Suicide Hill (15 page)

Christine Confrey twisted her head free and said, “Now what?” Joe thought of tire-squealing black-and-whites and shotgun-wielding fuzz. “Now we wait,” he said. “An hour tops. Then we get another call, and we tape your mouth and you never see us again.”

“You're a slimy piece of Mexican shit,” Christine Confrey replied. Joe caught himself starting to nod in agreement, but said instead, “Be cool.” His face began sweating beneath the ski mask. It felt like a shroud.

They waited in silence, Christine sitting on the bed, Joe standing by the bedroom door, looking at his watch and listening to Bobby giggle as he prowled the house. It felt like he had two senses, both of them working toward something bad. After thirty-two minutes of scoping out the Timex, Bobby's giggles exploded into a big burst of laughter. Then the door pushed open, and the ski-masked loony was there, a magazine in his hands, growling, “Check the skin book, homeboy. Righteous
hairpie.
”

Christine pointed to the magazine Bobby was waving, hyperventilating, then getting out: “I-I-I was nineteen! I needed the money and I only kept it because John likes to see what I was like then and I—”

Joe moved to the bed and wrapped the discarded section of tape around Christine's mouth. Bobby was at his back, holding the copy of
Beaverooney
open, jabbing his right forefinger at the pictures inside. “Dig it, bro! Is this bitch fine as wine, or am I woofin'! Dig it!”

To placate Bobby, Joe glanced at the legs-apart nude spread. “Yeah, but just maintain.
Main-fucking-tain
”

Bobby shoved him aside and sat down on the edge of the bed. Christine strained against the cord and tape, kicking her legs in an effort to propel herself away, working her lips trying to scream. A stream of urine stained the front of her robe and trickled down her thighs. Bobby squealed, “Righteous,” and grabbed both her ankles with his left hand and held them to the bed, while his right hand hovered over her pelvis in a parody of a shark about to attack. He grunted, “Duhn-duhn-duhn-duhn,” and Joe recognized it as the theme from
Jaws.
Bobby's shark hand did slow figure eights; Bobby himself whispered, “We reconned you good, baby, but I didn't pick up on how fine you are. Fine as wine. I'm the Sharkman, baby. Duhn-duhn-duhn-duhn. I give righteous fin and even better snout.”

Joe whimpered, “No, no, no,” as Bobby stuck his tongue through the hole in his ski mask and lowered his head; when his mouth made contact with Christine's leg, he shrieked, “No, you fucking rape-o, no!”

The phone rang.

Bobby jerked his head up as Joe moved toward the night-stand. He pulled the .45 from his waistband and aimed it straight between his brother's eyes. “Let it ring, puto. The shark wants to give some snout, and no candy ass watchdog is gonna stop him.”

Joe backed into the wall; the phone rang another six times, then stopped. Bobby giggled and started making slurping noises. Christine squeezed her eyes shut and tried to bring her hands together in prayer. Joe shut his own eyes, and when he heard Bobby titter, “Shark goin' down,” he stumbled out of the bedroom, picturing tear gas and choppers and death.

Then there was a crashing sound from the rear of the house. Joe opened his eyes and saw Duane Rice running down the hallway holding a briefcase and the .45, no ski mask and no beard disguise on. The house went silent, then Bobby's “Sharkman, Sharkman,” reverberated like thunder. Rice crashed into the bedroom, and Joe heard a sound he'd never heard before: Bobby squealing in terror.

He ran to the bedroom door and looked in. Rice had Bobby on the floor and was slamming punches at his midsection. Christine Confrey was still on the bed, trying to scream. Her robe was pulled up over her stomach and her panties were curled around her ankles. Joe ran to the bed and pulled down the robe, then grabbed Duane Rice's shoulders and screamed, “Don't! Don't! You'll kill him!”

Rice's head and fists jerked back at the same instant, and he twisted to look up at the voice. Joe said, “
Please
,” and Rice weaved to his feet and gasped, “Get the briefcase.”

Bobby moaned and curled into a ball; Christine tried to bury her head in the bed sheets. Rice felt the throbbing redness that was devouring him ease down. When Joe came back holding the briefcase, he pinned his shoulders to the wall and hissed, “You listen to this and we'll survive. Get psycho out of here and run herd on him like you never did before. Tie the woman up even better and don't let that piece of shit near her. If I find out he even
touched
her again, I'll kill him. Do you believe me?”

Joe nodded and said, “Yes.” Rice released him, opened the briefcase and started extracting handfuls of money, dropping them on the bed. When the briefcase was half empty, he pointed to the pile and said, “Your share. I'll call you tonight. I trust you for some reason, so you take care of him.”

Joe looked at the wads of cash covering the crumpled sheets and Christine Confrey's legs, then looked down at Bobby, slowly rising to his knees. He turned around for sight of Duane Rice, but he was already gone.

Rice forced himself to walk slowly to the Trans Am, parked a block from Christine Confrey's house. He swung the briefcase like Mr. Square Citizen and wondered how good a look the woman got at his face, and why for a split second
her
face looked just like Vandy's. Then he remembered how at their first meeting Joe Garcia had called his brother a rape-o and how it didn't register as anything but jive. Eggers was angel dust pie, but it was Bobby Boogaloo who put them inches away from the shithouse.

After stashing the briefcase in the trunk, Rice drove down Gage to Studio, and at the corner saw the Garcias' '77 Camaro parked at the curb. He pulled into a liquor store lot across the street to observe the brothers' getaway and see if the fuzz approached the Confrey pad. If no black-and-whites descended and Joe and the rape-o looked good, they were clear, and Pico and Westholme was still a possible.

He thought of the score, of the sheer audacity of trashing Eggers' sterile Colonial crib and the look on his face when he showed him the knives he'd stolen and said, “Christine Confrey, chop, chop. Your prints.
You know what I want.
” The look got better as the heist progressed, the bank man realizing there was no way out except to obey. Even though the take was probably only 12K tops, it was twice the amount of the first job—a good omen, and a better appetite whetter.

After ten minutes, no patrol cars or unmarked cruisers appeared, and he could see straight up Gage and tell that the house was still undisturbed. His hands throbbed from whomp ing Bobby Garcia, and he gripped the steering wheel to control the pain. After twenty minutes, the Garcias swung onto Studio Boulevard from a block east of Gage, walking two abreast with shopping bags partially shielding their faces. Bobby was limping, probably from abdominal pain, and Joe was talking him through the whole scene, more like a daddy than a kid brother. Rice smiled as they got in their Camaro and drove off. For a cowardly tagalong criminal, Joe Garcia had balls. If he could control the rape-o's balls for three hours, he'd make Pico and Westholme happen.

When he got “home” to the Holiday Inn, Rice changed from his bank robber suit into a new shirt-Levi combo and counted the proceeds of the Eggers/Confrey job. His half of the haphazardly split take came to $5,115.00. Fondling the money felt obscene, and he remembered what a soft-hearted old bull at Soledad told him: don't fuck whores, because then all women start looking like whores. He remembered Christine Confrey's terrified face and wondered if you loved a woman, then did all women start looking like her? Even though Christine and Vandy were physical opposites, their resemblance was weird.

Rice looked at the phone and flashed on an idea to call the fuzz and tip them to Christine, then double-flashed on it as suicide and dialed Louie Calderon's bootleg number.

Louie picked up on the first ring. “Talk to me.”

“It's Duane. Got any messages for me?”

“Duane the Brain. How's it hangin'?”

“A hard yard. Any calls?”

“Yeah. If a nigger and a Mexican jump off the top of the Occidental Building at the same time, who hits the ground first?”

“Jesus, Louie. Who?”

“The nigger, 'cause the Mexican's gotta stop on the way down and spray his name on the wall!” Louie went into a laughing attack, then recovered and said, “
I
thought it was funny, and I'm a fuckin' Mexican. Got a pencil?”

“I can remember it. Shoot.”

“Okay. Call Rhonda—654-8996. Sexed-out voice, Duane, really fine.”

Rice said, “Yeah” and hung up, then dialed Rhonda's number. After six rings, the hooking stockbroker's sleepy voice came on the line. “Yes?”

“It's Duane Rice. What have you got for me?”

“Brace yourself, Duane.”

“Tell me!”

Rhonda let out a long breath, then said, “I found out that Anne did work Silver Foxes for a while, a few months ago. Now she's taken up with a man—a video entrepreneur. I'm pretty sure it's a coke whore scene. He's heavy into rock vid, and, well, I …”

Rice said, “Real slow now and you're a K richer. Name, address and phone number. Real slow.”

“Can you pay me Monday or Tuesday? I'm going to the Springs for the weekend, and my car payment's due.”

Rice screamed, “Tell me, goddammit, you fucking whore!”

Rhonda screamed back, “Stan Klein, Mount Olympus Estates, Number 14! You're a bigger whore than I am and I want my money!”

Klein the dope dealer who probably ratted him off on his G.T.A. bust—

Klein the lounge lizard who he always figured had the hots for Vandy and—

The hotel room reeled; adrenaline juiced through Rice like the shot of dope that had cost him three years of his life. The phone dropped to the floor, and through a long red tunnel Rhonda's voice echoed: “I'm sorry, Duane. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry.” Everything went crazy, then a jolt of ice water made the room sizzle like a live wire.

You can't kill him.

You can't kill him because he's a known associate.

You can't kill him because Vandy's a known associate, and the cops will sweat her at Sybil Brand and the dykes will eat her up.

You can't kill him because then you and Vandy can't make the rock scene in the Big Apple and you'll never have the place in Connecticut, and—

It was enough ice-water fuel. Rice ran for the Trans Am, leaving the .45 under the pillow as added insurance. Rhonda's pleas were still coming out of the phone: “I'm sorry, goddammit, but I need money! You promised! You promised!”

Mount Olympus was an upscale tract of two-story Mediterranean villas situated off Fairfax in the lower part of the Hollywood Hills. Rice cruised the access road, looking for Stan Klein's red Porsche with the personalized plate “Stan Man.” When all he saw were Benzes, Caddys and Audis, mostly color-coordinated to the houses, he pulled into the empty driveway of Number 14 and got out, grabbing a skinny-head screwdriver from the glove compartment.

The windows were too high to reach, but the door looked flimsy. Rice rang the bell, waited twenty seconds, then rang again. Hearing no sounds of movement inside, he inserted the screwdriver into the door runner just above the lock and yanked. The cheap plywood cracked, and the door opened.

He stepped inside and closed the door, making a mental note not to leave prints. The entrance foyer was dark, but off to his left he could see a big, high-ceilinged living room.

Rice walked in and gasped. Every inch of floor and wall space was covered with stereo and video equipment. V.C.R.s and Betamaxes were stacked along one wall floor to ceiling; home computer terminals, TV sets and giant cardboard boxes piled with Sony Walkmans were lined up on the floor. Three Pac-Man machines were propped by the doorway, and the rest of the room was taken up by mounds of small cardboard boxes. Threading his way into the maze, Rice grabbed a box at random. Rhonda the Fox and a naked man were on the cover, beneath the legend, ‘Help me, Rhonda'—the Beach Boys. Private collector's item—available only thru Stan Man Enterprises, Box 8316, L.A., Calif 90036.”

It all went red.

Rice tore through every box in the room; read every cover. Shitloads of naked women and oldies but goodies, but no Vandy. His frost was returning when he saw a phone and phone machine atop a color TV.

He punched the “Play Message” button and got: “Hi, this is Stan Klein on the line for Stan Man Enterprises. Annie and I are on a video shoot, but we'll be back Monday night. Talk to the beep. Bye!”

Rice pushed “Incoming.” There was a tape hiss, followed by a beep and a male voice. “Stanley baby, it's Chick. Listen, Annie was great. Unbelievable skull. So listen, if you're free can we talk ad space like Tuesday? Call me.” Beep. “Stan, this is Ward Carter. I … uh … want to thank you for the, uh, you know, Eskimo trade-off. Annie was fabulous. About the porn vid, it's strictly bootleg on the song rights, but I'm sure I can work out a deal with this man I know who's got a chain of X-rated motels. He's mob, and you know how those guys are into blondes, so maybe you could set up a party? Talk to you Mondayish.”

The rest of the messages went unheard; a hideous wailing was drowning them out. Rice wondered where the sound was coming from. When his eyes started to burn, he knew he was weeping for the first time since the sixth grade in Hawaiian Garbage.

11

L
loyd was asleep in his Parker Center cubicle when the phone rang. Snapping awake, he pulled his legs off the desk and checked his watch: 2:40. Afternoon doze-offs: another sign of encroaching middle age. He grabbed the receiver and said, “Robbery/Homicide. Hopkins.”

“Peter Kapek. We've got another one. I've got the manager; he's agreed to talk with no attorney. West L.A. Federal Building, fourth-floor interview rooms. Forty-five minutes?”