Read Online Hard Play by Kurt Douglas - Free Book Online Page B

dressed in suits with their hair slicked back, looking like a horde of swarthy, misplaced businessmen, sat upright around a large hookah packed full of reefer. Two of the men were still yelling at each other. None of them noticed Frank. They went back and forth between English and Armenian. Their screams all but drowned out the talk show playing on the flat screen mounted to the wall.
    Frank reached up and shut off the TV. That caught their attention. The argument ceased and all the faces turned toward Frank.
    One of the men who was arguing stood and threw his hands to his side, palms facing outward in an exasperated sign of disapproval. He was radiating contempt toward the young man standing in the doorway behind Frank. The one who wasn’t fast enough. The one Frank ignored.
    “Chey you guy,” he growled in a heavy accent, “You cannot be back here.”
    This time his contempt was aimed at Frank.
    Frank threw open his wallet with a flip of the wrist then slammed it shut.
    “Frank Black, PD,” he said.
    Knowing these outfits liked to be left alone, he twirled his finger around the room, pointing to the blocked fire-exit, the missing smoke detectors and the exposed electrical conduits, then asked, “You want me to call the Fire Marshal?”
    “No buddy. It’s good, ara,” the man exclaimed.
    Extending his hairy hand to Frank, he said, “Tony Kavakian. This is mine. How can we be friends, officer?”
    The wallet trick always worked.
    “I need to speak with one of your employees.”
    “They are volunteer, not employees, my good friend,” Kavakian rebutted as he placed his hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Let’s move back up to front. No one’s allowed back here. Okay, guy?”
    Frank lifted his chin toward the group in an effort to say, What about them ?, but Tony had already pushed him back out onto the shop floor.
    “Barev chent, no one in the back, eh!” Kavakian shouted to the young man at the counter, slapping him hard enough on the back of the head to send a shockwave rippling across the loose skin on his bald scalp.
    Kavakian turned to Frank.
    “So, what guy you want to talk, eh?” he asked, pulling out a cigarette and packing it on the back of his hand. His gaudy gold watch hung from his wrist, swinging with each pat of the butt.
    Frank pulled out a cigarette as well. He reached the flame of his Zippo toward the end of his smoke, but before the flame met paper, Tony Kavakian, moving with impressive speed for his age and shape, snatched the cigarette from Frank’s lips. Breaking the Pall Mall between his fingers, he handed it back to Frank.
    “No smoking,” he said as he sparked his own cigarette.
    If it wasn’t for the Armenian mob’s entanglement with the dispensary industry, Frank would have slapped him to the ground right then and there, but Frank didn’t need a hit squad waiting outside his apartment complex all because some A-hole snatched a cigarette from his mouth and he couldn’t keep his cool.
    Frank pocketed the broken Pall Mall and said with calm demand, “Chad Campbell. Where is he?”
    Kavakian turned back to the young man behind the counter and shouted, “You know this guy? Where is he?”
    “He’s on lunch, prolly running up at the sign,” he answered, pointing his finger toward the back of the shop.
    “There you go, officer,” Kavakian huffed through a cloud of smoke. “He’s on lunch. Probably at the Hollywood sign. You’ve no need to be here.”
    “Thanks,” Frank said, his jaw clenching and his fist tightening around the broken Pall Mall in his pocket as he turned toward the make-shift cage.
    “Ara,” the young man called, “Don’t forget your goodie bag.”
    Frank turned with a pivot of his boot heel and faced the young man and Kavakian.
    “You’re kidding, right?” Frank sneered as he walked back to the display case.
    As the young man handed Frank the small, white paper bag, he said, “If you see his Taurus there, then that’s where he’s at. It’s green.