Green Monster (19 page)

Chapter Twenty

Frankie Navarro sat in a lounge chair beside the small, six-foot-deep pool in his fenced-in back yard, sipping an energy shake and watching his girlfriend Fawna, who was perched on the edge of the pool in a yellow-and-red bikini, swishing her legs back and forth in the tepid water. Dead bugs, orange leaves, and a few of Fawna's cigarette butts floated on the pool's surface, backlit by the underwater lights. The water seemed to ripple to the rhythm of the Def Leppard music that throbbed out of the speaker he had placed in his living room window.

As usual, Frankie felt hemmed in by the redwood fence that separated his back yard from his neighbors'. Fawna's scrawny, matted Pekingese had left a little pile of crap in just about every square foot of dirt and dead grass around the pool deck. He'd yell at her to clean it up, and she'd do it for a day or two, and then forget again. The neighbors—Russian émigrés on one side, a gay couple on the other side—didn't like the noise when he yelled at Fawna, or the loud metal music he liked to play at night, but he didn't give a shit. They were afraid of him; after coming over to complain once, and seeing the muscles on Frankie and the guys who hung out with him, the neighbors didn't come over again.

He'd wanted to be close to the movie action, but West Hollywood was becoming a zoo, and this was no way for a crime lord or a successful actor to live. But it wouldn't be long now…

Frankie's cell phone rang, and he thought about not answering. Let it ring. It's almost midnight—he didn't feel like talking to anybody, and it would just cost him minutes on his cell plan. Besides, in two days he'd be so fucking rich, he'd have to hire guys who'd hire other guys to answer his phone for him.

Ah, fuck it—he picked up and said, “What?”

“Hey, Frankie, it's Larry.”

Frankie's agent, Larry Eldin, hadn't called in months. Hell, Frankie wasn't even sure he was a client anymore. The last gig Larry'd got for him was a two-scene, one-line role in a grade D sorcery flick called “Wizard Killer.” He played a warrior whose big moment was getting his own head cut off in a sword fight. The
papier maché
model of his bloody head, jammed onto a pike on the wall of the castle, got more screen time than Frankie did. Straight to video. Even his mother never saw it.

Still, Frankie couldn't help but feel that old excitement. He'd been in L.A. for fifteen years now, getting by on the crumbs Sid Mink let fall to the floor. Acting sure as hell didn't pay the bills. Five movies, total—unless you counted that recruiting thing he did for the Navy down in San Diego. Shit, more people saw that on TV than all his movies combined.

But Frankie's ship was about to come in. Once he got rid of Sid Mink, he'd be Bugsy Siegel all over again. Those Hollywood snobs would trip over themselves inviting him to their parties. They'd see what they'd been missing—a good-looking guy with a build like Stallone or Arnold could only dream about now. He could be the next Rambo, the next Rocky, the next Terminator. The Latin Stallion—no, that didn't sound quite right, but why the fuck couldn't it happen? If they wouldn't cut him in, he'd cut himself in. In two days, he could do it.

And now his agent finally calls. It pissed him off—just when everything is starting to look up, suddenly the lazy asshole finds something.

“Yeah, what is it, Larry?”

“Damnedest thing, Frankie. I just got a call from a producer who's making a big-budget action flick, and he saw you in that thing, what was it called—‘Death Bus.' I guess it was just on TV or something. Anyway, he loved you, and he had an actor walk off the set this afternoon, right as they're starting to shoot. He's up the creek for a big, strong guy to play a…what was it…oh, yeah, the leader of a biker gang. You can ride a bike, can't you, Frankie?”

McQueen. Brando. Fonda. Hopper. Navarro.

“Hell, yes, I can ride a bike. What, are you shittin' me? I rode out here on a hog fifteen years ago from New Mexico.”

He'd also sold the bike fourteen years ago, and hadn't ridden one since, but Larry didn't have to know that.

“That's great,” Larry said. “He'd like his casting guy to meet you tonight. You'd be on the set tomorrow, if it works out. Somewhere out by San Bernardino.”

“It's gotta be tonight?” Frankie said. “You mean, like, right now?”

“If you want it. Lotta lines, pays good. I think you're on screen for, like, a quarter of the flick.”

“Really? That much.”

What am I doing, Frankie wondered. I don't need this now. I need to keep my eye on the ball here. Payday in two days, unless something comes out of nowhere to fuck it up. I should just lie low, stay close to the phone, then start counting my money. But this flick, I'd have lots of lines, Larry said. On screen for, what, twenty, twenty-five minutes? How great would that be? Shit, I've been sticking with this guy for years and he's got me nothing but crowd scenes and auditions for ‘Muscle-bound man in tank-top' roles. I can't pass this up. I can't—not when I'm finally getting something from the little cocksucker.

“What's the producer's name?” Frankie asked.

“Williams. Robert Williams.”

“Never heard of him.”

“I think he's one of those wine-and-microchip guys from Napa who's made a ton of money and has always wanted to get into the movies.”

I know the feeling, Frankie thought. Except for the ton-of-money part.

“And what's the name of the movie?”

“Uh…lemme think…‘Day of Doom,' ‘Day Before Doom,' something with ‘Doom' in it. I haven't seen the script, but the guy says it's one of those save-the-world-from-the-Apocalypse things.”

“Anybody else in the cast that I've heard of?”

“I can't remember right now…”

“Do I get a sex scene?”

“Look, Frankie, do you want this or don't you? I gotta tell you, it's been tough finding films you're right for, and you're not gettin' any younger. This could be a breakthrough for you. You do this, I could start getting you more mature action parts. But it's only on the table tonight. The guy's got two other actors he's ready to call if you don't want it.”

“Yeah, okay. I want it. Where do I meet him?”

Larry gave him the address of an office park in Inglewood, not far from Frankie's house in West Hollywood. Frankie was surprised that a movie producer would set up a meeting there, but he had to admit that he didn't know what the fuck these producers thought or how they operated. If he did, he'd have been in more pictures. Besides, this Williams guy was new to the business, he needed somebody right now, and the casting director was taking the meeting. Maybe the casting director lived in Inglewood. Who knew? All Frankie cared about was that he was going to be in a movie, with lots of lines. Big budget, with a theatrical release this time. For that, he'd drive to fuckin' Tijuana.

“Fawna, I'm goin' out,” Frankie said. Fawna hadn't paid attention to the phone conversation. Of course, Fawna didn't pay much attention to anything when she was on blow or ecstasy, which was most of the time. Lost in her world. Great lay, if she wasn't too high. But Frankie knew he could do better. Next week, with the money and the movie role, he was putting this puke-hole of a house up for sale, and shopping for something in Palos Verdes. Fawna wasn't coming with him.

He went inside the house and called Jesus. He wouldn't need an entourage—that would look bad for a supporting actor. But it made sense to bring one guy with him. You never knew.

Ten minutes later, a dinged-up Chevy Tahoe pulled up in front of Frankie's one-story stucco house, shrouded by two short, fat palm trees. Jesus got out and walked to the door. It was still warm out, and Jesus wore a black tank-top that showed off his bulging triceps and delts. Jesus was smart, though; he never worked his body to the point where he had a better set than Frankie. If Frankie was busy and couldn't get to the gym for a few days, Jesus didn't pump, either. Sometimes he spotted for Gino and Mikey, but he always stayed a few reps behind the boss.

“Kinda late,” Jesus said when Frankie met him at the door. “What's up?”

“My agent called,” Frankie said. “Can you believe it? I was gonna see about getting his face on a milk carton. Says he's got a job for me, starting tomorrow, but I gotta meet the casting director tonight.”

Jesus shrugged. He knew the boss was obsessed with getting into the movies. He didn't know why, and he didn't care. Jesus drove the car, muscled the pushers and bookies, and didn't ask Frankie a lot of questions. It wasn't a bad job—you had to look over your shoulder to make sure one of Sid Mink's guys wasn't around, but Jesus could take care of himself. Besides, something told him Frankie was going to be moving up in the world someday, maybe soon. He had that thing, what did they call it? Charisma. He wasn't some porky, dried-up old fart like Mink. Frankie had balls, good looks, and the energy it took to be somebody. Lately Frankie'd been making lots of plans, something about a kidnapping that was going to pay off big. He wouldn't give Jesus all the details, but it involved one of the Dodger players who worked out at Laswell's. Frankie just told Jesus to be patient, because the money was going to be rolling in pretty soon. Jesus had heard that kind of talk before, but this time it sounded like the real thing, and he liked that.

Jesus had the Tahoe's radio tuned to Que Buena, the Hispanic music station. Frankie didn't like that down-home, old country shit; it was for small-timers, homeys, guys from the barrio who weren't ever going to make it. He hit the scan button, looking for classic rock. He was pumped up about this acting gig, and he needed some high-energy headbanging to match his mood. He wanted to walk into that audition like a rock star. He settled back when he found a station playing “Beautiful Girls” by Van Halen.

He couldn't help thinking about the Alberto Miranda deal as Jesus piloted the big SUV down La Cienega. He'd received an update earlier that morning. Elena Miranda was still under Jefe's control, getting weaker, definitely, but she'd live long enough for the money transfer on Friday. Then Jefe would turn her loose, let her wander around until she found her way home or someone found her. It didn't matter. The shanty would be torched by then, all traces of Jefe and his team destroyed. Jefe would get his cut, to divide up among his partners any way he saw fit. Frankie expected Jefe to kill them; that's what Frankie would do. Dead kidnappers don't talk. As for Jefe, a million bucks should buy his silence. If not…well, anybody could be killed, anytime, anywhere.

Except, apparently, that private dick from Minnesota. He'd missed Skarda twice, and that really pissed him off. Now Skarda was somewhere in L.A., but he didn't seem to be getting any closer to finding Frankie or figuring out what was going on. And Skarda didn't have enough time left. There was nothing he could do to stop Kenwood from paying off now. Maybe a week ago Frankie would have passed up this audition; there was too much up in the air then, too many ways that things could go wrong. Jefe might have let Elena get away, Miranda might have gone to the cops, Kenwood might have refused to pay…but none of that happened. He was almost home free, and it was time to expand his horizons. The money, the acting job, the new house, the new girlfriends…life was about to get very, very good.

Jesus got on the 405 at Florence and exited five minutes later at West Century. They found the address they were looking for in a complex of boxy, two-story office buildings between the freeway and the eastern edge of LAX. With the constant hum of the freeway and the din from the arriving and departing jets, it wasn't the kind of location where you'd try to get a lot of thinking done. He hoped they had a halfway quiet room for the audition.

Jesus pulled into the parking lot outside the building they'd been directed to. The main entrance was a glass door near the north corner of the building, with the address stenciled in black numbers on the stucco wall next to the building. The front of the building was not lit, but from the streetlights along the curb, Frankie could tell that a company name had been spelled out in three-foot-tall letters above the door at some point, but the letters had been taken down a while ago, leaving a faint outline behind that he couldn't read. There was a light on inside, illuminating two of the windows that faced the street, but the blinds were drawn.

There were two other cars in the lot, a new Cadillac and an old Nissan. So nobody was driving a Mercedes or a Hummer—big deal. Probably just the casting director and an assistant, maybe a makeup artist or something. These Hollywood producers didn't get rich by going to auditions at one in the morning.

Jesus parked in front of the entrance and got out of the SUV first. Frankie was checking his hair in the mirror behind the sunshield, so he didn't see Leon come from out of the shadows beside the building, walk up to Jesus, and put a bullet through his temple. But Frankie did hear the sharp pop, followed by someone pulling his door open and grabbing him by the arm. He tried to yank free and reach for the gun in the glove compartment, but he heard the mechanical sound of a semi-automatic being racked next to his ear, and a familiar voice:

“You wanna die, Frankie?”

Chapter Twenty-one

Frankie eased his hand away from the glove compartment and slowly turned to see Joey Mattaliano—Joey Icebox, they called him, because he was built like a Frigidaire—with a gun pointed at the base of his skull. Through the open driver's-side door, Frankie saw the other guy who was always with Sid Mink. Leon somebody. He had a gun, too, pointed directly at Frankie's face. Frankie might be able to make a quick move and out-muscle Joey Icebox, but Leon would blow him away. Frankie looked down at Leon's feet. He could see Jesus' arm on the asphalt driveway, blood-streaked and immobile. He must be dead. Jesus.

It was a set-up. They'd got to his fucking agent, that no-good piece of shit.

The sweat was pouring down Frankie's body, seeming to pool in his shorts and freeze around his genitals. Mink must know about the kidnapping. But how? He hadn't told Jesus any of the details. Maybe Jesus had said something to Mikey or Gino; you couldn't trust those two to go get a sandwich without shooting their mouths off to somebody, trying to prove how tough and important they were. Could Miranda have talked? But that would be crazy—he had to know his mother would be killed the moment anyone even suspected what was going on. Maybe it was Jefe; Frankie'd never met the guy, so who's to say he didn't try to cut a better deal for himself with Mink?

Frankie knew he had just a few minutes, or even seconds, to bargain for his life.

“Look, Joey, let me talk to Sid,” Frankie said. “Please. We can straighten this whole thing out.”

“What thing would that be, Frankie?” Joey asked.

“Come on, Joey. I know Sid knows. I was always gonna cut him in. Right from the start—honest. I just couldn't let anybody else know about it until it all went down. But Sid's gonna get his cut. Friday. Just lemme talk to him. Joey. Joey. Please.”

The door to the office building opened, and Sid Mink walked slowly down the steps, swinging his big gut from side to side. He'd shut off the lights inside. He walked over to the SUV and looked down for a moment, staring at the spot where Jesus lay.

“Guy's name was Jesus?” Mink said, looking at Leo, then at Frankie. “This one ain't gonna rise again.”

Frankie had thought Mink was soft and old; he thought he could take him down. But it looked like he'd been wrong. Mink wasn't washed up yet. That weary-old-fatman-at-the-Dodger-game act was a phony. But if he let Mink in on the plan, he'd have to give up maybe half of his take. Besides, Joey Icebox and Leon and maybe some of the other guys in Mink's organization would know, too. Fuckin' mobsters couldn't keep their mouths shut. He should have just set up Mink for a hit—get it over with, bang, boom. Joey and Leon would be taking orders from him now.

Instead, he was going for a ride—one way.

Joey and Leon hauled Frankie out of the SUV and shoved him into the Cadillac. Then Leon went back to the SUV and got the gun out of the glove compartment. Mink got into the passenger seat, Leon got behind the wheel, and Joey sat in the back, holding a gun to Frankie's ribs.

“What should we do about the Nissan, boss?” Leon asked Mink.

“Leave it. It's clean.”

The other car had been a dummy, just to convince Frankie that there really was a meeting at the office building. He should have smelled it; the car was a piece of shit, something Joey Icebox or Leon drove over from a chop shop. Not even a studio flunky would drive a crate like that.

Joey backed up and turned the car toward the exit to the street. Mink didn't say anything, so Frankie knew they already had his future figured out. He was going to be taken somewhere, shot and dumped. But first, they'd want to find out what he knew.

They were on the 405 heading north toward the hills when Mink finally spoke.

“So Frankie Navarro thought he was big enough and smart enough to pull a $50,000,000 scam to fix the World Series—that's what we got here, Frankie?”

Sid didn't know Frankie very well. They'd crossed paths a few times at neighborhood festivals, political fundraisers, and the occasional social gathering at the home of mutual acquaintances. Frankie had decided right after arriving in L.A. that he and Mink were different breeds of cat, and he'd never get anywhere working for him. Mink was old-school, a relic from the days when the L.A. mob had some juice. Frankie wanted no part of it; he had to be free to do his own thing, to pursue acting at the same time he was building up his own little network of dealers and bookies. Besides, L.A. was changing. Mink was more comfortable dealing with white gamblers and black dope pushers; Frankie knew the barrios. Frankie wasn't from East L.A. or Mexico, so he knew he'd never be able to move up in the Latino gangs. He worked the fringes—Mink assumed the La Raza boys looked out for him, and the Latinos figured Frankie was in good with Sid Mink.

Frankie had just pushed it way too far.

“It's not like that, Sid,” Frankie said. “Like I told Joey Icebox—I was gonna cut you in. You know that. I just didn't want to tell the world, you know? It was a tricky deal. If somebody talked…”

Mink lit his cigar and pushed the button on the door to roll his window down halfway. He took a long drag and, instead of blowing it out the window, blew it at Frankie.

“See, that's what I don't get,” Mink said. “You're tellin' me you didn't trust me? YOU didn't trust ME?”

“No, I don't mean it that way, Sid,” Frankie said. Shit, everything he said came out wrong. There had to be something he could say, something he could offer Sid, that would keep him alive. Think, Frankie.

“How did you mean it?”

“I…I…”

“C'mon, you fuckin' little spic punk piece of shit!” Mink yelled. Now the veins were standing up in his neck, and he leaned over the back seat to get his face closer to Frankie's. “I gotta listen to people tellin' me we're the Mickey Mouse Mafia. They say the cops are laughin' behind our backs, that the unions don't respect us no more, and the newspapers write editorials about our ‘declining influence.' I'll show you ‘declining influence.'”

Mink reached over into Leon's jacket and took out his Walther PPK with the silencer still attached. He pointed it at Frankie's right bicep and pulled the trigger. The bullet tore through Frankie's arm.

“Christ!” Frankie screamed. He clutched at the blood that poured out of his arm.

“You think you're so fuckin' tough, you and those muscle boys you hang around with,” Mink said, his cigar hanging wet from the corner of his mouth. “What good are your muscles doin' you now, huh Frankie? You look like a fuckin' clown, like one of those dumb stiffs from a fuckin' beach movie.”

Frankie's arm hurt like hell, but he wasn't going to whimper for Sid Mink. Joey handed him a handkerchief and said, “Here. Don't bleed all over the upholstery.”

Frankie pressed the handkerchief to the gaping wound, but it quickly became soaked with blood, and looking at it made him woozy. He had to come up with something soon, think of something before he couldn't think anymore, before Mink shot him in the head. They wanted something from him, or he'd be dead already. What was it?

“Now, you're going to tell me how your little scam worked,” Mink said. “How you thought it up. How you got to Miranda. Did he throw ball games? Was he on the juice? I wanna know, Frankie—that ain't information you're gonna wanna take to your grave.”

“He was on the juice, Sid—Christ, anybody could see that,” Frankie said, between gasps of breath. His arm felt like it had been ripped off his body. “We train at the same gym. I got his injection schedule from the doctor who was givin' him the stuff.”

“You usin' too, Frankie?”

Even at a time like this, when his life was dangling by a sinew, Frankie was reluctant to admit that he'd been on the same powerful mixture of steroids, HGH, and muscle-building supplements that many of the ballplayers used. All the work at the gym wouldn't have got him ripped without it. He wanted the punks on the street, Mink's mob, and the Hollywood crowd to think it was all about the lifting, but the barrel of a gun was powerful truth serum.

“Yeah, yeah, I use, Sid.”

“But bullets don't bounce off you.”

“No, guess not.”

Joey and Leon laughed. Frankie, for all his pain, tried to laugh too. It came out more like a choking sob.

“So, what, you figured you'd blackmail Miranda? Poor guy comes over here from Colombia, or wherever the fuck he's from, and he gets mixed up in steroids so he can get better at his job. He wants to be an American baseball hero. Then a drug-shooting piece of garbage like you—doing the same shit, just to try to look tough—you threaten to rat him out if he don't throw World Series games?”

“Yeah, that's about how it was,” Frankie groaned. Not entirely, but he had to hold onto something to bargain with.

“You know what really pisses me off, Frankie?” Mink said.

Frankie flinched, hearing the anger return to Mink's voice and expecting another shot to be fired.

“It's baseball you're fuckin' with. There's enough shit in this world. Why you gotta fuck up one of the only good things we got left?”

Frankie didn't answer, and Mink made a disgusted grunt at the back of his throat and turned to watch the freeway. Leon had gone east on the 105, and then merged onto the 110 heading north toward downtown. Frankie couldn't figure out where they were headed. It looked like they weren't going to toss him off a cliff into the ocean. Maybe up into the hills to dump his body in a canyon.

“Sid, what do I gotta do to stay alive?” Frankie said. His heartbeat raced and his breath came in short, panting gulps.

Mink faced forward, watching the road and saying nothing.

“Half, Sid. I'll give you half.”

Mink remained silent, while Joey chuckled to himself, his gun still poking into Frankie's ribs like a letter from the future.

“Where we goin'?” Frankie asked.

“Since you love baseball so much, I thought we'd let you out at Dodger Stadium,” Mink said. “Nobody there now—you'll have the parking lot all to yourself.”

Frankie immediately visualized his own body, lying crumpled on the asphalt in a lined parking space outside the ballpark, waiting to be discovered by the first employees to arrive in the morning. He couldn't let it end that way.

The light traffic allowed Leon to reach Chavez Ravine in twenty minutes. Mink was still holding Leon's Walther—it looked like he was going to do it himself, instead of having Leon or Joey Icebox do it. It didn't normally work that way, but Mink probably wanted word to get out that he was the trigger man. It would boost his sagging ratings.

Leon had reached the outer gates of the stadium parking lot and was pulling in when Joey's phone rang.

“Shut that fucking thing off,” Mink said. “We got work to do here.”

Joey pulled the phone out of his pocket and looked at the number on the display.

“It's Skarda.”

***

In Pacific Palisades, Sam heard Joey's voice and the background sound of a car's engine. They were driving somewhere, probably with a gun in Frankie's mouth.

“Joey, put Mink on the phone,” Sam said.

It was past two now. Sam had gone inside Miranda's house to make the call. He'd started to shiver, and he didn't know whether it was because of the falling canyon temperatures, or the certainty that if he didn't stop Mink from killing Frankie Navarro, Miranda would never see his mother again.

Technically, Sam had no stake in Elena Miranda's fate. But he had a big stake in whether they could prove Frankie was behind the extortion plot. Miranda's say-so wasn't good enough.

“Make it quick, Skarda,” he heard Mink say. “Frankie's about to become unavailable for comment.”

“Where are you?” Sam said.

“Let's just call it an undisclosed location. A smart private eye like you should be able to figure it out by tomorrow night's news.”

“Don't kill him, Sid.”

“Funny, he's been saying the same thing. But I haven't heard a good reason not to.”

“Because he's not the guy who dreamed this whole thing up. He's just the front man.”

“What do you mean?” Mink said. He'd been projecting a cold confidence, the kind he would have needed as he was rising up through the ranks in the '60s and '70s, and had undoubtedly lost in recent years. But now Mink sounded less sure of himself again.

“Think about it. Miranda says his mother has been held captive for at least three weeks now. Even in Venezuela, that costs money. You need at least two guys, probably three, to keep up a round-the-clock watch in a kidnapping. Has Frankie Navarro got the kind of money or contacts it would take to recruit a foreign kidnapping team, keep them in supplies for a month, and pay them enough to keep them on the job?”

Mink didn't say anything. Sam could almost hear the rough, scaly skin on Mink's fingers, nervously rubbing the smooth metal of the gun he was about to use to kill Frankie.

“Is he smart enough to put something like this together?” Sam continued. “Is he a deep thinker, a patient guy, or more of an impulsive type?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Mink bellowed into the phone. “All I know about him is he tried to blackmail Miranda. He admitted it. That's good enough for me.”

Sam could sense Mink's finger tightening on the trigger. He had to get through to him.

“Of course, he admitted it,” Sam said. “He's trying to save his life. But he knows more than he's telling you. If you kill him, you'll never find out who put him up to it. Kenwood will never know. Hell, Kenwood might get another note from Babe Ruth tomorrow afternoon. He'll pay up. Miranda's mother will be dead and somebody else will have gotten away with 50 million, right under your nose.”

Again there was a pause. Mink had to realize that he was about to make a big mistake killing Frankie.