by J. R. Rain
Denial is my sanity.
You see, I have to deny what I am. Who I am. Or I would go crazy. I know I would. In fact, a part of me is certain that I just might be crazy. But let’s not go there.
Yes, call me anything. But please, just please, don’t call me a vampire.
At least, not to my face.
try to get to work around nine.
Luckily, I have a very loose definition of try and around. And since I like to think of myself as progressive, I don’t worry about things like time. That’s the beauty of being progressive: I’ll get there eventually.
At just past ten, I arrived at my building. With a mocha latte in one hand and my keys in the other, I smelled the cigarettes and cheap perfume wafting under my office door into the hallway.
Before slipping the key in the lock, I tested the handle. Still locked. I looked around. My pathetic business complex was quiet. Precisely four cars sat scattered around the parking lot. One of them was my van. The others might have been the same three cars I’d seen upon leaving my office yesterday.
Speaking of yesterday, I’d had precisely no clients come in, and had received exactly four calls from Bank of America credit card services. Apparently, I owed them a crap-ton of money. Apparently, they would get it when they got it. They didn’t like that answer, of course, which might have been why they’d called three more times. I was looking forward to more such calls today.
Yippee!
My office is in Huntington Beach, but one would never guess it. It was too far away from the addictive, salt-laden ocean breeze. Too far away from the bikini babes. And definitely too far away from a steady stream of walk-in business.
One might assume that my office was on the wrong side of Huntington Beach, the inland side. The side that abutted a hall-in-the-wall called Midway City. The side, of course, with the cheaper rent. Cheap or not, I was still two months behind on it.
Now as I slid the key into the lock and, balancing my mocha latte like a pro, I slipped my hand behind me and pulled out the Mossad’s weapon of choice: a Walther pistol. I wasn’t part of the Mossad. I wasn’t a spy either. I was just a private dick, and mostly, I wasn’t even that. Mostly, I was an out-of-work desk jockey.
Now, as I opened my office door, I was certain someone had broken in… and was waiting for me inside.
My office isn’t big, so there aren’t many places for a man to hide. Or, in this case, a woman.
It turned out she wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding, either. In fact, she was sprawled on my couch, sound asleep. I relaxed and slipping the gun back behind my back, just inside the waistband of my jeans, studied the scene of the “crime.” A coffee mug rested on the floor next to her, filled to overflowing with stubbed-out cigarettes. My coffee mug, in fact, which she’d commandeered from the cupboard over the small sink in the far corner. Next to the sink sat an old, but reliable, Mr. Coffee. Or, as I liked to call it, Señor Café, because I liked to think of myself as international and mysterious. Kind of like James Bond, only bigger and tougher.
Anyway, the coffee mug was a favorite of mine. It also had the UCLA logo emblazoned across the side. I was one of those people who happened to think the UCLA logo should be emblazoned across most things, but I might have been in the minority.
Who she was, I didn’t know. Why she had broken into my office and from all appearances, smoked the night away, I had no idea either. I counted seventeen mostly smoked cigarettes, although one or two had only been consumed halfway. I shook my head. Wasteful.
She looked to be about twenty-something. She might have also been cute, if not for the way she was presently drooling on my couch arm.
Speaking of arms, the inside of one of hers was covered with fresh track marks, all puckered and raw. Also on the inside of her arm was a stylized tattoo that said, “Fuck off, pigs.”
I was impressed by the correct use of the comma. Many other tattoos covered her body. Or, at least, the parts of it that I could see. On her ankle, there was a skull with a dagger through it. On her wrists were inked two roses, the stems dripping blood. Around her neck—yes, her neck—curled a barbed wire tattoo, also dripping blood. Behind both ears, turgid middle fingers flipped the bird.
Classy.
As badass as she wanted the world to think she was, all she was now was a gently snoring girl who’d broken into my office, abused one of my prized mugs, and was now staining my couch with her drool and cigarette stink.
Such is my life.
I also saw bruising, and not just a little bruising, but a lot. She’d been beaten recently. Worse, I suspected what I could see was only the tip of the iceberg.
I might have felt weird about inspecting a sleeping woman so thoroughly; that was, if said sleeping woman hadn’t broken into my office. I looked again at her mouth and saw the possible reason for all the drool… the inside of her lower lip was split. She’d taken a shot to the face. I noticed now how the blood mixed with the drool. Yes, I was going to have to get the couch cleaned. Again.
Don’t ask.
How she’d broken in was a mystery. The mystery might have been solved if I’d gone through her purse partly spilled open on the floor next to her. Two more unopened packs of cigarettes peeked out from the inside.
I always liked a woman who was prepared.
I stood back and considered my options. Call the cops? Probably. Wake her up? Maybe. Check my email? Definitely.
So, while my uninvited office guest slept away, I powered up my computer and checked my email. I checked some sports scores. I checked my Facebook. Lastly, I checked my bank account.
Depressed, I did some triceps dips along the edge of my desk, as I’m sure most people the world over do. After all, who wouldn’t want nice triceps?
Next, I did some diamond push-ups. Very few know what a diamond push-up is. Even fewer know how to do them right. I’m one of the rare minority who probably does them perfectly. Case in point, my hands were brought in together, centered just below my chest, my two index fingers and thumbs forming a perfect diamond. The burn is fabulous on both the triceps and the outer pecs. Since my focus was on the triceps this morning, I did just that: focused the burning in those. I did push-up after push-up, cranking them out quickly, but precisely, over and over. I could do this until the cows came home, or until I got tired of them.
Or, in this case, until the mystery girl woke up on my couch, which she did now, gasping as she sat up.
However, I wasn’t quite done with my diamond push-ups. No, no, no. My arms burned, yes, but not enough. And so, I cranked out twenty-five more, knowing that I now had an audience.
When I was finished, I nodded to the woman who was now sitting up on the couch and watching me, her mouth hanging slightly open—and not because she had been recently beaten up. I think, perhaps, she might have been in awe. At least, I liked to think so.
“And that.” I hopped up to my feet. “Is how you do a diamond push-up.”
“I don’t know how to respond to that,” she said.
“Few do,” I said. “Now, start talking.”
leaned a hip against my desk, arms folded over my still-burning chest.
The girl asked if she could smoke. I told her she couldn’t. She pointed out that she’d smoked a crap-ton the night before, and what difference did it make? I pointed out that if people everywhere followed that line of logic, then the world would descend into anarchy. And if that happened, only the strong would survive… or those who had mastered the diamond push-up. She asked if I had been drinking. I told her I hadn’t had a drink since last Tuesday. She looked skeptical.
“To sum up,” I said, “the answer is no.”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Pretty please?”
“There’s nothing pretty about it. Start speaking. What’s your name?”
“Camry,” she said.
“Like the car?”
“Please don’t make any Toyota jokes.”
“I’m not sure
I could if I tried.”
“Well, good. I’ve heard a few corny ones, trust me.” She pulled her sock-clad feet up on my couch and hugged her knees. Her socks were pristine white. How girls kept their socks so damn white was a mystery to me.
“Who are you?” I asked again.
“I told you.”
“No, you told me your name, which just so happens to be the name of the most reliable car in America.”
“Is that a joke?”
“Just an observation. Now, start talking.”
She looked at me with eyes that weren’t fully awake, or alert, or aware. She might have been a little high. She was cute, in a strung-out kind of way. Dark rings around high cheekbones. Pale skin. Soft muscles hanging loose over a longish frame. She could have been beautiful. But for now, she had to settle for cute with a chaser of ‘what could have been.’
“I need your help,” she said finally. “But first, I would like some coffee.”
I looked at her. She looked at me. Neither of us budged until I remembered her bruises and her bloody lip, which now hung in a pout. I sighed, pushed off the desk, and headed over to the sink. Once there, I washed the coffee pot, slipped in a new filter, guesstimated the right amount of Folgers, and turned on Señor Café, which sounded more erotic than it should have.
While we waited, Camry was content to sit quietly on the couch, hugging her knees and looking forlorn. While the coffeemaker came to life, belching and hissing, I leaned against the little counter. A few years ago, I had tried to do incline push-ups against it and had nearly torn the whole thing out of the wall.
“How did you get inside my office?” I finally asked.
For an answer, she reached inside her purse and pulled out a gun-shaped tool that looked familiar. In fact, I had one in my desk drawer. It was a lock-pick gun.
“That would do it.” I made a mental note to invest in a double-deadbolt. “So, you’re a thief?”
She looked at me long and hard, although her eyes might have wavered a little. Being high does that. Finally, she nodded. “When I have to be.”
“For drugs?”
“Is there another reason?” she asked.
“For the thrill of it?”
She shook her head and reached down for her pack of cigs, but as she did so, I shook my head and she sighed and dropped the pack back into her purse. “Sometimes, there’s a thrill. Mostly, I’m terrified.”
“You seemed real terrified,” I said, “when I caught you drooling on my couch.”
She snorted and wiped the corner of her mouth. “Well, I wasn’t robbing you. I was exhausted. It seemed like, you know, a safe place to crash. Besides, there’s nothing here to rob.”
“Ouch.”
Behind me, my computer chimed. An email. It took all of my considerable willpower not to check it.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Twenty-five.”
“So, why are you here?”
“I need protection.”
“From whom?”
She pushed up the sleeve of her shirt and showed me another tattoo. It was of a familiar logo. Mostly I had seen it on the backs of leather jackets, worn by guys with long beards, long hair, and loud motorcycles.
“From them.”
ext, she asked if I had any food.
I held up my coffee cup and said, “You’re looking at it.”
She said, “Don’t be mean,” and started crying, and the next thing I knew, I was in the drive-thru at Jack-in-the-Box, ordering her a breakfast croissant and juice, and for me, the entire left side of the menu.
Camry was asleep when I returned. I suspected the waterworks had been a ploy. Speaking of waterworks, yes, there was more drool. Stay classy, Huntington Beach.
I dropped her bag next to her and said, “Breakfast.”
She gasped and sat up. Chuckling, I went behind my desk and dug into my own two bags.
“How did you hear about me?” I asked between our communal munching sounds.
“Looked you up in an old phone book. I thought your name was the coolest.”
“It is, and people still have those? Phone books?”
She didn’t look at me while she ate. “Yes, why?”
I shrugged, although she didn’t see it. “I was making a social commentary on the progress of technology.”
“Sounded more like a stupid question to me.”
“That, too.” I generally didn’t take much to heart, especially from someone who was hungry, alone, hurting, and on the run. Whether or not she was a good person, I didn’t much care. Whether or not I did my job right, kept her safe, and thwarted the evildoers, was a different story. “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.
“About what?”
“Obamacare,” I said. “Or why you need protection. You pick.”
“You think you’re funny or something?”
“Or something,” I said.
“I don’t think you’re funny.”
“Neither did Mrs. Neville.”
“Who’s that?”
“My sixth-grade teacher.”
“If I tell you about it, will you stop with the jokes?”
“Probably not.”
She thought about that as she munched on the last of the croissant sandwich I’d brought for her, a croissant sandwich that she’d yet to thank me for. After a moment, she shrugged and told me the story.
It had been a wild night of partying. In fact, every night was a wild night of partying. Camry was often high or drunk or both. She was Steel Eye’s girl and everyone knew it and stayed away.
“Did you say Steel Eye?”
“Yes.”
I nodded. “Carry on.”
Everyone respected her and treated her as one of the guys. Except for one guy. One guy who was now dead. His name had been J-Bird.
“All we were doing was talking.” Camry looked away and rubbed the back of her neck. “When Steel Eye flipped out.”
“What else were you two doing?”
She did more neck-rubbing and shrugging, but now she wouldn’t make eye contact with me. “We were maybe kissing, too.”
“I take it Steel Toe didn’t appreciate another man kissing his girl.”
“Steel Eye, and yeah, you could say that.”
“Did J-Bird understand the ramifications of kissing you?”
“He loved me. He would have done anything for me.”
“Did you love him?”
She shrugged, looked away again. “I thought he was interesting.”
“You led him on.”
“I might have flirted—”
“Did you encourage him?”
She huffed. “I was bored.”
“And now he’s dead,” I said. “Still bored?”
“No. Now, I’m scared.”
I shook my head. “I think you knew what would happen to J-Bird. I think you knew that Steel Balls—”
“Eye.”
“—would come for J-Bird, probably even kill him. I don’t think you cared much about the Birdman at all. I think you wanted some excitement. I think you got more excitement than you bargained for.”
I watched her carefully. Her jaw rippled. She was angry. Her fists tightened around her napkin, the knuckles showing white. Then her hand opened a little, and her jaw slackened. She looked at me with real tears in her eyes. It was a complete metamorphosis. “He promised to get me out of the gang. We talked quietly, secretly. For days. And one night, we were both drinking, and we got carried away.”
I waited, watched her. Outside, something heavy rumbled along Beach Boulevard. The window behind me actually rattled. On the surrounding wall, were dozens of framed photographs and articles that featured yours truly. Back in the day, I was someone important. Now, I was only important to Cindy, my girlfriend, and Junior, my dog, which was good enough for me.
“But that didn’t mean the son-of-a-bitch had to kill him. He fucking shot him. Right there.”
“Did you see Steel Eye shoot him?
”
“No. He’d slapped me. I was on the ground, crying. J-Bird tried to protect me from getting kicked, and I heard them drag J-Bird away. Heard them beat him up pretty good. And then…”
“And then what?”
“They shot him in some bushes near the Pit.”
“The Pit?”
“The fire pit we all hung out at.”
“Of course,” I said. “Because that’s what bikers do, hang out in the desert around fire pits.”
She said nothing. I didn’t think she even heard me. After listening to her sobs and the steady drone of the afternoon traffic, I asked, “Where’s the Pit?”
“What?”
“The Pit. Where’s the Pit located?”
“The desert somewhere.”
“What desert? Joshua Tree? Mohave? Serengeti?”
“I don’t know. I just ride. I go where Steel Eye takes me.”
“Is it in California?” I started the twenty questions game.
“Yes.”
“What’s the biggest city you can remember passing through?”
She thought about that for a long moment. “Palm Springs. Down the 111.”
Yeah, there was a lot of desert around Palm Springs. Not a lot to go on, but I’d taken cases more vague than this.
“Any interesting scenery down that way?”
“The Salton Sea. There were pelicans. Wait, I do remember something.” She paused. “There was a kitschy sign. It said, ‘Slab City. Welcome.’ Just after the sign was our turnoff. To the right. Dirt road goes right past the Pit.”
Bingo. It only took three questions to get it out of her. I was that good. I knew the place, too. Slab City, a former military base, was now an RV squatters’ town full of impromptu flea markets and drug commerce. Drifters and grifters.
I said, “What’s Steel Eye’s real name?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about J-Bird?”
“Jason, I think.”
“You think?”
“Yes.”
“His last name?”
“I don’t know. These guys don’t use last names.”