by E. E. Giorgi
“We never had this conversation, did we? Hell, I’m drunk. You never came to my house, I never opened that door.”
I got to my feet. The terrier snarled at me, I hissed and walked away.
“Presius! We never had this conversation, did we?”
I opened the door, walked out of the thrift store smell, out of her miserable life, and closed the door behind me. I walked down a flight of side stairs framed by walls so close there was hardly any room to spit. Rusty metal letters hung on the white façade, forming the writing “Sea View Luxury Apartment.” It was old and faded and I wondered when it stopped being true.
The ocean hummed its scent into my nostrils. The sky was blue and the air balmy. This close to the sea, the temperatures were in the seventies, and the sweltering heat from Silver Lake, where Callahan lived, was but a memory. It was Saturday and the whole world was headed to the beach. Three-generation families strolled down the sidewalks in flip-flops, sun umbrellas, and Hawaiian shirts. Kids ran holding their sand buckets. Divas in smoked shades and skimpy bikinis drove by in their cabrios. They kept circling the block looking for a parking spot.
A low beat rapped from the beach, where dwelled distant sounds of happiness and oblivion. I walked down a block, and then another, and then another, until I rapped my knuckles on the front door of a familiar Venice bungalow.
* * *
The Venice Boardwalk in a late summer afternoon is full of people and solitudes. Psychics read tarots and cheap fortunes, even happy endings if you can afford the extra charge. Doctors in green slacks and white smiles offer marijuana prescriptions, though they aren’t real doctors and their smiles aren’t that authentic either. The smell of hot dogs, beer, and fried sugar overwhelms the ocean breeze. Music spills out of car windows and lingers over the lost beat of the waves. Across from the shops selling plastic junk and derogatory T-shirts, bums the same color as the sidewalk beg for a coin, a word, a smile.
On the Venice Boardwalk people slur instead of talk, cheap sex waits for you on a doorstep, and genderless faces can either date you or rob you with a stare.
The Venice Boardwalk is where Hortensia lived and painted. I watched her stop at a coffee van to buy an iced latte, washing off the seller’s greedy stares with a casual tip of the head. She rose on her toes to reach for her change, and the hem of her gypsy skirt offered a glimpse of taut calves and slim ankles.
We walked silently for a while, her hip brushing my side.
“I’m liberated, you know? All that sexual angst—I’ve always thought it was all religious crap, instead—I mean, abstinence can be quite cathartic once you get used to it. You should try it.”
Surfers came out of the water and propped their boards against the palm trees. Tanned kids played Frisbee on the beach. They looked young and healthy.
I felt neither.
“Track?”
“Hmm?”
“I broke up with Gary.”
“I figured.”
Hortensia shook her head and her hair fanned in the breeze like red sails. “All that sex. I mean, it was exhausting. And after all, it’s just sex, you know? Just another addiction.”
She beamed, the sun glimmering off her sunglasses.
A puzzled me stared back from her lenses. “Yeah. No. I think you’re crazy.”
A lady in a camping chair and a strip of cloth barely covering her underwear waved a manicured hand at me. “Your future for ten bucks, handsome,” she said.
“I already know my future.”
Hortensia clinked the ice in her cup. “Have you told her?”
“Told who?”
“Your girl. Don’t you have a girl?”
I didn’t reply. My legs kept walking.
“She’ll want to know.”
“Know what?”
“What you just told me. What your doctor said.”
I said nothing. She sipped her drink until there was nothing more to sip and dumped the empty cup in the first trash bin. A bums sitting next to it gave her a toothless smile.
“So? Are you gonna tell her?”
“Jeez, Hort. What’s there to tell? Docs say all sorts of stuff. Doesn’t mean they’re always right.”
She stopped to pull a hairpin out of her skirt pocket. She held the pin between her lips, gathered her hair up and collected it at the nape of her neck. Her hair smelled warm under the sun. Her white hands still carried the scent of acrylic paints and turpentine. “Your doctor told you what he should’ve told you from the beginning: you’ve got a genetic condition and nobody really knows what’s going on. That’s all there is. Now, if you’d listen to me, you’d turn vegetarian, do yoga, and go see a homeopathy practitioner.”
I laughed. “Right. And convert the Pope to Islam. Anything else?”
The hair bun came undone and she didn’t bother pulling it back together. “You should quit your job. That life style of yours—it’s just insanely stressful. Think of all the toxins it adds to your system. Go on a detoxifying diet. I have a friend who drinks a gallon of cranberry juice every day. It’s done miracles for her.”
I acted on instinct as soon as it darted past my peripheral vision. I grabbed her arm, pushed her away, and caught the Frisbee midair, half a second before it would’ve split her forehead.
One of the tanned kids playing on the beach came running toward us. “Hey, that was a great catch! Wanna join us?”
Hortensia beamed. “Why not?” She shook the flip-flops off her feet and stared at me.
I gave her the Frisbee. “You go ahead. I’m not in the mood.”
She stepped closer and brushed her lips against mine. I felt like basking in that kiss a minute longer but she didn’t let me. “You’ll be fine,” she said. She picked up her flip-flops and ran in the sand, red hair fanning and skirt flapping in the breeze.
I watched her play for a couple of minutes, then left.
You’ll be fine.
The tarot lady had found a client with matching piercings and complementary tattoos. She held his hand while talking around an unlit cigarette. Whatever his future held, it must have been hilarious, because they both laughed heartily, their faces golden in the afternoon sun.
The rappers had started their show, the line at the hotdog stand had doubled. The sun was coming down, blinking through the frazzled tops of the palm trees, and yet the evening was still young, naïve, and careless.
I thought of going home, but my car thought otherwise.
And cars are like women. You can try and say no, but once they make up their mind there’s nothing else you can do but tag along.
* * *
Diane didn’t answer the door right away. The house was dark and silent, but I knew where she was and what she was doing. I could smell her from the door, in her white jogging sweats, nursing a tub of ice cream in front of the TV.
I rang the doorbell again. A couch spring sighed. Fuzzy socks brushed on wood floors. I stared at the shut door, waiting. A bolt turned, once, twice. The security chain slid and dangled with a clink against the jamb. She opened slowly.
“Hey,” I said.
A smile cracked through her shell and tinged her voice. “Hey,” she replied.
She stood there, chewing the inside of her cheek, making me want to chew the other side. And then she opened the door all the way, and when she did, I inhaled her fully, her clothes, the familiarity of her pheromones, the intimacy of her body. I stepped inside, closed the door behind me and pulled her to me. She didn’t hold back, not when I kissed her, not when I slid my hand inside her shirt. The scent of her naked skin enveloped me, snippets of me entangled in it.
Her voice crooned in my ears, her words mingled into a melody of verses, was it real? Or was I dreaming, when I heard her whisper, I want to be part of you, part of your thoughts, your gestures, the funky way you raise your brow and tilt your head whenever I say something you don’t approve of. The way your jaw tightens when you feel strongly about something, the way you fiddle with your fingers when somethin
g’s bothering you.
I want to be part of every nook in your brain, every breath you take.
Every one of my breaths... If only she knew… How densely she inhabited every breath I swallowed…
I can smell everything of you: the root of your hair, the arch of your eyebrows, the locks tucked behind your ears, the flesh of your lips. I can smell the air you breathe in and breathe out, the different gradients of your skin, like different textures in a quilt, salty on your face and lips, sweet between your breasts, and spicy on the inside of your arms.
I watched her make breakfast the next morning with a strange lightness in my head, a forgotten familiarity encoded in her gestures. How long have I been lost in my Odyssey before finding home in this one moment?
TWENTY-FOUR
____________
Sunday, July 19
I stepped out of the shower, stuck my nose into my armpits and grinned. I’d used Diane’s body wash and now I smelled like her. I towel-dried my hair, wrapped the towel around my loins and walked to the bedroom. Diane’s voice rang from downstairs. On the phone, I thought. I picked up my pants from the chair and slid them on.
“Can you call him, Ma’am? We really need to talk to him now.”
I froze. Male voice. At the door. Too far away to smell him. The way he said “now”… A cop. I ran to the window and looked down. A gray sedan was parked in the driveway, behind my Charger. A plainclothes cop stood by my vehicle and leaned to peek through the windows.
“Hey!” I yelled.
He looked up at me. “This your car?”
“Fucking is!”
“Can you come down and unlock it?”
What the hell?
I clipped the pancake holster to my waistband, slid in the Glock, and took a peek down from the top of the stairs. I could only see Diane’s back, at the door. She hadn’t let them in. The guy she’d been talking to was still holding his badge.
Diane protested. “It’s Sunday. And he’s not even on call.”
“Sorry, Ma’am. It’s an emergency.”
She sighed, asked them to wait, and closed the door. Her temper preceded her up the stairs in angry whiffs. “You didn’t tell me you were on call!”
“I’m not. Where are they from?”
“Pacific Community.”
I stormed back into the bedroom, grabbed my shirt, back-up and extra mags.
“What happened?” Diane asked.
“No idea. But they didn’t call my cell phone or my watch commander. I don’t even know how they found out I was here. They just showed up—something’s wrong.”
“So then you don’t have to go.”
“You don’t get it, D. If they wanted to call me on duty, they’d call the watch commander. There’s something else going on, and it doesn’t look good. I’ll call you when I find out,” I said, and kissed her.
* * *
“Sorry to ruin your party, pal.”
Detective John Sakovich smelled of menthol aftershave and Kool Blues. His hair was wavy, prematurely white, and disguised in a light blonde dye. He had a dull nose, equally dull eyes, and curly lips—lovely feature on a woman, disturbing on a man.
He said sorry again without meaning it and shared a sneer with his partner, Detective Chris Lang, a kid’s face on a short, burly body. They were both wearing plain clothes—shorts and polos—the butts of their firearms bulging underneath their shirts.
Lang was driving, Sakovich attempting civilized conversation without trying too hard.
As I rode along, I stared at the back of their heads and simmered.
“I wish you’d tell me what this is about,” I said.
“You’ll see when we get there.”
“I could’ve followed you with my own vehicle.”
“No worries, no worries,” Sakovich reassured me. “We’ll drive you back to your girl.”
Lang snickered. “Which one, the gal or the car?”
They laughed. I didn’t share their sense of humor.
It was a hazy morning. Traffic into town was fluid until we hit the Ten westbound and merged into the crowds of beach fanatics and Sunday surfers with their boards piled up on the car roofs. The skyline of downtown came in and out of the haze and was soon forgotten. For a long stretch of time there was only the intermittent blabbering of the radio and the monotone views of the Ten: billboards, gas stations, frazzled trees, electricity poles, more billboards, more gas station signs, sprawling malls, clustered apartment buildings, more billboards, and more gas stations.
Then the curbsides became higher and greener and Detective Lang merged into the right lane and onto the Lincoln exit ramp and suddenly it was clear where we were going. I still didn’t know why but I had a hunch it wasn’t to throw a surprise party.
Henkins’s apartment building looked grayer than I remembered and the “Luxury” word in the wooden sign saying “Sea View Luxury Apartment” looked even more concocted. Two LAPD cruisers were parked along the curb, and two officers stood at the bottom of the stairs to Henkins’s apartment. I looked up and a streamer of yellow tape hung from the doorjamb, gently flapping in the breeze.
Damn it.
I’d just been hit by a full load of shit.
* * *
Henkins was still where I’d left her, on the couch, hands wrapped around the glass of Jameson. The glass was empty and the dog was gone. She was smiling. A strange, you-think-you’ve-fucked-me-but-I-really-fucked-you smile. There was a hole in the middle of her forehead, about half an inch in diameter. Small caliber, certainly not a hollow point, which would’ve blown her face off. She went peacefully, in a way. Probably saw the gun but was too drunk to react. Or maybe she no longer cared.
The glass I’d used was where I’d left it, with my nice set of prints and DNA. The kitchen was in the same mess as the day before. The carpet stunk, the cabinets reeked, the place was a shack. Yet, I couldn’t see a sign of a struggle, forced entry, fight—nothing.
Killer comes, killer smiles, Henkins smiles back, killer shoots, killer leaves. The neighbor’s NASCAR speed race covers the blast of gunfire (or maybe a silencer does, if the killer’s that conscientious), and the crowds coming and going from the beach camouflage him as one of many—the best disguise of all. And if said killer doesn’t make mistakes, he even has a nice scapegoat who’s happened to leave fingerprints and DNA on the scene.
Great.
“When?” I asked.
“Sometime yesterday,” Sokavich replied. “She’s already as stiff as a board. Couldn’t get the glass off her hands.”
Within character. Not even when dead she’d let go of the booze.
“You’ve called the M.E., I suppose?”
“On his way.” He leered, I leered back.
Henkins didn’t smell too bad—all the alcohol she’d downed must’ve preserved her well—just ripe enough to be one day old, as Sakovich had guessed. I smelled the dog, the alcohol at the bottom of the empty glasses, and the menthol of Sakovich’s Kool Blues impregnating his clothes.
“Damn,” I said. Maybe she wasn’t one of our finest, but she was still a cop. One of ours.
Sakovich narrowed his eyes. “Always fucking enraging when a cop killer walks away like this.” He sat on the recliner, crossed his legs, reached for his breast pocket and produced a cig. He stuck the cig in his mouth and stared at me. “Have a seat.”
Lang grabbed a chair from the kitchen. I could’ve grabbed the other chair but I didn’t want to get too cozy with these two. So I leaned against the wall next to the window. “Thanks, I’ll stand.” At least I could peek a strip of ocean from the window.
Sakovich nodded and lit his cig.
“You guys aren’t gonna call the SIDs?”
“In due time,” he replied and puffed out smoke. The acrid reek of burnt menthol filled the room.
“When did you find her?” I asked.
Lang’s chair squeaked. “Hey, partner,” he said. “I thought we were gonna ask the questions.”
&nbs
p; Sakovich pushed smoke out of his nose, lips curled around the cigarette butt. “My partner’s right, Presius. We’re gonna ask a couple of questions, you’re gonna answer, and if we like the answers, we’re done. If not, we go on asking more questions.”
“What do you want to ask?” Like I didn’t know.
I’d called the watch commander yesterday, right after leaving David’s house to get Henkins’s address. From there, how many people got ahold of the fact that I’d seen her? From the looks of it, the killer and I were the last ones to see her alive.
I thought of the anonymous call I’d received yesterday morning. Your genes are going to kill you. Was I being stalked, framed, targeted, or all of the above?
“When did you last see her?” Lang asked, baby face bobbing over a taurine neck.
I smiled, looked out the window. Red roofs peaked here and there from a green sea of treetops. “Look. Let’s cut the crap, okay? You dragged me here because you got wind I’d come to see her. I’m no cop killer and I’d be the hell of a stupid killer to let my watch commander know where I was going and then show up and whack her in the head.”
Sakovich’s curly lips stretched. “Things don’t always go as planned.”
Punching him in the face wouldn’t have gone as planned either, yet it would’ve given me a considerable amount of pleasure.
I said, “You really think I’d cold-bloodedly shoot a fellow cop for no apparent reason?”
Sakovich chewed his cigarette butt and said nothing. Lang flexed his biceps underneath his tight shirt, and Henkins sat on the couch, smiling, the cold glass of Jameson snuggled in her hands. Maybe we should’ve asked her who the hell did her in.
Down the street, an engine roared and then was killed. Lang got out of his chair, pushed the door open, and looked down the landing. “Coroner’s office,” he said.
Sakovich didn’t move. “Great,” he said, squinting through the last billows of his Newport. “Means we’ll have to take Detective Presius for a visit to Pacific.”