Portland Noir

by Kevin Sampsell

  Dusk is dying, and the city’s washed blue to match Kit’s teeth. A car drags a curtain of bright white down the street in front of us.

  “You want to know what I think?” Rhonda says, but then she glances out across the road. “Hey, look who’s come back for more.”

  Right there on the far corner. Faded dress, velvet hat, hand out at people walking by.

  “I’ll bet she works a circuit,” Rhonda says. “I’ll bet she knows exactly where to go at what time to milk the public of the most money.”

  I push out a laugh and try not to sound pissy defensive. “There are people in need in this world, you know.”

  “Her name’s Dorothy,” Rhonda says in that way she has when it’s less about her knowing more than it is about you knowing less. “As in, we’re not in Kansas anymore? I heard she lives at the Biltmore Apartments in Northwest.” Points her chin down so she can give us the just-under-the-eyebrows look. “I also heard from an equally reliable source that she lives in a loft here in the Pearl. And owns a car.”

  Kit downs her drink. Her voice is just a step past not-quite-too-loud. “Well, I heard she lives in the Shanghai Tunnels.”

  Which is all lore—of some lame sort—and normally this would at least somewhat intrigue me, but now I look down at my hand all naked on the white tablecloth, and what the hell?

  My ring.

  The garnet and the amethyst are on my left hand, but the right hand, the hand she grabbed—

  All right, hold on, maybe I didn’t put it back on after I showered this morning. I try to remember having it on in the tunnels.

  Rhonda’s still going at it: “I heard she has this son who lets her beg and then takes the money and buys collectible baseball cards.”

  And Kit: “Well, I heard she has this son who corners people in alleys and clubs them to death with a baseball bat.”

  Worms in my stomach.

  My favorite ring.

  My grandmother’s ring.

  Rhonda sneering: “I heard those crooked eyes of hers can put you in a trance.”

  Kit slurring: “Well, I heard in reality she’s the Pied Piper!”

  I’m frantic eyes at the ground under my chair, at cracks in the sidewalk. The conversation moves on to how much Rhonda hates her mother, but I can’t listen, and I can’t stop watching that woman.

  “Mother is always trying to control me,” Rhonda says. “All her fucking little guilt trips. You want to know what I think? It comes down to control. Everything we do, everything we feel. What’s marriage? Control. Rape? Control. A mother’s love? Control. Charity?” Rhonda looks at me. “Dorothy over there? What a fraud. She knows how to use guilt better than anyone I know. Yeah, the minute you locked eyes with her, you surrendered control to that old woman.”

  I don’t answer. I’ve got my hand in my purse in some pathetic search all through the slink of coins at the bottom.

  Dorothy swivels and sets her crooked eyes at me.

  Nine-thirty

  We toss crumpled-up bills out to settle the check. In my body is that perfect drone that says I’ve had just the right amount of too much to drink. The sun’s gone down past that place where it does any good in the sky, so now everything’s blue-going-to-black. It’s time to hug and say, Wow, is it really that late? We’ve got to do this more often. Rhonda and Kit set off down the sidewalk. Kit big, flappy waves and blue smiles, while I’m stalling by the table. Hand in my bag like looking for keys or lipstick. Wait until they’ve turned the corner. Sit back down. Old, dead drink glasses and the empty pommes frites paper cone all brown and greasy.

  I sit and watch the old woman.

  “I hear she lives in this big Craftsman off Belmont and breeds award-winning pugs.”

  It’s the waiter with the shaved head and the tiny braid beard. He nods big at me as if now we share a special secret. Turns. Goes off, back inside.

  And the corner is empty.

  I’m on my feet fast. A glass topples. I see she’s not far. Walking in this slow shuffle like when you’re a kid pretending your socks are roller skates. Grab my purse and start down the sidewalk, but it’s the opposite sidewalk, and parallel means I’m not following, not really. I’m not even looking at her, just keeping her at the corner of my eye. Not-following-just-walking past the wine bar. Not-following-just-walking past the coffee house. Am I being crazy? Is my ring sitting in the dish by the bathtub? I open my hand. At the base of my finger the halo of skin is smooth and glossy.

  Look up, and she’s passing right in front of me.

  So close, the blur of her sparks into a moment of detail: cheek like a half-deflated balloon, velvety sag of a thousand wrinkles, white whiskers, and her eye, the droop of a red rim and a flash of watery blue right at me.

  Takes me a moment to catch my breath. In that moment, I could point myself in the direction of home. Instead, I wait long enough to get about fifteen feet between us. Turn, and now we’re off on a little crazy-stalky tour of the city and I’m thinking she’s crazy and I’m stalky, although I suppose I could be both. We see the sights. Endless shop windows, mannequins sexy with no heads. Getting darker, but the Pearl District is upscale and therefore safe, and I’ve got just enough rum in me to make up for my total lack of personal strength.

  Whoever we pass she holds her hand out, spare change, pretty jewelry. Finally some couple stops to give her something. I get closer. Blond hair and lipstick, black hair and mustache up over Dorothy’s head, smiling down. Both in a state of grace. They pass, glance at me as they go. I watch the hunch of her body as she shoves whatever they gave her down in some deep pocket of her dress. She starts up walking again, and now I’m right behind her. Trying to see around her arm to that pocket. She has my ring in that pocket.

  And then I realize: I’m right on top of her as if I’m some mugger. I feel out of control. What’s that Rhonda was saying about control? Whatever, I’ve got to stop this now. Powell’s is right at the next block. I’ll stop off there. I’ll quit.

  She steps into the street, and I step in after.

  Sudden blaze at the side of my eyes.

  A car. Right at me.

  My muscles jam up, panic-stupid, and I can’t move. Eyes pinned on Dorothy’s back. The car jerks to a stop, bumper right at my calf, and there I am standing in the middle of the street, and in my chest is the steady pound of oh-what-the-fuck-just-happened.

  Headlights flash and for a moment light up the back of Dorothy’s dress. The driver shaking his hands at me. Should go forward, but I’ll run right into her. Should fucking go back, but somehow I can’t.

  The guy shouts something muffled through the windshield. My lungs are a tight fist around an inch and a half of air. Dorothy finally steps up onto the far curb.

  And I can move.

  The car pulls off behind me. This time his fuck-you is loud enough to make out.

  I walk on in a strange daze of comprehension. Down past the bookstore where I was never actually going to stop off, now, was I? Past closed-up restaurants, empty parking lots. Dark folding in. It’s a Pied Piper dark, thick and rat black. And it’s pulling me right back into Old Town. And all along I’m still asking myself what just happened, but the thing is, I know what the fuck just happened. I was pinned in the middle of the fucking street because I was not going to let that old woman out of my sight.

  Ten-fifteen

  Stubby, hunched buildings lumped along the sidewalk, worn-out Victorians peeling paint. Bars and abandoned storefronts.

  Some guy pissing on the side of a dumpster. Wine bottle in his hand—yes, this lovely, little pinot gris has a delicate bouquet with notes of urine and rotting burrito.

  If I am to be a crazy stalker, I might as well get my method down. I set my distance at about fifteen feet, set my pace at old-lady slow. Most stalkers probably have some idea what their plan is, but I’m new to this so I just keep following. On and on through Old Town. Stalkers should wear better shoes. We walk past windows like oil-black mirrors. And I watch Dorothy’s hea
d turn. First to her reflection, then back to mine, then she swivels and she’s looking right at me.

  I get the egg-on-the-head thing, the kick to the gut, but my eyes grab hold of hers and don’t let go. Panic turns so easy into thrill. I stare her down until she turns away.

  And we’re on into the part of Old Town that’s also Chinatown. Chinese restaurants, some abandoned. Cheesy gift shops. A pile of trash in the darkness of a doorway or maybe someone sleeping. As Dorothy cocks a look back, I step up closer.

  Ten feet. The stiffness of her body, the folding-in along her back as she walks—she’s totally focused on me.

  Nine feet. Stray strings of tinsel at the back of her neck.

  Eight feet. The clink of her bracelets, the uneven huff of her breathing.

  I let my footsteps go loud on the sidewalk to make sure she hears me.

  Rhonda’s right, of course. It’s all about control. But now I’m the one who has the control. Dorothy can keep walking all night, but she can’t get away.

  Five feet. If I reached out, my fingertips could slip right in there at the back of her collar.

  Behind me is the sandpaper scuff of shoe on pavement. I glance over my shoulder. There’s some man back there, walking down the sidewalk after us. I turn back to Dorothy, steady myself. Move away from her—slowly—so it looks like I’m not following.

  Just walk now.

  I try to calm my breathing. No need to freak out. Just because he was a little too close. But I swear he was looking right at me.

  A brick wall gives way to a bank of narrow warped-glass windows. Our reflections are smears of color bobbling across, no way to separate one from two from maybe three.

  And here, some sound is coming from Dorothy: a droning, rolling sound under her breath. Great—he’s stalking me, I’m stalking her, she’s fucking humming.

  Footstep scuff right behind me. My whole body tightens.

  A hand on my shoulder.

  I spin, recoiling, and a scream chokes off at the back of my throat.

  “Want to know what I’ve heard?” he says.

  The guy’s right over me. Shaggy black beard and stocking cap, a missing tooth as he smiles. His eyes go over my shoulder in Dorothy’s direction.

  “Sometimes stories are true,” he says.

  He reaches to his neck, pulls a set of headphones over his ears. Tinny buzz of music like the hover of a fly.

  And now he’s bobbing his head at me.

  Crazy-omen-man likes rock and roll.

  I step back. Turn, and Dorothy’s gone.

  I get a panic kick to my gut so hard it runs a tingle out along my fingers. I scan desperate. Graffitied-up mailbox. Overturned shopping cart. I pound shoes to the corner. Dark, empty streets left, right, straight—no idea which way to go.

  I go right. My eyes everywhere—in doorways, behind dumpsters, between parked cars. Panic turns so easy into anger—goddamn psycho headset freak—sometimes stories are true, like the one where the crazy bitch hunts down the old woman over nothing more than a ring.

  Movement in the dark recess of a doorway. I lurch toward it, and there’s a man crouched, shirt off. I jerk back, turn. My eyes go out across the street. To fall on the figure over there in front of that boarded-up building, pulling open that rusted metal door.

  Dorothy.

  My heart is going at it hard—that panic and anger thing—it’s a beautiful drunk. Filling my head up like too much wine. Dorothy looks over her shoulder, and even from all the way over there, those twisted-ass eyes are right on me. Along my spine, my shoulders, the muscles tighten. She steps through the door, pulls it shut, and she’s gone.

  Eleven o’clock

  I drag the door open.

  All black in front of my face. The Old Town air is a hot breath on the back of my neck.

  Don’t hesitate—just go. Into the black, and it swallows me up, and I’ve never felt such a goddamn thrill before. I inch toward an open doorway I barely see up ahead. Doing that whole hands-out-in-front-of-you thing. Don’t hear her humming or her bracelet clink. I step through this next doorway but something makes me stop. Something says don’t move.

  For a moment I just stand here in the dark. Feel the panicanger drunk coursing lush through me. I start forward again.

  My foot comes down onto nothing.

  Hands out, thrashing. Clutch crazy at some metal rail. Foot finds the ledge. Stand crouched. Breathe. Hands gripping hard. The black, receding and finding shape again, settles on the smoke-thread edging of the handrail, which traces down and down.

  A distant sound comes up. Dorothy’s voice. A tune. A taunt.

  One foot out to find a step. Next foot out. A creak under my shoe. The lower I go, the warmer it gets. Like the devil forgot heat is supposed to rise. The smell is just this side of rot. Turn at the bottom, eyes scanning the dark for her. Then I hear a sound like air forced through a tiny hole, something breathy and shrill. And a strange scuttling. Oh shit, no.

  But the humming. Flat and faraway. And so I walk.

  The room just goes and goes, thin and long—what, am I about to get shanghaied, are Kit’s pirates lying in wait? The only light comes down from cracks between the wooden beams overhead. Corridors converge, and I listen, and I turn. Keep going deeper in. Hot sweat down my back. Ceiling just above my head. Walls close. What the hell is this place? Darker now. Nothing but fissures in the wood to let in something feeble and dim silver like moon going through water.

  The whole black floor seems to crawl—oh Christ. Something brushes my heel—body jerks. I stumble forward. On and on under the streets of Portland. I’ve lost the way out. All I can do is hold onto Dorothy’s voice and follow. Her Pied Piper song in this Pied Piper black.

  Can’t stop, can’t breathe.

  Because sometimes panic just turns into more panic, and sometimes stories are true, and sometimes you’re an idiot.

  My foot comes down onto something soft.

  Sick squirm under my shoe.

  I choke in a gasp, stagger back. For a second I’ve lost the floor.

  Then, as my shoe comes down again—solid ground—there’s a click and suddenly, light.

  I’m in a chamber at the end of the line. Walls full of white Christmas lights. Hanging in swags like the piping of sweet on a birthday cake.

  And all up and down and ceiling to floor: pretty jewelry.

  At first I can’t make it out, it’s just an enormous, blurred luster. But bring it into focus, and it’s gold and more gold, like an Egyptian tomb—gold all pressed into the walls—gold and silver and the crazy shimmer colors of thousands of jewels. Mosaics of rings, overlapped bracelets, winding chains, strings of pearls. I reach my hand out to touch. Stop.

  Directly ahead, Dorothy in her faded housedress and blue velvet hat is hunched, face close to the wall, hands working. Her humming is so low I barely hear it. She has a little tube of glue. She presses something into the wall. Face smattered with beaded light and twinkle, and she turns and looks at me and smiles.

  Crooked eyes dip down. To the diamonds in my ears, the drapes of pearls against my chest.

  The glint in her hand is my ring.

  I don’t hear a sound from behind.

  I don’t hear the swift of the baseball bat before it comes down.

  LILA

  BY MEGAN KRUSE

  Powell Boulevard

  When I saw Lila for the first time it was at the Tik Tok, at a quarter past 2 in the morning. I was there because I had this terrible loneliness in me and I couldn’t stand to be in my apartment, where the cars outside on Foster Road dragged their headlights over the thin walls. There was black mold on the shower curtain and the linoleum was peeling up and there was an ugly stain on the mattress. It didn’t matter; I slept on the sofa anyway.

  I slept on the sofa and when I couldn’t sleep I sat in the Tik Tok near Powell Boulevard, watching the rows of clocks on the walls, and then Lila came in, late on a Friday night. She was tall, with rust-colored hair, and she looked l
ike a girl I had known once, the daughter of someone who came to take care of my mother after her accident. The girl was my age and she had a puppy that she carried, with ragged, chewed-up fur, scratching its fleas and burying its head under her arm. I was eleven. I tied a red scarf around my head because I wanted to look like a soldier who had just returned from war. I dreamt the girl would hold a rag to my forehead and whisper carefully in my ear.

  While her mother took care of my mother, the girl slept in the room next to mine. When she outgrew one of her dresses it was folded, washed, and put on my bed. It was blue, terry cloth, a summer dress. I wore it until I could hold it in my hands and see right through.

  But then my mother was well enough and the woman left and took the girl with her. My mother sometimes stood and walked around, and changed her clothes, but her eyes were blank as marbles and her mouth was slack. Sometimes she sat and played the accordion but it was always the same wheezing note. She kept a fifth of whiskey in the top drawer of her dresser and when she slept on the recliner I would sip from it, lie in her bed, and imagine that girl. Her blue dress like water, like a calm and perfect sea.

  Lila came into the Tik Tok that night and I watched her for a long time. She was beautiful. She folded and refolded her napkin, looked around as though she was waiting for someone. After ten minutes a tall man came in and sat at the table and I heard him call her by her name. It was a beautiful name, I thought. He sat there for a bit and they spoke quietly. Then he stood up and left.

  I waited awhile and ordered a fried egg so that I could ask her if she wanted some food. Maybe she was hungry, I thought, and didn’t have enough money, or maybe she couldn’t decide what she wanted. I moved into her booth. She didn’t look up.