Hard Play (7 page)

“She’ll be fine, Dave,” Frank assured as he yanked, pulling Dave toward him. “Show me the body.”

Dave struggled and pulled for about three hundred yards up the hill. The rolling trail was cut deep, severed with cracks and veins where the water would spill down after a long rain. To the east, the trail continued upward to the Hollywood sign, climbing through trees that grew in size the higher you went. To the west, the path was lined with scrub brush and patches of wildflowers. Frank continued dragging on Dave until they had reached a spot where the brush cleared up and the trees grew short enough to show you the sprawling skyline of downtown. Wrapped in brown, smoggy clouds, the city glistened in the warm summer sun and the ocean shone behind it. Dave pointed down into the bushes.

“There,” he murmured. “Down there.”

“How’d you see it from up here?” Frank asked, tugging again on Dave’s arm.

This time, Dave pulled away, saying, “My water bottle rolled away. I was fishing it out of the bushes when...”

He didn’t finish his sentence. He knelt in place and cupped his hands over his mouth, panting into his palms. As he regained control, a woman came down the hiking trail. Frank’s eyes followed her as she jogged toward them. Ignoring Dave’s hyperventilation, Frank watched her breasts as they bounced, hanging freely behind her thin cotton tank. He made no effort to hide his stare as she came closer and then passed. Pivoting on his heel, he watched her backside, in nothing but gray tights, rise and fall as she ran down the hill. Dave just continued half-hyperventilating on the ground. Shaking his head, Frank moved down the hill and into the bushes, leaving Dave in the dirt.

He pushed his way through the tendrils of greasewood and claws of scrub oak, lifting his jacket to avoid the snags. As he tripped into a dirt clearing a few feet below, Frank shouted over his shoulder, “I’d have let the bottle go, Dave.”

“I think not,” Dave rebutted down to him, “Tasmanian rainwater. It’s flown in from the rainforest.
The rainforest
. There’s no better water than rainforest water. That’s what Style magazine says. Crisp. Fresh. Clean. It’s bottled without ever touching the ground.”

It appeared Dave’s wind had returned to him. Frank rolled his eyes and took out a cigarette. As he flipped shut his Zippo, smoke billowing round him, he saw the toe of a brown loafer and the left hem of a pair of gray slacks sticking out from behind a hedge of deer grass. Inspecting the dirt around him, he saw only the jumbled footprints of the couple running circles in a panic before heading back up to the trail. No steps of the man arriving. No steps of another going.

Coming around the bush, Frank saw the corpse. A man in a neatly pressed gray suit, in his late forties or early fifties. He was lying in the grass with his hands behind his head. His neck was wrenched forward by the small rock beneath him, pushing his chin into his chest, making him stare at whoever would find him. If not for his face wrapped in cellophane, the frozen look of terror, and the wads of hundred dollar bills sticking from his pockets, you’d think he was waiting patiently in the seclusion of the bushes for a boy he'd met on the internet. He hadn’t even been there long enough to start stinking.

Frank shook his head and knelt beside the body.

Chapter 8

Frank stood over the man
and his dusty business suit, staring over the edge of the hillside and down into the city. Brown and white clouds hung in clumps over the ocean. The Pacific rippled and roared far in the distance, lapping at the sand and reeling bits of salt and sewage up in the air from the Long Beach reclamation plant down the coast. The sun sizzled in the sky behind Frank, stretching his shadow over the patches of golden yarrow and pale green scrub oak that cascaded along the hill. While he drew a cigarette from his pack, Frank looked down into the high-class neighborhood below. Unique works of art took the place of the standard tract homes you’d see in the flats. The winding streets were adorned with just about every style of house you could imagine, from three-story blocks of glass and steel to Spanish villas and neo-Mediterranean palaces that could accommodate a small village.

“Get away from the body, Mr. Black,” Amy Van shouted as she stormed through the bushes, somehow managing to avoid a single snag. “And put out that cigarette.”

Frank stamped out the smoke without missing a beat. He watched her as she marched toward him, breathing out his last bit of smoke with a deep push of the lungs.

She looked even better today. She was biting the arm of her glasses, bracing them between her lips as she marched through the brush. Her black hair was loose and hanging down over the lapels of her gray, short cropped blazer and matching high-waisted pencil skirt. The cut of the jacket and high waist of the skirt accentuated Amy’s tiny waist and curvy hips. Her ivory legs stretched down toward her black ballet flats, dusty from hiking down the hill.

She led a small entourage down into the dirt clearing; two beat cops and a goofy man in glasses with wispy red hair and freckles. He carried a camera that looked two sizes too big for his hands. The two officers with linebacker shoulders and thick, burly arms marched right behind her. Their long-sleeved navy blue uniforms hugged every fiber of their muscled bodies, making them look hot in the blazing sun and dusty air. Their hands were ready on their hips at the sight of Frank. Extending her open palm behind her, Amy signaled for the cops to stand down.

“It’s okay,” she said, tucking her glasses into her cleavage. “I know this man.”

Frank dipped his shades and flashed his baby blues at Amy.

“A little far off your reservation, aren’t you?” Frank asked.

Amy ignored Frank and put her arm over the goofy photographer, saying, “Make sure you get him from every angle.”

She pointed all around the dirt, and added, “Tracks too.”

The little man moved toward the corpse and began snapping photos of the body. As his flashbulb strobed behind them, Frank approached Amy. The coconut on her skin overtook him, shifting his straightened lips into a smile.

“You won’t find any tracks other than mine and Mr. and Mrs. Dave’s,” he announced.

“How’d you get here so quickly?” she asked flatly.

“What took you so long?” Frank taunted with a shrug.

“Unlike you, Mr. Black, I don’t just happen to be everywhere there’s a body,” she quipped. “Besides, you left a frantic wife at the bottom of the hill. Half of my team is still down there taking her frenzied account.”

“And Dave?” Frank asked.

“He’s down the hill with his wife,” she replied, “You know impersonating an officer is a crime, correct?”

“I did no such thing.”

“Breaking and entering is a crime too, Mr. Black,” Amy warned.

Frank smiled and said, “Call me Frank.”

Amy shook her head at him.

“You’re not going to cop to that one, are you, Mr. Black?”

Frank bit his lip and dipped his chin downward. Offering his best puppy-dog face, he shook his head from side to side.

“All right,” she said in a huff as she took her glasses from her cleavage and pulled them over her dark brown eyes. “Excuse me, then.”

“Speaking of,” Frank said, “You find anything new on Johnson?”

Amy answered, “In fact, Mr. Black, we did. Apparently, she withdrew all of her money from her bank accounts last week. That’s what was in her trunk with her.”

“She withdrew it?” Frank asked.

Amy nodded.

“Yes,” she said, “I saw the security footage myself. She went in on Saturday morning and requested all the money withdrawn. She even called ahead to let them know she’d be in.”

Then she sniffed around Frank and added with a sneer, “You smell like an ashtray.”

Frank shrugged.

Amy pushed through Frank like a turnstile and headed for the body. Reaching into her pockets, she pulled out latex gloves and slipped her hands inside them. Frank shadowed her, sniffing his armpits as he stood over the body, watching her every move.

She pointed at the hundreds shoved in the victim’s pockets and said, “It’s not a robbery.”

Kneeling beside him, she inspected his throat and his hands.

“Just like Johnson,” she said. “No signs of a struggle. No defensive wounds. It looks like he just laid down.”

Amy pulled the man’s wallet from his pocket and flipped it open.

“Who is he?” Frank asked, peering over her shoulder.

Amy glared up at Frank and said in a firm tone, “You tell me why you’re here and I’ll tell you who he is.”

She stood up and clasped the wallet shut behind her back.

“I was following a suspect,” Frank confessed.

“And?”

“And I ended up here. Chad Campbell is his name. He was on the security cameras at Johnson’s gym and there’s enough evidence in the green Taurus down the hill to build a case.”

Amy said with a smile, “I’m impressed. A little annoyed that you didn’t call me, but impressed.”

She added, “So, where’s your Chad now?”

Frank shrugged and shook his head, “I wouldn’t be here if I knew that.”

Amy opened the wallet and held it out, allowing Frank to see.

Frank looked it over;
Patrick Allen,
62, Male, Gray hair, Brown eyes, Organ Donor, 4423 Harnett, Northridge Ca.

After a moment he said, “Don’t know him.”

With a furrow of her brow and a tilt of the head, Amy asked, “Did you expect to?”

“No, I suppose not,” Frank replied. “Though, I did know Johnson.”

“One doesn’t necessarily equate to the other,” Amy informed him.

“You’d be surprised how often it does, Dr. Van,” Frank replied. “It’s a small city.”

Amy laughed a little bit at that. It was the first time she hadn’t been scowling at Frank since they met. She was starting to warm up to him. They all did, eventually.

“Are we talking about the same city?” Amy asked, with a grin still on her face.

Frank smirked and nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets, saying, “Looks like you’ve got this under control. I need a drink. It’s a been a long day.”

“It’s barely noon,” Amy scolded, tapping her watch, then rectified, “That’s fine, Mr. Black. Surprisingly, you helped a lot today. If I need you I’ll give you a ring.”

Frank smiled, tipped his imaginary hat to Amy, and bent forward in a polite bow. Pivoting on his boot, he headed through the brush. Once out of sight, he lit a smoke and strolled down the dirt path back to his car. He offered a half-salute to the officers at the bottom of the hill and a mocking smile and a wave to the yuppie runners sitting on the back of the ambulance. Popping open the driver’s door of his Ambassador, Frank sunk backwards into the brown-leather bucket seat, keeping his legs hanging outside the car. As he patted the dirt from his black boots, he remembered the note from Rose earlier that morning. Pulling his wallet out, he opened it up and peered into the empty folds. Fortunately for Frank, Rose lived close by and she always had his favorite scotch. Hell, she always had a whole damn bar in her living room.

Frank turned the key in the ignition and revved the engine. It was time for a drink.

Chapter 9

As Frank stepped out
of his car, he noticed a black Honda parked across the street. Sitting in the passenger seat was a pretty blonde girl. Frank tipped his imaginary hat to her as he walked up the concrete path. She sank into her seat and buried her face in her phone.

Rose’s townhome faced a grassy courtyard with three other matching units. Each was built of blue wood paneling and lined with white trim. Yellow daisies and purple asters grew up along the foundation of the cluster of homes, bordering them in the buzz of bees and the occasional frozen flight of a humming bird. The hollow scent of laundry softener, a summer bouquet of chemical flowers, billowed from a vent high in a neighbor’s wall.

Shouting filled the walkway as Frank approached Rose’s door. Then he heard Rose cry out and a loud crash as a shelf fell to the floor. Putting his hand on the knob, he found that the door eased open.

Frank watched through the crack. Rose was completely naked, holding her arm in one hand as a big, black man with dreadlocks and tattoos backed her into the kitchen. Even from across the room, Frank could see the red welt forming high on Rose’s cheek. She backed away from the hulk, her black hair struggling to hide the dark nipples as her breasts swung from side to side.

“Don’t walk away from me,” the brute shouted at her.

She stopped and dropped her hands at her sides. Her hair landed on either side of her round breasts, and she spread her legs shoulder-width. She looked so vulnerable showing herself like that. There was an innocence about her, even if just for a moment. The only thing protecting her fair-skinned body, the only thing hiding her woman-hood, was a thin landing strip of short, black hair between her legs.

“It’s my pussy,” she rasped, ripping the look of innocence away as she slapped at the insides of her thighs. “I can do what I want with it. Where the fuck have you been anyway?”

“Whore,” the man seethed. “Bitch.”

He gripped the counter, leaning toward her.

With the man’s back to the door, Frank took the opportunity to slip inside.

In an instant, he took in the room, which wasn’t difficult considering he’d been there a thousand times before. The small apartment was divided by a table that doubled as a bar. On one side of the table was Rose and her assailant. On the other side, two leather La-Z-Boys faced a plasma TV. Piles of her rather exhaustive collection of Playboys, once safely on the wall, littered the carpet. Hunkered in the far corner of the living room, hiding from the massive intruder in the kitchen, was a thin, middle-aged man with glasses and a balding head wearing nothing but a pair of baggy white underwear. Evidently a client of Rose’s. The half-naked man popped up at the sight of Frank, showing his swollen eye and the bruises already forming on his upper rib cage. Frank brought his finger to his lips, signaling for the man to be quiet. The man responded by pointing to Frank’s boots. Noticing that at his feet was a pile of brown trousers, Frank kicked them across the floor to the man and motioned for the door with his thumb.

In the kitchen, the big, black man was still distracted, shouting “How many johns you fucking behind my back?!”

Frank slunk past the dinner table, which was covered with half-empty bottles and glasses. Bacardi, Stoli, an unopened bottle of Jack, some Bombay and, right by the edge, Frank’s poison of choice, Laphroaig 10-year. He ran his finger over the bottle of scotch, caressing the cork and licking his lips as he strolled toward the kitchen.

Rose’s john crawled toward the front door with his trousers clenched in his fist and slipped out. Setting his glasses on the counter, Frank moved behind the big man.

Rose saw Frank and backed away.

“Whatchoo walking away from, Bitch?,” the man shouted, slapping her in the face. “I ain’t finished.”

He reached out for her again.

No beat missed, Frank grabbed the man by the back of his head, gripping a clump of dreadlocks in his fist. He hurled the man’s cheek into the faux granite. As his head bounced off the counter, Frank kicked across the back of his knees, sending him to the floor with a thud.

Frank stepped back. Rose cowered in the corner.

Still clutching a handful of black hair, he growled, “Keep your hands to yourself.”

Looking down on the behemoth, he realized this was his suspect. This was Chad Campbell. What luck. Frank dropped the tuft of hair and straightened his collar. He turned, drifting back to the table of bottles. Plucking the scotch from the table, he turned it in his hand.

He spoke into the label, saying “You’re in a heap of trouble, Chad.”

Opening the bottle with a pop, he turned back to Chad and said, “But you know that, don’t you?”

Pouring himself a glass, he returned the cork and set the bottle down behind him. He breathed in the oaky musk as he swirled it and grinned down on Chad.

Chad stood, latching his big fingers onto the counter as he pulled himself to his feet, towering over Frank.

He huffed and he puffed and he reached out, smacking the glass from Frank’s hand. Scotch fell to the linoleum. The glass bounced. Chad’s eyes narrowed as he wiped a mixture of spit and blood from his lip.

Frank glared back, clenching his jaw.

“I dare you,” Frank snarled.

Chad lunged, pushing his body into Frank’s chest and sending them both reeling into the living room. He wrapped his tree trunk arms around Frank and squeezed.

Frank punched twice, hard and fast, down into Chad’s shoulder, burying his elbow deep in his face and bringing him to his knees. Freeing himself from the bear hug, Frank ducked low and sent a quick jab to Chad’s armpit, disabling his left arm.

Chad stood and swung his right fist at Frank.

Stepping back to avoid the blow, Frank fell into the La-Z-Boy. He pushed his palms into the arms, lifting his body upward in a flash and launching the soles of his boots into Chad’s chest. Chad stumbled backward toward the table as Frank popped to his feet.

Leaning on the table, his left arm limp at his side and his right hand holding the boot print on his chest, Chad glared at Frank and spit on the floor.

Trying to move his arm, he barked, “What did you do to me?”

“Nerve bundle,” Frank explained.

Chad grabbed the scotch in his right hand and came at Frank with a wild swing of the bottle.

Throwing up his left arm, Frank met the bottle, shattering it across the back of his hand with a burst of amber and glass.

Through the mist of scotch, Frank’s right fist shot upward, mashing into Chad’s chin. Before the bits of glass could hit the floor, Frank threw another punch, a bloody left cross, planting a red knuckle stain just before Chad’s right ear.

The black hulk stumbled. His dreadlocks flopped through the air as he crashed downward through the glass coffee table.

Motionless, his arms bent upward along the steel frame, Chad looked like a swollen ragdoll stuffed into a far-too-small packing box.

Frank frowned. Kneeling next to Chad, he reached down and placed his hand on the scotch-stained carpet.

“Such a waste,” Frank groaned as he dabbed at the 10-year on the floor.

“You pack quite a punch,” Rose said as she knelt beside Frank, holding her cheek. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

Frank turned to Rose and said, “You’ve nothing to apologize for.”

He pushed his fingers into Chad’s forehead and said, “It’s this asshole who should be apologizing.”

“You didn’t kill him, did you?” Rose asked.

“I don’t think so,” Frank shrugged.

He moved his palm over Chad’s mouth.

“Nope. He’s breathing just fine.” Frank said as he stood, straightening his shirt.

“I’ve got somewhere to be and I still need a drink, Doll,” Frank said as he grabbed his glasses off the counter. “Let’s get out of here.”

He bent his bloody hand over Rose’s shoulder and moved toward the door. As they exited, she planted a kiss on his cheek and whispered, “Thanks, Frank.”

“No problem, darlin’,” Frank breathed, “No problem at all.”

Just before closing the door, he hung his head, shaking it from side to side in dismay.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Rose asked.

He stared down onto the mess of Chad on the floor, the shattered table and the broken bottle.

Frank groaned, “I just can’t believe he broke the damn bottle of scotch.”

Rose cracked a smile.

“You should get dressed,” Frank said.

Rose darted up the stairs and in an instant was back at Frank’s side wearing baggy sweat pants that hung below her hips and a sweater that drifted off her shoulder. She wasn’t wearing much, barely enough to hide the pinks of her nipples and the curves of her waist. Frank tried not to stare, doing his best to keep his eyes on her swelling cheekbone.

They emerged from the townhome, Rose clinging to Frank’s waist, his left hand split open and bleeding down her blouse. The neighbors were already on their porches, jaws agape and cell phones in hand. No one in L.A. ever cared much about anyone, that is until the smashing and crashing gets a little too close to home. Frank acknowledged his audience with a nod and a wave—a gesture of humble triumph—not that they cared who won or lost.

The passenger door of the Honda across the street slammed shut.

Walking toward Frank was five foot eight inches of beauty, at least four of them just legs wrapped tight in faded denim. The rest; breasts, lips, eyes and blonde. Her sun-bleached hair hung in layers. Feathered bangs, tracing the edges of her pretty blues lined in black and silver, led to her ruby red lips frozen in a pout and blended into the tips of her loose, messy curls that tucked themselves deep into her cleavage. Her chest heaved beneath her low-cut, black spaghetti-strap with each of her strong, elongated steps. Her waist cinched sharply just beneath the end of her short cropped shirt. Her well-toned stomach showed and the lines were hard to ignore. Running past her impeccable belly button, they met with the tiny strings of the fabric from her G-string. Two arrows pointing downward and inward, they disappeared into the waist of her low-cut skintight jeans. The denim hugged the perfect curves of her long, slender legs that ended in black ribbon-wrapped ankles and pretty little toes peeping out from the front of her stilettos.

She hooked her thumbs into her belt loops, pressing her shoulders forward and deepening her cleavage as she sauntered toward Frank and Rose. Frank quivered. He could only imagine what she looked like from behind.

Wrapping her arms around Frank and hanging from him like a scarf, she kissed him on the cheek and cooed, “Thanks mister. I didn’t think I’d ever get away from that asshole.”

Frank pulled back, looking at her sideways.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“This is Felicia,” Rose said, patting Frank like she was calming her barking dog. “She’s one of the girls at Eazy’s.”

“More like that asshole’s punching bag for the last six months,” the bombshell wailed. “He’s been using me for everything since I moved here. I was going to be an actress, y’know.”

Her eyes lit up with the word
actress
. In that sentence, her worry washed away and was replaced by the bubbly nature of a Neutrogena spokesmodel. Even her hair blew around a bit as she said it.

“I’m Felicia Berry,” she said, introducing herself with a flip of the head.

Frank was unimpressed.

“Don’t the girls want to be called actors now?” he said. “Like flight attendants.”

They were all actresses or actors or models or writers. These days everybody wanted to be somebody. It all amounted to the same thing—underworked, under-appreciated, underrated, underemployed. God, how he hated talking to actors. The city of the stars. Don’t people realize that there’s about twelve million folks in Los Angeles? A quarter-million of them call themselves
actors
. Let’s say there’s twenty thousand acting jobs a year. So there’s a ninety-percent unemployment rate. How many of those few acting opportunities are filled by the same faces, the stars, over and over? Do the math. Poor, fresh meat. At least she was nice to look at.

She offered a firm handshake with one hand, while the other moved back to her belt loop and began tracing the line of her G-string.

He took her hand in his, holding up Rose with his other and finding it difficult to take his attention off the swelling tide of the girl’s breasts as their hands shook up and down. The seductive tracing of her finger along her waistline was just as hard to ignore.

He managed to break his stare and the handshake, asking, “This your car, then?” He pointed to the Honda.

“Sure is, Shug” she said.

“It’s evidence now. You can come with me if you’d like or you can wait for the cops. I don’t really care either way. They should be here any minute.”

“Shouldn’t we wait?” Rose asked.

Felicia flashed an
I-do-as-I-damn-well-please
smile and said, “Fuck cops. I’ll go with you.”

Frank smiled at Felicia as he covered his eyes with his shades.

Then, looking down on Rose, her eye already swelling, Frank said, “Only stay if there’s a body. He isn’t dying so I’m leaving. And you’re coming home with me. Far as I’m concerned, case closed.”