The Lucky Dey Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (The Lucky Dey Series Boxset)

by Doug Richardson

  “Oh, good,” said the girl, twisting from side to side on the pivoting stool. A sure sign of her nerves.

  A pair of umbrella lights on aluminum stands cast a couple of hundred watts of soft light onto the subject. The rest of the candlepower bounced off the sheetrock walls to be absorbed by some low pile industrial-grade carpet. The videographer’s kit looked professional enough and cost Herm less than thirty bucks on craigslist. Add to that the rental of the fifteen-by-fifteen audition space and advertisements in Backstage and Herm’s total monthly investment clocked in at just north of three bills.

  “Is this good like this?” asked Sandy, crossing her legs in order to show off her toned stems.

  “That’s totally fine,” said Herm, flicking his eyes up to check the image on the tiny monitor screen instead of actually looking at the subject.

  In his bad old days, Herm would have rejected Sandy the moment she’d uttered her stage name. Sandy Smithers. Sure it had a nice, double S sibilance and rolled smoothly and memorably over both the tongue and eyeballs. Just way back then the right girl would’ve been two to four years younger with an invented stage moniker chock-full of starry ambition.

  Like Ashley Apples.

  Herm suddenly found himself repeating the name—if only just in his head—freely allowing it to ricochet between his temples as he adjusted the video camera lens, pushing the frame until it was hugging Sandy’s curves as tight as her peek-a-boo blouse.

  “Now, I’d like you to please twist yourself about a quarter turn counter-clockwise,” said Herm.

  “That’d be this way, right? Little bit to my left?”

  “That’s good right there.”

  “Keep smiling?”

  “Probably don’t have to tell you that,” said Herm.

  Little Ashley Apples.

  Herm had met the fourteen-year-old in a Sunset Boulevard coffee shop. He could tell from the instant he saw her that she was ripe. As brand spanking new as a shiny penny fresh off the assembly line at the U.S. Mint. She was just off the Greyhound bus and sharing a four-top booth with her hot pink rolling suitcase. And where was she originally from? Was it Washington State or Idaho? Near Spokane came to mind. Man, she was something to remember. A once-every-ten-years find. Herm remembered all the ones who ticked off his top boxes. They were the unicorns. The perfect perfects. Produced by none other than the hand of God for man’s earthly consumption. And if the stars and planets aligned, for Herm’s personal profit.

  “Do you have something for me to read or do you want me to do a monologue?” asked Sandy, beginning to wonder how long Herm was going to let his video camera linger on her.

  “Car commercial,” said Herm. “Clients are going for a certain look.”

  “Any particular kind?” asked the wannabe. “I can do other looks.”

  “I’ll bet you can,” said Herm, reverse zooming the video lens back to the widest angle. “But hey. Why mess with perfection?”

  The actress giggled a little too easily. More tease than surprise. A sure sign she was accustomed to attention.

  “Any piercings or tattoos?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Might be some bikini work. Both the agency and automaker are European. I expect the ad will air somewhere overseas.”

  “Can’t they just airbrush out a tattoo?”

  “Airbrushing’s for still pictures. Digital film is way more expensive,” said Herm, easily spilling a little showbiz factoid in the name of veracity. His. Proving that a little truth could go a long way.

  “Oh.”

  “Gotta ask. On the agency casting form.”

  Herm picked up a clipboard and flipped over the first page to show her. Never mind that it was little more than a copy of an actual casting form he’d printed off the Net. He’d been using the same dog-eared sheet for two years already.

  “I have two tiny bits of body art,” said Sandy. She twisted at the waist and used a hot pink fingernail to pinpoint the first. “One on my shoulder here. And another cute one in kinda, you know…private place.”

  “So pink’s your color?” weathered Herm, shifting gears and, more importantly, not taking her bait. His game required a professional demeanor. Non-threatening. Entirely devoid of malevolence. That was his job in the food chain.

  “I do like pink,” answered the girl, revealing a trace of Dixie in her voice. “What about you? You like girls who like pink?”

  I just can’t get enough of pink.

  At least that’s what Little Ashley Apples had said to him back in the day.

  I like me lotsa pink and just a little bit of gray.

  With that, Ashley would gently rub her knuckles up against Herm’s spiky salt and pepper sideburns, grown just long enough to appear retro, à la some kind of seventies’ rock star. He’d been about forty years old back then. Ripped like a gym monkey and full of Southern California vitality. Yet the gray around his temples gave him a distinguished streak. When some men of a certain age were spending hundreds of dollars in salon chairs, dyeing their years into blond or brown submission, Herm found wearing his forties like a badge made the teen girls he hunted feel that much safer in his care. Funny, he used to think. These young women whom he’d chosen to pluck from the runaway tree had all arrived in LA with a trunk full of parent issues. Abused. Already halfway down the trail to a future heroin, meth, or crack addiction. Yet it was a daddy sort of lover who they still so desired. And hell if Herm wasn’t going to be there to provide for them.

  I like pink alright. But Herman Bland needs him some green. You wanna help him with that?

  And rare was the girl who said no to Herm. At least not the girls from the bad ol’ days.

  Why the crap do things gotta be so different today?

  “Okay. I think we’re good to go,” said the finely aged man behind the camera.

  “That’s it?” asked Sandy, hoping to have been given more opportunity to shine for the lens.

  “All I need,” said Herm, giving a final once-over to her model consent form. “Now is this your home phone number or a cell?”

  “Cell.”

  Check one.

  “And do you live in town?”

  “You mean, here in LA?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Hollywood. Well, I think it’s Hollywood. Or is it just East Hollywood?”

  “Roommates?”

  “Two. I’m sorry. But what does that—”

  “Not the best part of town. My guess is you’re new to Lalaland.”

  “Lalaland?”

  “LA. Hollywood. Tinseltown,” explained Herm, his voice reaching down for the tonal mellifluence that lent him such gravitas. His height, smooth-yet-ethnically confusing pallor, and easy grace reminded many of famed character actor, Morgan Freeman. A comparison he used to his advantage.

  “You guessed that I was new to California?” she asked.

  Check two.

  “Good you don’t live alone,” added Herm.

  “That’s what my dad always says.”

  “Might need to travel for the job. That a problem?”

  “I love to travel. Where?”

  Check three.

  “Undetermined. These things change a lot. One day they’re shooting the spot in Cancun. The next at an airplane hangar in Lancaster.”

  “Where’s Lancaster?”

  “Don’t worry. No place you wanna go unless they’re paying you.”

  “Good. Cuz I really need the money right now.”

  “Don’t we all need the money?” smiled Herm as a way of wrapping up the audition. “Thanks for coming by. If there’s a callback, I’ve got your number.”

  “Don’t call us. We’ll call you,” joked Sandy. “But I couldn’t call you anyway cuzza I don’t have your number.”

  Herm released a polite, but still fraudulent chuckle, slipped his six-foot-four frame past the umbrella lamps and opened the door. Sandy said a faint goodbye, eventually disappearing down a long barren corridor with identical thre
sholds. It resembled a veterinary clinic more than a commercial casting operation renting audition space by the hour. Once the wannabe had vanished down the stairs, Herm swept his eyes over to the petite young woman in a pair of size-zero Daisy Dukes and bright red lipstick. She was seated in one of two folding chairs which flanked an Arrowhead water cooler.

  She was no unicorn. For that matter, neither was Sandy Smithers. But either—given the right circumstance—would still be worth some coin.

  “Are you Bristol?” asked Herm.

  “I am,” said the girl, springing to her feet.

  “Well, come on in and let’s get you on video.”

  2

  Van Nuys, CA

  Lucky Dey loathed stakeouts.

  Aside from his longstanding opinion that it was a waste of his time, he had spent enough hours with his ass wearing holes in car upholstery that he’d come to the conclusion that it was also an utter flush-hole of taxpayers’ resources. He imagined the cumulative hours of his life lost on what he’d come to call watch and rots. He’d imagined the same for other LA County Sheriff’s detectives, then applied salaries, union-negotiated overtime payments, plus the required contributions to each and every health and pension plan. It was a boondoggle in his undervalued opinion. When cops could have been spending their on-duty time trying to solve actual crime cases, chasing gangbangers with guns, or even the general minding of the public safety, they were often assigned the life-sucking task of watching some empty doorway and cataloguing every innocuous matter of a suspect’s comings and goings. Sure, it might possibly, maybe, or eventually lead to a real live hook. But Lucky rued the man hours that would be saved if Assistant DAs and the judges who signed warrants would reach into their pants, re-discover their testicles, and allow smart cops to bust down those empty doors and sort out the bad guys from good guys.

  What made this Monday stakeout different was that instead of grinding over the waste of his precious time, Lucky was left to ponder the ungodly emptiness that had haunted him from the moment he had woken from his dreamless sleep. Distraction was his only relief from the nearly constant detachment he felt from the human race.

  It was December in LA and unseasonably cold. Lucky’s habit on stakeouts was to leave his car windows rolled down in order to utilize his ears as part of the surveillance. Hearing was key. Be it the throaty fingerprint of a car engine or identifying the direction of gunfire. But the bitter air outside made all those metal pins screwed into his bones just ache, convincing the Los Angeles native to keep the tinted windows at full mast and utilize the late morning sun to warm the borrowed, mid-nineties model Crown Victoria. It surely wasn’t the stealthiest of vehicles. The old Ford reeked of cop car, complete with the hand-operated spotlight mounted just above the driver’s side view mirror. The car was beat to hell, a patchwork of Bondo body repair and primer gray, blending well into the Van Nuys neighborhood that mixed small industry and lower middle-class single-family homes.

  The Crown Vic was parked with its back end up against a Circle K. Lucky, sucking on a 44-ounce cocktail of Diet Coke and Mountain Dew, checked the Breitling watch which had belonged to his deceased younger brother, Tony. It ticked in tight Swiss circles, the only survivor of the upturned car fire that had consumed its previous owner.

  It was 9:49 A.M.

  The Ukrainian bastard Lucky was waiting on should have shown by now. The cop yawned. His eyes autonomically slammed shut as if to demand a power nap just before he forced his lids back open after a bone-shaking sneeze. The ensuing spew left fine speckles on his rearview mirror. With no tissues to clean the misty mess, he tried utilizing the cuff of his jacket, only to leave a horizontal smear across his own blue-eyed reflection. Still, his view was clean enough to chart the deep creases on a face which was less than classic good looks and more akin to a buzzed-cut cage fighter who’d taken one too many cracks to the nose. Considering all the punishment, Lucky was sometimes shocked he could still breathe through his oft re-routed nasal passages.

  Personal distractions aside, now was not the time for messing up. He had to get this done and move on to the next item on his never-ending list of duties.

  Finally, he spotted the man.

  He was hard to miss in the bright yellow Bug. The little damned intel Lucky had was the man’s name. Benjamin Anton Kuzmanov. And that nearly everybody, including his employees, five children by three different mothers, and two ex-wives called him Kuz. The report also expressed that Kuz could best be found driving a newly leased VW Beetle between the hours of 8 A.M. and noon on most weekdays. That’s when he would leave his fabricating plant for a late morning meal at Beeps Diner, a local fast food landmark. Guaranteed, Lucky’s female source had claimed. The man apparently couldn’t go a weekday without his Beep’s Big Pastrami Breakfast.

  The restaurant, famously trimmed in hot pink and turquoise, sat on the northeast corner of a busy boulevard, across which Lucky dodged a variety of cars, their horns sounding like noisy geese chased by a bird dog wanting to play. Lucky ignored the shouts from the annoyed driver of a Wonder Bread truck. The words weren’t in a language he could recognize, but it fit well with the middle-fingered gesture the driver used to punctuate his angry, anti-pedestrian tirade.

  As the sticky soles of Lucky’s boots landed on the opposite curb, he re-directed himself to cut off his target before the man could reach the restaurant’s entrance. Lucky was reaching around to retrieve something tucked into the small of his back when he spoke the man’s name simply and clearly.

  “Benjamin Kuzmanov?” announced Lucky, only to discover his voice swallowed by a cargo jet taking flight at the nearly-next-door Van Nuys airport. So Lucky waited for a count of three, then elevated his volume with a simple, sharply enunciated, “Kuz!”

  The runty man in question glanced over the top of his sunglasses, gathered in the visage of the buzz-cut cop in boots and Ray-Ban aviators and reversed his direction with a burst of purse-thief speed.

  “STOP!” shouted Lucky.

  Sonofabitch.

  Before the cop even realized it, he was in a race, chasing the runty rabbit between parked cars and into four lanes of morning traffic. Lucky recalled hearing squealing tires coupled with relief that the sound of high-pitched friction on asphalt wasn’t followed by the telltale whump of metal crunching metal.

  Twenty yards ahead, all Lucky could see were those short damned legs cranking at what felt like double his own pace, a jean jacket flapping, and dark hair trailing as the man called Kuz cut behind the filling station and right-turned himself into the side yard of a transmission repair shop.

  Why the hell am I chasing this fucker? thought Lucky.

  Once in the yard, Lucky glimpsed the man vaulting over a wooden fence. Disappearing in a flash of curled black hair and denim. Lucky suddenly imagined himself in pursuit of some kind of former Soviet gymnast.

  It was as Lucky hoisted himself over the fence that he felt the first significant spike of Monday’s pain. A wincing jolt that radiated all the way through his limbs to his fingertips. Yet he continued the pursuit. Keeping his feet underneath him. Driving with his legs and arms down an overgrown back alley that reeked of week-old fry oil before he plowed into an eight-foot high vertical stretch of chain-link. Lucky climbed as if on autopilot. Got purchase with his feet, but got hung up when trying to sling his body over the top. A rogue wire had punctured through his Wranglers at mid-calf.

  “Shit-fuck!” Lucky barked before landing on what felt and smelled like fresh-pressed asphalt.

  He spun, scanning for the rat-faced runt who he was already blaming for ruining a new pair of dungarees. The radiating pain, though, that was all on Lucky with an extra special mention to the team of docs who had pieced him back together with steel sutures and what must have been yards of orthopedic grade titanium. The rest of the blame was reserved for an evil former Marine named Greg Beem who, by some miracle, had survived a car wreck, a bullet to the back, and a rushing river that should have drowned him.

&n
bsp; The Ukrainian was dashing across the fresh pavement without an ounce of slowing down. Just beyond was a pair of enormous airplane hangars. Big white elephants set atop an ocean of black asphalt. The short bastard had put some stretch in the distance between himself and Lucky. The running little prick was smaller, faster, and unfortunately blessed with a far more efficient pulmonary output.

  That and you’re Goddamned outta shape, Luck.

  A lime green SUV swept wide around the southernmost hangar, cutting off Kuz’s angle and forcing him to downshift his stubby legs and make a ninety-degree turn. As he pivoted, his suede deck shoes lost traction, nearly sending him to the tarmac. Then in no time his arms were pumping again and his speed was back.

  But he didn’t see Lucky’s fence post of a forearm.

  The clothesline move employed by the air-sucking cop instantly turned Ben Kuzmanov from a free-runner into a door stop. As his back landed on the asphalt, all air left him in a single exhale. Those superior lungs emptied, leaving the small man wheezing for oxygen.

  “You’re okay, ya dumb runt,” insisted Lucky. “Just got the wind knocked outta ya.”

  Kuz could only offer the slightest up and down nod of his chin, acknowledging Lucky while trying like hell to force his diaphragm to re-expand.

  “Now, yes or no?” asked Lucky, astride his captive. “Are you Ben Kuzmanov?”

  The tires of that green SUV chirped, driver and passenger doors jack-knifing open.

  “Yes or no?” demanded Lucky, his right fist unconsciously balled, knuckles pale and prepped to pummel.

  “…Yeah,” coughed the runner, palms open and pleading surrender.

  This is when Lucky, in the most accustomed of rituals, reached around to the small of his back to where so many cops stowed guns or handcuffs or both. Instead, he withdrew a short stack of papers, folded in thirds and sealed, then dropped it on the runner’s chest.

  “You’ve been served, shit-wad,” spat Lucky.