Dying For LA by Ian Jones (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

isn’t even there when we finally do it. It’s bullshit. I’m telling you.’

‘So what are you going to do Rico?’

‘I don’t know man, I really don’t. I’m here for the money, same as you. I don’t believe in no cause or shit like that I just wanna get paid.’

Sal nodded glumly, with one eye permanently on the door to Voorhees’ room.

Rico stood and looked out the tiny window, which gave out over a narrow alley between their block and its neighbour. There was a thin slice of a view if he looked painfully hard to his right. Beyond, he could see the city, the Hollywood hills in the distance.

‘I never been to LA before you know,’ he said ruefully.

There was a series of thumps, and then the bedroom door opened. Voorhees stood there, wearing the same gown as yesterday. Maybe he slept in it. Who the fuck knew. He looked in at the two men.

‘What are you two talking about?’ he asked.

‘Nothing really, me and Sal want to see the Lakers. You know, while we are in the city.’

Voorhees scowled.

‘This isn’t a holiday camp. We’re gonna be here longer, now you fucked it up last night.’

‘I got you breakfast Yann,’ Sal cut in quickly, and handed over the food.

Voorhees grabbed the bag, sniffed and peered inside, then disappeared into his office, slamming the door closed.

A minute later they could hear his voice on the phone.

Rico sighed again.

‘Come on, let’s clear this craphole up a bit. It fucking stinks in here.’

Rico doubted they could do anything about the place smelling like Voorhees but they busied themselves shoving rubbish into plastic sacks and dropping them into the big garbage bins at the back of the building. Neither man spoke much, they were just glad of something to do for a while. They rolled up the now unneeded sleeping bags and straightened their bedroom. Then Rico took a long shower, standing underneath the feeble spray until the water started to run cold.

Meanwhile Sal had been fiddling with the coffeemaker, and believed it would now work, so was attempting to make a cup.

The office door opened and Voorhees walked through, completely filling the small hallway. He looked in at the two men.

‘Been busy then?’ he asked.

Both men nodded silently. Sal handed him a mug of black coffee. Voorhees just stared at it, and eventually Sal put it down on the counter again. Voorhees crossed his fat arms.

‘OK. Well, I got four new guys coming in, one tonight the rest tomorrow. We got to get this shit back on track, right? And Sal? You’re now Number One. It ain’t working out with Rico.’

He stared at them with his tiny eyes, then disappeared back into the office and closed the door.

‘Rico …’ Sal started but Rico raised his hand with a smile.

‘Don’t. You know what? It’s fine, I wasn’t enjoying that fucking job anyway. You’ll be good at it. Good luck.’

He held his hand out and Sal shook it.

Chapter Seven

John was woken by a loud knock on his door. He sat up and looked at his watch, nearly 2pm. He had been asleep over three hours. He got off the bed and padded across to the door. It was Keane.

‘Come on, we got news,’ he said simply.

They got together in Judy’s room, which was identical to John’s apart from Judy had bothered to unpack.

Warner was in the only chair so Judy and Keane sat on the bed and John took the floor.

Warner spoke first, handing out some poorly printed sheets.

‘We got some fresh intel on Ritorsky. He did his national service in Poland, and they wanted to keep him. Seems like he was a good soldier, and in line for a sniper position.’

Warner paused and looked around.

‘But …’ said Keane.

‘Yeah, but. There was some kind of altercation with his commanding officer. Of course, we don’t have all the information, this is the military. But Ritorsky was out, and that was that.’

‘Sniper?’ John asked.

‘Yeah, and I bet we’re both thinking the same. And the even better news is we have ID on the other two men that John took out. They are Korean and …’

‘Korean! Of course. I knew it, I just couldn’t place it,’ John interrupted.

‘Yeah, both Korean. One is Ji-hoon Kong. Thirty-three, and a US resident since he was six years old. Raised in Boston, last known address is in Seattle. Now he was a good student, but ran off the rails at sixteen, started running with a gang who were moving coke all over Boston. Arrested at seventeen, then went from bad to worse, ended up in Concord doing a five stretch for arson. Then disappears, to resurface in Seattle, where his gets arrested for holding up a drug store. He gets bail, and never shows up for the hearing, so there’s a warrant out on him. Or was. Second man is Sung-min Byeon, thirty, no record of immigration into the US. We got as much as we can, which isn’t a great deal. He was a long-term resident of Incheon and his record shows he spent some time in prison for assault and kidnap, but was recently held following a rape charge. I’ve not got much more on this other than he disappeared and the police there couldn’t find him.’

‘OK,’ Keane said, ‘so can we tie any of these three men together?’

‘Not really,’ Judy said, ‘but we do think it’s possible that Kong and Byeon knew each other. There is some footage that’s been found at the Metro station two days ago, my guys have been working real hard on this. Kong is seen with another man, and take a look, I think that’s Byeon. They were checking the place out, so we were right; this wasn’t a chance thing last night.’

Printed photos were passed around, they all looked, and everyone agreed, there were two grainy pictures, in one the two men were looking down the stairs and in the other side by side on the platform, it was definitely Kong looking straight