City of War Read online

  Neil Russell

  City of War

  For Rick and Jim…

  You’re playing two-handed now,

  but one day, we’ll all be together again.

  There’ll be a lot of laughing and lying and remembering.

  Then somebody will yell, “Shut up and deal.”

  Until then, play on.

  I miss you more than words can tell.

  God, give us men…

  Men of honor, who will not lie…

  Tall men, who live above the fog.

  JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND

  Contents

  Epigraph

  1

  Marcus Aurelius and the 405

  2

  Sexy Elevators and Killer Pastrami

  3

  PlumpJack Gets You to Toledo

  4

  Benny Joe and the Dobermans

  5

  And Along Came Dana

  6

  A Torn ACL and Russian Women

  7

  Skycaps and a Walk on the Beach

  8

  Dinner and Roses

  9

  Pain and Memories

  10

  A Couple of Cops and a Tiger

  11

  Amazing Grace and the Executioner

  12

  A Fortress on a Hill and A.A.

  13

  Veronica Lake and a Son of a Bitch Named Truman

  14

  Crimes and Tears

  15

  Big Boats and Bigger Bullshit

  16

  A Jogger and a Best Friend

  17

  State Department on the Pacific

  18

  Doritos and Buffalos

  19

  Bad Asses and a RIFALO

  20

  Handcuffs and Deep Water

  21

  Maximus

  22

  Late-Night NFL and RICO

  23

  Power Plays and Security Oaths

  24

  Safe Houses and Spitters

  25

  Private Sanctuary and Silent Requiem

  26

  The Flash Drive

  27

  Babushkas and Black Granite

  28

  Manfred and Marlon

  29

  Russians and Cities

  30

  Assholes and Apelles

  31

  Nehemiah and the Tooth Fairy

  32

  Balconies and Jengo

  33

  Greedy Lobbyists and Dreamy Eyes

  34

  Jetway Drivers and Dark Places

  35

  Missing Pieces and Body Art

  36

  Tears and Beethoven

  37

  Cognac and Legionnaires

  38

  Mountain Roads and Dead Pets

  39

  Pradas and Poof

  40

  Absinthe and Funeral Barges

  41

  Knights Quarters and Zeus

  42

  Everlast and Fireworks

  43

  Blue Jungles and Crimson Tents

  44

  Grandfathers and Ashes

  45

  Paintings and Pageants

  Epilogue

  It was December on Dove Way, but the night was…

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books by Neil Russell

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  Marcus Aurelius and the 405

  A naked woman running full tilt through ankle-deep water in a freeway carpool lane isn’t something you see every day. But if you happen to stumble across it, your eyes could do a lot worse than Kimberly York.

  Sometime around 167 AD, Marcus Aurelius said that life unfolds exactly like it’s supposed to—that neither gods nor man can change a thing. And over the years, as I’ve watched the pleas of good men go unanswered while scoundrels prospered, it’s become clear to me that Marcus stumbled onto something. But looking back on that Saturday night last August, if the Man Upstairs Himself had told me that what was about to unfold was preordained, I’d have asked Him to take a breathalyzer.

  The earthquake wasn’t much by California standards. Only a 3.6. But the guy with the funny hair on the 11 o’clock news said it started a fire on my block in Beverly Hills, so I ushered ashore my dinner guests, Rhonda Champion and Bert and Brittany Rixon, and buttoned up my boat, the Sanrevelle.

  It was a quiet night at the Dolphin Bay Yacht Club, and the parking valet wasn’t at his post. I eventually located him behind the kitchen sharing a smoke with Emilio, the club’s chef, I tipped him generously for hustling up my Rolls Phantom and started the fifty-five-mile trek north from Newport Beach.

  As I crossed into Long Beach in the heavy, but fast, late-night traffic, the first aftershock hit, setting off burglar alarms in the surrounding neighborhoods and undulating the grooved concrete of the 405 under my tires. Fifteen miles ahead, it also ruptured one of the City of Inglewood’s prehistoric water mains, creating half a dozen thirty-foot geysers along the freeway and sending hundreds of thousands of gallons of water pouring onto the northbound lanes. As the torrent rushed south, channeled by the solid concrete center divider and an unnatural inward tilt of the freeway’s right shoulder—compliments of stellar Cal-Trans engineering—it was turning my side of the highway into a six-lane trout stream. I just didn’t know it yet.

  Ten minutes later, I noticed the pavement was wet, the water was getting deeper, and there wasn’t a drop of rain in sight. Anywhere else, drivers might have taken a beat. Maybe even considered it slightly distracting, feeling their vehicles hydroplaning under them while they tried to see through sheets of spray butterflying skyward off big-rigs slamming along at seventy miles an hour. But this is L.A., where we get on the freeway to watch a DVD, so in unison, several thousand would-be Mario Andrettis dialed their wipers up to Warp-3 and pushed their accelerators down a little further to compensate for the resistance.

  I was in the fast lane approaching El Segundo Boulevard, and it was all I could do to see through the billowing cascades and still keep up enough speed so the red Lamborghini tailgating me didn’t drive up my exhaust. And thanks to the Phantom’s twelve cylinders and six thousand pounds of British steel, I was doing a pretty good job plowing a path for both of us until the 18-wheel Budweiser truck a quarter mile ahead saw the forest of geysers, hit his brakes and turned everything to shit.

  Ten tons of metal, glass and beer sliding sideways with fast, bumper-to-bumper traffic bearing down on it isn’t missionary position driving—even in Southern California—and the first two rows of cars had no chance. They rammed into the truck without so much as tapping their brakes.

  By the time the rear-ending got back to me, I’d swung my black and silver behemoth into the carpool lane and gotten it down to zero a few feet from the rear door of a sideways Mercedes. The guy behind me in the Lamborghini wasn’t so lucky. He tried veering into the carpool lane too, but there wasn’t any room left, and he hit the center divider at just the right angle, went airborne and tumbled end over end into the southbound lanes.

  I stopped counting after I heard six cars hit him. And a few seconds later, all twelve lanes in both directions of the busiest freeway in the world came to a standstill. I was just about to get out to see if there was anything I could do for the guy in the Italian sandwich when Kimberly York entered my life.

  Stopped dead in the southbound carpool lane, directly across the concrete barrier, was a midnight blue Ford van with the windows blacked out—like the ones you see in presidential motorcades. The driver’s side glass was down, and the guy behind the wheel loo
ked nervous. He had a deeply pockmarked face and was wearing a thin black tie and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing a large spider tattoo with red highlights on his left forearm. I noticed the spider was missing a leg.

  More intriguing was the bloodred cloth headband tied tightly around his forehead, its loose ends trailing down his back. There was someone else in the front seat smoking a short cigar, but from where I sat, I could only tell he was solidly built and had on a dark baseball cap.

  Suddenly one rear cargo door of the van burst open, and a tall, stark-naked woman leaped out. Before either guy in the van could react, she had climbed across the divider in front of my car and taken off running north like a track star, splashing through the six inches of water like it wasn’t there.

  By the time Headband-man realized what had happened and got his door open, the girl had twenty yards on him. He climbed onto the divider, but I turned the Rolls’s wheels and pulled forward the few inches I had left, leaving him no room to get down. Angry at the intrusion into his affairs and wobbling awkwardly on the narrow ledge of concrete, he kicked at me through my window. I caught his foot, twisted it and pushed it back out.

  He fell backward against his van and slid down between it and the center divider. When he came up, his eyes were murderous. Just then, the southbound carpool lane opened, and the traffic ahead of the van shot forward. In courteous L.A. fashion, the driver of the white Caddie behind the van leaned on his horn and yelled out the window, “Hey, asshole, get that fuckin’ piece of shit moving!”

  Headband-man never took his eyes off me. He reached into his hip pocket and came out with a long switchblade, which he flipped open like he’d been born doing it. Finding new respect for his fellow motorist, Caddie-guy stopped yelling and got off his horn.

  Just then, the van’s passenger shouted, “Tino, get the fuck back in here and drive. We’ll swing around and get her on the other side.”

  The guy had some kind of accent, but I couldn’t quite place it. Tino didn’t move. He continued staring at me and waving the knife. So I said, “Hey, Cochise, why don’t you hustle on back to Universal before you miss the next tour bus. The girl voted with her feet.”

  Tino lunged forward, reaching over the divider and swiping the knife at me. He didn’t really come close, but enough was enough.

  “You know, Tino,” I said, “you’re the Babe fucking Ruth of bad decisions.” And I climbed across the front seat and got out on the passenger side. Seeing that Headband-man was preoccupied with me, Caddie-guy regained his gonads and leaned on his horn again.

  It’s always interesting to watch people’s reactions when they see me unfold. I’m what you would call really tall, and even if you’re used to being around big people, I get your attention. I’m also lucky enough to have been born with enough definition to look like I spend more time in the gym than I do. It’s a combination that usually ends disagreements before they get up a head of steam.

  I felt my Top-Siders grip the wet pavement, and I was glad I wasn’t wearing that slippery pair of Nikes I’d been too lazy to take back. Tino took a long look at me, and I could see him doing the math. But while he was deciding whether to go for it anyway, Caddie-guy broke the spell. He jammed his car in gear and rammed into the back of the blue van. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tino’s passenger fly forward and almost hit his forehead on the dash.

  Cigar-guy’s voice tremored with rage. “Goddamn it, Tino, get back in here, or I swear to God, I’ll take that fuckin’ knife and cut you a new asshole myself.”

  Without taking his eyes off me or lowering the knife, Tino climbed back in the van and roared away while the white Caddie leaned on his horn and tailgated him at breakneck speed.

  The northbound lanes weren’t going to open anytime soon, and my feet were already wet, so I locked up the Rolls and went after the girl. I’m not really a runner, but I move pretty well, and my long stride was an advantage in the rushing water.

  When I got to the Budweiser truck, smoke was coming out of the cab. I could see the driver slumped over the wheel, unconscious. Three men were taking turns standing on the truck’s top step trying to wrench him out without success. Suddenly, flames leaped up out of the dash and set the truck’s ceiling on fire. The acrid black smoke of burning plastic surged out the door and drove the rescuers back. The driver opened his eyes and moaned.

  Suddenly, I was three thousand miles away. Treading water in a wreckage-strewn, gasoline-slick sea. Then the fire came, searing my face and blistering my hands. I heard her scream, and I dove and swam in the direction I thought it was coming from. But when I surfaced, gasping for air, there was only more fire. I called her name. Then came the second explosion…and then nothing.

  “Hey, buddy, you okay?”

  I turned. A well-dressed man in horn-rimmed glasses had hold of my arm. I looked at my hands, but there were no burns. I saw the smoke-engulfed Budweiser truck.

  I ran to the cab, held my breath and with my height and reach, felt around the driver’s waist. He was still belted in. Just as I found the seat-belt release, he screamed that his legs were on fire. I grabbed his shirt and pulled—hard. He came tumbling out into my arms as flames erupted through the cab.

  I threw the driver over my shoulder and, with the searing heat pushing me along like a blast of wind, I ran clear of the flames, then sat him down in the rushing water, where his legs stopped smoldering. As other motorists came over to help, I heard sirens in the distance. I left the driver with a couple of guys who seemed to know what they were doing and continued after the girl.

  I’d gone about thirty yards past the wreck when I saw her. She’d crossed the empty northbound lanes and was picking her way through a patch of freeway forest trying to find a path past the geysers. But the water was so deep here, and pounding down so hard that, all of a sudden, she lost her footing and went down.

  When I got to her, she was spitting mud and leaves and swearing like an angry rapper. I reached down and pulled her up, but instead of being grateful, she took a swing at me. I caught her fist in my palm and held it. So she kicked me. Even though she was barefoot, it stung, so I squeezed her fist until she got control of herself.

  I was still wearing my hanging-around-the-boat clothes— a beat-up pair of khaki bush shorts and a blue denim work shirt over a navy Tee. I took the denim shirt off and put it on her. She was pretty tall herself, but even so, my 17 x 40 extra-long was like a dress on her. She buttoned a couple of buttons to keep it from flying open, then started back into the underbrush.

  Rather than fight with her again, I opted for fear. Shouting to be heard above the pounding water, I said, “Tino and his friend are circling around on the side streets. They figure you’ll be easy to spot.”

  At the sound of the name Tino, her head shot up like she’d been slapped. I could see she was teetering on the edge of hysteria. She started to sob. I went over and put my arm around her and felt her go limp. Doing most of the walking for us both, I waded her back across the freeway and headed toward the Rolls. To try to ease her anxiety, I said, “You’re safe now,” and she seemed to relax a little.

  When we got to my car, she looked at it, started to say something, then didn’t. I saw her working to compose herself as she dried off with one of the towels I handed her, then she got herself situated in the passenger seat with a blanket over her legs. I took off my wet shoes, threw another towel on the floor and got behind the wheel barefoot.

  I saw her fingering the lettering on the blanket.

  “What’s Sanrevelle?” she asked.

  “The name of my boat.”

  “And it’s big boat, right?”

  “Pretty big.”

  She looked at me, and I caught a little bit of a glint in her eye—a good sign. “So you’re either married or gay or live with your mother.”

  “Mind telling me where you’re going with this?”

  “I’m in a Rolls with a terrific-looking guy who owns a boat with monogrammed blankets. Things
like that just don’t happen to me, so I’m looking for the punch line.”

  “Sorry to disappoint,” I said. “No wife, no boyfriend, and the only person at home is my valet.”

  “Oh, this is just great,” she said with mock sarcasm. “Now there’s a fucking valet! And here I sit. Drowned Rat Cinderella. Well, my luck’s holding.”

  We both laughed, and I felt the mood in the car change.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a Big Mac lying around this crate, would you?” she asked. “I’m fucking starving. The least those assholes could have done was feed me.”

  If you can swear with that kind of conviction, you’re probably going to live. “There’s a picnic basket in the backseat. See what you can come up with. I’m a little hungry myself.”

  She managed to stretch far enough to reach the basket with only a slight loss of modesty, and when she got the cover off, she smiled in genuine delight. And it was a good smile. Lots of teeth and a faint wrinkling around the temples that gave her eyes a Christie Brinkley look.

  Pawing through the goodies like a hungry cat, she took inventory. “Sandwiches, cheese, crackers, caviar, a pair of wineglasses…and this…” She held up a bottle of cabernet sauvignon and scrunched her eyes at the label. “What’s PlumpJack Reserve?”

  “Something Shakespeare could have only dreamed of.”

  “Really? And is ’95 a good year?”

  “Well, it’s before the company started putting screw caps on a great wine, but you be the judge. There should be a corkscrew in the glove compartment.”

  “You always travel like a Ruth’s Chris?”

  “Only during earthquake season.”

  “Is that where all this fucking water came from?”

  “That and Flintstones-era plumbing.”

  “Well, thank God for good timing.”

  “Ruined Tino’s plan for a big night?”

  “Kept me from being fish food.” She shuddered involuntarily.

  I looked at her, but she wasn’t acting. I reached for my cell phone.

  “What are you doing?” she asked with an edge in her voice.

  “Calling the cops.”

  Her sarcasm was palpable. “What, so I can spend the next several hours being asked questions I don’t know the answers to? Thanks just the same, but I think enough of L.A. has already seen my ass.”