“Cal, do you want to tell Isaiah about the situation?” Anthony said, nodding instead of saying can we get on with it.
“Situation?” Cal said. “What situa-oh yeah, right, right, yeah, Mr. Q is here.”
Dodson bit Isaiah’s tongue off with a look. “How can we help you, Cal?” he said.
“You can help me by putting that evil bitch Noelle in jail,” Cal said. “Get some video or some fingerprints or some DNA. You know, police-type shit, get her locked up where she belongs. Let her do her diva thing with them women got the short hair, no makeup, and mop handles.”
“Cal thinks his ex-wife is behind the dog attack,” Anthony said, giving Isaiah a look.
“I don’t think she’s behind the attack,” Cal said. “She is behind it, ain’t no doubt about it. Who else would want to kill me with a goddamn dog? Only an evil bitch would think that shit up. I might wake up tomorrow morning with a dinosaur after my ass.”
“I’d like to talk to you privately, Cal,” Isaiah said.
“You need to know something, ask Anthony,” Cal said, moving for the door. “That’s what I pay him for. I’m gonna take a nap, y’all niggas leave me be.”
“What about the album?” Charles said.
“Fuck the album and fuck you for bringing it up, Charles.”
“Aw, come on, Cal, we got work to do,” Bug said.
“You mean I got work to do. You muthafuckas ain’t got shit to do. Nail her ass to the wall for me, Mr. Q. Did Anthony tell you about the bonus?” Cal shuffled out of the room, the tension easing like someone had turned off a smoke detector.
“Really, Isaiah,” Anthony said, “I know this must seem ridiculous to you. If you don’t want to take the case it’s okay. We’ll pay you for your time.”
“Don’t let him off the hook,” Charles said. “Nigga’s supposed to know something.”
“Yeah, IQ,” Bug said, “what you got to say?”
“How did the man on the video direct the dog to the doggie door?” Isaiah said, talking to himself.
“He told it to,” Charles said.
“You mean he was shouting all that time? He’d have to when the dog was on the other side of the pool and for all he knew Cal might have heard him. No, he did something else.”
“Like what?” Charles said. “Send it a text?”
Isaiah meandered over to the pool table, picked up the nine ball, and let it slow-roll out of his hand.
“I told you this wasn’t gonna be shit,” Charles said.
“This will go a lot faster if you let the man think,” Anthony said.
“Thank you, Anthony,” Dodson said. “Isaiah cogitates best when there are no distractions.”
“What’s he need to cogitate for?” Charles said. “He saw what we saw.”
The nine ball bounced gently off the far cushion and came back, Isaiah cupping his hand over it. “Whistles,” he said.
“Did you say whistles?” Dodson said.
“The man was using whistles, giving the dog directions like those sheepherders do with their dogs. Like a high-low for going left and low-high for going right. The dog’s ears went up every time he made a turn.”
“But why use a dog at all?” Anthony said. “It makes no sense.”
“Yeah,” Charles said, “it’s stupid.”
“If you’re the hit man, you’re on a deadline,” Isaiah said, drifting toward the glass door. “You’d have to be. Nobody would hire you to kill somebody without a time frame, but the hit man didn’t plan on Cal staying in the house for three weeks. The alternative was shooting him through a window but the drapes were always closed. The hit man’s only option at that point was to get inside the house but he couldn’t because there’s an alarm and cameras and people with guns. So now what does he do?” Isaiah reached the glass door and looked out at the pool. “He sends in his killer dog.”
Anthony was nodding. Charles was rubbing his goatee. Bug’s face was screwed up like it was too much information.
“Any questions?” Dodson said.
CHAPTER FOUR The Hatchet Man
June 2013
Three weeks before the dog attack on the rapper, Kurt walked along the Santa Monica Pier, unconsciously massaging his arm and reminding himself that that was his name today. The weather matched his shitty mood. The air was damp, the sky a washed-out gray, the ocean dark and sluggish. There was a breeze but it wasn’t strong enough to blow away the smell of grease, stale popcorn, French fries, and hot dog water. The only decent thing out here was the old-fashioned merry-go-round. The rest was a bunch of stupid rides, fast-food stands, kiosks selling hats and key chains, and a restaurant called Bubba Gump’s from that boring movie about the retarded guy. Some old gook asked him if he wanted his name painted on a grain of rice. “What for?” Kurt said. “Who’s gonna read it?” He joined a family of foreign tourists watching the most interesting thing out here, a Mexican guy reeling in a spiny brown fish. “You eat that and you’ll be shitting mercury,” Kurt said.
They called him the Hatchet Man, a ground-and-pound heavyweight with an eighteen-and-eight record. His last fight was against a Korean fireplug nicknamed Seoul Man. With a minute to go in the second round, Seoul Man locked Hatchet Man up in a vicious arm bar. The pain was unbearable but his face was smushed into Seoul Man’s right calf and his arm was pinned under the Korean’s left leg. He couldn’t speak and he couldn’t tap out. The ref called it when he heard Hatchet Man’s ligaments pop and his humerus splintering like a green twig. Everybody in the arena groaned. A guy in the front row threw up.
Three surgeries and months of rehab later, Hatchet Man regained some arm strength but nothing like before. Some of the nerves were permanently damaged and it was more comfortable carrying the arm at an angle. He could unbend it if he wanted to but his range of motion was limited. Still, he was dangerous. Some guy in Donahue’s made a wisecrack about the arm and Hatchet wrapped it around his neck like a python and choked him into unconsciousness. But bar fights weren’t cage fights and he had to retire. Now he was doing security for one of DStar’s clients.
Kurt took the wide wooden stairs leading down from the pier to the parking lot and the beach. The lot was almost empty. He walked along the second aisle from the right, trying to look nonchalant. Just a regular two-hundred-and-forty-three-pound guy in a lime-green muscle shirt and beaded dreadlocks, jagged scars under both cheekbones, his right ear shredded to nothing and an arm bent like he was escorting a date to the prom. It made him nervous, knowing he was being watched. All this cloak-and-dagger stuff was bullshit. He’d refused to do the job himself so the boss had him call DStar for a reference. That man knew people.
“You want somebody dead, my guy won’t let you down,” DStar said. “He’s a real lunatic. I mean they’re all lunatics but this guy is-” DStar hesitated like he couldn’t find the words. “Let me put it this way. He always gets it done.”
What’s a real lunatic that always gets it done? Kurt thought. Would the guy come cartwheeling across the sand dressed like a ninja or pop up out of the ocean wearing a headband and firing an M16?
A homeless guy was sitting on a parking block holding a cardboard sign that said HUNGRY. He was filthy like he’d been living with wolves, bundled up in an old gray blanket, rags wrapped around his feet.
“Sir, can you spare some change?” he said.
“Get a job, you fuck,” Kurt said.
There was a business-type guy sitting in a convertible Benz and thumbing a text. Kurt slowed as he walked past but the guy didn’t look up. Now a knock-kneed Asian girl wearing complicated high heels tottered toward him like a baby giraffe, Kurt wondering if the girl, the rice-painting guy, and Seoul Man all knew each other. The girl smiled and made eye contact, Kurt thinking no, it couldn’t be.