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  After dusting off the original for breakfast and a chocolate one for dessert, I am ready to get to work. Don't go to this joint for service, only if you love crepes and can stand creeps.

  Once settled back in my Vette, I call my buddy Pax in Vegas.

  "Hey, I need a little keyboard magic."

  "Make it quick, I'm busy."

  "Do I need to find a new best friend?"

  "Fuck you, Farley. Ask."

  "Somebody tried to dust my new client before she becomes my new client. See what you can find out about what happened and to where she might have flown. She's hiding out and not answering the number I have. You might try her manager for a phone number, some guy named Emory something."

  "I'll put Sol on it. He can be your next best friend."

  "Good, he's better than you anyway."

  "Sit on it, Sunshine, where the sun don’t shine."

  "I'll stand by."

  I read the rest of my paper, and it's a good thing I read fast as my phone buzzes and it's Sol, who's one of those twenty-five-year-old computer genius types who's worked for Pax since he was a teenager.

  "She has a place in Malibu." He gives me an address near Point Dume State Park. "The land line there is unlisted but it's 555-6720."

  "Also 310, right."

  "Right. And her manager, Emory Coogan, is 805-555-3433."

  "I owe you a tall cold one."

  "How about a five-foot-two blonde one."

  "Drinks I can do, Sol. You got to take care of your own love life."

  "But you're so much better at it."

  "You're in Vegas, my man. A blonde on every street corner."

  "Yeah, but I don't pay for it."

  "Thanks for the help."

  "De nada."

  So I dial the Malibu land line. No answer, get a machine, and leave a message. So I dial Coogan and likewise get a recording and leave a message.

  I can be there in thirty minutes, traffic allowing, so head out. It's a great drive and a great day, so I put the top down on the Vette and enjoy it.

  Nothing like a drive up the California coast on a beautiful day with an ocean breeze and California King Gulls circling overhead. And the plethora of young starlets, or starlet wannabes cruising by.

  And I'm happy, until I work my way through the maze of roads at Dume Point and arrive at Tammy's ocean front address…and there's yellow crime scene tape strung all over the driveway.

  A half-dozen L.A. County sheriff cars.

  An ambulance.

  What the hell?

  Chapter Two

  I duck under the crime scene tape and am immediately confronted by a deputy. I flash my bail enforcement officer's badge at him and being a young guy new to the job he doesn't take a hard look and waves me on by. It's sometimes a wonder what thirty-five bucks for a chunk of brass can do for you.

  A gurney is loaded with a very big, blond Nordic type, who is being hoisted by a couple of EMT's who look about to bust a gut trying to get it up so it can be rolled into the back of the bus. So I pause long enough to get a good look at the passenger and help them.

  While I'm doing so, a plainclothes guy walks over.

  "Who are you?" he asks.

  As soon as we get the gurney up, I nod and extend my hand. "Mike Reardon. I'm security for Miss Houston. What's happened here?"

  The guy does accept the handshake. Then asks in a cold tone. "You got some I.D.?"

  As I'm showing the pudgy rumpled cop—jelly stains on his yellow power tie—my badge wallet which also contains my legitimate Nevada driver's license, another guy of equal weight to the two-hundred-sixty-pound guy on the gurney walks over. He's no Nordic type, more swarthy Italian.

  "This guy is not Tammy's security," he snaps, with a bit of a Southern drawl, and the plainclothes cop places a hand on the semi-auto clipped to his belt.

  "Miss Houston hired me over the phone," I say.

  "You're Mike Reardon?" the swarthy dude asks, and the cop relaxes a little.

  "I am."

  "You're not needed any longer." He's smiling with only one side of his mouth, more a smirk than a smile.

  "And you are?"

  "I'm Emory Coogan, Tammy's manager." Not Italian, black Irish, I conclude.

  "So, where's Miss Houston?"

  The cop steps closer. "She's been abducted, forty five minutes ago. We've got an APB out."

  "So," Coogan repeats, "you're not needed. Sorry you made the trip." He says it, but doesn't mean it. Then he turns back to the plainclothes guy. "Detective, can you show Reardon off the property."

  The cop gives Coogan a look that says I ain't your butler, and doesn't move.

  "Hold on, hotshot," I say to Coogan, feeling the heat creep up my neck. "Miss Houston and I go way back—"

  "Yeah," he says with a slight guffaw, "she fired your ass a couple of years ago, right before she hired Butch."

  "And she hired me back a couple of days ago."

  "She has a contract waiting for you inside, and a check, but you're not getting it now. I'm in charge of Tammy's affairs, so beat a trail back to Vegas."

  I bite my lip, wishing I could bust his. But rather merely nod and turn to the detective. "I didn't get your name?"

  "I didn't offer it, but it's Adamson, Detective Howard Adamson."

  "Thanks. And who's the boy in the bus?"

  "That's Horrigan. Butch Horrigan. He got blindsided and stun-gunned and hit his head on the way down. He's going in for observation."

  "How's he play into this?"

  "You should know if Miss Houston hired you. He's the head of security for her."

  I nod, and give Coogan a disgusted look, and start for the crime scene tape, and can't help a little sarcasm. "I guess he doesn't give good head. I can show myself out."

  "Humph," is all I get from Coogan, but Adamson calls after me.

  "Hey," he steps over and hands me a card. "Call me this afternoon."

  "Will do."

  "Yeah," Coogan says, "call him from Vegas."

  I have the urge to give swarthy Coogan the middle finger, maybe extended but more likely stuck in his eye…but neither is considered professional.

  As I head for the crime scene tape and my Vette beyond, I hear footsteps behind and a ladylike voice calls out, "Mike Reardon."

  I turn, and see it's a tall brunette, lithe but bulges in all the right places, with laser-blue eyes that would melt metal. She's about Tammy's age. "Yes, ma'am."

  "He's leaving," Coogan's voice is raised from fifty feet away.

  "I'll only be a moment," the brunette says, over her shoulder, then turns back to me and extends a well-manicured and polished hand. "I'm Tyler…Tyler Thompson. I handle Tammy's bookings and travel, and we're good friends. She told me lots about you."

  Tyler slips me a card as she speaks and I stuff it in a back pocket of the Wranglers as Coogan is heading this way, imitating a freight train.

  "He's leaving," he snaps, and with a little too rough a hand drags Tyler Thomson back a couple of steps. Coogan keeps moving as if he's expecting me to give ground, but instead I step into him and give him a sound chest bump as if someone on our team just made a touchdown.

  "Oof," he manages, and before he can get anything else out, I give him a stiff one-finger poke in the plexus and he "oofs" again, and back steps, a little wide eyed. I think he's going to swing and am hoping he does, but he reconsiders as he's still trying to catch his breath from the finger jab.

  So with a voice low and serious, I say, "You know something, Coogan, had that lady not acted like she was used to you jerking her around, I'd be standing over you with one foot on your chest and you swallowing teeth and blood. I'm not much for some asshole pushing women around. And I'm tempted to drop you nonetheless."

  "Who the fuck do you think you are? Get the hell off this property," he stammers.

  I turn to Tyler. "You okay, Miss Thompson?"

  "I'm fine, thank you." She says, then, unseen by Coogan, gives me the telephone receiver signal w
ith thumb and little finger extended from mouth to ear, and mouths, "Call me."

  I nod. And move toward the tape, then stop as I duck under and look back at Coogan, who's standing with his arms thrown back as if he's about to charge across the twenty-five feet separating us.

  So I invite him. "Sure you don't need some help, fat man?"

  "Not from you, dipshit. Beat a trail back to Vegas."

  So I do. No check here. I'm all the way down to Sunset and thinking of stopping and messing around town until I can go to Dan Tana's for some great Italian before heading back to Vegas, before my adrenaline wears off.

  Then it begins to creep into my pea brain that Tammy hired me so only Tammy can fire me. And what kind of guy am I who ignores a woman so obviously in peril, if still alive? I presume this is a kidnapping for ransom, so she's a damsel needing rescue.

  Money or no, check or no, I gotta turn around.

  She wanted my help, and even though I gave her a bad time, she employed me with a verbal contract…and like I said before, I always do what I say I'm going to do.

  And I said I'd take on the job of protecting Tammy Houston.

  Chapter Three

  As I'm driving back I poke the voice activation on my hands free and call Pax.

  Rosie, his receptionist and one of my favorite ladies, all two hundred pounds of her, answers with her normally cheerful voice. "Weatherwax Internet Services."

  "How can you make even that sound so sexy?" I ask.

  And she giggles, as I knew she would, then answers, "Hey, big boy, when are you bringing me some more of those wonderful chocolate truffles?"

  "Sorry, I'm on the coast. Why are you answering the boss’s cell phone?"

  "He went to the gym and accidently left his cell on my desk."

  "Old age is hell. Sol around?"

  "He is, but you'd rather talk to me."

  "No doubt, but there's a damsel in distress and I need him badly."

  "Okay, you're no fun. Except for the damsel maybe."

  "Work is hell, and one must sacrifice. Sol, please."

  "Sol, the hack man," he answers as I normally address him.

  "Hey, somebody snatched my almost client. The L.A. sheriff has an APB out on a van. Find out what you can, financial, etcetera, on all the players. Tammy Houston; Emory Coogan, her manager; Tyler Thompson, her travel and booking person, a lady person…and a lug named Butch Horrigan, supposedly her security."

  "You got it. You want me to hack into L.A. County?"

  "Not yet. Let's not risk it until it's imperative. I've got a contact there."

  "Go get 'em, Mike."

  As soon as he's off, I dial the number Tyler Thompson gave me. She answers.

  "Tyler."

  "Hi, kid. It's Mike Reardon."

  "Oh…oh, hi Genny."

  "Can't talk?"

  "Not even a little."

  "Where'd they take Horrigan?"

  "Oh, yeah, we've had a hell of a day. Somebody kidnapped Tammy…but you've got to keep it quiet. And Butch was taken to U.C.L.A. med center with a busted head."

  "Thanks, I'll call you later."

  "Cool."

  I hear a gruff voice in the background as she's hanging up. "Shut that up…"

  So, I'm off to the university hospital in Westwood. Not too far from Dan Tana's in Beverly Hills, and some high class Italian.

  Before I turn off onto the far west end of the infamous Sunset Boulevard, my phone vibrates and I see it's from Sol, and his first report on the folks inquired about. I pull into a small Brentwood strip center with a Starbucks, dig my laptop out and open the attachments. I go straight to the Butch Horrigan file. Born Benjamin Horrigan, first nickname Benny, took on Butch after serving a three-year term in Tehachapi State Prison for assault on a police officer. He served the full three as it appears there was no good behavior. In fact he was tried again for assault while in prison due to a prison riot, but was found innocent for lack of proof. Born in Fresno, California, he did three years at Fresno State, a college not a prison, and played tackle on a winning football team until he was thrown out of school for breaking some kid’s arm and using a beer bottle on another at a fraternity party he'd crashed. He obviously thinks of himself a tough guy. Well, the tough guy wasn't as tough as the mace and whoever hauled off his client.

  It's not a very interesting story, maybe it'll be more interesting from the horse's mouth.

  I park in a multi-story parking garage near the hospital and go to the desk to discover he's still in the emergency room...typical of today's hospitals. There are probably forty illegal aliens in the queue in front of him. That, too, is typical of today's southwest U.S. hospitals. I have nothing against folks trying to better themselves; I just wish they wouldn't climb on the backs of those of us here legally just after swimming the Rio Grande or jumping the very porous fence. And that wish includes stopping them from voting illegally for those who'll continue to buy their votes with giveaways.

  The girl at the ER desk asks my interest in Mr. Horrigan, and I tell her I'm his half-brother, and as he's in a cubicle awaiting a doc I am pointed to number eight. At least he got as far as a bed. I'm no stranger to hospitals, have had more than my share of wounds; but I never get used to the Lysol or bleach smell, the groans and moans, and the painted directional stripes on the floor...knowing one—probably the black one—leads to the morgue.

  I hate the places.

  I push my way through the curtains and see our boy flat on his back, and his stomach stands as high or maybe a little higher than his chest...this boy is no five percent body fat as a good scrapper might be. More than likely he's good at cleaning up the scraps from the table.

  His eyes are closed, but snap open when I address him.

  "How you doin' Benny boy?"

  He begins to raise his head, but then collapses back to his pillow. "Who the hell is that, calling me Benny?"

  "You haven't been Benny since Tehachapi, or when?"

  This time he manages to hold his head up and focus on me. "Who the hell are you? You a cop?"

  "Nope. I'm the bodyguard Tammy should have had."

  "Fuck you, they maced me."

  "When you opened the door and stood there like a gob of suet. How about taking a peek through the peep hole first? It's hard to get mace to penetrate oak and glass."

  "Fuck you, I'm her bodyguard."

  "And you may be guarding a dead body by the time you get out of this meat processing plant."

  He's silent for a moment, then speaks with his head down flat on the pillow, his eyes at the ceiling. "So, you're gonna look for her?"

  "No, I'm gonna find her, alive I hope. Why'd they take her?"

  "You gotta ask Coogan."

  "I'm asking you."

  "Coogan."

  "You have any idea who they were?"

  "Fuck no."

  So I reach over and put the flat of my hand on the knot on the side of his head. "Do you suppose if I press hard on this lump I'll push the mush you call brains out of your nose?"

  He grabs my wrist, but I pry his thumb away with my other hand, and not gently.

  He winces. "I'm yelling for the doc."

  "Too late by the time he gets here, not that he could do anything about it nonetheless. I guess he'll get here in time to clean up the mess. So, why'd they take Tammy?"

  I reach again for the knot. "Oh, fuck, don't push."

  "Why'd they take Tammy?"

  "I'm gonna kick your ass when I get out of here...ooww. Fuck!"

  "Why'd they take Tammy, tough guy?"

  "They said they wanted their money. Now stop pushing."

  "What money?"

  "Fuck, I don't know. I don't owe them no money."

  "And Tammy does?"

  "Tammy don't handle the money...her money...Coogan does."

  "So Coogan owes them?"

  "Ask Coogan. Doc!" he yells.

  "We'll talk again when you get out of here, if the docs don't kill you."

  "Doc!" he yells,
then, "nurse!"

  I have to laugh. He sounds a little like a six year old yelling for his mama.

  "See you around, killer," I say, as I exit, passing a nurse running his way.

  As soon as I get back to the parking garage, I have to hack the flavor of beach and hospital out of my throat.

  On my way back to the Vette, I dial Coogan and it goes to answering. So I again dial Tyler, and this time she sounds a little more relaxed.

  "So, pretty lady, how about you and I getting together and talking?" I ask.

  "Can't, I'm headed back to the apartment in Westwood."

  "It's taped up."

  "They said I could get back in this evening."

  "How about some great Italian at Dan Tana's?"

  "Oh, I love Dan Tana's. What time?"

  "How about eight. I'll get us a reservation."

  "Eight it is."

  Chapter Four

  She wanders in slowly, seductively, eyeing the room.

  I'm in a booth in a far corner and jump up to meet her. The place is red leather and dark wood, quiet waiters who move like specters but are always close at hand and great food and drinks.

  It all reminds me of film noir, Humphrey Bogart from the late thirties or forties. And she fits right in, even looks a little like Lauren Bacall. Basic black cocktail dress, nice black high-heels sans the platforms many girls wear—she's tall enough—with a small buckle on each crusted with faux diamonds, rhinestones I presume. Her legs are bare...Bacall would have worn nylons. The one-faux-diamond-rhinestone-thick belt she wears drapes on slim hips like an oversized tennis bracelet, but there's enough flare there to say she's lady shaped, and it's obvious she's braless and they stand up nicely without the shoulder-slings. A very, very nice package and the plethora of men in the place seem to agree as all eyes follow as she winds between tables to meet me halfway.

  "You clean up nice," she offers, and I put a hand on the small of her back and escort her to our corner booth. She slips in and rather than take the side of the curved booth facing her, I slip in beside her.

  "Thanks," I reply, "but I'm surprised I can answer and you look so good I'm tongue-tied."