Dangerous Times (23 page)

“Why does he have so many of these same
shirts?” he asked her.

Lisa turned just long enough to yawn and
say, “Because he’s a nut case.”

She poured bottled water into the
coffeemaker. “With you joining our little family,” she said, “Bev
and I should do some grocery shopping—after we invade and plunder
the mall,” she snickered, hopeful that Frank would pay for it all.
Lisa didn’t think it fair that she should have to dip into the
1,500 he had already given her.

Frank was leery of the two women being out
on their own. Who they might bump into, what they might say. Lisa
wasn’t the problem. It was Beverly. He hadn’t met her yet; had no
idea what kind of reading she would give him.

“Think we should wake her?” he said.

“Bev’ll come back to life soon enough,” she
answered indifferently with another yawn. “Been up all night;
better nap after we do your hair and have breakfast.”

“Bathroom,” Frank notified her, and he got
up. He entered the living room and made sure the suitcase of money
was locked. Then heading for the hallway he saw three doors. Two of
them closed, the one to the bathroom left ajar.

Frank passed a wall of photos, went into the
bathroom and lifted the toilet seat. While urinating he opened the
medicine cabinet. “Well, what do you know,” he smiled softly.

A folded straight razor lay next to
Beverly’s electric one. Frank pictured his own straight razor, left
behind at home to keep him out of trouble. Seeing this one he
fought off the temptation to pocket it. Behaving himself was yet
another hurdle to clear to beat Eddie out of his money. The cash
Frank needed to further his cause in the name of—the Holy Ghost
came to mind.

“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost,” he recited quietly. The Son, the good side. The Holy
Ghost, the bad; the deceiver, the trickster, the side of God that
commands us to lift the sword of war and slaughter.

No-no, he told himself. God and Satan
weren’t One. Frank’s father stood apart from God, alone as the
enemy of God.

“What’re you, insane?” he whispered. His
father couldn’t be Satan. Where did the misconception come from;
who or what had planted such an absurd idea in his mind?

That’s all right, Frank shrugged, everyone
else’s life was absurd, so why not his. And being absurd, he
reasoned, maybe he really was Satan’s son.

Done urinating, he zipped up, flushed the
toilet and again eyed the folded razor. Satisfied he had overcome
the temptation, Frank closed the medicine cabinet.

He stepped into the hallway, taking time now
to look at the photos on the wall. Most were of John Kirk, from
youth to the present. Some included his parents, Frank supposed;
Beverly and the dead husband Lisa had mentioned. Ray, Frank
remembered…Beverly, he grinned. An attractive woman; blond hair,
blue eyes.

He approached one of the closed doors.
Pushing it slowly open he saw himself as the winner on a game show.
He had chosen the correct door. Beverly lay on her side under the
covers, long blond hair masking her face. Frank looked back toward
the kitchen and heard Lisa washing Beverly’s dishes.

He entered the bedroom and eased the door
shut. Now here was a temptation that wouldn’t get him into too much
trouble. He sat at the edge of the bed and cleared the blond
strands from Beverly’s face. She sighed in her sleep and rolled
onto her back.

Frank judged the face unusually good for her
age. He slid the covers down and stretched out alongside her. He
placed a hand under her skimpy nightgown and ran his fingertips
over a breast.

“Ray…” Beverly murmured.

Frank got up over her, on hands and knees,
her legs between his. He felt a warmth in his groin and wondered if
he should—

Beverly’s eyes fluttered open. “Johnny,” she
said sleepily, “why didn’t you call?” and she saw herself
near-naked under him.

“No!” she said with a shove, not quite hard
enough to knock him to the floor. Frank got off the bed.

“Gawd, my own son,” she said tearfully,
yanking the covers up to her chin.

“Beverly—Kirk’s mother,” Frank said. “I’m so
sorry. I thought you were Laurie, Lisa’s friend from—gosh, it was
years ago,” he said incredulously. “Laurie and I were…well, you
know, and I thought I’d surprise her. Haven’t seen her since Kirk
and I got out of the marines.”

Confused and fearful, Beverly held the
covers tight against her chin. “You look a lot like him,” she
managed to say.

“And you look just like Laurie,” Frank
smiled warmly.

“I do?” she said doubtfully, thinking this
Laurie of his must have been awfully young back then.

The door opened. “Coffee’s ready,” Lisa
announced.

“Good news,” Frank said happily.

He passed Lisa on his way out. Lisa followed
and closed the door behind her, Beverly left alone to mutter, “But
who are you?”

Chapter
76

Freeway traffic moderately heavy on a
Saturday morning, Hicks stayed close to the black SUV, Kirk and
Emily unseen behind the tinted rear window.

Leaving the 405 for the 110 Hicks put a hand
over the dash vent and said, “Want the heat up or down?”

“I’m fine,” Ty answered. She unbuttoned her
coat. Her legs exposed, Hicks had a hard time keeping his eyes on
the road. But more than that, her presence was the best of all.

Ty turned toward the back seat. “CD case?”
she asked.

“Good detective work,” Hicks smiled. “Take a
look, maybe something you’d like to hear.”

Ty reached around and tugged at the case,
lifted it with a grunt and set it on her lap. “Heavy music,” she
snickered while opening it.

“Right about that,” Hicks said.

Ty ran a finger over the CD spines. “Never
heard’a these people,” she said. “This one, Tina Brooks. What
kind’a songs she sing?”

“She’s a he,” Hicks told her. “Tenor sax
player; no singing.”

“How’d he get named Tina?”

“Grade school nickname that stuck with him,”
Hicks explained. “‘Cause he was small. Teeny.”

“Teeny Tiny Tina,” Ty laughed.

“Yeah, right,” he laughed with her, “but his
music wasn’t so teeny.”

Ty slipped the disc into the dash player.
“He play any clubs?” she asked, feigning interest, wanting Hicks to
like her.

“Tina Brooks,” he mused, “long gone. Drugs
what killed him.” The first tune began: Back to the Tracks. It
brought Hicks’ inner eye back to the needle tracks that covered his
father’s limbs.

“What’sa matter?” Ty asked, lowering the
music.

“Nothin’, baby.” He realized what he had
just said. He took a breath and apologized: “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“Callin’ you ‘baby.’ Not right’a me.”

Hicks’ hand on the wheel, Ty laid her
slender fingers over his. “I think it’s right’a you—long as ya
don’t call me Teeny Tiny Ty,” she said as her hand slipped away
from his.

Hicks gave her a glance and caught her eyes
shift downward to stare at her hands, clasped in her lap now, and
she said, “You think I got the face of a starvin’ teddy bear?”

“Face of a…? Where’d a question like that
come from?”

“It’s what Frank tol’ me, I dunno know how
many times.”

“Then he’s a fool,” Hicks said, “usin’ that
old trick.”

“Old trick?” Ty asked, big dark eyes
returning to him.

“Playin’ the edge game,” Hicks said. “Makin’
you feel like you’re nothin’, so he can keep you in line.”

“So you don’t think I look like…”

“No games from me,” he said. “You’re the
most beautiful woman I ever seen. Not a man in the world wouldn’t
want you at his side.”

“Ya really mean that?”

“Sure ‘nough do,” Hicks told her.

Ty leaned over the console, brought her lips
close to his ear and whispered, “Lemme hear ya say Sure ‘nough do,
baby.”

“Sure ‘nough do, baby,” Hicks repeated with
a stir of passion. “Long as you don’t think I’m too old for you,”
he said then. “Maybe ten years between us.”

“I don’ care ‘bout that,” she answered. Ty
looked out her window. “Problem is I got a husband,” she said
unhappily, “bad as he is.”

“Yeah, right,” Hicks exhaled softly. He
wanted to pull over onto the freeway shoulder and take her in his
arms. But he couldn’t. It wasn’t that he would lose the SUV they
were following, Ty’s phone at the ready to keep in touch with them.
It was because he had to respect Ty’s feelings about marriage.
Didn’t matter that Frank Moore was scum…damn, Hicks said to
himself.

He and Ty sat quietly as the second tune of
the Tina Brooks’ CD began.

Ty broke the silence between them: “No
wedding ring, butcha could be married,” fearing he probably
was.

“Used to be,” Hicks told her, and Ty’s
relief was obvious.

They drove onto the bridge that would lead
them down into San Pedro, following the SUV into the fog that
blanketed the city. The gloom of it spread over Hicks as he began
the story of his ex-wife and their buried son.

Chapter
77

Bob Staub was parked near the corner of 10th
and Cabrillo. He sat behind the wheel, pleased that the satchel and
bloody clothes had burned up so nicely. And feeling just as good
about his hangover being gone. Staub had no doubt the cure had been
the cheeseburger and fries he had just finished.

He sipped the soda cup dry, crumpled it into
the food wrappings, stuffed it all into the McDonald’s bag and
tossed it on the passenger seat. Staub checked his teeth in the
rearview, cleaned them with a fingernail and swallowed the
remnants.

He got out of his pickup and stood in the
foggy street, from where he could make out only the walkway that
led to the Beverly Cottages. He thought he had better not show
himself. Johnny-boy might be alive. If he was, Staub grimaced, all
hell would break loose.

He decided to go through the alley, sneak up
behind Kirk’s cottage; have a listen, maybe get a peek through one
of the windows. If there was no sign of him, he would go to the
driveway side of the property and do the same at the back windows
of Beverly’s place.

Chapter
78

Hicks pulled into San Pedro’s East Channel
parking lot. He took a spot, shut the car down, and the Tina Brooks
music evaporated.

Through the windshield Hicks and Ty watched
Miu Chuan and Kwok Tran pull Kirk and Emily from the SUV and out
into the fog. While they watched, Hicks asked Ty what she thought
of the music.

“All right, I s’pose,” she answered, not
knowing what else to say.

“Funny about music you’re not used to,”
Hicks said. “Ear’s gotta hear it a lot before you get what’s really
goin’ on with it.”

Ty smiled and said, “Long as ya don’t give
up on me.”

“Never,” he said under the spell of her
smile. Hicks couldn’t stand it anymore. He came toward her,
struggled with the interference of the console and took her in his
arms.

“No, we can’t,” Ty protested. But then she
hugged him tightly, pushed him back toward his door, fought her way
over the console, her long legs bumping the steering wheel to get
herself on top of him.

Their lips met in a frenzy of
passion—parting at the knock they heard at Hicks’ window. Ty looked
up to see Miu Chuan wave them out. The Asian then took two steps
back as Ty returned to the passenger seat. Hicks straightened
behind the wheel and said, “Guess we got busted.”

“Yeh,” Ty half-smiled with
embarrassment.

“Don’t wanna face your uncle, I could go
alone an’ you can have the car.”

“I’ll be okay,” she answered. “All I gotta
do is think ‘bout the ten million.”

They opened their doors and stepped out into
the fog. Ty buttoned her coat and slipped her gloves on. She and
Hicks joined Miu Chuan. The three of them headed for the SUV, Miu
speaking Chinese with Ty. Hicks caught a couple of glances from
him, pretty sure they were talking about what had just
happened.

Kirk and Emily stood by the SUV, handcuffed
together at the wrists. Emily eyed the .45 Kwok Tran used to motion
them forward, Kirk quietly trying to figure a way out of this.

They all walked through the fog, down to the
dock. Hicks and Ty lagged behind. Approaching the speedboat Ty told
Hicks that Miu had warned her to watch herself. Married or not,
Eddie wouldn’t like his niece carrying on with a black man.

“Damn,” Hicks smirked.

Ty elbowed him and said, “But I like
it.”

Chapter
79

Bob Staub stood at the back of Cottage Six.
He pulled his ear away from the wall, telling himself Johnny-boy
wasn’t in there. Always up and at ‘em before 8, he knew for sure.
And Lisa, he thought, hadda be asleep in there, after swingin’ her
ass at Korky’s all night, never up ‘til after 10, 11 o’clock.

The fog lifting, Staub quietly worked his
way around the back of the other cottages. Figuring again that the
Mexican kids must’ve taken the body to the hospital. No place else
Kirk could be, unless the hospital shipped him off to the morgue…or
he was alive and the hospital had released him. No, he told
himself, not this soon. Or maybe this soon?

Staub berated himself for getting drunk last
night. It left him hungry for answers, and left him fearful of
Kirk’s survival.

“Aw, shit,” he grumbled under his breath. It
had begun to drizzle.

Standing in the driveway now, Staub wiped
the light rain off his chubby face. He looked at the carport, where
he saw Beverly’s Chevy parked alongside Lisa’s Miata. Yeah, he
thought, Beverly’s home and Lisa’s asleep at Kirk’s.

Staub turned to the trees that bordered the
other side of the driveway. Good, he nodded, neighbors won’t see
him snooping. He glanced at the cottage next to Beverly’s. It was
the vacancy. Nobody there to catch him.

Staub got close to what had been Kirk’s
boyhood bedroom window. More good luck. There was a sliver of space
that ran up between the closed blinds and window frame.