Once Is Never Enough Read online

  Mendoza raised the leg again to deliver a coup de grâce, but it wouldn’t budge from the apex of the swing. When he turned around to see why, he saw that Flynn held onto the plastic thigh with both hands. Flynn kicked him behind the knee and Mendoza fell backwards. His head bounced off the ground. That’s when he saw the little boy loom over him. He had Flynn’s Super Soaker. The bright green barrel hovered inches away from his nose.

  “You hurt Santa!” screamed the kid and he sprayed Mendoza square in the face.

  His eyes burning with bleach, Mendoza screamed and rolled over onto his knees. He crawled forward and staggered up, started to run, tripped over a bench and smacked into the ground, breaking his nose yet again. That’s when he heard the flashbangs explode. Everything went white and a high-pitched ear-piercing whine drowned out all sound.

  When Flynn’s vision cleared from the flash of the M84 grenade, he saw ten heavily armed men storm the Glendale Galleria. He couldn’t hear them, but he could see them as they ran in, rappelled down, and came at Flynn from four different directions. They wore green combat fatigues, helmets, masks, and military-style body armor. Each held an assault rifle. As the ringing in his ears faded, he heard orders shouted.

  “Glendale PD!”

  “On the ground!”

  “Face down!”

  “Drop your weapons!”

  Flynn raised his hands as they grabbed him by either arm and hurled him to the floor. Sancho stayed where he was, nose against the ground, arms spread wide. Someone pulled Flynn’s arms behind him and slapped handcuffs on his wrists. A SWAT officer scooped up the little boy and ran him to safety. From his limited vantage point on the floor, Flynn looked around but couldn’t find either Mendoza or Goolardo.

  “They’re getting away!” Flynn shouted, but no one heard him. They were too busy securing the area and yelling things like “area clear, suspect down” and “Santa’s Village is secure.”

  Flynn saw Becky recording the scene. A SWAT officer grabbed her phone and ushered her away, all the time asking her if she was okay.

  “That’s my phone! Give me my phone!” she shouted.

  Flynn tried to get off the ground, but a foot kept him down. “They’re getting away!” he yelled again. This time someone heard him.

  “We have the perimeter secure and the situation under control, sir.”

  “Take these handcuffs off me!”

  “Not until we understand the situation. Until then everyone is a suspect.”

  “I’m with Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Listen to me. You’re letting Francisco Goolardo get away!” Flynn turned his head far enough to see one SWAT officer roll his eyes at another. “You are making a serious mistake!”

  Becky pulled free from the SWAT officer and pointed at Flynn. “He’s not the bad guy! He saved me! He saved us all! It’s all on my phone! Give me back my phone!”

  The officer grabbed her by the arm and dragged her off.

  “I want my damn phone!”

  An emergency medical crew attended to the wounded security guard. Santa was carried away on a stretcher.

  Two SWAT officers pulled Flynn to his feet as a third checked his ID. That’s when Flynn saw the two dangerous men who worked for Goolardo being frog-marched across the mall, their hands cuffed behind them, their eyes squeezed shut, their dirty faces wet with tears. Flynn motioned to them with his head. “They aren’t the only ones. There are other terrorists here. You need to find them before they get away.”

  The SWAT officer holding Flynn took off his handcuffs and handed him over to a nearby uniformed officer. “Get this one looked at. I think he might be suffering from shock.”

  “Would you bloody well listen to me.”

  “Sir, you need to calm down,” the SWAT officer said. “You’re safe now. Everything’s okay.”

  “Not if Goolardo gets away!”

  “Do you want me to put these handcuffs back on you. Is that what you want?”

  Flynn held up his hands. “Clearly not. Sorry I bothered you, officer. Carry on.”

  As the SWAT officer turned to go, Flynn unsnapped the cop’s holster and drew his sidearm. The uniformed officer saw the Sig Sauer in Flynn’s hand and fumbled for his own gun.

  “Gun!” he screamed.

  Every police officer in shouting distance saw the semi-automatic in Flynn’s hand and turned their weapons on him.

  “I’m sorry,” Flynn said. “But I cannot let that madman get away.”

  A taser dart hit Flynn from behind and fifty thousand volts ripped through his nervous system. He lost complete control of his body and collapsed, hitting the ground hard. The uniformed cop kicked the gun out of his hand as another taser dart hit Flynn in the shoulder and a third hit him in the leg. He bucked and flopped like a fish out of water, shuddering and shaking, grunting and spasming as wave after wave of electricity coursed through his body.

  “Hey, hey! What the fuck!” Sancho shouted. “You’re killing him!”

  Chapter Seven

  Ellis Island was opened in 1890. That same year, Wyoming was admitted as the forty-fourth state, the Dalton Gang robbed their first train, and the Pasadena Valley Hunt Club held the inaugural Rose Parade. It has been held every New Year’s Day since, unless January first falls on a Sunday, then it is held the following day. The exception was instituted in 1893 as organizers didn’t want to spook any horses hitched outside for Sunday Church services. The idea was to showcase and promote Southern California’s mild winter weather. As Professor Charles F. Holder put it, “In New York, people are buried in snow. Here flowers are blooming, and our oranges are about to bear. Let’s hold a festival to tell the world about our paradise.”

  The nurses, orderlies, and patients at City of Roses Psychiatric Institute surrounded the TV in the rec room and watched massive motorized floats covered in fresh flowers, seeds, bark, vegetables, and nuts trundle down Colorado Boulevard, less than half a mile from where they sat. If they could open the windows, they might hear the marching bands. If allowed to leave, a walk of a few short blocks would have put them in the middle of the gargantuan crowd lining the parade route.

  Sancho sat in a chair at the rear of the recreation room and stared at the back of Flynn’s head. Recently promoted from part-time to full-time, Sancho finally had regular hours. Once he received his degree, he hoped to transition from a mental health technician to a certified nursing assistant. His ultimate goal was to become a mental health nurse practitioner, but for that he’d need a degree from a nursing school.

  Most of the patients wore jeans, sweatpants or pajama bottoms with slippers, sneakers or flipflops. James Flynn, however, upped the sartorial ante by wearing well-worn Ferragamo loafers and a blue single-breasted Armani suit. He sat on a threadbare couch between Ty, a rotund African American man in his early twenties, and Q, a skinny, wild-eyed seventy-eight-year-old with a scraggly white beard and a receding mop of curly white hair.

  Ten days after the attempt on his life, Flynn was back at City of Roses. Because he refused to take his meds, his psychiatrist, Dr. Nickelson, had no choice but to move him out of the group home and back to the locked ward for closer monitoring. The trauma of the attack at the Glendale Galleria triggered his delusional disorder. Flynn once again believed that the hospital was the headquarters for Her Majesty’s Secret Service and that he was a secret agent with a Double-0 designation.

  When Flynn first moved into the group home, Nickelson told Sancho to give away all of Flynn’s clothes. He wanted to remove all the old associations to the delusional behavior. Sancho had loaded up the trunk of his ’92 red Mustang with Flynn’s large wardrobe of vintage designer wear and drove over to Goodwill. He opened his trunk and stared at Flynn’s clothing. Those suits were all that Sancho had left of the Flynn he knew. Sancho couldn’t bear to abandon the last bit of James that existed, so he kept the clothes in the trunk of his car. Every time he saw them, he’d feel sad and guilty; sad that his friend was gone and guilty that he wasn’t happy that Jimmy had
found his sanity.

  When Flynn returned to City of Roses, he wanted his old room back along with his clothes. He was convinced he had been on an undercover assignment at Hot Dog on a Stick. That was why he turned into Jimmy. Why he gained all the weight and changed his accent. His assignment was to infiltrate the Armenian mafia and he believed that Mr. Papazian, the elderly mall security guard, was his inside man. Goolardo’s attack was unexpected and had blown his carefully constructed cover. Now he had to start all over. Drop the weight. Get back in shape. Turn himself into the lean, fit, lethal weapon he once was. At least, that’s what he told Sancho.

  All eyes focused on the TV. Sancho was surprised by how quiet everyone was. Leeza Gibbons and Mark Steines hosted the parade on KTLA and their professionally cheerful patter filled the recreation room.

  “Congratulations to the City of Sierra Madre,” Steines said with his resonant radio announcer voice. “They are this year’s trophy winner for the most outstanding display of fantasy and imagination.” Sancho saw a float with a big green dragon, a knight in shining armor, and three beautiful princesses.

  “We are reminded that chivalry isn’t dead,” Leeza Gibbons said. “Helping others through acts of kindness takes courage!”

  “The young knight is crafted from rice powder, silver leaf, and cranberry seed,” Steines said.

  “The dragon’s made from galax leaves, pepitas, mung beans, and cornmeal grit,” Leeza added. “And riding with them we see three beautiful princesses from the Rose Queen’s Royal Court!”

  The princesses shivered in their revealing outfits. Ty grinned. “Those shawties are freezing their asses off. Looks cold as hell out there.”

  “It’s all relative,” Q replied. “In northern Minnesota it’s likely ten below zero right now.”

  “I miss the old Rose Parade hosts,” Doris Frawley said. “Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards had such great chemistry.” At ninety-one, she was the oldest patient at City of Roses. A former beauty queen from Arkansas, she arrived in California in 1948 and worked as a bit player in two Cecil B. DeMille extravaganzas.

  Doris had dated Jack Parsons, the eccentric founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and L. Ron Hubbard, the equally eccentric founder of the Church of Scientology. She participated in sex magick rituals in various locations around Pasadena, La Cañada, and San Marino and in 1952, shortly after Parson’s death, gave birth to the anti-Christ. At least that was what she relayed to Sancho.

  “Bob and Stephanie were the best hosts ever.” Doris flashed her once-famous smile. “He is so darn handsome and Stephanie Edwards has such pretty blue eyes. It’s just not the same without them. What do you think, Mr. Flynn?”

  “I have to agree,” Flynn said. He returned Doris’ smile and she reciprocated by batting her eyes.

  “Of course, he’s not as handsome as you. You do know we missed you here, don’t you?”

  “I missed you as well, Doris.”

  “Did I ever tell you I once dated Kirk Douglas?”

  “Indeed, you did.”

  “And William Holden. And Marlon Brando.”

  “You’ve lived quite the life, Doris. Turned many a head.”

  “I’m not the beauty I once was, but I still know how to treat a man right.” She lowered her gaze and parted her lips and looked up at Flynn in a pose that mimicked her famous 1950s pinup picture.

  “Nothing like a woman with experience,” Flynn said.

  The forty-something Filipino nurse sitting next to Doris was touched by Flynn’s kindness towards the elderly starlet and offered Flynn a smile of her own. Mrs. Reyes was recently divorced, and Sancho could see she was already falling for Flynn’s confidence and easy charm.

  “Here we go,” he whispered to no one in particular.

  Upside down with his feet in the air and his heels against the wall, shirtless and glistening with sweat, Flynn did inverted push-up after inverted push-up. The hospital workout area was open as the yoga class was over. Sancho watched Flynn through the little window in the door and marveled at his fitness.

  He’d dropped forty pounds in six months. He was tight, taut, muscular, and cut. Sancho could barely get himself to take the stairs let alone get to the gym, but here Flynn was already back in top condition.

  Soon after his return, Flynn instituted a brutal exercise regimen. At first, he could barely do ten push-ups. But he kept at it, three times a day, increasing his reps to twenty then thirty then fifty then one hundred. He did wide grip, close grip, one clap, one-legged, and one-handed. Every morning began with four sets of fifty inverted pushups, followed by five hundred crunches, reverse crunches, V-Ups, and Torso Twisters. After breakfast, he would jump rope for a full hour and then do yoga stretches and move to hell squats, frog hops, lunges, planks, pull-ups, chin-ups, and hanging straight leg raises.

  He was just as careful with his diet. At City of Roses, meals were mostly carbs. Flynn ignored them and stuck with protein and vegetables. The pounds didn’t melt off all at once. He would plateau for a week or two, but he stuck with it and showed no weakness.

  In the afternoon, Flynn ended his daily exercise regimen with a series of complex Shotokan karate katas. He moved gracefully, yet with purpose and aggression, kicking, spinning, sweeping, and punching with precision, speed, and power, reducing his imaginary opponents to pummeled heaps of defeat. Flynn was consistent and disciplined and by July he was once again back to his fighting weight.

  Sancho wasn’t the only one watching Flynn pump out his inverted pushups. His afternoon exercise routines drew the attention of quite a few of the nurses, including Mrs. Reyes, who Sancho saw sneaking out of Flynn’s room one morning before dawn.

  Flynn grunted as he completed his last inverted push-up. With his feet back on the floor, he wiped his glistening face and torso with a towel.

  “Looking good, mano,” Sancho said.

  “Getting there. You should join me now and then, amigo. You could stand to lose a few yourself.”

  “I get to the gym now and then. Not a lot of time between working here and going to school.”

  “And Alyssa? How much time do you have for her?”

  “Not as much as I’d like.”

  “Is she still working at El Pollo Loco?”

  “Yep and taking classes at PCC. With both of us so busy, we don’t have as much time to hang out, so I was thinking maybe we should move into together.”

  “That’s a big step.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll be honest”—Flynn threw the towel over his shoulder—“sustaining a lasting long-term relationship can be difficult for people who do what we do.”

  “I guess.”

  “Traveling the world, dealing in danger, risking death. But the most difficult part is keeping secrets from those we love as that’s the only way to keep them safe. By dint of what we do, we put them in peril. Having a wife and family makes an agent vulnerable. If I can keep a distance from those I love, I can keep them out of harm’s way.”

  “Doesn’t that get kind of lonely?”

  “Yes. But that’s the sacrifice I make to keep this world safe. Luckily, there are others, like you, who understand what I do, and in my world, those are only the friends I can afford.”

  “So, you never want to have kids?”

  “How can I? A man who lives like I do? They too would be put at risk. Besides, as often as I’m gone, how could I ever be a proper father? I would never be there to tuck them in at night or help with their homework.” A flicker of pain passed behind Flynn’s eyes and he quickly changed the subject. “Any word on Goolardo?”

  Sancho shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Those stupid policemen wouldn’t listen to me. They let him get away.”

  “They’ll find him.”

  “I asked N to send me after him, but he said there’s a joint taskforce already tracking them down. FBI. DEA. The Marshals service. But they don’t know him like I do. They don’t know how he thinks.”

  “I’m sure N
ickelson has his reasons.”

  “Do you think he’s using me as bait? Hoping Goolardo and Mendoza will come for me here?”

  “You think they’d come for you here?” The possibility hadn’t occurred to Sancho.

  “N’s a hard man who makes hard choices. Sending men into battle. Sending men to die. Perhaps he is simply setting a trap.”

  Sancho’s blood pressure rose along with his anxiety. “Guess that’s why that cop car is always parked outside. It’s not like it’s a secret you’re here. You’re blowing up on YouTube, dude.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “YouTube. It’s on the internet.”

  “I know what YouTube is.”

  “That video that Becky shot. The attack at the mall. It has like fifteen million views. People are putting music to it. Movie music. Heavy metal. It’s crazy.”

  “That might explain why all those reporters are hounding me.”

  “Yeah, that’s crazy too.”

  “Becky never should have posted that video. Luckily, she identified me as Jimmy from Hot Dog On a Stick. So, everyone thinks I’m a mental patient and that this facility is actually a mental hospital. So at least, for now, our cover story is holding.”

  “Yeah. Good thing.”

  Nurse Durkin opened the door to the workout room, and she was not smiling. Of course, that wasn’t unusual. Nurse Durkin never smiled. At six feet tall, she tipped the scales at two hundred pounds and had a stare that could cut through steel.

  “What are you doing in here, Perez?”

  Sancho had no answer for her as she glared at him.

  “Don’t you have patients to attend to?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I do.”

  Flynn offered Durkin a smile. “Nurse Durkin! What a wonderful surprise.”

  “What did I tell you about monopolizing this room, Mr. Flynn?”

  “N wants me in tip-top shape. I’m just keeping myself fit and ready for whatever is necessary.”