Dangerous Times (13 page)

That’s it, Frank concluded. He would take on
a more liberal attitude when it came to the age and gender of his
victims. Our Mother Earth expected it of him. He was a product of
the times, born out of our world’s day-to-day slaughter.

Refreshed now, he opened his eyes.
Incredible, he thought. The cab driver hadn’t disturbed his rest.
Frank was thankful the man wasn’t a talker. He decided the cabby’s
unusual trait deserved a generous tip.

He sat up straight and saw the lights of
Marina del Rey. He looked at his watch as the cab turned onto Via
Marina. Christ sake, it was John Kirk’s Timex; Frank missing the
handsome face of his Patek Philippe.

“What time is it?” he asked the cabby.

“Five to eleven.”

Frank checked the watch. Five to eleven.
Maybe a Timex wasn’t so bad after all, except for its look.

He realized then that it had been a little
more than 24 hours since he had left Charlie charred in Oakland. My
goodness, Frank said to himself, time really does fly when you’re
having fun.

“Made it before eleven,” he congratulated
his driver. “I’ll need the far side of Basin C,” he said, “so take
the left on Marquesas Way.”

The cabby nodded, drove a quarter-mile, made
the left and slowed to a stop.

Frank thanked him and flashed him his smile.
He paid the hefty fare and added a healthy tip. The cabby returned
the smile.

Frank got out carrying the satchel. The
cabby watched him head toward the docks. Rich son of a gun, he
thought. Gray tailored suit under a camelhair coat. Pricey leather
satchel.

But a hell of a nice guy.

Chapter
33

Frank sat on a bench under a dock light, the
salty air thick with mist. Satchel at his side he waited for the
arrival of Eddie’s speedboat. Same as usual, he supposed, Eddie
sending two bodyguards to pick up his errand boy.

Frank faced a schooner berthed ghostlike in
the mist. Seawater splashed against its hull. Frank listened to the
rhythmic sound and thought about his recent pledge. To fill the
waterways of the world with the blood of God’s children.

Where had the idea come from? He shifted on
the bench and wondered what was happening to him: taking this giant
step toward what he saw now as his preordained purpose.

Preordained by what—by who…God? No, Frank
smirked, definitely not God. God was too busy working on His own
schedule of slaughter.

Frank was struck with the recurring
nightmare he’d had as a child. His foster parents telling him the
scary dream was a sign, a good sign that he would come to
understand someday.

Foster parents. An odd but interesting pair,
Frank recalled. Caretakers who had replaced the mother and father
he had never known. Letting his cruelty to others go unpunished,
seemingly proud of his malevolent behavior.

Then the two of them vanishing during the
summer of his 18th birthday. Gone from the planet, never to be
heard from again.

Frank dug into the past, unable to remember
if he’d had anything to do with their disappearance…

That’s all right, he thought. He was
shedding the past, about to be reborn and take flight toward new
horizons. “All of God’s children,” Frank spoke into the mist.

Thinking then that his foster parents had
been right. He had misunderstood the nightmare. How was he to know
the man in his dream was his real father. Rising from the
underworld, eyes red with firelight, strong arms reaching out—not
to harm him as he had feared at the time, but to embrace him.

Funny, Frank smiled. Maybe that was why he
was unaffected by the cold.

“Stop it!” he whispered harshly. It had been
a dream without any reality to it, and that’s that.

Or was it. No reason he couldn’t dance
around it, look at it as a theorem in the geometry of the
unknown.

Proof is what he needed.

Frank got up off the bench. He walked to the
far end of the dock and faced the sea. He gazed through the rolling
mist and saw an unearthly bank of fog over the breakwater.

“Show yourself!” he called out. “Show
yourself!” he commanded the enemy of God. And there in the distance
his father’s fiery eyes emerged from the fog.

Frank heard a snap in his head, as if his
mind had short-circuited, and he broke into laughter.

The approaching eyes were the running lights
on Eddie’s speedboat.

Chapter
34

Ben Hicks pulled into the outdoor lot. At
this late hour, the visitors’ section was empty. He parked close to
the main entrance.

Hicks looked toward the far end of the
hospital, at the Emergency sign. Ought to go in there, he said to
himself. Ask for the emergency money he needed to escape the mess
he was in.

Yeah, right.

His two-way crackled with static. Hicks
grabbed it, clicked it off and stuffed it into the glove box.

He turned the interior light on and reached
down behind him. He pulled the CD case from the back floor and set
it on the passenger seat. Hicks wanted to sit awhile before
visiting the kid. He knew the dumb-ass wasn’t going anywhere, not
with his face bashed in.

Hicks opened the case, ran a finger over the
spines and stopped at “Saxophone Colossus.”

Yeah, he smiled, Sonny Rollins. He took it
out, snapped it open and slipped the disc into the dash player.
Hicks preferred his own listening order on this one. For starters
he punched in track 3: “Strode Rode.”

He turned off the interior light. The
silence was broken by Max Roach on drums, leading smack into
Sonny’s solo.

“Smack,” Hicks sighed as he slouched, long
legs jammed against the dash. He could hear him, the ol’ man
playing tenor along with the original LP. Damn, how he found money
for vinyl and dope…

Hicks’ mother working two jobs on weekdays,
a third on weekends, that’s how. ‘Til she got burned out, laid down
and died, he thought with another sigh.

Then a little more than 6 months later,
Hicks frowned. The rainy afternoon he found his father dead in the
alley.

Bad stuff, they had said.

Hicks flicked his eyes toward 7th Street. He
sat up straight. A hospital security guard and two ER greens were
lifting a body off the bus stop bench. They placed it on a gurney
and headed into the lot.

Bumping over the concrete, the body was
pushed past Hicks’ window. “Strode Rode” took second place as the
procedural mind of the detective registered a description.

Caucasian, early thirties, dark-brown hair.
Height around 6 even, weight about 160; though hard to be sure on
both counts, the body down flat.

Soiled brown suit, smudged with dirt, Hicks
noted. But a damn nice one, he could tell. Worth plenty more than
the brown one he had on. Guessing the sucker must have been a
robbery victim in a money suit like that.

The money word reminded him of his own
troubles. What kind of life he would have without his shield.
‘Nother black guy on the street. Maybe get a job as a hospital
security guard.

Yeah, right.

Worried about his future it was hard to
enjoy Tommy Flanagan on piano, the “Strode Rode” tune closing with
a hot exchange between Max and Sonny…Hicks trying like hell to
forget his problems.

Psych Services tomorrow. City attorney on
Monday. Internal Affairs on—

He slammed his big fist on the dash and
hollered, “Money!”

Chapter
35

Beverly Kirk had passed out, waking sober
now to the late-night news. Stretched out in the recliner, she
adjusted it upright and watched a report on American children who
go to sleep hungry.

How lucky her Johnny-boy was, she thought.
He’d had parents who could give him what he needed; to have had Ray
as a father.

Saturday in 20 minutes, she told herself.
Ray’s birthday.

Beverly stood up in her furry mules. She
paused by the coffee table and glanced at the dregs of her drink.
“Be right back,” she said to the scotch bottle and ice bucket.

Heading across the room she checked her
bathrobe to make sure her goodies were safely under wraps. Beverly
opened the blinds. She brought her blue eyes up close between the
slats and gazed through the vapor that hung over the lighted
pool.

“Darn,” she exhaled. Cottage Six was dark.
Her son wasn’t home yet—Lisa still at work, parading her body
around for tips at Korky’s hellhole. “Yup,” Beverly nodded, the
girl was a tramp. Why couldn’t her Johnny-boy see that?

Where the heck was he, she wondered. Half
hour after they talked on the phone, she had called back and left a
message for him on Staub’s machine.

“More’n two hours ago,” she worried. Wanted
to tell him to pick up some cow juice on the way home. Little milk
in her scotch before bedtime.

“Jesus H,” she griped, squinting toward the
darkness alongside her son’s cottage. She’d told him the darn bulb
was out. And if he doesn’t get her that new screen door this
weekend, she’ll give him what for, you bet.

Beverly snapped the blinds shut and tugged
nervously at the ends of her blond hair. Returning to the recliner
she made herself a fresh drink.

The TV weatherman forecasted rain for
tomorrow. Should help the lawn, Beverly hoped. She had been meaning
to get it sodded but hadn’t been able to afford it.

Where the heck was he, she wondered again,
eyes on the unsympathetic phone.

“Oh Gawd,” Beverly sulked as she sipped her
drink. John Allen Kirk was a grown man. Her days of motherly worry
were supposed to be over.

Chapter
36

Each time Frank had been aboard the yacht he
had thought the same thing: Palace on the sea. He was thinking it
now as he followed Da Shan through the carpeted passageway;
starboard side lined with a stunning array of ancient Chinese
artifacts.

Eddie Jones wasn’t going to miss 4, 5
million dollars, Frank told himself.

He turned into another passageway and stayed
behind Da Shan. Walking next to him would have been an
uncomfortable squeeze. Da Shan was practically the width of two
men, over 7 feet tall, shaved head nearly grazing the ceiling.
Frank figured there must be a tailor aboard who makes his
suits.

The giant lumbered to a stop at Eddie’s
stateroom. He banged on the door with a knuckle, opened it and
stood aside. Frank gave him a thank-you smile. The Asian stared
down at him with indifference.

Christ sake, and all the times the ugly
bastard had seen him here.

Boulder-face reached slowly toward him.
Unsure of the gesture, Frank’s smile faded as the big hand shoveled
under the shoulder strap of his satchel.

Let him take it, Frank thought. John Kirk’s
clothes weren’t going to fit him, he kidded himself. Frank knew how
important it was to keep his sense of humor. Not think about his
plan while in Eddie’s presence. Eddie Jones was no fool, time and
again proven insightful enough to read unspoken deception.

Frank pressed his tie flat and brushed back
his blond hair. He relit his smile, approached the doorway and
passed under the giant’s icy stare.

Smile held steady, Frank wanted to torch the
iceberg. Watch him melt, then have the pleasure of pissing into the
steamy pool of his bile.

Chapter
37

Welcome back to the imperial suite, Frank
said to himself. He glanced around at the Chinese décor, then
landed his eyes on a quartet of bodyguards. Asians, lounging on
cushions, playing mah-jongg on the teak floor.

Frank exchanged nods with them. None of them
spoke English. Same with Da Shan and all the other bodyguards.
Frank remembered that he had once counted an even dozen aboard.

He heard a ka-chunk…ka-chunk…He looked
toward the open doorway of an adjoining cabin. The counting room,
he knew.

Frank strolled past the four mah-jongg
players, halted in the doorway and leaned against the jamb. A 5th
bodyguard stood at a long worktable. His back to Frank, his broad
frame blocked most of the suitcase he was packing. The one Frank
would be taking with him tonight. It was being filled with packets
of money. Each ka-chunk meant another stack of hundred dollar
bills, twenty thousand worth, compressed and heat-wrapped in
cellophane.

Ka-chunk…ka-chunk…

The seated Jones Brothers faced Frank from
the other side of the table; Eddie’s two sons working the
money-counter and press. They wore matching suits and ties, shiny
black hair slicked back the same. They were identical twins. A
matched set of lucky princes, Frank thought.

He had met them only once before, on his
wedding day. The day he had married Ty, their cousin, Eddie’s
niece. Frank recalled his impression of them back then. Thinking at
the time that they were lovers. Pair of princes, he smirked. Pair
of sickos was more like it.

Ka-chunk…ka-chunk…

The bodyguard turned and looked toward the
doorway. Frank smiled at the sack of muscle, and the brothers
glanced up over their machines. A pair of pretty Chinese faces,
each with a pair of dark pretty eyes.

The brothers said nothing and went back to
work.

Yeah, and fuck you too, Frank said to them
silently. They spoke English but didn’t have the decency to say
hello.

That’s all right, Frank shrugged against the
doorjamb. The 4, 5 million he was going to grab tonight would more
than make up for the insult.

Ka-chunk…ka-chunk…

The bodyguard stepped away from the
worktable and went to the water cooler, the suitcase in full view
now.

Frank couldn’t believe it. One
money-laundering trip a year, never had there been a suitcase this
large.

Frank was a diligent errand boy,
well-informed about suitcases. This one was the biggest suiter that
Samsonite made, hardside pullman on wheels with a retractable
handle.