by Rex Bolt
Chris said, “I was thinking back just now, I couldn’t even remember why you made the personal effort to check on me that time . . . did I say something? It must have been a comment that concerned you, right?”
“I believe you called the office,” Dr. Stride said. “The receptionist indicated that you were highly agitated when she couldn’t work you into a follow-up appointment as early as you liked.”
“Yeah well, Jeez,” Chris said, and he did remember that now, though he wasn’t sure what he’d wanted the follow-up appointment for, but he’s not crazy, there must have been a good enough reason.
“I’m going to cut you off here,” Stride said, since I detect where this might be going.”
“Whoa.”
“I cannot in good faith treat you any further Mr. Seely. We’ve had excessive social contact together. I’m sure you understand.”
“Okay knock it off with the fake formality . . . and what if I didn’t want any further sessions?”
“Your prerogative,” Dr. Stride said. “Though as you might recall, my recommendation was for continued therapy.”
Which it had been, this was true, Chris making the mistake at the end of that comp session of telling Stride to give it to him straight, that he was mostly fine right? And didn’t require real therapy? . . . and Stride gave it to him straight, that frankly there were some significant red flags today in the material we covered.
“Is that . . . still your recommendation,” Chris said. “I mean after you’ve gotten to know me socially and all, like you say?”
“Absolutely,” Dr. Stride said.
Chris thought about this. One more piece of unpleasant news on his plate, that he’d apparently been forgetting about on purpose.
“What about Stacy?” Chris said.
“Oh. What about her?”
“You tell me.” This was obnoxious, but it was good to take the upper hand with this guy when you could.
“How is she?” Stride said. “Fuck it -- is everything alright?”
“She’s fine,” Chris said. “I knew the regular guy was in there somewhere.”
“No, it’s just . . . you startled me momentarily. I apologize.”
“You guys broke up then?”
“She broke it off,” Stride said, leaving it at that, and Chris figured he better ease of the pedal, and asked for her phone number, and you could tell Stride didn’t have to look it up, that he had it memorized.
“Good then,” Chris said, not saying why he needed to reach Stacy, and Stride didn’t ask. “So I’ll let you go.”
“Don’t be a stranger,” Dr. Stride said. “Just not professionally.”
“I got the message the first time,” Chris said. “If . . . I don’t know, I did ever want to speak to someone -- hypothetically . . . how would that work?”
“I’m happy you asked. I’ll have the office contact you.”
“I mean who would you recommend? Knowing me like you sort of do.”
“Dr. Hammerstein,” Stride said right away.
“Male or female?”
“Male. Let’s please not pass judgment in that regard. You asked my opinion.”
“You guys got any females in your stable there? . . .That might connect with me the same?”
You could tell Stride was irritated, but a moment later he gave Chris a Dr. Lauren Moore, in Topanga Canyon, and told him to take care.
***
“Listen,” Chris said to Stacy . . . In fact first, long shot obviously, but you haven’t heard anything, right?”
“No. Listen, what?” she said.
“I’ve been rattling this around. Where would he go? Anything cross your mind there? No matter how inconsequential it might seem?”
“All’s I thought of,” she said, “he had a friend, Drake, in North Carolina.”
“Do you have a last name on that?” Chris said.
“I don’t. He had an old girlfriend from high school also. I think she still texted him sometimes.”
“Where was that?”
“I believe New Mexico.” A bell did ring, something Chris forgot, Kenny telling him one time he grew up mostly in Albuquerque.
“He mention a grandmother?” Chris said. “Or any other living relatives?”
“Not to me,” she said, and you could hear the distress creeping into her voice again.
“It’s okay,” Chris said. “I’m thinking let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s cover the basics first.”
Stacy mumbled that that sounded like a plan.
“Do you know where his car is?” Chris said. “Is there any way to confirm it’s not around?”
“That sounded backwards,” she said.
“I’m just brainstorming. Where would he typically park it? These days. Do you know?”
“You know what, I should have thought of that. Something so basic.”
“Believe me,” Chris said, “easy to do.”
“Well he was seeing this one person, sort of recently, I think she was in North Hollywood, but that went caput, I’m pretty sure.”
“What was her name?”
“Mellow.”
“Gee.”
“I know. Mellow Marsh, if you can believe it, was what he told me.”
“Ooh boy . . . was she, you know, part of the deal?”
“His work? I think so . . . but before then, for a while, he was parking in the garage off Rosekrans.”
Chris knew that one, he’d parked there for a couple days himself when he first arrived in Manhattan Beach and was apartment hunting, and made the mistake of staying in a fleabag motel two blocks from the beach up by El Porto, which didn’t include parking.
The garage had a long term rate, and Chris figured you did need that down here, given the dicey parking situation, period.
“Okay then thanks, I’ll take a look,” Chris said.
“I’ve got this,” Stacey said, and you heard a little more conviction in here voice, having something now to at least try, and she clicked off.
***
Chris turned back to the business at hand, what else could you do, which was dealing with the immense burrito currently in front of him, the wet Manadero special, and it felt like he’d been working it hard without much to show for the effort.
“They are huge, aren’t they,” the guy in the next booth chimed in, friendly.
“What,” Chris said, “I’m wearing my emotions on my sleeve?”
“We normally split one, the wife and I, and even then often need a doggie bag.” Calling the gal across from him the wife apparently, and her not seeming to have a problem with it, or maybe immune.
“I’m JJ by the way,” the guy said, reaching his hand over the top of the booth, and JJ was eating tacos today, Chris could see, and didn’t especially want to shake it but you had to, and the guy meant well.
“Christian,” he said, not thrilled to be identifying himself to the guy, no real logic behind that, but still. He did use Christian a little more lately, these type of situations. Not as extreme as George, who he was out in Eclipse, Arizona -- or for that matter the guy he was briefly in Bingham, Nevada, that one might have been Art, though your name didn’t come up as often in a casino town, mainly just to sign in at the motel, and fork it over once in a while at the blackjack tables when everyone decided to get friendly, typically when the dealer busted a few times in a row.
The guy from the next booth unfortunately ran with this now, mentioning a YouTube channel that had someone named Christian as the host, and he carried on for a minute, how he loved the guy’s desert scenes north of Las Vegas . . . and the wife perked up for the first time and said they spend time out there in the winter, and she enjoyed the YouTube guy’s narration as well.
Chris said that sounded interesting, though he had seen those and enjoyed them himself, but didn’t want to get into a thing about it with these people right now. You did have to give the YouTube Christian credit, he was tough, he’d visit one of the Area 51 gates in the middle of the night, not w
orry about the spooky security that was eyeballing you, and he’d sleep out in the desert sometimes so he could give you unique late night and early morning footage.
Chris said, “You folks are on the move, then? Since you say you spend time in Las Vegas in the winter?”
“We’re RVers,” the man nodded, and Chris was tempted to look outside but figured a lot of these people towed a small car.
“Fully equipped park out there behind Sam’s Town,” the woman said.
“It’s technically a KOA,” the man said, “but you wouldn’t know it. That’s our home base.”
“What’s it run?” Chris said, since you might as well ask.
“Welp, we got a 60-footer,” the guy said, “so depending on your add-ons, about 55 a night a night.”
“Not bad then,” Chris said.
“But,” the wife said, “then your extended stay specials come into play.”
“They do,” the husband said. “$1530 for 3 months, or you can go the full 5, for $2350.”
Chris not wanting to now, but doing more quick calculating of people’s monthly rents . . . and man.
He was wondering could you poke a hole it in, some aspect that was a real drawback, but nah, leave it alone, and he asked them what they were doing out here, specifically.
“We’re over at Dockweiler,” the man said, and this rang a bell because Chris had mentioned it to that nice couple who ran the motel in the midwest, the return trip with Rosie, though he didn’t know any details, he’d just driven by it on the way to Marina del Rey, and it was a big cement parking lot full of RV’s, no flavor or glamor to it, except you were right off the dang beach.
This was chit-chat and Chris had the real business at hand to deal with, and you should wrap it up . . . but these were good people and you never know, so Chris said, “Where would you go, if you were going to get lost?”
“You mean, really get lost?” the husband said. “Or go -- whachamacall -- off the grid.”
“Or do you mean spiritually?” the wife chipped in. “Because for that one, I’d vote for the canyons in Utah.”
“True,” the husband said, “we spent a month at the Dale Preck park at Bryce, and it does cause you to reflect.”
“No, the second one,” Chris said. “Disappear. Like in the movies.”
“To find oneself then,” the wife said.
Gol darn it. “No,” Chris said. “If for instance, the police were looking for you, or something.”
“That’d be up north,” the husband said, kind of surprising Chris by not having to think about it. “Oregon, Washington State. A lot of beauty up there, but can be awful remote as well. Plus the rain, that can afford you a degree of concealment as well.”
Chris didn’t understand that one, but figured fine, the cops were maybe a little less interested in looking for you when they were getting rained on every day.
“Why do you ask?” the wife said, and Chris didn’t know why, other than he’d been wrestling with it now close to 24 hours.
He said, “I’m a True Crime buff. Starting with the Zodiac Killer up in the Bay Area . . . Law Enforcement, even with all the advances in forensics, DNA, what have you -- it seems they run into so many dead ends. Guys are disappearing on ‘em. It makes you think.”
“Think what?” the wife said, and this was getting irritating but Chris said, “That in a perfect world, I’d like to track down a few of those SOB’s -- bring them to justice.”
“I hear you,” the husband said. “Frankly I can’t stomach reading the papers much. The bad guys are winning.”
“Would you split up?” Chris said. “If you were one of them, and you had an accomplice?”
The guy thought about it. “That, I can see both ways. Two heads is better than one, maybe . . . But yeah, I’d split up. Look what happened to Bonnie and Clyde.”
Chris said, well thanks, this has been fun, and to enjoy the rest of your stay, and he did need a doggie bag . . . and outside the taqueria the phone rang and Stacy said Ken’s car was in that lot.
“Gee, you didn’t fool around,” Chris said.
“No. My interest was way off the charts. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner.”
“Any, clues or whatnot? I mean, there was no . . . like blood or something . . . was there?” He hated to sound like a cop and be asking, but whatever.
“Not that I noticed,” she said. “I realized I had the key, on my keyring. We’d share it sometimes.”
“Sheesh.”
“I know . . . so I guess I took the liberty of looking around inside.”
Chris waited.
“Ken was neat and orderly, as you know,” she said.
“So . . . nothing then? The . . . trunk or otherwise?”
“No.”
Chris was tempted to ask if she’d checked the wheel well, that little dip under the spare tire that may not be in all cars, but was in his own Camry at least . . . and which he’d utilized himself on occasion.
But don’t go overboard.
He said, “Well thanks then. This is politically incorrect, but you have some cajones, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“I appreciate that,” she said, and this was getting weird, but the fact was it did take some nerve to enter and mess around in a vehicle that you knew the cops would be looking for.
Chris got in his own car and thought, that was pretty simple, wasn’t it . . . and on a whim he drove to the Manhattan Beach library.
It seemed a normal-enough Monday afternoon in the place, and Chris went upstairs to Emma’s section, where she was a reference librarian in the non-fiction and archival department, and her desk was empty which didn’t mean too much, since half the time she was away from it.
There was an old guy Chris recognized, a volunteer who re-stacked shelves, and Emma had introduced him once. The guy wobbled a little and had an arm that didn’t work, and Emma said he had polio as a child, and Chris had tried to figure the time frame, whether polio would have still been around, and maybe it was.
Chris said, “Emma in today, by any chance?”
The guy recognized Chris, he was still plenty sharp, and said, “I wish she were . . . the fact is, the police were here this morning, asking the same sort of questions.”
“Oh my God,” Chris said.
“I know,” the guy said.
“Do we know . . . what’s going on?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” the guy said, and there was a little edge to it, the guy not entirely convinced Chris walked in innocent and naive.
“Well,” Chris said, “what about her car? Where’s that at, do you think?”
You had to be careful of course, it might or might not get back to the cops that this friend of Emma’s was asking questions -- but then again wouldn’t that be natural enough, the cops bang on your door and you’re concerned and you go looking for her?
“I have no idea,” the guy said. “It’s not in the lot, if that’s what you’re asking. I took a look myself.”
“Is there . . . like a spillover lot? Ever?”
“There is, but you’re barking up the wrong tree. She has a blue decal, that’s seniority, never gets shut out of the main one.”
Chris thanked the guy and asked him where the spillover lot was anyway, and it was four blocks away, 18th and Flourney, and Chris walked over there, and it was a sizable parking lot, but geared toward one of those live-work condo complex deals, but yeah, there were some city employee decals on a few cars, but nothing of Emma’s. She drove a Subaru unless that had changed, forest green, and she commented a few times how she felt safe with the four wheel drive going up to Tahoe.
So . . . was something like that a possibility?
He got back to the apartment and checked his email and there was one from Holly, nothing in the body of the email, but the subject line said:
Read at your own risk
and there was an attachment, and Chris clicked on that, and it was a manuscript, presumably the one she’d bac
ked off on sending Finch . . . and Chris wondered if she still had cold feet, was afraid of Finch’s reaction and only sent it to him.
But then he saw it was only one page, and man, this gal really did lack some confidence, what was the big deal . . . and Chris went ahead and read it, and so far, nothing about the lady who walked cross-country for charity.
There was something else too, he should have put 2 and 2 together earlier, and Chris didn’t have her number but didn’t want to get into an email exchange, and looked up the Daily Gull, and the receptionist transferred him.
“Holly McGhee,” she said.
“You have like a city desk there,” Chris said. “Or it’s not that specialized?”
“Hey there, how are you?” she said.
“I guess I’m honored, I got your piece of writing.”
“Ah.”
“It’s very good. You have nice way with language, a pleasing tone.”
“Gosh.”
“Except I was looking for some gal finding herself . . . on her journey.”
“You’re right,” she said.
“Incidentally -- not that you use it -- but don’t you hate it when the Millenials are always referencing it -- their journey?”
“I hadn’t noticed actually.”
“Come on, they sling it around all over the place. Same with so . . . you notice how when they answer a question, they typically start with So . . . and the voice guys up a notch, and there’s pause . . . before they bear down and actually try to answer it.”
“You’re funny, with these characterizations.”
“You know what? Maybe I should be writing your novels. You need a good ear for this stuff.”
“Maybe you should,” she said, and Chris regretted pushing one button too many, since she was sensitive obviously, and he said, “Back to yours though, like I said, real good, except I wanted more. Where’s the female main character?”
“I sent you a different piece of work,” she said, and this made sense now, since what he read felt like the beginning of a story where a husband and wife get into a dispute over a neighbor asking them for a charity donation . . . and the thing was admittedly kind of out there.
“Fine, I’m looking forward to more,” Chris said. “Listen, the other reason I called . . . you guys handle Torrance, correct?”