Dangerous Times (4 page)

“Stop it, Ben. You don’t know how this is
going to turn out. Truth is the truth, and I’ll back you up on
it.”

“Thanks, man,” Hicks said, trying to appear
hopeful.

“Did you give him a visit on your way over
here?” Burns asked.

“Give who a visit?”

“Earl Sinclair.”

“Who the fuck’s Earl Sinclair?”

Burns couldn’t help smiling. Shook his head
and said, “The kid you beat up on.”

“Damn,” Hicks sighed tiredly, “didn’t even
know his name.”

Chapter
7

Driving the 110 Freeway at sunrise, Frank
was on his way to San Pedro. The outside temperature in the 30s, he
wore his camelhair coat and had the heat on low. Too much engine
heat bothered him, there was something about the smell of it.

Under his coat he had chosen to wear the
dark-brown suit that matched his eyes. But better than that, this
was one of his suits with the jacket tailored for his concealed
gun.

Frank eyed the puffy clouds that sat low in
the western sky. Their milky white reminded him of his
pearl-handled straight razor. It had been the right thing to do, he
thought, leaving it at home this morning.

The temptation to use it would have driven
him to distraction. Frank thinking of the coffee shop in Oakland,
the waitress with the thin blue vein at her temple. One gentle cut,
he imagined, followed by a warm line of crimson.

Sunlight bounced off the rear window of the
car in front of him. He reached under his coat and pulled out his
sunglasses. Imported ones, with tortoiseshell rims that
complemented his blond hair. Frank slipped them on and saw a
freeway sign that made his blood rush.

San Pedro was minutes away.

Frank was feeling at the top of his game. It
didn’t matter that he had gotten only two hours sleep. He had found
his look-alike and Charlie Habakkuk was out of the picture. There
was no way for Eddie Jones to find out about John Kirk.

Yes indeed, Frank mused, the future was in
plain sight: John Kirk, dead as a doornail. The body then
discovered and identified as Frank’s. Soon after that, Eddie gets
the bad news and verifies it with the San Pedro police.

Poor Frank, Eddie would say. His errand boy
had fouled up and met his Maker. Like in the Old West, ambushed for
the loot, shot to death on the dusty trail.

Perfect, Frank gloated, seeing himself at
the end of the trail, safe and sound with 4 million dollars of
Eddie’s money—maybe 5, he hoped.

Cruising along in the Lincoln, Frank
realized he hadn’t turned the radio on. That’s all right, he said
to himself, there was too much on his mind. Thinking of his wife
now, when he had gotten home from Oakland around four in the
morning. Climbing into bed while Ty asked groggily how it went in
Santa Barbara.

Stupid bitch, he thought, thinks she’s his
partner in this. Little did she know what he was up to, Frank
seeing Ty still asleep, dreaming of the pile of cash she would
never get her hands on. And the best part of it, stealing her Uncle
Eddie’s money had been her idea.

What a joke. Along with the other one.
Emily. His red-headed playmate. Ty and Emily. A pair of fortunate
women, Frank nodded. The vein on the inside of Emily’s smooth
thigh. Now there was a missed opportunity.

Ty, Frank grimaced. If she weren’t Eddie’s
niece he would have gotten rid of her long ago. No, he
reconsidered, he wouldn’t have. It’s always the husband the cops go
after first; Frank thankful for his restraint.

His attention returned to the road ahead.
The 110 Freeway had ended, flowing directly into Gaffey Street, one
of San Pedro’s few main thoroughfares.

Frank pulled curbside and focused the GPS
down to John Kirk’s address, 1000 Cabrillo. Corner of 10th and
Cabrillo, he noted. Simple enough.

It was 7:20 on a Friday morning, Frank not
knowing if his pigeon had a job to go to. That’s all right, he told
himself. He had until 10 o’clock tonight to kill him; dump the
Lincoln with the body in it.

Christ sake, giving up the Lincoln was a
sorry piece of the plan. But what the hell, he thought then. After
this was over he could buy a dozen of them.

On the threshold of a brand new life, Frank
could taste the freedom that all that money would bring.

Chapter
8

John Kirk sat in the living room; freshly
showered, in a bathrobe with a bowl of cereal in his lap. Same old
world, he thought, watching the morning news. Different locations
but no less violent than the day before.

Spooning soggy flakes into his mouth he eyed
the tattoo on his forearm, gray anchor laid over the Earth. Our
savage Earth, Kirk saw it as; and scripted below it, the words
semper fidelis. Always faithful, he said to himself, thinking it
should be semper idem, always the same.

Kirk swallowed and took in another spoonful
of flakes. He moved his eyes from the TV to the bookcase. He
scanned a row of books and stopped on the one he had gotten semper
idem from. He had read it after leaving the Marine Corps; along
with all the other books, read over the years after his discharge.
Before that, the only ones he had read were off his reading list at
school. Difficult, boring and meaningless at the time.

“Okay, then,” he muttered, he had learned a
Latin phrase from one of his books: semper idem. Asking himself now
what else he had learned from all those books.

Nothing. Not a damn thing that he could
remember.

No…there was something. Not a nice thought,
Kirk frowned, all that reading telling him what a fool he had been.
Throughout his teens, and then while in the marines—throughout his
entire twenties. In his early thirties now, this might not be the
end of it, he ruminated. Maybe future decades would be the same,
looking back to see what a fool he had been in the previous
one.

Semper idem, always the same, Kirk smiled
with sarcasm, eyes returning to the morning news.

And there it was, on the 32” screen, a
report on our troops. The dead and wounded halfway across the
world.

Kirk shifted on the sofa and felt the
shrapnel imbedded a centimeter from his spine. Too close to the
spine to have had it removed. But just far enough away not to be
debilitating. Kirk had often wondered if the feel of the shrapnel
was psychological instead of real.

He stared at the screen and the faces of his
platoon came back to him. Deep in memory he heard the explosion
that had come from behind him. Falling forward in the hot wind,
sand blowing over him, sand red with the blood of his fellow
marines.

Damn it, Kirk thought. It had been like
payback time for him. Like it had been some sort of karma that had
brought him down.

That same day, 12 hours before, the marine
from Ohio. Friendly fire. Lieutenant John Kirk with his slew of
marksmanship medals. Shot and killed the boy. Kirk honorably
discharged, carrying shrapnel in his back, carrying the Ohio boy’s
face with him, carrying both for the rest of his life.

The TV screen caught his attention, the
weather report on now. The weatherman smiling at him like a
comedian waiting for his laughs. Kirk assumed the smile was the
result of a joke he hadn’t heard.

He didn’t need any jokes right now, and he
didn’t need the sound. Everything he wanted to know was on the
weather map. Kirk steadied the cereal bowl in his lap, raised the
remote and pressed mute.

The map displayed a Pacific storm out over
the ocean. Due to bring San Pedro heavy clouds and fog tonight,
lasting through the weekend with an 80% chance of rain
tomorrow.

Damn it. Two days off with lousy weather.
Okay then, Kirk told himself, all the more reason to work on his
car tomorrow. Indoors on the lift; no excuses this time.

He glanced toward the hallway, where he
glimpsed a portion of the bedroom. Kirk could see Lisa’s bare feet
sticking out from beneath the blankets. She would be asleep until
10, 11 o’clock, he knew well enough. Instead of the bus, maybe he
ought to take her car to work.

No good, Kirk decided. When he got home he
would have to listen to her complain about having to borrow
Beverly’s car. He would walk to the bus stop. Taking the bus wasn’t
so bad; the ride a short one.

Remembering now that Lisa had gotten home
around 5:30 this morning. The club closed at 2. She was usually
home by 3, 3:30.

Kirk looked at his forearm. Semper fidelis,
always faithful…wondering…

The phone rang.

Reaching for it he almost knocked the cereal
bowl off his lap. “Hello,” Kirk said.

“John?” spoke the high-pitched male
voice.

“That’s me,” thinking that most everybody
called him Kirk.

“Oh, you bad boy; woke you up, didn’t
I?”

“No, no, I was already up,” Kirk said,
unable to recognize the voice. “Who is this?” he asked.

“Billy-mac,” the voice answered with a
giggle. “You were expected here at the gym a half-hour ago, and
your trainer is reee-ally pissed.”

“I don’t belong to a gym,” Kirk said, his
impatience growing.

“Oh, golly,” the voice said with another
giggle. “I’m speaking with John Oldach, aren’t I?”

“No, this is not John Oldach. You’ve got the
wrong number.”

“By golly, by gum, what a coincidence.
Calling the wrong number of a guy with the same first name. Sooo
sorry to bother you.”

“Forget it,” and Kirk hung up.

Chapter
9

“By golly, by gum,” Frank smiled, pleased
that his pigeon was at home.

Behind the wheel of his parked Lincoln, he
pocketed the Tom Pincus phone; his own still in his satchel losing
its charge. He reminded himself to use the car charger before
planting it on John Kirk’s body.

Frank had parked in the red zone at the
corner of 10th and Gaffey. Perfect place to stop and get John
Kirk’s number from information: there was a newspaper rack a few
feet from the curb.

He got out to buy one and paused to look at
his car. Better find a carwash today, he told himself. Oakland last
night, San Pedro this morning; all that dust and dirt on the
highway.

No surprise, Frank thought, so many people
with respiratory problems. He pictured future generations with
moist membranes in their mouths. Web-like air filters supplied by
Mother Nature, Frank struck suddenly by the sexual connotation of
his premise.

“Christ sake,” he complained aloud when he
saw the newspaper’s name stenciled on its rack: Daily Breeze. What
was that supposed to mean? he wondered. Was the San Pedro paper a
gossip rag?

That’s all right, Frank decided. Last
night’s Oakland Tribune was a first and had proven itself
worthwhile. Aside from the bra and panty ads, there had been the
human interest stories, and two Bay Area homicides to read about.
Hoping now that the Daily Breeze was more than it appeared to be,
that maybe it had at least one murder in it.

He got the correct change out and slipped it
into the rack. Frank always carried change. He had no sympathy for
those who didn’t. Ask him if he could break a dollar, he would say
he couldn’t. When it came to sympathy Frank had none, for anyone or
anything.

He folded the paper under his arm and
stopped at the curb. Glancing up and down Gaffey he wondered if San
Pedro got any better than this. The squat old buildings and shops
reminded him of an abandoned town he had driven through.

He then looked east and gazed down 10th, it
too lined with time-worn structures. Slanting downward a mile or
so, 10th crossed a half-dozen other streets and stopped at the
water. The Main Channel, Frank remembered from the map in his old,
worn Thomas Guide.

From where he stood he could see Terminal
Island at the far side of the channel, tied by bridge to San Pedro.
Treasure Island, Frank thought, its oil refinery freshly painted
and all aglitter; slim chimneys like giant candles, their fiery
tips near-invisible in the morning light. The God of Fuel’s
birthday cake, Frank imagined.

“Terminal Island,” he said softly.
Perfect-sounding place to bury a body.

But not John Kirk’s. His had to be found
soon after Frank killed him. Leave the body in the front seat of
his Lincoln, park it where the cops could easily find it. Frank
wanted Eddie Jones to hear about his dead errand boy as soon as
possible. Get him off the trail.

Brushing his blond hair back he turned
around and looked up the hill. He could see the first cross-street:
Cabrillo.

That’s where his pigeon’s nest sat, on the
other side of 10th, at the upper far corner; its big front lawn the
only thing to be seen. The rest of it blocked by an apartment
complex on the near corner.

Frank looked farther up 10th. From Cabrillo
it was near a mile to the crest of the hill. Where it was wooded,
and where the affluent lived with a view of the town and Main
Channel below. Along with the beauty of the Terminal Island
refinery, Frank smiled.

He pictured his map again and added the
ocean to their view. It was at the other side of the hill, where
Rancho Palos Verdes sloped downward to the beach. Frank then had to
assume they had a view of the ocean to the south.

South, he said to himself. Straight down
Gaffey to the bottom of San Pedro. Funny, he thought, a seaside
town that didn’t face the ocean, facing the Main Channel instead,
its land mass hanging limp off the California coast.

Frank lifted the cuff of his camelhair coat.
He checked the time and felt a touch of sadness. The watch was a
Patek Philippe, given to him as a gift; handsome and expensive. He
had no choice but to leave it behind on John Kirk’s wrist. The
inscription on the back would be part of identifying the body as
Frank’s.

Christ sake, the watch and the Lincoln. He
let out a grunt, realizing there was no point in getting the car
washed.