Long Lost - James Scott Bell Page 0,8

to go in. Here he was among friends. The fellowship of the stick. Here he could shoot around and indulge his fantasy of being a champ at something. Living in a pretend world was a very good thing. When he was snorting, he used to say reality was just an escape for people who can’t face drugs. Now that he was clean, the occasional illusion was the ticket. In a pretend world, the shadows couldn’t get you.

For a while at least.

He scattered the balls randomly on table six and started making kick shots and cross sides and muttering to his phantom opponent, I’m the best you’ve ever seen, Red. Admit it. Up the bet? Sure. Hundred a game?

He was getting ready to put some hard English on the rock when he heard, “Hey, boy, we don’t like hustlers around here.”

Steve recognized the voice. Without turning he said, “How’s it goin’, Norm?”

“You come down here just for me?”

“Right, Norm. We who orbit around you just can’t help it.”

With face stubble and wrinkled flannel shirt, Norm Gaylord looked like one of the roving homeless along Topanga. He also looked like what he really was, an Emmy Award–winning TV writer who couldn’t get arrested. Steve had met him here at The Cue a few years after Norm’s sitcom was cancelled and he was turning to meth to write faster.

Which resulted in the loss of his wife and house. Later, when the cops nabbed him in a buy, he called Steve. Steve got Norm into diversion and out of being prosecuted. Norm was grateful and, like several other clients, still owed Steve money.

“Shouldn’t you be in court getting criminals back on the street where they belong?” Norm asked.

“Shouldn’t you be writing so you can earn enough to pay me?”

“What is it with you lawyers?” In high-pitched voice Norm sang, “Money, money, mo-ney.”

“You write better than you sing, and I’m not even sure how good you write.”

“Thanks, pal.”

“How’s the job prospects?”

“You want to know or you just blowing smoke?”

“Norm, I’ve got a vested interest in your career now.”

“Okay. I got a killer idea. This one’s gonna sell. It’s called The Littlest Mayor. A kid gets elected mayor of a major city.”

“And zany hijinx ensue?” Steve said.

“How’d you know?”

“Wild guess.”

“This one’s got to go. I need it, man.”

“You clean?”

“Of course I’m clean!”

“Good.”

“You?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. Sure. About as clean as a rusty pipe.

“How’s the wife?” Norm asked.

Steve shook his head. No verbal requirement here. He’d let Norm in a little closer than most clients. Recognized Norm was a fellow traveler along the troubled road. He’d allowed it to come out that he and Ashley weren’t likely to make it. Norm knew all about that, too.

“Sorry to hear it,” Norm said. “Really, man.”

Steve said nothing. He pressed the chalk on his cue a little too hard. Like he wanted to rub some thoughts away.

“So,” Norm said, “you want to shoot a ten-game freeze-out?”

Steve put the chalk down with a loud thwack. “You kiddin’ me? You’re betting with what?”

“I’m not gonna lose, so it don’t matter.”

“Maybe another time. After you’ve paid me.”

“Will you drop that?”

Instead, Steve bent over the cue ball and shot the nine in the corner.

“Very nice shot,” Norm said.

“I’ll shoot you friendly.”

“You buying the beer?”

Steve couldn’t help laughing at the audacity, the nerve, the gall. For that reason alone he bought the beers. Norm Gaylord was one of those guys who seemed to be able to charge through life’s minefield and somehow come up on the other side wounded, but having everyone else buy his drinks. Steve could use a little of that same attitude himself.

Maybe tomorrow would be a new day. If he could make it through the night without scratching the itch, maybe tomorrow would be the beginning of a Steve Conroy upswing.

A ten-thousand-dollar upswing.

5

The state prison at Fenton was an hour and a half northeast of Los Angeles. A maximum-security facility, it housed nearly four thousand hard-core felons. A year ago the National Guard had to be called in to put down a riot that left one guard and seven inmates dead.

A racial thing, the news said. Steve knew how true that was. As a deputy district attorney, he’d seen the full racial spectrum pass through the court system and into the jails and prisons. And despite the best efforts and intentions of everyone involved, racial separatism was endemic in corrections.

He thought about this on Saturday morning as he drove up Highway 14, got off on the hot flats where he could see