Monthly Archives

June 2019

Jun 04
0

Tart Man

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Tart man walked another four and a half blocks, up a narrow, winding street to a four-unit stucco building built in the thirties. He entered the garden apartment. Inside, a battered old sky-blue surfboard propped up against the living room wall was the only bit of personality in the cracked plaster interior of the small one bedroom unit.

The man went to his kitchenette, got a cold coffee out of his fridge and laced it with milk. He looked at the tart; not really into it. As he put it in the fridge, he heard a key turn in his front door. He opened a drawer and took out a twenty year old hand gun.

“Mr. Jones?” came a familiar voice. “You here? I’m gonna kill you.” Mr. Jones went into his living room.

Leland Hays was standing there, mad as hell. Jones put down the gun, “Stop threatening me everytime some shit happens.”

“Some shit?!” Hays hissed, turning red. “That’s seventy five grand up in smoke! Why the hell were they even there?!”

“Ozrin wanted the pick-up there.”

“He never told me.”

“You never deal with him on that–”

“Any changes, you’re to let me know. When the hell were you gonna tell me?! Now this! This dead shit and I had to hear it from the cops? The COPS!”

“I just found out.”

“You just found out? Fire was two days ago.”

“Well Myrna just told me.”

Hays stared at him. He took out his wallet, “Get me three more now, Before Ozrin takes his business somewhere else.” He tossed five twenties on the worn counter. “There’s a hundred for gas.” Then he started to leave.

“Those girls dying is on you.” Then he was gone.

Panama Jones checked the time. It was nine-forty-five. He put the gun away, drank half the coffee, grabbed his board and left.

Jun 15
0

Jim Beam

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Rhea ran out of words. After writing five hundred and twenty, she hit a wall. She was done. She couldn’t think of another thing to write about cookies and twenty-year-old men or tarts and forty-year-old men. She’d tried her best to imagine it but she couldn’t. What she had wasn’t going to cut it – word-wise and, thus, money-wise. It was time to concentrate on the Domingos case.

She entered her LAPD passwords into a department database and waited, fingers crossed. She got in. Soon she was scrolling through the histories of people and buildings – the pages that told the stories that made up LA. She searched for any info she could find on Domingos, Leland Hays and a bartender named Myrna.

Forty seven web pages into looking at Domingos’ business tax records and employee records she found little of importance except a three-year-old misdemeanor building code violation regarding the steps leading down to Domingos’s liquor storage cellar. Thinking about liquor delivery to the place, she assumed a bartender signed for the deliveries. She called seven local liquor distributors and found two who had delivered to Domingos in the last year.

Young’s Liquor Distributors had an office and warehouse five and a half blocks west of Hays’s Furniture warehouse. The manager – a neat man named Mavery – was on the floor, counting cases of Jim Beam. Rhea flashed her badge – man this was getting easy – and Mavery told her Domingos was one of their smaller accounts but he remembered them well and was “Sorry to see them shut down.”

“Do you remember who signed for the deliveries?” Rhea asked him.

“Yeah…” he thought, “The bartender. A woman. ’bout fifty. Mexican, I think.”

“Do you remember her name?” Rhea asked, trying to push back that little thrill she felt when something just might go her way.

Mavery shook his head, “No. But–” Rhea held onto the thrill and he delivered, “I should have a copy of the receipt.”

Rhea followed Mavery into his office. In the middle of a tidy book full of receipts was a messy, scrawled signature: “Myrna Saldano.” Rhea took a photo of it, thanked Mavery and left.

She got in her car and smiled. She had a name! Her first impulse was to call Strickland. It was habit. But she didn’t. Why piss him off even more. Besides, he’d get there soon enough.

Rhea went back to her apartment, determined to find Myrna Saldano. But Myrna Saldano was nowhere. On paper, she did not exist. After again scrubbing through her best databases, Rhea found no record, no past or no whereabouts of Myrna Saldano. The only hint that the woman existed was that signed liquor delivery receipt and Mavery’s description.

Still… if she did exist and lived in LA, she’d need money. Her trade was bartending. It was time to hit the streets.

Jun 04
0

Landscape Architect

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Late afternoon sun streaked across the flattened mound behind Daisy’s back patio where the coyote had laid. Daisy watched as Bernardo, the landscaper, with a survey map in hand, staked out the boundaries of her property. The mound was, indeed, just outside the markers, like Daisy and Travis had thought.

“Do you want all succulents?” Bernardo asked her as they discussed the landscaping of the wild, sloping part of her back yard. “Or also some native brush, some rock rose, some agave.”

“The agave sounds good.” Daisy told him as she studied the placement of his markers, “And some flowering natives would be nice – maybe a tree for shade? A Palo Verde tree, right down there.” she pointed to a spot a few yards down the slope.

“Do you want hardscaping?” he asked her.

“… maybe just some flagstones in the dirt. And a path to the tree and a small bench. Can you carve out a little path alongside the edge?” she pointed to the side of her property, next to the mound.

Bernardo looked around, “It needs some grading. And it’s a big area…”

Daisy nodded. “How much?”

He made a few calculations, did some thinking. “Seven grand.” he estimated. “Ballpark.”

Daisy agreed. “When can you start?” she asked.

“I can start in five weeks.” he told her, adding, “I’ll need a two grand deposit at least a week before.”

“I’ll give it to you now.” she offered, “Then we’ll be all set.”

She easily scrambled up the few yards to her back wall. She stepped over it and strode across her patio to the iron gate over her back door. It was heavily arched with thick fuschia bouganvillea, studded with thorns – part of which had fallen across the gate. As Daisy grabbed the vine to pull it aside, Bernardo hurried to her.

“Careful, Miss–! It has thorns–” he warned. She smiled, unscathed and went inside.

A minute later she came back out with two thousand dollars, in cash. “Five weeks from today, I’ll expect your workers here.” she told him. “Don’t change the date, I don’t like to wait. If you do, I’ll take the deposit back and get someone else.”

Bernardo realized she wasn’t one to be messed with. He thought for a minute, going over his schedule in his mind. Satisfied he could deliver, he nodded then took the money. The date was set.

After Bernardo left, Daisy went back out onto her patio. Her very old cat and the coyote were there, waiting. Inquisitory looks were on their faces. “Right now, it’s just landscaping.” she told them, “I don’t know yet if I want it dug up. I have five weeks to decide.”

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