Free Fun and Games by Duane Swierczynski Page B

something.”
    “Why go through all that trouble?”
    Lane looked at him. “I told you, I don’t know. Why did that deranged idiot shoot John Lennon?”
    Hardie tried to keep an open mind, swear to God he did. But even the slow, lazy lizard part of his brain was screaming BULLSHIT at every turn.
    The kind of killers Hardie encountered back in Philly were idiot scumbag husbands who beat their wives with baseball bats and tried to dump their bodies in storage lockers registered to their real names. Gangbangers looking to make a name for themselves, undercutting one another with cheaper and cheaper hits to the point where you could take out a witness in a major drug case for about the price of a fucking iPod. Drug-gang hitmen, Russian-mob enforcers. The killers he knew didn’t work in coordinated packs, and they certainly didn’t try to make their work look like an accident. That was the whole point. A death was not supposed to be an Act of God—it was meant as an Act of Vladmir, To Teach You Not to Steal From His Stash.
    “Let me take a look outside and see if I can’t put your mind at ease, huh? And then we can get to a hospital.”
    “No. No fucking way. That’s what they want. God knows what they’ll do to you the moment you set foot outside. Don’t you understand? These people operate on a completely different level.”
    Hardie muttered:
    “They.”
     
    Factboy gathered more intel on Charles D. Hardie. Slowly, it painted an interesting, if kind of sad and deadbeatish, kind of picture.
    Hardie had been filing tax returns as a “house sitter” for the past twenty-three months.
    He didn’t make much.
    The address on the rental agency turned out to be for a house that had been on the market for twenty-seven months.
    The house was crap.
    Debit-card statements revealed that he lived in hotels or the places he watched.
    He didn’t spend much. Movie rentals.
    (Who the hell went to an actual store and rented movies anymore?)
    All bills went to a PO Box in Philadelphia.
    The person who paid for that box lived at 255 Dana Street, Abington, Pennsylvania.
    So far, no connection between Madden and Hardie, outside of a few DVD rentals on Hardie’s debit card. Nothing from the past three years. But previously he’d rented some romantic comedies where Madden was featured in a supporting role: How to Date a Zombie, The Hook-Up, Never the Bride.
    (Factboy’s wife had made him sit through that last one. He wanted to use a fork on his eyeballs, just to escape the theater.)
    Anyway, it was safe to assume that Hardie recognized her. Also safe to assume Madden had shared the events of the past few hours with him.
    Factboy told all of this to Mann, who disconnected without a word of thanks or good job or anything. Good thing he wasn’t in this business for the ego-boosting. Factboy pretend-flushed, then rejoined his family, who were hot and cranky, and tired of waiting around for him.
    Mann needed this production concluded immediately. Another, much bigger and more complex job on the other side of the mountain was pending. This silly little bitch was taking far too much time and money.
    Somewhere in all of this, there would have to be a visit to an ophthalmologist. The mobile doc who’d patched it stressed he wasn’t an expert but thought it could be a severe corneal abrasion—definitely something that needed proper attention, not a quick fix. The wound burned and itched like crazy; it was all Mann could do not to scratch or rub around the edges.
    Another reason to move things along.
    The bright, warm sun helped distract Mann from the pain. She rubbed more sunscreen on her breasts, dried her hands with a white terry-cloth towel she’d found in the house.
    Then a voice spoke into her ear. O’Neal.
    “Heads up, y’all. We’ve got another guest.”
    The driver of the Dodge Sprinter kept the engine idling as he engaged the parking brake. For a precarious moment, the van seemed like it would roll back down Alta Brea and