The Perpetual Summer

by Adam Walker Phillips

  The idea was that once Hector delivered the money to the requested spot, Badger and I would watch the area for the individual who picked it up. Part of me wished it would be Jeanette, despite the complications that would involve. But deep down I knew that was an unlikely scenario. The more logical outcome would be that whoever picked up the money was behind her disappearance, and possible death. We weren’t going to let that person out of our sight.

  “I’m on point,” Badger explained. “I can reconnoiter from the shield wall on the platform.” Badger was using an inordinate amount of military lingo for my taste and I could see it was grating on Hector as well.

  “If you screw this up,” Hector warned, “I will kill you.”

  “Listen, chief, I know what I’m doing.”

  “He does this for a living,” I added, but it had little effect on changing Hector’s overall mood.

  “You brought him,” Hector reminded me. It was clear that in Hector’s mind, the threat toward Badger also included me. We all wanted to do this right, but Hector was the only one who really had something to lose.

  We tested our cell phones for good coverage and established a three-way text as a communication channel. As Badger’s “ROGER THAT” text buzzed in, Hector stomped off to his sedan and drove away.

  Badger set off to the train station on foot, while I got in my car and drove the short distance to a spot just on the edge of complete desolation where the industrial buildings ended and the run down to the LA River began. There was a bus stop inexplicably placed on this stretch of road like a last stop to nowhere. Even more perplexing than its existence was the fact that four or five people were waiting in the glass structure. It looked like a perfect cover for me to watch the proceedings in the park below.

  I shuffled over to the bus shelter and mingled among the riders. There were two old Asian ladies with canvas sacks full of leafy vegetables; one also had what appeared to be a plastic bag of chicken feet. The other three were Latino laborers either coming from or on their way to a nondescript manufacturing center on the other side of the river. They had the tired eyes of those on the eternal night shift.

  The tie and jacket were left behind in the backseat of my car but I was still odd man out in my pressed pants and recently shined loafers. And while the coterie of late-evening riders watched with longing eyes for any signs of the bus emerging from the flickering neon of old Chinatown, I was fixated on the black pool of park below me, a flat mass broken only by evenly spaced lampposts and their white circles of light.

  My cell phone hummed with a text from Badger: “IN POSITION.” I replied that I was in position as well, but a third confirmation never came from Hector. Not that I expected one, but it would be better if we communicated at a high level during this maneuver. I regretted not giving my “over-communication” lecture before we disbanded from the bakery parking lot. It was ingrained in the corporate world that there is no such thing as too much communication. This pervasive “feedback loop” resulted in in-boxes filling up with “FYI” emails at a five-per-minute clip. But in a scenario like the one we were in, knowing everything was vital.

  It was still five minutes from the appointed time when Hector was to deliver the duffel bag of money, but that didn’t keep me from checking my watch every thirty seconds. Of all the people in the bus shelter, I was the most impatient. They had the resigned looks of people waiting for a ride that was perpetually late.

  I spotted Hector.

  He was a solitary figure in a white shirt that flared up as he passed under each pool of lamplight. He moved with purpose despite the heavy load slung over his shoulder. I scanned the park but saw no other activity. He was close to the drop point, a garbage can near the center of the park.

  “LOCKED ON TARGET” came the text from Badger.

  Hector approached the garbage can and let the heavy duffel slip from his shoulder into his hand. He placed the bag on the ground right on the edge of the cone of light from a nearby lamp. I could barely make out the dark lump from this distance. Hector turned and headed back toward Spring Street.

  Around me came the rustling of bags and shuffling feet. Barreling down on us was the 762 bus to Boyle Heights, a brightly lit number with a few ghost-like passengers and a driver cast in shadow. As my shelter-mates formed a makeshift line, I turned back to the park and looked for any activity. There was none. I strained my eyes on the spot where Hector left the bag but couldn’t quite make out if it was still there. I shielded my eyes from the glare of the oncoming headlights but still struggled to see anything in the darkness. The whine of bus brakes squelched behind me and the doors exhaled to let on the passengers. After a moment came a voice.

  “You coming?” asked the driver. I waved him off without turning around. “There ain’t no other bus than this one,” he came again.

  “I’m good, I’m good,” I said.

  The driver brought the doors in and pulled back into the street, leaving a plume of exhaust that got caught up in the shelter.

  “TARGET IS IN PLAY” came another text from Badger.

  Again I scanned the area but didn’t see anything. I replied, asking for clarification.

  “HAS THE BAG MOVED?”

  “TARGET IS IN PLAY” repeated the text.

  “FOR FUCK’S SAKE HAS THE BAG MOVED?” I rattled back.

  Badger replied with one word: “AFFIRMATIVE.”

  I saw nothing, just the same dark landscape with the white polka dots. But then something moved in and out of one of those dots. I trained my eye on the next one and after a moment the figure appeared again under its harsh light and then slipped back into the black. It looked like a man pushing something. My eyes jumped ahead and waited. He came into view again and this time I got a better look at him. He wore a long, dark coat and pushed a shopping cart filled with something a good foot above its sides. He moved back into the darkness.

  It gave me time to type my question: “THE HOMELESS GUY?”

  “AFFIRMATIVE” came the response.

  This time, Hector chimed in: “DON’T LOSE HIM.”

  That’s when I got nervous because I didn’t know if the man was part of the plan to pick up the money or if he was just a homeless guy who found a bag full of money left in a park and decided to add it to his collection of street detritus. The thought of Valenti hearing about the latter scenario sent shivers down my spine for what he would do to Hector who in turn would do it to me.

  I caught sight of the man and his cart in one of the pools of light. He was following the path toward its north-side exit. I calculated how far the park entrance was from me and what I was going to do when he walked through it. Three more times he passed under the light and now he was no more than 200 feet from leaving the park. I watched the final pool of light for the man, but he never appeared. I waited and still nothing.

  “LOST THE TARGET” Badger texted.

  And I fell into full panic mode. My instinct was to run down there but I didn’t want to alarm the man or whoever might be watching him besides us. I instead walked purposefully in his direction, trying not to call too much attention to myself.

  My phone buzzed with the incessant texts from Hector wanting to know what was happening. Each one grew shorter than the last. I envisioned him hammering away with each text and getting angrier with each send. I resisted the inevitable as long as possible, which was to reply with the truth that I lost the man.

  I pulled up the phone to answer his question and typed three dreadful words: “I DON’T KNOW.”

  The phone then fell out of my hand. I looked around, disoriented, and realized I had run headlong into the homeless man’s shopping cart. We looked into each other’s eyes. My gaze was rooted in fear. His look was rooted in schizophrenia.

  “Motherfucker,” he muttered and pushed the cart like I was not standing there. I jumped out of the way but the front wheel caught my foot and left a track on my polished loafers. The man continued on down the street in the direction where I had just come. Rather
than tail him directly, I grabbed my phone and crossed the street to the sidewalk on the opposite side, giving him a little distance.

  I wanted to text the boys that I was on his tail but couldn’t risk being distracted or being spotted doing suspicious activities. I crossed in front of a small Catholic church with a well-lit Virgin Mary and an Italian social club next door. The homeless man was maybe forty feet in front of me. I kept him in my peripheral vision. We continued on for a few more buildings and then he stopped in front of one of the cars parked on the side of the road. I stopped also, thought better of it, and continued on at my original pace.

  I came up even with the man and casually glanced across the road just in time to see him hand the duffel bag over to someone inside the car. In return, he was handed something that looked like money.

  I kept moving but I heard the car roar to life. It swung out from the curb and into the middle of the street to head in the opposite direction. I made myself as small as possible but kept my eyes on the driver of the silver compact, the same shitty car that Nelson used to try to run me over.

  The Filipina nurse—both her pudgy hands gripping the steering wheel and her eyes trained straight ahead—roared past me.

  I took off down the street toward my car. Fumbling with the key, I got the engine started and sped after her. But the street was just an empty stretch of asphalt with no red taillights to follow. The twinkling lights of Chinatown ahead were a false siren.

  As I passed Bishop Street, I caught a pair of taillights out of the corner of my eye. They turned right and out of sight. I put both feet onto the brake and came to an angled stop. I reversed without checking and luckily found open road. I pulled onto Bishop and hoped I hadn’t made a mistake.

  Zooming up the street, I ran one stop sign and then another and finally caught up to the taillights. As I followed the car onto the on-ramp to the 110 Freeway, relief and excitement washed over me like a cold shower—the silver compact was idling at the entrance and waiting for an opening to pull onto the freeway. I slowed so as not to get too close but managed to pull out my phone and send a very simple, reassuring text: “I’M ON IT.”

  A WOMAN’S LAUGH

  It was easy to tail her in the moderate traffic heading back to Pasadena. Tala didn’t change lanes, which allowed me to stay in the same one without fear of getting too close or slipping too far back. For three steady miles there was a consistent two-car distance between us.

  I took that time to fill in the details to Hector and Badger. Hector texted back that he was in his car and coming my way. Badger was far from his own car but he would do the same without delay.

  We drove all the way to the end where the freeway funneled us onto the surface streets leading into Pasadena proper. We turned left at California and moved our way through the leafy neighborhood before turning south toward Hermon. I began to wonder if Tala knew I was following her because she could have gotten off at an earlier exit on the 110 to get where we were now. I slipped back to be extra cautious.

  Tala took me on a journey of endless turns and loopbacks to the point where it felt like we were going in circles. Without any visual guides in the dark night, namely the looming San Gabriel foothills, I had no way to tell if we were heading north or south. Each new street looked like the one we just got off.

  But then I began to pick out landmarks—a familiar billboard here, a recognizable street name there—and I started to feel less like a raft adrift at sea and more like a canoe with one oar. I finally spied the unmistakable glow of Dodger Stadium at night and I realized that we were headed back into the city, back to the very area in Chinatown we had just left.

  I followed the compact toward the concrete bridge into the back-door—once the front-door—entrance into the city. I eased up on the accelerator to put even more distance between me and Tala’s compact. We were the only two cars on the street for a good half mile. As we glided over the crest of the bridge, I straightened the car for the wide-open stretch downhill and called Hector with my free hand.

  “Where are you?” he asked in place of any sort of greeting.

  “I’m still following her. We’re heading back into Chinatown, just crossing the bridge now.”

  “What street?” he asked.

  “Spring.”

  I heard the squelch of tires over the phone as he turned his sedan around in the opposite direction. Over the roar of his engine, “I’m coming now.”

  I trailed the compact down a wide, empty street fringed with industrial buildings. They were windowless structures with iron-faced front doors. Even with a great distance between us, I still felt exposed. My headlights must have been like beacons in her rearview mirror. I slipped back even farther despite the fear that I would lose her.

  That was a mistake.

  Suddenly, the two red orbs were no longer. The street that lay ahead was dark and empty and the numerous cross streets had little to no activity on them. I couldn’t tell which street the compact pulled off on, if at all. Panic set in and I was convinced that I had gone too far and quickly turned around. I zoomed back from where I came but soon, much too soon, encountered the bridge and realized I’d backtracked too far. I spun around again, arcing too wide and careening into the curb. I floored it and rumbled down the street in the original direction.

  The corporate hack in me immediately ran through a series of excuses why it wasn’t my fault that I lost her. I was ashamed at how easily this instinct came. And I was amazed at how good the excuses were, given such a brief gestation period. All began with “we,” the classic maneuver to position failure as a shared responsibility. There were a lot of things we could have done differently.…

  A lot of things we couldn’t anticipate.…

  The excuse diatribe would end on a positive note, a look forward at the next steps to get us back on track. Unfortunately that was where I came up blank. There was nothing I could think of to do. This was the last step.

  I pulled over and let the weight of that conclusion settle in. Hector couldn’t be far from me at this point. It was only a matter of minutes and I put my phone onto my lap as I waited for the expected call. The street was refreshingly quiet. Sometimes you have to go to the heart of the industrial complex to find true peace. I sat there and marveled at the lack of sound and thought of nothing. It was incredibly peaceful.

  I saw movement in the darkness. Or, at least I thought I saw something. It came from the cross street off to my right. I used the old trick of looking out of the corner of my eye, which somehow made it easier to see things in the dark. I sat there, head tilted toward the steering wheel, hopeful that a flicker of movement would appear in my peripheral vision. None came, but I felt driven to search further and put the car into gear, then turned onto the street.

  This street had no parking restrictions and therefore was lined with vehicles serving as makeshift homes for unseen occupants. Back windows were shaded out with towels and newspaper to provide a modicum of privacy to the sleeping souls behind them. Most of the cars didn’t look like they were in shape to drive more than a mile but in truth all they had to muster was a thirty-foot hop to the other side of the road on street-cleaning days.

  One car, though, stood out.

  Tucked between a van and a grime-covered station wagon was the compact I had been searching for. I cruised past it toward the end of the block and shut off my lights. I glided into an open slot at the end and parked in a fire zone as a wave of relief washed over me—there would be no need for collective excuses tonight.

  I texted Hector and Badger my location and took a moment to scan the area. When I had passed the compact it didn’t look like Tala was inside. She had to have slipped into one of the industrial buildings, but I couldn’t be sure of which one because the few windows on this near-windowless block were all dark. I got out to investigate.

  Any movement would easily be noticed on this quiet street. I couldn’t risk spooking Tala into flight so I looped around to the back of the buildings. This was
a wider block because of the loading docks that drove the activity during the daytime. I made my way down the alley, hugging the sides of the building to avoid the light cast by the occasional lamp. At about the spot where the compact was parked on the opposite street, I noticed a solitary window on the second floor with a dim, orange light emanating from inside. I drifted toward it like an insect to a porch light.

  I clambered up onto the loading dock. Two large, rolling steel doors and a regular-size door with an impressive-looking lock formed an impenetrable entrance. Shading the entire area from the relentless southern exposure and from the occasional thunderstorm was a roof jutting ten feet out from the building. It was also a good ten feet above me. Having humiliated myself before in attempts to touch the rim of a basketball hoop, I searched for another means of reaching the roof.

  Back in the alley I found a rusted length of pipe and dragged it back to the dock. I leaned the pipe into the corner where the roof met the building and then wedged the bottom end against a pillar. I monkey-crawled up the pipe but was winded a third of the way up and had to rest. I pressed on until the back of my head touched the edge of the roof. Unfortunately I hadn’t thought ahead to figure how I was going to move my grip from the pipe onto the edge of the roof without falling to a very painful landing below. With my forearms growing numb, I knew I had to stop deliberating and just try. I uncrossed my legs and let them dangle below, nearly launching myself off the pipe. With one hand on the pipe, I twisted around and threw my other hand toward the roof and grabbed hold of the edge. A sharp pain greeted my palm, which soon grew damp with blood. I donkey-kicked my leg up to the edge and pulled myself on top.

  I was gassed. I sat on the roof in a dazed stupor, my head swirling in oxygen-deprived blood. I glanced up and made out the view to the north with a clear shot of the park and then understood the importance of this building’s location relative to the drop zone. That seemed to give me a jolt of energy and I got to my feet to face the next hurdle, a far less challenging one, which was to get to one of two windows above me. The one on the left looked like it hadn’t been opened in thirty years. A pale light behind it illuminated the chicken wire in the glass. The darkened one next to it was open and my only way inside.