by J. L. Abramo
Griffin’s flanking move put him where he could see the two guys behind the Camaro. In the light, they were sitting ducks. He yelled, “Drop the guns!”
They didn’t, of course. Both turned toward the sound of Griffin’s voice with weapons raised. He shot the first man before either could get off a shot, and the second as the man fired. The second man’s shot went wide. That just left the woman. Griffin didn’t see any sign of her.
Then the headlights of the idling cab came on. The cab lurched forward through the doors of the barn. It hit the side of the Camaro, knocking the car out of the way. The driver’s side wheels rolled over one of the fallen gunmen. If the .357 hadn’t killed him, he was sure as hell dead now.
Griffin popped open the cylinder of the big Smith & Wesson and dumped the brass. He slapped a speed loader in and flipped the cylinder closed. The cab was barreling his way. Decision time again. The window or the tires? The woman wasn’t an immediate threat so shooting her wasn’t necessary. He tried not to kill anyone he didn’t have to.
Griffin put three hollow points into the driver’s side front tire. The tire exploded and the truck spun sideways and slammed into a tree. It didn’t catch fire like in the movies. Griffin started forward, gun pointed down, but ready. He heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun round being chambered and threw himself on the ground as the shotgun boomed.
Jesus, this bitch was serious!
Thanking whatever gods look after fools and mercenaries that the woman’s shotgun wasn’t an automatic, Griffin sat up and fired three times into the side window of the cab. He was already popping another speed loader into the .357 as he rolled to his feet and angled out of the line of fire. Then he moved up to the truck door and flattened against the side of the cab. He listened for a moment, but heard nothing.
Griffin grabbed the door handle, pulled the door open, and fired twice into the cab. He needn’t have bothered. The woman rolled out of the cab with a quarter of her pretty skull gone. Griffin took the shotgun anyway.
Now he finally heard the sounds of sirens. Whether Clay had gotten through or someone had heard all the gunfire and called the cops didn’t really matter. Griffin walked back to the barn and put the .357 on the ground. He didn’t want the cops to shoot him when they rolled in. He wouldn’t have Sheriff Carl Price to clean up his mess this time. This was going to be a long night.
Clay Travis came creeping into the light. He said, “Jesus. Are they all dead?”
“Looks like it,” Griffin said.
“You okay?”
“Dandy.”
Clay said, “Jeez but you killed a lot of people.”
“Clay?” said Griffin.
“Yeah, man.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
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L A FREEWAY
J. L. Abramo
I was sitting at the bar in the Power House on Highland Avenue in Hollywood staring at my empty beer bottle.
I had been thinking a lot about getting away from Los Angeles before my chances were less than slim—and before Susanna got tired of waiting.
I must have been thinking out loud because the first thing Jimmy Stills said when he pulled up a stool beside me was, “I found your ticket out.”
Jimmy started in about a big score, a valuable coin collection, throwing in catch phrases like easy pickings and falling off a log.
I didn’t know anything about Jimmy’s experience with logs—but had seen him fall off a bar stool once or twice.
“What do you know about coins?” I asked.
“I ran into Billy Mullins.”
“With your pickup truck I hope.”
“Twenty rare gold coins, you could fit them in a Cracker Jack box, worth over a million. Mullins knows how to get at them and he has a buyer lined up. He needs help.”
“What for? He and his psychopath brother need a hand finding an empty snack box?”
“Roy is out of the picture, back east on some other gig. Billy just wants to talk with you. He’ll be here tonight at ten.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
I threw a twenty down for old man Clancy behind the bar and headed for the door.
Out on the avenue I stood awhile.
Watching the losers and the lost go by.
I needed to hear from Susanna, again, about how desperately she wanted to say goodbye to all this concrete.
Susanna was doing her devil’s advocate thing.
“You said you would never work with Mullins again.”
“I said I wouldn’t be in the same room with Roy Mullins. The man is a head case. Billy is fairly harmless. He’s also dumb as a box of rocks, so this may be nothing—but I see no harm in hearing what he has to say.”
“And if it’s something?”
“Then we can decide.”
“Together.”
“Together. And if it’s really something, we can pack up all the dishes.”
“I guess it won’t hurt to hear what he has on his mind,” Susanna said, “but I want to know every detail.”
I walked into the Power House at ten.
I looked around the room, taking in all the players.
The cast of characters hadn’t changed much.
I walked up to the bar.
Clancy was pouring shots for Tommy Conlon and Kevin Doyle.
“Have you seen Jimmy Stills?” I asked.
“He said they needed somewhere private, I said they could use the office. He’s with Billy Mullins.”
“I know.”
“If you’re smart, you’ll go the other way.”
Clancy thought I reminded him of a son he had lost to gambling and alcohol. He tried to look out for me.
“It’s my night to be stupid. Pour me a Jameson. Make it a double.”
I carried my drink back to the office where Billy surprised me with an impressive presentation.
“The nineteen-thirty-one Saint-Gaudens double eagle. A twenty-dollar face-value coin—weighing a little more than an ounce. The gold value is just over a grand. Market value, mint condition, seventy-five grand. There are twenty of them.”
I quickly did the math. One and a half million.
“I have a buyer. Our end is seven hundred fifty thousand,” Mullins added.
“Who’s going to give us fifty cents on the dollar?”
“The owner. Philip Simon. He scores the insurance settlement and then gets to keep his precious coins. He will be out of town with plenty of witnesses when we hit his place.”
“So, why do you need us?”
“Jimmy will stay outside—keep an eye out and the engine running.”
“And me?”
“You get us past the security system. It needs to look like a legitimate break-in. Simon can’t give us the disarm code, but he gave me everything else you need to know about the system set up. With your talents it will be a walk in the park,” Mullins said, handing me the alarm system schematics.
It appeared both Billy and Jimmy had brushed up on their metaphors for the occasion.
I gave the specs a quick look over and had to agree—it would be like taking candy from a baby.
“What’s the split?”
“A hundred fifty thousand for Jimmy—you and I split the rest equally. When Simon returns to Los Angeles, we’ll all meet him for the exchange.”
“How did Simon find you—in the yellow pages?”
“He’s a lawyer. He helped me and Roy out of jam a year ago.”
“No offense,” I said, although I couldn’t care less if I broke his heart. “If I see Roy anywhere near us I’m gone.”
“My brother is in Jersey cooking up some action with Johnny Roselli. He won’t be back for at least a month.”
“I’ll have to think about it.”
“Think fast. Simon leaves town on Friday and we go in Saturday night.”
My old man was an Indiana farmer and the son of an Indiana farmer and when he lost the family farm he moved us down to Texas where he would work
on a farm because it was all he knew how to do. And dream.
He mostly dreamed of California. He talked about the sunshine and the palm trees, the convertible sports cars and mansions, and the freeways paved with gold.
He idolized James Dean, the Indiana farm boy who went to Hollywood and became immortal.
I remember my father coming into my room one night when I was eight years old. He woke me. We sat and looked at the pictures in a book. Los Angeles, the City of Angels. Dad promised that someday he would take my mother and me to the Pacific Ocean. He died a week later.
After his death I was in and out of trouble, in and out of schools, in and out of reformatories, breaking in and stealing out of people’s homes, and finally in and out of Huntsville State Penitentiary where I learned a trade that would help me get past alarm systems in other people’s homes.
When my mother passed away, and I was going through her things, I came across the book my father had brought into my room years before.
I decided to live out his dream. The only thing in my life that would be difficult for me to leave behind was Susanna. Luckily she believed in me and signed on for the move to California.
But luck ran out and it didn’t take long to discover the Los Angeles of my father’s dreams was only real in picture books.
I walked into the apartment just before midnight.
It was as unappealing as when I left.
I could hear Skinny Dennis playing his electric bass guitar next door.
Susanna was waiting up for me.
I ran it down for her.
“Three hundred thousand dollars,” she said.
“Yes.”
“In three days?”
“Yes.”
“Do you trust Billy Mullins?”
“About as far as I can throw him—but if push comes to shove I can throw him pretty far.”
“So?”
“So, Columbus took a chance.”
If you have a mind to, you can always come up with rationalizations for criminal behavior. A popular excuse is the allusion of a victimless crime. I was about to help someone rob himself to rip-off an insurance company. No foul.
I bought it.
The heart of the matter? I came to Los Angeles with nothing and I was determined not to leave with nothing.
At eleven on Saturday night I was standing out on Vine Street when the late model Infiniti pulled up to the curb with Jimmy behind the wheel and Billy Mullins in back.
“Nice ride,” I said, settling in beside Stills.
“Borrowed it off a dealership lot in Van Nuys,” Jimmy said.
“How long before someone discovers it’s missing?”
“Long enough,” Mullins said. “Let’s move.”
The house was in Manhattan Beach—a hop and a skip from the sand and surf.
It was a modest sized home surrounded by all of the trees and shrubbery necessary for privacy.
It took me less than ten minutes to disable the alarms and another few seconds to get us in through the back door.
The gold pieces were exactly where their owner had said they would be. They sat out in the open on a large desk in the study in a twelve-inch by ten-inch glass-topped mahogany case. Four rows of five coins. Ten displayed Liberty and ten displayed the double eagle on the reverse side.
Billy Mullins placed the box into a plastic grocery bag.
We left the house and walked casually to where Jimmy Stills waited in the car. I was a few steps ahead of Billy and I hopped into the back seat.
Jimmy stopped the Infiniti to let me out on Vine. As I turned to move off, Billy called me back to the passenger side window.
“I let you know the where and when for the exchange. Don’t forget to bring this,” he said, handing me the grocery bag without ceremony.
And Jimmy quickly pulled away.
The bag and its contents weighed less than five pounds.
I carried it into the apartment.
Susanna was asleep on the sofa. I gently laid the bag down on an end table and went to the kitchen to pour a whiskey
When I came back into the front room, Susanna was sitting up with the display case resting on her lap.
“What do you see?” I asked.
Susanna looked up into my eyes.
“A piece of land back home, room to grow food, raise horses, breathe. A chance to get off of this L.A. Freeway.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
Susanna looked back down at the gold coins.
“They are really beautiful,” she said.
I heard from Jimmy Stills on Monday. The exchange would take place at Philip Simon’s office in Glendale. It was a converted warehouse. A number of retail shops and professional businesses.
Doctors. Architects. Lawyers.
The building would be shut down and deserted by nine.
Jimmy would pick me up at eleven.
At ten-thirty, Susanna took a last look at the gold coins.
“I’d love to keep one.”
“I could probably buy you one for seventy-five thousand dollars.”
She placed the case into the plastic grocery bag and handed it to me.
“Watch your back,” she said.
“I thought you had my back.”
She gave me a hard punch to the chest.
“What was that for?”
“A reminder to dress appropriately,” she said, and she left the apartment.
Just before eleven I walked out onto Vine to wait for Stills. He pulled up in his pickup a few minutes later and I climbed in beside him.
As we approached the freeway entrance, Susanna’s words echoed in my head.
Get off of this L.A. Freeway.
L.A. Freeway is not found on any map. It is not a single route into or out of Los Angeles. L.A. Freeway is a term sometimes used to describe the maze of interconnected roadways stretching out from the city like the legs of a spider.
Hollywood, Ventura, Santa Ana, Century, Santa Monica, Long Beach.
It’s a web—ensnaring the California dreamer like a spider traps a fly.
We exited the leg called the Golden State Freeway at Hyperion Boulevard and crossed the L.A. River into Glendale. As we approached the building I had one hope.
Get off the L.A. Freeway without being killed or caught.
When we walked into the office they were waiting.
Philip Simon. Billy Mullins standing beside him.
An open attaché case on the desk filled with cash.
I took a few stepped toward the desk.
Suddenly Billy had a gun to Simon’s temple. He pulled the trigger. The man was dead before he hit the deck.
Then two shots from somewhere behind me and Jimmy Stills went down.
I turned—the plastic grocery bag with its treasure still in my hand.
I recognized Roy Mullins a moment before he shot me.
My last thought before my head crashed to the floor was Susanna, don’t you cry for me.
When I opened my eyes I was in my own bed. Susanna was sitting in a chair watching me.
“What time is it?”
“Morning. You’ve been in and out all night. How is your head?”
“Feels like it was bounced across a hardwood floor,” I said, as I managed to sit up.
“Jimmy is dead. You took three shots to the chest. The vest saved your life.”
“The best present you ever gave me. It was Roy Mullins.”
“I know. We heard the gunshots and saw Billy and Roy running out just before we ran in.”
“We?”
“I brought Clancy along for support. You were out cold. He’s a strong old timer. I could never have carried you out of there alone.”
As if on cue Clancy walked into the room holding a brown paper bag.
“Coffee and donuts,” he said.
“Nice.”
“The police received an anonymous tip and caught up with the Mullins boys. Billy and Roy tried to shoot it out. They were both killed.”
“Thanks for your help.”
“No worries. I need to run.”
“I thought you didn’t open the bar until ten.”
“I have to get to Sunday Mass first,” Clancy said, and he was gone.
“Well,” Susanna said.
“Well?”
“I guess we’re here for a while.”
“Do me a favor.”
“Sure.”
“You know the tin box I keep on the mantle?”
“The one you think you’re hiding your cigarettes in?”
“That’s the one. Please bring it in here.”
“Pretty heavy for a pack of Camel straights,” she said when she handled me the tin.
I pulled off the lid and spilled the contents onto my lap.
Ten 1931 Saint-Gaudens double eagle gold coins.
“How much are they worth?”
“At thirty cents on the dollar—twenty to twenty-five grand. Apiece.”
“Less than I was hoping for,” Susanna said, “but it will work.”
Skinny Dennis helped us load the car.
Later, we drank a farewell to the apartment—standing in the front room with whiskey in paper cups.
“I’m going to gas up the car,” Susanna said. “I’ll hit the horn three times when I get back.”
She gave Dennis a hug.
“We’ll be looking out for your hit record,” she said.
When she left, I offered Dennis another drink.
“I have to bounce. Band rehearsal. I’m going to miss you guys.”
“You and old man Clancy are about all I’m going to miss. I hope your dreams come true.”
We shook hands and he headed for the door.
“And, Dennis,” I said, as he was moving out into the hallway.
“Yes?”
“Say goodbye to the landlord for me.”
A few minutes later I heard Susanna’s signal.
I stepped out of the apartment and closed the door behind me.
I reached into my pocket, pulled out the key, and left it in the door lock.
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