FOOL'S PARADISE
By Steve Brewer
Smashwords Edition
©2003 Steve Brewer
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Chapter 1
John Ray Mooney was dressed all wrong for a bank robber. He could see that now, as clearly as he could see the drop of sweat that tadpoled down the lens of his sunglasses. The sweat slipped off the lens and dropped onto the deposit slip where he'd been writing: "Give me all the money. I have a gu--"
Damn. The bank pen, chained to the counter as if anybody would want to steal the cheap piece of shit, skipped across the damp spot, refusing to mix its ink with John Ray's sweat.
He looked up to see if anyone watched. The bank guard, a stout black man with a white cookie-duster mustache, glanced away.
John Ray crumpled the deposit slip and stuffed it in the pouch of his hooded sweatshirt. He took a fresh blank from the stack on the counter and, with his tongue massaging the corner of his mouth, began to compose his holdup note again.
John Ray suffered a bad case of nerves. He was no bank robber. A thief, sure, but his idea of criminal enterprise was boosting an unattended luxury car, or maybe a little harmless breaking-and-entering, quietly lifting stuff from the wealthy and well-insured. Bank robbery was different. You're the star of the show, trying to take money right out from under the noses of those enlisted to protect their assets: the uniformed guard, the smug tellers in their J.C. Penney suits, all those surveillance cameras staring down with unblinking eyes.
Small wonder the sweat streamed down John Ray's forehead, that it tickled his ribs with damp baby fingers.
Georgie Zook had cautioned him it would be this way if John Ray ever tried to knock over a bank.
"It's flop sweat, like, whatchacallit, stage fright," Georgie said during one of their endless conversations at Folsom. "You think you're the big man, the boss. The suckers at the bank, they don't know what's coming. But suddenly, you're sweating and twitching and you feel like you're gonna shit out everything you've eaten in the past month. Everybody goes through it the first time. It gets easier."
A sweatsuit had seemed the perfect cover-up for a bank robbery. Easy on, easy off. Anonymous and shapeless. Cheap enough to discard once the deed was done and the cops combed Coronado.
He'd planned it so well. John Ray had checked into the Hotel Del Coronado on Sunday, two days earlier, paying cash. Each morning since, he'd gone jogging, making sure the bellmen and pool boys and maids got a good look at him stretching and running in place. Just another health nut, devoted to his morning run even while on vacation.
Hotel employees could vouch that the guest registered as Rob Petrie jogged north up the beach, his thick-soled sneakers throwing up little rooster-tails of sand. Each day, he wore clothes like a real runner -- electric-blue nylon shorts and a tank top and a black fanny pack cinched tight around his trim waist. No sweatsuit in sight.
Today, out of sight of the hotel, he cut through expensive neighborhoods and green parks, finally swinging down a narrow alley to where he'd stashed the sweatsuit and the San Diego Padres cap and the .22-caliber pistol he'd use in the robbery. He'd hidden the stuff two blocks from the bank, in a concrete box with a rusty steel lid, some entry to the town's sewer system. John Ray had discovered the knee-high box his first day in Coronado, had noticed the lid sprouted a steel loop for a lock to keep kids out. He'd put a shiny new lock of his own on the box. The key stayed in the fanny pack, ready for the day when John Ray robbed the National Bank of Coronado.
Once he had the money, he planned to run out of the bank, turn the corner and cover the two blocks in a hurry. He'd strip off the sweatsuit and stash it and the gun and (hopefully) a sack full of cash in the sewer box. He'd lock it up, jog back to the fancy hotel and be having brunch poolside before the cops knew what happened.
Locals call Coronado "the island," but it's really a peninsula, a large fist on a skinny arm, separated from the rest of the metropolitan area by the boat-dotted waters of San Diego Bay. The only connections to the mainland are a high, curving bridge that spills into downtown San Diego and, farther south, a seven-mile-long spit of sand called the Silver Strand. The cops could block the bridge and the Strand highway after a bank robbery, checking every car, looking for someone in a gray sweatsuit. But they wouldn't find John Ray. He'd hole up at the Hotel Del until the search cooled, then he'd gather up his cash and mosey back to Los Angeles to pay his debt and the interest that accumulated during his three years and five months in Folsom.
It was a good plan, solid. Georgie Zook would approve. No easy-to-identify car. No partners to rat you out later. No accurate descriptions of the robber: Just a tall man in big black sunglasses and a soggy sweatsuit.
Jesus, the sweat. John Ray pushed up the bill of his sopping Padres cap and wiped his hand across his forehead. He couldn't stand here much longer, sweating like a sinner in church, without the guard taking notice. He needed to strike fast and get the hell out of here before the glowering guard approached to see what the trouble was, see why Mr. Perspiration couldn't seem to fill out a deposit slip.
He continued writing, in big block letters: "Give me all the money. I have a gu--"
Someone brushed past him, a little too close, making him flinch. A little guy in a slouchy black suit, moving his short legs so fast he went past in a blur, leaving a cloud of hair spray and Giorgio in his wake. The squat man ignored the empty maze of red velvet ropes and went directly to the first teller window, which was manned by a horn-rimmed teller who resembled a young Woody Allen.
The customer pushed something across the counter and told the teller, in a lilting voice that filled the small bank, "I would like a cash advance of five-thousand dollars, please."
Woody blanched, picked up the little guy's Platinum Card, studied it.
"I'll need to get the manager's approval."
The customer tilted his head back and fired a sigh toward the ceiling.
"Be quick about it, will you?"
Woody gulped and nodded and hurried away.
The customer rested his elbows on the counter, which was chest-high to him, and drummed his fingers on the marble countertop. He was young, maybe twenty-five, with an Asian cast to his features and skin the color of cashews. His thick black hair was combed straight back and lacquered lightly into place. His nose belonged on some other face, maybe on a Mayan or a Plains Indian. It angled out from between his groomed eyebrows, peaked between his eyes and then went straight down, ending in a point sharp enough to slice bread. Full lips worked against each other, as if he were ready to chew them off in impatience.
He wore a white T-shirt under the expensive suit and flat loafers woven of strips of black leather. No socks. Guys with money dressed that way, still going for that "Miami Vice" look years after Sonny Crockett vanished from the tube. John Ray knew the opening songs to all the old TV shows by heart, and the fast-paced "Miami Vice" theme began to play inside his head. One more distraction.
A tall, bald man with unfortunate sideburns appeared in the teller window, trailed by the worried Woody.
"Good morning, sir. I'm Gary Warren, the bank manager. How may I be of service?"
"As I told your lackey there, I want an advance of five-thousand dollars on that card. I need it quickly. I'm double-parked outside."
"Yes sir. We'll need to see some identification for such a large advance, of course. I'm sure you understand--"
"Did you read the name on the card?"
"Yes sir, but we--"
"What does the card say?"
The manager looked confused, unaccustomed to brusqueness. This was a neighborhood bank in a friendly resort town. The customers were mostly local folks he could call by name or lard-ass tourists used to standing in line. He blinked rapidly, then held up the card to decipher the words.
"Prince Seri Hassan Banda--"
The name clearly gave Gary Warren problems. The customer helped him along.
"Prince Seri Hassan Bandapanang bin Mohammed."
"Yes sir."
"Do you know what a prince is?
"Well, sure, but I--"
"Do you know who my father is?"
"No sir. But you see--"
"The Sultan of Yip. Does that mean something to you?"
Yip. That registered with John Ray. The Sultan of Yip regularly was mentioned in the magazines and newspapers he'd devoured in Folsom. Yip was a tiny island, somewhere off Southeast Asia. A few years earlier, oil had been discovered off-shore, huge deposits of oil the Sultan was exploiting faster than J.R. Ewing. The Sultan of Yip was well on his way to replacing his nearest neighbor, the Sultan of Brunei, as the richest man in the world.
"Yes sir." The manager snapped to attention, practically clicking his heels in recognition of the fortune that stood before him. "Sorry I didn't recognize the name--"
"Quite all right, my good man. Just get my money and let me go about my business."
"Yes sir. I mean, Your Highness. Is that what they call you in Yip?"
The prince smiled, seeing it was all going his way now.
"My friends call me Bennie."
The manager flashed a nervous grin. He fumbled with Woody's cash drawer, then counted out hundred-dollar bills with the quick flourish of experience.
"There you are, Your Highness. I apologize for the delay."
The prince rolled the bills into a wad and stuffed them into his pocket as carelessly as he would a handkerchief.
"No problem. Good day."
The prince strolled out of the bank without a glance toward John Ray, which is just as well since he would've gotten a clinical view of his tonsils.
Five thousand dollars. Five thousand dollars would be a good start toward paying off the debt John Ray owed in L.A.
Georgie Zook flashed through his mind, the toothless con leaning back on his bunk, his hands behind his head, reeling off crime statistics. The average bank robbery nets only seven thousand dollars, Georgie had said. Most robbers only hit the teller drawers, never get at the bigger money that's kept in the vault. Quite a risk for seven thousand dollars, but an easy living if you know what you're doing.
Robbing the prince would be even easier. No cameras, no armed guards. Just a quick flash of the gun, grab the money and run. Like the old days, when John Ray was a teen-aged hoodlum, snatching purses to cover his rent.
He stuffed the deposit slip into his pocket and hurried out the door, chasing after the Prince of Yip.
Chapter 2
The sight of the prince's sporty wheels made John Ray catch his breath: a red Mercedes-Benz 300SL convertible, the top down, the leather bucket seats gleaming like buttered rolls. John Ray covered the wide sidewalk in three long strides and flung open the passenger door just as the prince cranked the ignition.
"What the--"
John Ray fell into the passenger seat and slammed the door.
"Get out of my car."
"Hey, fuck you, Your Highness."
John Ray showed the prince the little pistol, keeping it low in case anyone watched.
"Drive."
"I'm not going anywhere. Get out." The foreign lilt had vanished from the prince's voice. "Get the fuck out."
A scowl crawled onto John Ray's face. He whipped off the black sunglasses to show the prince his narrow, colorless eyes, the practiced prison yard glare that had kept the muscle boys and the Black Power types at bay for three years and five months.
The silent menace worked on the prince. His eyes widened, his tan faded a shade or two. Up close, the prince didn't look so smooth. Whiskers dotted his jawbone where he'd missed a stripe while shaving. Bleary eyes and slack skin marked the prince as someone suffering a hangover. John Ray recognized the signs, having seen them all too often in the mirror.
The prince ventured a glance up the street, but the sidewalks were empty. The tourists were still indoors, nursing hangovers or wolfing all-you-can-eat breakfasts. He was alone with a rawboned man nearly twice his size, alone to face a gun that, while tiny, could puncture holes in important places.
"Where to?"
"Straight ahead will be fine."
The prince shoved the car into gear, and it purred away from the bank.
"You'll never get away with this. My father--"
"Yeah, yeah. Your father's a big fuckin' deal. But I'm the one with the gun. Shut up and drive."
Six blocks later, the street divided at a round park, a circle of blank green grass with a single flagpole in the center. Saltbox houses in bright pastels nudged up to the street that ringed the park.
"Go right," John Ray said. "After you stop for the sign."
John Ray's nerve endings tingled. He could smell success. The sweat had vanished, either dried by the breeze in the convertible or evaporated by the adrenaline that rushed through him.
They covered three more blocks before he told the prince to pull over to the curb.
"Shut off the engine."
Quiet as the Mercedes had been, the silence that followed seemed abrupt and complete. Listening hard, John Ray could hear the whoosh of traffic back on Orange Avenue, or was it the surf a few blocks the other direction? The houses could be vacant for all anyone could tell. Nobody outside enjoying the morning sunshine. Nobody walking their dogs along the sidewalks. It was perfect.
The prince stared straight ahead, both hands on the steering wheel, waiting.
"You're doing fine," John Ray said. "All I want is your wallet and that bankroll in your pocket. Then I'll get out of your car and you can go enjoy your vacation."
The prince nodded and dropped one hand off the steering wheel to reach for his pocket. John Ray jabbed him in the ribs with the little pistol.
"Not yet. I'll tell you when. Make a wrong move, and I'll put a bullet through your fuckin' spleen. Are we clear?"
Again, the silent nod. John Ray looked around once more.
"Okay, now. Slow and easy."
The prince levered the wad of hundred-dollar bills out of his pocket and handed it over.
"Good. Now your wallet."
The prince stiffened slightly. "I don't carry a wallet."
John Ray jabbed him in the ribs again, harder this time.
"Is that your final answer?"
A muscle twitched in the prince's jaw while he thought it over. He sighed, and pulled a fat wallet from his hip pocket. The wallet was pieced together from shiny strips of leather, smooth and lightweight.
"Nice," John Ray said as he weighed the wallet in his hand. "Eelskin?"
The prince didn't reply. Just stared straight ahead like he was waiting for traffic.
John Ray stuffed the bankroll and the wallet into his pouch. Keeping the gun pointed at the prince, he popped open the door and climbed out of the car. He held the pistol by his thigh, practically invisible there if anyone watched from the houses.
"I want you to drive away like nothing happened." he said. "I don't care where the fuck you go. Report it to the cops if you want. But I better never see you again, or you're a dead man. You got that?"
"Got it."
"Good. Now drive."
The prince started the fine car and shifted it into gear.
"Oh, and Your Highness?" The prince finally shot John Ray a look. "Have a nice day."
Tires squealed as the prince hit the gas. John Ray waited until the Mercedes took a right turn, then he slipped the loot and his pistol into his fanny pack and hurried away, humming under his breath. The theme to "Rawhide."
Chapter 3
Twenty minutes later, John Ray used a cardkey to open the door to his room at the Hotel Del. He'd stashed the accursed sweatsuit and his Padres cap in the alley and made it back to the hotel right on schedule.
He hung the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the outside doorknob and locked the deadbolt. He didn't need a maid wandering in while he counted the prince's money.
John Ray lit a Marlboro, felt it tight between his lips. He couldn't stop grinning. He'd pulled off the robbery without a hitch. Told the prince, "I'll put a bullet through your fuckin' spleen." He wondered which tough-guy actor had spouted that line. All the TV dialogue he'd consumed over the years loitered somewhere in his brain. John Ray felt sometimes that he'd never said or thought anything original in his life. The threat had worked on the prince, though. Now John Ray was back in his well-appointed room with its antique furnishings and its lazy ceiling fan. The last place anybody would look for a robber.
He'd made at least five grand without knocking over the bank and getting the FBI sniffing after his trail. The prince probably wouldn't even report the crime. The money wasn't that much of a loss, not to a guy whose old man was worth billions.
To John Ray, on the other hand, the fistful of big-headed Ben Franklins could mean the difference between life and death.
He dropped the bankroll on the bed without bothering to thumb through it. He knew how much was there; he'd seen the bank manager count it out. The wallet was a different story. He opened it slowly, savoring the moment, better than Christmas.
The wallet was stuffed full of lovely greenbacks with their staring presidents. He carefully arranged them on the bed by denomination. Three thousand in hundreds, another six hundred in fifties and twenties and a handful of smaller bills. With the bankroll, nearly nine grand. The prince clearly was a man accustomed to carrying a lot of folding money. And now it all belonged to John Ray Mooney.
But not for long. He'd soon hand over most of it to Big Odie, as payment toward the debt he left behind when he was swallowed up by the California penal system. It wouldn't cover the whole debt, but it might buy John Ray some time, give him a little breathing room before Big Odie tried to make him stop breathing altogether.
That John Ray had done business with someone as vile as Big Odie showed just how screwed up he'd been before he was busted and sent off to Folsom. Anyone in his right mind would avoid Big Odie and his biker gang, the Sons of Satan. But John Ray hadn't been in his right mind. He'd been in love.
Hell, he might never have been totally sane. Insanity ran in his family, and he'd spent his childhood in Needles, California, the Back Door to Hell, where the desert sun baked away any sense you might've had at the start.
His mother, LaWanda, was a local character well-known to all, a hugely fat woman with greasy gray hair. She always felt cold, even when the temperature outside was well over what TV weathermen liked to call "the century mark." LaWanda prowled the streets of Needles wearing wool sweaters and heavy socks, even gloves, in a place where a swimsuit felt hot and oppressive. As if LaWanda hadn't been enough of an embarrassment, John Ray's father, Floyd, operated the Come to Jesus Dairy Barn, a drive-up ice cream stand decorated on all sides with excerpts from the Scriptures.
Floyd Mooney had wanted his only son to take over the family business, to continue the Lord's work in the Hell-on-Earth that was Needles. But John Ray focused only on escape from the time he was a boy, sitting too close to the fuzzy family TV, watching the Flintstones and munching Cocoa Puffs.
He'd waited impatiently, measuring his growth, until his legs were long enough to reach the gas pedal of a faded pink Cadillac that Floyd kept locked away in a garage behind their ramshackle home. When the day finally came, John Ray was fourteen years old and headed for Los Angeles, weaving down the road in the huge car, his pockets full of saved-up allowance and money filched from the collection plate.
La-La-Land couldn't compare to the insanity in Needles, but it was crazy enough. Street people wandering around muttering to themselves. Hookers coming on to the oversized kid from the desert. People who seemed to spend their whole lives on roller skates. And all of them trying to break into show business.
He'd chosen L.A. as his destination because he'd seen so much of it on TV. People lived glamorous lives in their Beverly Hills mansions. Swimming pools. Movie stars. The reality was altogether different, especially for a kid with no skills trying to scrape by. The celebrities carried out their indulgences behind the safety of high walls and hulking doormen. The streets belong to the poor, the criminal, the crazy.
After his savings ran out, John Ray sold the Caddie to a street thug named Whitey Moran. It wasn't long before he was hungry and homeless, picking through garbage cans behind restaurants just to survive. Stealing went against everything Floyd Mooney had ever taught him, but hunger's the most urgent commandment of all, and John Ray soon found himself shoplifting snacks in grocery stores and snatching purses for cash.
Whitey Moran could always use more hot cars for his chop shop, so John Ray took to prowling the streets, peering in car windows for dangling keys. Boosting cars was easy and lucrative, and it beat the hell out a day job.
It wasn't long before he was caught and sent away for two years to a youth detention home. A tough, watchful kid like John Ray could pick up a lot of the ins and outs of crime at the detention home. He'd come out a different person, more focused, determined to break as many Commandments as it took to live the good life.
He resumed business with Whitey Moran, boosting enough cars to rent an apartment and keep himself in food. Then he pulled a couple of easy burglaries to help him furnish the place with a TV, a stereo, a phone, some new clothes. He'd settled comfortably into a life of crime, living under fake identities, names he lifted from old TV shows.
John Ray got a wake-up call several months later when Whitey Moran was found with a fire ax protruding from his bald head. Seemed Whitey had crossed the wrong people, maybe chopped up some made guy's car for parts. Whitey wouldn't be making any such mistakes again, but John Ray learned from his example. He decided to pursue the straight life, find a real job, settle down. Crime became a sideline, not his main career.
Over the next decade, John Ray worked as a dishwasher, a house painter, a used car salesman, a bowling alley attendant, a motel clerk and a bartender, never sticking with one job very long. Some asswipe boss would make him mad, or he'd get bored and decide to move on. Between jobs, or to supplement his straight income, he'd boost a few cars or maybe hire on with a crew hijacking truckloads of cigarettes or microwave ovens. Mostly, though, John Ray lived a settled life, centered on Budweiser and television, workdays and solitude.
Then Angel Flesch moved into John Ray's apartment building. Angel worked as an exotic dancer at the Pulchritude Gentlemen's Club in Van Nuys. John Ray knew when he saw her unloading her U-Haul that she was exactly what he'd been looking for all these years.
He'd volunteered his muscle to help her move in, and it wasn't long before they were sharing an apartment. Looking back on it, John Ray knew Angel's dreamy body had stirred some sort of insanity within him. He'd never been in love before, and he walked around giddy and grinning stupidly at what he'd been missing all these years.
Angel made it clear from the beginning that she was in search of the high life, much as John Ray had been when he first came to L.A. She wanted to lunch at the Brown Derby and have dinner at the Ivy and dance the night away at dark, nameless clubs where flavor-of-the-month acting brats held court. Most of all, she wanted the centerfold in Playboy. She regularly sent nude photos to Hugh Hefner, trying to get his attention and lever her way into his magazine's slick pages. No Penthouse or Hustler for her. She would crack the big time.
Every rejection or fruitless casting call sent Angel on a voracious spending spree. If she couldn't be exactly who she wanted, she at least could have what she wanted. John Ray could pay for these luxuries as easily as the next guy.
Keeping Angel's interest was a full-time job, and when his meager savings were depleted, John Ray went back to his old stand-by: boosting cars.
Big Odie and his biker gang, the Sons of Satan, were branching out around that time. They'd made and spent small fortunes dealing methamphetamine to Hollywood types who thrilled at the danger of doing business with leathery, bearded bikers. But Big Odie had decided it was time to step up in class, and the Sons of Satan had gone into the auto recovery business. You felt a loss in your life because you needed a particular car, and Big Odie would have it recovered from someone's garage and delivered to you for a reasonable price. No dickering allowed.
Stealing Porsches and Mercedes was more challenging than boosting random cars, but John Ray soon found it to his liking. Hanging out with Angel had given him ideas, had shown him the cool nightclubs and trendy diners that formed the stars' celestial world. It was amazing how many otherwise intelligent people would drunkenly hand over their keys to the first person who looked like a parking valet.
It had to end, of course. John Ray could've seen it coming if he hadn't been so gaga over waking up next to Angel every day.
He boosted a black Porsche Targa from outside the Viper Club, and was making good time, headed for Big Odie's garage, when the flashing blue lights bounced in his mirrors. Seemed the car belonged to Dirk Brande, who played a surgeon on an Emmy-winning TV drama and who was, as the cops knew in a town where even the busboys read Variety, a hot property because he was starring in the next Spielberg epic. The All-Points Bulletin had gone out with Hollywood attached, and John Ray never had a chance.
He thought it was a storm he could weather, at least during the first few minutes of the bust, when the cops were patting him down and nonchalantly slamming his head into the fender. But when the cops found a pistol and a bag of cocaine in the glove compartment, John Ray knew his heavenly life with Angel was over. No way Dirk Brande was going to step forward and lay claim to drugs and a gun. As far as the cops were concerned, the goods belonged to John Ray.
He hired a hotshot attorney and contested the charges through one court appearance after another, staying out on bail so he could keep Angel from becoming a regular fixture at the Playboy Mansion. The courtroom battle was expensive, and John Ray couldn't take the chance of stealing any revenue while the charges were pending. By the time he finally went to trial, he'd gone deeply in debt and found himself borrowing from Big Odie the final five-grand the attorney demanded.
The lawyer, Dana Hastings, wore an expensive toupee and had tiny, pointed teeth that always made John Ray think of steak knives. He guaranteed he could quash the coke and firearm charges, though John Ray might have to do a short stint in the slammer for car theft, which seemed only fair since he'd been caught red-handed.
Angel showed up for all three days of the trial, sitting in the front row in her revealing clothes, keeping the elderly judge distracted. On the trial's second day, John Ray noticed that Angel took to sitting in the chair behind Hastings rather than closer to the defendant, who could've used some support, thank you very much. By the time the judge whacked his gavel down on a five-year sentence, Angel was as firmly attached to Hastings as a lamprey eel.
The last time John Ray saw her, she'd been giving Hastings a consolatory pat on the cheek as the deputies hauled his client away. John Ray was so discouraged by then, he couldn't even hate her. All he could think was this: That's no way to pet a lawyer. That's the end where the teeth are.
His past record meant John Ray skipped the penal system's minimum-security country clubs and went straight to Folsom. Which probably was just as well. If he'd had an opportunity to escape, he might've headed for Mullholland Drive to send Dana Hastings to meet the real angels. Instead, he got three years and five months to get his head back together before the parole board set him free.
He'd barely settled into the cheap Torrance residential motel selected by his parole officer before the Sons of Satan grabbed him off the street, threw him in the back of a van and roared off to see Big Odie.
To Big Odie's credit, he hadn't let the boys slap John Ray around too much. A man can't raise money if he has broken bones or a face so battered that he scares people. Big Odie just let them soften John Ray up, get his attention after they took him to Hell House, the rambling stucco ruin in the desert east of L.A. that served as the gang's headquarters. When they were done stomping John Ray, they yanked him into a kneeling position and poured a bucket of water over his head to make sure he was awake.
Big Odie was a whiskered Jabba of a man, his rolls of fat oozing oil. He wore dusty biker leathers that might've fit properly a hundred pounds ago. Somebody had hit him with a machete years before, leaving a deep scar that puckered his eyebrow and dented his cheekbone. The ruined eye was sightless and white. It was painful to look at Big Odie.
While John Ray waited, Big Odie poured Schlitz down his gullet like a man dying of thirst. In his other hand, he held a king-size bag of Krunchskins pork rinds, the top open so he could chuck them directly into his mouth without using his filthy fingers. Big Odie munched and swallowed and belched and farted, all the while studying John Ray.
"You don't look none the worse for wear," he finally said. "Folsom might've done you some good."
John Ray said nothing. For one thing, he didn't know what might set off Big Odie. For another, he still had trouble breathing from the beating.
"I been hearing things about you," Big Odie said. "Heard you handled yourself all right in the cooler. Didn't become nobody's fuck towel. That's good. I'd hate to see an old friend come outta the joint with an asshole like a railroad tunnel."
The Sons of Satan, who'd melted into the shadows of the room, chuckled appreciatively.
"You remember that you owed me some money when you went to Folsom?"
John Ray nodded, his dripping head hanging in misery.
"Believe it was five-thousand we fronted you. Now, of course, we collect interest on our debts. So let's call it an even twenty grand now."
That snapped John Ray's head up. Twenty thousand dollars? Where the hell would he come up with money like that? No straight job paid that well, especially jobs available to a high school dropout with a felony record.
"I know you just got out of the cooler and you probably got nothing in your pockets but lint. And I'm a reasonable man. I know you'll need some time to raise the money. But I'll get every dime, or we won't be friends no more."
"How much time?" John Ray croaked.
Big Odie crumpled the pork rind bag and tossed it backward over his shoulder, where it landed in a midden of pizza boxes and cigar butts and shattered beer bottles.
"Let's say a week. That sound fair to you boys?"
Murmurs of assent rumbled from the bikers strewn around the dusty room.
It didn't sound the least bit fair to John Ray, whose dream of starting over was evaporating like piss in a campfire. But he nodded. He'd think of something, even if it meant running to Mexico until he raised the money. Anywhere but Needles would be fine.
Over the next few days, John Ray tried to collect a few debts of his own, but the losers he tracked down were either dead or broke or just flat-ass disappeared. For all his running around L.A., looking up old contacts, he'd gathered only a little over seven hundred dollars, enough for a grub stake for him, but not nearly enough to appease Big Odie.
Then he'd gotten the idea of robbing a bank.
Okay, so he'd never knocked over a bank before, but Lord knows he'd listened to so much of Georgie Zook's lies and strategies and statistics that he should've earned college credit, Bank Robbery 101.
At one time, Georgie had been the best bank man in the business. But some idiot security guard in Bakersfield tried to play hero, and Georgie wouldn't be seeing the outside world anymore. He shared his knowledge with anyone who'd listen, vicariously thrilled at the robberies they might someday commit. Once a man got to thinking about robbing a bank, the act was only a desperate twitch away.
Big Odie had pressed the issue. The more John Ray thought about it, the more a bank robbery seemed his only way out. He didn't want to rob a bank in L.A., where he was more likely to be recognized. And he couldn't afford to go far. Then he remembered driving through Coronado with Angel Flesch a year before he got sent off to Folsom. He remembered thinking how the town's main street looked like the set of "American Graffiti," as if it had been lifted intact from the innocent 1950s. He remembered the stately old hotel, the palm trees, the beaches. The last place anyone would expect a heist, and the perfect place to hide from Big Odie. The plan clicked into place in his mind, and the next day he was on a Greyhound, headed south.
Now John Ray stared at the prince's money stacked on the bright bedspread, separating with his eyes the eight-thousand he'd give Big Odie, the smaller bills he'd keep for himself. Eight grand wasn't enough to satisfy Odie, maybe not even enough to buy more time. John Ray sighed. He might be robbing that bank yet.
He slumped onto a corner of the bed and lay back, the prince's wallet still in his hands. His thumb riffled the gold and platinum credit cards listlessly. He'd never tried to pass plastic. Stores were too careful now, all those fancy computers. He knew there were people who bought hot cards for the numbers and used computers to make purchases all over the world before the cardholder made his emergency lost-card calls. But the only guy he'd ever met in that line of work was still in Folsom.
He pulled one of the cards from its leather slot, studied the prince's absurdly long name, then tossed it aside. He pulled out others and flicked them around the bedspread. The prince's California driver's license had "DIPLOMAT" stamped across the top of it. The prince looked hung over in the photo. Behind the driver's license was another, older license. John Ray started to toss it aside, but froze when the name registered. "Ho, Guillermo." Not Prince Seri Hassan Rama-dama-ding-dong, but "Ho." What the hell kinda name was that? Guillermo Ho.
John Ray sat up and went through the wallet more thoroughly. Tucked away in an inside pocket was a whole set of IDs for this Ho: Social Security, couple of bank cards, membership card for some fancy spa in Rancho Santa Fe.
Why would a rich prince have fake IDs? Maybe he doesn't want to be recognized when he goes places, but then why the fancy clothes and the look-at-me car? Besides, wouldn't it always be easier to be a prince? Red-carpet treatment all the time.
John Ray Mooney slapped himself on the forehead. The prince wouldn't pose as somebody else, idiot. But a con man could pass himself off as the Prince of Yip. What a beautiful scam.
Suddenly, the credit cards tossed around the bed were like scattered gold. Guillermo Ho, whoever the hell he really was, had gone to a lot of trouble to set himself up as the prince. Wouldn't he pay to get the credit cards back? Say, twelve-thousand bucks, enough to get Big Odie off John Ray's back?
And then, maybe, John Ray wouldn't need to rob the National Bank of Coronado.
Chapter 4
Guillermo "Billy" Ho lay on a chaise near the Hotel Del pool, his eyes closed behind dark sunglasses. If he opened his eyes, he would see swaying palms and white gulls wheeling in a clear blue sky. He'd see the four-story wedding cake that was the Hotel Del. He could look out across the Olympic-sized swimming pool where tourists splashed with their children and women strolled in the merest of bikinis.
But he didn't open his eyes. He preferred the scents to the sights, the sounds to the sun in his eyes. All around him, the hubbub of Paradise, failing to drown out the tumult inside his own head.
If had been hours since the sweaty stick-up man boosted Billy's bankroll, but Billy couldn't let it go, couldn't apply his mind to what to do next or how long to ride the con without the credit cards. He was too busy being mad.
The big redneck with his tiny gun had ruined everything. Billy finally assumes the Prince of Yip's identity, gets rolling with a new wardrobe and a fat wallet full of future, and some desert rat screws it all up in an instant with an impulse robbery. And what had the son of a bitch been doing in the bank with a gun anyway? Just waiting for some pendejo like Billy with his wad of cash?
He exhaled loudly and shifted on the sweat-wet lounge chair. His body felt baked hard by the sun. He knew he should take a break from the warm rays, maybe plunge into the pool for some quick laps, but the sun relaxed him and he needed relaxation right now.
"Your Highness?" A girl's voice, young and tentative. Billy nearly opened his eyes, but he knew the imagined girl would be better than whatever actually stood there.
"Yes?"
"Can I get you anything? A phone? A new drink?"
Billy smiled without showing any teeth. "Another drink perhaps. A screwdriver. I feel in need of Vitamin C."
"Yes sir, Your Highness. I'll be right back with it."
He bestowed the smile again, but never opened his eyes. He listened to her heels click rapidly away. Service was good when you were a prince. Everything was.
Billy had first seen the Hotel Del when he was nine years old. He'd come up the coast with his father, bringing a load of old furniture to relatives who were struggling to make it in El Norte. Billy's family could afford to share. His father ran a bodega and the Hos were firmly entrenched in Tijuana's middle class.
Billy hated the dusty store, hated everything about his life in Tijuana. He was constantly picked on by bullies from poorer families, bullies who felt he was fair game because the Chinese portion of his heritage meant he was less of a Mexican. Billy spent his school days in sullen silence, his afternoons either fighting or running for his life through the backstreets and alleys of Tijuana.
The boy rode into the United States in big-eyed wonder, taking in the freeways crowded with shiny cars, the taffy-colored houses, the smooth green lawns. The air smelled like money.
"I want to show you something," the old man had said as he steered his wheezing pickup truck off the freeway.
Billy rode in silence as his father drove up a road that split a strand of sand between bay and sea. The land was empty beach and wind-weary grass, and Billy couldn't imagine what his father wanted him to see.
After several miles, buildings appeared in the distance, high-rises looking out over the Pacific. The old truck rounded a curve and there before them stood a rambling white castle with a red roof and peaked towers.
"It is called the Hotel Del Coronado," his father said. "Marilyn Monroe stayed there when she filmed a movie. Have you ever seen it, 'Some Like It Hot?' No? Sometime we must show it to you on television."
Billy knew his father held an abiding crush on Senorita Monroe, though she'd been dead for years. No surprise he would drive miles out of his way to see a place she'd once graced with her beauty.
For Billy, it wasn't stardust that made the Hotel Del special. It was the promise of wealth. Someday, he told himself, I will be a guest there. Someday, I will have everything that beautiful hotel promises.
When Billy decided to become the Prince of Yip, that long-ago pledge resurfaced. The Hotel Del was the perfect place to try out his new scam. No one knew him there and the real prince had never stayed there, either. An old hotel, accustomed to catering to presidents and princes, would know how to take care of his needs without a lot of questions that might trip him up. Plus, if things went wrong, escape was easy. Tijuana was only thirty miles away.
It had gone swimmingly until today's robbery. Billy had the hotel staff completely in thrall. Coronado and San Diego were flush with exclusive shops and expensive indulgences, all available to the man with the prince's credit cards.
Now it was ruined. The cards were gone. And Billy couldn't decide what to do next.
He could take a hike. The prince gets in his new Mercedes for a spin up the coast and nobody here ever sees him again. But he'd have to leave the closetful of Armani, and he couldn't bear that. He might be able to sign off at the front desk on his earlier credit card imprint, march out the door, luggage in hand, and hope they didn't want to double-check his card. But he didn't want to walk away, not yet. He'd have to leave behind Liza West and he wasn't ready for that.
Billy was hooked on Liza. The romance would be intense and fiery and brief. Once it was over, he could move on, as he'd planned all along. To the next resort in the next warm clime, the next hot woman. A party for Billy Ho, twenty-four hours a day.
Tonight, he and Liza could dine in the hotel. He'd sign all expenses to his room until he could replace those credit cards. They could eat at the Prince of Wales Room and drink in the Ocean Terrace Lounge. Then back up to his room for some rodeo sex.
Enjoy it while it lasts. Even if he recovered the prince's credit cards somehow or got new ones, it wouldn't last forever. The Sultan of Yip eventually would question the bills pouring in, question why he hadn't heard from his son. Billy had to stay just ahead, riding the wave until it played out on a warm beach somewhere. Or sent him crashing into the rocks.
"Here's your drink, Your Highness." The girl's voice again. He imagined she had freckles and pigtails. He held out his hand, let her slip the chilled glass into it. Their hands brushed, and hers felt blushingly hot.
"Thank you, my dear."
"Can I ask you to sign this?"
Billy kept his eyes closed, his voice soft and warm.
"Sign it for me, you lovely girl. And give yourself a ten-dollar tip."
"Oh! Thank you!"
"You're welcome."
Billy made the slightest gesture with his hand, a pleasant suggestion of a wave of dismissal. Her heels clicked away.
The sun needled Billy's bellly. Five more minutes, then he really must plunge into the pool.
A shadow fell across his face, a sudden cloud blocking the sun from his closed eyes. The girl again. Billy imagined her in a gingham blouse, a frilly Daisy Mae thing. And no pants.
"Back so soon, my dear?"
"Glad to hear you're so fond of me, Your Highness."
That twang. The desert rat, the thief. Here, invading the sanctity of the Hotel Del, standing in Billy's sun.
He opened his eyes and winced at the man towering over him, framed by a postcard background of palm trees and sky and the hotel's dunce-cap turrets. The man had the slitted eyes, sun-creased cheeks, hard muscles and Brylcreemed ducktail of that exotic predator: the Mojave Desert redneck. Billy had seen the type all his life, cunning brutes who ran last-chance saloons or wore the badge of the U.S. Border Patrol.
"Mind if I sit down?"
The grinning redneck scraped a chair across the concrete to within inches of Billy, then perched on it, his feet flat on the ground, leaning over Billy, breathing cigarette smoke on him. He clutched Billy's hand in an inescapable handshake.
"I'd like to introduce myself. My name's John Ray Mooney, and I'm your new partner."
Chapter 5
Earl Shambley sat in his threadbare armchair, the phone book in his lap and his feet in a tub of warm water. Earl had old feet for a man in his fifties. His feet were twisted and horny, like big black prunes. Every night when he got home from the bank, he stripped out of his uniform, sat down in front of the TV in his boxer shorts and soaked his feet. Every day at the bank, they still hurt like hell.
Twenty-five years of wearing a badge and toting a gun on the hot asphalt streets of Dallas, Texas, and what does Earl have to show for it? Bad feet, a crappy little apartment, a dwindling retirement fund and the world's most boring job at the National Bank of Coronado. Sure ain't the way a cop expects to live out his days.
Earl knew Coronado because he'd been stationed at North Island Naval Air Station when he was a young man, right out of Horace Mann High School in Tyler, Texas. The eight-year hitch in the military helped him get on the police force when he mustered out, saved him from going to college or learning a trade. The Dallas Police Department was desperate to hire blacks back then to meet long-neglected quotas and Earl waltzed right into the police academy, exchanging his Navy uniform for the dark blues of a cop.
All these years later, Coronado had seemed the perfect place to retire. A quiet little town full of safe, happy white people. The danger always existed that Earl's old adversaries might pop up and try to settle a score. But they weren't likely to find him in Coronado. And, if they did, they most assuredly would stand out from the crowd.
A man makes enemies during twenty-five years on the force. Earl collected more than his share because he always kept his eyes open for ways to supplement his piss-poor salary. He'd shake down drug dealers and pimps in exchange for their freedom. He'd engineer raids on gambling dens in which everyone escaped the dragnet, so long as they left the winnings on the table. If anyone complained, they stood the danger of being shot while trying to flee. Earl had the law on his side. Lot of crooks in Dallas had sworn to get even. And one apeshit guy in the department's Internal Affairs Unit had pledged to shoot Earl on sight.
Earl hit his twenty-fifth anniversary as a cop -- and, therefore, retirement -- hours before Internal Affairs swooped down on him, ready to bust him off the force for a string of misdeeds and abuses that read like the Texas Criminal Code. The police chief, an old friend of Earl's with a history of immoral personal conduct, let Earl retire instead. In exchange, the chief got an envelope full of embarrassing photographs of himself in a local motel room. And the negatives.
Earl knew enough to disappear. Nobody lives in more danger than a dirty cop. If the bad guys don't get you, the good guys will.
He'd arranged the job with the National Bank of Coronado before he even knew about the Internal Affairs investigation. Just as well, too, considering that the bank checked his references. What the bank manager got was: twenty-five years as a uniformed officer, a steady guy, no flashy arrests, no awards, no major disciplinary problems. If he'd checked again a few weeks later, his questions would've been referred to the vipers in Internal Affairs.
Earl's thinning hair had gone white when he was still in his forties, but vanity and street savvy had led him to color it for the past decade. Soon as he retired, he washed out the dye and started growing a thick mustache. Within a few weeks, he looked a different man. Older, wiser, serene. The sweeping mustache made his face look like he was smiling, though he rarely was. Tourists automatically smiled back, thinking, what a friendly old gent.
Christ, he was bored. Sleepy little whitebread towns might be safe, but they were hell on a fellow's nerves. Earl liked to get out on the town, scout the skirts, roll some dice, pop into bars where everybody knew his name. At least, he used to like that. Been so long, who could tell? Maybe he was becoming what he pretended to be, a mild-mannered old bachelor who goes home at night to soak his feet.
The phone book open in his lap had the potential to change things. He had before him the Yellow Pages listings for the fifteen hotels jammed into Coronado. It was just a matter of time before he found the one where Prince Seri Hassan Bandapanang bin Mohammed stayed. Not likely to be more than one guest around with a name like that.
He'd started with Le Meridien and Loews, guessing a high-roller like a prince would stay in one of the newer resorts. Guessed wrong, apparently. He dialed the number for the Hotel Del Coronado.
When a woman answered, Earl asked for the prince.
"Yes sir, the prince is registered, but he's not taking calls. Would you like to leave a message?"
"No, ma'am, I need to talk to him directly. I work in security at the National Bank of Coronado. I have an urgent matter for the prince."
Earl held his breath.
"Hold on a second," she said. "Let me get my manager."
Earl needed to make his pitch to the prince straight on, without all this interference. He'd say he was concerned about the prince's safety. He saw the man in the sweatsuit jump into the prince's car that morning and just couldn't get it out of his head. Did the prince need some protection in lovely Coronado? Or maybe just a jaded sidekick who could show him the sights in San Diego? Anybody who could go into a bank and walk out with five large in cash, using nothing but a piece of plastic, could be Earl's friend.
"This is Keith, the night manager. How may I help you?"
Keith's voice was prissy and self-contained, sounded like he could blow smoke rings with his asshole.
Earl fed him the spiel, even went so far as to tell him he'd seen a stranger climb into the prince's car. But Keith was a rock. The prince had left orders. No calls. Take a message.
Desperation leaked into Earl's voice: "What if the prince has been kidnapped? What if he's in the trunk of a car somewhere, and you're not even letting me try to reach him?"
Keith let the pregnant pause reach full term before he said, "If the prince is in a car trunk, I doubt I could connect you to him anyway. May I please take your message?"
"Never mind. I'll come see him in person."
Earl hung up. Damn. He needed to talk to this prince, size the man up. At least he'd found out where the prince was staying. He could get dressed, head over to the Hotel Del for a few drinks, see what he could see.
He sighed and reached for a towel. Time to get off his dead ass and onto his dying feet.
Chapter 6
Liza West narrowly missed the neighbor's cat as she sped up the alley behind her Coronado home. Damn fat tabby, always scratching around in the trash. Better not wait until the last second to scamper out of the way when it's Liza behind the wheel.
She drove a deceptively fast Volvo four-door that was built like a tank. Her ex-husband had insisted on the heavy car because Consumer Reports rated it safest in a crash. With the wild way Liza drove, he'd said, she'd better have the best.
Fooled you, Sam. Not only have I avoided any accident, but I ended up with the car you bought. After the divorce, she'd considered trading the beige Volvo for something sportier, but she'd grown accustomed to its nimble bulk. Instead, she added a personal touch that claimed it as her own: A bumper sticker that said, "NO ILLUSIONS."
The Volvo's roof barely cleared the slow-moving garage door as it squealed to a stop. Then Liza was out of the car in a bustle of purse and shopping bags and clacking heels. Into the echoes of her big, empty house.
The house was another little gift from Sam, courtesy of Liza's razor-tongued divorce lawyer. It was a two-story barn with a Dutch roof and slate-blue clapboard walls. It sat on a pie-wedge lot two blocks from the Pacific, overlooking a perfectly round green park with a flagpole in its middle.
The car, the house and its furnishings had seemed a pretty decent payoff for six years of marriage to a surgeon with cold hands. Sam West was well-groomed and meticulous, hard-working and responsible. About as exciting as boiled beef, but he spent so much time at the hospital that Liza had thought she'd be able to stand it. Turned out she was wrong about that, but what the hell, sometimes you fool yourself.
The house was big enough to handle Junior League of Coronado teas or out-of-town guests, but Liza had closed off upstairs rooms as she sold off the antiques and art that furnished them. She'd whittled the drafty house down to a more manageable nest, and she didn't want to lose it now.
She often marveled at the way she'd turned a luxury home into a double-mortgaged, half-furnished white elephant. It left her breathless, like a magic trick performed so well it defies the imagination.
It could all be explained in one word: Flabric.
Liza had gone into business for herself after the divorce, taking a second mortgage on the house and using all her savings to lease and redecorate a storefront on Coronado's charming main street, Orange Avenue. She had the perfect product in the perfect niche market. Tourists came to Coronado for the noonday sun, but they forgot about the fog that blanketed the beaches morning and night. They suddenly found themselves in needs of layers of warm clothing and Liza provided it with quality souvenir sweatshirts.
She'd thought up the name "Flabric" herself. She wanted something that indicated weighty and warm, but cute and catchy, too. She'd had the name sketched across the storefront in expensive blue neon. Now, it seemed to mock her. Flabric. What had she been thinking? Nobody wants to be seen shopping in a store associated with "flab."
Liza thought she could change the name, remodel the place and start over with the same stock. But she needed a quick infusion of money first. Forty-seven-thousand dollars to get the store out of debt, maybe another fifteen-thousand to remodel and erase "Flabric" from the public consciousness. Sixty-two grand to save her store, to save the life she'd built among Coronado's yuppie elite. Might as well be a million for all the good the calculations did her.
With debt crashing all around her, Liza had fallen back on old habits. A few days earlier, she strapped on her thong bikini and went to the swimming pool at the Hotel Del Coronado. Lots of rich men around that pool, and if she had to shake something in their faces to land a backer for Flabric, then so be it.