by Ace Atkins
“Do you think she’s, you know, dead?” said Austin, a serious, dark-eyed guy. He had shaggy, greasy hair and a sallow face. His T-shirt advertised a band called Perfume Genius.
“I don’t have a reason to think she is or isn’t.”
“But it’s possible?” said Dani with an i. He was a tallish young man with sunken cheeks and slick brown hair. He wore a pink tank top and skinny black jeans and had the deliberate, fluid movements of a dancer. He reminded me physically of Paul Giacomin but was decidedly more pretentious.
“Sure,” I said. “Anything is possible. Your class seems to be the only constant in her life. Maybe you might have noticed or heard something.”
“What the hell would we know?” said Bridget, playing with the ends of her bleached hair and biting her lower lip. “Let’s all be honest, after Gabby got that Carl’s Jr. commercial, she didn’t hang out with us anymore. She became a real asshole. Once she flashed her perky little boobs all over TV while eating that sloppy burger, she was ready to move to the next level.”
“That was late last year?” I said.
The young thespians nodded in unison. Olga and Claudia were huddled off at the far end of the corner and talked in whispers. I wanted to ask if they had something to share with the class.
“I heard she was going to get a recurring role on The Good Doctor. Some kind of chick with mental problems,” Austin said. “Like a real head case.”
Dani shook his head and snickered a bit.
“Gabby was a very spiritual person,” Olga said. “She was very open to many ideas. Many religions. She and I would sometimes get coffee after class and speak spiritually.”
Olga was a tiny woman with enormous breasts, speaking in a slight Eastern European accent. Her hair was brown with blondish highlights and her makeup was airbrushed to perfection. Some of the other students seemed surprised by what she said. I drank some more beer and listened.
“She said she had quit drinking alcohol,” Olga said.
“Ha,” Dani said, with a flick of his wrist. “She drank like a fish.”
Bridget nodded in agreement.
“Drugs?” I said. I still wasn’t able to connect Gabrielle Leggett of Cambridge, Mass, with a crew of Armenian gangsters. There were few ways to bring up organized crime with the troupe.
“Oh, no,” Olga said. “Not now. Not in a long time. She had such a hard time after her breakdown.”
No one seemed to make much of this detail. But Dani sat upright and cocked his head to listen more. He, like me, apparently hadn’t been aware of a breakdown, either.
“Were you not listening?” Olga said. “When she performed the monologue on the breakup? How she found herself groveling on the floor, picking cigarette ash from her hair, not knowing where she’d been. Or how she’d gotten home.”
“Come on,” Bridget said. “You actually believed that? That was all some bullshit she made up for Jeffrey.”
Dani snickered some more. And so did everyone else, but Olga. Olga shook her head, gathering some silver bracelets on her delicate wrist. “It was true,” she said. “Had you not been so self-absorbed and listened, you would have all seen it. She cut her hair, quit wearing makeup. Her backpack so full of self-help and discovery books. She let me borrow many of them. Gabby said she was into finding true meaning in life.”
Bridget seemed to bristle a bit at “self-absorbed,” toying with the hoop earring and rolling her eyes. Dani bit his lip, tightly crossed his legs, and tilted up his red wine.
“What the hell does that have to do with her being gone?” Austin said. “This guy isn’t trying to do a character study. He’s trying to find out what happened to her.”
“Maybe a little bit of both,” I said. “One often facilitates the other.”
“And what do you know?” Bridget said.
“That maybe Gabby kept a very private and compartmentalized life,” I said. “What about a boyfriend? Did she mention one?”
“The agent?” Bridget said.
“No,” Olga said. “No. She left him long ago. Eric Something-rather. The one who broke her, broke her heart, was much older.”
I nodded. Warm.
“And married.”
I nodded again. Getting hot.
Claudia sat at the end of the table, shook her head, and stared at me. She was a tall black woman, the height of a runway model, with an additional few inches on top consisting of a bouncy, curly Afro. She tapped at the table with long red nails and stared at me intently, as if waiting for her turn to talk.
“You mean The Creep,” Claudia said.
“You know him?” I said.
“Don’t know his name,” she said. “But she called him The Creep in class. He promised her all kinds of parts and big trips that never came about. They were first going to Hawaii and then maybe Paris or some shit. None of it ever happened. At one point, she told me he was leaving his wife. How’s that story always work out?”
“They lived happily ever after?”
“Bullshit,” she said.
I signaled to the waitress for another round. In my vast experience, I knew sources were more apt to speak up after a few drinks. And I was glad to supply beer and a few glasses of wine for the cause. Claudia touched the edges of her bouncy locks, seeming a bit uncomfortable with the discussion. She met my eyes for a moment, shifted her gaze over my head, and then looked down at her iPhone, tapping at the screen.
“Did she ever mention the married man’s name?” I said. “To any of you?”
No one said anything. A few shook their heads.
“But there was a breakdown?” I said.
“Probably,” Dani said. “We’re actors. Not fucking accountants. I had two breakdowns last week.”
Everyone laughed. More drinks came and they were loosening up. Claudia excused herself. As the talk shifted from Gabby to Jeffrey Bloom and his many eccentricities and shortcomings, I watched Claudia on her cell phone, talking and pacing inside the big whiskey-barrel bar.
When Claudia walked back, she said she needed to be going.
“Nice meeting you,” Claudia said.
“May I walk you out?” I said.
She nodded and I walked with her out through the bar and out onto Vineland. She slung a sleek little leather purse over her shoulder, moving fast in very tall heels. With the heels and the hair, she stood nearly an inch taller than me. She had on a man’s plain tank top with a silver necklace around her neck. A long silk skirt shifted in the soft, cold wind.
“You wanted to say something away from the group?” I said.
“What makes you say that?”
I cocked my head. “Detective’s intuition.”
“It’s probably nothing,” she said. “Jeffrey says we all come to acting with our set of hang-ups.”
“In my business, nothing often turns to something.”
“I didn’t want to piss off Olga about Gabby’s spiritual growth,” she said. “If Gabby’s dead, that’ll make them all feel better.”
I nodded. The sun was going down, casting Vineland in a wonderful golden glow. I reached for the black Wayfarers in my pocket and put them on.
I was going native already.
“I grew up outside New Orleans,” Claudia said. “In the church. And I guess I’m still not really open to the way some people talk out here. Everyone telling me that they know more than I do. That they have the answers.”
“Gabby thinks she found the answers?”
She nodded.
“To what?” I said.
“Life,” she said. “Being a woman. Breaking through what we grew up with. Male dominance. At first, I figured it was something that would pass. But then she put pressure on me to attend one of her classes. Thought I could maybe benefit from the strength and power she was offering on a silver platter. Gabby said she looked up to
me.”
“You are quite tall,” I said.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Where did Gabby take you?”
“I promised her I wouldn’t say anything,” she said. “I even had to sign some kind of bullshit legal form. They said if I ever talked about what they talked about, they could sue me. I can’t afford to get into all that mess.”
“Gabby invited you to Fight Club?”
She laughed and gave me a side eye. “HELIOS,” she said. “Group called HELIOS.”
“And what, may I ask, exactly is HELIOS?”
“Gabby swore it helped her get straight after her breakdown,” she said. “We mainly sat around and listened to all the folks talk about what HELIOS did for them. There was some little video presentation and they gave us crackers and fruit juice. Kind of like church. Only without Jesus.”
“And what did they offer?”
“That’s the thing,” Claudia said. “Beyond making a stronger and more resilient woman, you don’t know what they do or how they do it until you sign up for more. And you can’t sign up for more unless you put up some money.”
“How much?”
“Five thousand.”
I gave a low whistle. “And do you have that much?”
“I had an uncle that died,” she said. “Back in Louisiana. Left me some money.”
“And Gabby knew about this?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Sure did. I talked about him in class. I talked about what he meant to me and how I was going to put that money to work to make it out here.”
“Ah.”
“You think Gabby invited me because of the money?”
“Yep.”
“Damn,” Claudia said. “This the first you’re hearing about HELIOS?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “When did all this start for her?”
“A few months ago,” she said. “After I told her I didn’t want no part of it, it never came up again.”
“Never?”
“Not a word,” she said, biting her bottom lip. Her skirt ruffled around her long legs. “Almost like she dared me to say it had ever even happened. You think that’s important?”
18
The HELIOS outreach center was in a small bungalow on La Brea across from an old studio Charlie Chaplin had built. There was no signage to show this was the outreach center, only an address I’d found online. The bungalow had gray stucco walls with wooden accents, and cacti and jade plants for landscaping. As I walked up a short concrete staircase with a broken metal railing, the sun had nearly set, leaving the house in shadow. Cars raced up and down the street, unbridled by rush hour.
It was cool and pleasant up on the porch. I knocked.
No one answered. I knocked again.
Being the pushy East Coast type, I opened the door and walked inside. It reminded me of a waiting area at a dentist’s office. There was a well-worn sofa and a few folding chairs. A glass-topped coffee table in the center piled with self-help pamphlets about alcohol and drug abuse, dealing with the death of a loved one. The room smelled musty and worn, everything dingy and shopworn. Along a far wall was a partition with a sliding glass window. A shade covered the window from the inside and beyond the wall I could hear the murmuring of voices.
I selected a slick flyer with the word HELIOS spread across the top in a fancy font. I sat down and flipped through it, looking at pictures of attractive men and women playing games along a beach, at peace at some kind of yoga retreat, and zip-lining somewhere in wilds of the Pacific Northwest. The opening statement was UNLOCK YOUR HIDDEN POTENTIAL.
I was intrigued. I knew I had tons of hidden potential. But the more I read about HELIOS in the four-page spread, the less I knew. They held the answers that no one knew. There were more pictures of women rafting and hiking. One of a giant sunset and a woman in a lotus pose. A Sisterhood of Power, announced one of the cutlines. BREAK THROUGH EXPECTATIONS!
“Wow,” I said to myself.
A side door opened and a woman walked out, looking very surprised to see a guest this late. She looked harmless enough, small and bony, with her brown hair in a pixie cut. Her clothes were just a longish navy T-shirt, bell-bottom jeans, and Birkenstocks. She had enormous blue eyes, freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, and a slight gap in her front teeth. She looked as wholesome as a slice of apple pie.
“How the hell did you get in here?” she said, sounding less wholesome than she looked.
“Let me see. I knocked several times. Then I opened the door and walked inside. It was really pretty simple.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No,” I said. “But I have lots of untapped potential.”
“Who sent you?”
I shrugged. “L. Ron Hubbard?”
“Very funny,” she said. “Are you a reporter?”
“No.”
“A lawyer?”
“Never.”
“Then who sent you?”
“HELIOS came highly recommended by one of your members.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “And who might that be?”
“Gabby Leggett,” I said.
She looked at me as if the name meant nothing to her. She stared for a moment, biting hard on her lower lip. Her teeth and the ends of her ears appeared sharp and pointy. “I don’t care who you know,” she said. “We’re closed.”
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” I said.
“You’d still have to have an appointment,” she said. “You can’t just walk in here off the street. That’s not what we do.”
“And what do you do?”
“We are a private organization,” she said. “We respect the privacy of our members.”
“And according to this pamphlet, you are outdoorsy as hell,” I said. “Hiking, rafting, swimming. The only thing I didn’t see was hang gliding. That might be a deal-maker for me. If I’m going to join, I really need some time in the air.”
“Would you like me to call the police?”
“Sure,” I said, still sitting. “Why not?”
“I will, you know.”
“I kind of doubt it.”
“What exactly is it that you want?”
“I want to know more about HELIOS,” I said. “I’d like to frolic with attractive women. I’d like to reach deep in myself and maximize my fullest potential. Did you know that the average human only uses ten percent of their brains?”
“You’re mocking us,” she said. “You’re mocking our materials.”
“Why have materials if you don’t want anyone to join?” I said, looking down at the pamphlet.
“You have to be selected,” she said. “You must have an invitation.”
“I have an invitation,” I said. “From Miss Leggett.”
“I don’t know that name.”
“Sure you do,” I said. I pulled out my phone and showed her a photo taken from Gabby’s Instagram account. She looked very happy, smiling in a short blue dress while holding a sunflower. “Check your team roster.”
“We have many members,” she said.
“So glad to hear it.”
“Thousands across many continents,” she said. “Most of us are women.”
“There’s a man in several of these photos,” I said. “The guy with the beard and the wild blue eyes. Who is he?”
“Again, this is a private organization,” she said. “Right now, you are trespassing. I don’t have time for questions.”
“I’m wearing shoes and a clean shirt,” I said. “All that I request is some service.”
The woman brushed past me toward the front door and held it open wide. She continued to give me a dirty look until I finally stood and stretched. I tried to muster a look of disappointment, calling on the shoptalk I’d heard from Bloom’s students. As I moved,
the old floor creaked under my feet.
“Your loss,” I said. I moved toward the door and handed her my business card. “I’d be a true and great asset to the HELIOS organization.”
The young woman glanced down at the card and then at me. She didn’t seem to be the least bit impressed.
“Tell Gabby to call me.”
“I don’t know anyone named Gabby,” she said.
I glanced around the shabby room, seeing nothing but dull paneled walls and outdated furniture. No signage on the outside and nothing but a splay of pamphlets on the table. I’d seen lemonade stands with more investment in infrastructure.
“Ask around,” I said. “Or I can ask the police to make inquiries.”
As I stepped onto the landing, the door shut hard behind me. A sharp click sounded from the deadbolt being turned.
Hooray for Hollywood. I was making friends everywhere.
19
Early the next morning, the hospital released Z and he immediately returned to work. He typed with his right hand, his left arm in a sling, while I sat across from him at his strip-mall office at Highland and Franklin. It was raining again, as it had been the day I’d arrived, and we didn’t seem any closer to finding Gabby Leggett.
“I don’t know what to say,” Z said. “These HELIOS people are everywhere and nowhere at the same time. They call themselves an executive success program that seeks to free their participants from the shackles of self-doubt and confusion.”
“We did the same thing with Henry Cimoli.”
“But unlike Henry Cimoli, HELIOS also seeks to end world hunger and looks to promote a lasting peace for all of humanity.”
“At least they have realistic goals.”
I’d brought more burgers and fries from In-N-Out that morning in my effort to support the local economy. Z had two burgers. I wanted three burgers but had only one. Z’s secretary had finally come around to my lingering presence and dropped off a tall coffee before leaving the room without a word. I thanked her. But Delores didn’t answer.