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death | An LA Crime Story - Part 3

Apr 07
0

Notepad

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The Porter house was a fifties tract house papered in faded wallpaper and jammed full of thick silence pierced by the steady beat of Steve’s sobs as he sat in a lumpy chair, looking out the front window at the night. Strickland knew he didn’t see the neighbors’ twinkling Christmas lights and he didn’t see the full moon. He doubted he saw anything but the dark. It’s all he had left. He’d told Donnelly, Nava and Canon everything he remembered about that day, then he shut down. Strickland turned to Rhea.

“Anything else you remember?” he asked the panicked, gangly teen trying to disappear into the wall she cowered against. “Any one in Joe’s seem unusual or maybe they were gone when you noticed Aggie gone, too?”

Rhea shook her head and briefly looked him in the eye, “I don’t think so—“

“Jesus!” Stel screamed at her, “Think! You had to see something besides the fucking food–!”

Rhea froze, immobilized by Stel’s rage and her own guilt. The pain in her eyes was heartbreaking to Strickland. That pain was why, at thirty seven, Strickland still didn’t have kids. His ex-wife was sure she could talk him into it or at least fuck him into it. She came close, too but then he made the Exploited Kids Division and he saw what people did to them. He saw the bodies. He saw the damage. And every single time it broke him. He couldn’t imagine if one was his own. He looked at the pictures Stel had given him. In one, Aggie looked right at him, her half smile seemed to say, “I’m lost forever.” He shoved it to the bottom of the stack of five.

“I’ll get these photos back to you soon as we make copies—”

He looked back at Rhea, wanting to talk to her but Stel held on to him.

“You’ll find her.” She said.

He wanted to say, “Don’t get your hopes up.” But he knew, until a body was found, there would always be hope. And that was not a good thing.

“We’ll try our best, Mrs. Porter.”

He handed Rhea a little rainbow notepad note-pad and pen, wrote down his number and told her to write down anything she remembered and to call him, “Anytime.”

Apr 08
0

Rustic Imports

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One hour before Rhea got on the train, twenty-six miles north, in an alley behind Palmetto Street, Leland Hays stood on the loading ramp of his downtown LA furniture warehouse and peeled off three hundred dollars from a roll of bills and handed the money to Panama Jones.

“You told me five or six—“ Panama reminded him.

“I had to take out for gas, insurance, wear and tear—” Leland explained.

Panama wasn’t happy. “I gotta pay for that too?”

Hays went on, “You only got one girl. Don’t get me wrong, one’s OK but—five or six hundred for one? We’re trying to do these girls a favor here, right? Their new… ‘employers’… are paying me a little something but no one’s getting rich, here.”

Panama nodded, he understood. He gestured toward the closed steel door at the top of the ramp. “She still goin’ to Beverly Hills?”

“Yep. To a great family.” Hays assured him, then added, “Remember, no one knows we do this. Government wouldn’t like us not payin’ them their immigration fees–”

“I know.” Panama interrupted–

“We’d all be in deep shit—“ Hays went on, emphasizing “all”.

“I know.”

“Good.” Hays said, like a threat. “Come back by in a few weeks— I’ll have more work.”

Panama nodded and walked away, past the blue van parked in a spot in front of the warehouse, next to an old Mercedes and an ’88 Camry. He headed toward the bus stop on Fourth Street. Something felt weird to him but, he had a few joints in his pocket to smooth it all out.

Back inside his warehouse, Hays went into his office and looked around. “Larry?” he called out.

“Over here.” came a male voice. Hays followed it back outside to the top of the ramp where the furniture that was in the blue van had been unloaded. The door to the rustic cabinet was open. Inside the cabinet, Aggie was sound asleep. A balding man in his thirties, Larry Ozrin, pointed at her, smiling. Hays agreed with a smile. “Blond. Yeah–” He rubbed his fingers against his thumb in the gesture of “money.”

Ozrin nodded, “How much?”

“Extra five grand.” Hays told him. Ozrin reeled, “C’mon, man–”

“Firm.” Hays wasn’t negotiating. After a minute, Ozrin agreed. He handed over a neat stack of cash to which he added five thousand dollars.

“You’ll make that back in a week.”

“Easily.” Ozrin admitted then he lifted Aggie out of the cabinet and carried her, still sleeping, out to his Camry. He put her in the back seat, wrapped in a blanket. He drove off, keeping well within the speed limit.

May 24
0

Paradise Motel

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Almost two hours later and six city blocks away, Rhea’s train slid into Union Station. It was three in the morning and almost busy. She followed fellow travelers through the cavernous hall; hurried past a gloriously huge Christmas tree and slipped through the front doors into the night. It was cool in LA. And misty.

Rhea stopped dead in front of the station, mouth agape at what she saw: Blocks of high rises mixed with Deco buildings, wide streets and Our Lady Queen of Angels church – all asleep for the night. But the streets were alive with cars. The sheer vastness of it stunned her. Scared her. Threatened her. And this was just a corner of it. She couldn’t move – didn’t know which way to go – didn’t know where to start looking.

“Bad place to stop.” A woman snarled at Rhea as she slammed into her on the busy walk outside the station.

Rhea started walking. Then she stopped. She unzipped the patent leather bag, grabbed the photo of Aggie and ran after the woman. “Wait! Wait –” she cried as she caught up to her and grabbed her arm. The woman stopped. Rhea showed her the picture. “Have you seen this girl?” The woman looked at the picture and shook her head, backing away from Rhea’s pain. Rhea shoved the picture into the faces of anyone she could who was leaving the station. She followed them into the parking lot and onto the street. “Have you seen her? Have you seen this girl?” Nineteen, twenty, thirty five times. No one had. A Security Guard finally shooed her away. “Take that business somewhere else.”

Rhea crossed the street and started walking up Cesar Chavez Boulevard. Away from the hub of the train Station, a darker vibe set in. There were few homeless back then but the sight of them huddled in doorways, asleep on cardboard, their arms around the wad of bags and rags that were theirs – shocked Rhea. She hurried past them and crossed the street toward Chinatown. Someone in a car driving by hissed at her, “Tasty Girl…” Another car pulled to the curb a few yards up. As she passed by, a man opened the passenger door, his big dick swinging free at her, the smell of stale piss and cum penetrating the mist. She ran.

At the end of the block, two teens huffing Krylon hung out in a little parking lot. As Rhea stopped on the corner, they checked her out. As she waited for the light to turn green, they moved closer. The light turned. She started to cross. They hurried closer. In the middle of the street she suddenly turned and swung her case at them, smacking the bigger one straight across his jaw, freaking them out. She ran, across the street and up a long block. Ahead she saw the sputtering purple and green neon strips that framed the Paradise Motel. It was open.

A ninety-pound woman with a popcorn ball in one hand and a tv remote in the other waved at a sign that said “NIGHTLY RATES $45.00.” when Rhea asked her how much was a room. Rhea handed over the cash. “Checkout’s at noon.” she informed Rhea and gave her a key.

Inside room 27, Rhea locked the dead bolt. She fell on the bed, holding the picture of Aggie close to her. She fell instantly asleep. She slept for fourteen hours.

Apr 09
0

Petunia Print

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On Christmas Eve, Aggie woke up on the floor of a partitioned two-car garage. She was still wrapped in the blanket. There was a band of fading light at the bottom of the garage door. The day was ending.

A door in the partition was open. A man walked by wearing a bathrobe, smoking a cigarette.

“Can we get this going, Ozrin? I have a dinner–” he asked someone.

Aggie could see another man, behind a video camera that was on a tripod. Larry Ozrin.

“Just let me set the exposure here–” he answered.

“You’re not gonna show my face–” the bathrobe man warned.

“No one cares about your face, Don.” Ozrin replied.

“Cause I have a call-back on a pilot next week…” Don rambled on as Ozrin looked up and saw Aggie in the doorway.

“OK kid, come here.” He ordered Aggie.

Aggie stepped into the other half of the garage. In one corner there was a mattress on the floor, lit by a Home Depot work light. A sheet with a petunia pattern stretched across it. A video camera was pointed at the mattress.

Aggie looked around. There was no way out. She put her hand in her pocket and felt around for the little blue feather. She found it. She put it in her mouth and swallowed it.

“OK” she told Ozrin and walked toward him.

There was a song in the sixties by one of the famed “wall of sound” Phil Spector girl groups, the Shirells. The song was “Leader of the Pack”. To quote that song, “Get the picture? Yes, we see…”

Apr 08
0

Frankincense

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Rhea woke up in room twenty-seven at the Paradise Motel, a little before six on that same Christmas Eve. She turned on the tv and watched the news while she peed, washed, brushed her hair and ate the two packs of peanut butter stuffed cheese crackers that were in a little basket on the night stand. There was no news on tv of Aggie. She left her room and went to the payphone. She called home. Stel answered. “Mom!?” Rhea cried, so happy to hear her voice. “Did you find her?” Stel asked, her voice like a raspy knife. “No, but–” Rhea answered. Stel interrupted. “Call back when you do. I have to keep the line open.” She hung up. Rhea put the phone in its cradle and left the booth. She didn’t have a clue what to do or where to go. All she knew was that she was alone and she needed to find her sister. As she started to walk back to her room to get her case, someone shoved her from behind. Hard. She fell.

“Paradise is mine. You got ten seconds to get on outta here.” A girl’s voice spat at her. Rhea looked up at an eighteen-year-old in shorts short enough for half her cooze to squish out. Rhea wondered if she was cold.

“OK.” Rhea answered, not quite understanding, “I just gotta get my suitcase.”

As Rhea got up and headed to her room, the girl followed her, pushing into the room as Rhea opened the door.

The girl spotted the ballet case and tore into it, finding the one hundred and sixty-three dollars that Rhea had left. She took it and leaned against the doorway.

“Now get outta here.”

Rhea zipped up the case. As she walked past the girl, she showed her the picture of Aggie. “Can I ask you something? Have you seen this girl?” The girl looked at the picture. “Who’s that?”

“My sister.” Rhea told her, “She got kidnapped. I gotta find her.”

The hard girl kind of crumbled, “Aw, man… No.” she shook her head and gave Rhea back the money. “That’s bad.”

“Yeah.” Rhea agreed.

It was nearing seven and way past dark. The boulevard got quieter as Christmas Eve moved toward night. Rhea spent the next three hours walking the streets of Chinatown, asking every person who would stop if they’d seen Aggie. No one had. She asked twenty three waitresses in fourteen Chinese restaurants. She asked the night manager at Madam Wu’s. She asked thirty seven store clerks, three bus drivers and sixty four people driving cars who had stopped at the red light On Broadway and Cesar Chavez. She got nothing.

Rhea crossed back over Cesar Chavez and sat on the bus bench at Spring Street. The smell of frankincense floated by, reminding her of church. And God. And how much Aggie liked God. She took the smell as a sign and followed the ancient scent across Alameda street to old Olvera.

May 27
0

Lake Hollywood

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Six miles north across the city and slightly west, Ozrin backed his Camry out of his garage and eased onto Barham Boulevard. Usually the thoroughfare that slices between the valley and the Hollywood hills was busy. But it was late, almost midnight. Ozrin opened his window to a mist that muted the late night sounds of the city’s Christmas Eve. He didn’t mind Christmas. The lights were nice and he had a party to go to tomorrow, an un-Christmas breakfast for those away from their families. He was bringing bagels from Sam’s on Larchmont, and a bottle of Trader Joes champagne.
 
Ozrin eased the Camry up Barham, careful to follow the speed limit.  He stopped at the yellow light, he did not rush it. He waited for the left turn arrow to turn green then turned on Lake Hollywood Drive. He followed it up through the  eclectic Estates to a ridge overlooking the Hollywood reservoir. It was deep blue and as still as glass under the sliver of a moon that barely shone down. There was a walking path around its three mile circumference but it closed at dusk. Now No one was there – not a car, not a soul, not a witness. That was good. Ozrin followed the road down to the reservoir. Three coyotes darted out from the fields on either side and jaunted alongside the Camry before crossing over in front of him, on their way to the woods that surrounded the water and crept up a hill toward the Hollywood sign. He smiled; they were skinny and looked hungry. That was good.
 
About halfway down the half mile stretch of road that ran alongside the water, there was a ramp. It was closed off by the chain link fence that ran around the water but there was enough room for the Camry to pull over. He backed up as close to the fence as he could get. Moving fast for someone out of shape, Ozrin got out, popped the trunk open and lifted out a thirty-five pound bundle wrapped in a dark green towel. He heaved it over that fence into the brush and drove away.

Aggie landed face-up on a bed of leaves and moss. She thought about Poo and the Christmas cookies she hoped to eat soon, as she waited for Rhea to find her. It was cold lying there; wearing only her green jacket with kittens embroidered on the pockets.

Aggie looked up and whispered her prayer, “Please God, help Rhea find me. I want to go home.”

Soon enough, she heard the rustle of footsteps on leaves. “Rhea!” she called out, as loud as she could but she could barely hear her voice, “I’m over here!”

Aggie tried to get up but she couldn’t move. As the footsteps got closer, she looked up to see Rhea’s face through the trees, hoping she’d have something sweet to eat. Instead she saw the glitter of grey eyes. And she knew. Coyotes had come to eat her.

To Be Continued…

Apr 09
0

Almost

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Rhea woke. A homeless man was clawing at the bread in her pocket. Her scream muffled into the damp of his dirty clothes but it scared him off. She untangled herself from the straw and made her way back across Alameda. She walked east on Cesar Chavez, up a little hill and over an old gothic bridge. The only sound was the numbing whoosh of cars on the freeways below and the sputtering hiss of an old neon sign on a shuttered, rundown bar across the street called Domingos. As she started to cross Pleasant Street, a sudden, loud THWAP! startled her and the air around her moved. She turned, looking out over the City. The lights glittered under a starless sky. The thwap! had disturbed the mist and it moved and fluttered like a thousand wings. The beauty of it stunned her.

“Aggie?” she whispered though she didn’t know why. She remembered this was The City of Angels. She hoped like hell that Aggie wasn’t one of them and that she was alive.

“Aggie!” she screamed as loud as she could. It echoed out over the warehouses and train tracks below the bridge where she stood. It echoed out over the cars on the freeways, hurrying home and it echoed out over the glittering city as the mist settled back down and a chill settled in.

Apr 09
0

Sandwich Cookie

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Manny Valdez was carefully sprinkling two drops of tabasco on to each of six Nutter Butter cookies he’d lined up on his desk for a late afternoon snack when Rhea walked in, in need of her check. He offered her one. “Nutter Butter?”

“Sure.” She ate it and nodded, nominally impressed by the added heat.

“I know.” he agreed, “Stuff is magic, right?.” He handed her a check and asked if she had anything in mind for the following week.

“Possibly going sweet.” she told him as she opened the envelope with the check. “Someone’s doing polenta donuts in Grand Central then there’s those mango stuffed glazed logs at Yummies or Koos’ pancakes or….” she checked her check. It wasn’t all she hoped it would be.

“Ummmm… a hundred twelve dollars?”

“And seventy eight cents….” Manny added. “Look, you gave me three hundred sixty words, minus taxes you get a hundred and twelve seventy eight.”

“I have rent to pay–” she protested.

“Use more words.” he advised and handed her a copy of the newly printed Pulse with her review, titled “Toolong? by Rhea Porter.” She took the paper and left.

On her way to her car, Rhea passed by Yummie’s donuts, at the end of the strip mall. They were baking. That smell, that divine perfume wafted out. Irresistible. It drew her in. Well, that and remembering the sinewy young hunk who was sweeping up when she first walked by a few days ago. It was summer, surely he’d be wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Her favorite.

As luck would have it, the mango logs were just being stuffed and young Mr. Sinewy was stuffing them – squirting that thick yellow fruity cream into freshly fried sweet dough. She took a seat at the counter. Both he and the waitress looked up. The waitress gestured she’d be there in a sec but Rhea kept her eyes on him. She smiled.

“You’re a pretty good stuffer.” He smiled back then looked away. She moved a seat closer. Leaned in to him. Talked low.

“Stuff me a good one. Fill it up.” She leaned even closer and whispered. “I tip good.”

He kept on stuffing. The waitress came over and took the pastry stuffer out of his hand.

“Go in the back and finish glazing. I’ll take care of her.” He did as he was told.

Rhea looked at the waitress, a little defiant, totally cocky but the waitress’s glare creamed her.

“Just a coffee.” Rhea ordered, “To go.”

This wasn’t good. And Rhea knew it. She had to stop this bullshit. Gallows was right. She’s was gonna end up in jail. Broke. And never find a guy who loved her… though that last part was OK with her. She didn’t need or deserve love and that was the way it should be. What she needed was her old job back.

She got in her car, swung up Lucille, meandered down to Temple then headed east through downtown to Little Tokyo.

Apr 10
0

Imagination

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A rustic little mock tudor house with leaded windows and drought-mandated desert landscaping sat between two mid century modern flips on North Beachwood Drive. Forty steps led up to the Tudor and another sixteen led around to the tiny back yard where a one room guest house snuggled against a stone retaining wall that held back part of the hill below the Hollywood sign. A tortoise named josefina lived in a little bunker built into the wall. A grate covered the opening. The bunker was big and safe and she had plenty of flowers and celery to eat. But she liked to get out and walk around and hang out in the sun for a few hours a day. Seeing as those hills were home to dozens of coyotes who roamed them freely looking for mice. Rats. Squirrels. Rabbits. lizards. Cats and small dogs to eat, most definitely they would have snacked on Josefina if they found her out sunning some afternoon. Josefina had been raised for thirteen years by a friend of Sakuri’s named Halina Siwilop, a hollywood set designer who owned the house and had built the bunker. She traveled alot and needed someone to live in the guest house, look after Josefina and keep the coyotes away from her. All RHea had to do was pay utilities. She took it.
Physically Moving out of her Laurel studio was easy for Rhea- everything she owned fit into her LeBaron. Emotionally it was surprisingly hard. She hated emotions – except anger which she considered to be more of a logical reaction than a real emotion. So when she got a little weepy walking past Strickland’s apartment for the last time – the apartment where she’d lived for so many years – she crumpled. Had to sit down. She’d found some comfort there. But a stop at the Bristol Farms bakery three blocks away for a cheddar bacon croissant studded with puffs of ricotta helped her stuff that feeling away.

Rhea settled into the little guest house. She fed Josefina and let her out of the bunker for two or three hours a day. While she sat in the garden watching out for her, she wrote… about donuts and tortas and men. And she fantasized – The half dozen stuffed custard logs she bought at 24 hr. Joint on Sunset by fountain called Tangs turned into a sticky little midnight roll in the Elysian Park hills with a street cop with a freckled dick. The donuts (real!) came to $4.80 – under five bucks!. She was learning. The cop she made up.

It felt a little tame, a little like she was cheating and the review was still a little short at 416 words but she got paid more than last time and was learning to add easy wordy details like “open twenty four hours and popular with chess players and actors, Tangs can be stimulating even if you don’t score. ”

As for her other writing, her shrink writing, her homework… thinking then writing about fucking a nice forty year old man… she didn’t know where to begin. She couldn’t even focus on what a forty year old looked like. Strickland was sixty now… so he was probably almost forty when she’d moved into his place at seventeen. She could remember him rearranging all the potted succulents on his enclosed balcony, making room for a little bed and night stand and desk for her. He’d cooked for her, made her go to school, taught her self defense, became her guardian, then her mentor at LAPD. She could clearly remember the sweat pouring from his brow and the smooth muscles on his arms as they punched dummy bags at Gold’s Gym and ran laps at Fairfax High as she trained to get into the academy but…. was he sexy? Possibly. Did he turn her on? No way. Try as she might to imagine kissing him – to imagine kneeling down and unbuckling that old jimi Hendrix belt buckle he always wore then unzipping his fly and reaching in through the slit in his boxers – smelling that musk as she eased out the just bulging arch of his dick and licking the folded skin until it pulled taught and smooth… No. Every time she got that far in her mind he got younger and younger until it was no longer Strickland but some young nameless faceless hunk who then grabbed her head and eased her mouth onto him. That was home to her. Comfort. Escape. That and a slice of Vons banana cream pie or the warm stuffed grape leaves at Carnival on Lankershim. Or the ox tails from Madame Matisse’s or Tam ‘o Shan’s corn fritters or, or, or…

Though that was hard, Rhea’s sixth night in the guest house was downright unnerving. At almost three AM, she was asleep on the little fold out sofa. The windows were closed. But the howling that woke her sounded like a pack of coyotes was surrounding her bed. She shot up, terrified as something big moved past her, ruffling her hair with a flapping before it disappeared. Jesus! she yelled as she batted at the dark air and backed away from the howls. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness she saw she was alone and her door was locked and her windows were still closed. A dream? Yes. No. The howls continued… Josefina! She had to save Josefina. She grabbed a flashlight, her gun and ran outside. She shined a beam into the bunker. Josefina was safe. Sound asleep. She aimed the beam up the hill and across seven coyotes perched there. They looked right into her light. And the air around them and around her rippled like it was full of a thousand softly beating wings…

“Aggie–” she whispered into the nearby night, surprising herself with the hope in her voice and the tears on her face. After a minute or so, the coyotes retreated and Rhea went back inside.

She stayed awake until dawn, slept for an hour then got dressed and walked a few minutes down Beachwood Drive to the Village Cafe.

The cozy eatery was pretty, quiet, shaded by massive pines and bouganvillea vines and part of the little Beachwood village that included a market, the Hollywoodland realty, an antique and watch repair shop and a dry cleaners.

Rhea took a seat at the counter and blew her budget on a cup of coffee and a polenta scone. She looked around. Upscale and rustic, the café was a hangout for locals and the aging freelance hipsters who occasionally still worked in the movie biz. They were cool, fit, established. They liked their eggs without yokes, their salads undressed and their oatmeal steel cut. And most of them – at least the men – looked forty or older. She started hanging out there a few mornings a week and tried to imagine fucking these guys. She ate most of her meals at home – canned soup, frozen burritos, mac and cheese then once a week she ventured down the hill for work – for a falafal sandwich, a bacon burger, an octopus taco or two or a five buck slice of asiago pizza from Gelsons’ deli on Franklin. She ate, wrote, and made up sex. She was not happy. Then she slipped. On a Monday. It was about seven thirty. She was driving home down Sunset after a nasty bout with Dr. Gallows when two things caught her attention: There was an inordinate amount of fine young men out and about and – in an effort to stay open – Barragan’s on Sunset had brought back “Dollar Taco Mondays”. Time to get her groove back.

Mar 22
0

Depth of Field

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Daisy Valentine pressed her finger into the last crumbs on her plate left from a cheddar cranberry scone. She licked her finger and finished editing a photo of onion rings she’d taken for a local burger joint’s window poster. She topped up her iced coffee, grabbed her ever-ready Pentax and took it and the coffee out onto her back patio. She slipped her legs over the low wall and let her bare feet dangle as she scanned the dark forest below. She played a little Nick Cave on her Moto phone and Moonlight Mile by the Stones: “Oh I am sleeping under strange strange skies…” She got up, stretched, stood on the wall. As she looked to her left, out over the distant downtown LA, she saw a tiny, familiar puff of light shimmer up toward the sky. She knew people died all over LA every day. If you looked really hard you could see the souls rise, even in the bright height of daylight. Some only rose an inch before dissolving. Some rose all the way into the sky and were gone – absorbed into heaven. And a very few drifted back down. Daisy didn’t document most of them – they were too far in the distance or it was too light to record them on film. But this one, she could tell, was a little girl. In a moment, it, too was gone. But she felt compelled to go to it – compelled to see if it would float back down.

“Hey Ralphie–!” she called into the brush below. A minute later, an old coyote came out of the dark and onto her patio. “Watch the place, OK? There’s food in the fridge if you’re hungry.”

Ralphie lay down by her open back door. She grabbed her car keys, got in her Jeep, rested her camera in her lap and drove down the hill. As the Hollywood sign receded behind her, she passed the Village market and drove down Beachwood Drive, to the streetlight at Franklin. When it turned green, she turned left, drove to Hillhurst and took that to Sunset. Fifteen minutes later she crossed the Chavez bridge and parked a block down, in front of an old Boyle Heights church. Painted on the front, a mural of God giving an angel the city of Los Angeles on a platter made her laugh. She looked around to get her bearings then walked back across the bridge. She wandered across the top of the cement bank of the LA river. She sat on a railroad track that ran near it. She faced toward Domingos and waited. She never saw a soul. But about ten minutes after ten, a woman who smelled like taquitos and a teenage girl walked by. She faded back, into the debris by the tracks, nearly disappearing. It was a good trick and she used it often. She didn’t mind people, really – she liked most of them. They were weird and funny and interesting. but she always had to walk away before they asked too many questions.

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