Palm Springs Noir

by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett

“Someone got the idea to present the act as what it was. A crime of passion, only with a certain struggling actress in the lead role. I’ll bet you never laid eyes on Joseph Fiato before the night you called the police from his home.” The kid’s desire to push her into a confession was rubbing his NPR plating clean away, leaving him like every other too-hungry, know-it-all punk. “But you were quite familiar with Annalisa’s cousin.”

  “I don’t know what you’re going on about. Where did you come up with this stuff anyway?”

  The kid shook his head and sat up straight. He bit his lip. He folded his hands. “Doesn’t it bother you? Johnny Giancanna stole your life,” he said, almost as if he was determined to be outraged on her behalf, even if she couldn’t be herself. “You wanted to be famous. To be a star.” He reached for the scrapbook and flipped it open to her headshot. “But nobody remembers you. Those roles you talk about—I bet half your scenes ended up on the cutting room floor, and the other half have crumbled to dust.” Donna fought the urge to throw her wine in his smug, lineless face. “I did try to research you. You don’t even rate a mention in the IMDb, and my old roommate who shoots green screen shorts in his garage is listed.”

  “You sure do know how to charm a girl.” Donna closed the scrapbook’s cover. She felt ridiculous now. Regretted she’d even thought to show it to him.

  “I’m one of maybe a handful of people outside Palm Springs who even know your name, much less care about your story.”

  “Why were you so hot to talk to me if no one cares?”

  He nodded at the mic. “You tell me what really happened that night, and I’ll make people care. Really care. Not just a group of gay guys dragging out an elderly woman—a washed-up never-was—to tea dances. Presenting her as an amusing oddity. Laughing at you behind your back.”

  His words stung. “They don’t. That’s not true.”

  “Perhaps not, but you fear it is.”

  Donna’s aging refrigerator hummed in agreement. She glanced back at it, wondering which of them would outlast the other.

  “Annalisa Scarpa died twenty years ago. Cancer. Johnny Giancanna is gone. Why not clear your name? Get your story out there. Who knows? It might even get picked up for TV or a movie. You know that happens, don’t you? People will know who you are then.”

  Donna snorted. “TV or a movie. Right. I was Joseph Fiato’s girlfriend. One of them anyway. I killed him. You’ve come up with quite the scenario, but none of it’s true.”

  “All right,” the kid said, rising. “If you insist on sticking to this fabrication, I can’t help you. People would have listened to your story. They would have cared about it. They would have cared about you. You might have even become famous.” He stood and made to close his laptop. “Thank you for your time.”

  The truth. It was supposed to set you free, right? She’d always envisioned lying on her deathbed, spilling her guts to a priest. Her eyes fell to the closed scrapbook. Not a goddamned thing in there worth anything to anybody. Maybe this way she could spare the padre’s ears and even gain something other than absolution for her trouble.

  “Wait.” Donna reached out to him. He tilted his head and looked down at her, but remained silent. “Maybe you’re right. Who’s left to care anyway?”

  “I’m listening.” He slid back into his chair. “In your own words. What happened?”

  “Johnny promised me he’d take care of me. In and out of prison.” She snatched up her wine and took a deep sip. “See to it I was set up for life.”

  “If you stepped in,” the kid prompted her when her silence went on too long for his liking, “and took the blame for the murder his cousin committed.” A moment passed. He raised an eyebrow and reached out to turn off the mic.

  Donna caught his hand. “Yes.”

  “He guaranteed you would receive a light sentence?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you believe he arranged this?”

  Sinatra stared bug-eyed at her from the Rat Pack photo. Never rat on a rat.

  “That I will leave to your own conjecture. You know as much about it as I do.”

  “But you trusted that Giancanna would deliver on his promises?”

  The fly buzzed by her ear. Donna swung at it. “Yes. I trusted him. Somewhat. I also trusted things wouldn’t work out so well for me if I refused, if you get what I’m saying.”

  “He threatened you.”

  She shook her head. “Johnny never threatened. He made examples of the people who disappointed him. Made it clear to all that there were severe and lasting consequences for letting him down.” The heat was getting to her. She cast a glance at the thermostat. “He asked me to take the truth of what happened to my grave. I promised I would, but it’s been more than a minute.”

  “Did Giancanna keep his promises?”

  Johnny had kept his word, though not in the way Donna had thought he meant. She never laid eyes on him again, not after the night he pressed the pistol into her hand. “Yes. I came out of prison with a hundred and fifty thousand tax free in the bank. May not sound like much now, but it’d be like someone handing you a cool million today. I bought this house with it. Invested the rest. I did okay.”

  The kid reached over and gripped her hand. “To be clear, you are saying Annalisa Scarpa murdered Joseph Fiato, and Johnny Giancanna offered you an easy sentence and what amounted to a fortune if you’d confess to the murder.”

  Donna snatched her hand from his grasp. “Yes. Yes. Yes.” She glared at him. Angry with him. Ludicrous. Why should she be angry? “Yes,” she said again, concentrating on speaking in a calm voice, “for taking the rap for his precious cousin.” Donna broke out in a cold, oily sweat that had nothing to do with the temperature. She felt a sharp shock of nausea, like the time when a fall dislocated her shoulder and the ER doctor snapped it back into place.

  The air around her grew thick, suffocating. She’d been lying so damn long. Until that moment she’d never realized the lie was like the boy in the old story, with his finger plugging a dike to hold back the ocean. The utterance of one truth ushered in a plague of others.

  She was no goddamn actress. Never had been.

  She would have never made it. Everyone had known it. Johnny had known it.

  Deep down, she knew it too. That was the real reason she’d made the deal. And that was the reason she’d kept the secret. Not from fear—not this long, at least—or because of a promise made, but because without the lie, who was she? The lie made her somebody. Without it, she wasn’t dangerous, she wasn’t even interesting. She was just another goddamn never-was.

  “How does it feel?” he said. “After all this time, finally speaking the truth?”

  “How does it feel?” A jolt of remorse rocked her. She’d always expected to feel relief, but what she felt was nothing like truth’s promised freedom. What she felt felt a lot like loss. Like grief.

  The kid watched her, seemingly unaware, or maybe just unconcerned. He got what he came for. She recognized the look in his eyes, it was the same she’d seen in Johnny’s when he realized she’d given in, that she’d agree to all he wanted. But Johnny, prick that he was, had given her something in exchange. More than a guarantee of a comfortable life, he’d offered her an identity. A mystique. All she’d ever had, all she’d ever been, was the story Johnny gave her, and in mere minutes, the kid had taken it away.

  He took and only offered the flimsiest of maybes in return.

  “It feels like I lost a part of myself.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Nothing.” She couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye. She focused on the sparse gold stubble on his chin. Probably not even man enough to grow a full beard. “You at least owe me one thing. Who is this ‘source’ of yours?”

  A beat of silence. “I apologize for misleading you,” he said. “I was going off my intuition more than anything else. News clippings. Old photos. Of you and Giancanna. Of Scarpa and Fiato. But none of you and Fiato. Something didn’t add up. When I
started to dig … well, there really were rumors—”

  “I don’t think I want you to use this.” She pushed up from the table, ready to up the air-conditioning. The room reeled around her. She grasped the edge of the table and closed her eyes, waiting for the sensation to pass.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” She held up her hand. “I’m fine.” She opened her eyes, and realized it was true. She once again stood on solid ground. “I want you to stop recording.”

  The kid watched her but didn’t move.

  “I said stop recording!” she shouted at him.

  He jolted, then tapped the computer screen. He stared up at her, his lips parted, the tiny line returning to his forehead. “Are you sure I shouldn’t call someone?”

  “I’m fine. I just don’t want you to use me in your …” She waved at the mic.

  “All right,” he said. “It’s clear you’ve had a change of heart, and I don’t want to upset you any further.” He turned off the mic and unplugged it from his laptop. “I need to get back to the city soon anyway.” He closed his computer. “Maybe I can call you in a couple days? See how you’re feeling then? Maybe you’ll change your mind after you’ve had time to relax. To reconsider.”

  Donna nodded.

  “Okay.” The kid gave her a smile that landed midway between reassurance and condescension. He slid his laptop into his bag. “I want to say, though, that even if you decide not to let us use your story, I hope you’ll be happy knowing there’s at least one person who doesn’t see you as a killer. I know the truth. You’re just a nice—”

  “Old lady.”

  The kid’s face flushed. “I was going to say—”

  “It’s fine. We’re dealing in truths here, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, we are.” The kid rose and shrugged the strap of his bag over his shoulder. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “Hold on,” Donna said, and the kid stopped, a look of hopeful expectation spreading across his face. “I know you don’t understand, but there’s one more thing I should show you. Maybe then you will.”

  The kid hesitated but sat back down.

  Donna crossed the kitchen and made her way to the cabinets, tugging open the drawer where she’d left Sally. She lifted the pistol from the drawer and turned it on the kid. For a moment he looked intrigued, but then his eyes popped open wide. All color drained from his face.

  “What—” he began, jumping up and knocking his chair over.

  Donna shot twice, catching him first in the stomach, then the shoulder. He fell back on the floor with a thud, then started kicking his heels against the linoleum, trying to push back, away from her.

  Donna went to him. Looked him straight in the eye. “Truth is shit. The story’s all that matters. The story Johnny gave me was all I ever had. He didn’t steal my life. You, you little son of a bitch, you’re the one trying to do that.” She aimed at his head and pulled the trigger, then laid the gun on the table.

  The fly landed on the kid’s parted lips.

  Donna stood there for what seemed a very long time listening to the whir of the overhead fan, watching the fly crawl over the kid’s face. Then she began to move, her own body on automatic, her slippers making squishy, sticky sounds as she traipsed through the kid’s blood to reach the phone. She punched in three numbers.

  “I need to report a murder. Yes, I’m safe. I’m the killer.”

  THE ANKLE OF ANZA

  BY EDUARDO SANTIAGO

  Anza

  It took awhile for the concerned neighbors to settle down. After the scraping of metal chairs on the worn linoleum, and the greetings of neighbors who rarely saw each other, an expectant silence swept the room. This was Anza, a small community as far as population, but huge in terms of land. Most of it was worthless mountaintop—high desert they called it. Sand and scrub, and too much damn gravity.

  But those of us who live here wouldn’t trade it for anything. It’s peaceful and quiet, save the occasional meth lab explosion. And God-fearing country for sure. I turned to face them, each of their dirt-worn faces. There’s a look to us here, beady eyes from squinting against sand and wind, white, weathered skin, thinning hair, even the women, whose long gray strands clogged sinks all over Anza Valley.

  The last time they gathered, Jimbo Lure’s cousin had come to propose solar farms. There was an expectation of wealth, as if everyone had an oil well in the backyard just ripe for the picking. But the more the proposal got into crystalline vs. thin film vs. photovoltaic, and words like extrapolation, the audience began to glaze over. Even if they all pooled their money and their land together, as Gordon Lure suggested, he was talking a million-dollar investment before profits. No one here was worth a thousand, let alone a million. No one here was willing to risk the rewards. Coming up on five years ago, that was. There are solar farms here now, but none of the people present were making the money. No one knew those who were profiting, silent partners and all that. But these people whose eyes were on me now, I knew them chapter and verse.

  “I want to give you people a heads-up,” I said to them. I’m not used to public speaking, in fact I don’t speak much at all, but these were all people I know. “We have a cat burglar up in here. There’s no denying it any longer.”

  There were many whats and what he says and speak ups. This is what’s called an aging community, too many of us on the sliding slope to eighty. We became hard of hearing from wearing old ears and having no one to listen to anymore save for the TV, which can be turned up or down depending on mood or need.

  I repeated myself with a bit more vocal power.

  “What’s with the cat shit, Dave? Ain’t she just a plain ole fucking burglar?” asked Don Donner, who had never uttered a sentence without a fuck or a shit in it.

  “She has the nasty habit of sneaking into your home when no one’s there, locking up when she leaves,” I said. “Opens up your vehicles, takes a few things, locks it all up when she leaves. She’s meticulous, leaves the place like you left it. You just think you’ve misplaced things, but she took ’em. Will slip into an unlocked door, take your things while you’re asleep. She has taken important things from several people that I know, including but not limited to car titles, the key to your PO Box, birth certificates and death certificates, property documents, phones, tablets, laptops, knives, flashlights, food, stuff like deodorants, prescription glasses, wallets, whatever she can carry. Never breaks nothing, not a window, not a lock She’s stealth.”

  “That don’t make her no cat,” Donner said, then cleared his throat. I could practically smell his phlegm swirling down the sagging esophagus.

  “Don’t believe me if you don’t want to, but she’s a wily one. She will use your electronics, try to access Google accounts, try to get a reverse mortgage just to mess with you.”

  Whenever I’m in the same room with Don Donner I find myself trapped in an argument. I try so hard to avoid him, at least to avoid talking with him, but it’s like he sets a trap and I traipse right into it.

  Thankfully, a hand went up that wasn’t Donner’s. It was Jasper Grosch, ninety if he’s a day. Came down with Parkinson’s twenty-plus years ago, he’s shaky as hell but he’s still here. I nodded at him to speak.

  “This young lady from these parts?”

  “Has no permanent address. Made some friends out behind Circle K, betrayed them, robbed them, upset them. They threw her out. She will break into your garage, sheds, storage buildings. Takes small things, doesn’t drive so it has to be stuff she can carry concealed. I’m sure she’s hoarding a lot of the things. I would love to locate her lair, see about recovering some of the loot.”

  Don Donner opened his mouth to speak, but I spoke first and I spoke forcefully.

  “She’s a goddamn cat burglar, Don.”

  Don Donner’s eye roll was so severe that it would have been kinder if he’d told me to fuck off. “Fucking birth certificates,” he spat out.

  “Is there camera footage?” came a small v
oice in the back. Marci Day, born again and dumb as a box of lint. “Maybe post office, bank.”

  “She’s not the type to visit either one of those establishments, Marci,” I answered.

  “Probably lives in a box somewhere,” Marci said, her head cast down as if to elicit the pity of the Lord.

  “A litter box!” shouted Jimbo Lure.

  “Seriously, Jimbo?”

  Jimbo’s our one and only barber. Every man goes every couple of months and endures jokes Jimbo makes up all on his own, or so he claims. Example: Hear about the girl who wanted to have sex all the time? She had get-down syndrome. I knew Jimbo from school, class clown, disruptive, lonely. Never changed.

  “This is a wild animal we’re talking about here,” I said. “We need to be on the lookout as if there was a brown bear out there, or a wolf.”

  “With all due respect to wild animals.” Jimbo again.

  “Has a police report been filed?” asked Marci.

  “I filed one,” I said. “But you know how it goes.”

  Everyone murmured agreement. As an unincorporated area of Riverside County, there are no police here, never have been. From time to time a sheriff’s cruiser will travel through. If there’s a serious crime, something to do with bodily attack, a shooting, what have you, they’ll come up and investigate. But calling the cops here is an exercise in faith and patience because it will take them at least forty-five minutes to an hour to get here, depending on where they are. We don’t have cops and we don’t want cops. We’ve learned to take care of our own up here, which is why we all have big dogs and why all these people showed up today.

  “Whoever it is gonna go into the wrong house with dogs, protective ones, and get her bony ass tore up but fucking good,” said Donner, who had traded bounty hunting for herding mountain goats fifteen years ago.

  “She’s too smart,” I countered. “She’ll just avoid houses with dogs.”

  “What if it’s one of them quiet dogs?” Donner said.

  “There’s no such thing as a quiet dog, Don. All dogs bark, particularly at strangers.”