When I woke up with a start, apparently three hours later (he was done in two, but let me sleep an extra hour, I was to find out), I was drooling and it was getting dark. For all I knew, the tattooist (tattwoist?!) could have painted matching swastikas on my face while I was out cold. But I looked down at my arm and gasped. From the wrist to the elbow was the most beautiful piece of art. A carefully rendered and detailed old-fashioned antique key. Damn. Why hadn’t I picked permanent?
Mr. Tattwosome was with two other clients now, one getting a king of hearts playing card tattooed on his bicep, the other the queen of hearts on his.
“Is that it?” I asked.
“That’s it, luv. Lots of locks.”
Did he say lots of LUCK? Or LUCKS? “Luck? Lucks?” I asked.
“Lots of locks,” he repeated.
It reminded me of Liza’s family’s cleaning woman from El Salvador—they never knew which day she was coming to work if she said it was on “Tuersday.” There was Monday, Tuersday, Wednesday, Tuersday, Friday.
It definitely sounded like he said LOCKS. And of course there was the obvs connection to my new tattoo. OH, and HELLO, Sylvia?! She had said, “Focus on the key things.” Gotcha.
I guess I was to find my tattwosome match, who had the lock tattooed on his arm. But where to start? The guy wouldn’t tell me any more, my phone was dead, and I had an unwatched tape from Mr. WTF burning a hole in my backpack. So I had no other choice but to go back to the apartment. Maybe even S.H.A.R.I. was there by now.
#HellSweetHell.
Chapter 60
DAY 13—EVENING
I have never been one for silence. If nobody is talking, then I have to have music playing, a movie streaming, dogs barking, and you can count on the fact that I will unintentionally listen to every stranger’s conversation within earshot.
But to come home to a quiet apartment (I had decided to leave Boo and Toupee with Jason until after 12:00 noon the next day) was a blessing, only because it meant S.H.A.R.I. wasn’t there. I didn’t even care if she had information about the hunt. I trusted she couldn’t figure anything else out even if she happened to get a clue at the Herlesque Club. I just needed to focus.
I went into my room and got the camera out. I put the tape in and turned it on.
Click the pic to watch the video:
If you didn’t go watch it, here’s what it said:
Hey. How do you like your tattoo? If you’re watching this and don’t know what I’m talking about, pay attention to what came with the tape. Your key is gonna match a lock somewhere in Los Angeles, and it’s gonna be up to you to find out where that is.
All you have to do is figure out two more clues and you’ll be two steps closer to finding me.
Well, not exactly me. I have a confession to make.
I’m not your guy. But don’t turn this off, don’t freak out. The guy behind this whole thing, he’s totally cool and one of my closest friends. And you’re so close to finding him, trust me. Just a little further to go and you’ll see for yourself he’s totally worth it.
So if you believe in destiny like he does, keep going. Carry on.
Lots of locks.
Motherfucker. UNBELIEVABLE!!!! Coco was right. It really could be the troubled, homely old housewife with the severely handicapped twin stepsons from Catfish. Why would some guy have to get some handsome guy friend to do his bidding for him? What if he’s a hideous troll? Could I look beyond that? Kiss that? I’d like to think so. And isn’t that the pot calling the kettle judgmental? One look at my swollen eye and he could run the other way. Maybe he was just thinking the same way I had been with Whitney and S.H.A.R.I.—that unfortunately people DO judge a book by its cover. Well, now I was even more curious. I would just have to find out.
Perhaps I had to think more outside the lock box—like go to a deli and order lots of LOX? Or go to a hairdresser and get my LOTS OF LOCKS cut off, and I’d find a clue there?
My new supah-fly tat was key. So of course it was locks. But why LOTS?
I turned off the camera, and it happened to be just in the nick of time. I heard the front door open. It was clearly time to confront my ratchet roommate. To scream and yell at her for stealing everything, and just hope that didn’t include Mr. WTF.
My door opened and her peroxided head poked in.
“MAAAAGGGGGSSS!!! Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re here. Are you OK? I was so worried!!”
“Whatever…” I answered.
“What happened to your eye? Did someone hurt you?”
And then before I could let her have it, before I could even say a word, she ran up and hugged me. It was so disarming. There I was, totally ready to light into her, and I couldn’t do that wrapped in her bosomy embrace.
“I’m so glad you’re back!!!!!!!!” she said.
And then she started to cry. She sat down on my bed, pulling me down close next to her. Jesus, how was I supposed to yell at her from this position, especially when she was crying?!
“I thought you left for good,” she sobbed. Hard. Like a child who is convinced she’s orphaned and cries with relief when she hears the front door creak open at midnight and sees her parents return home after an evening out. This clearly had much more to do with something, or someone, else other than me. I’d never really heard S.H.A.R.I.’s story, since I’d kept her at arm’s length from the second day after I moved in, when she “borrowed” my journal without asking or telling me.
“Um, are you OK?” I asked.
She just shrugged, still crying. “Jason doesn’t want to see me anymore.”
HA! I wanted to say, “Karma’s a bitch, biatch!” but she started crying even harder.
“Why doesn’t anyone want to go out with me for more than a week?” she asked. “What’s wrong with me?”
And suddenly I felt bad for S.H.A.R.I. She was no longer the manipulative, lying, stealing, surgically enhanced, one-dimensional girl I had always seen and she had always shown. She was a little wounded child with a broken heart. I put my arm around her shoulder.
“Don’t leave again,” she said quietly. “We can fix whatever’s broken.”
I felt so bad for her.
“It’s just…” she started to say, but now the crying was making her suck in her puffy bottom lip, which made it difficult to speak coherently. “You hab eberyting.”
I tried to decipher. I think she said, “You have everything.”
WHAT?!?! “Are you kidding me?” I shrieked. “I’m broke, have no job, no boyfriend, no career, no past that’s true or real.”
She giggled like I was just saying those things to make her feel better. But I was just stating the obvious. “You, on the other hand”—I tried to think of some esteem-building compliments—“you’ve got lots of fans, jobs, you have money, you’re beautiful, and you have guys falling all over you.”
She just shook her head. “I’d rather have what you have,” she said, now a bit more intelligible. “All my life I’ve been told I’m shallow. That I’m bland. Some guy once called me beige and I thought it was a compliment! I love beige! Until I realized what he meant.” She turned away slightly. She couldn’t look at me and say what she was going to say. “You’re so interesting. Creative. Deep. I want to be seen like that. I want to be that.”
Wow. Sheesh. “But by hijacking my life?” I asked. “It doesn’t work that way.” It almost pained me to say it but I did—“Look at how real you’re being right now. You have depth in you. You just always cover it up.”
“You mean that?”
I actually did. “Yeah, I actually do.”
“I’ve never really had friends,” she confessed. “Girls always think of me as competition. Like I’m out to get their guy.”
“Gee, I wonder why they’d think that?!”
“I know,” she said. “It happens a lot. But it’s only cuz the guys pay attention to me.”
I stood up. It was time to ask, and I couldn’t in such close proximity. “Is there any new guy?
Did anything happen at the Herlesque Club?”
“Huh?”
“I saw you there.”
“The other night? I was looking all over for you. Why didn’t you come say hi?”
“I was supposed to be meeting someone—like a blind date. What were YOU doing there is the question!”
“I hoped if we ran into each other you’d maybe hang out with me.”
“Seriously?!? So why were you there with Whitney?”
“That pretty girl? I thought it was weird she had the same shirt on as I did. So I just started talking to her.”
“And?”
“When she asked where I got it and I said I borrowed it from you…”
“Borrowed?!?!”
“I was gonna ask you once I saw you.”
“Whatever. What else did she say? Did she tell you anything?”
“Just that you guys were in some sort of club together. That’s all.” She paused for a second then added. “Can I join?”
“No, you can’t join. You took the shirt from me. That’s not cool!”
She started crying again. She looked like she was about eight years old. Well, an eight-year-old with giant fake boobs.
“Look, how about I take you shopping some time?”
“Would you really do that?” She wiped her eyes with my top sheet, leaving makeup stains. Great. “Sorry I’m Miss Waterworks tonight.” She hugged me again. “Thanks, Maggie.”
“Sure. I gotta do some stuff now, but it was nice talking with you, Shari.” I actually called her Shari.
She left the room. It was crazy. A lifetime of stuff had been crammed into two weeks. Time was flying in a new speed-of-light realm. Which meant that the sixteen hours I had left to figure out two more clues were gonna flash by in just seconds.
I had better get to work.
Chapter 61
THE DAY—MORNING
OH. MY. GOD. OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!
How did this happen????????????????
At midnight, in the middle of my research, my spider bite was bugging me so much I took a Benadryl and with the combo of sleep lack, it knocked me right out cold until 10:22 a.m.!!!! REALLY?????? At this particular time?? On this particular day?? THE CLOCK WAS TICKING!
I woke up with my computer still on my lap opened to my just barely started LOCK research. I’d had only sixteen hours to find Mr. WTF and I ended up spending over twelve of them asleep!!! What was wrong with me??? Now all that was left was one hour and thirty-eight minutes until noon. And why couldn’t I see at all? I looked in the mirror—my eye was completely swollen shut now. Ah… perfect. But this was no time to feel sorry for myself. I picked up where I left off. I had looked up:
www.locksmithsla.com (a locksmith company in Los Angeles)
www.locksla.com (nothing)
www.lotsoflocksla.com (nothing)
www.lotsoflocks.com (Laguna Beach Hair Extensions)
Next I simply Googled LOTS OF LOCKS and found an organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children suffering from long-term medical situations that have caused hair loss. I added it to a growing list of places I’d donate to once I had some cash. Halfway down the Google listings, images for “LOTS OF LOCKS” caught my eye. I clicked through to the images page and was totally blown away by an infinite scroll of pics like this:
When I clicked on several of them, the blog posts or articles mentioned the Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne, also referred to as the Love Bridge. As I went down the windy path that Google is, I finally ended up on Wikipedia, which explained, “Love padlocks (also known as love locks and, in Taiwan, wish locks) are a custom by which padlocks are affixed to a fence, gate, bridge, or similar public fixture by sweethearts at an increasing number of locations in the world to symbolize their everlasting love.”
Well, couples placing locks on fences to symbolize them being locked together in love was MUCH more on track as opposed to hair-extension salons or an antique lock exhibit in Missouri!
Fuck, Mr. WTF, whoever TF you really are, stop being so damn romantic and ingenious, will ya?!?!
I went back to the Wikipedia page and clicked on the link increasing number of locations and then clicked on UNITED STATES. Several places were listed—Chicago, IL; Springdale, UT; Brooklyn, NY. But nothing in L.A. So I Google imaged “Locks on Fences Los Angeles,” and one of the pics that came up TOTALLY BLEW ME AWAY!!!! There was indeed a love-lock fence in L.A. Where?
IN MY FREAKIN’ NEIGHBORHOOD!!!!!!!!!! SWEARS!!!!!!!!!!! I COULDN’T MAKE THIS SHIT UP IF I TRIED!!!!
Like a block away from the Good Luck Bar!!! How had I never seen it before?!?! Well, as I recently realized, there were plenty of things I never noticed B.H. (before hunt).
Maybe fate was finally on my side. I ran out of the apartment to Lola, hopped on her, and sped down Sunset toward Los Feliz and the fence. When I found it, I realized why I probably hadn’t noticed it before. It was not nearly as love-filled as all the fences around the world in the pics I saw. But that kind of felt appropriate. Fresh. Like brand-new love.
So now what? He did say that my key would match a lock and there WAS one lock that stood out among the professions of love, not only because it was the only old one my antique key would “fit,” but also…. Well, take a look-see:
I was surprised the police pup didn’t have a polka-dot tongue!
I tried to see if the lock would come apart and I could get it off the fence, but it was, well, LOCKED. Then I started looking under rocks on the ground—maybe there was a hidden real key? Oh, and maybe not. Could there be messages on the surrounding locks pointing out some clue on mine? No. Fuck. It was already 11:12. I had just forty-eight minutes to go. Once again I examined the old lock carefully and noticed only one thing—on the back. There was an engraving that said, CLARKE AND SONS CO. 5554 N. Figueroa St. Highland Park. MFR FEB. 28, 1921.
Helpful. NOT. If the lock was made in 1921, what were the chances of Clarke and Sons still being around? I whipped out my phone and Googled CLARKE AND SONS CO. Most of the companies were in the UK, including 1.) Quality solicitors (whatever those are), 2.) A heating and plumbing company, and 3.) Funeral directors. So next I Googled the address. It showed a map, but nothing else. Was I supposed to go to that address in Highland Park? Now that I had faced my fear of being splattered across freeway lanes, I could jump on the 5 and then the 110 and maybe get there in time. If I was on the wrong track, that would be it for the hunt. Done. Finito. End of the line. But what else did I have to go on? I guessed that this would be the final test. If I was supposed to meet Mr. WTF, then I was on the right track. If not, then I also would be on the right track—I would just have to surrender, believing that it was my destiny to NOT find him, and promise myself to not always wonder. Could I do that? Probably not. But I could figure that out later. Now I had better get my ass to Highland Park ASAP to see what fate awaited me.
Chapter 62
THE DAY—MORNING
I jumped on my scooter, turned it on, revved it, and then started to peel out. Uh… STARTED to. I heard a sputter, sputter, and then silence. I tried again. Nothing. Are you fucking kidding me?!?!?! I ran out of gas at that very moment?!?!?! For real?!? Everything seemed to be conspiring against me—from the spider on. But I had come too far and gotten too close to give up now.
I called the only person I could think of who might be nearby, had a car and no job. Luckily I had his phone number in my recent calls from when he was looking for Coco that fateful fucked-up night.
“Blake? Thank God you answered. Where are you?”
“I stopped by my house. Why?”
“I need your help big-time and fast. Can you come pick me up right away in Los Feliz? I’ll explain everything.”
“Sure,” he said. Then, “Hold on.” Coco got on the phone.
“Why didn’t you call me? I thought we were good?”
“Aren’t you at work?”
“I left early to talk to Blake.”
“Sweet. Shit, I’m so sorry to interrupt, but can you guys take a short break and get me? I ran out of gas and only have like forty minutes to get to Mr. WTF.”
“For real? Do you know where he is?” she asked excitedly.
“I guess we’ll find out. And bring all of your makeup. OH—and some Benadryl!”
Nine minutes later (who was counting?), Coco and Blake pulled up in the truck. I squeezed into the front seat.
“Jesus, you look like a Cyclops,” Coco exclaimed.
“Thanks.”
“Here, take the Benadryl.” She handed me a pill and a bottle of water.
“Is this even going to make the swelling go down or am I just going to fall asleep again and drool all over Mr. WTF? If I even get to him in time.”
“You’ll be fine, and oh, we’ll get there in time.”
Blake floored the gas even more as we tore down Vermont.
“Hey, Blake.”
“Hey, Mags.”
“I’m so happy to see you guys together, I could one-eye cry!”
Coco smiled and started applying my makeup. With her magic touch, I was bound to at least look… semi-human. Then something hit me so damn hard, I gasped for air.
“Are you OK?” Coco was alarmed. “Don’t tell me you’re having an allergic reaction to an allergy pill!”
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!!!! THE SHIRT!!!! I don’t have the shirt. Everything has said I’d need it, and I bullshitted my way through the past two clues without it. What if I’m not allowed in where he is if I don’t have it?”
“Where is it?” Blake asked.
“At my apartment. But we don’t have time to turn back to get it.”
“What about the Hacktress?” Coco asked.
“She booked a job today. Fuck. There’s only one thing I can think of.” I pulled out my phone and dialed.
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