The Down and Out Read online

  “Sure. They figure it’s better to pretend to need a doctor than to really need an undertaker.”

  “Yep,” he said. Don’s smile slipped away. He looked down at the ground. “I never signed up for killing folks. That ain’t me. No way. That’s a lifetime rap. I’m hoping to get off the streets and back into pictures.”

  Sam smiled. So that’s why Don saved me. “What do you do in movies?”

  “I’ve done it all, pardner. I’ve jumped from the third tallest building in the world. I’ve pulled a corkscrew jump in a Cobra. I’ve dodged punches from Vin Diesel. I was the shit.”

  “You’re a stuntman?”

  “Daredevil Don Kaboski at your service.”

  “What happened? Stuntmen make good coin.”

  “Like I said, I’ve done it all. Broke a lot of bones, too. I got sidelined when I busted a disc in my neck. Brother, that’s a pain that shoots down your whole body. Doctors gave me hillbilly heroin and, boy, was I hooked. I didn’t work for so long my insurance ran out and you can guess the rest. If I couldn’t get my hands on oxy, I took what came along. I’m not proud of it, but that’s all in the past. I’m ready for my comeback, Harris. I just need a break.”

  “I believe it,” Sam said. He heard some music in the distance.

  “That’s coming from the Norton Simon,” Don said. “They throw private parties down there that go late. I’m talking really rich people. Good for some handouts. Let’s hit it.”

  “Sounds good,” Sam said, though he had something a little more complicated in mind.

  Don cleared his throat. “I kind of burned some bridges on my last couple pictures, but I’m different now. And I still got my skillset, Harris. I just need someone to vouch for me. Help me get my foot in the door again.”

  Sam needed Don right now. He was grateful too. He didn’t like lying to him and getting his hopes up, but he didn’t hesitate.

  “You help me get out of this situation, get me downtown, I’ll help you.”

  “Downtown?”

  “Downtown.”

  Don looked at Sam for a moment. “You wouldn’t lie to ol’ Daredevil Don, would you?”

  “I promise, Don. I’ll help you.”

  Don patted Sam on the shoulder. “Thanks, pardner.”

  “Thank me when it’s over. Let’s keep walking.”

  “I’ll get us out of this mess, you can bet your screenwriting ass on it.”

  A Beamer zoomed by just as they stepped out of the alley. “Hey, bums!” a passenger yelled.

  The thrown beer bottle didn’t break when it hit Sam in the back of the head, but it stung. Sam staggered against a store front, cursing in pain.

  “You hurt?” Don asked.

  Sam felt a bump already growing on his scalp. “Who was that?”

  “Some punks. I hope they crash.”

  Sam imagined what they must’ve seen. His bare feet. His dirty clothes. His limp. If they got a good look, the scar by his eye. Bums are trash. Sam learned this lesson in childhood. At this moment, Sam felt he’d do just about anything to get off the street.

  One of Ford Carabucco’s favorite things to do was leave his clients phone messages late at night, in those particular wee and small hours that Sinatra once sang about. It made them think he was always on the case. Sometimes it woke them up. Ford loved messing with people.

  Ford was always a light sleeper, but when he hit his sixties, he never got a good night’s sleep. He did all the things his doctor told him to do. He was always reading. Always studying. He did his dynamic tension workout. The same number of pushups since his days in the Navy. He had his gadgets. He played Sinatra CDs. He had scotch. None of it shut off his brain enough for sleep. With his wife in Connecticut, his three-story house in L.A. was lonelier than usual. Ford heard every late-night creak. Ford had enemies. Ford had bad dreams.

  “Reed, it’s Ford. I found Shawnee Whitman. I’m going to talk with her first thing in the morning. I’ll keep you posted. Hang tight.” Ford put his cell phone down on the nightstand. He purposely didn’t tell Reed that he’d tracked Shawnee to the Garcia Building at Dynamic Studios. If Reed called back, he wasn’t going to answer.

  What he was going to do was make an example out of Shawnee Whitman. It was bad enough that she got clean away the first time. Her sin was coming back. Right underneath Ford’s nose. Ford had no doubt that Shawnee was running a shell game on another Hollywood pigeon.

  This was Ford’s town. The Carabucco’s had staked out L.A. since his grandfather was a member of LAPD’s Gangster Squad. They were a law unto themselves back then. Gramps once threw down against Pat DiCicco, a mobster under Lucky Luciano, in the Trocadero parking lot. It was supposed to be a fist fight, but gramps took out an iron bar hidden in his sleeve and went to work. He always talked about that. Ford adored that old man.

  His dad was forced out of Homicide Special when two notorious gangbangers died in his custody. One is hard to explain. You’d need one hell of a magic bullet theory to explain two. He left with powerful friends on the force and his head held high. He was a PI for over twenty years and died in his fishing boat.

  No grifting little con artist came back and rubbed a Carabucco’s face in an unsolved case. It made Ford look bad. Made him look old.

  Shawnee must know I was Mol’s silent partner in blackmailing Reed. I don’t know why Mol told her, but he did. Why else would she have the guts to come back to L.A.? She must think she can hold that over my head while she runs another bunco scheme. She’s going to get a lesson in blackmail from the master.

  Ford had done some work for the production head at Dynamic. Got his son out of a possible manslaughter charge. The exec gave Ford the green light to track Shawnee down on the studio lot, just as long as no laws were broken. Ford’s concept of “breaking the law” was different from most. If Ford got rough with Shawnee, rough enough to have Shawnee begging to give Reed full rights to the script, no one would stop him.

  And Ford was going to get rough.

  Sam watched Don eat the remains of a burrito that he’d dug out of the trash. Sam was starving, and he was going through an inner struggle. There was more half-eaten food in the garbage. Don smiled widely, his mouth full of burrito. “After a while out here, you realize everything they taught you about germs is fake news,” he said.

  Sam had never felt so desperate. He went back to watching the guests exit the museum. They were dressed to the nines. Booze and money. It was the kind of event he and Rachel loved to work.

  Don watched him. “Remember what I told you, Harris. Try to rob those folks, Pasadena cops will be on you before you’re a block away. Then they’ll roust every homeless camp around here. That’s a lot of my friends.”

  Sam ignored him. He saw what he’d been waiting for and made a break for it.

  Sam booked it out of the shadows of the parking lot. The older woman never heard Sam coming. He ripped the Hermes handbag out of her hand and kept running. The woman was shocked. She watched Sam sprint down Colorado Boulevard.

  “Help!” she called out. “He stole my purse!”

  Due to the late hour and the general buzzed state of the party, people were slow to react.

  A large man came out of nowhere and tackled Sam right on the sidewalk. The two rolled on the concrete, throwing punches. A small crowd gathered around the woman and watched the brawl.

  Sam struggled weakly but he had nothing in his tank. He barely managed to push the man off and run away. Sam hid behind a wall and peered over it.

  The bigger man walked towards the crowd waiting outside the museum, holding the handbag. He rubbed his head, looking at the red streak left on his hand. “Ma’am, I believe this is yours,” Don said. He handed the woman her bag.

  “I can’t believe it! I’ve never seen anything like it!” she said. She held the purse up to her face. “This was my grandmother’s. It’s irreplaceable.” She looked Don over. He was a good-looking guy, but it was clear he
was down and out. “You’re bleeding,” she said.

  “You’re a hero, my man,” a mustached Brit said.

  The woman dug into her purse and gave him her entire bankroll. It was the remainder of her tip money. “Take it. Please. You deserve it.”

  Don looked down at it, then back to the lady. “Thanks, ma’am.”

  “I’ll see you and raise you twenty,” the Brit said, handing Don a bill.

  Don quickly stuck the money in his pocket. “Thanks. I can really use it.”

  Others handed him money.

  “Thank you,” Don said again. Sam watched Don walk away, breaking into a jog.

  “Sad,” the Brit said.

  The older woman said nothing.

  Don ducked into the alley. Sam stepped out of the shadows.

  “Well are we going to count it?” Sam said.

  “Damn straight we’re going to count it! All this time I been doing this and I ain’t never thought of pulling a trick like that.”

  “Those ketchup packets we found in the trash helped sell it,” Sam said.

  “Sure did,” Don said, wiping the ketchup off his head. “We gave her back her purse before anyone called the cops. Just like you said. Serious, how’d you come up with this trick?”

  Sam wanted to tell him the truth. It’s not a trick, it’s a con. And it’s one of the oldest in the book. Picked it up from my uncle, one of the first I learned.

  “I saw it on a TV show once,” Sam said.

  Don grabbed Sam and pulled him against the wall.

  “Get down,” Don said in a hushed voice.

  Sam watched a black Buick Skylark slowly cruise past.

  “That’s Lomax,” Don said. “We got a long ways to go, and he’ll be looking for us every step.”

  Ford walked down the first-floor hallway of the Garcia Building. He’d been in this building in the eighties, when it had a different name and was all dressing rooms. He’d made a delivery on behalf of a coke-head producer, eighty thousand in hush money to an up-and-coming actress. After that her career was stepped on and she ended up going back home to Kentucky. You don’t bite the hand that feeds, sugar.

  It was early, not even eight. Security had given him the skunk eye when they handed him the master key to the first- floor rooms. When the production head owes you a favor, you get to go where you want.

  Ford stopped at the door and listened. He heard a woman talking on the phone. Ford had hoped he’d be the first one in. The westerns called it “getting the drop.” Ford called it ruining someone’s day. He liked the look on people’s faces when they walked in and he was sitting on their couch. It balanced the rest of the negotiation in his favor.

  He opened the door without knocking and closed it behind him. The woman behind the desk was a lot prettier than he’d expected. Reed said she was a looker, but that didn’t do her justice. Kind of a red head. Ford’s favorite.

  “Can I help you?” she said.

  “I’m here to help you, Shawnee. Help you make things right with Reed Bennek.”

  She smiled curiously.

  She’s good. I can already tell.

  “Well I know who Reed Bennek is, but I don’t know any ‘Shawnees.’ Except maybe the Shawnee River.”

  She’s funny too. “Nice, Shawnee. That’s just like something a real TV producer would say. No wonder you were able to make off with all Reed’s money.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Ford tossed the papers on her desk. “Sign these, you arrogant twat. Or it’s going to get ugly fast.”

  The woman scrutinized Ford for a moment. She picked up the phone. “Leave now. I’m calling security.”

  Ford took the stun gun out of his coat pocket and fired. The darts stuck in the woman’s blouse. The Taser emitted that woodpecker noise that Ford found so satisfying. The dainty red head shrieked and fell off her chair.

  “Get your ass back on that chair and sign.”

  “Who are you?” she screamed. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  Ford didn’t worry about the yelling. He knew the rooms were soundproofed so the editors could crank their speakers. “Sign the papers. Then I want to know why Mol paid you a visit back at your old phony production office.”

  She shook her head in frantic jerks.

  “It’s been almost two years, but another jolt ought to refresh your memory.”

  Tie up all the loose ends and put this one in the refrigerator, like Chick Hearn used to say.

  “You made me look like a chump, Shawnee.”

  Ford shocked her again.

  Sam danced a jig underneath the Ventura Freeway overpass above Colorado Boulevard, ignoring the honks from the rush-hour parade of cars. He felt like a new man in the neon-green Adidas that he’d just purchased.

  “Those shoes are you, my man. I told you Jay Mart would set you up,” Don said.

  Jay Mart was a tent spray-painted with the words “Jay Mart,” circled by three shopping carts stockpiled with whatever the streets had to offer. Other tents and other shopping carts stood nearby.

  Sam’s new shoes smelled funky as hell and were a half-size too big, but his feet were finally off the pavement. Shoes, Sam gratefully realized, were mankind’s superpower. Sam felt like the dice were finally landing his way.

  Something caught Sam’s attention. “Don, look over there,” Sam said.

  “Huh?”

  Sam had found something even better than shoes. Wheels. He pointed to a beat-to-hell ’89 Chevy Impala parked at an abandoned Mexican restaurant.

  “The junker? You think the keys are inside?” Don asked.

  Don had guided Sam safely out of Pasadena. No police hassles. No Lomax. He led a famished Sam to a taco truck that had just closed. Since Don was a regular customer, they sold them what they left. One taco each. So if Don asked a stupid question, Sam cut the sarcasm and let it slide.

  “Don, old buddy, I think we’re going to be inside.”

  Sam ducked back into the tent. “How much for that coat hanger you got in your cart? And a screwdriver?”

  Jay, a deeply tanned woman with piercing green eyes, blinked once. “Thirty dollars.”

  “Whoa. Isn’t that kind of steep? All I got left is twenty,” Sam said, lying. “The shoes cleaned us out.”

  “Thirty dollars!”

  Don had warned Sam that Jay was a tweaker and was usually too fried to bargain. Sam ducked his head back out of the tent. “Don, I need another twenty-five.”

  “Okay, but our funds are dwindling.” Don slapped the money into Sam’s hand.

  When Sam ducked back into the tent Jay was talking on a cell phone. Sam was surprised to see a homeless person having a phone.

  “Yeah, I’m looking at them right now,” Jay said, eyeing Sam.

  Sam had a bad feeling. He handed her the money. He saw the screwdriver on the tent floor and grabbed it. “We’re in a hurry.”

  “Wait, you can’t take that one,” she said. “I need it! I got a better one for you.”

  “Got to run,” Sam said.

  “Lalo!” Jay screamed.

  Sam ducked out of the tent. A group of three man approached Don.

  “What the hell’s going on here, Daredevil?” the bald man said.

  “Just buying some shoes, Lalo,” Don said.

  Jay was out of the tent. She gestured towards Sam and Don. “Lomax just called. He wants them.”

  Lalo looked them over. “No hard feelings but we got to tell Lomax you’re here. We got a good thing going and Lomax could jack it all up.”

  “I get it,” Don said.

  Sam started off across the street towards the Chevy, straightening out the wire hanger. He stopped went he noticed Don wasn’t coming. “Clock is running, Don.”

  “I know you got time for some Charlie Sheen, Daredevil,” Lalo said. Lalo produced a glass pipe from his pocket. “Got ya locked and loaded.”

  Don’s eyes focused on the pipe. His ha
nds clenched into fists.

  Sam came running back. He put his arm around Don’s shoulders and physically moved him away. “I promise there’s a big payday, Don, if you just keep on keeping on.”

  “I’m good,” Don said. He turned back over his shoulder. “Lay low, Lalo!”

  “Always do!” Lalo called back.

  Sam stuck the coat hanger down the driver’s side door, sliding it between the chewed-up weather stripping and the grimy window.

  “Last time I broke into a car I used a brick,” Don said.

  “You got one handy?”

  Don looked around the shuttered restaurant’s empty parking lot. “C’mon Ernie’s Taco House, gimme a brick.”

  It had been years since Sam had coat-hangered a car door. Another “trick” he’d learned from his Uncle Gene from the way-back-when.

  Sam watched the door lock jiggle and pop up.

  “Did you learn that off the TV, too?” Don said.

  Sam jammed the screwdriver into the ignition with the palm of his hand. “Kind of. Learned it from researching a script I wrote.”

  It would be a good story to tell. How his Uncle Gene taught him how to steal a car. What not to say to the police. Why it’s important to never show fear.

  But Sam wasn’t Sam right now, he was Harris. Harris was from a happy home in Fresno, far from Sam’s free-running youth in Iowa. Sam’s dad partied. Harris’ dad bought him a Nikon Coolpix and helped him make movies in the backyard. Sam was shuffled around between aunts and uncles until the state took over his parenting. Harris excelled. Sam was briefly mentored by an uncle who lost everything and became the town joke.

  It was too much for Sam. Sam shut Uncle Gene, that entire world, out of his existence.

  Sam was in state care when he heard his uncle had bought it during a particularly brutal Iowan winter. Sam didn’t think twice. He’d never end up like his uncle. Or his dad.

  He’d show them all.

  Sam jerked the screwdriver to the right and the beater ground to life.

  Don tapped him on the shoulder. “Lomax.”

  Sam turned to see the black Buick Skylark idling in front of Jay Mart across the street.