by Jason Ridler
But his Smith & Wesson M10 revolver was in Spaghetti’s face, glinting in the dim and distant bar lights. “Let him go, Tripp,” Spaghetti said. “He’s got Fife’s leverage.”
The pressure left my chin and I told all three to get up and stand by the jukebox. They did, Fife’s eyes so filled with hate they’d be dead ringers for a demon’s.
“Well, boys,” I said, massaging my neck. “It looks like you welched on your own deal. So you know what to do. Cash and keys on the table. And before you put up a fight, I don’t want your fine vehicles.” The top rail filled with scrunched up tens and twenties, loose quarters, and two keys as Fife held his ground.
“Don’t be stupid,” Meatball said. “We lost. Why the hell did you take a swing?”
“Because he’s . . .” Fife said, then he shook his head. “I’m damned.” Every vein in his body flexed. “I can’t lose my ride to a goddamn—”
I pulled back the hammer. It shut him up.
“First of all, you’re being rude. I’m not gay, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit around until my last nerve is quashed by some queer-plastering idiot who clearly needs to reconsider his life choices of an all-male motorcycle club if he wants to avoid that which he hates.” Fife seethed, but remained still. “Second of all, you’re not paying attention. You’ll get your wheels when I leave. Third, and this is the part I hope you chew on the most because one day it might save your life.” I shoved the money into my pants pocket. “Tell Low Key that one day, he won’t have a crowd to protect himself from me.”
Fife growled, surged forward, and my finger itched.
Spaghetti and Meatball hooked his arms and held him in place while he screamed at me “I knew it! I knew you were one of those goddamn tricksters!”
While they danced on broken glass, restraining Fife, I pocketed the gun, picked up the cue, and smiled. “It’s no trick.” I hammered the white ball with a little Irish on it, and a metric ton of isometric pressure, the same kind that Bruce Lee used for the one-inch punch, plus a pinch of what Edgar called “the geometry of flash.” The white ball slapped into a stripped ball . . .
. . . and all the round soldiers found their dugout.
“Just magic.”
CHAPTER 10
LILITH GURGLED UP THE 10, BELLY FULL OF DINOSAUR BONES. I had a near-full bag of Sausage King jerky stuffed in my exposed mouth and chewed hard with my head out the window, the broken glass of the windshield the only thing sullying this oh-so-bright moment of victory: food, fuel, freedom . . . and a bull’s eye on my car’s face if LAPD or CHP wanted to give me the business.
Behind, hunting for keys in a sewer, were three sad Angels, one clearly a disciple of Low Key. Ahead was a day of demon hunting. At least there was a cool one hundred and change in my pocket, and my hunger was dissolving as the juice and jerky slid down my throat. The cash would be enough to replace my current nemesis: the busted windshield. With spidery cracks, it looked like someone had given someone with glasses four black eyes. Alicia was as powerful as she was petty, and was probably cackling into her afternoon sherry knowing I’d be driving with my head out the window like a mutt.
I stayed in one lane at sixty so everyone knew to get out of my way if they wanted to go home fast. With almost nothing but blind spots, I didn’t much feel like passing. The El Monte Busway approached, a halfway mark to the Lincoln Heights Branch, and good God I hoped Moira was working her usual shift. Otherwise I’d have to fast talk my way to their special collections. Because that would be quicker, easier, and cleaner than double backing to the Thump & Grind and trying to get back into my office, and then rolling back due northwest to Nero Studios in the Valley. No. I had to make this stop count. Always go forward. That’s what they said in basic, and in Korea. We weren’t retreating when the Chinese came like a wall of death at Chosin—we were “advancing in the other direction.”
Honks blared as my daydreaming reduced me to swerving. I pulled back in my lane. God, the past can kill you if you let it ride in front of you. Behind me was a blue Chevy four-door station wagon, ridding my tail like I’d just eloped with its daughter. My left arm signaled to go around.
Honks responded.
They wanted Lilith to go faster.
My neck ached from being jammed out the window, so I didn’t take another gander back. I hit the right-turn signal and pulled on to the tiny shoulder to let the disgruntled malcontent room to pass.
Skids from hard breaks ripped as the Chevy slowed to stay behind me. The exit towards Main approached. Juan’s empty .38 and Fife’s pistol were in my glove box. I wasn’t keen on dragging trouble to the library. So I slowed, then hit the brake. Bang! The crash of taillights made me even happier, knowing I had cash to fix them, too.
Light flashed behind me.
“Damn it.” I turned.
A cop’s mobile light sat on the dashboard. The driver’s side door opened and I slid back into my seat and put my hands at ten-and-two. The cop came up beside the car, plain clothes. This was no traffic stop. I relaxed my grip.
“License and registration.”
No wisecrack about the glass? No posturing? This was strange. And so was she.
The Plain Jane cop was in jeans, a white blouse and black vest, shield clipped to her belt. Hair wild and mirror shades giving me a nice glimpse of how awful I looked. The sweat stains on my blue suit were turning the outfit into a strange, groovy pattern of dark and light. She had a hard face with zero humor. But her body was slight, like Nico’s, with the ruffles of the blouse trying to cover what was clearly not there: hard packed muscle from a career in sports or being a tomboy.
My smile was already in place.
“What seems to be the problem, officer?”
“You want that alphabetical?” she said, without so much as a dusting of fun. “You’re driving with a broken windshield on a highway, head out the window, and failed to pull over—”
“Officer, you didn’t ID yourself as a member of LA’s law enforcement community,” I said. “You honked.”
“My light was on, and you busted my headlights.”
“There were no sirens. And you busted my taillight. And you’re not dressed for the highway patrol or the beat. So, let me ask you another question before I do anything so stupid as hand over my personal information to a stranger. How much is he paying you?”
“What?” Nerves serrated her voice, and I was very, very glad she had no sidearm and mine was safe in a glove box. “Give me your license and registration.” Cars zoomed hard behind her and I was scared she’d get smashed if she made any sudden moves.
I sighed. “You’re one of Aaron Piper’s new lackeys.”
Her eyebrows arched and dropped. “If you don’t hand over your paperwork right now—”
I shook the bag of jerky, then stuck out the bag. “Hungry?”
She was an actress. She was always hungry.
“I promise, they are not poisoned.” I pointed to the Sausage King’s ugly mug on the bag. “Would he lie to you? Have one piece.”
“Last chance,” she said, taking a step back and assuming a stance that you only saw on gun ranges.
I dropped the bag and raised my hands. “By law you have to show me your identification.”
“Right here,” she pointed at her badge with her left hand, right one low, so she could grab what I suspected was a pistol tucked in her jeans.
My fingers closed into tiny tiger paws. “Kid, I’m late with a date with a librarian, so let me make this quick. That badge is fake. LAPD badges say “Police Officer” on top. Not “Police.” And your badge number has a letter X to denote it’s not real. These are from a movie set. As are you.”
She bared her teeth, then tore something from a back holster: a .357 hand cannon. And I got a chill. “Get out of the car.”
Shock retreated. “Nope.”
“Then . . . tell me what I want to know?”
“You mean what Aaron wants to know. You know, it’s pretty lousy for a PI to send
out actresses to do his dirty work. Lousy and lazy.” The long barrel was still two inches from my nose and traffic rolled by like a parade. I pushed the barrel to one side. Yup, fake. “And I’m late.”
She yanked back the gun, pointing it at heaven as if it was loaded. “Just tell me who hired you.”
“That’s privileged information? No dice. Aaron should have told you that. You know he’s the absolute worst PI in the city? Like, I’m better, and I started today.” I blinked. “How long have you been following me?”
She smirked. “I know about the girl in the motel, if that’s what you mean?”
“It is. What’s your name?”
Her mirror gaze held me for a wild second. “Dorothy.”
“Well, Dorothy, before you tell me another lie, allow me to reveal what Aaron didn’t. You’re messing with another PI’s case. That gives me cause to take him to court. And I bet you haven’t signed anything, only paid you some cold dollaro to do the work. You ‘forgot’ to return some gear from the last TV pilot you auditioned for, perhaps with other costumes that you use for meetings with directors and such, stuff nobody misses, but you didn’t do the real homework for your role, hence the gimmick badge and pretend pistol.”
Her smile dropped.
“And now you’re trying to take a client away from me, one who has signed a contract and been notarized.”
“You didn’t notarize anything,” Dorothy said.
“To anyone but an experienced trade’s person, it will appear so. And if this does go to court and we take the stand and do a round of he-said, she-said, well, I’ll be the one in the black. Why? Glad you asked. You’re impersonating a cop. In LA. That’s a felony.” Her hand covered the fake badge and she reholstered her fake gun. “So, just so everything’s jake, here are the facts. You know I know that you know that I know that you’re not law enforcement. So I can have you arrested today and in prison for life. All it takes is a phone call, and, unlike your boss, cops love me.” That lie hit her as hard the truth. I was on a roll! “So, tell me why Aaron sent you out to make my shit itch? And don’t say ‘needed the money,’ honey, because you aren’t a member of the ugly set. You get tired of being in commercials?” It sounded like tough, commanding language, but my guts were churning with jerky and fear. I’d been tailed by some rank amateur and now Nico’s whereabouts were known to at least one other person. I didn’t have time to move her again. I had to make this work.
Dorothy put her hand on the top of the car. “I was doing research for a role, and Aaron said he’d cut his normal rate if I did some legwork for him.”
“So the badge and siren were your idea?”
She smiled. “My dad’s a cop.”
I laughed. “Then forget what I said about jail time.” And perhaps not just a cop, but a detective. Time to tread lightly. Sweat beaded around my neck like a noose. I did not need LA’s finest anywhere near me, ever. They made the Goon Squad look like the Three Stooges. My math for law enforcement was thus: For every good cop who wanted to do right, there were two dozen thugs who liked power and authority, and were answerable to no one other than the brotherhood of blue. “Wendy, how much is he asking to have you do his dirty work for him?”
“Twenty an hour,” she said. Behind her, traffic thickened and slowed.
The double-shot of sprained glass looked back at me. I sighed, dug in my wallet, and slipped out forty bucks, leaving me with about forty and change. “Here’s my counter offer for three hours’ work. I want you to take the night off. Go see a movie. Tell Aaron all I did was go to the library because I don’t have a client.”
“But you do.”
I nodded. She was playing hardball. “Think you can get her to follow you? Be my guest, Wendy. I mean, she’s had a rough day. Beaten, mauled, abused. But, yes, please, go make her a pawn in Aaron’s stupid libertarian war with me. Steal my client with the disfigured face. Make her day worse. Be that part of the women’s movement. You’ll make Phyllis Schlafly proud.”
Wendy sneered. I snapped out another twenty. “Go. Buy a copy of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex and get on the winning team. But knock off the light and the badge, routine. Felony is a felony, no matter who your dad is.”
She pouted, then strode off back to her car.
I pulled away, head out the window like a dog.
CHAPTER 11
I GUNNED IT TOWARD THE EXIT, CONFIDENT THAT DOROTHY wasn’t a threat. Actresses are pretty easy to read when they don’t have a script. Career liars, criminals, and politicians? I just assume they’re full of bunk. But when an actress has to go off script, most of them reveal their weaknesses: being what the shrinks in this town call “authentic” and what I call “honest.” And like a lot of children of cops, she’s couldn’t hide the terror of a felony charge that would make papa mad.
The highway cloistered. I leaned heavy on the horn and rallied through spaces not meant for a Dodge Dart. A chorus of angry honks attacked me like hornets. Peeling down the off ramp, I escaped the gridlock that would make the 5 a tailgate cemetery. Two greens later and I’d made it to Lincoln Heights Library.
Andrew Carnegie’s guilty steel baron conscience over owning a chunk of the world’s wealth had led him to believe that if you buy poor people things that make them feel rich, you might sneak into heaven—with the help of a healthy bribe for St. Peter to look the other way when reviewing how many workers coughed themselves to death, burned alive in accidents, or lost their kin in fights with the boss’s goon squad.
That said, Lincoln Heights Library was spectacular. Creamy white walls extended in a weak and curvy V made an inviting sight in a city that worshipped images, not words. I parked outside, neck sore from craning, and shuffled as sure as my wingtips would allow up the steps to warm brown doors that were closing as a patron passed me by. The 6 pm sun was darkening.
I jammed my foot in and the heavy door was given a stern tug and vice-gripped my shoe hard enough that I grunted. “Damn, I thought I had at least five minutes.”
The door pushed open. Before me was a humorless face, etched with hard lifelines, similar to Ares, but the disposition was pure Boston Irish.
“Brimstone.”
Some accents are thick enough to stop a charging rhino. This one had twice the depth because it had been forged in the Depression, then the war. High canine teeth grimaced, and a clockwork buzz cut was sharp as a straight razor.
“Buzz,” I said, then gave him a weak salute. “Just need to see Moira and I’ll be out of what hair you have left.”
“We’re closed, Brimstone.”
“No,” I looked at my cuffs as if I had a watch. “I have five minutes. Please.”
“We’re closed to library cheats, Brimstone.” He jutted his chin. “You want to make this personal?”
My hands raised in surrender. “I am very sorry to have borrowed a book for—”
Buzz gripped his belt. “Two years, one month, three days, not including holidays.” He didn’t pack a sidearm. Just a black baton, the kind cops the world over use to “brain” folks into walking straight on a crooked line.
“That’s why I need to see Moira!” I said. “I’m here to pay off the fine.”
“Let’s see the cash.”
“I’m using a check.”
He unhooked the baton from his belt, and started doing small circles with his wrist. “We don’t take checks from . . . why the hell are you dressed like that?”
My expression dropped. “I was at a funeral.”
Buzz braining-arm held still, he squinted. “You Korean shits are all freaky bastards, you know that?” He tapped his head. “Those Chinks get into your head, Brimstone? You just sleeping until some commie rat turns you on us and you go all Kamikaze on the street?”
I smiled hard. “No, Buzz. I’m no commie agent. Were you ever a POW?”
“Never fool enough to get caught.”
I snickered and cocked my head to the side, looking him over like a virgin in the front row of a floorsho
w. “Figured you’d never been tested that way. Never a day passed without the whole US army behind good old Buzz. Protecting him.” I leaned in a hair. “Never faced the war alone.” His pupils narrowed. “But I did. And I escaped. Saw the kind of hell you couldn’t dream about, even if your buddies got shot to hamburger at Normandy.” His veins flexed. “So if you think I’m scared of an old man with a stick who thinks his war is better than my war, then maybe you’re not really a soldier at all. You’re just a thug. A bully. Where I was raised, that makes you a shithook. You wanna go? Take a stab. But just remember, pushing people around doesn’t make you American. It makes you a Nazi.”
His hand arced back to brain me when thick heels clacked on tile, hard enough that Buzz winced and held still despite every ounce of him stuck in kill mode.
“Buzz, what are you doing with that thing off your belt?”
Her accent matched her outfit: pure Minnesota. God, except for the Indians and Mexicans, there was nobody really from California. She was new. Regulation two-inch school-marm heels, thick, near-orange hose lifted taut under the dark fabric of a regulation gray skirt and a floral blouse of purple, orange and green. She was a dirty blond in her fifties, and working double-time with the pancake and eyeliner to make it seem she’d be thirty-nine forever. And since she wasn’t a debonair black woman in her forties, she most certainly wasn’t Moira. Moira also didn’t smell of Oil of Olay and lilacs. “Park that stick, Buzz. And you?” she said with the conviction of a high school principle who’d found a JD smoking in the girl’s room. “We’re closed, sorry.”
She didn’t sound sorry. That was pure Minnesota “Nice.”
Damn. If Buzz had taken a swing, I’d have some kind of leverage. Now gears had to be shifted. “I was hoping to see Moira about my library debts. I’m here to pay them off.”
The lady put her hands behind her back. “Moira is at a conference, but I can take your name so you can come back tomorrow without accruing more dues.”
“Gracious of you, Mrs . . .”
