felt ashamed, and when he felt guilty, he became moody.

  Where the hell was the little girl? This was a bad idea. He became even tenser.

  After Chris appeared, they never went hungry again. They had heat, they had air-conditioning, and he had the greatest luxury of them all—a piano.

  Chris had taken him to Paris six weeks ago for New Year’s. Being with his dad was always like being with a powder keg with a very long lit fuse. It would eventually go off, but you never knew when. Gabe had been polite and quiet and for once, his dad decided to behave himself. The two of them actually had a pleasant time.

  Not that they were around each other all that much. Chris usually slept all morning while he was out taking in the city, long walks by himself, snapping iconic architecture on his camera. They’d usually meet in the afternoon and take in a museum and then they’d go to dinner and/or a concert. Then Gabe would go back to his room while his father trawled for women.

  Trying them out one by one by one. The age of consent was younger in France, and Chris took advantage of the more liberal law, screwing girls that would have landed his ass in jail in the States. All in all, his dad went through around fifteen girls in ten days. Sampling the merchandise was how he put in. There was a tacit understanding that Gabe could take what he wanted, but that would have only led to complications. So he sequestered himself in his hotel room every night and looked at the varieties of porn offered on the French Internet.

  In the end, Chris had offered only one girl a job. She was a beautiful but drug-addicted nineteen-year-old. He had bought her a coach ticket on the cheapest airline he c
ould find while Gabe, Chris, and Chris’s current girlfriend, Talia, flew back first class on Air France.

  “What are the chances she’ll actually come work for you?” Gabe asked him.

  “Fifty-fifty.”

  She showed up two weeks later. Such spoke to the power of Chris’s charm.

  When Gabe’s watch read two, he became pissed. He had already racked up twenty dollars in waiting charges and she was nowhere in sight. He told the cabdriver to hold on for another moment and got out of the taxi, texting while pacing the sidewalk.

  Where are u!!!!

  Sorry.

  Fuck! They were going to be late. He hated being late. It set his teeth on edge. Finally, at 2:20, he saw her running down the block. If he wasn’t so furious, he would have laughed because she was comical. Red faced, she was running on heels, wearing a mini black cocktail dress that was tight on her nonexistent hips, and a black sweater with an old-fashioned furry collar. Her hair was pinned up in a kind of formal ball gown style. She was holding a beaded evening bag. His dress? A denim shirt over a black cotton tee, khakis, and vans.

  She waved to him.

  He didn’t wave back.

  When she got to the cab, she said, “I’m so sorry—”

  “It’s really late. Let’s get out of here.”

  She went in first, and then he slid in beside her and slammed the door shut.

  Hard.

  “Go, go, go,” he barked to the driver—a Russian who spoke with a thick accent. “Take the 405 to the 101 east that turns into the 134. Take that to the 5 south until you hit the 110 south. Get off at 1st.”

  “Hokay.”

  “We need to get there in a half hour.”

  “That is impossible.”

  “Do it and I’ll make it worth your effort.”

  “You the boss.”

  The driver punched the accelerator and pitched them backward. Yasmine let out a slight gasp, but he ignored her. He sat back in the bench seat, fuming inwardly, his folded arms across his chest.

  “I’m sorry,” Yasmine told him.

  He didn’t answer. Then he said, “What took you so long?”

  “I told my mom I gave back the tickets. So I had to wait until my mom and sisters left for shopping and Michael Shoomer’s party. Then I had to get ready.”

  Get ready for what?

  He glanced at her. She was wearing a ton of makeup, stockings, and fucking pearls—like it was a coming-out party. Even those girls look so dorky. She looked like she was playing dress-up with her mother’s clothing. He glanced away.

  Nervously, she fingered her necklace. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t matter to me,” Gabe told her. “I’ve seen opera. Although I hate to be seated late. Everyone looks at you and you’re climbing over people. It’s so rude to the performers.”

  She was red faced and still panting. Her eyes swept over his body and she was quiet. When she spoke, her voice was filled with self-loathing. “I’m totally overdressed.”

  Gabe said nothing and continued to stew. She turned and sat peering out the side window of the cab.

  Traffic was light. They were making decent time.

  Finally Gabe said, “Opera attracts a lot of different people. People dress anywhere from jackets and ties to jeans. Don’t worry about it.”

  She continued to stare out the window.

  They rode another five minutes in silence. Gabe suddenly softened. What was the point of being nasty? That was his father’s domain. He said, “You look nice.”

  She started to say something, but changed her mind.

  Gabe said, “Really, Yasmine. You look very nice.”

  She faced him for the first time. Her eyeliner was slightly smudged. “I’m really sorry I’m so late. My family is always late. I should have warned you. If you wanted me to come at one, you shoulda said twelve. I thought going to the opera was a real fancy thing.”

  “Sometimes it is.” Gabe said to the taxi driver, “Can’t you go any faster?”

  “I already go sixty-five.”

  “Go seventy-five. There’s no one in front of you.”

  “You pay for my ticket?”

  “Yes, I’ll pay for your ticket.”

  “You the boss.”

  Again the cab shot forward. Gabe checked his watch. They had about a half hour to go and were about a half hour away. “Nothing in L.A. is formal, especially a matinee.”

  “Now I know. I’ve never been to the opera. I’ve never even seen any kind of live stage performance.”

  “Your parents don’t believe in culture?”

  “They have culture, just not American culture. In Iran, I’m sure my father was very cultured. He didn’t learn English until he was thirty. Why would he go to the theater here? All the nuances would be lost on him.”

  “Point well-taken. That was rude. Sorry.”

  She fidgeted with the beads on her evening bag. “I look ridiculous.”

  He tried out a smile. “No one’s going to be looking at you because we’ll be stumbling through the dark when we come in.”

  “Sorry I made you miss everything.”

  “We won’t miss everything. We’ll just have to wait until there’s a natural interlude before they’ll seat latecomers. It’s no big deal to me. I’ve seen La Traviata before.”

  “You have?”

  “Yeah, I saw it about four years ago at the Met.”

  Her made-up eyes got wide. “You did?”

  “Yeah. I used to live in New York.”

  “Oh golly.” She sat back and sighed, closing her eyes. “That’s my dream.”

  “To live in New York?”

  “No, to go to the Met.” She sat up. “Who sang Violetta?”

  “I’ve got to think. It was a while ago . . . I think I saw Celine Army.”

  “She’s great!” She faced him, her eyes not quite meeting his. “But Alyssa Danielli is better.”

  “I don’t know about better. They’re different.”

  “Well, I like Danielli’s voice better. It’s sweeter.”

  “I’ll go with you on that one.” He regarded her made-up face with her smeared eyeliner. “How does someone who’s never heard a live concert come to have such a discerning ear?”

  She shrugged. “I’m an alien.”

  Gabe held back a smile. “Liszt used to introduce Chopin by saying that he was from another planet, so maybe that’s not so bad.”

  “Maybe.” Yasmine pulled out a mirror and lipstick from her purse. When she saw her face, she became horrified. “Oh, my God! I look like a freak!”

  “You look fine—”

  “I’m totally embarrassing . . . like I came off a binge in Intervention.” She pulled out a premoistened lotion wipe from her purse and started blotting her eyes. All that did was make it worse. Her lower lip began to tremble. “God, I’m a mess.”

  She began to attack her face with the towelette, taking off gobs of gook. With each swipe, she smeared more and more makeup. Tears began to trickle down her cheek.

  Gabe rolled his eyes. “Stop, stop, stop.” He took the wipe from her. “Just calm down. You look fine. Hold still.” Carefully, he started removing the paint from her skin until it was gone. “There you go.”

  With trepidation, she looked in the mirror and said nothing.

  “I don’t know why you’d want to cover your face in all this shit,” Gabe told her. “You’re much cuter without it.”

  “I told you Persians dress up for occasions. Besides, now I look around ten.”

  “But a very cute ten.”

  She finally smiled and then carefully applied some lip gloss. “Thanks for bearing with me.”

  Gabe shrugged. “You know, as long as you’re making changes, you should take your hair down. No one our age wears their hair like that unless they’re in a bridal party.”

  She made a sour face and started pulling bobby pins out of her hair.

  “Need help?” he asked.

  “I think you’ve done quite
enough, thank you—”

  “You’re gonna tear your hair if you keep yanking on it like that.” He reached toward her, but she backed away. He rolled his eyes. “Hold still. I’m trying to help you, okay?”

  She suddenly stopped, and her shoulders sagged in defeat. “Do whatever you want.”

  Never say that to a guy. He stifled a smile. “You’ve got a lot of hair.”

  “I can see you know nothing about Persian girls. We all have lots of hair and much of it in unwanted places.”

  He let out an unexpected laugh. “Ever think about stand-up?”

  “Glad I’m amusing.”

  “Hold still.” He closed the distance between them as he carefully picked bobby pins out of her hair, one by one by one. His face was inches from her. He could taste her breath. He inhaled her perfume. Her dress was a scoop neck that had exposed her collarbones. After he took out all the clips, he pretended to smooth out her hair, letting his fingers dance over her bony protrusions. He raked his fingers through the long strands—downy soft, black and wavy. He pulled out a few loose tresses from the back of her sweater, feeling the nape of her neck.

  And there it was: that all-too-familiar jolt below his waistline. Not that his pants were tight, but he was tall and, lucky him, he was proportional. All she had to do was look down to see it. Thankfully, she was too naive to notice. It was going to go to waste, but it did feel good to get a buzz from something other than porno.

  “There you go.” He laid the strands over her shoulders and sat back. “Now you look hot.”

  “Yeah, right!” Yasmine turned away. It was hard for her to look at his face without blushing. He was the most gorgeous boy she had ever seen in her entire life.

  Gabe checked his watch and became irritated again. Which was good but it was hard to be aroused and angry at the same time. He tapped his foot as the taxi sped to its destination. He checked his watch as they approached the Music Center. By the time the taxi pulled over, they had five minutes to go.

  They were at the Ahmanson Theatre side of the block instead of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion where the opera was. Rather than redirect the cabbie, it was quicker to run it.

  Gabe peeled out five twenties for a sixty-two-dollar bill. “Thanks.” He threw open the door. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”