Fun and Games ch-1

by Duane Swierczynski

  “Kill everyone. Especially Hardie. If Hardie does not die, I will find you both and kill you myself.”

  30

  Did I ask you to be his psychiatrist?

  No. I asked you to fucking kill him.

  —Ralph Fiennes, In Bruges

  PSYCHO PHIL handed over the keys with a trembling hand. He said they would open a black van parked out back, over a fence and between houses, right on Moorpark. Tank full of gas. Please God don’t kill me. The two of them were supposed to leave the Hunters dead and go out there and fade into the Los Angeles night and please God don’t kill me.

  “I’m not gonna kill you,” Hardie said. “I want you alive so you can talk to a friend of mine.”

  Deke, right this very moment (hopefully) was flying across the whole country just to be here. Deke was still their only chance, their light at the end of the tunnel.

  “I can’t, you don’t understand… they’ll…”

  “Yeah, yeah, they’ll kill you and make it look like an accident. Really horrible. I feel for you, brother. I really do.”

  Hardie dragged Psycho Phil into the middle of the room and told Jonathan to do the same with Psycho Sis. Dark blood smeared across the buff-colored carpet. The last thing he wanted to do was find himself trapped in yet another house, with faceless killers swarming about everywhere. They needed to get out of here. Like right fucking now. Hardie kept Psycho Phil’s gun and handed the Glocks to Jonathan, told him to give his wife one of them.

  “They’re still loaded with plenty of bullets. You or your wife see somebody you don’t know, squeeze until they drop.”

  Jonathan nodded quickly and handed his wife a Glock. She looked down at it with not so much fear as grim determination, as if steeling herself. You know what, her face seemed to say, if it comes down to it, I could point this fucking thing at somebody and shoot.

  Still holding the .38 in his right hand, Hardie fished the stolen handcuffs from the back waistband of his jeans with his left. His plan was to run the handcuffs through a support pole in the middle of the Hunters’ entertainment center and then click them around the right wrist of Psycho Bro and the left wrist of Sis. What a sight he must be. Dirty pants and stolen shirt and no shoes, pretending to do real actual police work. Hey kids, meet Hobo Cop. He rides the rails! He carries a bindle! He solves crimes!

  Jonathan Hunter, meanwhile, was holding his smartphone up in the air like he was offering a sacrifice to God. “My cell,” he said. “I can’t get a signal.”

  “They can jam the signal. And don’t bother trying the landline. They’ve probably cut it.”

  “They?”

  Hardie almost smiled. Just this morning he’d been thinking the same thing. They? Who the fuck is They? But there was no time to convert Jonathan Hunter to the Church of the All-Powerful and Immortal THEY. He needed the Hunter family to survive, and to know the truth.

  Hardie slid open one of the glass doors leading to the back yard. This being California, of course there was a pool. Modest, but still. Plastic Adirondack chairs were scattered on the grass, along with an assortment of inflatable pool toys. He had to make it across the yard, to the fence, and out to the other side of the block. But did They have anything out there in the way of backup? Were they watching to make sure the Psycho Twins got out safe and sound?

  The moment was so fucking familiar—the realization, the horror, the feeling that everything was happening right in this very second and there was no time to think, to react, to act—

  C’mon Nate, let’s move let’s move let’s move, out the front, my car’s out there, we’ve got time…

  Evelyn Hunter, meanwhile, had her two kids under her arms and was looking at her husband with wild desperation. “We can’t call anybody?”

  Hardie had to tell Hunter the truth. Before it was too late. He took Hunter’s arm and leaned in close.

  “Lane Madden wanted me to tell you how sorry she was about what happened to Kevin.”

  Jonathan’s face—totally ashen. Just at the mention of his boy’s name. “What… what did you say?”

  “She was a passenger in the car that hit your son.”

  “Who was driving?”

  And then Hardie said the name of the man behind the wheel—the Blond Viking God. Hunter ran through a rapid-fire series of emotions within seconds—disbelief, confusion, anger, grief.

  “I saw it on the Web, Lane Madden is the one who—”

  “—who died this afternoon. I was with her, and she told me everything. This is why she was killed. The same people are trying to kill you, to cover it up. To make sure no one ever finds out.”

  Invisible wheels turned behind Jonathan Hunter’s eyes, and then he moaned out loud. “The show,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  And then his eyes lit up.

  “The show. They forced me to run that show about those two. Oh, those bastards. They told me it was because of ratings, but that’s bullshit, I should have known it was bullshit. They forced me to do that show on those animals—”

  and with that, he gestured at the shot and bleeding people on the living room carpet

  “—to give them an excuse to come after my family.”

  “They’re actors. This is all a performance. They planned this to the last detail.”

  “Except for you.”

  “Yeah. I guess—”

  There was a loud noise. A bullet smacked into Hardie’s left arm, and then another hit the side of Hardie’s skull, which propelled his body through the plateglass sliding doors and down the stone steps leading to the backyard.

  A.D.2 and Grip burst in through the door, with Grip going right, into the dining room, and A.D.2 charging full speed ahead down the hall. He saw Hardie, the stubborn old bastard, right away, so he aimed and fired. “Hardie’s down,” he muttered, then immediately moved to the left.

  “Thank fuck,” Mann said through their earpieces.

  There was much screaming and confusion—people running into the backyard, diving behind furniture. A.D.2 looked at Grip from across the hallway. Gesturing with their hands, they split the living room into two. Simple enough. A.D.2 would take the left, and Grip the right. Adults first, obviously. With the kids, they’d try to make it as clean as possible.

  A.D.2 nodded.

  Grip stepped into the living room, eager for a target.

  As he fell, Hardie closed his eyes.

  This was it, at long last:

  Death.

  He felt the burning hot/cool sensation throughout his brain, which he knew was strange, because the brain doesn’t have any nerve endings. Maybe what he was feeling was his soul departing, his life force ripping free from its physical prison.

  Maybe it would all be over soon, and he’d be numb.

  Maybe Lane would be there when he woke up, and she’d be patting his hand, telling him everything was over, he could rest now.

  Right?

  At least he told the truth.

  The Hunters still had a chance…

  No.

  Of course he wasn’t dead yet. Sure, there was a bullet swimming around in his brain—he’d felt the impact, which was like a baseball bat to the side of his skull—and blood pouring out of his head, wet and hot, but he was still conscious, still alive. Because this was purgatory, and he still wasn’t finished atoning for his sins.

  You were on the right track there, Chuck. You stopped those two fake crazies and set the record straight with the father about the hit-and-run. Really great stuff, Chuck. Much better than you sitting around drunk in your boxer briefs watching Jimmy Stewart movies. You’ve come a long way in a day.

  But it’s not over yet.

  Oh, no.

  The family is still in trouble, so we’re not letting you off the hook that easily. You’re part of the bigger plan here. So open your eyes.

  Hardie, against his better judgment, opened his eyes. He could still see. He could still breathe.

  Now sit up.

  You’ve got a gun in
your hand, sit up and raise your arm.

  No, God. I can’t sit up. I can’t move either arm. One is numb and the other feels like a bag of granola. The gun’s still in my hand but it might as well be my dick, because I can’t lift my arms to save my life.

  This isn’t about your life. So sit the fuck up. I could make Lazarus rise from the dead, you think I can’t make you perform one measly situp?

  God, please, that’s enough. Really. Send someone else down there. I’m through.

  Sit up.

  I can’t—

  Sit up.

  I—

  Sit up.

  So Hardie sat up.

  A.D.2 was trying to decide if it was worth shooting through the couch, or if he should try to flush them out first. Because the father was obviously cowering behind the couch, no question about it. But the insides of the furniture might stop the bullet or, more likely, cause some weird ricochet effect, and it could get messy.

  This was why A.D.2 didn’t see Hardie sit up, gun in hand. What clued him in was the tinkling of shattered glass falling from Hardie’s chest.

  A.D.2 turned to see Hardie’s eyes glaring back up at him, and a blood-splattered face that now twisted into a wicked grin, and then there were three miniature explosions ripping through A.D.2’s body and he was floating in the air and the house tumbled around him and then, all too late, he remembered his gun, in his hand, which would have been really useful about two seconds ago.

  Hardie heard the next one approaching long before he appeared in his field of vision. To Hardie, it seemed like he had a weird out-of-body thing going on, because it was all happening like slow motion. The second gunman was taking what seemed like forever to get to him, to his line of fire. And when he finally did, seemingly hours later, it wasn’t difficult at all to turn his wrist a few degrees and line up the shot. Two in the center of gravity. The first one exploded a lung, sent the gunman spinning, and the second shot really put the English on it, striking breastbone and knocking him backward through the air. But Hardie didn’t bother to see where he landed, because he was already collapsing backward himself, back onto the stairs.

  There, God. Am I done yet? Can I come home now?

  31

  You know what the trouble with you is? You’re too violent.

  —Sylvester Stallone, Cobra

  JONATHAN HUNTER counted the shots—three, followed by some frenzied footsteps, then two more. He didn’t dare move. He was covering his daughter’s body with his own, praying incoherently yet fervently. Waiting for the right moment.

  All of his night terrors, those three a.m. torture sessions where his eyes popped open and he was again reminded of what happened to Kevin, how he hadn’t been here, how he was never here because of his stupid job…

  Nothing compared with this nightmare.

  He had a gun in his hand but he was frozen, unable to sit up and use it. Because he’d watched too many stupid cop shows in his time where somebody thinks it’s safe and looks around a corner and ends up with his brains splattered all over a brick wall.

  Just like that poor bastard—Charlie? Is that what he said his name was?

  The image of the man’s blood leaping out of his arm, his head jerking to the side, was horrible, almost pornographic.

  But now there was no sound at all.

  Except—

  “Mr. H-Hunter?”

  Jonathan hesitated. Could be a trap. One of the gunmen, trying to get a fix on his location. He’d seen that a billion times on TV, too. He’d produced countless shows featuring those kinds of tricks.

  “Mr. Hunter, it’s me. Ch-Charlie Hardie. Out here on the steps. You might want to get over here quick. I have a way out for you g-guys, but it’s not going to last forever.”

  Only then did Jonathan Hunter release his grip on his daughter’s tiny curled-up body and take a careful glance over the top of the couch. There were two more bleeding people in his living room, both in T-shirts and jogging shorts. This made a grand total of four shot and bleeding people, all struggling to stay alive. And there, on the steps leading to their backyard, was their savior, Charlie Hardie, blood pooled around his head.

  Jonathan Hunter rushed to Hardie’s side and made all kinds of ridiculous promises about calling 911 and getting him help, he’d be okay, the worst was over, blah blah blah. But Hardie knew better. He also knew there wouldn’t be much time, so he had better spit it out now.

  “Take your family out the back. There’s a key in one of my hands. It belongs to a black van one block away on Moorpark. Do you know where that is?”

  “Of course, yes.”

  “Get your family into the van and just drive. Go somewhere random, wherever there’s a large crowd of people. Your cell phones should work. I don’t think they can jam the whole city. Call FBI special agent Deacon Clark, and tell him that Charlie Hardie sent you.”

  “Charlie Hardie,” he repeated.

  “Yes, but the most important name here is Deacon Clark. Deke for short. Got it?”

  “Deke for short, Deacon Clark.”

  “I’ve told him some of this, but it’s important you tell him the rest. Use whatever power you’ve got and look into the hit-and-run. Lane Madden’s alibi will unravel if you push it hard enough. Tell him to check the car-dealer angle. There’s going to be paperwork somewhere. But trust no one except Deacon Clark.”

  Hunter nodded, not really understanding the words, but trying to commit them to memory, anyway. Everything had happened so fast. Life was blurring by him again, just like it did three years ago. He needed to slow down. To think clearly. Except this man, their savior, was telling him to take the guns and run, run for their lives.

  “Good, now go.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Hardie smiled. “Hold them off.”

  Hunter took his family through the backyard, past the pool, past the bamboo trees they’d planted in honor of Kevin—they’d been his favorite. Jonathan leaped the fence first, then had Evelyn pass Kate over, then Peter, but as she handed Peter over, her eyes went cold and she damn near dropped the boy, and Jonathan wanted to scream, What the hell are you doing? and then—

  O’Neal could hear the shots, all the way over on Moorpark. He counted them. Bang bang. Pause. Bang bang bang. Still another pause—a little longer this time, and then finally bang bang. Seven shots in all. Plenty for Hardie, a father, a mother, and two children. Two to spare, even. O’Neal hoped they’d used them on that stubborn son of a bitch.

  Then O’Neal waited.

  Soon this would be over.

  He promised himself that he would sprawl out on his king-size bed and just sleep for days after this one. Days on end, with pauses only to eat, shower, and drink, and then crawl back into his big, soft bed.

  And then out of nowhere Mann came screaming over the line—Get in there, A.D.2 and Grip are down! Kill them all!—and O’Neal realized that his night was far from over. He took his gun and jogged down a path between the two houses leading to a lush, overgrown backyard. Something in his pocket vibrated.

  It was his other boss.

  Gedney.

  A text message:

  WALK AWAY

  Every director was required to work with someone who would report directly to the employer. A built-in fail-safe to prevent directors from going rogue or pursuing their own agendas. Every director knew about this fail-safe position; however, the identity was kept secret. When the director submitted the script along with the requested crew members, the employer would discreetly contact a particular crew member and say: “You’re up.” A secure connection was established, along with a panic button in case of emergencies.

  O’Neal was the fail-safe for the Lane Madden jobs; he’d hit the panic button four times since this morning. Each time, the employer—in this case represented by Gedney—had responded: STEADY ON

  Now it was finally over:

  WALK AWAY

  was meant to be taken literally. O’Neal was to simply leave the scene,
taking along any compromising materials. He was to go to any one of a number of safe houses and dispose of the materials, then disappear for a while and await further instructions.

  O’Neal slid the gun back into his pocket and stepped backward into the trees. He plucked the earpiece out and snapped it with his fingers, then slid that into his pocket, too. He waited.

  “Thought I saw something.”

  “Come on, hurry up,” Jonathan said, easing his son down onto the grass. After helping his wife over the fence—though she didn’t need much help—they walked through their neighbors’ yard and straight out onto Moorpark. The van was there, just like Charlie had promised. The key opened the door. Jonathan loaded his family inside, made sure everyone was buckled up. He turned on the ignition, shifted it to drive, pulled out of the space, and drove down the street, trying to tune out the cries and questions and the general bedlam in the car.

  Deacon Clark, he muttered to himself. Deke for short. Charlie Hardie. Look into the car dealer. Lane Madden. Deke for short. Charlie Hardie.

  Jonathan didn’t know if he was escaping the nightmare or simply driving into another.

  O’Neal stepped out of the shadows and followed the same path toward Moorpark. Once the van was away and clear, he stepped out onto the sidewalk, looked both ways, then hurriedly crossed the street. He headed north.

  Mann knew why O’Neal refused to answer.

  Why no one answered.

  HARDIE

  HARDIE

  HARDIE

  32

  Michelle Monaghan: Oh cool! This stopped the bullet, Harry.

  Robert Downey, Jr.: No, not really.

  —Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

  OKAY, GOD, really, you can take me home now.