Fun and Games - Duane Swierczynski [68]
And now she had to die.
Because while she may have found Jesus, she’d also discovered a penchant for confession. The past three years had been a living hell for her, she told her new boyfriend, composer Andrew Lowenbruck. She’d thrown herself into work for nearly two years straight, appearing in pretty much everything her manager could dig up for her. As long as she was working, she didn’t care what it was. But then she saw that Truth Hunters billboard; something in her snapped. The drinking started shortly thereafter in a hotel room, first with two mini-bottles of vodka, followed by two mini-bottles of rum, followed by a small bottle of white wine, followed by a room-service order of a salad with lite Caesar dressing and two bottles of Grey Goose. And then finally a phone call to an old connection, and down she went, right into the scandal sites and entertainment mags.
Was anybody really going to question her overdosing after a party late one California night?
Not even her manager would blink. (That is, if her manager weren’t already beholden to Doyle, Gedney—client loyalty was one thing, but agency loyalty was another.)
“Restore some confidence in me,” Gedney said now. “Because from where I’m sitting, we have an actress who’s gone public, and who right now might be going to the media. We also have a van packed with your toys in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard.”
“Taking care of the van already,” Mann said. “A friend in the LAPD is keeping it tucked away and off the books.”
“And the target?”
“We know where they are, and we will pin them down shortly,” Mann said. “Once we have them isolated, I already have a new narrative that will explain today’s events.”
“You do.”
“Yes.”
“And this Charles Hardie? What do you know about him?”
Mann didn’t want to tell them the truth: that she had Factboy digging up everything on Hardie, hoping to find some kind of L.A. connection aside from his house-sitting gigs, maybe a retired cop he knew and trusted, or a family member somewhere in Southern California. Hardie of all people knew you couldn’t just disappear.
“I’m not worried about Hardie. He’s wounded and has few friends out here. Or anywhere, for that matter.”
Gedney said nothing. Mann hated that worst of all.
“This will work,” Mann said, hating the sound of pleading that was creeping into her voice.
“Don’t fuck it up. You know what’s on the line.”
“Of course.”
The trip was over; Mrs. Factboy was tired of Factboy’s stomach issues and decided to call it quits. Back home in Flagstaff, the kids ran around outside like maniacs while he finally was able to dig deeper into the Charles Hardie mythos. Nice to use a desktop instead of a phone. After hours of that, his finger muscles felt like they were going to permanently seize up.
What Factboy was able to crack open in fifteen minutes was disturbing.
What was even more disturbing: the stuff he couldn’t crack open.
“Listen to this,” he told Mann. He spoke quickly, but concisely:
“Charlie Hardie was never a cop. Never wore a badge, never did so much as a single push-up at the academy. The ‘consultant’ thing isn’t exactly accurate either. According to sealed grand jury testimony, Hardie acted as the Philadelphia PD’s secret gunslinger, tacitly approved by high department brass. When a door needed kicking in, they called for Hardie. When a witness needed to be kept safe until trial, they asked Hardie to step in. And sometimes, when the law considered itself impotent in the face of some greater threat, and a force of evil needed to be eliminated, they handed the gun to Hardie.”
This was not explicitly stated in the grand jury testimony, Factboy said, but you could easily read between the lines.
“Hardie’s handler and