Hollywood Moon (23 page)

Then he proceeded to the little apartment in Thai Town, where uniformed officers were protecting the scene until the detectives,
criminalists, and body snatchers arrived. He stepped inside to take a peek at Melissa Price, aka Samuel Allen Danforth, lying
on the floor, shot once in the chest and once in the face. The latter round caused grotesque damage to the left orbit but
nothing like the trauma inflicted on Timothy Thatcher by the Remington shotgun at close range. The detective snapped another
camera-phone photo and returned to the office, satisfied that he’d seen everything worth looking at.

By the time the first homicide detectives had arrived back at Hollywood Station from both scenes, they found that Compassionate
Charlie Gilford had downloaded the grisly photos of both young men and had printed out and taped the images to the homicide
team’s computer. Below he had typed, “Sometimes it just don’t turn out like that pup tent romp on Brokeback Mountain.”

W
HILE AT HIS JOB
the next morning, Malcolm Rojas decided to call the man he knew as Bernie Graham and ask him once and for all about that
job. The man had been unreliable so far and had not called him last evening as promised. Malcolm had not slept well, his thoughts
returning again and again to that woman who’d nearly gotten him caught. Every time he thought of the experience, anger welled.
They were all alike and he hated them. But when he looked at his swollen left hand and the abrasions on his knuckles, the
anger was mixed with stabs of fear and even shame. When she’d started screaming, he’d been terrified and hadn’t known what
to do. He should’ve slashed her throat with the box cutter to shut her up, and now he wished that he had.

Then he forced himself to think of Naomi, that tender, young girl with the shy smile who really liked him. Would she grow
up to be one of
them?
Somehow he didn’t think so. She had natural blonde hair, not like theirs, and she was sweet and kind, not like them. Her
number was in his cell phone, and several times he’d been tempted to call her and see if she wanted to hang out. He thought
he just might do that, but first he needed money. What he cleared from his job as warehouse helper was pitiful, now that he
had to give his mother a third of his take-home pay. As soon as he made some real money, he’d call Naomi and take her to the
beach in his Mustang. The car needed tires, but soon he’d have the money to buy tires, and lots else.

He dialed Bernie Graham, got his voice mail, and said, “Mr. Graham, this is Clark, the guy you met at Pablo’s Tacos. I wanna
talk to you about the job. Please call me.”

After leaving his cell number, he resumed slashing open the tape on one side of the boxes, removing the merchandise, and slashing
the tape on the other side to flatten the boxes for recycling. When he worked up a sweat, the intensity of his feelings became
manageable.

Dewey got to sleep in late that morning, only because Eunice had an appointment with her gynecologist for a regular checkup.
She’d tried to get him out of bed at seven thirty even though he had no morning meetings with runners, and of course that
started the bickering.

Before she left the apartment at 8
A.M
. Eunice had popped her head into his bedroom once again and said, “Dewey, if I call here in thirty minutes and you don’t
answer, I’ll know you went back to sleep.”

“Can’t I sleep in for once, Eunice?” Dewey whined. “For once in my fucking life?”

“No!” she yelled. “You gotta go to the bank and write a check on the deposit I made from that rental gag. One measly rental
check is all we get from that account because you couldn’t manage to hook up with a housebreaker who was dumber than you.
That means, Dewey, now you gotta open another account at another bank, unless you wanna risk using the same one and hope the
renters haven’t yet figured things out and called their bank. So get your ass outta bed!”

“Gimme a break, Eunice!” he’d moaned with his pillow over his head. That voice! She sounded like an old parrot with bronchitis.
“One fucking break, one time. That’s all I ask.”

“I don’t get a break,” she snapped. “I gotta work from the crack of dawn till midnight sometimes. Why’re you so special?”

“Speaking of cracks,” Dewey said wearily, “are you having your annual pap smear?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Tell your doctor to say hello to your gizmo for me,” Dewey said. “She sees it more often than I do.”

“Asshole!” Eunice said, slamming the door behind her.

But at least she hadn’t called to check on him. The 9:15
A.M
. call on the Bernie Graham cell phone was what woke him. He picked it up but did not recognize the number before saying,
“Bernie Graham speaking.”

He heard a youthful voice say, “Mr. Graham, this is Clark, from Pablo’s?”

“Clark?” he said, pausing until his head cleared. “Oh, yeah. Clark.”

“I left a message for you. You said you’d call, and I thought maybe you lost my number.”

“Sorry, Clark,” Dewey said. “I’m very busy. Look, why don’t I meet you today after you get off work? How about you come to
the donut shop next to the cyber café on Santa Monica Boulevard at quarter after five? Know where it is?”

“I’ll be there, Mr. Graham,” Malcolm said.

After Dewey made his date with the kid, he lay there staring at the ceiling. He was losing his nerve and he knew it. So far
he’d been very lucky. He’d felt confident that the trouble he went through, juggling his identities to keep his runners in
the dark, was worth it, despite Eunice’s constant belittling.

The incessant opening and closing of bank accounts with bogus IDs, and depositing bogus checks as well as legitimate checks
from gags they’d pulled—all of that was bad enough. But having to be present for merchandise deliveries that Eunice ordered
online or on the phone was nerve-racking. Yesterday, for example. Look how exposed and vulnerable he’d been on that porch
in Los Feliz, but she didn’t care. She was confident, cocky, even, because she was never out on the streets dealing with vermin,
any one of whom might be cutting a secret deal with the cops to nail their employer: Jakob Kessler or Ambrose Willis or Bernie
Graham.

He felt sure that none of the runners could direct the cops to a Dewey Gleason if they became police snitches. Even his car
had been bought and registered under a bogus name at a bogus address, so if a runner gave the cops his license number, it
wouldn’t help them. No, it was those times when he had to be there to do the pickups and collecting that were making him old
before his time. What if the college kid at the Pacific Dining Car had been popped at an Indian casino by security officers
and had flipped? What if cops had been concealed out there in the parking lot, watching them when the kid had given back to
him the bogus cards and other ID, along with his share from the casinos?

He’d been totally exposed that night for a very small payoff, but trying to explain that to Eunice was like talking to her
ugly little bull terrier that keeled over dead last year, probably from a lifetime of breathing secondhand smoke. Dewey figured
that’s how he’d check out one of these days, gasping for breath and expiring in agony. One thing for sure, though, if he was
ever diagnosed with a lung disease, he was going to lace her Whoppers and fries with potassium cyanide. There was no way that
bitch was going to live after she’d killed him with exposure to those fucking death sticks.

When Dewey Gleason as Bernie Graham left his apartment that morning, he had another unpleasant task to perform. He had to
meet his receiver at the storage lockers to complete the transaction he’d made telephonically for the merchandise that he’d
put in storage the day before. What Dewey hated most about this aspect of his business was that he was especially terrified
of the people involved in fencing the goods. The man who called himself Hatch was no exception.

Dewey had first encountered him at the cyber café, where he’d met most of his business associates. Hatch was clearly an ex-convict,
the jailhouse body art attesting to that. He was a tall white man, bald, gimlet-eyed, and ripped, probably from pumping iron
in a prison yard. He always wore a tight T-shirt, greasy jeans, and metal-studded boots. From watching prison documentaries,
Dewey figured him for the Aryan Brotherhood. His facial art consisted of a spider on his forehead and tattooed drops that
ran from the corners of his mouth down to his jaw line, like blood dripping from fangs. Under his lower lip was a thick soul
patch. Dewey imagined that “Hatch” was short for “Hatchet” and that he’d probably earned the sobriquet.

The fact that Hatch appeared alone at their meetings was somehow more frightening than if he’d had an equally scary partner.
Hatch would always show up on time in a black van. After Dewey got him admitted into the storage facility and the deal was
consummated, Dewey would help carry the merchandise to Hatch’s van. Being alone with him filled Dewey with dread and foreboding.
As soon as his van was loaded, it would be easy for Hatch to cut Dewey’s throat and clean out whatever merchandise he could
carry alone. Dewey wondered how long his body would lie there in the padlocked room before the stench alerted other tenants.

When he drove over the hill to the San Fernando Valley and the storage facility in Reseda, Dewey found the black van parked
on the street in front. Hatch sat behind the wheel, wearing mirror sunglasses and smoking a cigarette. Just the sight of him
got Dewey’s bowels rumbling. Dewey punched his driver’s license number into the gate code and the gate opened. He waved at
the woman in the office and pointed back to the black van with an OK sign. She nodded, and after going through the ritual
of showing an ID to this woman whom he’d never seen before, Dewey, followed by Hatch’s van, motored to the rear of the yard.

After parking, Dewey unlocked the storage room padlock and said, “Morning, Hatch.”

“Bernie,” Hatch said, nodding at him and flipping his cigarette butt onto the pavement in front of the double storeroom.

Dewey made a mental note to pick up that butt after Hatch was gone. They kept a clean storage facility here and Dewey didn’t
want any complaints about his guests. For an instant Dewey thought, Yes, I’ll pick it up after he’s gone. If I’m still alive.
Then he told himself to get a grip. He’d dealt with Hatch and others like him for the past several years and he was still
breathing. That brought it home to him yet again: Dewey Gleason was losing his nerve. He had to get out of this business.

“Do you have everything I ordered?” Hatch asked.

“Everything,” Dewey said. “And I’ve got a few video cams I can sell you. Got them last month. Top of the line.”

“Sure,” Hatch said, grinning. “As long as you let me take them on consignment.”

Dewey hadn’t thought of Hatch as a tweaker, but the bastard had gaps in his grille. Crack maybe. Or maybe he got them knocked
out in a prison rumble. The consignment remark was obviously meant as a joke, since nobody in their world did anything but
cash business.

Dewey forced an obligatory guffaw and said, “Maybe next time. Just let me know in advance what you might need.”

After Hatch took a perfunctory look at the merchandise and checked the invoice sheets, he said, “Let’s load.”

When they got the plasma TV and the home entertainment center into Hatch’s van, he gave Dewey the agreed-upon price of $3,100
and said, “I can use as much of this quality as you can deliver.”

“At the rock-bottom prices I charge, I’m sure you could,” Dewey said, trying to smile, much relieved when Hatch got into the
van and drove away.

After he picked up Hatch’s cigarette butt, holding it by the ash end in case Hatch had a communicable disease, Dewey padlocked
the storage room, got into his car, and drove away. He never saw the old Chevy Caprice parked on the street, a Chevy that
had followed him from his apartment to the storage facility and was still shadowing him all the way back to Hollywood.

When Dewey pulled the Honda into the underground parking garage at his apartment on Franklin Avenue, Tristan Hawkins parked
as fast as he could, got out of his Chevy, and sprinted to the security gate in front of the building. Tristan tried to stay
concealed as much as possible behind a hibiscus plant beside the gate, and he watched his quarry emerge from the parking garage
onto a common patio. He saw his man stop at a soft drinks machine, where he bought a can of soda, and climb the exterior stairway
to the third floor, where he entered what looked to be the last apartment on the east side of the apartment building. For
the first time, Tristan was seeing his boss in a different disguise, but he’d have known him anywhere.

Tristan went to the gate phone, chose an apartment number on the digital directory, beginning with number one, indicating
the first floor, and began punching in the code next to the apartment numbers, most of which were no doubt occupied by tenants
who were at work. It took three tries before he reached someone who was at home at that time of day.

Her voice was an elderly croak when she said, “Hello?” and Tristan knew she’d be no problem.

In Los Angeles, apartment dwellers came and went and seldom knew who was living next door, so he knew he could pull a name
out of the air. “Hellooo, UPS,” he said. “I’ve been trying to reach Mr. Brandon in apartment number one-twenty.”

“This isn’t number one-twenty,” the old woman said.

“I know, ma’am,” Tristan said, concentrating on keeping all traces of street from his diction. “I delivered a parcel there
a few minutes ago just as he was leavin’ for his job, and I stopped at the drinks machine for a Coke. And darn it, I left
my keys on the table beside the machine. I’m locked outta my truck.”

“Why’re you bothering me with this?” the old woman said, and for a moment he thought it wasn’t going to work.

“I tried six other numbers but there’s nobody home. Look, would you mind walkin’ to the machine and gettin’ my keys and bringin’
them to the gate?”