by Sue Perry
Nica of Los Angeles
(Frames, Book 1)
by
Sue Perry
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2014 Sue Perry
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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For official legalese, here is the Creative Commons license.
This is a work of fiction. If you find resemblance to actual persons, places, or events you have a terrific imagination!
Cover art by Lars Huston.
Table of Contents
Dedication
1. Must Have Spooked Me
2. As Stable As Old Dynamite
3. Wary Of Clouds
4. The Lie Oozed Around Us
5. Crazyass Beauty
6. For The Beginning Traveler
7. His Immobile Axis
8. The Defiance Of A Lightning Rod
9. One Mighty Big Compass
10. Do You Prefer This To Be A Dream?
11. Cats Have Only Their Own Side
12. A Memory To Cherish
13. The Last Kid In Line To Talk To Santa
14. I Don't Do Mistrust
15. At First Glimpse He Terrified Me
16. Some Questions About Her Disappearance
17. Shady Or Legit?
18. Denying Black Doesn't Make It White
19. And Raspberries
20. No One Waits To Enter That Connector
21. Here Is A Tumor
22. I Had A Rat Inside My Head
23. For All The Dead, Vanished So Easily
24. They Won't Know To Look For Her Here
25. I Thought Of The Dangers Facing Miles
26. The Future I'd Dreaded For Years
27. Queen Latifah On Nitrous Oxide
28. Toto Was Not In Kansas Anymore
29. I Have A Toy Duck
30. The Last Thing I Remember
31. I Never Met A Volcano Before
32. Visions Of A New World
33. Good Luck Restoring Your Honor
34. When Pieces Began To Fall
35. He Shouldn't Look Smug
36. A Plot Cunningly Executed
37. I'm A Neutral Not A Child
38. I Am A Warrior Not A Liar
39. A What-If Explosion
40. You Will Know
Acknowledgments
About the Author
For Rhiannon
1. Must Have Spooked Me
The older I get, the more feral I become. I'd been inside all this fine day and if I didn't inhale some outdoor air soon, I couldn't be held responsible. The air didn't have to be fresh, just open. I tipped back in my chair, back so far my thighs squeezed the undersides of the desk to keep me upright. From this position, I caught a hint of breeze through the gaping skylight and spied a wisp of cloud idling in an unexpectedly blue sky.
"Are you like even listening to what I'm telling you?" the prospective client whined and flicked her hair, which lay like a doormat down her back. I pondered the chicken and egg of her. Which comes first, being a tweaker or being a moron? Whatever the answer it was a tight race.
I glanced up one last time before I answered, surprised by my yearning for that view. I'd spent many hours staring at this patch of sky. I didn't know it would be my last chance for a leisurely gaze. I didn't know that three pairs of clients were about to take over my life. I only knew that I wanted this creep out of my office. From somewhere I mustered a tone of professional politesse. "Every time, you bet. You want me to find the men who took your black duffel bag. You don't happen to remember what was in the bag, but the bag itself is what matters. It was inherited from your grandmother and that's why you want it back. You don't want to involve the police because you are kind-hearted. What if the men took the bag by mistake, why get them in trouble - should I get you a towel?"
She had swiped her forehead with her hand and then, to get the sweat off her fingers, ran them along the seat of my client chair, leaving tracks like a slug race. And that was the classiest thing about her. "This hot flash shit is a bitch," she chuckled. "Menopause. You know."
"I can't wait." I needed to get her out of my office before she crashed. Ladies and gentlemen, the meth has left her building. I walked to the outer door and, as intended, she followed me. "I'll be honest with you, Miss Fitzpatrick, this kind of work can be very expensive, you might prefer to - hi, there."
Sitting on the floor across the hall was another one. Not exactly a matched set, though they had in common complexions like cheap stucco. This one was picking at the scabs on his bald spot. I'll spare you the rest of the description, no point ruining all our dinners. He stood when he saw us, looked to my would-be client for guidance about whether to return my greeting.
"How much per day?" she demanded.
"Three thousand plus expenses."
Sorry and surprised to say she didn't flinch. "How much up front?"
"Five days," I continued to ad-lib. Surely now we would say adieu.
"Three days here, the rest by tomorrow." She dragged a wad of bills from her purse. The outer bills were crusted with something that looked like dried puke. I didn't want to know and I certainly didn't want to touch that cash. But I hadn't priced myself out of the job, as intended. Instead, I had made it difficult to turn these creeps away. This was real and serious money, enough to help Jenn with her medical bills. I shouldn't say no just because the clients were shall we say repellent. And yet.
I held the bills with my fingernails as I handed them back. "I couldn't start until I have the full advance, and anyway I couldn't start for several weeks because I have to finish another case first."
Mathead gave me a witch's smile. "We'll be back with the full amount tomorrow. You'll find a way to fit us in."
I had about 24 hours to devise a better turndown.
I just so happened to be going out too, I claimed, as I escorted them into the elevator. I wanted to see them exit my building. What creeped me out the most was the way Scabman made tiny sucking sounds like he had a hard candy in his mouth except he didn't.
"That must be quite a duffel bag," I said. "Now, I need to advise you, as I do all my clients, that a private investigator is just a hired hand, no special rights, nothing like attorney-client privilege." The tiny sucking sounds stopped and the air in the elevator got very still. "Should it turn out that the duffel bag contains illegal goods - such as if the guys who stole it put them there - I would have to notify the authorities."
"You won't have anything to tell anybody," the woman assured me, and for an instant her overworked pupils were windows to a very dark place.
If you take shit you'll eat shit. I knew enough about tweakers to know that I couldn't let them think she'd intimidated me. Although she had.
"Gee. That sounds like, I don't know, almost like a threat." My phony puzzlement ended in a smile like a bear trap. "Threats are not - recommended."
Her eyes flashed once then she bailed on our staredown.
The tiny sucking sounds resumed. I turned my back on the duo to watch our descent. The elevator indicated floors with a dial like a sundial. The sharp nose of the dial speared the 5, the 4, the 3. I felt Scabman's eyes exploring my back. I wondered what it feels like to get a knife in the kidney.
Love that ground floor. I held the door for them like it was mine to control.
Maybe thi
s detective thing wasn't such a fun idea after all. I watched them head down the street like parasites between hosts. The homeless guy at the alley looked down as they approached and did not ask them for change. I watched them until they were so far away as to be indistinguishable from the pedestrians who had good reason to be on this street. The instant I lost sight of the duo, I looked over my shoulder in case they were closing in. Behind me, sunlight flashed off the lenses of countless bobbing sunglasses and the smog shimmered in the July heat. I retreated inside my building, pretending I had decided against a walk because it was too hot.
What I needed was to prop myself against a wall and hyperventilate. This was the first time I had met Mathead and Scabman, but it wasn't the first time I had encountered them. Now that they were gone, I felt safe to dwell on the previous time. The disgusting duo had previously ruined a perfectly good dream. Yes, that is exactly what I mean. I dreamed about Mathead and Scabman before I met them.
I love dreams and it would be a kick to be psychic. But not if it means spending extra time with those two. And not if it means having pointless dreams. Dreaming of clients I won't take - that's like dreaming of washing broken dishes.
It had been a peculiar snippet of nightmare in an otherwise luxurious dream. I ran through a field of soft amber grass under a sky colored like bruises. A man and woman rose up to block my way. They resembled Mathead and Scabman, but the dream denizens were larger and edged in red like burning coals. I awoke at their snarls, to find myself sweating much as I was doing now, propped against this cool marble wall.
I don't like coincidences and there was no reasonable explanation for their appearance in my dream. Certainly, Mathead and Scabman deserved to be in nightmares, but I had only met them today. I must I have backfilled my dream memories, adding their images. They must have spooked me more than I could admit.
Good thing I stopped smoking. This would have been a perfect time to light up fast, but my hands were shaking so hard I would have put out the flame. And that would have been frustrating.
Get a grip, Nica. The marble wall at my back was smooth and cool; the lobby was dim and quiet. A perfect antidote to the July streets. The lobby lights made a warm buzz like bees in lavender. In this moment, life was good. Stay in this moment.
I needed to be physical. As a revised constitutional, I took the stairs, all ten flights, to the hidden garden on the roof. I can't yet make all ten flights in one gasp. I climb a couple flights, then walk through the building to the stairwell on the other side, then climb a couple more.
On one of the lateral treks, I heard three no two voices arguing in Spanish. Their discussion paused when they saw me turn the corner. The custodian who subs for Jay clenched the handle of the mop and looked everywhere but at the faces of a man and woman who had their backs to me but heads swiveled to watch my approach. I must have been dismissed as pure gringo because they resumed their discussion.
Not so pure, as it turns out, and I understood enough Spanish to get that the man and woman were looking for a girl and they thought Jay's substitute knew where she was. The couple was accusing or pleading or both. Jay's sub wasn't holding up his end of the conversation. No. Si. No and a venomous lo siento. So it wasn't just me he refused to converse with. As I passed them they stopped talking again. "Howdy, what up?" I offered, to reassure them that I couldn't possibly understand a word they were saying.
Jay's sub whispered that I was a private investigator. I considered turning back to introduce myself but instead pushed through the door to the south side stairs. Not the best time to reveal my comprehension.
Back in the stairwell, I slipped off my sandals and left them on the landing. Ah, that was what I needed. I loved the stairwells in my building. The white marble steps were sculpted moonlight and perennially cold. Stepping here today was better than a foot massage.
Everything changed on floor ten, though. The tenth story penthouse and the roof access had concrete steps in a separate stairwell with separate doors. When I went up those cement stairs, I felt like I had moved to another building. Today, the temperature leapt thirty degrees and I was panting by the time I opened the door to the roof. I squinted against the wind that always gusted there and headed for the secret green rectangle, the garden hidden to all but air traffic, known only to its creator, Jay, and his co-conspirators.
As soon as I got around the stairwell I could see the wall of fragrant vines, the only sign of life unless you count pigeon droppings. Sweet pea, wisteria, jasmine, clematis, and others I couldn't name. A frayed lawn chair nestled under the vines in the shade.
In the past, when Jay left his lawn chair out, that meant he anticipated a short absence. But I hadn't seen him for at least four days. He must have underestimated this absence. More family trouble, I had to assume. On a good day, his family got along like boulders in a flooded creek. I had better take over the garden's watering.
Summer in Los Angeles. From here you could see the mountains, except not until October when the air cleared. In the old days when smog was smog, the sky would have been a toasty brown. Today it was dingy. The euphemism was hazy and the haze did mute the sun, so with just a few steps to reach the garden's shade, I might make it without heat stroke.
I could still feel the grit of Mathead's money on my fingertips, so I rubbed them in the loamy soil. Uh oh. Several plants had broken or missing limbs. Had the hawk divebombed? Was the garden attracting rats? No - the destruction was too broad for those explanations. Even odder, there was an empty patch and the plants that circled it were failing, with leaves in limp collapse.
Maybe the missing plants had left behind identifiable roots - I started to dig with my hands, hunting roots. At my disturbance, earwigs swarmed. Just beneath the surface, this soil was soggy, laced with mold, and exuded a metallic odor. It smelled like dirt might smell if a bucket of blood had soaked into it.
A helicopter churned the haze overhead and I ducked to slip behind a spider web that was a marvel of sophisticated symmetry. As I waited for the 'copter to pass, a bee hiked my arm toward my yellow tanktop. I was flattered to be mistaken, even briefly, for a pollen source. I felt a tiny pressure as the bee pushed off my skin and flew toward the sage.
Jay would know what to do about the blood-?-soaked dirt. I sure the hell didn't. Calling the cops could lead to unfortunate revelations. The building owner would likely learn about the existence of the roof garden, which she might not consider an asset. The cops would ask my home address, which was not supposed to match my office address - this building was not zoned residential. I'd only met the owner twice and she seemed like a good egg, but perhaps lacking in the imagination necessary to expand her building's potential beyond mundane barriers like zoning and safety regulations.
What would blood-soaked dirt really smell like? Maybe this wasn't blood but a fertilizer application that backfired in the sudden heat wave. How silly to involve police or building management in a gardening error.
Trying to decide if I bought that line of reasoning, I eased myself into Jay's vacant lawn chair. The heat smog chopper bees. Maybe I fell asleep. My eyes were still open, yet I no longer viewed what was in front of me. I saw shadows in a world that was cobalt as though the sun had long ago set. But the birds that were chirping only sing during the day - and I felt the sun's heat. So it was daytime, but I was nearly blind. The plants were thick shadows in the dark air. A faint breeze tapped leaves together like whispers through silk. Across the garden, a ladybug clicked its shell against a twig. A weight pressed evenly across my thighs and from this weight came an overpowering smell of dirt, as though my lap held invisible bags of soil amendment. Off-pitch whistles and thin scrapes came from a shadow that dipped left then right, left then right. It sounded like Jay, whistling as he raked soil. The whistling stopped and my sensations became a barrage of intense impressions.
"What? No! Aaaaaaah. No! Unh! Please! No! Aaaurrrgg." It was Jay's voice and in a few seconds it changed from horrified surprise to terrified struggle. Grunt
s became gurgles. Plant branches snapped, leaves ripped. "Danny! I love you!" Danny was his son.
Warm liquid exploded from the direction of Jay's shadow, stinging when it hit me. I inhaled liquid and choked, jumped from the chair, knocking it over. The choking eased. The metallic taste faded. I was back on a hot roof squinting in July sun.
First I added Mathead to a dream and now this, this, vision of Jay's demise. Did I mistakenly order my latte psychedelic this morning?
I needed to convince myself that Jay was okay. Heading downstairs, I exited the stairs at each floor and crossed the hall to the other stairs, in order to find the substitute custodian and determine what he might know about Jay's absence. I walked every hall in my descent to the lobby, then checked the custodian’s closet in the subbasement. Nobody nowhere. No how. I stopped in the building office. The building manager had not heard from Jay since last time I asked. Unlike me, the manager assumed Jay had found a better job and not bothered to give notice.
I once worked at a cellular service provider, so I know how to get information I shouldn't have. As I returned to my office, I made some calls and determined that Jay's cell phone was last used four days prior, on the day he last worked. I set this knowledge aside until I knew what to do with it.
It wasn't only Jay I should be concerned about. At a minimum, these Technicolor visions were telling me my subconscious needed my attention. In which case I needed to stop thinking. So as I walked, I focused on my building.
I love my building, although it is neither a friendly nor a welcoming place. If buildings were people, this one would be Margo Channing. I should warn you I don't make as many distinctions as some would like between fictional characters and beings who breathe. In this great big world over all this time, surely everyone who has been imagined could also actually exist, including that fabulous diva Margo.