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

‘I think we got to go to Vegas,’ Warner replied.

Chapter Sixteen

Sammy was woken by her mobile phone ringing. She had left soon after the conference, and gone home for some much-needed sleep. The daytime shows were running and she would have to look her best for the evening news.

She struggled awake and picked up the phone from next to her bed. It was just after four, so she had actually been asleep over three hours, which was enough.

She didn’t recognise the number but sat up and answered anyway.

‘Hello?’

‘Hey hot stuff. It’s your guy.’

‘Who?’

‘Fuck’s sakes. It’s Jimmy.’

‘Oh. Er … hi Jimmy.’

Shit. She had wanted him to call and she really didn’t at the same time.

‘Listen babe, I got some info for you. We better meet,’ Frost drawled down the phone.

Suddenly Sammy was awake.

‘Right, yes, of course!’

‘OK. I’m at the bar, or I will be real soon. Wear the short dress again ok?’

‘Er … look, I …’

‘See you soon.’

The line went dead.

Sammy shuddered and put the phone down, then went into the bathroom. She was wearing just a Colts t-shirt that had belonged to her ex-husband. She had a bunch of them that were great for sleeping in. Sammy barely made it to five-foot-two, her husband had been a big six-three, so the t-shirts were comfortable and loose, and dropped almost to her knees.

She smiled pensively at her reflection then pulled off the t-shirt and got in the shower.

Cleaned up and dressed, she sat in the kitchen with a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee. She really didn’t want to go back to that bar, but she had to know what Frost had found out. She called Simon and asked his advice, which was clear and simple.

Don’t do it.

He offered to back her up and reluctantly she accepted.

She thought hard then picked up the mobile and called Frost back.

‘Yeah?’

‘Jimmy it’s Sammy. Look, everything is crazy here right now, we’re just waiting for the next thing you know? I can’t get over to MacArthur Park, can you get up here? I mean, you’re not on the clock, right? Listen there’s a bar down the street called Mullen’s, we can meet there.’

‘No way. I ain’t drinking down fucking town.’

‘Listen Jimmy, if you really got something there’s another couple of hundred for you, OK?’

‘Fuck!’

‘Maybe we can go for dinner soon Jimmy.’

Like hell.

‘Shit. Fine, I’ll be there in an hour. Don’t be fucking late.’

Sammy called Simon back, who thought it sounded better but he would still be there. Sammy told him she would be sitting outside, she knew the place and there was a terrace.

She got ready to go, excited but nervous, and really hoping she wouldn’t need to keep fighting Frost off, but she ought to be safer out in the open where it was busy.

Mullen’s was a recently opened bar, part of a new development. The terrace was just a simple square off the front full of uniform chairs and tables, edged by low screens and looking out over a plaza with a fountain in the centre. The whole thing was actually inside, under a high glass roof, and surrounded by shops and restaurants so the immediate area was full of shoppers moving everywhere, kids running about in the fountains, people sitting around.

Sammy was waiting close to the edge with a glass of white wine, Simon was sitting a few tables across with an orange juice. They were working hard to avoid looking at each other. From the plaza Frost appeared, staring around unhappily.

Flanagan’s had been dark and gloomy, and now, in the daylight, he looked even worse. In fact, he looked a lot worse. Now it was possible to see all the individual stains on his grubby clothes and the dirt under his fingernails. He sat down miserably opposite Sammy, who pushed a cold bottle of Budweiser across the table to him.

‘Fuck,’ he moaned, gripping the bottle.

‘What?’ Sammy asked him and laid her hand on the table. Folded between two fingers was a hundred-dollar bill. Frost saw it and grunted.

‘I used to be the man you know. Everybody wanted a piece of me. Everybody. London were after me for the fucking Times you know,’ he rasped without looking at her.

‘Yeah, Jimmy, I remember. I do.’

‘Yeah, well.’

He turned to face her, she was wearing a dress, but it was done right up. She wasn’t giving him anything.

‘Fuck,’ he complained again bitterly and took a long drink.

‘So … what you got for me Jimmy?’

Frost sighed theatrically.

‘Right, well you owe me. And a lot more than a hundred fucking dollars you hear me?’

‘Two hundred Jimmy. If you got anything, that is.’

‘Yeah, yeah. Ok, so, this English guy. You were right, he was there, on the platform.’

Frost looked serious now, and Sammy could see the light in his eyes, the actual Jimmy Frost that was in there somewhere below all this other rubbish.

‘He got taken in, you know for questioning. Now this is the real shit you are getting now. Cops are saying nothing, well in public. You know what he fucking did? The guy turned the gun back on the fuckers who opened fire down there! Way I hear it, he is a hero. Grabbed the gun up and killed three of them. Stone fucking dead.’

Sammy stared at Jimmy Frost. This was massive. She didn’t know what to say.

‘Word is, he’s been whisked away some place, and the CIA and the Feds are with him, right now.’

‘Jesus. Do you know what his name is?’

‘Smith, I got told. John Smith. And don’t write any of this down, I’m serious. Not one fucking word.’

‘Yeah ok Jimmy, I get it. Any ideas where he is?’

‘No, nobody knows, and there’s a lot of people at that precinct want to buy him a beer. But they say he is still in LA, and he is working with the others to track these fuckers down. My man tells me the word is he was some James Bond government guy or some shit back in England. That’s what I heard, anyways.’

‘I