Dangerous Times (11 page)

Kirk twisted it from the stubby hand and
threw it on the desk. Staub jumped up and gave him a hard shove.
Kirk flew back against the file cabinet, slid to the floor and sat
stunned.

He heard the pull of a desk drawer. Then
before he knew it Staub was standing over him with a 10mm Colt.
“Said I’m callin’ her back!” he roared, the gun in Kirk’s face.

The ex-marine’s hand flashed up to Staub’s,
grabbing it, forcing the gun aside. Struggling against the
resistance, Kirk did what he was taught. He let go suddenly and the
heavy bastard was thrown off balance. Kirk’s booted foot slammed
into Staub’s gut and the Colt flew to the floor.

Kirk scurried toward it on all fours.

Staub’s body folded in pain. He turned to
the desk and laid his hands on it for support. Behind him Kirk got
hold of the gun and rose to his knees with it.

Staub swung around and cracked him in the
head. Kirk swayed on his knees and the brass tire iron returned to
crack him again.

Staub stood over him, tire iron raised for
another strike. Kirk wasn’t moving, sprawled on the floor, hair
matted with blood.

Staub got down and listened for a
heartbeat…“Aww, shit,” he howled.

He pounded Kirk’s chest. “Time for round
two, Johnny-boy!” Pounding, then listening. “Your fault, comin’
between me an’ Beverly!” he sobbed drunkenly. “She finds out…aww
fuck, what’ve I done…”

Chapter
25

Gun time, Frank said to himself, still
parked in the shadows. All he had to do was drive onto Staub’s lot,
get out, knock on the office door, and then tell his pigeon he had
thought no one was around. With the gates left open, at least one
of the cars on the lot would have been gone by sunrise, he planned
to say.

Kill him in the doorway, Frank thought, then
drag his body a few feet into the passenger seat of the
Lincoln.

About to start the car he froze. The first
bay door was rolling upward. The moon slipped out from behind a
cloud. Its glow gave Frank a good view of the guy he had earlier
guessed to be Staub the proprietor, wearing a sheepskin jacket now,
nervously running a hand over his salt-and-pepper crew cut.

Frank wondered where the devil he had come
from, and he watched him disappear back into the unlighted bay.
There it is again, Frank frowned, the unexpected.

That’s all right, he told himself. Two
bodies for the price of one.

But then taillights reddened the darkness.
Perfect, Frank thought. Staub was leaving. All the better, John
Kirk alone when he meets his Maker.

The pickup backed out of the bay, turned
around and drove between the left-open gates. Staub braked at the
curb, stumbled out and moved unsteadily toward the fence.

The guy’s loaded, Frank figured. “Christ
sake,” he complained aloud. His pigeon was in the passenger seat;
head down, looking like he was asleep.

Staub locked the gates, staggered back into
his pickup, peeled out into the street and went south. Frank
glanced at the taillights in his side mirror. He started the car
and looked at the dash clock. Pulling forward he went into a
U-turn.

Thinking if this doesn’t end in the next
hour or so, he would burn all of San Pedro down. Show them all the
horror of his hellish anger.

Chapter
26

“Slow down!” Staub hollered at the body in
the passenger seat. “Cops stop us—aww fuck, don’ want that, do we,
Johnny-boy.”

Staub’s head slid into a drunken spin.
Driving slowly now he looked at his whiskey bottle, stuck upright
between the body’s legs. “An’ no drinkin’ while drivin’!” he
slurred with a burp. He lowered the window. The night air was like
a slap in the face; sobering enough to keep him from weaving out of
his lane.

The light ahead snapped from yellow to red.
Staub came to a sudden stop. He heard the shrill scrape of metal
against metal. He turned to the back window and saw his shovel in
the bed of the pickup.

“Forgot to tell ya,” Staub said. “No fuckin’
prison for me—an’ no Beverly findin’ out. Gotta bury ya,
Johnny-boy; gotta-gotta-gotta,” he rattled off.

But where, Staub wondered, his boozed-up
mind ajumble with foggy possibilities. He stared at the traffic
light and squinted at the sign that hung alongside it: 25th
Street.

“Picnic!” he blurted out. He reached over
and shook the body. “C’mon, you were there; where was it?!”

“Aw, Johnny-boy,” he pleaded, “it was your
Mom found the place. An’ your Daddy was there,” he reminisced. “Ray
Kirk…dumb asshole, never knew how much I wanted to fuck his
wife.”

The light went to green. Staub knew it was
25th he needed, bring him over the hills to the ocean side. But the
rest of it…he contemplated the route aloud, as if his passenger
were able to help him:

“25th into Rancho Palos fucking Verdes,
to-uhhh, where it becomes Palos Verdes fucking Drive. To-uhhh…the
bend! Yeah, pas’ the bend, to, uh-uh-uh, Mount, Mount
somethin’…”

Staub slapped the steering wheel. “Not
Mount. Mont! Mont-Mont-Mont—Crestmont, that’s it!” he laughed.
“Good boy, Johnny-boy. What a good fucking memory you got!”

Staub made the right onto 25th. He drove
upward and again thought back to the picnic in the woods. The
clearing with plenty of places to dig, he remembered. Bev…Beverly,
he smiled, like a movie star back then. “Boy-oh-boy,” he said to
Kirk’s body. “Your Mom’s still got it. Tits an’ ass—whew!”

Staub’s eyes filled with moisture as he
turned onto the hilly road ahead. “Beverly,” he choked tearfully.
“Aww, fuck me…”

Chapter
27

Staub turned off Palos Verdes Drive and
drove up Crestmont Lane, a hillside of gated homes, each with a
clear view of the ocean. “Kind’a like li’le hotels, huh,
Johnny-boy,” Staub drooled with envy for those who were richer than
him.

He took the curves cautiously. Crestmont
soon became an unlighted dirt road, the bordering trees thick and
ominous. “Keep them eyes peeled,” he told the body. “Don’ wanna
miss it.”

“There,” he said. Staub pulled over into the
brush, headlights on the bridle path that slanted upward into the
woods. Barely wide enough for the pickup he worried about branches
scratching the paint; and what if he got stuck in the dirt. Tire
tracks, he thought. Better stay put.

Staub shut the lights and cut the engine. He
laid his bloodshot eyes on Kirk slumped against the passenger door.
“You’re gonna love it here, so quiet ‘n’ peaceful.”

He pulled the Jack bottle from between the
body’s legs. He uncapped it and took a swig. Recapping it he slid
out into the night with it. He unzipped his sheepskin jacket,
unbuttoned his flannel shirt and stuffed the bottle under it.

Staub buttoned the shirt, zipped up his
jacket and looked skyward. “Fuck you,” he said to the moon that
hung between a set of cumulus clouds. “Jus’ keep your trap shut,”
he warned the moon, uncomfortable with its big pale face watching
him.

Twigs snapped underfoot as he went around to
the passenger side. Opening the door, the body dropped against him.
Staub filled his lungs and hefted the load over his shoulder. He
steadied himself, kicked the door closed, reached into the bed of
the pickup and grabbed his shovel.

Staub trudged up the bridle path, the
treetops ghostly white under the pallid moon, lower branches
wrapped in shadow. “Ooooo,” Staub bayed softly, “real spooky, huh,
Johnny-boy.”

He huffed and puffed his way upward and had
to stop now and again to catch his breath. Finally reaching the
crest he dropped to his knees and let the body leave his shoulder.
It unfolded in the dirt of the bridle path, Kirk’s face all the
more ghastly in the moonlight.

Staub dropped the shovel, got up and put his
hands on bent knees. While waiting to catch his breath he scanned
the clearing where they’d had the picnic. It was like he
remembered, so long ago.

He straightened, unzipped his jacket,
unbuttoned his shirt and pulled the bottle out. Uncapping it he
took a swig. He capped it and held the bottle neck in his chubby
hand. “Don’ go anywhere,” he said to Kirk’s body.

Staub lifted the shovel and wandered over
the clearing’s moonlit patches of dirt and grass, the encircling
trees a wall of blackness.

“Ah-ha!” he declared, finding a suitable
area of bare ground. Staub dropped the shovel to mark the spot,
then placed the Jack bottle down alongside it.

He returned to the body as a massive shadow
wrapped the clearing. Staub looked up and discerned the clouds that
had hidden the moon. “Aw, shit,” he grumbled. The flashlight was at
the shop. He kicked the body. “Stupid bastard!” he hollered
drunkenly. “Ya forgot to remind me!”

Staub turned around, lifted Kirk’s booted
ankles and dragged the body toward the burial spot. Once there he
let go of the legs and said, “Okay, Johnny-boy, we’re home.”

A while later Staub had a shallow grave dug.
He planted the shovel in the mound of dirt and looked at the body
at the far side of the hole. “At ease, marine,” Staub snorted.
“Break time, then a couple more feet to dig.”

He took a swig of the Jack. The wind kicked
up and he heard the shudder of leaves. He looked down the slope of
the clearing and saw stars through the shivering branches. “Hey,”
he whispered, “what the fuck you stars doin’ down there, ‘stead’a
above me?”

Staub carried his bottle downward and
stopped at the bordering trees. “Ahhh,” he smiled, understanding
now. “Not stars,” he said to the distant lights. “Boats, fucking
boats in the ocean.”

Beverly, he thought. “Yeah, ‘at’s what I’ll
do,” he plotted aloud, “take her on a seein’ cruise. Jus’ what the
ol’ girl’ll need after bein’ abandoned by her Johnny-boy.”

Staub turned and squinted up the slope,
unable to see the gravesite in the darkness. “Johnny-boy,” he
yelled. “Not gonna come ‘tween me an’ your Mom anymore, are ya, ya
miserable fuck!”

He headed back up there. Arriving at the
spot, Staub stuck his bottle in the mound of dirt. “Room with a
view,” he snickered toward the body. “Maybe get to see the ship me
an’ your Mom’ll be on. Get to wave bye-bye.”

“Couple more feet,” Staub said, and he
reached for the shovel.

It was gone.

Staub ran a hand over his crew cut and
studied the ground around him. He gazed at the body at the other
side of the hole and said, “Wha’d ya do with the fuckin’
shovel?”

Frank came up behind him and said, “Thanks
for the favor, buddy.”

Staub turned to see him swing the shovel,
then heard the backside of the blade clank against his skull. There
was no more for Staub to hear as he fell into the shallow grave
like a dropped elephant.

Chapter
28

“Be right back,” Bettina said, slipping out
of bed.

Ben Hicks watched her start for the
bathroom, eyes on her tasty chocolate body. But, oh man, he
lamented, not as sweet as Celia’s, remembering the cocoa color of
his ex-wife’s silky skin.

Bettina returned bedside and shook the
lotion bottle. “This is going to make you feel sooo good,” she
smiled.

Hicks rolled over onto his stomach. “Not as
good as being inside you,” he said, “an’ that’s the truth.”

No it wasn’t, Hicks frowned into the pillow.
It was Celia he wanted to be inside of, and never would
again…remarried to that white motherfucking corporate lawyer.

Bettina worked the lotion between her hands,
straddled his buttocks and massaged his back. “Want me to go to the
hospital with you?” she asked.

Yeah, right, Hicks thought, show up to visit
the kid with a hooker at his side. “No, baby,” he said lightly.
“This’s somethin’ I gotta do on my own.”

“You’ve been good to me, Ben. Do anything
you say. Saved my ass I don’t know how many times.”

“Nothin’ to it,” he said, feeling the
pleasure of her fingers digging into his back, “long as you keep it
here at home an’ not on the streets.”

“What happens if they throw you off the
force?”

“You get in trouble, you go to Detective Tim
Burns.” Hicks eyed the still-boxed chicken on the nightstand,
brought for Bettina from the Chicken Shack after his dinner with
Burns.

“He the red-headed cop?” Bettina asked.

“Yeah, baby,” Hicks answered. “I’ll tell him
about you. He’ll keep you safe.”

She said, “And you be sure to tell him to
call first.”

“Don’t have to; he’d never come up here for
a piece. He’s not that way.”

“Big good-looker like that, and he’s gay?”
she snickered.

“No, baby, he’s not gay. I mean he does
somebody a favor, he don’t want anything in return.”

Bettina stretched herself over his back like
a blanket. “If they do take your badge,” she whispered in his ear,
“we can keep it the same. No charge to your budget.”

“You’ve always been good to me,” Hicks told
her. Budget, he thought then. Money. Big shitload’a money, that’s
all he needed to set himself free…that should be easy, he almost
laughed.

Hicks noticed the clock on Bettina’s
dresser: 10:14. Better get himself together if he was going to make
the hospital visit. Show his shield so they’d let him see the
Sinclair kid. Hoping the kid’s parents wouldn’t be there this
late.

No…hoping instead that they would be there,
there to see how sorry he was about bashing their little fucker’s
face in.

“Say, baby,” he yawned, “mind if I take a
quick shower?”

“Mind if we share the soap?” she
giggled.

Hicks rolled over under her, faced her
banana tits and said, “‘Course not.”

Chapter 29

“Awww…” Bob Staub moaned, waking in the
darkness with head pounding. He rubbed his temples and crinkled
open his eyes. “Windows,” he mumbled, feeling cold, hands leaving
his aching skull to push himself out of bed. “Forgot to close
the—”