by Wendy Heard
I squirm, hoping to get a leg free and knee him in the groin, but he’s too close, pinning me to the wall. I can’t free my arms enough to hit him, but I get my hands up inside the prison of his chest, pinch his little man-boobs and twist them hard in opposite directions. He makes an injured rhinoceros noise and flecks of spit spray my cheek. I twist harder, my stomach roiling with revulsion.
A door opens three doors down, and an older man steps into the hallway, a canvas grocery bag on his shoulder. He sees us and stops midexit.
“Everything all right?” he asks.
Charles backs off me. He runs his hands down the front of his sweater, smoothing it out where I’d stretched it. He can’t fix his face, which is a mask of petulant fury. He shoots me one last glare and strides off down the hall in the opposite direction.
“You okay?” the older man asks me.
I put my hands up as though to push his kindness away. With Charles gone, I suddenly feel his weight on me, a delayed reaction.
“I’m fine,” I manage to answer. “It’s all good.”
The man is obviously torn between not wanting to be nosy and wanting to stick around and make sure I’m taken care of. It’s sweet.
“Honestly. I’m totally cool,” I say.
“Okay,” he says, and at last he turns to the elevator alcove and walks away.
I return to Sofia’s door and scoop all the papers up, trying not to look at them. I take them down to the trash by the stairwell, rip them into a thousand tiny pieces and put them inside the can. I realize Charles’s nasty spit must still be on my face, and suddenly, I’m sure I’m going to be sick. I lean over the trash can and wait for the vomit to come up, but my stomach settles. I spit into the trash can. My breathing slows. I’m okay. He’s gone. It’s okay.
I keep a flyer out and bring it back with me to Sofia’s door. I knock on the door and call, “It’s me.”
The door opens a little, and I note with approval that the chain lock is still on. I force a smile at her through the opening. “It’s okay, I think. It must have been Charles. I found this on the floor outside your door.” I pass the photograph to her through the opening.
She closes the door, disengages the chain lock and opens the door again. She’s wearing boxer shorts and a loose T-shirt, her hair curly and wet like she just got out of the shower. She looks behind me at the empty hallway. Barely audible, she whispers, “You can’t be here.”
“Why?”
“We can’t talk here. Tomorrow morning meet me at the Starbucks at Laurel and Riverside. In the bathroom at six thirty.”
“Okay.”
She raises her voice. “I told you not to come here. I don’t care what you think Charles is doing. I don’t want to see you anymore.”
It stings, but then I realize—she thinks we’re being watched, overheard. I don’t know from where or by whom; we’re the only people in this hallway. But I go along with it and say, “Okay,” and pull her front door shut in front of me.
My body feels creepy-crawly with the idea that someone can see me. I let my eyes roam around the hallway—casually, I hope—but I don’t see anything out of place. I guess I’ll find out what she’s talking about tomorrow morning.
I make my way back through the maze of hallways, using the stairs instead of the elevator in case Charles is still hanging around. Outside, I cross the street to the rental car and am behind the wheel, buckling my seat belt, when my eyes land on the car parked across the street.
The gray Honda. It hasn’t moved.
That’s weird. Is Charles still here?
Wait.
Two things click: Charles doesn’t drive a Honda. He drives a Lexus. The second click: Charles wasn’t wearing a hoodie. He was wearing a sweater.
Headlights flash to life a few cars in front of the Honda, and I recognize the car as Charles’s Lexus. It pulls away from the curb and heads south on Laurel, and the Honda pulls out of its spot and follows the Lexus, headlights off.
What the hell? Is this the murder club after all? Are they on their way to kill Charles?
If it is one of the murder club members, I can follow them home afterward. Maybe I can even get their murder kit if they throw it in a dumpster or something without burning it. If they kill him, his DNA will be on the needle. That’s evidence I can take to the police; this could be the break I need.
I start the car and flip a bitch, pissing off a lady in an SUV, and try to catch the Honda at Ventura Boulevard. I make it to the light as the car is turning right, and I follow it west. I’m pretty sure we’re headed to Charles’s apartment.
Sure enough, the Honda pulls up to the curb as Charles enters the parking garage. I pass both of them to go around the corner. The first floor of the parking garage is half-subterranean, and the sidewalk and flower beds abut the metal-barred, glassless windows that provide glimpses of the fluorescent-lit garage. Headlights flash around a corner, and I catch a glimpse of the Lexus’s taillights as it turns toward the parking spot I myself had staked out not so long ago.
I’m having second thoughts. Should I let them kill Charles? If he dies, could Sofia be implicated when I go to the police?
Even if it does implicate her, would she rather take her chances on the police investigation than on Charles staying alive? How could they really pin any murder on her anyway? They won’t have her fingerprints, nothing like that, not the way the murder club has this organized.
I should let it happen. I should let him die. I want him to die.
And it’s what Sofia wants. She’ll get her daughter back. I can’t ruin that for her. I can’t let that man raise her child. I won’t.
It’s strange, knowing someone’s going to die, someone I was just fighting with minutes ago. I can still feel his skin on my fist, his disgusting spit spraying my cheek—
Oh no.
We were just fighting. My DNA is all over him, and his is all over me. I’m sleeping with his ex-wife. I’m already connected to two other Blackbird crime scenes. If Charles dies here, these murders get pinned on me.
I’ve already wasted so much time. I get out of the rental car and shut the door behind me. I run along the clean, well-lit sidewalk to the Honda. I walk right up to the passenger’s window and peer inside. The car is empty. I step back and take a picture of the license plate.
I run across the sidewalk. I squash a bunch of flowers tramping through the bed to peer through a barred window down into the garage.
There’s Charles. He’s walking through the wide, half-empty garage, his face dark, glowering like an angry toddler. He’s headed for the elevators.
A flash of movement catches my eye, someone in a black hoodie leaping from behind one parked car to the other, closing in on Charles.
It’s a woman, her face half-hidden under her hood, and she’s going to catch Charles in the elevator.
I open my mouth to warn Charles, but I don’t want to be seen by this murder club lady. I flounder, panicked. My eyes land on the decorative stones that border the flower bed. I grab one, aim for a nearby Benz and heave the rock through the bars into the tinted window.
The glass splinters with a crack, and the car’s alarm wails to life. Charles jumps and searches for the sound. I pick up another rock, aim for a Toyota and hurl it through the bars. Another alarm squeals.
The woman in the hoodie has disappeared. Charles covers his ears and runs for the elevators like he’s being shot at. What a pansy. He jabs at the call button and the doors ding open like the elevator was already on this floor. He jumps in and the doors close behind him. I wish I could throw a rock at him.
The black-hooded woman emerges from behind a car on the opposite side of the garage and runs for the exit.
I turn and sprint around the corner, back toward my rental car. I need to follow this lady, but her car peels out before I can even get my key into the ignition.
Fuck.
I just ruined Sofia’s second chance at freedom. I can’t imagine she’ll ever forgive me.
32
JOAQUIN
IT FEELS SO good to be free. He doesn’t care that he got lost and had to backtrack all the way through downtown. He doesn’t care that he doesn’t have a phone. The outside world is a wonderful, wide-open place.
Downtown is a little scary at night. He shakes that off. Imagine trying to tell his friends that he crossed to the other side of the street because some lady pushing a shopping cart was talking to herself.
He shoves his hands deep in his pockets and walks faster, past a group of high school girls who ignore him completely, past a bus stop bench with a dude sleeping on it, up the hill north of downtown. He’s starving because he hasn’t eaten since breakfast, and his head feels weird and woozy. That’s probably not good.
It’s okay. Jazz will take care of it. The idea fills him with warm, soothing relief. Jazz will take him to the clinic and make them give him a bunch of blood tests—ugh—but then she’ll buy him something, she always does, and maybe he can spend the night at her apartment tonight.
He can’t go back to that creepy house where Carol has been keeping him. That old lady who owns the house is weird, and so is her daughter, the one Carol got to be friends with at the snake charmer church. All those cats—those weird lace doilies—the Bibles—he can’t go back. He’d rather be homeless or in a foster home. All those hands on him, praying for him, the voices raised up around him in fake languages... He’s done with all of it.
He passes through the Financial District, which is filled with homeless people stumbling around like a zombie apocalypse, and hurries north across one of the bridges over the 110. The railing is too low, only hip-height, and it’s easy to picture tripping and falling, splattering brains and gore onto the freeway below. He hurries past a high school, and finally, he turns right onto Jazz’s street.
The smoky aroma of barbecued meat crosses his path, and his stomach growls. He’d kill for some carne asada right now. Maybe Jazz can cook something for him real quick before she launches into Diabetes Protection Mode.
He turns left onto the outdoor path that leads to Jazz’s small building and climbs the stairs to the second floor, his heart beating fast with excitement. He stops outside Jazz’s door, runs a hand through his hair and takes a deep breath. He reaches through the bars and knocks on the front window.
He stops being excited when he realizes the apartment is dark. Maybe she’s not home.
He knocks again, louder. She might just be sleeping. Wakey wakey. He remembers how she used to get him up in the morning when he was in elementary school. She’d make a show of blasting open his curtains. “Rise and shine, little angel,” she’d croon in a high, teasing voice. “The birds are singing. The sun is shining!”
“The birds are dead,” he’d moan into his pillow.
He knocks again, louder. Come on, Jazz, be home. He doesn’t have a phone. What’s he going to do if she isn’t here?
If she were home, she’d have answered the door by now.
Now what?
A set of footsteps makes him look hopefully at the stairwell. It’s not Jazz, though; it’s a middle-aged woman with chin-length brown hair wearing office clothes. She’s got keys in her hand and is about to open the neighboring door when she spots him. “Are you all right?” she asks. She has a faint Southern accent.
“I’m fine. Just waiting for my sister.” He points at Jazz’s closed screen door.
She walks toward him. “Well, you shouldn’t wait out here alone. It’s not safe.”
“I’m fine. She’ll be back soon.”
She has mom eyes, and she pierces him with them. “You know what time she’ll be home?”
“Any minute. She’s just running a little late. I’m fine.” He wonders what age he’ll have to be for all the adults to leave him alone. He’s not a baby.
“Okay, then,” she says. She goes to put her key in the door, and then she turns back around. “You know, this isn’t the best neighborhood, and I’m not trying to be a worrywart, but I’m not sure your sister would like you having to wait out here. Her name is Jasmine, right?”
“You know her?”
“Sure. We’ve been neighbors for, gosh, two years now.” She smiles, which crinkles lines around her eyes. “Why don’t you come wait at my place? I can make you a sandwich or something. You can watch TV. It’ll be safer than waiting out here.”
Joaquin almost laughs. He’s so sure he’s gonna go into some strange lady’s apartment. He wonders how long this lady’s been in LA. Not long, obviously, if she thinks bringing random teenagers into her home is a good idea. He doesn’t want to be mean, though, so he just says, “No thanks. I’m good.”
“Well then, how ’bout this? I’m goin’ to get us a couple of chairs, and a couple of Cokes, and I’m goin’ to sit out here and wait right next to you till she gets back. Sound good?”
Oh, God. He casts a desperate look around—Jazz, where are you?—and says, “Okay. But I can’t drink Coke. I’m diabetic.”
“Lucky for you, I’m on a diet. All I got is Coke Zero. It’s pretty good, though.” She jiggles her key in the door. “Well, shit.” She glances at him guiltily. “I mean shoot. Sorry. Do you mind holding this?” She hands him her purse and the tote bag she’s carrying. The bag is heavy, and he glances inside it. Books. Of course. He bets this lady is a teacher. She fights with her key again, but she can’t get it to turn. “Well, drat it, you know, maybe I will be stuck out here with you whether I like it or not. Here, you want to give it a try?”
They trade keys for bags, and Joaquin tries to get the little silver key into the door handle of the metal screen door. He flips it over, but it won’t go in. He tries it the original way, flat side down, but no luck.
He examines it in the dim lighting. “You sure this is the right key? It doesn’t even really fit.”
A pinch in his side—a burning, cold sensation. He cries out and drops the keys.
The woman is holding a syringe in latex-gloved hands. Her expression has changed. It looks dangerous.
He opens his mouth to yell, tries to get his legs to turn and run, but he slips and topples down to the ground. He tries to scream, but she drops down by his side, and a piece of duct tape is suddenly covering his mouth.
He tries to push himself up. Be strong, fight.
“Nighty night,” she says, and the Southern accent is gone.
33
NIELSEN
THE STREETLIGHT FLICKERS a sickly orange onto the eight-foot-high, tarp-covered chain-link fence. Circles of barbed wire loop around the top of the fence, and a single open gate reveals piles of car parts within. Four squad cars train spotlights on the gate, illuminating the junk with a fluorescent glow, like Jesus himself is going to step out of the scrap yard and welcome them all to heaven.
A detective Nielsen’s never seen before greets him when he pulls up in his car. Nielsen gets out and gives her a nod. “I’m Nielsen. I’m lead on this case.”
“Chen. Yeah, they told me to expect you.” They shake hands—she has a tough, manly handshake to go with the buzz cut—and she leads him through the open gate. “A call came through about a blue Toyota truck getting stripped in here, so we sent uniforms to check it out. And it’s the truck you’re looking for, correct plates, everything.”
“Forensics?”
“On their way.”
“Where are the owners of this shop?” He looks around for anyone who seems to work here.
She grins. “Yeah right. Entire block’s dead silent. Everyone dematerialized when the squad cars showed up.” She leads him past a pile of parts, an old El Camino and a skeleton of a Honda Civic to a blue Toyota truck minus the doors and tires.
She points to the driver’s side door, which hangs ajar. “C
onfirmed VIN. They haven’t even had time to file that off yet.”
“Don’t let anyone near this until Forensics arrives.” He peers inside the truck, careful not to touch anything. There’s the dried blood Marcus told him about, smeared all over the driver’s seat.
He circles the truck, arms crossed, deep in thought. The police spotlights cast evanescing shadows around the scrap yard. He tries to piece together the chronology.
Jasmine left the station yesterday afternoon. Apparently, she went to Kevin Stanley’s house and spent the night there. Gonzalez is interviewing witnesses and says at least a dozen people place her there. One girl, a casual romantic partner of Kevin Stanley’s, even confirmed Jasmine was there all night.
And then what?
Well, she must have left in the morning at some point. And Blackbird must have arrived and found his bird flown. He would have been pissed about having missed her again, and he killed Kevin and tried to track her down. Maybe that’s what sent him to the church; maybe he was hoping to find her there.
Oh, shit. Maybe it worked. Maybe she did go to the church. Here’s her truck, and she’s gone. He tries to frame the church scene in that context, and he can’t make it fit, but he feels like he’s getting closer.
Here’s the million-dollar question. Forget everything else. How did Blackbird find Jasmine at Kevin’s house in the first place?
An idea hits Nielsen, fast and hot.
He drops to his knees, pulls a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket and starts feeling around under the truck. Chen asks what he’s looking for, but he ignores her. He crawls around until his hand encounters exactly what he expected. He lies down on his back. “Flashlight,” he yells at Chen. He holds his hand out and a flashlight is shoved into it. He flicks it on and gets a look up under the car.
There it is.
He laughs, an abrupt, triumphant sound.
Chen crouches by his side. “What is it?”
“A tracking device.” Nielsen grins. I’m on you now, fucker. “Get me a wrench, pliers, something. This thing is bolted onto the tire well.”