Dog Beach Read Free Page A

most of the night in the dark little bar of the Marina del Rey Hotel, drinking house cabernet and recounting the Palm Springs gag. Both had been out of the stunt business for years, but they still called their jobs “gags.” On her third glass, Dutch had proposed a plan for balancing the books: deliver the signed jersey to the client but keep the collectible football; store it in the trunk, like a treasury bond. At first, Louie had resisted, equating this to spilling hot coffee on your thigh and suing Jack in the Box. But by his last glass of sour cab, he had warmed to the idea of double-dipping. In fact, he told Dutch that she was clever.
    Yet, it bothered him now as he lugged the framed Raiders jersey down onto the mooring along a crowded row of aging yachts and sailboats. He could hear Dutch ringing a cell phone somewhere on one of the crafts—the ringtone was some kind of rock guitar riff—and a moment later, the client appeared. He was a hungover hulk of a man, waving Louie on board the small yacht.
    Down inside the mahogany galley, Louie got a better look at Jason Banazak. At six foot six and three hundred pounds, the onetime football star was closer in size to a Kodiak bear than a human being. Dutch told him that the guy had earned a half-dozen sports awards and just as many steroid charges, firearm possessions, and date-rape scandals. Louie noted that he also had the pronounced brow ridge of a Neanderthal. Like Louie himself, Banazak’s best days were far behind him and he had stopped cutting his graying curls. But it was his eyes—flat and cold—that stopped Louie short.
    It wasn’t that Louie was intimidated by the guy’s size; he loved fighting oversized men, playthings if you’ve been trained in kung fu. What scared him was that wounded glaze in the ex-jock’s eyes that made him feel like he was looking into a mirror.
    â€œWhere’s the Super Bowl ball?”
    â€œCouldn’t find.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, ‘Couldn’t find’?”
    â€œCould not find.”
    â€œI know every single fucking item they had in that room, and the Super Bowl ball was on a stand with a little plaque.”
    â€œCouldn’t find Super Ball.”
    â€œCouldn’t find Super Ball,” Banazak mocked Louie’s broken English, then grunted, sitting on the edge of the unmade cot near a tiny white lapdog. Louie looked around the galley, intrigued. “You live here? On boat?”
    Banazak surrendered a tired nod, already counting off a fold of cash. “Did you fuck them up good, Chinaman?”
    â€œYes. Fuck them up very good.”
    Banazak glanced up, grinned with a broken front tooth. He seemed amused by this loan-out enforcer, the little Asian guy with a reputation for clearing a room. When he handed Louie the cash, Louie quickly, almost magician-like, handed back a one-hundred-dollar bill.
    â€œOxycodone,” Louie said, surrendering a sheepish grin. “I see it. On the desk. Right over there.”
    It took Banazak a few foggy seconds to make the connection. Then he reached back and snagged a full vial of prescription painkillers, tossed it hard at Louie. When he caught it, Louie went dark. Crude American asshole. A man bluffs his way into a hotel room and beats the living crap out of four scumbags for the price of three, retrieves stolen property and delivers it to your Marina del Rey houseboat and you toss a vial of painkillers at him like he’s a beggar.
    Fuck you.
    That’s what Louie wanted to say. You give to me, you give to me with two hands and with respect. A little humility. But then the lapdog lifted its pink nose and began to yap. Louie drew back a step, but the apso kept barking sharply at him. Funny, Louie thought, how dogs can sense what a person’s thinking. That observation cooled him down. Temper was a weakness anyway, a sign of a lesser man. He remembered the old Sifu at the Peking Opera School telling him