Hard Play (3 page)

Chapter 4

Frank popped his Ambassador
in park facing Huston Avenue. The brick Van Nuys community building jutted up from the pavement behind him. While he smoked his cigarette, his fingers tapped the silver buttons on his radio, looking for a station that wasn’t playing terrible commercials. He settled for an independent station playing a charity drive announcement that he knew always came before a good block of jazz. He drew on his smoke and waited for the announcement to end, looking about the lot in his mirrors. Tall pines reached for the hot, blue sky, separating Frank from the park and baseball fields full of barbecue parties, picnics, nannies and Little League on the back side of the building. As his eyes moved across the lot, he found himself fixated on a man in a blue corduroy suit with dusty blonde hair who seemed to be half-hiding behind a bush line, ducking with a grip on something shiny.

Frank watched in his rear-view as the man put the shiny object to his mouth and tipped it back. With a wipe of his sleeve against his lips, the man gave a grimace and then grinned. Frank knew that look. That was the look of a good, strong drink and the shine in his hand was a bottle of the stuff. The man stood for a moment, but fell back down. With most of his attention on keeping the bottle in his hand intact, he barely caught himself against the dirt. Frank shook his head as he watched the man stand yet again and brush the dirt from his pants. As the jazz finally burst through on the radio, a car pulled up before the main building, spooking the drunk in corduroy like a frightened rabbit. With a jump, he shoved his bottle in his pocket and disappeared behind the building. Now seemed as good a time as any to head inside. Frank clicked off the radio, threw open his door and stamped his cigarette out on the pavement. Straightening his collar, he moved across the lot.

Frank pulled his shades off, slipping them in his shirt as he pressed his hand against the front doors. The hallway inside was bare with a beige tiled floor and matching walls. His boots echoed as he headed forward. Stopping, he turned to a brown door on the right. With a twist of the knob and a deep breath, Frank went inside.

It was the usual setup. A handful of chairs faced a small podium; at the back of the room beside Frank was a plastic folding table with a sparse layout of cookies, doughnuts, coffee and juice. Frank poured himself a cup of coffee and palmed a doughnut. Ripping the pastry in half, he dunked it in the coffee and leaned against the wall.

Only a handful of people occupied the room; the usual self-destructive types. A few people stood in pairs scattered along the walls, murmuring to one another about the weather or their recent crippling relapse. Of the thirty or so chairs, only a few were occupied. An old homeless man in a wrinkled and stained army jacket leaned over a plate of cookies, shoveling them in his mouth as fast as he could. After every bite or so, he’d bring his crusty, black hand to his lips, wiping away the crumbs and leaving a fresh smear of grime on his face. He was shaking, spilling, and far too many sheets to the wind to give a damn about the mess he was making. More than likely, it was the free grub that brought him—not the help, and not the promise of sobriety. He’ll probably be leaving for a drink right after this. After all, sobriety won’t keep him warm at night.

A few chairs down from him, a fat man with a bag of potato chips breathed heavily and chomped loudly, making a roar of noise as he tore into his foil bag. He looked like he should be a few doors down at the Overeaters Anonymous meeting. His green tank top showed off the immense rolls of shiny fat that hung beneath his arms. Frank couldn’t help but grimace. It was worse than the grimy hobo scarfing down snack food like it was his last meal. Next in the row was a more-than-skinny girl covered in tattoos fidgeting with her short curls as she stared out the window. Her neck looked too thin beneath her thick hair and her head swayed back and forth as though it were trying to redistribute the weight. If you saw that skinny stick of a girl sitting where she was, next to that lard-ass, you couldn’t help but wonder why they weren’t sharing trade secrets on their awful lifestyles. But they didn’t talk to one another; she sat silently and he couldn’t stop chewing.

As the fat man dropped the last of his crumbs into his mouth, he stood and turned, his eyes on the table of food. He moved to the back of the room and Frank grabbed another doughnut before it could disappear down the fat man’s throat. Frank was right, the man grabbed a paper plate, shoved a doughnut in his mouth and piled his plate high with the last of them. No one else was getting any doughnuts.

He turned to Frank with a mouthful and said, “New?”

Frank nodded and tipped his paper cup of coffee. It took a bit of restraint to keep from ripping the man apart for being such a slob. Sloppiness was just one of those things that rubbed Frank the wrong way.

The man shrugged, smiled from behind the doughnut pinched in his lips and returned to his seat.

Finishing his coffee, Frank looked at the clock. Whoever was supposed to be running this meeting was already fifteen minutes late.
First time I show and this is what I get.
He decided to give them a few more minutes and moved to the coffee pot for a refill. Just as his cup had filled to the brim, the door beside him burst open and the man in corduroy, the drunk from the lot, spilled into the room. He knocked into Frank with a belch and sent the lukewarm coffee spraying up Frank’s shirt with a splash.

“Sorry,” he breathed into Frank’s face. His breath was ripe and stank with the scent of cheap vodka. “You here for the meeting?”

Frank stared down on the man, his eyes narrowing as he threw his doughnut in the trash and wiped lazily at his shirt. The drunk tried to help. He swatted at Frank’s chest and hands, mostly just getting in the way.

“Mm-hmm,” Frank said with a scowl. With one final swat at the man’s hands Frank asked, “You?”

“Yeah, just give me a minute,” the guy said through a burp. “I’ll get started. Let me just get some of this.”

He pushed through Frank to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup, spilling most of it on the beige tile below. Shakily, the drunk brought the cup to his lips and took a careful sip. Frank glared and ripped a handful of napkins from the table and dabbed at his chest with a bit more force than needed.

“Ever one,” the drunk blurted, raising his voice above the murmur of chitchat. “Seas, pleats.”

Frank’s jaw practically fell as he realized this drunk, this reeking excuse for a man, this bum that still had dirt on his slacks from the startle he got while sneaking a drink out front, who could barely get the proper words out of his stinking mouth—this was the man planning to help these people. What did he think? That somehow, through that haze of vodka, he could persuade these folks into steering clear of the very spirits he couldn’t avoid himself? Frank scoffed out loud and lit one of his Pall Malls. At first, only the fat man noticed, turning his nose up at the sudden burst of burning tobacco in the back of the room.

Then the skinny girl turned. She was pretty enough. Too skinny beneath all that white make-up and her short hair only drew more attention to her sharp features and downturned nose. She saw Frank’s cigarette smoldering and followed suit. She brought an extra-long and extra-thin Virginia Slims to her lips and, with the flick of a match, she was smoking too. The room was quickly filling with a thin haze that reminded Frank of the pre-1995 California smoking ban. He smiled at his little rebellion. His skinny follower smiled in return.

The man in the corduroy suit stumbled his way to the front of the room, right past the smoking girl, and took his place behind the podium. When setting down his paper cup, he missed by a good foot and sent yet another cup of coffee reeling to the floor. As though he didn’t even notice, which he probably didn’t, he started in.

“My name is Devon,” he said. “And I’ve been an alcoholic for—”

His words ceased as he looked around the room, sniffing at the air. After a few pokes with his nose at the empty space around him, Devon, the alcoholic in corduroy, squinted his eyes and sneered across the room at Frank. He leaned forward and gripped the podium for balance.

“Can’t smoke in here,” he articulated as best he could. His body swayed despite his bracing against the wood.

Skinny girl stamped hers out in a heartbeat. Frank smiled and took another deep drag, unmoving beside the table, his shirt still wet and covered in brown coffee spots.

“Probably shouldn’t be drunk in here,” Frank said loudly while pointing to the stains on his chest. He puffed long and hard, then added under his breath, “Least I’m just hung over.”

Frank pulled his shades over his eyes. Devon froze. Then, slowly he looked about the room. All eyes were on him and his dusty blue suit. Not that everybody hadn’t already known he was shit-faced, but now that it was out, now that someone had spoken the words, somehow it seemed more difficult for the lot of them to stay. One by one the room emptied. Devon stumbled out after them trying desperately to explain himself, but his group was lost to the blazing afternoon sun. Frank stamped his cigarette out on the floor.

As he left the room, he looked back on the empty chairs and whispered to himself, “Forget this shit. Not my scene. I’m going to the strip club.”

Chapter
5

The night was late
. The music was loud. Eazy’s was the type of place you could get a drink, disappear in the shadows and watch a good show. It wasn’t a hot spot. You didn’t have to wait in a line or dress a certain way or know a special someone. No, Eazy’s was simple, central and cool. Frank tried his best to keep it that way.

It wasn’t long after Frank’s mom left that his dad, Dean, got the call. Diana had passed away and he and a much younger Frank were fifty-five thousand richer. Turned out no one ever finalized the divorce and Dean was still listed as her beneficiary on all the important forms, including the life insurance policy. Frank left home that next month. He wanted nothing to do with what he called, “blood money.” But times changed. Dean got sick and Frank came home to help out. Before all that, Dean did well for a few years with stocks and trading and pulled out while he was still ahead. He’d turned that fifty-five thousand into millions before he retired from the force and succumbed to dementia. If you asked anyone, Frank was co-owner at Eazy’s, but really he was just running it for his dad. His name wasn’t on any of the papers that mattered and what little profits the place managed to choke out went right to Dean. It didn’t pay the bills, but Frank felt at home here and it didn’t hurt that the drinks were free.

The tarnished floorboards reeked of stale beer and Lysol. Flowers and vodka clung to the crowded, salty air. Frank sat at the bar, his highball glass in hand. He shook the empty glass at the bartender, begging quietly for another drink. Ted, the bald, doughy piece of work behind the bar, uncapped a bottle of bottom-shelf scotch and tipped it into Frank’s glass. His fuzzy knuckles shook as he poured.

“No top-shelf tonight?” Frank grimaced.

“Even as the boss-man,” Ted said. “Can’t let you drink us into the red.” He tugged at the collar of his long-sleeved emerald-green polo and smiled.

“Fair enough.”  Frank took a sip, then asked, “Where’s Julio?”

Ted capped the scotch and placed it back on the bottom shelf, answering, “He’s in the back, interviewing the new dancers.” He ran one of his oversized hands across his bald scalp. “A few lookers this time. He might even find something other than more for the Tuesday afternoon shift.”

“Good,” Frank said. “Make sure he keeps his hands to himself this time, will you?”

Frank tipped his glass and turned to the stage.

“How’s the old man?” Ted asked into the black wool of Frank's back.

Frank didn’t turn around.

“Sick,” he said with a shrug, then pushed his way through the crowd to his booth in the corner.

Plopping down in his seat, he watched. He didn’t speak. He didn’t talk. You weren’t meant to talk in places like this, you were meant to stare. That’s why they play the music so loud. That’s why the lights are on the stage and not at the tables. The patrons all probably know him. They most likely recognize him—hell, he’s there enough—but Frank wouldn’t know. He didn’t care. This may have been his spot, but few of them were his people.

His furrowed brow and tight jaw evidenced his inability to shake the face of Judge Johnson. He kept getting lost in his scotch instead of drinking it. Usually he’d be up there with the rest of the old men and perverts, tossing crumpled bills at the passably beautiful girls he employed. Instead, he just swirled the amber liquid around and around, ignoring the bare chest and perfect nipples of the tight young blonde biting dollar bills off his stage.

As the blonde finished cleaning up her tips with her teeth, the DJ announced the next dancer. “All the gentlemen in the club, get your wallets out and welcome the newest addition to the Eazy’s line-up. The delectable, the delicious, the heavenly, sweet Candy!”

Swallowing the scotch down, Frank slammed the glass on the table and turned his attention to the new girl, a slender redhead coming out on stage. She was already half naked before she’d even started. Not much of a striptease if all the skin’s already showing. Frank stood anyhow, deciding to get a closer look at his newest bare doll grinding against the pole. The men seemed to like her. Bills were already raining on the stage. Maybe starting out in the buff wasn’t such a bad idea. As Frank stood, his cell buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and held it up to his ear.

“Black,” he tried to say over the music.

He shouted, “Hold on.”

He squeezed his way out of the club. Once on the street, he held the phone back to his ear.

“Yeah?”

A familiar voice came through from the other end, “Mr. Black, this is Amy Van. We spoke this afternoon.”

Frank’s voice smoothed. “Good evening, Mrs. Van.”

“It’s Doctor Van, Mr. Black,” she huffed. “And I never married.”

“My mistake,” Frank feigned.

“Enough with the small talk, Mr. Black. I didn’t call to have a conversation.” Her voice was bitter, cold and stern, and Frank loved it.

He smiled as she continued through the earpiece.

“We visited Ms. Johnson’s home in Calabasas this afternoon.”

She waited and when Frank said nothing, she continued, “There was a break-in. Someone threw a rock through the back door. It’s funny, Mr. Black, finger prints everywhere but on that rock. Just the rock was wiped clean.”

She paused then asked, “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“No ma’am, wouldn’t know a thing about that,” Frank said as he took a cigarette out and lit it.

Amy Van went on, “Nothing was missing except a stack of papers from the desk in her office and a small black day-planner.”

Frank interrupted, smoke following the words through his teeth, “How do you know those things are missing?”

He pulled the black book from his coat and inspected it, turning it over in his hand. He opened the front cover, revealing the words,
The Schedule of Mary-Beth Johnson
, scrawled across the front page.

“We just do, Mr. Black,” she quipped.

Then, in a disgusted tone, she asked, “Are you smoking?”

Frank looked at the cigarette, then the phone, then back at the cigarette before tossing the whole smoke on the sidewalk.

Stomping it out with his foot he said, “No.”

“I’d appreciate if you didn’t,” she demanded.

Without pause she interrogated him one last time about the break-in. When Frank stood by his story, she disconnected the call.

Frank stared at his phone for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders and shoved it back in his pocket. Holding the day-planner tight in his hand, Frank made his way back into the bar to finish getting drunk.

He pushed his way back to his corner and found a freshly poured scotch waiting for him. Not one to ask questions, he swigged it back and hailed Ted for another.

As he sat in wait for his third glass of scotch, Frank browsed the photos on his phone. Frank never left a crime scene without capturing an ample amount of photographic evidence. It had become a habit of his; a requisite for the job. Being of the private sector, Frank didn’t have the liberty of returning to a crime scene without raising suspicion or breaking laws. Though Frank was no stranger to bending the rules, he knew they’d have it in for him if he started stepping on the wrong toes, and when Frank started stepping on toes, bones were bound to break. In the past, it was usually his own, so this was his compromise; stealing evidence, snapping photographs and keeping quiet about the whole thing.

Frank scrolled through the thumbnails. Pictures of Judge Johnson’s contorted body and agonizing stare flashed across his eyes. Then, interrupting his descent into misery, a delicate hand with long, French-tipped nails reached across his view, placing his next scotch on the table.

“Hey there, stranger,” a husky, breathless voice called out from above.

Frank looked up to see the owner of the sultry voice and dainty hand. Standing over him was a sexy, slender librarian with dark brown hair and legs that went on for days. Her blouse was unbuttoned, revealing the swollen curves of her milky breasts, her nipples barely covered by the thin, white fabric. Small, horn-rimmed glasses were perched on her tiny nose and a copy of
Catcher in the Rye
gripped in her hand. You could just barely taste the lavender of her perfume over the salty flowers and spilled beer of the club. She planted her stiletto on the seat beside Frank and spread her knees, showing him the thin sheet of red lace deep between her thighs.

“Nice, Doll,” Frank said as he looked her up and down.

She leaned forward, smiling and arching her back as she swung her shoulders from side to side, giving him a better view of the mountains beneath her blouse.

“Care for some company?” she cooed.

Frank tapped the book in his pocket as he considered the work to be done. Then, without much of a pause, he turned his phone face down on the table.

“I’d love some, Rose,” he declared, wrapping his palm around his glass, taking a swig and scooting to make room for her.

Of all the girls at Eazy’s, Rose was definitely his favorite. She always had been, ever since he started watching over this place. She was his backup. What he couldn't do—or wouldn't do—she would.

She sat close, crossing her long, creamy thigh over his wrinkled black slacks.

“How are things, Frank?” she asked as she ran her nails along his neck. “You look troubled. Been a long day?”

“It has,” he said, brushing her hand away.

He looked at her and smiled, “How’s business outside the club?”

She threw him a pout and answered, “Business is business, honey.” Tipping her glasses to inspect Frank, she asked, “How about you? Where’ve you been?”

Frank flipped over his phone so he could see the face, Johnson’s body prominent on the screen.

“Here and there,” he replied.

She traced her fingers over his chest, saying, “I see you’re wearing that vest again under there.” She flicked her nail against the hard Kevlar.

“Always,” Frank declared. “It’s L.A. Everyone should wear a vest.” He gulped the last inch from his glass and said, “You know, I’m going to need some more filing done at the apartment if you’re interested.”

He raised his hand to signal Ted, but Rose pushed it down.

“Let me get you another,” she said.

She stood and dipped between the sloppy patrons at the bar. Within a few breaths, Rose appeared with another highball and handed it to Frank, returning to her seat half on his lap.

Taking another sip, Frank realized he was seeing two of her. The glass slipped from his fingers, spilling across the table with a clink. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes.

“Are you okay, Hon?” Rose asked.

“It’s a heavy pour tonight.”

He felt the words fall out like sludge. His tongue felt gritty in his mouth and his teeth sticky against his lips. The room started to spin. He felt his stomach wrench inside his gut.

“I gotta.”

That’s all Frank managed to say as he pushed past her and to the bathroom. The walls collapsed inward as he stumbled down the tight hall and through the drunk crowd. Pushing through the men's room door, everything went black.

***

Frank woke up on the floor with a splitting headache. The light coming in through the mini-blinds sliced into his retinas like razor blades. He cringed as he struggled to his feet. Pushing himself upward with the end table as a crutch, he finally got himself upright. He rubbed his temples as he shuffled toward the fridge.

Groaning, Frank leaned into the refrigerator and pulled out a can of beer. Popping the top, he gulped it down.

He let out a refreshed sigh and said to no one, “That’s better.”

Standing in the kitchen corner of his studio apartment, Frank noticed the manila folders scattered at his feet. He looked around the room, realizing that his whole apartment had been destroyed, ransacked. Stacks of papers were knocked into piles, dresser drawers and desk drawers pulled onto the floor, the couch cushions ripped up and tossed about. Hell, the only thing left untouched was the fridge.

Frank didn’t move. He sipped his beer and took it all in.

Then his eyes widened as he patted his pockets. His frantic hands moved up and down until they settled on the square outline of the day-planner resting in his pants pocket.

The front door burst open and Ed came tumbling into the room.

“I just can’t shake something she said at the gym,” he rattled before making eye contact.

Then he saw the mess. He stopped in his tracks.

“What the hell happened, Frank?”

Frank continued nursing his beer as he looked around the room. Then, focusing on Ed, Frank shrugged.

“No clue,” he said. Finishing the can, he tossed it on the ground. “Room’s a mess anyway,” he growled as he tossed some cushions on the couch and took a seat. “Sit down, Ed.”

Ed sat down. It was obvious he was rattled.

“The last time I saw her, she said someone had followed her that morning. To the gym. I completely dismissed her, Frank. That makes me a horrible person. It’s my fault.”

He longed for a hug that Frank would never give.