by Robert Ward
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Then maybe Sadler needs dough and decides to shake down Steinbach. Which was what the meet at Musso’s was supposed to be about. But instead of collecting the money, he gets an extra mouth in his neck.”
The two men looked at one another.
Jack stood up and began to pace the room, his arms folded across his chest.
“If our tarnished little researcher is right, Blakely and Hughes, and Forrester, might have been branching out from bank robberies to sales. ’Cause Andreen deals in an eclectic catalog: guns, diamonds, whores, anything they can boost, sell, or kill.”
“Yeah, but Blakely and Hughes helped us bring down Stein- bach,” Oscar said. “How do we account for that?”
“Okay,” Jack said. “But what if it went down like this: They want a bigger share of the take, so they don’t tell Steinbach we’re investigating him. They want to make it a little hot for him. He gets in a jackpot, and now he wants to kill them. Now think about what he said: ‘I’m going to get all of you.’ But he hasn’t gotten us, has he? Maybe that’s what it’s all about. They didn’t do their jobs, so he has them hit.”
“Uses Andreen.”
“Yeah, why not?”
“Andreen doesn’t know us. Maybe we ought to go down to Ventura, take a little trip to the Valentine Room.”
“I got a problem with that,” Oscar said. “Timmy knows me. I busted him once a long time ago when I was with the staties. He might remember my face.”
Jack smiled. Shook his head.
“All right. I’m going down there; see if I can get inside.”
“Alone? I don’t like that.”
“I know, but it’s the only way. I’ll be okay.”
“All right,” Oscar said. “Man, this case has more twists than a corkscrew. But you know we’re going to get it solved. They can’t stop the Hardy fucking Boys.”
Jack laughed and punched his partner on the arm. Good old Oscar, the one man he was sure he could trust.
24
THE THING WAS , it was almost fun being watched. Kevin enjoyed it when the chubby teacher, Miss Buchanan, kept an eye on him during the lunch hour. Of course he wasn’t allowed to go out and hang in the playground for another two weeks. He remembered Julie (the traitor, the coward) taking him to school, talking to the principal, this supertough Irish guy, Mr. McGuire. Oh, yeah, McGuire had given him a real talking-to, and they’d made it clear that he couldn’t go out with the other kids to play basketball and that whatever teachers were on cafeteria duty that day would be keeping a “special eye” on him.
Kevin almost laughed out loud when McGuire said that. A special eye?
What was that? Some kind of third eye from Zen or something?
Anyway, that was what Miss Buchanan must be doing now, as he headed toward the boys’ room. She was sort of standing sideways to him and watching him, trying to look kind of cool about it all.
But fortunately for him, she couldn’t follow him inside the bathroom. What could be easier? Take a quick pee, then head to the window.
Wait until the coast is clear, push up the window, and up, over, and outside in about 0.3 seconds.
And then running across the playground, dodging in and out, climbing over the fence and he’s free. Only a few minutes later, down on Venice Boulevard, and headed for the boardwalk.
Yep, he thinks to himself, headed back to the scene of the crime.
Only this time he’s not the same Kevin Harper. No way, Jose.
This time he’s grown up about twenty-five years. Thanks to his good friend Flyboy. Yeah, the blue-haired little shit had taught Kevin well.
First thing he’d learned: Gotta watch your own ass in Venice.
Second thing he’d learned: In order to do that, you had to have your very own little weapon with you.
Which Kevin had right now, in his jacket pocket . . . a nice small weapon so nobody would know it was there.
A screwdriver’s six inches of cold steel, as they say in the action movies Kevin loved.
Not as deadly as that goddamned blackjack Flyboy kept in his backpack, but in many ways, Kevin thought, more effective.
That was the thing. Nobody would see it coming, and Kevin had already practiced ripping it out of his inner pocket over and over again in front of the mirror in his bedroom.
Oh, yeah, he’d even timed it. He could get it out and jab someone in the face with it in three seconds. Maybe even under that: 2.8 seconds.
That was his little plan.
Wander down the boardwalk, find Flyboy, and let the little shit- ball take him down one of the dark little Venice streets again. Only this time, when he tried to get into his backpack, Kevin would be ready, baby.
Oh, yeah, he’d have him on the ground, and he’d jab the freaking screwdriver into his nostril. Not too hard . . . (though he did have a cool fantasy about driving it all the way up into his frontal lobe. Lobotomy time!) . . . Just hard enough to maybe rip open his nose a little bit, which would cause an inordinate amount of blood to drip down Flyboy’s face.
Then maybe a little jab to the ear to top things off , and then he’d take all the kid’s money, and book right out of there. Bye- bye . . .
Oh, yeah, Kev was a different boy now.
Hey, his dad always told him to learn from his mistakes, and he had. Oh, yeah, that was for sure.
Kevin wandered down the boardwalk, checking out the usual show, the artists who painted pictures of dead rockers. Who was that one guy? Oh, yeah, Jim Morrison of The Doors. Everybody painted him because he’d lived in Venice in the old days . . . the fabulous ’60s, when it was cool to be alive.
Just seeing pictures of that time made Kevin envious.
People looked really wild and crazy, and even though some people (like Jim himself) died, it must have been cool.
Though he knew he shouldn’t think so. Being a cop’s son.
He saw the sand-sculpture guy again; this time he was making what looked like a giant dinosaur. Cool. Kevin watched for a few minutes, and the man looked up at him and smiled.
“Hey, man, you like him?”
“Yeah,” Kevin said. “Very cool.”
The sculptor smiled and nodded his head, and Kevin felt a rush of happiness. The last trip hadn’t been so bad after all. This guy was pretty famous. Kevin had seen his pictures in books about Los Angeles and on TV once on that show, with that guy Huell Somebody-or-other . . . the guy that ran around California telling people how lucky they were to live here. Kevin had heard that the guy was a fag, but he didn’t care. It was kind of a cool show, and now he was part of one of the coolest places. Venice, California.
He walked on down the boardwalk, almost forgetting for a time that he was here for vengeance.
He had to pump himself up by talking to himself: “Don’t forget what they did to you.”
“You’re not a chickenshit, are you?”
“What are you doing? Don’t lose focus, asshole!”
Talking to himself like a drill sergeant on some TV show . . .
But the charm of the beach, the pleasant ocean breeze which cooled his brow, and the girls in tight shorts on roller skates . . . all of it was too much for him to resist.
He felt as though he was in a dream, floating along, happy just to be part of it all.
And he thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to live down here, to hang out every day. Of course his dad would miss him some . . . or would he?
Maybe for a while, a couple of days, but then after that, maybe this was what his dad wanted: for him to just disappear.
Like Mom disappeared.
Like Julie disappeared.
That was what adults did, he thought. Talked a lot of stuff about responsibility and loyalty, and then one day just walked away from it all.
So maybe he’d beat Dad to the punch.
Maybe this time he wouldn’t come back at all . . .
Maybe this time he’d be like the hoboes he’d read about in school: hop a train going down to Me
xico.
Maybe . . .
And then — right there in front of him — there he was . . .
Flyboy standing over by the lemonade stand, eating a big pretzel, carrying his backpack . . . but this time without his skateboard.
Kevin walked toward him. Flyboy looked up and for a second there was a hint of fear in his face.
“Hey, man,” Flyboy said. “How’s your head?”
“Better, no thanks to you.”
Flyboy assumed a look of injured innocence.
“You’re not blaming me, are you? I had nothing to do with it.”
“Is that right!” Kevin said.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Flyboy said. “What happened was you were climbing up around that house on the canal, and this guy comes out of the bushes and whacks you from behind. I woulda stayed to help you, but he was waving this pole at me, too. So I din’t have no choice. I hadda get outta there, right away. Man, I am so glad to see you! I thought you was dead for sure.”
“You expect me to believe that?” Kevin said in a tough tone (which he’d practiced over and over in front of his mirror the night before).
“Look,” Flyboy said, “I know it sounds bad, but it’s true. I even know who the guy was. His name is White, Johnny White. He’s a runaway from Chicago. Badass. He musta followed us down there and robbed you.”
Kevin wanted to come back with something like “Bullshit, Flyboy. You took my money. Now give it back or I’m gonna kick your ass.” The problem was he kind of believed the kid. Maybe it had gone down the way Flyboy said it had.
After all, he’d never actually seen Flyboy take out a sap. He’d just assumed it.
“Look, here’s the thing,” Flyboy said. “I know where White lives. In a house not far from here. And I also know when he works and when he doesn’t work. And right now he’s working. Just down the boardwalk at the Ocean House, where he tends bar a couple times a week. He gets off in a few hours, which gives us plenty of time to go over to his place, break in, and see if we can find your money. If not, we can rip off the place and sell the stuff to a fence I know lives over in Ocean Park. Guy named Director.”
Kevin felt a little dizzy. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to have gone at all. He was supposed to have walked up to Fly- boy and scared the living shit out of him, then worked on him a little bit with the screwdriver until he got the punk to tell him where his money was. Then he’d get the cash, and the whole case was closed.
Only he kind of believed Flyboy. The kid didn’t seem the slightest bit afraid, and he also seemed genuinely glad to see Kevin again. On top of that, Kevin really wanted to find a friend, a partner he could hang with . . . and he kind of admired Flyboy for being out there on his own.
And so, somehow, he couldn’t get the tough-guy words out of his mouth, and instead he felt a kind of warmth for Flyboy, like the last thing was just some kind of test and he’d passed and now he was a part-time street kid. Flyboy must have gained some respect for him or else he wouldn’t have been walking down the narrow little Venice streets with him, until they got to the run-down Victorian boardinghouse.
And there they were creeping up to the porch, and then up to the front window.
“Look, it’s half open,” Flyboy said.
“Yeah,” Kevin said, feeling kind of sick to his stomach, thinking now what Dad would say if he got caught breaking and entering. Or doing a B and E, as the cops put it.
Kevin the criminal. That was fucked up, really.
But it was exciting, too. It was better than sitting around being a victim, wasn’t it? Besides, he wasn’t really stealing anything, just getting his own money back. I mean, how bad was that?
Of course, Flyboy might take some stuff from the guy, but that wasn’t Kevin’s responsibility, was it? Plus, the guy deserved it, didn’t he? He was a criminal himself, wasn’t he?
“You coming?” Flyboy said as he climbed all the way in.
“I don’t know,” Kevin said. “How do we know he did it?”
“’Cause I saw him do it,” Flyboy said. “Now c’mon.”
Kevin felt sick. He didn’t want to go in the window. He didn’t want to get revenge on Flyboy anymore.
He just wanted to go back to school. Until Charlie picked him up.
If he wasn’t there, Charlie would go nuts and call Dad, and then, oh, man, he’d really be in trouble.
But now that the window was up and Flyboy was inside, he had to go in or . . . or . . . no, there wasn’t any “or.” He had to go in. Now.
And then the monologue in his head stopped. He was in, inside White’s house.
And they were opening drawers in the little dining room, looking for money.
And they were looking in the drawers underneath the telephone, and they were looking all around, but they hadn’t found anything.
“Upstairs,” Flyboy said. “He must keep it in the bedroom.”
“Aww, forget it,” Kevin said. “I don’t want to go up there.”
“C’mon,” Flyboy said. “We gotta at least look.”
Kevin felt suddenly like crying. Which made him feel like a punk. No, there was no question. He had to go upstairs, too, and so he started walking, feeling more and more like a fool, and a criminal, walking softly, though that made no sense since it was obvious no one was home.
It would all be over in a second, he thought.
All over, in a second . . .
They crept down the hall, past a weird-looking picture of a clown on the wall, a clown that looked like it was made from one of those velvet materials which Kevin always associated with horror movies.
Killer clowns, he thought.
Flyboy was just ahead of him, walking into the master bedroom. Kevin was looking at his back . . . and then he heard a gasp.
“What?” Kevin said.
Flyboy moved out of the way so that Kevin could see what was in front of him.
What it was, was a man. A big man with cold white hair and what looked like an old .38 revolver in his hand.
“Hey,” the man said. “Look what we got here, thieves. Or possibly killers. Were you two going to kill me in my sleep?”
“I thought you worked on Thursday,” Flyboy said.
“Used to,” White said. “But I got laid off for knocking down on the cash register. So here I am asleep in my own house, and trash such as you see fit to rob and maybe maim me.”
“Hey, no, Johnny,” Flyboy said. “It’s not like that. We were just screwing around. I rang the doorbell and nobody answered, so I seen the window was up, and we just did it.”
“An impulsive act of friendship?” Johnny said. “Should we chalk it up to that?”
“Yeah,” Flyboy said. “Like that.”
“An impulsive act,” Kevin said.
“Fuck you!” Johnny White said. “I’m going to kill both of you little fags and plaster your bodies up in the wall I’m putting in for the owners downstairs in the basement. Now get over here.”
Terrified and shaking, Flyboy shuffled around the side of the bed.
“Before I kill you both, though, I’m going to make sure you butt-fuck each other and lick me off ,” Johnny White said. “Isn’t that nice of me? I see it as honoring your last request. I’m generous of spirit that way.”
That was all Kevin needed. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the screwdriver, and hurled it across the room at White. The tool struck White in the cheek, leaving a hole, out of which blood surged.
White looked at the screwdriver, then leaped up from the bed, howling like a wounded animal.
Kevin turned and ran down the steps, raced to the front door, and realized it was still locked.
He ran to the still-open window and dove through to the porch.
In seconds he was down on the street, racing for Venice Boulevard. He turned and saw the crazed, screaming Johnny White behind him.
“You cocksucker! I’m gonna fuck you to death now. You don’t deserve a bullet!”
Kevin pumped h
is legs in a sheer fear-based adrenaline rush, but as he turned to look again, he could see that it wasn’t enough. The madman was gaining on him with every step.
He turned up a street he didn’t know and looked to see if there was a place to hide, but the block was short, with only an empty lot and a torn-down old home.
No good place to get out of sight. He felt bile come up in his throat. He was through.
He heard the lunatic’s heavy footsteps racing toward him, and he felt a strange sensation of deflation. Not only a mental deflation, but also a very real sense that he was a balloon and that someone had punctured him, and he was going to soon be this piece of rubber which lay there useless on the ground, with the grotesque remains of a human shape.
And then he heard a voice. A voice he knew.
“Kevin?”
He turned and saw . . . it was impossible, ridiculous, but true . . . he saw Charlie Breen right there looking at him. Charlie, in his comfortable plaid shirt, baggy Levi’s, and work boots, dear Charlie staring at him.
“Charlie!” Kevin said. “We’ve got to get out of here. There’s this guy . . . This guy who wants to kill —”
“Where?” Charlie said.
“Right around the corner,” Kevin said.
He took a step and peered around the corner. White was about fifty feet away.
Charlie saw the huge man steaming toward him.
Kevin grimaced and felt terrified both for himself and now for Charlie, whom he’d gotten into this impossible mess.
But then Charlie did something Kevin couldn’t believe. He turned his body, bent down, and delivered a perfect cross-body block to the bigger man. The guy went down like a collapsed building and rolled into the gutter.
Charlie got up and dusted himself off . Then he leaned over and whispered something into the huge man’s ear.
All the anger and bravado in White’s face crumbled, and as he got to his knees, he nodded slowly.
He started to say something else, but Charlie shook his head, then kicked him in the ribs.
The man groaned and fell back into the street. Kevin could barely believe it had happened, and seconds later Charlie was walking him toward his car, with his arm around him. As they left the scene, Kevin peered back one last time and could see Flyboy disappearing into a copse of trees, apparently a back way to the beach.
