Sins As Scarlet

by Nicolas Obregon

  In the shop windows, dresses for all occasions were on display, gaudy little numbers encrusted with fugazi frills and gems, flamboyant head-turners for proms, weddings or quinceañeras. Another food truck, specializing in honeyed camotes, advertised for staff in Spanish on a piece of card. There was a single requisite:

  MUST BE VERY EAGER TO WORK

  Iwata turned into a gloomy rialto, ignoring the emoji T-shirts and fake eyelashes made of ‘100% human hair’. He passed rabbits in cages, far older, he presumed, than the ages listed on their cards. Beneath the age was a name, short and punchy for the males, princess-like for the females. Every cage was sitting in bin bags, spread out by the pet-pedlars to facilitate quick getaways.

  At the back of the building, obscured by arcade machines that hadn’t worked for decades, Iwata stopped at a stall. It held bongs, spices, cellphone charms and legal highs. Behind the stall stood a man about Iwata’s age, a Mexican Elvis in Jailhouse Rock denim and a striped shirt. It was too warm for the outfit, but Mingo Palacio was too cool for caring. His hair was blue-black and greased tall. On the back of his hand there was a small tattoo of an oak and two wolves, the symbol of the Mexican state of Durango. Around his neck hung a battered old guitar.

  ‘Mingo!’ Iwata called. ‘Need to talk.’

  He hoisted his lip on one side and answered in a Mississippi drawl, ‘Ain’t nobody talkin’ to The King, meng’. The King be talkin’ to you.’

  Iwata handed over a fifty. ‘Then let me hear you sing.’

  He gave a sonorous strum of his guitar and beckoned him into the alleyway. They sat on some crates and Mingo hid the money in his leather shoes. His socks were stained black with polish but he wiggled his toes as if in the comfort of his own living room. Iwata watched him build a roll-up and thought how stupid it was to have soft spots for hard people.

  ‘So, then.’ Mingo had a clement, unhurried voice that many had misread for friendly. ‘How’s my second favourite dick in the world?’

  ‘Surviving,’ Iwata answered in Spanish. ‘How’s business?’

  ‘My stall is full, my pockets are empty.’

  ‘But not your shoes.’

  Mingo Palacio grinned like the born operator he was – a handsome shyster that, one way or another, had fucked more people than all the Nigerian princes of the world combined.

  ‘So tell me. What kind of song does Yojimbo want to hear?’

  Iwata took out the photograph of Meredith.

  ‘A love song, huh?’ Mingo gazed it. ‘As my old man used to say: “There’s always a girl.” ’

  ‘This one’s personal to me.’ Iwata switched to English. ‘Police just assumed she worked Santa Monica and Lexington. But I’m betting you know more.’

  ‘Cops don’t see different types of trees. They just see forest, man.’

  An old lady was standing at the stall, but he poked his head around to tell her he’d just closed up for the day. Iwata, like most around here, knew the wares on Mingo Palacio’s stall were nothing more than a charade, a pretext to arrive at his only true commodity. And that was contained beneath his neat, inky pompadour.

  Returning to the alleyway, Mingo apologized and looked at the photograph once again. He mulled Meredith over for a few moments, then nodded.

  ‘Okay, yeah. I seen her a couple of times. Pretty sure she used to be a dancer up at Club Noir. That would have been months ago, though. Maybe longer. Then a second time, not so long ago, around Skid Row. She wasn’t in good shape. Doubt there would have been much work for her in the clubs like that. But that’s not information, that’s just logic, man.’

  He lit his roll-up and took a languid drag.

  ‘But if she was such a junkie, why was her rent paid up a month in advance?’

  Mingo shrugged. ‘I guess that’d be Talky.’

  ‘Boyfriend?’

  ‘If you want to call it that. Guy’s a gorilla. Mute, but lets his hands do the talking.’

  ‘Where do I find him?’

  ‘You wanna find a lion, you go look where the wildebeest drink.’

  ‘A bar.’

  ‘Of the titty variety – the Happy Gopher. But I ain’t seen Talky for a while.’

  ‘I know the place. Let’s go back to Meredith. What else have you got for me?’

  Mingo squinted one eye, as though it hurt to go back through a memory the size of his. ‘Maybe she was tight with a girl called Jen? Or Jenny? That mean anything to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Geneviève, that was it. Pretty little black girl. Panamanian, I think. Worked at Club Noir too. You should swing by. Bouncer there has got a tongue on him.’

  Mingo tried to return the photograph.

  ‘Keep it. I want you to show it around your sleazy friends. Anybody knew her, anybody paid her, anybody that ever bought her a drink.’ Iwata handed over another fifty.

  ‘All my friends are angels.’ Mingo took the money. ‘Now you get going, Yojimbo. The shrimp that sleeps is taken by the tide.’

  ‘Mingo of Santee, you’re too good for this town.’

  ‘Yeah, who ain’t?’ Mingo stuffed the money in his shoe once again, put his sunglasses on and strummed his old guitar. ‘Thank yuh, thank yuh very much.’

  Downtown LA was heart-shaped. And like any real broken heart, it was mostly empty, one of the least populated city centres in the world. Gentrification had eventually descended, but it wasn’t in a hurry, the streets still brimming with rubbish and broken glass. The wrong side of town in many a movie had been filmed here, Downtown’s stark concrete drags good for car chases, its doorways fitting for voyeurism, its dark alleyways perfect for double-crosses.

  The Jewelry District verged on Hill Street, which ran through Downtown’s core. Its grand old buildings once housed grand old functions, but no one could remember what those were anymore. Seedy little boutiques and long-distance-call shops had sprouted up in their place. Neon signs above cinemas that had died long ago were still present on the skyline, like extravagant headstones. Pawn-shop windows displayed gold chains and diamond-encrusted dollar-sign medallions hocked by failed rappers.

  Iwata turned right on 8th Street and California’s tallest building rose up out of the blue distance, the US Bank Tower. He took a left on Grand Avenue and stopped outside the Happy Gopher. The neon sign was off; the door had been left open for deliveries. Inside, the bar was dim and hot. There were dancing poles, private booths, well-stocked shelves. Though the bar had been recently cleaned, the smell of sweat and money grease wasn’t going anywhere.

  ‘We don’t open till eight.’ A large man came out of the office door. He was wearing a red sateen shirt. The amount of gold rings told Iwata a fifty-dollar bribe wouldn’t go far here.

  ‘Afternoon, sir.’ Iwata held up his ID. ‘I’m hoping you can help me. I’m looking for someone.’

  ‘Not a lot of people use their real names around here, pal.’

  ‘That works out, actually. The person I’m looking for goes by Talky. You know him?’

  The man bristled. ‘You police?’

  ‘Private investigator.’

  At this, he seemed to soften. ‘Talky used to work the door for me.’

  ‘Any idea where he is?’

  ‘He’s not any place.’ The man smiled wryly. ‘He was found dead, needle hanging out of his arm. His real name was Lyle Babich, by the way. Personally, I didn’t mind the guy. Never spoke too much. That’s the advantage of working with mutes.’

  Iwata thanked the man and left.

  As Iwata drove he snatched glimpses at the sun setting behind pylons and palm trees. Los Angeles was a city of new starts, of mixture, of diverse blood. He understood why Meredith Nichol would come here. But this was also a city of despair, a city that never tired of rejecting those within it, a city of unclaimed dead.

  The coroner’s office was on Mission Road, just a few miles from the train tracks where Meredith had been murdered. It was a handsome red-brick building, death’s own lost-property office, the only medic
al examiner’s in the world with a gift shop. Iwata had been here many times; in cases of missing persons, it was his first port of call – to search the unclaimed, the unidentified.

  Lily Trimble was sitting outside the Jack in the Box across the road, nursing a vanilla shake and her vape pen. She was tall, her skin the same colour as her shake. Her red hair was up in a topknot today, her pale eyes on the distance. Beneath her white coat she wore a black T-shirt adorned with a cartoon chalk outline that read:

  OUR BODIES OF WORK SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES

  ‘Lily.’

  She smiled up at Iwata, not for his company but for what he represented – a pay day. Lily Trimble was forensic tech support at the medical examiner’s office. In a factory of death, she was quality control. But she was also a student with fees to pay.

  ‘Evening, Inspector.’ Her voice was small, as though heard across a body of water.

  ‘How’s the milkshake?’

  ‘These tastebuds died a long time ago.’

  ‘And the studies?’

  ‘Fine.’ Trimble was like Iwata had been once – she dealt only in death. Speaking with people was peripheral to her day. She liked her small talk microscopic. ‘You waiting for a friend?’

  Iwata nodded. ‘He’s a little late. Maybe you’ve seen him pass through?’

  ‘How late?’

  ‘Just a few days. Lyle Babich was the name. Big guy, I think. And mute.’

  ‘Give me a while.’

  She stood, crossed the road and disappeared inside the coroner’s office. Twenty minutes later she reappeared and placed a Polaroid of the dead man on the table. As billed, Talky was big. Even in death he looked hard-nosed, a big Ikea cabinet pissed off that it had been assembled wonkily.

  ‘What are you thinking, Lily?’

  ‘Put simply? Your friend died of massive heroin overdose. Signs of long-term usage.’

  Iwata mulled this over. If Meredith’s pimp had died within a few days of her murder, it was no surprise that the police weren’t exactly kicking down any doors. Dead pimps made good culprits.

  He passed her a napkin with a hundred-dollar bill folded inside and stood. ‘Thanks for your help.’

  ‘Hold on, there’s something else. Now what I said was true: he died of an overdose.’

  ‘I’m sensing a but.’

  ‘But his body also displays some pretty textbook defensive wounds.’

  ‘You’re saying somebody could have done it to him?’ Iwata felt an old, long-buried sensation – the genuine buzz of a potential lead – unearthed like a white truffle.

  ‘I’m saying maybe someone did it to him. Or maybe it was occupational. I guess that’s where you come in, Inspector.’ She took a final toke on her vape pen and stood. ‘Better get back to my clients.’

  ‘Don’t keep them waiting on my account.’

  With a pale hand, Lily Trimble gave a dispassionate wave.

  6. To the Pure, All Things Pure

  On Hollywood Boulevard, a few yards away from what used to be called Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, a bored Superman waited for tourists to take his photo. He could charge more to pose with kids, though he preferred solo photos, for hygiene reasons. Meantime, he was swiping through the profiles of men on a dating app, though nobody was taking his fancy today.

  By the subway station, Darth Vader duelled with a young Chinese child, the hollow plastic clashing of their lightsabers drawing laughter from the crowd. Marilyn Monroe squeezed her tits together for a Frenchman, while an HIV-positive Batman jumped out of the shadows at passing tourists, less a crusader against injustice and more a darkly dressed prankster. Along the boulevard, sitting on the stars of Errol Flynn, Jean Harlow, and Groucho Marx, runaways and junkies turned pink behind cardboard signs.

  Hollywood was a lie believed only by tourists. Its realities were smaller, sharper, more pungent. In place of heroes on white horses at sunset, there were only hungry scavengers here after nightfall. The very word promised glamour, excitement, people. Yet behind it, beneath it and all around it there was only a drab, perfunctory emptiness. In the early hours the eyes of coyotes were illuminated by passing headlights, brilliant green marbles rolling only and forever towards flesh.

  Iwata too was searching, but Club Noir was hidden away like a schoolboy’s porn stash. He had traipsed up and down Hollywood Boulevard. On Vine he passed the star of Sessue Hayakawa, leading man and heartthrob of Hollywood’s silent era, as popular as Charlie Chaplin in his day. A celebrity bus droned past, its chassis painted purple, its slogan gold:

  YOU’VE SEEN THEM IN ACTION. NOW SEE WHERE THEY LIVE

  Iwata’s job was much the same, sitting in vehicles and looking at houses across the street. The only difference was that who and what went on inside provoked no curiosity in him beyond the requisite amount his work demanded.

  On McCadden, at last he found Club Noir. Its entrance was in an alleyway between an old coffee house and an electrical repair shop. Latin-techno beats reverberated like a muffled tommy gun and the line was growing. Iwata picked up a flyer from the floor. It depicted a buxom trans woman in a spangly red dress, with auburn hair, and heavy make-up: Jessica Rabbit made flesh. In golden cursive, words were embossed over her torso:

  TRANSFIX – EVERY GIRL HAS SECRETS

  The bouncer was a well-upholstered Mexican wearing black, his tattoo-green hands clasped over his belly. He spoke with a dusty voice and a grin that would never be anything other than threatening. ‘Welcome to Noir, sir.’

  ‘I’m looking for someone.’ Iwata flashed his ID.

  ‘In an hour, there’ll be about three hundred people in here looking for someone too. Join the line. Our bar boys smile and don’t water down.’

  ‘I’m looking for Geneviève.’

  ‘She don’t work here no more, güey. Just up and left.’

  ‘Any idea why?’

  He shrugged a shoulder the size of a chain wrench. ‘People don’t always leave a note here.’

  ‘What about her friend Meredith Nichol?’

  ‘I knew her a little more. Nice girl. What happened to her is …’ He shook his head.

  ‘Yeah. So who did it?’

  ‘Guessing that’s your job, no?’ He grinned. ‘I don’t know who, but I can tell you how.’

  ‘Okay. How?’

  ‘Same as the rest of ’em. They hop the bus in from Buttfuck, Tennessee, with those big, wide eyes that only see palm trees and auditions. And this city eats them alive. Puris omnia pura, güey.’

  ‘To the pure, all things pure?’

  ‘If this city could speak, that’s what she’d whisper.’

  The bouncer received a message on his earpiece and turned away from Iwata to check a few more IDs. The line shuffled forward. As Mingo had suggested, the man seemed happy to talk. More importantly, he also seemed to have been paying attention. After all, he worked the door to a secret grotto. It made sense that eyes would go with a tongue.

  ‘So,’ the bouncer turned back. ‘You’re a sneaker, huh?’

  ‘I prefer “professional investigator”.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He laughed. ‘And I prefer “ingress executive”.’

  ‘And what are the chances of my ingress to Club Noir’s employee records?’

  ‘I’d say slim to deceased. The privacy and security of the girls is taken seriously here.’

  ‘Point taken.’ Iwata held up the Polaroid he’d bought from Lily Trimble. ‘Did you ever see Meredith with this guy? Name was Talky. He was mute.’

  With a slight smile on his lips, the bouncer gave a theatrical shrug. It might as well have been a hotel porter’s cough. A private investigator couldn’t knock down doors and throw threats around. Door hinges had to be greased; tongues did too. Most of the time, the only lubricant was money. Iwata knew it. The Mexican bouncer knew it too. Iwata handed over a fifty and the bouncer took it in one smooth motion before gazing down at the Polaroid.

  ‘Saw him a couple of times, yeah. He used to wait for Meredith right over there. But
if you’re thinking it was him that killed her, I’d tell you it was unlikely. She spoke about him a lot. Their future, you know, all the shit you hear a fly say from a spiderweb.’

  ‘Well, from what I’ve heard, he didn’t exactly sound like the romantic type.’

  ‘Maybe not, but one thing was clear. She made him money. That guy had a temper, sure. But you could tell he was too much of a cheap fuck to lose out.’

  Iwata contemplated this before changing tack. ‘How about friends? Did Meredith or Geneviève have any here?’

  ‘Think there was a skinny tattooed girl. Real pretty. Don’t know her but she comes in from time to time.’

  Iwata handed over his business card. ‘If you see her, I’d really appreciate a call.’

  The bouncer winked.

  Back in the Bronco, Iwata chewed over the information. The picture made more sense now. At least, Detective Silke’s angle was clear enough. Pimp kills his girl, pimp ends up ODing, end of story. There was no evidence tying A to B, so he would simply leave Meredith in cold cases and move on. Iwata wasn’t surprised; A to B thinking saved a lot of people a lot of trouble. It was as old as villagers blaming wolves for the disappeared girl. In truth, he too wanted to leave Meredith in cold cases. But Lily Trimble’s words were like tiny fishbones in Iwata’s gums. The body also displays some pretty textbook defensive wounds.

  The Bronco was dark. It smelled of old leather, old metal, old parts long since discontinued. He couldn’t help but think about Charlotte Nichol, her hands gripping her bag tightly. There was no way he could tell her no. Sighing, Iwata dialled Kate Floccari’s number.

  She answered almost immediately. ‘Kosuke?’