Dangerous Times (17 page)

The open coat and short black dress. The
long legs. But more than anything it was her face. The lips, the
high cheekbones; Hicks just able to make out how big and dark her
downcast eyes were.

She went by him and he caught the aroma of
her spring-like freshness, caught the sheen of her midnight hair.
Eurasian, Hicks guessed, turning to watch her pass the ICU station.
She stopped at the elevators and waited there. Hicks couldn’t take
his eyes off her.

The elevator doors slid open. She stepped in
and pressed the button panel. Backing against the wall, she
adjusted the shoulder strap of her purse, folded her arms and
stared at the floor.

The doors closed and the dream vanished.

Hicks scrubbed his forehead with the flat of
his hand. Damn, and he had thought no one could fire his heart up
like his ex-wife had. Celia’s image clouded now by the memory of
what he had just seen.

Go for it, he told himself. Go after her an’
make up some police business…

Not exactly a good time to put on the charm,
Hicks brooded. Psych Services in the morning. City attorney on
Monday. Internal Affairs on Tuesday.

Forget about her, he frowned. She was
gone.

Chapter
48

Hicks lingered at the door of 412. Four
rooms away from the kid he had to visit. Had to, he reminded
himself; had to keep his promise to Burns.

“Damn,” he said quietly. 412. Tim Burns’ ICU
room, four years ago. The bullet hole in his chest, fighting for
his life while Hicks was in the streets pocketing a ten grand
bribe.

He turned and looked up the corridor toward
418. Hoping again that the kid’s parents weren’t in there with
him.

If they were, he would take Burns’ advice.
Yeah, Hicks nodded. Worked on the inspector general, an’ it was the
truth.

Loss of his own boy an’ how it broke up his
marriage. Tell the parents how sorry he is about what he’d done to
their son; wanted to teach him a lesson. Go for their sympathy.
Maybe they’d drop the lawsuit.

No way…second charge of excessive force.
First one, another shithead who deserved it, Hicks recalled. White
drunken-ass wife beater. Still can’t make a fist with his right
hand, Hicks had heard recently. Fuck him. Fuck ‘em all.

Room 418. Get in there and get it over with,
he told himself.

Damn!—Hicks couldn’t believe it.

It was Ling, coming out of the last room,
starting down the corridor. His shiny black eyes landed on Hicks,
and his lips unveiled his bright toothy smile. “Lieutenant,” he
said over the distance, “it has been a long time.”

Hicks charged toward him.

Ling dropped the smile, raised his hands and
waved them like flags in the wind. “Wait, Lieutenant, wait!”

Hicks shoved him hard against the wall.
“Hey, motherfucker,” he said, towering over the skinny fuck, “told
you I’d kill ya, ever see you in San Pedro again.”

“Oh-no, Lieutenant,” Ling cringed. “Listen
to me,” he pleaded. “You shall be most happy with the opportunity I
have to offer.”

The detective thinking if he let him go he
could get double what he got out of him four years ago. Add it to
the 12 he had in the bank, gives him 32,000 to get the hell out of
San Pedro.

And Hicks began the bribe game. “Sorry,
Moonface,” he said, pulling his .38, “you can’t afford me
anymore.”

“Oh-no, Lieutenant,” Ling whispered, “no
bribe this time.”

“Don’t fuck with me,” Hicks warned him as he
jammed the .38 into the paper-thin stomach.

“My employer,” Ling squealed. “Mr. Eddie.
Same man had money deliver to you when you free me last time,” his
perfect English breaking down under the stomach pain. “Mr. Eddie
trust you to help find stolen property.”

“Property?” Hicks pushed the snub-nosed
barrel deeper into the flimsy gut.

“Cash!” Ling yelped. “Cash stolen from Mr.
Eddie.”

“Miserable motherfucker, tryin’ to save your
skinny ass.” Hicks kept the pressure on the stomach. He used his
other hand to pat down the sharkskin jacket.

“No gun,” Ling gasped.

“Yeah, right, an’ what’s this?”

“Telephone. No gun in hospital, down in
car.”

“Good,” Hicks said with a nasty smile.
“Let’s go for a ride an’ compare weapons.”

“Oh-no!” cried Ling. “Ten million in
suitcase stolen from Mr. Eddie. We split two million find-it fee,”
he spluttered tearfully. “One million each.”

“One mill—?” Hicks’ mind went into a
freeze.

“One million for you,” Ling grimaced from
the pressure of the gun on his stomach. “My telephone. Call Mr.
Eddie. Verify, verify.”

Hicks’ mind clicked back into the moment,
struck with the impossibility of this. He withdrew his .38 and
said, “Where the hell is your Mr. Eddie, in China?”

Ling clutched his stomach and collapsed
against the wall. “Mr. Eddie enjoys the pleasure of his yacht,” he
breathed heavily, “off the coast of Los Angeles,” his English
improving as the pain subsided.

Hicks said, “Call him.” He brandished the
.38 and watched the Asian’s bony hand pull the phone out. “Lyin’ to
me,” Hicks threatened, “kill ya right here an’ now. An’ don’t think
I won’t get away with it.”

“You shall believe, Lieutenant,” Ling said,
straightening from the wall, bright toothy smile reappearing.

“Excuse me!” Nurse Betty Ruiz interrupted,
appearing from out of nowhere, hands on her hips. “I don’t care who
you are, Lieutenant! Put that gun away or I’ll call security!”

Eyes down on the little nurse Hicks said,
“Yes, ma’am.” He holstered the weapon.

“Who are you?!” the chipmunk squeaked at
Ling, his smile gone now. “Snuck by me to get in here, didn’t
you?!” Then without waiting for an answer, “And obviously you can’t
read English or Spanish!” her finger flying toward the
dual-language sign on the wall.

Ling turned to it. “ICU rules,” he spoke
softly. “No smoking. No cellular phones…”

“That is correct, Mister. You want to use
the phone, you go downstairs!”

Hicks and Ling exchanged their first
agreeable look.

Chapter
49

Ty drove out of the hospital lot, turned
onto 7th and coasted down the hill. Fog was bad, but not too much
trouble; long as she stayed alert and took it slow, she told
herself.

Ty rolled to a stop at the first big
intersection. She squinted through the murky haze. Gaffey Street,
the sign read. She made a left and cruised north. On either side of
her, the shops on Gaffey stood dark in the billowing gloom. Lookin’
like a ghost town, she thought.

Eyes flicking to the rearview, Ty checked to
see if Ling was on her tail. Didn’t look like it. Hard to tell in
all that fog. She wondered then why Lollipop let her leave the
hospital without him.

Must be ‘cause they’re partners, she
figured.

Partners…thinking of her real partner, her
one and only partner, her Lady Smith & Wesson. Nice of ‘em to
make a hammerless gun for women, Ty congratulated them; won’t go
off ax’dently in your purse.

Ten million…Lollipop gets in her way, she
and her real partner’ll knock’im outta the box pretty quick, Ty
smiled.

“Oops!” she yipped at the sudden appearance
of a traffic light. Ty hit the brakes and came to a stop.

She sat back and stared into the hazy red of
the light. It reminded her of the redhead Frank was hiding out
with; least she hoped so. It was the only clue she had to get
herself on the money trail.

“Yeh, uh-huh,” she yawned, eyes on the dash
clock: 2:11. Her eyes fell on the radio. All this stuff in her
head, she had forgotten about her music.

Ty snapped it on. They were playing a rock
song she liked. “Ten, ten-ta-ten,” she sang, fooling with the
lyrics, “ta-ten, ten-ten milly-milly-million!” bouncing around
behind the wheel, catching her second wind.

The light changed. Ty settled down,
proceeded cautiously through the fog and went over the route that
would get her back to Los Angeles. To the redhead’s place, to Frank
and all that money. Ty had followed him there enough times, certain
she would find it okay.

Gaffey Street led her straight into the 110.
Rising up onto the freeway Ty looked into the rearview. It mirrored
an ocean of fog, San Pedro sinking beneath it. Like one’a them
ancient drowned cities, she thought.

The fog dissipating ahead Ty picked up
speed. She glanced at a lighted billboard above the 110’s bordering
streets. Black baseball player askin’ for orph’nage money, she said
to herself.

The guy at the hospital popped into mind.
Skin darker than the baseball player’s, real tall and well-built.
Tough-lookin’ face, she thought, but a handsome one, she
smiled.

Ty had seen him in the corridor as she came
out of the astronaut’s room. She had caught his eyes drifting
toward her, lowering hers just in time. Pulling on her gloves,
afraid if their eyes met, she would melt into a puddle.

Lot older than her, but…Ty seeing herself at
the elevators, feeling his stare.

Stop it, she told herself; no reason a guy
like that’d be interested in the starvin’ teddy-bear look.

“Forget about him,” Ty sighed. He was
gone.

Chapter
50

Frank came out of the bathroom naked, except
for the socks that protected him against what lived in the hotel’s
carpeting. Frank was ever-cautious about the Heavenly Father’s army
of sneaky little bastards.

Moving across the room he caught his
reflection in the window. He stopped and looked at himself. His
transparent image stood with the outdoor mist swirling behind it.
The smoky likeness of Satan in Hell, Frank grinned.

He gazed at his movie-star face, flawed now
by the square bandage on his cheek. If the graze under it left a
scar he would wear it as a medal. Awarded to him by Mon Lew, for
having pulled off—not yet, Frank warned himself; it wasn’t over
yet.

He drew close to the window and peered
through his reflection, downward toward 1st and Gaffey. Five
stories below, buried deep in fog. Then looking northward he saw
the hazy lights of the 110 Freeway, where its entrance rose up out
of the drabness.

Frank refocused and eyed his reflected hair,
dark and shiny with fresh dye. He lifted a hand to brush it back
but had to stop himself. His hair was wet and slicked down, there
was nothing to brush back. Frank understood now that the brushing
had become a habit. A tic, he feared, a sign of weakness. He
promised himself to watch it, never to do it again.

“Christ sake,” he complained then. 30 more
minutes for the dye to take and he was hungry. Best hotel in San
Pedro, the cabby had told him. Never mentioning their room service
shuts down at midnight.

If Frank had only known. Could have picked
up something at the all-night market. The cabby waiting while he
was in there buying the dye kit, bandages, gauze—phone call he had
made while shopping, calling the police on his Tom Pincus
phone:

“Was on mah late-night walk with Cheney, mah
Rottweiler,” he recited to his reflection like a crusty old
soldier. “Go past this parked Lincoln and hike up the horse
trail—got mah flashlight, y’know, and run across a dead fella
layin’ by a fresh-dug grave. Grab yerself a pen, son. Give ya the
directions, aw’right?”

Frank applauded his performance, confident
the cops had found the body by now. Frank Lester Moore dead in the
hills. Old Eddie soon to hear of his errand boy’s miserable
fate.

Frank smiled, picturing his tearful wife
identifying the body as his. Ty had to, if she ever wanted to get
her hands on the money, as if she ever would.

Ty’s next step, Frank thought: try to find
him through his red-headed playmate. Too dumb to know he had set
her up for it, those few times he had let Ty spy on him and Emily.
On her way to catch him with Emily at this very moment, he
imagined. Unaware of Ling, or whomever of Eddie’s men were
following her.

“Wonderful night,” Frank said to his
reflection in the window, and his stomach disagreed with a
growl.

Stocking feet sweeping over the carpet he
went to the minibar. On top of it sat a wicker basket of snack
bags. Nuts, chips, and pretzels.

Frank hesitated, concerned about eating out
of plastic bags. That’s all right, he decided. It had been a long
time since he had broken the rules.

He tore open the pretzel bag and glanced at
the clock radio. 25 more minutes, he noted, then shampoo and rinse.
Two times, the dye-kit instructions had said; and that would be the
end of it. He would have his dark-brown hair.

Frank munched away on the pretzels and his
eyes landed on the bible that lay on the nightstand. He stared at
the shiny crucifix on its cover. For the first time ever he
wondered if there were Christians who believed that God the Father
was a Christian. If sometime after His son’s resurrection He
Himself had become a Christian.

Frank tossed it off as a ridiculous
question, but then concluded that one never knows what the
religious faithful might come up with.

His eyes flicked to the Samsonite, closed
and upright on its wheels. His silenced Russian pistol in it, on
top of the money. Ten million…well, not quite, he shrugged. There
had been the cab fares, and the cash advance for the hotel
room.

Frank knew all about graveyard shifts at
hotels. The staff hoping to supplement their skimpy paychecks with
a cash check-in. The room occupied for a few hours, then empty
before the morning shift change.

Frank remembered the clerk’s eyes
brightening when he saw the payment Frank had given him. A hefty
cash bribe that had muted the usual request for ID.

Frank carried John Allen Kirk’s, not to be
shown unless pressed for it. San Pedro was a small town. Never know
who knows who, Frank had told himself on his way here to the
hotel.