Toe Popper

by Jonny Tangerine

  Juniper and Grover were smushed intimately together in a single room packed-full with screaming reverb and inebriated procrastinators in scholastic-denial. They were all drinking Ice Picks (iced tea and Smirnoff) brewed by the party’s informal host, a kid from Albuquerque who told everyone the drink was an ancient New Mexican invention. Wherever it came from, it was the kind of beverage that snuck up and jumped you all at once.

  It was shortly after finishing the second pitcher that Grover began to notice how incredibly tan and taut Juniper’s legs were, and how distinctly rubbery his were becoming. She caught him staring.

  “You have legs like an infomercial model,” he said before he could stop himself.

  She giggled and told him it was because of all the tennis she played. She explained to him that she was a red-shirt freshman on the Gaucho’s tennis team, she’d broken her ankle, her tibia, at the start of the season, so she had dropped off the team to insure herself a full year of eligibility.

  “I’ve never met a female red-shirt before,” he said.

  “I’ve never met anyone named after a muppet,” she replied.

  He laughed, his real name was Joey Grove, but everyone called him Grover. She slugged back her drink until the ice tinkled. Grover could see it was about time to set the hook.

  “It’s a little crowded in here, you want to go somewhere else?” he asked.

  “Like, where?”

  Grover was ready. “How about a billionaire’s beach house?”

  “Right.”

  “I’m serious. We can go swing in Michael Milken’s hammock. He’s got a house down on the beach, but he never uses it. The hammock’s right on the deck. We can walk there, consider it part of the official Pepperdine tour.” Michael Milken’s hammock was legendary at Pepperdine, at least in the Economics department. For an Econ major, it was hard to match the thrill of secretly scoring in the hammock of the man who dreamed up (perhaps in that very spot) a way to manipulate the financial markets to clear five hundred and twenty-six million dollars in one year. Grover hadn’t had a chance to try it yet, but in his mind he was already there. Juniper shrugged noncommittally, but Grover moved quickly. And after a smooth, slippery French kiss and a covert caress, the deal was sealed.

  FOREST LAWN CEMETERY, HOLLYWOOD – 1:31 A.M.

  Huay listened to the approaching whir of the golf cart. A dozen ambush scenarios flashed through his mind. He had killed hundreds of men waiting in the dark, but it had been a long time, and to do so now would dramatically complicate his plans.

  The golf cart stopped in front of the “Section N-S” sign. From his vantage point behind the marble headstone, Huay could see the extension of the headlights, but not the cart itself. He could feel the driver listening. Huay began to count.

  After seven long seconds, the electric motor came to life again, and the cart continued down the road. Huay decided that the guard might have seen his light, but then figured he’d been mistaken. How sharp could the night security guard of a cemetery be? Huay got to his feet and made his way quickly down row N.

  There was plywood sheeting over the freshly dug grave at N1086. Huay knelt beside it and removed the golf green hole-bore from his backpack. He had stolen the hole-bore (exactly the right tool he needed to place the mines) from the greenskeeper’s shed at the Newport Public Golf Course the previous night. He’d also brought along a clear plastic bag from Safeway to remove the displaced dirt.

  Huay figured he had a radius of about fifty feet from the edge of the grave. He knew he had to keep them fairly close so that the concussion from the 21-gun salute would activate all of them. Huay planted the mines in the earth with the meticulous care of a bonsai gardener. There were flags and flowers on many of the surrounding site markers as well as buried sprinkler heads placed at regular intervals; Huay was careful to make sure none of them were disturbed. The hole-bore preserved the top layer of grass and Huay made sure each divot was perfectly replaced, flush and level. It was intense work, Huay soon found he had sweat completely through his black turtleneck and that his head had been begun to ache from the tension.

  He was on all fours, smoothing the grass over the nineteenth M-12 when he heard the voice behind him.

  “What do you think you’re doing, boy?” Huay turned and the mag-light beam flashed blindingly into his eyes…dilating his pupils.

  PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY, MALIBU – 1:31 A.M.

  Grover led Juniper through the maze of anxiously quiet white buildings back to his quad. While she went downstairs to get a jacket, he entered his room. He quickly emptied the Econometrics books out of his backpack, stole three Babylon beers from his roommate’s mini-fridge, and dug out his 28-degree sleeping bag from under a pile of dirty laundry in the closet. He stopped by the bathroom and rifled through the communal toiletry lockers until he found a box of Trojans. It was empty, so he had to go back to his room and steal the last two quarters from his roommate’s laundry jar and use the condom machine back in the bathroom. He put the beers and condom into his backpack, draped the sleeping bag over his shoulders, and went down to find his date.

  He found Juniper alone in the lower quad watching ESPN. She’d put on a polar-fleece vest and looked better than ever, shimmery. They kissed again to reassure each other that everything was still on track. She was all lip gloss and cocoa butter.

  “Goddamn you taste good,” he said.

  “Bonita Beach Balm,” she said.

  The hike down to the beach refreshed their foggy heads. Traffic was light, but they still had to sprint across PCH to avoid a blitzing Camaro. Once across the highway, the white noise and gentle mist of the waves enveloped them. They could barely make out the surf line, it was dark, liquid dark, no moon and the clouds were low. Juniper kicked off her tennies and Grover his sandals. The sand was damp, slightly chilling between the toes. Juniper took the sleeping bag shawl. They walked north for a hundred yards to where PCH curved away from the coast and Malibu Road began. The private beach started here and the homes became more exclusive, double the price of the ones that abutted the highway.

  “Wait,” Juniper said, “I have to pee.” And she disappeared into a shadow or over a dune, Grover couldn’t tell. While he waited, he looked out at the Pacific void and the soles of his feet felt the gentle concussions of the bigger breakers hitting the beach. A tongue of water made it up the slope to tickle him. The water was cold, but not numbing, just slightly stabbing. And then he heard a splash. He peered into the dark waters, looking for telltale ripples. A seal? A sea lion? A cold hand on the back of his neck startled him, and cleared the thought out of his mind.

  “Yikes!”

  “Boo! Did you miss me?” asked Juniper. They kissed again, sucking at the warmth of each other. They pressed together until Juniper looked up and said, “Did you say you brought beer?”

  Grover fished out a Babylon from the backpack, popped the twist-off and they continued on.

  “Is it very much farther?”

  “It’s the twelfth house down. Help me count, I think this one is number three.” The houses were difficult to see from the surf line, but Grover had been warned not to get too close. Many of the homes had motion-detector floodlights or, worse, very mean dogs on very long chains. Juniper counted in his ear.

  “Eight…Nine…”

  Grover killed the Babylon and hurled the bottle into the ocean. He strained his eyes ahead, looking for the green light. Milken’s house had a dim green light on the deck – like a banker’s lamp someone had said, or like Gatsby and good old West Egg.

  “Do you see a green ligh-”

  He was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of a jangling dog chain followed by ferocious barking. And then the floodlights hit them and Juniper screamed the scream of a thousand nightmares. They were not alone on the beach.

  Grover was too startled to be scared at first. Three black figures wearing ski masks and holding machine guns just seemed to appear on the beach thirty feet behind them, like they’d been beamed down. Th
ey all seemed to be shielding their eyes and clawing at the goggles on their faces. Grover didn’t know that much about dogs, but it looked like an Akita was attacking the figure closest to house number nine.

  It was all Grover saw before his face hit the ground. He didn’t remember falling, he was just down, like he’d been run over. Sand and grit filled the space between his upper lip and his front teeth, snuck down his throat. He tried not to swallow, but he couldn’t seem to lift his head, and his arms were immobilized -- twisted behind him, and searing with pain. He managed to open one eye and look over at Juniper. She was still screaming. A man in a black neoprene wetsuit and flippers was on top of her, trying to pin her down, but she was struggling and the frogman couldn’t find her arms under the sleeping bag. But then Juniper stopped screaming and at the same instant Grover heard the growling dog change his tone to a frightened squeal.

  The next sound he heard, as his face was pressed deeper into the sand, belonged to a low voice behind his right ear.

  “FBI, asshole. What’s in the backpack?”

  If Grover had thought about it, he would have realized that being the target of a jumpy FBI Special Tactics stakeout was probably closer to an authentic Michael Milken experience than swinging in the man’s hammock. But his mind was elsewhere.

  FOREST LAWN CEMETERY, HOLLYWOOD – 2:31 A.M.

  Huay waited for his eyes to adjust. He could feel the stainless steel Colt Defender stuck to his skin inside his waistband, but he had been trained to always find out the nature of the enemy before committing to attack.

  “Let’s get those hands on your head,” the slightly southern voice commanded.

  Huay complied. The figure behind the flashlight beam began to take shape. Big, at least two-fifty and well over six-feet. Huay would have trouble taking him hand-to-hand. But even if he could get to the Colt and shoot the man he might activate the mines, which were now impossible to turn-off.

  The large figure approached, “What are you up to here, robbing graves? Or are you one of them nec-ro-philiacs?”

  Huay heard a handcuff unsnap. He twitched.

  “Didn’t think I saw you the first time, huh? I almost wasn’t sure myself.”

  Huay lowered his right hand. “Hey! Keep those hands where I can see ‘em, or I’ll pepper-spray you like a son-of-a-bitch.”

  That was all Huay needed to hear, the guard didn’t have a gun, and now both his hands were occupied. Huay had his pistol out in a split second.

  The guard froze. “Shee-it.”

  Huay was in control, if the guard hadn’t called for back-up he knew he still had a chance. The only thing that bothered him was that he couldn’t see his adversary’s eyes.

  “Please put the flashlight down, and raise your han-,” Huay didn’t get the whole sentence out before the light charged him.

  Huay was still on his knees, and he ducked even lower to get leverage on the linebacker-sized man. He undercut him, flipping the guard over his head. Huay quickly spun around and swept the steel Defender down hard on the back of the man’s crew cut. But it wasn’t enough.

  The guard’s counter-elbow struck Huay in the teeth just below his nostrils, knocking him backward to the ground. The larger man was instantly on top of him, one powerful hand on the barrel of the Colt, the other pushed into Huay’s throat. Huay’s finger was still inside the trigger guard, and he knew he had the angle to shoot the heavy rent-a-cop in the chest, but he quickly realized it wasn’t an option – his body was pinned on top of the nineteenth mine. If the gun went off, the M-12 was likely to blow him in half. Huay kept his chin pressed to his chest, trying to deny access to his windpipe. He began to feel smothered beneath the larger man’s girth and heavy bourbon-tinged breath. His gun was being pried loose from his weakening grip. Huay reached back frantically with his left hand and his fingers closed around the only solution.

  He thumbed-on the firing pin safety with his right hand and then let the Colt go, giving the guard the momentary illusion of gaining the upper hand. As the guard’s fingers searched for the trigger, Huay’s right hand joined his left, and they both pulled the two-foot American flag out of the ground behind his head. The point of Old Glory was sharpened and painted gold. Huay swung it up over his head and plunged it four inches into the guard’s trachea, simultaneously creating and stifling a ghastly scream. Huay wrenched the flag stick to the side and a pressurized stream of jugular blood hit him in the chin. The security guard spent the last ounce of his strength squeezing the locked trigger in Huay’s face. He slumped forward dead before his brain figured out that the safety was on. As he fell, the flag stick broke-off in his throat, just below the thirteenth stripe.

  Huay had to wait for his wind to come back before he could gather enough strength to push the heavy body off. His mind raced. He figured it was a good sign the guard had attacked him, and had been drinking. It probably meant that he worked alone. If he’d been expecting help, he would have tried to stall when Huay pulled the gun.

  Huay was furious with himself. He had been too focused on the mines. In the old days he would never have allowed this clumsy giant to sneak-up on him. Now the first priority was to make sure the guard was truly solo, then he would deal with the body and the blood. There was a lot of blood. Huay was covered with it, and there was a dark, rectangular pool forming on top of the nearest recessed headstone.

  Huay searched the body; there was no radio. He backtracked to the road and found the golf cart parked in the shadows with the lights off. A walkie-talkie was on the seat. Huay turned-up the volume and listened. Nothing. On his way back to the body the sprinklers started – blooming like a thousand liquid flowers. Huay allowed himself to smile as he knelt into the spray of the nearest nozzle. The blood problem had solved itself. When he got back to the body, he risked his flashlight again. He was delighted to see the blood had already been washed down into the roots of the well-tended graveyard grass. Things were looking up.

  Huay pushed the plywood aside and stared into the empty grave. He decided to bury his last mines under the guard’s body. He was getting tired, and he still had a lot of landscaping work ahead of him. It took an hour to properly bury and hide the guard in the bottom of Officer Park’s space. Huay had begun to get nervous that another guard would show up, but none had, and the radio had remained silent.

  He went back to the golf cart and shifted it into drive. Huay wanted to make sure the guard disappeared far from the site of his surprise party. He abandoned it just inside the Glendale Boulevard gate, near the Court of Remembrance, where all the famous people were interned. The only celebrity grave that held any interest for Huay belonged to Telly Savalas. Kojak had been the number one show when Huay was the Khmer Rouge’s secret ambassador in France and he’d seen most of the episodes. Huay thought about stopping for a quick look, but then decided he couldn’t risk it, he had already been in the cemetery for almost three hours. “Who loves you, baby?” Huay had loved saying that. Except in Paris it had always been “Qui aimez vous, bébé? Qui aimez vous….”

  LE HOTEL SOFITEL, LOS ANGELES – 6:00 A.M.

  Lane wished the phone would stop ringing. He counted eleven rings before he lifted his head and remembered that he’d scheduled a wake-up call before he went to bed. He stretched over for the sleek Euro-style-phone. When he picked up, it chimed, and a slightly computerized voice said: “Bienvenue, le heure est six, à, m.” And then, in English: “Good morning, the time is now six a.m.”

  Lane felt his familiar morning headache coming on, but something else was troubling him. It took another moment for him to figure out what was wrong, then it hit him -- he had stopped dreaming. He had awakened with nothing to reflect on, nor any seductively serene place to slip back into. The synthetic morphine somehow couldn’t tap into the deep subconscious the same way the organic stuff could.

  Lane looked around his room. Eider down comforter, impressionist prints, a small terrace -- comfortable, but everything was in peach. Alan, the FBI green-pea who had picked him u
p at the airport had recommended the place. It had a good government rate, $88 a night, and was close to the FBI field office on Wilshire where the Task Force was headquartered. Lane had also liked the idea of staying somewhere with a little French influence. He was used to it from living in Cambodia. Even Pol Pot hadn’t been able to exorcise the colonial influence out of the culture. Today nearly every city in Cambodia still had at least one excellent French-style bakery run by locals.

  Lane took the little room service menu out to the terrace. He had a nice view of the Beverly Center. Alan had told him that some people stayed at the Sofitel just to shop at the world famous mall. The sun was coming up, highlighting a thin layer of smog above Hollywood. Lane felt compelled by the pollution to join the party and spark up a cigarette, but he was out of Marlboros. And he had a non-smoking room, but he figured he could smoke out on his terrace. Alan had explained (after Lane had noticed the no-smoking sign in his government car) that in California people weren’t allowed to smoke in restaurants or even bars, unless there was outside seating. The only legal indoor smoking was in casinos, which in California meant card rooms. That had gotten Lane’s attention. But when he’d asked Alan if they had Hold ‘Em tables Alan had looked slightly alarmed, so he’d just let it go.