L.A. Rotten (8 page)

In her absence, I study the other men around me at the bar.
Is he here now?
I don't think he is—no one has entered since I have and I doubt he knew I was headed down here. Still, I gauge the height and weight of everyone in the place, just to be sure. I wonder if this is how it's going to be from here on out, though. My chest burns.
Am I just going to measure up everyone I meet from now on until the day when he sneaks up from behind and jams a blade in me? No,
I decide
. I'm not going to live like that…like I'm back in prison.

“I know you're gonna say no cops on this one, but what should we do, for real?” she asks upon her return.

“For realsies?” I say, sarcastic, but drop it to consider what feels like my only option. “Considering the stack of dead bodies he's left in his wake, I'd say I'm going to kill him before he kills me.”

Admittedly, I'm still cautious as I set foot inside my apartment building, but I try to appear casual. Something like this is easy to overthink.
Do I take the elevator or do I take the stairs? Is someone waiting for me in the hallway, or are they inside my apartment already? Is anyone there at all? Maybe the note was just a tactic to keep me from messing in his affairs. Maybe he has no intent of ever bothering me. Or maybe he will come for me in the middle of the night like one of his motel victims.
…

If I get bogged down in my own guesswork, I'll wind up a lunatic. So I opt for the elevator—it's as good a choice as any, and besides, it's been a long day. It's even still early enough yet that Ms. Park-Hallsley shouldn't have reason to complain. At least she's no longer snoring
.
I hit the button and expect to see her shadow move across her door, ominous, but it doesn't. Usually she'll check so she knows who to make the complaint letter out to, or even out of simple, prying curiosity. I can hear the strains of a TV commercial through the door, though, and can only hope that, for once, there is something more interesting to her than the goings-on of the tenants.

The hallway on the fifth floor appears clear, so I press my luck and go for my apartment. I enter unmolested and everything at first glance appears exactly as it should, but I still lock the door behind me and give the place a quick once-over to ascertain that I am indeed alone. After that, I feel foolish.
Of course his note was only a scare tactic. If he really wanted to kill me, he wouldn't leave a note on my car—he'd just kill me.

Annoyed at my own flighty imagination, I stoop to scoop the parchment-colored envelope from the linoleum tile behind my door. It's another of Park-Hallsley's landlord warnings, I'm sure, and I toss it toward the trashcan. The envelope sails wide left and I go after it, grumbling. When I pick it up a second time, though, something feels off. It's heavier than her normal missives, as if she'd stuffed two warnings in one envelope. My curiosity gets the better of me, and I tear into the notice to see what's up.

Inside, on large font spread over two pages stapled together bearing Ms. Park-Hallsley's personal letterhead, I find typed:

Hello again,

Let me just start by saying I am impressed. More than impressed even—stupefied. I don't know who you are, or how you found out about me, but good work, you. You could just be some unlucky guy staying at the Inn who happened to get a glimpse of me and released your inner superhero, but I kind of doubt it. Why would you be staying at the Northridge Offramp Inn when you live here? I guess you could have been taking advantage of the new hourly rates (how seedy are those, btw?). The rub is that I actually saw you in your car on Wednesday night, but stupid fucking me, I just chalked you up to a part of the scenery. That nice new car should have clued me in, though…you see how sloppy I'm getting? So I thank you for the lesson in caution. Also, were you as annoyed as I was about the room being empty that other night?

I don't think you're a cop cuz you are a bit too gaunt and unhealthy looking, and also, you would have just pulled your gun and badge on me. My guess is that you work for the coroner's office. You must have been to the crime scenes or seen pictures, right? I'm thinking it was the condom-in-the-Bible that gave me away. Yeah, that was a bit too on-the-nose maybe.

I am excited now, Mr. Mystery Man. You've given me a new direction in life, and helped me realize how bored I was with everything, and since you decided to fuck with my life, I'm going to return the favor. Spooky spooky.

P.S. Your landlord is a real nosy bitch!

Fuck. Of course.
I scan the note again quickly, seeking out telltale signs that could shed clues as to the identity of the writer. After scanning it twice, I realize that from his words, I deduce absolutely fucking nothing. He seems young.
Maybe
. But how young? From our previous encounter, I knew he was in shape and strong, but these days, even guys in their sixties are in shape and strong.

The “P.S.” is interesting—does he mean that she'd caught him stuffing the letter under my door? But how would he have added that to the letter? And if it was written on her stationery, had he accessed her room? Or maybe this was part of what he meant by fucking with me? What if the letter was tailor-made to get me to go out of my room to talk to Ms. Park-Hallsley, and that is where he gets me…It is all a great big mindfuck.

In the end, I decide I don't have too much of a choice and step out into the hallway, glancing subtly side to side for the man to be lying in wait. The jutting square corners of the hallway don't help any either as I move down toward the elevators, unable to see around them for the presence of a person. The lack of AC in the building causes my arms to take on a slick feel. I'm annoyed that I'm so nervous. Why hadn't I minded my own business? The uncertainty of the moment brings back memories of my time in the prison rec yard, back before the attack, back before I got put into special holding, and I shiver despite the heat. A large figure pops out from around the corner, abruptly into my line of sight, startling me. It is my neighbor, a large ponytailed Samoan man, carting his laundry back from the laundromat up the street. We nod politely at one another, but neither of us speaks. He doesn't know anything about me, and what I know about him, he doesn't need to know either. I'd once pathetically jacked off to the sound of him through the wall having sex with a vocal woman for what seemed like an hour. It isn't exactly the makings of a startup conversation.

Ms. Park-Hallsley's television is still on, back to another commercial, and all at once I feel like a fool. I'll knock, and she'll answer, glaring at me for disturbing her. I'll ask if anyone has been around that day looking for me; she'll make some snide remark about evicting me if I am in any more trouble with the law. I will apologize quickly for disturbing her, and then go back upstairs, left to wonder what it all means. In spite of this, I rap on the door, and wait. There is no discernible sound of movement from inside and no shadow across the peephole. It is all very odd. In the year and a half I've lived here, I've never once known her to leave the building. She even has her groceries delivered. She has no friends in the building that I know of, and when she does leave her room, she always turns the TV off. She's too cheap not to. I tap once more, harder, and wait. Finally, deciding, I try the handle.

It twists and the door swings open easily, silently, into the apartment. The room is dark—save for the electric glow of the television screen on the Home Shopping Channel. “Ms. Park-Hallsley?” I pray the old broad isn't just taking a dump. “Hello?”

I flick on the switch for the overhead lamp and douse the room in shaded white light. The room is clean but cluttered, filled with the sort of contrivances and commemorative wall plates that the Home Shopping Network shills round the clock.

“Ms. Park?”

If she is just out on other floors, making her rounds, dropping off her threatening little letters, and comes back to catch me in her apartment, I'll be evicted at the very least. More likely, I'll be arrested, and she'll claim it was robbery and attempted murder with the special circumstance of “lying in wait.”

And yet, I move on through the garish front room and toward the main bedroom. The bathroom door is ajar, and I can see the toilet is unoccupied, so that takes care of that. My apartment is laid out just like hers—only hers is bigger and appears to have an extra bedroom, probably filled with more Shopping Network crap. Flipping on the bedroom light, I see her lying on the bed, in her nightgown, motionless on top of the covers of the made bed. “Ms. Park?” I try again, apprehensive. In her fist is a tube of burgundy lipstick, the tip smashed in. Beside her, a note simply reads,
I'm tired
, in fumbling, blocky lipstick lettering. Her body appears intact and unharmed, and it is as if she is only asleep, but without needing to touch her, I know this isn't the case. On the desk beside her bed, standing prominent before the keyboard of her computer, is an uncapped and empty bottle of zolpidem.

She's killed herself—OD'd on generic sleeping pills—and has done so in the shadow of an assembled teddy bear audience, their eyes staring in silent judgment from every surface in the room. Of course it isn't really a suicide, but what had transpired that cost this woman her life?

I suddenly have the distinct impression that I am being watched—and not just by the plush collectibles. I look to the window in the room, which is closed, locked, and covered by white curtains. It seems as if someone had deliberately moved one of the curtains over just enough though that they'd be able to look in on the scene from the outside. I stride over and glance out through the gap, careful not to touch anything—now mindful of everything in the room and my presence around it. Outside, across the lawn, and over the tips of the plants below the window, I can only see the streetlights casting their shadows. A rice rocket zooms by, stereo reverberating, causing car alarms to chirp their warnings. Otherwise, nothing else moves, but I know I'm not wrong. He's out there somewhere, watching me discover his handiwork.

I walk back out of the room, leaving Ms. Park-Hallsley on her bed with her smushed lipstick and “suicide note,” pausing to wipe a tissue across the entirety of the light switch and its plastic plate. I do the same for every other light switch and doorknob, cleaning the entire surface of each. Cops aren't stupid—well, the detectives aren't anyways—it's better that they find everything completely wiped clean rather than just odd spots amidst surrounding fingerprints. Better to let 'em think she was a compulsive cleaner. I leave the TV on; the announcer is showcasing a piece of art, a reprint from one of the Dutch masters, and I curse the fact that I can't lock the door. An unlocked door is always suspicious—even to the dumb cops.

Exiting the building, I walk around on the concrete to where Ms. Park-Hallsley's window is, careful not to step in the soft mulch around the plants there. As I figure, a lone plank, taken from the construction site across the street, lies across the dirt, preventing the creation of footprints in the loose soil. Cursing, I lift the plank with the tips of my fingers, and toss it off so that it no longer resides directly beneath the window. It's a dead giveaway that what we've got here is more likely a near-perfectly executed murder rather than a casual suicide. And as the resident ex-con living in the building, I don't fucking need that police headache. It is an irritation to have to clean up after such sloppy criminal antics. Then, because I know he is watching, I turn and extend my middle finger to the darkness.

“You're really not going to call the police?”

“No.”

“But she's just going to rot in there.”

“When she really begins to stink—if it gets that far—then I'll call it in. That way, it'll seem natural. I'm a crime scene cleaner—I'm supposed to recognize that smell. It won't be suspicious then. I have to play it smart about this stuff—for my own sake.”

“What if I do it then?”

“Be my guest. Do it from a payphone, though, and leave me out of it.”

I didn't have any crime scenes on my docket, and Ivy had wanted to meet up, so I'd suggested the Venice Boardwalk. The temperature was over 100 in the Valley and the boardwalk on a Saturday afternoon is a good scene.

“I've never been here before,” she confesses as we begin to walk. “It cost me fifteen bucks to park.”

“Yeah, the parking sucks. I know a guy out here, though; he doesn't drive, so I borrowed his carport.” The guy in question is my dealer, another reason I chose Venice.

“Thanks for sharing,” she grouses.

“I can't believe you live in L.A. and you've never been to Venice.”

“I'm not native—I came out from Kansas, so I've got an excuse.”

“Kansas isn't an excuse for anything.” Not wanting to bicker, I change tactics. “Okay, so the first rule of Venice is that you've got to get a pair of sunglasses.”

“I've got sunglasses.” She points to the pair perched up on her head.

I pluck them off and hand them back to her. “You've got to get Venice sunglasses. It stimulates the economy; they're cheap. I'll buy you a pair…a mea culpa about the parking.”

“Are you going to get some?” she asks, self-conscious.

“Always.”

“They won't turn my skin green or anything, will they?”

“Don't be a bitch.”

I lead the way over to one of the many bodegas with their massive display walls of sunglasses, and begin picking through the random stacks, trying on pairs.

“This doesn't seem like you,” she says, sticking close.

“Actually, since you hardly know me, I wouldn't say that you're the best judge of my habits. But you're right. This is more of a ‘fuck you' to my parents than any sort of interest in cheap Taiwanese eyewear. They never let me get sunglasses when they took me out here as a kid. They thought they were a ‘waste of money.' ”

“Are your parents still around?”

“Let's change the topic,” I insist, and find a pair that looks good on her.

Satisfied with our selections, I signal the Asian lady manning the booth and gesture to both pairs, then hand her a ten. She pockets the money and doesn't bother to haggle.

“What were you in jail for?”

“I committed a crime. What do you think of your new glasses?”

“They're very dark.”

“They're sunglasses. That's what they do.”

She pinches the skin of my elbow. “How's your arm?”

“Healing. I'll have a scar.”

“Chicks dig scars.”

“I don't need any more chicks or scars.”

“Do you think he followed us?” Ivy asks, suddenly moving closer to me.

“I don't know,” I admit. “I've been watching the people around us, but I haven't seen anyone paying any particular attention to me.”
To
her, though…

“I like to freak myself out by pretending he's right behind us.” Ivy gasps and turns suddenly, forcing me to glance as well, but I find nobody. “Boo,” she laughs.

“Hey, answer me this: why are you here?” I ask her, serious. “I'm stuck in it now, but you're not. Why don't you forget about all this? Go live an easy life somewhere. I promise—whatever all this is, it's not going to end well.”

“Uh-uh. You can't scare me off that easy. I'm in this because I got you in this, and if something happens to you, I'll never forgive myself. Believe it or not, but you're kind of beginning to matter to me.” She grins. “Now that I said that, this kinda feels like a date, huh?”

“You know what I like most about Venice Beach?” I say too quickly. “The lunatics.” As I say it, an attractive woman in a pink bikini bottom with only black electrical tape covering her nipples rollerblades by, wearing an enormous cowboy hat.

“I can see how you would be attracted to the crazy people.”

“But that's what I like about them—they're crazy, but not really.”

“What does that even mean?”

I point to a man dressed like the Statue of Liberty except he has a live macaw parrot on each shoulder, and twin streams of excrement from the birds trailing down the back of his toga. Painted in thick black acrylic across his face is the declaration “nO AbORtiONs.”

“Go ask that man if you can take a picture with him.”

“I don't want a picture with him.”

“Just ask.”

With reluctance, Ivy moves over to where the man stands in the shade of a large palm tree. The birds both crane their heads in her direction as she approaches. I watch as she talks to the man for a moment and then returns, a look of incredulity on her face.

“He wants five dollars for a photo!”

“Exactly. He probably makes a pretty decent living out of playing crazy—which is crazy, but not really. Does that make him and all the others out here insane or brilliant? The same thing goes for this thing with the motel rooms…he's got to be a crazy guy too, right? Except…to do what he does as long as he has, he's fucking not.”

“I think he's a moron.”

“Says the girl who believes in numerology.”

“I'm over that now. You're right—it's kinda silly. Besides, I'm much more fascinated by tarot cards now.”

“Yeah, that's a whole lot better.”

“You don't gotta be a dick to me, you know? No one is around to be impressed.”

“Sorry.”

“I'm not stupid. Really, I'm not. I'm just fascinated by the world around me—what is seen and unseen.”

“I already said sorry. You're only getting one.”

“It's okay,” she says quietly, catching up to my stride. “You're weird, you know? Sometimes you treat me like I'm a person, other times you make me feel like…slime.”

We let that hang out there for a while, both uncertain about what to say next. I break first, pointing out the glass walker, but don't stop to watch. “This guy's hilarious. He'll spend the next twenty minutes getting people to pony up to watch him jump on some shards of glass. He's always out here. Every time I see him, he's claiming that it is his ‘last day in America' and that he's ‘just doing this to raise money for his trip.' He's been saying that since I was a kid.”

Ivy nods, but seems preoccupied. “Can we hold hands?” she asks finally.

“No.”

“Don't take it like a romantic thing, take it like it's protective. I'm starting to get a vibe from two guys back there.”

In my people watching, I'd noticed the attention she's been absorbing since we arrived, her in her short shorts and tube top. The thug element is high in Venice and she is too Barbie for her own good. It had all been innocent enough; now, though, there are a couple of guys who have her in their sights and I don't think it has to do with the Offramp Inn. “You're the one with fake tits who dressed all cute.”

“I didn't dress like this for everyone,” she corrects me. “And as for the tits, they were purely a business decision.”

“You're in the right business for them,” I agree. I stick out my hand finally, and she takes it, wrapping her small fingers around mine.

“You think I look cute?” She smiles, pulling the accidental compliment from the barbs.

“How are you not more worried about those guys?”

“Welcome to being a girl out in public. They look like most of the customers at my bar. Once they think we're together, they'll bug off.” I have to hope she is right there, but I remain on alert.

I don't alert her to it, and she doesn't look, but our hand-holding doesn't seem to deter the thugs. They seem to ebb closer to us, moving around other tourists to do so. They are close enough now that I can tell one is Mexican and the other is a white guy. Both are heavily tatted and thick with prison muscle. Neither one fits the shape of my attacker, though. As the pace of our walking increases, so too does the pace of the men behind us.

“We should maybe get off the boardwalk,” I murmur.

“I don't believe it,” Ivy practically shrieks, nearly pulling my arm from its socket as she drags me along. “It's a sign.” It is a sign, but not one I really want to see. In the dirty window of an apartment front on the boardwalk, a neon sign reads tarot.

“It's not a sign,” I promise Ivy. “There are tarot shops all over Venice. This is just one of them.”

“Well, you said you wanted off the boardwalk. This is something for that, alright?” With that logic, I reluctantly allow Ivy to lead me up to the front door, where she eagerly knocks.

A college-aged young man, thin, with glasses and a goatee, answers the door in corduroy pants and a shirt reading, i see
DUMB
people. “Here for a reading?” he asks, clearly aroused by Ivy.
Does it ever stop with this girl?

“How did he know that?” Ivy asks me, clearly feeling justified. She pulls me into the man's apartment and as I allow myself to be led I glance back as the two creeps cruise right on by with nary a glance after us.
Was it all in my imagination?

Inside, a card table draped in black felt has been pushed off to the side, out of the path between the man's couch and his giant TV, which is playing a muted episode of a cartoon I don't recognize. Some folding chairs are stacked against the wall and the place smells of marijuana. A still-smoky bong sits to the side of the couch. “That sign was the best purchase I've ever made,” the man assures us as he flicks the TV off at the box. “I'm going to light some incense…to affect the mood.”

“Smells like you've already got some going,” I respond, and Ivy elbows me.

“The weed clears my head, man. There's a lot going on…” He pauses to light a fresh stick of incense in a holder above the TV. “…up there. Besides, it's legal. I've got a prescription.” He pulls three chairs out and unfolds them, smiles seductively at Ivy, and then turns to me. “Help me pull the table out.”

Disgusted with myself, I do so, and Ivy arranges the chairs around it. “Okay,” says the man, sitting, and gesturing for us to do the same. He reaches behind him and, grabbing a worn tarot deck off his DVR box, says, “Let the powers of Gideon go to work for you. Oh—and it's sixty for the both of you. Cash only.”

“I don't have cash,” Ivy explains awkwardly. “I used it for parking. I have a Visa card.”

I'm about to use that as our excuse to leave, but the man says to her, “Well, I need a material payment of some kind. No credit cards. Perhaps you'd be willing to offer a sort of trade—if you flash me, I can accept that.”

“Look, asshole.” I stand, aggressive, but the young man has pulled out a Taser, which he activates quickly, its sparks crackling.

“It was only a suggestion, bro,” he warns me. “Don't get crazy. I can't give you something for nothing…that's not fair, is it? This is capitalism.”

I look down to Ivy, hoping she realizes that it is time to go, but she already has her hands at her top. “Stop,” I command her, and reach for my wallet. “Sixty dollars? I got that.”

I drop the bills on the table. “Alright,” says the man. “See? We're all cool here.” He leaves the Taser on the table, though, as he pockets the cash. “Now, let's see what your future holds. Do you have any specific questions?” He looks to me first, imploring me to be seated.

“Am I going to get ripped off in the very near future?” I ask, resignedly taking my seat in the creaky plastic chair.

“Definitely not,” Gideon says smugly, spreading out the cards, face up. “He's not a true believer, is he?” he asks Ivy.

“Not yet.” She smiles, knowing that I am pissed, but hoping for some good outcome to all of this. “Let's just start with something simple. I just got out of numerology—and into tarot readings. What are our lucky numbers?”

“Okay, yeah,” says Gideon, his seductive voice back on. “That's easy. He flips the cards, shuffles them quickly as if readying for a poker game, and then extends them for her to cut the cards. She does and he flips over the six of wands.

“Is it six?” she asks.

“Did you
just
get into tarot?” he asks, uncertain.

“Yes! Just today—that's why when I saw your sign, I knew it was a sign!”

“Yeah, totally. Totally. Okay, with tarot, what the card says, it doesn't necessarily mean. It's for me to interpret. My mother was a great and powerful witch and she totally passed her powers on to me. See, the card says six, but really, I can see here your lucky number is eleven.”

“Oh,” Ivy exclaims. “Hmm, no, that can't be right. Eleven is an unlucky number—for both of us.”

“It's the cards, they don't lie.”

Ivy's brow is still furrowed, so the man quickly explains, “Sometimes, what we see as an unlucky thing, it's really mysteriously lucky. The universe has greater plans for us, you know?”

“I guess,” she admits, but is still not sold. “What about Tom?”

I'm annoyed that she's even shared my name with this hack bastard, but the man reshuffles and offers me the cards, which I decline to cut.

“Works either way, my friend,” Gideon assures me. He cuts them and turns over the three of cups. “Your lucky number is three.”

“That's a good lucky number,” Ivy squeals, impressed. “Three in numerology is powerful.”

“Yeah, totally,” the man agrees. “My mom was all about the number three. Three pops up in all things. All over nature and the universe and shit. You can't explain it.”