Dangerous Times (18 page)

He swallowed the last of the pretzels.
Moving on to the chips he opened the minibar and took out a bottle
of ginger ale. Glass bottle, he nodded with approval. Noticing then
that the miniature liquor bottles were made of plastic. Didn’t
matter to Frank. He never touched the stuff.

That’s all he needed, to dull his senses and
destroy his will…stumbling through the Heavenly Father’s garden of
humanity, too drunk to harvest the blood of His children.

All of His children, Frank reminded
himself.

He washed the chips down with ginger ale and
turned to his naked reflection in the window. Through its
transparency he stared into the misty night, and a vision
appeared:

Little boys and girls planted in God’s
garden. Seedlings that had to be cut down before they became
infested with the lies of goodness and grace.

Chapter
51

Hicks disconnected and handed the phone back
to Ling. “Your Mr. Eddie says yeah, you an’ me, a million each,” he
said with a dry throat, still wrestling between belief and
disbelief. Then telling himself to watch his step. Moonface was not
to be trusted.

“We are partners,” Ling said.

“Partners,” Hicks agreed. “How many others
ya got?” he asked.

Ling showed him his bright toothy smile. “I
do not need other partners,” he answered. “Not with a man of your
caliber.”

Yeah, right, Hicks thought.

Uncomfortable in the parked Cadillac, the
six-foot-four detective reached down and motored the seat back. He
looked out the passenger window, gazed into the foggy lot and
became lost in the hazy glow of the hospital sign.

A million, Hicks permitted himself to dream,
seeing himself far from San Pedro, images of the good life tumbling
around in his mind.

In the silence, Ling took the opportunity to
do a little of his own dreaming:

Should Mrs. Moore accomplish her task, the
Lieutenant will deserve none of the reward. What he will deserve,
Ling plotted, is to die. Kill him and eliminate him as a third
partner.

One million for himself, Ling frowned,
should Mrs. Moore recover the money. Most unfortunate, he thought,
forced to divide the two million with her. Mr. Eddie would be most
unforgiving if his niece were to be killed without his
permission.

Ling hoping now that the Lieutenant
accomplishes the task. Mrs. Moore will receive nothing, and the
troublesome Mr. Hicks will receive a bullet to the head.

Hicks’ gaze left the hospital sign and
drifted upward through the fog, to the misty lights of the ICU
ward. Frank Moore was in there. His ticket to freedom. If this
whole thing was on the up an’ up, Hicks added to his thoughts.

“Middle name or initial?” he asked Ling, the
detective’s eyes fixed on the 4th floor.

“Lester,” Hicks heard him say.

“In a coma…” Hicks said.

“Do not despair, Lieutenant. As I have said,
a man of your caliber…”

“Frank Lester Moore married?” Hicks turned
from the passenger window, just in time to see Ling’s eyes tighten.
It added some weight to the detective’s mistrust.

“Yes, married,” Moonface said softly,
staring into the fog from behind the wheel.

“Hell of an in-depth profile,” Hicks
smirked.

Ling shifted his eyes to the Lieutenant.
“She knows nothing of her husband’s treachery.”

Treachery, Hicks said to himself, convinced
now that some of it was coming from Ling.

“You shall need Mr. Eddie’s yacht number,”
Moonface said. “And my own, should you desire the use of my
resources.” He put his hand out. “I shall place them into your
phone.”

Hicks said, “I don’t have one.”

“You are surely joking, Lieutenant.”

“Nobody I need to talk to, ‘cept one person,
an’ he can get me on my police radio.” Tim Burns, Hicks ruminated,
knowing what Burns would say if he knew about this.

Hicks watched the skinny sucker lean toward
him, bony hand opening the glove compartment. Ling pulled a phone
out and settled back behind the wheel. He played with the phone’s
buttons. “I am setting Memory One for Mr. Eddie’s yacht number,” he
said. “Memory Two shall be my personal number.”

“An’ what’s the number for the phone?” Hicks
asked.

Ling held it up to him and said, “Press this
button and it shall appear on the screen.”

“Right,” Hicks said. He was handed the
phone. He dropped it into his coat pocket. Then said, “One suitcase
with ten million in it?”

“Yes, Lieutenant, a large Samsonite.” Ling
reached over to shut the glove compartment. Hicks’ heavy black hand
fell on its door.

“What’s a guy like you doin’ with an
Austrian weapon?” he asked.

“You are a police officer with much
experience,” Ling smiled brightly. “In the shadows, you have
correctly identified it.”

Ling’s smile withered as Hicks took the
pistol out of the glove compartment. “Glock 20,” the detective
said, examining it. “Chambered for a 10mm auto cartridge. 15 round
magazine.”

“Correct, Lieutenant. Superior to the Glock
17.”

Hicks racked it open and saw a cartridge in
firing position. “Got a permit?” he asked.

“Most certainly, Lieutenant. Quite easy
through the friends of Mr. Eddie Jones.”

Hicks closed the slide. It wasn’t that he
wanted the whole two million for himself. It was that Moonface was
a cold-blooded killer who would turn on him.

Hicks shoved the barrel hard against Ling’s
head, the sound muffled as blood and brains splashed over the
driver’s window.

Hicks wiped down the Glock, then fit it into
the Asian’s hand. Told the motherfucker he’d kill him, ever see him
in San Pedro again.

A man of Hicks’ caliber always kept his
word.

Chapter
52

Frank finished the chips and ginger ale. He
looked at the dark TV screen and told himself there wasn’t anything
of interest on at this early hour. The news of human slaughter
wouldn’t have a large enough audience.

Frank dragged a chair into the bathroom. He
set a towel on the seat and sat naked. Hair still damp with dye,
there was 15 minutes left until shampoo and rinse time. Might as
well spend it exchanging thoughts with his one and only friend, he
smiled at himself in the mirror.

Frank studied the countertop: the scattered
hair clippings; the big and small scissors. The torn-open dye
package and its empty vials. Dye-stained comb; soiled hand towels.
Bandages, gauze, and the alcohol to clean his grazed cheek. Could
open a drugstore, he kidded himself.

His eyes fell on the license Charlie had
made for him, Frank with John Kirk’s dark hair and eyebrows. He
compared the cut of it to what he had clipped of his own hair. Not
that good, but good enough. Though it was hard to be sure until
after he shampooed, rinsed, and combed it out.

John Kirk’s watch lay among the dye
supplies. Frank gazed at the Timex, wishing he had his Patek
Philippe. Alongside the watch, the scissors glistened and reminded
him of his straight razor.

He turned toward the bathroom doorway and
looked out at the suitcase. No, no way would he slice someone at
this particular juncture. Frank glad again that he had left the
razor at home; it was the wrong time to get playful with God’s
children.

Playful. Like when he was a kid, nailing
snails to tree trunks. Frank still able to hear the crunch of their
shells.

Eyes held on the other room he looked at
John Kirk’s boots. They stood by the suitcase, scuffed and
wrinkled. “One size too big,” Frank said aloud. He would have to
wear two pair of socks, or buy some extra-thick athletic ones.

Laid out on the bed were John Kirk’s Levi’s
and black snap-button shirt. Next to them, the old leather jacket
with the broken zipper. Christ sake, Frank thought. It was going to
be embarrassing for him, dressed like a homeless person.

Frank brought his eyes back to the mirror.
“You were thinking of Charlie, weren’t you,” he said to his
reflection. “All the blood…”

The blood-soaked speedboat, he recalled,
left docked in someone’s slip. Ought to be found just after
daybreak, he hoped. The boat, the Lincoln, the body. Eddie would
piece it together and come up with the picture Frank wanted him to
have:

Errand-boy Frank had killed Gim San and Mon
Lew, dumped them overboard and continued on to San Pedro instead of
Los Angeles. The Lincoln had been hidden in the Rancho Palos Verdes
hills, parked there earlier in the day, ready for Frank’s getaway.
But poor dumb Frank had been followed from the dock to the Lincoln,
killed and robbed of the suitcase.

Perfect.

Frank could see Eddie stomping around like
Rumpelstiltskin, not knowing where his money was.

At some point, Frank thought, Eddie would
have to ask himself a question: If his errand boy had left the
Lincoln in the Rancho Palos Verdes hills, how did he get to the
L.A. Marina to meet the speedboat for his yacht appointment
pickup?

By cab, which was the truth—or driven by
someone who was in on it. Someone like Ty, Frank grinned at his
reflection.

Eddie would then have to wonder if Ty knew
that he’d had her parents killed; had gotten herself on a revenge
trip and talked her husband into stealing the money. “A bit more of
the truth,” Frank said to his friend in the mirror.

Eddie might even presume that Ty had killed
her husband for the ten million. Why not? Eddie had nothing else to
go on.

Except for Emily.

Frank sat back. Recent events flipped
through his mind like pages in a photo album. Stopping finally on
Staub. The dumb bastard passed-out in the bed of his pickup. Then
waking with blurry eyes on the satchel, not knowing how it had
gotten there. The look on his face when he opens it and sees the
blood-stained clothes.

Frank laughed, and his friend laughed with
him.

Chapter
53

Parked in the hospital lot, Hicks sat behind
the wheel of his car. He had been sitting there awhile with his Art
Blakey CD playing. He looked out the driver’s window and peered
through the fog, to where Ling’s Cadillac sat ghostlike. Hicks
certain he had wiped down everything he had touched.

“Damn,” he grunted. The little nurse, she
had seen him with Ling. Be a good thing, he thought, for the body
to be found after she gets off duty.

Hicks remembered now that she had asked him
if he was there to fill out the Frank Moore report. Means one’r
more of his brother cops would be showin’ up soon, he worried. They
find Ling’s body, place’ll be swarmin’ with badges.

Better get outta here, Hicks told himself.
Come back after Ling’s carted off. Sure ‘nough he’d know when; keep
his two-way on, hear what’s goin’ on. Come back, get into Frank
Moore’s room and see if there’s anything that would give him a lead
to the money.

Hicks pulled out the phone Ling had given
him. He’d call the hospital’s main desk; he didn’t want to go back
in there. The less seen of him the better, at least until after the
body was found. Get the receptionist to call him if his ticket to
freedom comes out of the coma.

“Yeah, right,” Hicks muttered under the
music. “Comes out of it, two fucking years from now.”

He didn’t know the hospital number. He
punched 411, asking himself where he’d spend his time, until after
Moonface was taken away.

Bettina’s sweet chocolate body danced into
mind. Call her next. See if she’s alone. Drive to her place and
take a banana-tit break.

Chapter
54

Kirk’s eyes snapped open. With a suffocating
gasp he sat upright in the green glow of the room. The oxygen mask
tightened. Its tubes and monitor lines brushed his skin. Kirk’s
first thought, he was tied and gagged.

He tore the mask off. His hands went to his
throbbing head and he felt the roughness of the bandages.

Hospital, Kirk understood finally.

The door opened. The corridor lights
brightened the room. A man in silhouette stood at the threshold. He
entered, shut the door and clicked the fluorescents on.

Kirk squinted under the glare. A doctor, he
supposed, dressed in a suit and overcoat.

Pain subsiding, Kirk settled back on the
pillows and watched the square-jawed Asian remove his coat, the
sleeves of his suit jacket tight over muscular arms.

“Name’s Tommy Shee,” he smiled, dropping his
coat on the chair. “You know where Ling is?” he asked. “Called me
just after he followed your wife here.” He said, “Would’ve been
here sooner, but got hung up in a poker game; was dealt some pretty
good hands.”

Kirk’s confusion showed on his face.

“That’s okay,” Tommy said, misreading the
look. “Happens all the time, people expecting me to have an accent.
Might surprise you to know that I was born and raised in
Trenton.”

“Trenton,” Kirk said weakly.

“What Trenton Makes, the World Takes,” Tommy
recited. “That’s the Trenton motto,” he explained. “Y’know, we’ve
never met, but I can tell we’re going to get along. All you have to
do is let me know what happened.”

Kirk said, “That’s what I was going to
ask.”

Tommy edged closer to the bed. “Sense of
humor’s important in life, but not right now. Maybe we can have
some laughs after you tell me where it is.”

“Where what is,” Kirk sighed tiredly.

“That’s okay,” Tommy shrugged. “Don’t have
to be a doctor to see how messed up you are.”

“You’re not a doctor?”

“Tommy Shee, that’s me. Best memory
therapist you’d ever want to meet.” Tommy noticed the tattoo on
Kirk’s forearm. “Marine,” he said. “I’d better be extra careful,”
he smiled.

Tommy grabbed the tattooed arm, pulled Kirk
from the bed and hurled him across the room. Kirk hit the cabinets
under the countertop and sank to the floor with a dreadful moan.
Head pounding, IV yanked from his arm; hands on his groin, catheter
ripped from his urinary tract.