Free Hard Play by Kurt Douglas Page B

His neck was wrenched forward by the small rock beneath him, pushing his chin into his chest, making him stare at whoever would find him. If not for his face wrapped in cellophane, the frozen look of terror, and the wads of hundred dollar bills sticking from his pockets, you’d think he was waiting patiently in the seclusion of the bushes for a boy he'd met on the internet. He hadn’t even been there long enough to start stinking.
    Frank shook his head and knelt beside the body.
     

 
    Chapter 8
    Frank stood over the man and his dusty business suit, staring over the edge of the hillside and down into the city. Brown and white clouds hung in clumps over the ocean. The Pacific rippled and roared far in the distance, lapping at the sand and reeling bits of salt and sewage up in the air from the Long Beach reclamation plant down the coast. The sun sizzled in the sky behind Frank, stretching his shadow over the patches of golden yarrow and pale green scrub oak that cascaded along the hill. While he drew a cigarette from his pack, Frank looked down into the high-class neighborhood below. Unique works of art took the place of the standard tract homes you’d see in the flats. The winding streets were adorned with just about every style of house you could imagine, from three-story blocks of glass and steel to Spanish villas and neo-Mediterranean palaces that could accommodate a small village.
    “Get away from the body, Mr. Black,” Amy Van shouted as she stormed through the bushes, somehow managing to avoid a single snag. “And put out that cigarette.”
    Frank stamped out the smoke without missing a beat. He watched her as she marched toward him, breathing out his last bit of smoke with a deep push of the lungs.
    She looked even better today. She was biting the arm of her glasses, bracing them between her lips as she marched through the brush. Her black hair was loose and hanging down over the lapels of her gray, short cropped blazer and matching high-waisted pencil skirt. The cut of the jacket and high waist of the skirt accentuated Amy’s tiny waist and curvy hips. Her ivory legs stretched down toward her black ballet flats, dusty from hiking down the hill.
    She led a small entourage down into the dirt clearing; two beat cops and a goofy man in glasses with wispy red hair and freckles. He carried a camera that looked two sizes too big for his hands. The two officers with linebacker shoulders and thick, burly arms marched right behind her. Their long-sleeved navy blue uniforms hugged every fiber of their muscled bodies, making them look hot in the blazing sun and dusty air. Their hands were ready on their hips at the sight of Frank. Extending her open palm behind her, Amy signaled for the cops to stand down.
    “It’s okay,” she said, tucking her glasses into her cleavage. “I know this man.”
    Frank dipped his shades and flashed his baby blues at Amy.
    “A little far off your reservation, aren’t you?” Frank asked.
    Amy ignored Frank and put her arm over the goofy photographer, saying, “Make sure you get him from every angle.”
    She pointed all around the dirt, and added, “Tracks too.”
    The little man moved toward the corpse and began snapping photos of the body. As his flashbulb strobed behind them, Frank approached Amy. The coconut on her skin overtook him, shifting his straightened lips into a smile.
    “You won’t find any tracks other than mine and Mr. and Mrs. Dave’s,” he announced.
    “How’d you get here so quickly?” she asked flatly.
    “What took you so long?” Frank taunted with a shrug.
    “Unlike you, Mr. Black, I don’t just happen to be everywhere there’s a body,” she quipped. “Besides, you left a frantic wife at the bottom of the hill. Half of my team is still down there taking her frenzied account.”
    “And Dave?” Frank asked.
    “He’s down the hill with his wife,” she replied, “You know impersonating an officer is a crime, correct?”
    “I did no such