Hard Play (18 page)

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California winter
was
setting in over the Valley. The cold, sixty-five-degree air was brisk and bit at the skin. Frank popped the collar on his coat as he entered the Pinemoor courtyard. It was a long, uneventful day and he was looking forward to some socializing and unwinding. A party was just what he needed. Ed had dragged his barbecue down from storage and set it up on the side of the complex. There he stood over the leaping flames flipping vegan burgers, and turning golden sesame buns. Frank tipped his invisible hat to Ed as he squeezed past.

“How’s the shindig going?” Frank asked Ed.

Ed replied with a smile stuffed full of taste tests and a nod.

Once he had swallowed down the fake meat, Ed said, “Beers in the cooler. Relax. Rhonda and Cheryl, Pedro and Bill are here. Also Juanita, if you remember her and her husband Greg. They’ll be here. Connor and Eliza should be here in a bit too.”

“Will do,” Frank smiled as he stepped beyond Ed and onto the courtyard.

A few plastic tables were spread over the soil-filled Jacuzzi. Pedro sat alone in the corner drinking a beer and eating off a plate of burgers and potato chips. Ed’s apartment door was wide open and a set of tallboy speakers had been dragged out on to the balcony. Music blared down on the courtyard. A cluster of guests congregated about the folding table with its display of plastic utensils and Chinet. Bursts of conversation fluttered about as Frank wended his way through to the cooler of soda bottles and beer in the corner beside Rhonda and Cheryl.

“Ladies,” Frank said as he bent into the cooler. “Having a grand evening?”

He smiled up at Rhonda as he tapped the bottle expertly against the edge of the table, making the cap pop up in the air. With a jab of the hand, Frank caught the cap and swigged back on the brew.

Rhonda bellowed, “I think the Chargers might actually make it to the Super Bowl this year.”

“I don’t really follow,” Frank said as he sipped on his bottle.

She flexed her burly arms and hunched her shoulders like a linebacker. Reaching out with her big hands, she ruffled Frank’s shoulders.

“Ah, come on, Frank,” she laughed. “With a body like yours, you’re saying you never played?”

Frank shook his head and looked over at Cheryl. The splashes of pink wine dripping from her glass as she snorted and chuckled, showed how many sheets to the wind she really was. She laughed and laughed and then her feet betrayed her and she tumbled into Rhonda with a grunt.

“I hope you’re not on call,” Frank said with a smile, looking down on the flaccid lump of Cheryl hanging in Rhonda’s arms.

Cheryl shook her head with a smile and puffed up her cheeks and pursed her lips. Her face turned rosy red as she tried to contain herself. Rhonda laughed and hoisted Cheryl to her feet.

“No,” Rhonda said. “Doctor Cheryl here has the whole week off. We actually just got married.”

She swatted Cheryl’s ass, adding, “This is sort of our honeymoon.”

Cheryl’s smile faded into a frown. Then she burst out laughing again as she held up her ring.

“It’s true,” she said as she fell backward into Rhonda’s arms. Her voice was wistful and breathy. “We’re in love.”

Holding on to her wife, Rhonda threw up her big fat hand to show off the golden ring.

“Well,” Frank said as he tipped the mouth of his bottle toward them, “Congratulations.”

“Hey Frank,” Bill called from across the empty pool. “Ed said you’d have something with a few less calories.”

He was shaking an empty bottle as he circled the concrete pit. His pastel roller-derby tank fluttered, shifting the fabric back and forth over his hairy nipples and swollen pecs.

Frank twisted around and smiled toward Bill, lifting his hand in a wave.

“I don’t know how many more of these I can take before I have to put it in my food journal,” Bill laughed as he tossed his bottle in the bin beside Frank.

“Yeah, I have something with a few less calories,” Frank answered. “It’ll be stronger though.”

Bill lifted his chin and pounded his chest, saying, “Look at me, Frank. I can take stronger.”

Laughing, Frank replied, “Yeah, but can you appreciate it?”

Bill huffed and shoved his fists against his hips like an angry schoolgirl and snapped his neck from side to side.

“Okay,” Frank said with a laugh. “Be right back.”

He turned to the stairwell and headed up the steps. Coming to his door, he fished out his keys and slipped them into the brass knob. With a firm twist and a shove, Frank slipped into his apartment. The noise of the party downstairs was muffled as he let his door slam shut behind him. Without the lights on the balcony spilling in from the doorway it was too dark to see anything, but Frank knew exactly where to go. He didn’t need lights to find his liquor. He made his way past the boxed air in the window and knelt beside the bar. Feeling around in the small cabinet, he pinched a pair of highball glasses in one hand and a bottle in the other.

“Frank Black?” a female voice whispered from the darkness.

It was raspy, weak and breathless, sounding empty and distant despite its obvious presence in the corner of the room.

Frank jumped to feet and turned toward the voice. The glasses clanked in his hand.

“Who’s there?” he asked into the black living room as he moved to the switch-plate by the door.

She didn’t answer. Only her hoarse breaths repeated over the muffled music as Frank fumbled for the switch. With a flick, the lights flashed to life.

A young girl sat hunched in the corner before Frank’s computer desk. Her knees were against her chest. She was barefoot and nearly naked, wearing nothing but a thin white negligee. Her red hair was straggly and thin. It hung in messy clumps, hiding all of her face but for her gaunt, pale cheeks. She rocked back and forth, grasping her shoulders and staring down at Frank’s linoleum kitchen floor.

As Frank looked about the room, he saw the dirty footprints that stained his carpet and the red streaks sprawled along the wall leading to her place on the floor. She had dragged herself into the corner, stumbling through his living room and collapsing in his kitchen.

The girl lifted her face to speak. Squinting under the harsh bulbs overhead, she looked across the room to Frank. Before she could move her cracked lips, he had already dropped his scotch and the two glasses and was by her side. He tucked his open palm beneath her chin and lifted her face. Her red hair fell away and Frank realized it was heavy with blood. She peered at him with green eyes swollen in bruised flesh. The left one was so bad, it was nearly impossible to see the eyeball. From the looks of it, the socket was probably crushed. Her lips were puffy and chapped and discolored. Flakes of blood clung to her chin and neck like dried paint. The skin on her neck was peeled back in a collar of blue and black and red. Her fingers were cracked and blistered and scratches and cigarette burns covered her arms and legs.

“I don’t want to be a whore anymore,” she whimpered as she rubbed at her arms.

She struggled with the words. Her throat tightened around them and you could hear the syllables getting stuck in her dry throat as she spoke.

“Oh Doll,” Frank breathed. “Who did this to you?”

She shook her head.

“My name is Candy,” she rasped. “I was told you could help me.”

The name was all it took. Beneath all those bruises, Frank recognized the girl. She was one of the new dancers from Eazy’s. It’s a shame. She was so damn pretty before. He tried not to gasp at the realization. Easing her to her feet, he moved her to the couch. As he laid her back, she groaned and whimpered, trying her best not to cry from the pain. Bruises covered most of her body and from the looks of the lump in her wrist, her arm was broken. Frank stepped to the kitchen and filled a glass with water. Moving around the couch he set it on the coffee table beside Candy.

“Drink,” he said.

She reached for the glass with a shaky arm, then gave up. Letting her arm fall against the sofa, she shook her head.

“You need to protect me,” she whispered. “He’s going to kill me.”

Frank said with a shake of his head, “You need to go to the hospital, Candy.”

“No,” she whispered. “No hospital. He’ll find me.”

“Who?” Frank demanded.

She cringed and hugged her stomach. Leaning on her elbows, she bent her body forward and coughed. Red sprayed from her lips and dribbled down onto the silk of her lingerie.

With a dry yelp, she cried, “You have to protect me.”

“You need a doctor,” Frank stressed. “There’s one downstairs.”

He moved for the door.

“Don’t leave me alone,” she sobbed. “Please don’t.”

She tried to reach for Frank but her body only let her go so far. A high-pitched howl escaped her lips as she fell back into the couch, clutching her gut. Though you couldn’t see them within the swollen sockets, her green eyes darted back and forth around the room as she sank deeper into the couch.

“I’ll be just a minute,” Frank said as he opened his door.

“No,” she cried. “He’ll kill me. Don’t go.”

“I’ll be right downstairs,” Frank assured. “Nothing will happen to you while you’re in here.”

He stepped out onto the balcony, then turned around and said, “I promise.”

With a shove, he clicked the door shut and hurried to the stairs. After a few leaps, Frank flew off the last step and into the courtyard.

“Took you long enough,” Bill shouted with a grin, stopping in his tracks and frowning when he realized Frank’s empty hands.

Without paying any attention to Bill’s boorish observation, he made a straight line for Cheryl and Rhonda who were still standing by the cooler.

“Cheryl,” Frank huffed. “Are you okay to check out some injuries?”

She tipped her glass to Frank and smirked.

“I’m slur I am,” she slurred.

Frank sighed.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. She has a broken wrist,” he said. “And maybe a busted eye socket.”

Frank locked his fingers around Cheryl’s arm and said with a tug, “Just check her out, yeah?”

“Who has a broken eye socket?” Rhonda chirped, her husky voice booming over the loud music.

Frank pointed to the blue stucco over his head.

“Who had a broken eye socket?” Ed chimed in from behind.

Frank spun around and said, “Look Ed, you need to change my locks. That’s three break-ins this year.”

Just then, the music cut off and the lights went out. The conversations of the courtyard turned to confused whispers and the chirps of crickets and the hum of traffic took over.

Before anyone could ask what had happened, Candy’s body flipped over the edge of the railing. The white fabric of her negligee billowed around her as she tumbled through the air and smashed onto the concrete. Streams of red showered the white plastic lawn chairs and tables. Dots of crimson stained pant legs and skirts. Her head was gone and blood spurted from the exposed arteries beneath the ripped remains of her neck. It pooled at her shoulders and ran across the ground. The party-goers all gasped as they gawked at the bloody, still, headless hooker and the river of blood flowing into the empty pool. A hush came over the crowd.

As they stared, a hollow repetition of thuds started on the stairwell. They resounded faster and faster until each and every face had turned to the sound, waiting for the source to be revealed, waiting for the cold-blooded killer to pounce, blade in hand, ready to kill. With one last thump and a flop, a ball of messy, red hair and flesh rolled out into the courtyard. It teetered to a stop at Ed’s sandals. Candy’s dead eyes stared up at him. Blood pooled between his toes. He gasped and jumped backward into Frank’s arms.

Twisting around, Ed wailed, “What the fuck, Frank?!?”

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Keep an eye out for the following titles from Truelee Fiction

The Mediator Pattern by J.D. Lee
Now on Amazon in digital and paperback

Head Game: One Shade of Black 2 by Kurt Douglas

Coming Soon

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the city I live in, the people that inhabit it and the diversity that defines Los Angeles. Without all of that, there would be no inspiration for this story. I offer thanks to my readers and dutifully hope that each one of you have enjoyed this book. If you did, I ask that you leave a glowing review. Hell, even if you hated it... leave a review.

I give much deserved gratitude to Julane Marx, my wonderful copy editor. She poured a lot of time and effort into polishing this story until it was ready for releasing to the world. Without her, this would probably look more like an 8
th
grader's attempt at their first novel—after all, I'm a writer not a spelling-bee champion (and let's be honest, spell check doesn't capture everything).

And, of course, thank you, Eve, for talking me into writing this. Without you, this wouldn't be.

I also thank Truelee Fiction for giving me the opportunity to publish through their imprint.

Thank you very much for reading and I hope you keep an eye out for the next in the series, Head Game.

Oh, and for more fun with Frank, be sure to follow
@FrankBlackPD
on Twitter.

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