Orange County Noir Read online

  "What went wrong?" I asked.

  "Shit happens," she said. "And now we got goombas on our ass.

  Yes we did. Two Escalades full, prowling around out there looking for a cab. They'd find out she hadn't made it to the hotel. They would double back and go over the route again. Eventually they'd check out the park and find its.

  When they did, Nora, with her ridiculous gigantic gun, which held only five rounds, assuming she hadn't used one or two on Berlucci, would be of no real help. On the other hand, that ridiculous gigantic gun with its five or four or three bullets was more than enough to keep me trapped.

  "Okay, what now?" I asked her, while trying to come up with my own answer.

  "We wait until morning and people are going to work and there'll be traffic and other cabs on the street. Then we head to L.A. And I pay you for your trouble. And we say goodbye, or...

  "Or what?"

  "Or we keep going to Mexico and see how much fun we can get into. I've got ... some money set aside back at the apartment."

  "We have a long night before we start thinking about fun," I said.

  "We could think about it a little."

  "Not with me up here and you back there."

  "Come on back. It's nice and comfy."

  "What if we have to leave in a hurry?" I asked. "Be less dangerous to do our thinking up here."

  "Sometimes danger adds a little something, but I suppose you're right."

  Nora had been so sloppy at her chosen profession that I hoped she might change her mind about the gun and put it away. But she kept it pointed in my direction while she got out of the car and joined me on the front seat.

  She sat facing me, her back against the door.

  She kicked off her sandals, drew her left leg up, and slid it forward until her toes found wiggle room between my back and the car seat. She rested her right leg across my thighs.

  "Is the gun necessary?"

  "For some reason, I think so," she said. "But we can still fool around."

  "Not with a gun in my face. It's much too distracting."

  "Then I guess we'll just have to play the movie game instead," Nora said.

  "Fun's better than games."

  "The gun stays."

  I shrugged. "Okay. Games. It's a nice day for murder."

  "Cute," Nora said. "But easy. James Cagney. Angels with Dirty Faces. Here's one for you: I guess I've done murder. I won't think about that now."

  "It's the next line that's the giveaway," I replied. "I'll think about it tomorrow. Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind." I lowered my hand to her left leg and began rubbing it slowly. "Try this one. If you're going to murder me ... don't make it look like something else."

  Nora frowned. Concentrating. I moved my hand another inch or so up her leg. She said, "I don't know the quote."

  "The Naked Spur. Robert Ryan."

  "A Western? Shit, that's not fair. I don't know Westerns." She was furious, aiming the weapon at my stomach with both hands. She was crazy enough to use it and, I had no doubt, she would eventually. Here. In L.A. or Mexico.

  "I didn't complain about Gone with the Wind," I said softly.

  "That's cause you knew it," she said, pouting. "Give me another and keep it on topic."

  I decided to ease the tension with something she was sure to recognize. "Have you ever done it in an elevator?"

  She grinned. "Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction." Happy again, maybe picking up the sexy-psychotic vibe of that movie, she wiggled a little closer. She said, "Here's one from the heart: It's the first time I've tasted women. They're rather good."

  I pretended to be puzzled, but in my mind I saw 007 after having just sucked a poisonous spine fish from the flesh of the beautiful Domino. "I give."

  She was as gleeful as a little girl. "Sean Connery in Thun- derball. I can't believe you didn't know that one."

  I was leaning forward, my fingers brushing the inside of her thigh. "I didn't see the movie. Where did he ... taste her?" I asked.

  Nora gave me a long look. But she didn't lower the gun. "Your turn," she said. "And this time, make it hard."

  "That sounds like a James Bond quote too."

  She laughed. "Silly. I meant the movie reference."

  "Okay," I said, sliding a little closer. "But instead of a quote, I'll give you a story. Our hero grows up in the country, leading a good, clean, healthy life, until it's time for him to go to a state college. There, on a Marine ROTC firing range, he discovers that the hunting skills he took for granted back home are pretty damned remarkable. Enough for him to attract the attention of a government agency that dearly needs people who know how to use guns."

  "I think I know the movie," she said, "but go on. And don't stop this." She lowered one hand to move mine further up her thigh.

  "The agency frees him from his ROTC obligation and agrees to pay his tuition and give him spending money and a car and, in return, he agrees to work for them for four years after he graduates."

  "And he becomes a sniper in Vietnam?" Nora asked.

  "Not exactly. Not in Vietnam. But his work is governmentsanctioned."

  "Like James Bond."

  "Yes. But not James Bond," I said.

  "Got it. Charles Bronson in The Mechanic."

  "No. The hero of my story is younger than Bronson. And he's based in Los Angeles, pretending to be an accountant for an independent film studio that the government actually owns. And the four years turn into eight. And, about then, he meets this beautiful, wonderful woman and-"

  "The Specialist, with Sly Stallone and Sharon Stone."

  "Let me finish," I said. "I'll make it short. He falls in love. They move in together. He decides to quit the agency, but before he can, she discovers ... that he's been lying to her, that he's a worthless, self-loathing, piece-of-shit, governmentsanctioned, homicidal sociopath."

  "I'm still not sure what movie you're talking about." Star ing at me, she asked. "Are you crying? Why the hell are you crying?"

  "Because life is not a movie, you stupid bitch," I said, bringing my palm up fast off her thigh and shoving her hands and the big heavy Magnum into her face before she could even consider pulling the trigger. Blood flowed from her broken nose. I had the gun by then and banged it against her head twice before she went to sleep.

  "I'm in a situation, Henry."

  "Who's ... Jimmy D? Zat you?"

  "It's me," I said into my cellular. "Sorry to wake you, but I wasn't sure who else to call."

  "No. It's okay." He started hacking and coughing. I heard his wife mumbling something in the background, then him telling her to go back to sleep, that it was business. "Long time between calls, Jimmy. What's the hap?"

  I filled him in on everything that had taken place in the last hour or so. He replied by laughing.

  "It's not funny, Henry."

  "Depends on where you're sitting. The image of you, out in your peaceful, laid-back little town, stuck in the middle of a park with an unconscious hit woman, waiting for morning or a bunch of spaghetti-head yo-yos with guns, whichever comes first ... it is to laugh, amigo."

  "Can you do anything?" I asked. "If not, I'm going to try my luck driving out of here. I'll unload the blonde somewhere along the road."

  "If they saw her get into your cab, Jimmy, they got the name and the plate and there's nowhere you can run. Gimme your number and sit tight."

  Henry had been my handler. In his fifties, five-seven, balding, vaguely pear-shaped, totally without conscience, but a straight-shooter and a father figure for all of that. He called back in twenty minutes. "I just spoke with a cretin named Morelli. He says he knows all about you, but he's the kind of braying asshole who, if he knew your name or even the cab company, would have told me just to prove how bright he is. In any case, he says he's willing to forget about you as long as he gets the eighty grand taken from Berlucci's safe. And he wants the woman, of course. You got the money, right?"

  "Yeah." I had already investigated Nora's bag. It was loaded with bande
d fifties. "I imagine it's the full eighty. I'm not going to count it."

  "Okay, here's the play. As soon as we hang up, I call Morelli with your exact location. He wants you to leave the broad and the loot right where you are and drive away. Do not look back."

  "You sure they'll let me just drive away?"

  "You can never be sure, Jimmy. Not when you're dealing with rabid dogs. My guess is they don't want Uncle Sam on their ass. That's the most assurance I can give you."

  "Thank you, Henry."

  "My pleasure."

  The blood from Nora's broken nose had dried on her mouth and chin. She looked like she might be waking up soon. I'd have to hit her again.

  "Henry, I'm ready to come back."

  "Miss the La Dolce Vita, huh?"

  "Something like that," I said.

  "I'll be waiting with open arms, kid."

  I lifted the blonde out of the cab and placed her on the asphalt behind the clubhouse. I put the bag and the money right next to her.

  Then I got back into the cab. With the blonde's Magnum on the passenger seat, I left the park and turned right on La Paz. The only vehicle I saw in either direction was an old Chevy truck heading north. I passed it heading south.

  But not too far south, maybe half a mile down La Paz to the first cross-street, Kings Road, where I turned right into a block full of middle-class homes. I maneuvered the cab between two sedans parked for the night.

  The blonde's Magnum didn't smell as if it had been used, but it held only four shells. Better than bare hands. With the weapon dragging down my Levi's under my shirt, I worked my way back through the park.

  They were a noisy bunch. Slamming car doors. Cursing. I was careful moving up behind a tree, Magnum drawn, for a view of the scene at the rear of the golf club building. Six men had come in three cars. The Escalades and a sweet yellow Jaguar convertible with the top down.

  I wanted a look at Morelli and his buddies. I figured it was worth the risk to be able to recognize the bozos if they really did have a line on me and decided to do something about it. I had my night vision by then and I studied them as well as I could while they dragged Nora's dead partner, Jed, from the black Escalade.

  The guy I picked as Morelli was poking through Nora's bag. Apparently satisfied with its contents, he tossed it into the white Escalade. He was big, bald, almost Mongolianlooking, with a droopy mustache, wearing a black, longsleeve shirt and pants, with some kind of jewelry around his neck that caught the moonlight. The others were in suits. I noted their hairstyles, facial structures, body movement, as they did the heavy lifting-the departed Jed went behind the wheel of the Jaguar, the unconscious Nora onto the passenger seat.

  I wasn't sure what the plan was, but I figured that last knockout blow I'd delivered to Nora had been a mercy.

  The bald guy with the mustache was definitely Morelli. He said something that was almost too guttural to be Italian and, while the others grabbed what looked like short-barrel Beretta rifles from the rear of the black Escalade, he moved to Nora.

  He rattled off something else in Italian and his boys laughed. He shook Nora until she awoke with a groan. Her hand went to her head wound. My bad.

  Morelli took several steps back, away from the Jaguar.

  Nora saw him. I heard her say, "Huh?"

  He pointed to her dead partner. She looked at Jed, then turned back to Morelli. "You scum-sucking wop pig!" she screamed, changing the Brando insult from One-Eyed Jacks just a bit to fit the situation.

  Morelli waited for her to throw open the Jaguar's door and take a step toward him, her hands poised like claws. He shouted "Sparare!" And his men sparared, big time. Bullets ripped into Nora, the beautiful car, the corpse of her dead partner.

  I'd thought they were noisy before. Now they were firing off a hundred rounds or so in the dead of night, in the sleepy little town of Laguna Niguel. Maybe they knew precisely how long it would take the Orange County Sheriff's Department to get somebody out there to investigate. More likely they simply didn't give a shit who heard them. They wanted to call attention to the fact that it wasn't a good idea to fuck with them.

  Morelli didn't strike me as the kind of man who'd just forget about a cab driver who made the mistake of stopping to pick up a good-looking blonde. There wasn't much I could do about that at the moment. Maybe if I'd had a simple old Springfield, the kind I grew up with, and enough ammo and time, I could have put the whole thing to bed that night. Though in all honesty I'd never tried to go six for six, even when I was at the top of my game.

  So I just stood there and watched them pile into the Escalades and drive away.

  I could hear sirens in the distance.

  Time to run. But I took one last look at the bloody, bulletridden couple and said, not just to myself, "Faye Dunaway, Warren Beatty. Bonnie and Clyde."

  t had been a weird year for Johnny Mavis. First off, his pilot Boys in Blue had gotten picked up by TNT and aired to generally favorable reviews, and a good piece of the audience. By the second week, the show was ranked fifteenth and Johnny was a big shot. Because he had never written a pilot before, he wasn't actually the show runner-and that's where his problems began. The guy they brought in to actually run the show, Ray Danes, was an old-timer, and a killer at network politics. Within two months Johnny had gotten into serious jackpots with Danes over the show's "direction." Danes wanted a lighter tone, and saw "blue skies" and lots of pastels. Sort of old-school Miami Vicean, though not quite as edgy. But Johnny meant the show to have a nasty satirical edge, the Boys in Blue being dirty, bribe-taking hustlers who were grafting all they could, and wouldn't think twice about offing anyone who might indict them. The problem was, by the tenth week the show had started to lose steam because it was neither a laugh riot with blue skies nor as mean as, say, The Shield. The war between the two producer's "visions" for The Boys had to be settled by the network, and the network execs decided to go with the horse they knew best (and who had dirt on them all): old, conniving Ray Danes.

  Johnny was given a nice payoff and fired from his own show. He could still make money as a consultant, about five grand a week, but consulting is one thing he would never do. He was persona non-asshole on the lot, as they saying goes. Bye-bye, Johnny; B. Goode.

  For the next couple of weeks, Johnny moped around his Laurel Canyon home, watched daytime TV, and hated going down to shop at Bristol Farms because he'd invariably run into people from the show. (Johnny, how you doing? Getting something else set up? Oh, not yet? Well, good luck, kid.) What hurt even worse was now that Danes had control of the show, it was soaring to the top. Rated number three in the U.S.A. Critics loved it for being "a breath of fresh air after the fetid waters of its former incarnation." Probably win a few Emmys and everyone involved would be gold at the studios. Just what Johnny boy didn't need to hear.

  So what the fuck would he do? Write another pilot? Try and break into features? That was a bitch, and they hardly made anything but dumb teenage movies anymore. What was he going to write about that hadn't been done. ET as a gay hand puppet who gave teenagers crack and blow jobs from another planet? Nah, too dark again. Black humor was out. The new fake earnestness and paens to lost innocence were back in. The lower the market fell, the more people wanted sunshine, kisses, and the deep bliss of special effects.

  So not Johnny's thing.

  He needed a break, a goddamned fresh start, a real honest-to-fucking-God epiphany.

  And then, one fine sunny day (like all the other fine sunny days in L.A.), he got it.

  An obese writer pal, Terry Dills, a semitalented guy he'd help break into the biz a few years ago, suggested that Johnny use his second home down at Dana Point.

  "It's right on the ocean. You go down there, you surf a little, and you chill. I'll come down on the weekends and we'll meet some beach bunnies and party. You'll get the sour taste of the last gig out of your mouth. And bingo, you'll come up with something fresh."

  Johnny started to say, "I don't know, man, Orange County
?" but then he thought, Fuck it, why not try something off-beat, new? Orange County, on the beach, beautiful girls, fun-loving surf guys. Frankie and Annette, and Harvey Lembeck as Eric Von Zipper, what could be bad?

  "It's great down there in the O.C.," Dills said. "You even got a great basketball court like three blocks down from my place. Right over the ocean."

  "Really?" Johnny replied. He had always been a hoops guy; back in high school in Maryland he'd been all-state. But since getting into the TV hustle, he'd had little time to go balling.

  "It's just the thing for you," Terry said. "Stay as long as you want. You're going to come back a new man. Trust me, pal."

  Johnny smiled and shook his head. Most of his life he'd been lucky. Yeah, there had been ups and downs, but something had always come along. Taking a little break in the O.C. might be just the ticket.

  He was out of Laurel Canyon the very next day.

  Dana Point was fantastic. The view from the cliffs, the gorgeous waves splashing, hell, even the name of Dill's street, Golden Lantern ... had a magical quality about it. He could even see it being the title of something ... a mystery, a thriller, whatever. He had his payoff money and what was the hurry?

  Terry hadn't bullshitted him about the house, either. Man, a '20s Craftsman, not one of the hideous architectural monsters he'd seen on the way down near Laguna ... where every new architect tried to out-Gehry Frank G. No, this was his kind of place, old school, modest, with a cool front porch and even a '50s red metal glider. He could just sit out here, roll a joint, and listen to the waves-and what could be better than that?

  And for the first week that's exactly what he did. Drove down to the beach, went body surfing with some local kids, sat on his NBC towel, and watched the birds dive for fish and crabs. Oh man, this was perfect. He shopped, cooked lobster, drank good wine, and communed with good old Johnny boy. He listened to his inner voices, and they told him he was on the right path, that he had become blown up, full of the nauseous gas of self-promotion, that he needed to reduce himself, slim down to human size. And for six days he did. He explored the old house, sat on the glider, got stoned, and listened to his old John Hiatt records, and Miles, and Eric Dolphy. He was there, he thought. The right place, the right time.