The Down and Out Page 4

  Turn the TV off Rachel and let’s go back to sleep! Sam felt around in the bed for the remote. He touched something. What? That’s not how blankets feel. It didn’t make sense. His feet, cold.

  He was laying down, but not flat. On a tilt.

  “Rachel.” It came out a whisper. He wasn’t sure he even said it. He had to get up. Use the bathroom. Drink some water.

  Sam slowly opened his eyes. Above him was a long curling concrete slab that stretched on and on. And the stars.

  Sam was overcome with quick, dark dread.

  Images.

  I’m in the car talking to Carlos. He won’t shut up. He’s grabbing my arm. They’re coming at me. The man with the messed-up eye. Punching. All black. Can’t breathe.

  The needle.

  Sam bolted up, looking around. He was on a hillside covered in burro’s tail and ivy. Below was the freeway. Above, too. A road crew was at work.

  “Whoa. Relax, pardner,” the voice said.

  It was the big blond man who’d attacked him in the car. A smaller, older man was crouched behind him.

  Sam lunged at the blond man, throwing a clumsy haymaker.

  The blond man easily slipped Sam’s punch.

  Sam slid face first on the slick surface of the ivy. He lost control and began to tumble down the steep hillside.

  “Now ya did it!” the blond man said.

  Completely disoriented, Sam reached out, trying to grab onto something. His ribcage rolled over a sharp-edged rock and he screamed in pain.

  He grabbed a fistful of vines and slid to a stop before crashing down onto the shoulder of the freeway.

  “Harris, hold up!” the blond man said, running down after him.

  Sam quickly scrambled to his feet. “Back off or I’ll kill you! I swear it!”

  “Just hold up and listen! I’m trying to save you.”

  “I remember you. You attacked me!”

  “Yeah that was me. But they wanted to kill you. I didn’t sign up for that. I’ve done some bad things but I ain’t no killer.”

  “Me either, man,” the older man said.

  “I’m Daredevil Don,” the blond man said. He jerked a thumb toward the older man. “This is Ricky. We’re not gonna hurt you, so settle down or they’ll hear us.”

  Sam felt the ground beneath his feet. He looked down to see he was in his socks. His boots were missing. His clothes were a mess from the fall, caked in dirt. His ribs ached. It hurt just to breathe.

  He felt his pockets. No wallet. No phone. His faux Rolex was gone.

  Sam dug deeper. His Zippo was missing. “What happened? Where’s all my things?”

  “They took it all, man. It’s all big money on the streets. Those fancy boots too.” Don looked back up the slope. “They must know we’re gone by now. Let’s get a move on. Lomax is gonna be looking for us.”

  “Who?”

  “Lomax.” Don pointed to his left eye. “White Eye. He’s Carlos’ muscle.”

  Sam wondered if he’d somehow blown his con. Maybe this was Leonides’ twisted revenge. That didn’t make sense, though. Leonides had optioned the script for fifty grand. The money was deposited, sitting offshore. Sam remembered he’d texted Rachel about it.

  Rachel.

  “What time is it?” Sam asked.

  “Don’t know. Past midnight. Night crew working on the freeway don’t start till midnight.”

  Sam looked at the lights and trucks on the shoulder. Rachel must be worried. Really worried.

  “We got to move it,” Ricky said.

  “C’mon, Harris!”

  Don and Ricky scurried off the hill onto the shoulder. Still doubtful, Sam followed after them.

  “You can’t be out here! The freeway is shut down!” a voice yelled. Sam turned to see a man in a hardhat coming towards them. “I said get outta here, you bums!”

  Don flipped him the bird. He turned to Sam. “Forget him. These Caltrans workers are all bark. They can’t do shit.”

  Sam realized how he must look in his dirty clothes. Walking on the asphalt in his socks was unsettling.

  “Hey!” someone screamed. It echoed off the cement pillars and the bottom of the freeway connector looming over head. Sam looked up to see a face at the top of the ridge. “Where do ya think you’re taking him, Daredevil?”

  “Let’s cross over,” Don said to Sam. “Run!”

  The side of the freeway Sam faced was closed due to the work being done. Sam sprinted across the three lanes. He’d never ran across a freeway before. He couldn’t get any traction in his socks and running was awkward and slow. Don hit the center divider first and was on the other side easily. Sam pulled himself up and over, feeling like he was in some half-remembered war movie, a fleeing soldier in enemy territory. The whole situation just didn’t feel real. Ricky was a few steps behind.

  The other side of the freeway was open for business. Sam dropped down off the divider. He felt the rush of wind as a car flew past.

  “Let’s go road runner!” Don whooped as he ran across the freeway.

  This is nuts.

  It was late and there weren’t many cars on the road. There were a pair of headlights in the distance coming towards him. Sam looked up and down the freeway.

  “It’s a freeway!” Don yelled. “It’s one way! Run!”

  Sam took off. His legs were wobbly. His left sock slid halfway off his foot and he stumbled to his knees. Headlights that seemed far away were suddenly on him.

  “Harris!” Don yelled.

  Sam lunged forward on the asphalt, desperately trying to get away. He braced himself for impact.

  How did all this happen? No ID, I’ll be a John Doe. Rachel will never find out what happened to me. She’ll lose me forever.

  Sam heard the brakes squeal. The horn. The sickening thud.

  He looked up to see the F150 zigzag before coming to a tire-screeching stop.

  Far beyond the truck, a body lay against the divider. It was folded in half, the head tucked under an arm.

  “C’mon!” Don yelled.

  Somehow Sam had survived. The pickup must have swerved at the last second.

  Ricky hadn’t been so lucky.

  The pickup truck idled for a moment longer before speeding away.

  Sam ran the rest of the way across the freeway. The cold asphalt scraped his bare foot.

  “Ricky bought it,” Don said. “Damn.”

  Sam stared after the receding taillights of the truck, stunned. “They just drove off! They didn’t even stop.”

  “That happens a lot. Cars don’t stop for folks like us.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Another one of Carlos’s recruits. Like me. Not a killer. Just getting by.” Don shrugged. “I met him tonight. Nothing we can do now. We better get a move on.”

  Don booked it up the off-ramp. Sam followed, his heart beating jaggedly in his chest. His ribs ached with every breath. As they neared the top, Sam turned to look back down on the freeway. A figure climbed over the center divider. Then another. A burst of traffic kept them on the inside shoulder.

  Sam’s mind raced. Who do I know that’s in L.A.? Who can I call for help? He mentally ran through names, faces, deals, trying to think of anyone he could reach out to. Shelter. Food. A bed.

  He came up empty.

  As he caught his breath, Sam took stock of himself.

  He was cold. His dress jacket and T-shirt, smeared with mud, did little to keep him warm. It was L.A., but right now it felt like any other desert at night. Sam was ravenously hungry. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and even that had been light. He was tired too. The drug they’d shot him up with had left him weak. To top it all off he had to pee like a racehorse.

  “Let’s move!” Don said. “Follow me.”

  Sam jogged to catch up with Don. He had to look where he was stepping in his shoeless feet.

  He allowed himself to think beyond survival. Is the grift stil
l alive? He could make it back to the motel in Chinatown, but what if he had somehow blown his part of the con? Rachel would be in trouble too. If her whereabouts was still a secret, no way would he be the one to lead trouble right back to her. It was possible they’d already found her.

  That Caltrans worker was right. I pretty much am a bum right now. It was a chilling thought, one that brought back unwanted memories of his own homeless youth. That was before he became a ward of Iowa’s orphanage system. Dark days, except for a brief shining moment when his Uncle Gene took a shine to him. He was an ex-con who worked a forklift at a meatpacking plant. Sam crashed on his couch, learned how to get by on nothing. Uncle Gene was fun until he lost his job, and then his home.

  The thought of his uncle made him remember someone else, a man who helped the homeless. Someone who’d been a part of that last grift here in L.A.

  Yes!

  Sam remembered now. Reed Bennek’s original life coach. He gave up Hollywood to be some kind of downtown street saint. Sam interviewed him to prep for becoming Reed’s next guru. It worked like a charm, too.

  A plan formed in Sam’s mind. A ray of hope. If he could get back downtown, he might just make it. It added a new complex wrinkle to his con, but it might also fix whatever damage had been done to it.

  He just had to survive the night.

  Rachel sat in the passenger side of the VW SportWagen, glued to the Find My app on her cell phone. The icon representing her phone was tantalizingly close to Sam’s icon. “Sam, or at least his phone, has got to be somewhere on the other side of that fence,” she said.

  Loto grunted. “Maybe someone drove by and just threw the phone.”

  “I thought of that.”

  They were on the seedy outskirts of Pasadena’s Old Town, where freeway on-ramps and off-ramps were hidden away like something the city was ashamed of. Beyond the fence was a vast unlit landscape surrounding the convergence of three different freeways. She saw trees and tall grass pressed against the chain link fence. The rest was swallowed in darkness.

  “What’s out there, anyway?” Rachel said.

  Loto brought the car to a stop at the curb. “Hiking trails. A stream somewhere. Boatloads of homeless. They camp there.”

  Rachel was deeply worried for Sam. Around Loto, she decided to play it like it wasn’t personal. She’d act like Sam was a valuable partner in a business enterprise of which Stanley Ng had an interest. Cool and professional. Don’t show this guy you’re afraid.

  For all the build-up Stanley Ng had given him, Rachel thought Loto looked like a really big Teddy Bear. She pegged him at around six-foot-five and well over three hundred pounds. He had a sizeable gut and his arms were bigger than most people’s legs. Loto’s full beard had a touch of gray and he wore his glasses strapped around his head like some kind of athlete. He always had a slight smile that gave him an air mellowness.

  Loto parked the car. He took a leather bag from the back seat. He briefly rested it on his lap. Part of it lay on Rachel’s leg. Whatever was inside was heavy and hard.

  When Loto stepped out of the car, Rachel felt the SportWagen rise up a few inches. Rachel watched as Loto zipped open the bag and pulled out the strangest club she’d ever seen. It looked like a giant nutcracker with a vicious hook at the end.

  Loto put it through a holster on his belt. “Don’t want to use the gun,” Loto said. “Pasadena PD jumps on gunshots quick.” He handed Rachel the empty bag.

  “I brought mace,” Rachel said. She also had a six-inch kitchen knife in her handbag that she picked up at the supermarket.

  “Stay here. I work alone.”

  “But I need to come with you so I can track Sam on my phone.”

  “Let me have it,” he said.

  Rachel was reluctant to give him her phone. Loto stared at her with that slight smile and she knew she had no choice. “Fine,” she said. The phone seemed remarkably small in his hand.

  Loto headed towards the fence.

  “Hey, Loto,” she called out after him. “We need Sam alive.” Don’t kill him, Rachel wanted to add.

  Loto went through the gate and into the darkness.

  At first, Rachel had held out hope that Sam would show up. He’d apologize. She’d get righteously pissed off at him for not contacting her. They’d make up and things would be back like before. On the cusp of a major payday.

  Then there was the flip side. If they’d somehow blown the grift, it was possible Sam was suffering for it right now. Or worse.

  It wouldn’t be the first time. It happened a year ago, right here in the Golden State but way north of L.A. At the tail end of a con, Sam got busted by some PI the mark had hired. Rachel had known she was being followed and it could’ve been her who they’d picked up. They’d already got the mark’s money when it fell apart, too. Sam still carried the scar next to his eye from the beating he took. She wouldn’t allow herself to think about what Sam could be going through now.

  This time felt different. Leonides had just paid a nice sum for the option. She’d never seen a mark so blindly hooked. Sam seemed confident in his last text, too.

  If Leonides was holding Sam somewhere, if he’d hurt him, he wouldn’t want to get the police involved. There’s no way he’d contact the police and set up a sting on the studio lot to get Rachel arrested. Especially with the scrutiny he’d faced by the feds for his shady insurance dealings. No way.

  Rachel figured that Leonides would try to move the meeting to a place where he could get her too. That way he could force them to give him his money back. If Leonides had her and threatened to hurt her, Sam would hand over the money as soon as he could punch in the passwords.

  But none of that seemed right to her. Rachel felt that something else was at play here. Something that didn’t involve Leonides. Rachel didn’t know why Carlos would want to hurt Sam, but he was her top suspect. She’d clued Loto in on Carlos after he picked her up from her motel.

  “Excuse me.”

  Rachel jumped. At her window was a man wearing a dirty T-shirt advertising a landscaping business. “I was wondering if you could spare a dollar for something to eat.”

  Rachel realized that Loto had taken the car keys. That meant she couldn’t roll up her window. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any money.”

  “Nice station wagon. Don’t see people driving these much anymore.”

  Rachel stuck her hand in her bag and clutched the kitchen knife. Before she could answer she heard a loud scream from beyond the fence. The voice reached a crescendo and was immediately squelched. A moment later a man came tearing out of gate, followed by another. A woman was close on their heels. Rachel heard muffled voices. Another man came limping out, clutching his stomach. Blood dripped down his arm. He looked quickly at Rachel before staggering across the street. The man collapsed before making it to the opposite curb. Loto came out of the gate, holding the club.

  “You,” he said to the man in the windbreaker. “Stay.” Loto tossed a cell phone onto Rachel’s lap. “Sam’s?”

  “Yes,” Rachel said.

  “This too,” Loto said, tossing Sam’s Zippo.

  Rachel’s heart sank when she caught it. The Zippo meant a lot to Sam. Sam would never give it up without a fight.

  “Where’s the dude who owns that cell phone,” Loto said to the man in the T-shirt.

  The man cowered. “I’m from the RV down there,” he said. He pointed to a dilapidated Gulfstream. “I just was looking for some gas money.”

  “If that’s the way you want it,” Loto said. He flicked his massive forearm and the giant nutcracker opened in half. Rachel noticed the blood dripping from the hook at the end.

  “Please,” the man said.

  Rachel looked on in horror.

  Sam zipped up after taking a leak against an industrial-sized dumpster. He frowned at what Daredevil Don had just told him. “That’s just cold-blooded crazy.”

  Sam was hungry. The chill bit into him. His life
was on the line. And now he’d found out it had all gone down for the most pathetic reasons.

  Sam stepped into wetness. The stream he’d just created had somehow double backed. “You gotta be kidding!” Sam ripped his last sock off his foot and threw it. He was completely barefoot now. He remembered when his Uncle Gene had lost his only pair of shoes. His friends laughed, threw rocks at him. The town bum walking around barefoot. Sam had laughed, too.

  Focus, Sam. “That’s all I know,” Don repeated. “Carlos said you were taking Leonides out of the street medicine game, gonna make him a movie star. Carlos came up from the street. That’s what makes him such a great recruiter for Leonides. Said he wasn’t going back. No way in hell he was gonna let you take it all away from him.”

  They continued down a narrow alleyway. Sam felt the dull ache in his right leg kick in, the result of a grift in Mississippi that turned violent. He could deal with it now, but the pain was just going to get worse the longer he walked.

  Don was constantly looking around for Lomax. Sam carefully stepped around broken glass. Slicing his foot open was all he needed now. “And they were going to kill me in a tent fire on Skid Row? Is that something that happens a lot down there?”

  “Since Carlos has been scamming Medi-Cal, it’s happened a few times. Loose lips, ya know. That’s why the feds can’t make any charges stick on his boss. No witnesses. And technically you were gonna be dead before you became tent toast. They were gonna up the dose for your next shot.”

  “What did they inject me with?”

  “I don’t know. Carlos can get his hands on Leonides’ medical supplies. He had another shot ready for ya, the Martini shot. That’s when Ricky and I got you out of there. Carlos said you weren’t gonna wake up from that one.”

  The nearness of death hit Sam hard. It was beyond words. He looked at the tall blond man walking next to him. Ever the grifter, Sam had to wonder what the price tag was for saving his life. “So why’d you do it? Why didn’t you let them kill me?”

  Don laughed. “Carlos throws me a little cash for providing muscle to Lomax. Sometimes the patients we recruit for Leonides need a little persuading.”