by Jeff Klima
The door is ajar, only slightly, and I can hear nothing from inside the room, which scares me further. The neon hum of the sign out front kicks on again, startling me, and I hesitate a moment before gripping the doorknob and yanking the thin door shut, fiercely. They say that in an emergency situation, you never yell “Help” or “Rape,” because no one will come; instead, you’re supposed to yell “Fire.” And so I do.
Screaming “Fire” at the top of my lungs as soon as I yank the door to 236 closed has the twofold effect of rousting everyone in the vicinity and causing the masked man to go for the door’s handle inside, which I cling to outside, preventing his exit. At this point, the woman inside the room begins screaming, having apparently no idea of the danger she’d almost been in, instead focusing on the considerably lessened danger she might still be in. The blade of the knife punches through the midst of the door, just below the peephole, its tip coming shockingly close to my face. I lean to the side as the knife is drawn abruptly back through the door, disappearing to the other side. The man slams against the door, aggressively trying to splinter the wood, which mercifully holds. “Someone get out here, goddamnit!” I scream, glancing around into the dark parking lot. I can see the lights have beamed on in most of the rooms to my right and left, but thus far no one has emerged to heed my warning. Either they are certain that I am a loony crackhead in the grasp of a particularly potent hallucination, or they too know the trick about yelling “Fire” instead of “Help.”
The woman in 236 is delirious now, making a sort of gagging wailing scream that irritates me through my terror. “Lady, shut up in there,” I yell, desperate. In that instant, she does, and I hear the curtains of the room’s large picture window draw open. “Someone help! Help me!” I beg of the emptiness around me. The window explodes violently outward, spraying glass over the lip of the veranda and down to the pavement below, as the room’s sole chair smashes through and bounces onto the concrete walkway. Knife first, the masked man steps through the window, kicking out some of the remaining shards of glass as he does. I find myself, eyes drawn to the blade, releasing the doorknob and taking a step back. He is only slightly broader than myself, and maybe an inch taller, but he seems to loom large as he stands facing me, his black workman’s boots with their waffle tread grinding the glass beneath him. The woman inside rightly begins to cry now, and it is far more tolerable than her screams. “Don’t do anything stupid,” I tell the man, who appears to be considering just such a thing. Instead, he turns and runs down the veranda, away from me, disappearing around the corner. Adrenaline threatening to explode from my veins, I give chase, leaping over the chair and after him. Rounding the corner, I feel a white-hot burn across my forearm as I crash into the attacker, who, waiting for me, has gashed open the soft meat near my wrist. My body impacts against his and I feel his strength push back against me, forcing me harshly off balance and into the steel side of the ice machine.
Repositioning, he swings the blade again, higher, hoping to plant it beneath my chin, but I instinctively move in toward it, throwing off his leverage. He slashes once more, cutting air, and then is off, running down the walkway along the front of the building. I assess myself quickly, making sure there is nothing more wrong than the slice on my arm, and then am off again, furious that I let him ambush me.
Seeing that I’m still in pursuit, the man uses his momentum and gloved free hand to vault over the railing of the veranda and down onto the roof of an old orange van parked below. Landing hard, he slides down the side of the vehicle and onto the pavement while I continue toward the stairwell ahead.
Leaping down the first row of steps, I crash into the guardrail, wounding my arm further, and twist to race down the second set of concrete stairs. He is sprinting all-out ahead of me, but I see he is favoring his right leg some, and I know I can catch him. As long as I can keep him in front of me and tackle him from behind, his knife won’t be a factor.
As he runs out of the driveway to the Offramp Inn with me on his heels, I can see the shift in his movements; he’s become more erratic, leaving the familiarity of the motel’s property and heading out on the open street. More erratic means more indecisive, and every stutter step he takes brings me that much closer to him. It also makes him more dangerous, though. He moves out across an intersection, the off-ramp for the 118 at his right, and suddenly he is heading in that direction, running down the paved exit onto the freeway. He veers to the left as a car comes barreling up, barely avoiding a collision that would’ve scattered him above and beneath the engine block of the Volvo station wagon. The driver leans on his horn, unaware that had he hit the man, he almost certainly would have been a hero. I give reluctant chase down the ramp, blood dripping off my elbow, and out onto the service lane, pursuing the man as he runs down the westbound side of the freeway. Cars scream past us, speeding, taking advantage of the late hour, oblivious to the drama on the shoulder.
The lights of a barreling semi illuminate us in a blinding stream of brilliant white light. Putting my good arm up, I stare through the glare to see my assailant dart out in front of the truck, its driver pulling the air horn a second too late. I anticipate the sickening thud of the man in black being yanked and burst beneath the semi’s front tire as it shuttles past. The wind swirls around the huge truck, nearly knocking me off my feet, but I hear nothing, and the truck continues on through the night. It takes only a second for the truck to clear me, but I have come to a dead stop, and can only bear witness to the would-be killer, somehow still intact, running horizontally toward the median, stopping just short of splashing across the windshield of an SUV. Once that passes, he is onto the median, and over the center divider, crossing the freeway for the other side, and out to safety. I stand and watch, gasping for breath, irritated. My right arm feels sticky now, and I have nothing to show for it. The man, still wearing his ski mask, knows I am not going to follow him across the busy freeway and stops beneath a light pole where he is bathed in a beam of muted yellow light. The knife tucked back into its sheath on his belt, he raises both hands and flips me off. Lifting only my bloodied arm, I respond in kind. Then he turns, and goes jogging west, opposite traffic once more, and I watch him disappear down the length of the curving freeway.
—
I walk back to the motel, exhausted, wearily expecting it to be a sea of red and blue police lights, but there is nothing. No people milling outside, no noises from the victim’s room, only the same steady hum of the sign out front. The busted-out window and the chair, lying on its back amidst the iceberg-like plates of jagged glass, are the only proof that I haven’t dreamt the entire thing. Even the woman is gone, her suitcase missing, and it looks as if she’s split rather than involve herself further. Just another rat accepting its continued existence and moving on about its business—she’s probably right, though.
Incredulous, I take my leave of the Offramp Inn and its clientele, nosing the Charger for home. I’ll call Ivy and tell her the news in the morning—she deserves that much. There’s not much we can do about any of it tonight, and besides, I’m seriously overdue for a dose. My arm is sore, but the bleeding has stopped, and the wound seems largely superficial. I damn near died tonight because I stuck my nose somewhere it didn’t belong, though. And it was all because of some peroxide blonde with a soft spot for humanity. As I drive, I tell myself that this is a mistake I will not repeat.
Chapter 8
A Harold phone call wakes me just after 10 a.m. to pester me with news of another decomposing-body job—an old, dead alcoholic, at 5124 De Longpre Avenue. I scribble out the address on my nightstand when I can’t find a piece of paper. A dead alcoholic means there’ll be plenty of black blood and phlegm to contend with—exactly what I don’t need today. “There is more,” says Harold, his voice nervously choppy. “You have been found out. They here protesting. Handing out flyers.”
Fuck. “I’m sorry, boss. They shouldn’t be doing that. I’ll deal with it.”
“I appreciate.”
/> Goddamn media coverage. I dress quickly, not showering, but take the time to rewrap and tape the bandage to my arm. It’s actually more of an old black T-shirt that I tear a strip off of, but it does the trick. Just once I wish that Harold would take on a job, cover this one for me, and that I could stay in bed with the sheets up to my forehead, recuperating. But he hasn’t gone out on a job since he hired me, and he seems determined to keep it that way.
As I wind the wrap around my forearm, trying to get a firm hold but not cut off the circulation, my phone vibrates on the nightstand. “Damn it, Harold, I’m going,” I mutter. It’s Ivy, though, but I’m in no mood to have that conversation. I send the call to voicemail and put on my Trauma-Gone windbreaker to hide the bandage. Annoyingly, the phone begins ringing once again. She and Harold have something in common this way. “Tom,” I answer.
“Don’t just send me off to voicemail, fucker,” Ivy chides.
“I’ve got work to do.”
“I haven’t heard from you.”
“I hadn’t had a reason to call,” I say with a shrug.
“And now?”
“We’ll talk later.”
“You at a job?”
“Going to be,” I say.
“Anything you need help with?”
“No. You should be out trying to get a new job.”
“I got one—Daddy Long Legs on Figueroa, you know it?”
“No.”
“You should come by tonight. After four. And you’d better spill the dirt.”
“We’ll see.”
“Don’t be a—”
I hang up before she can finish.
—
Walking out of the stairwell and past the superintendent’s door, I hear strains of snoring against the backdrop of The Price Is Right. Ms. Park-Hallsley is the only woman I know of who snores like this. It is not an endearing trait and quite possibly the reason she lives alone. I’m sure that, though she is asleep now, when I return home later I will find another note reminding me to amend my late-night habits.
I get to my car and realize there is a note tucked under the windshield wiper. At first, I think I’ve been ticketed. I glance around for some sign regarding parking enforcement, but know there isn’t one. When I unfold the unsigned white paper note, it simply reads: Whoops! I followed you home. Now I know where you live. Tense, I scan the people and cars immediately surrounding me—the construction crew across the street working the pavement, the man in tight, colorful spandex walking his Chihuahua—seeking out someone paying attention. It isn’t a joke and it isn’t an accident. Fuck. Not this. Folding the paper back up, I do my damnedest to not look concerned. If he wanted me dead, likely an attempt would have already been made. With at least fifteen kills in just over three months, he isn’t exactly the patient sort. Putting the envelope in my glove box, I nose the Charger out into traffic and the beginnings of what is doubtless going to be a very long day.
I watch, almost obsessively, as I drive, looking to see if I am being followed. If I am, the last thing I want is to give him any more information about me than he already has, so I take a long, meandering route to Trauma-Gone headquarters, blasting through yellow lights as necessary, staring in my rearview to see who does the same. But this is Los Angeles and everybody runs the yellows and early reds here. During this time, Harold buzzes me three times, wanting to know where I am. I imagine the pressure of picketers has gotten him a little testy. It’s gotta be Hank and Julie Kelly plus members of their congregation—it was the last time too. The Kellys don’t like me very much.
I pull in to the industrial complex and, driving up, I see the cluster of about eight picketers, men and women, with Hank Kelly and his silver hair standing taller than the rest. The presence of a vehicle makes them mobilize and shake their picket signs in the direction of my car. They can’t possibly know it’s me yet, but when they do, they will boo and hiss and attempt to block my path with their signage. They will not actually go so far as to assault me; no, they figure I might actually call the police on them for that, though I wouldn’t. The tactics they’d used before, when they got me fired from Home Depot (and a cafe before that), would be to disrupt the flow of my work, create a presence of fear about me in my coworkers and employees at neighboring businesses, and to harangue my management about their willingness to hire a child murderer.
Their picketing signs are of the same variety, essentially, that they’ve used before. Hank holds his “Tom Tanner killed my daughter” sign, and because of his height, it is considerably taller than the others, but they too read things such as, “8 years does not equal LIFE,” “Remember Holly,” and “Justice is NOT served.” Some new ones they’ve got especially for my current job read, “Don’t let a convicted killer into your house,” “Trauma-Gone hires MURDERERS,” and “Mr. Tanner has a taste for death, time to put him DOWN.” None of them are particularly clever, but previously they’ve been annoyingly effective in their efforts to disrupt my life.
I park just past the roll-up door for the warehouse and now they realize. The “boos” start when I exit my car. Harold comes anxiously to the front door at this, and gestures for me to come inside quickly, but I ignore him, striding right up to Mr. Kelly. “Get lost, Hank.”
“Never.” His eyes are flinty and gray and I can see the hate in them, but there is exhaustion in there too. The exhaustion is new. He’s a square, handsome ex-LAPD lieutenant who, way back when, probably played some football for an Ivy League school. He wants to hit me—violence has always been Hank’s inclination since I met him over a decade ago. He was an angry man in the courthouse then, and he still retains that scorched ball of raw fire burning through his retinas now. But he’s weakening, I note with a small dose of satisfaction. Clinging to that much anger for so long is taking its toll on the large man. You’re going to die soon, I think, matching stares with him.
That heart will give up on you, and I’ll still be here. Such poisonous thoughts cannot often be contained, and I seldom try; Hank Kelly is my enemy. As much as I have ruined his life, he has striven to ruin what is left of mine.
“What are you going for this time?”
“Your employer seems to know what kind of person he’s hired, so we’re making sure his neighbors know what sort of company your employer keeps.”
I glance around for other signs of life in the complex, but so far, it seems to be just my protesters and me. “This isn’t like Home Depot, Hank.”
“It’s worse,” Julie Kelly chimes in, she wielding her sign, “Thou Shalt Not KILL,” like a staff. “You feed off of the misery of others.” I feel the skin on the back of my neck pop and tingle and I exhale slowly through my gritted teeth to calm down. The group is not bold and they seem to use Hank as a shield behind which they align themselves.
“What would you like me to do instead?”
“Die slowly in a jail cell,” Hank says, and the others chirp their approval.
“You accepted the plea deal,” I remind him coldly.
He puts his arm around Julie and pulls her close. “We regret it now. Every single day since you got out. We were assured you would die in there. My officers said they knew people.”
“I guess they knew the wrong people.” Actually, they’d been damn close to the right people, but I’m not about to give Hank the satisfaction.
“You don’t feel a darn bit of remorse for it, do you?”
There is nothing he can do to me legally at this point, so I decide to burn his ass. “Not even a little bit.”
I sincerely believe it will be the phrase to push him over the top, but he holds his composure, his fist gritted against his thigh. “You…monster,” he growls.
“I’ve got work to do.”
From inside the warehouse, where I load my work truck, I can hear outside they’ve started a chant of “We want justice.” Harold stands aloof, watching me from the doorway to the office.
“What should we do?” he finally asks.
“Not a damn thing.
This isn’t like Home Depot, they can’t pressure me out, unless you cave and get rid of me.”
“I won’t do. You my number one employee.”
“Right now, I’m your only employee.”
“All more reason.”
“It might get worse.”
“We deal with it.”
“Thanks.”
“Now, hurry to crime scene. There is money to be make.”
When I hit the button for the large roll-up door, Hank and his little group move in front of it, attempting to block me from driving out. They start their chant again, but Harold runs out to them from the office with his cell phone extended to the air. “I call police,” he hollers at them. “I call police right now.”
“We’ll follow him,” Hank commands to his flock. “We’ll go where he goes and warn the innocent.” They move for their cars, but I shoot out of the garage, my truck tires spinning briefly, and I lay some rubber. Gunning it, I am gone from the complex before any of them can get behind me.
—
Just after five, I return to base, my truck bed full of carpeting and dismantled mattress. The man had been left to rot for so long he’d actually melted through the bed he died on and down into the flooring beneath it. The place had stunk of decomposition and fetid hooch; in fact, two of the trash bags were full of nothing but empty bottles that he’d contaminated with his drippings.
By the time I reach our office, both Harold and the protesters have gone. Before they’d left, though, the protesters had stuck one of their flyers on my car. Glancing, I see it is the same one they’d been handing out at Home Depot, with my mug shot and the story of how Holly and I came to intersect. I crumple the flyer and toss it down onto the passenger floorboards of the Charger. At least that takes one flyer out of circulation.