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downtown | An LA Crime Story

Apr 10
0

Marigold Walls

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The marigold colored walls of Barragan’s main room screamed sunshine. Rhea headed for the darkness of the bar. It was a little after seven on “Dollar Taco Monday” – an easy choice for her first review. The tacos were OK – somewhere between the fresh grilled asada ones at the Saturday night Pop-ups on Yale St. and the ones at Taco Bell. And at a buck a piece she could easily meet Manny’s five dollar limit.

She sat at the end bar stool next to a long verticle window. where she had a sliver of a view of the street outside. Sunset Boulevard started in heart of Boyle Heights – as Cesar Chavez Boulevard – it danced west through the brightly colored hood that defined LA’s origins; it shot past Chinatown where its name changed to Sunset then wove through the hip haunts of Hollywood – gliding past the glitz of the strip, winding through half a dozen stately hoods dripping with the trappings of wealth glimpsed through high hedges and iron gates before it sailed down its final hill and ended at the Pacific. Quite a street. And her view of the Hollywood boys strutting down it was a treat.

“San Miguel dark, right?” The bartender smiled at her. She smiled back,

“Yeah Ernie, thanks. And five tacos. Mixed.”

He slid her the beer and wrote up her order. She took a swig. After thinking a little, she took out her phone. She opened her notepad app and wrote a few words: “Dollar tacos. Back room. Sunset Boys. San Miguel.” She looked out the window, straining to see the boys on the street. It was a good spot to check them out – and maybe she’d find one to share a few tacos with. Several potentials hustled by. But it was still light out and she could see the frays on the edges of their strut and the tired in their eyes. This glimpse of reality sometimes made her wonder what the hell she was doing. Sometimes it even made her vow to quit. She wanted someone with hope and plans and laughter and sincere lust for her. But then dusk would fall and the boys looked better and her need overcame her vow.

A waiter brought Rhea her tacos, a display of chorizo, beefy oxtail, lime chicken, herbs, beans and cacique cream encased in fried tortillas. Heaven. She looked back out the window, maybe someone to share with would walk by. A scruffy girl about sixteen came into view, carrying an overstuffed blue IKEA bag. Rhea drained half the beer in a single gulp, wrapped the tacos in a few napkins, slapped ten dollars on the counter, took the tacos and left.

Outside, Rhea looked for the girl. She hurried past a mobile covid vax truck and two food trucks parked behind it, selling fried chicken, plantains and waffles to the newly vaxxed.

Rhea spotted the girl on the corner. She approached her.

“Sheena?” Rhea said, close behind. The girl turned.

“Officer Porter!” she cried out, recognizing Rhea.

The girl seemed shaky. Are you OK?” Rhea asked her.

“Yeah. Yeah…” Sheena answered, unconvincingly then looked at the napkin-wrapped bundle Rhea was holding. “Those tacos?”

Rhea offered them to her, “One is chorizo.”

Sheena flashed a brief smile as she took four of the little tacos, leaving the chorizo one. “I’ve been looking for you. Where’ve you been?”

“Sorta on a break.” Rhea explained then asked again, “Everything OK?”

Sheena wolfed a taco. Finally she answered, “No.”

“What happened?” Rhea asked.

“Nothing happened really, it’s just… There’s this smell…”

“Where?”

“Down by camp.”

Rhea looked at Sheena’s IKEA bag, “So you’re moving?”

She nodded “Just until it goes away… ”

“It’s that bad?”

“Yeah.” Sheena confirmed.

Rhea tried to offer an explanation, “It’s probably just all the trash there. Or maybe all the piss, soaking the ground.”

“No…” Sheena said, kind of slow. Something was bothering her.

“Could be the muck in the L.A. River.” was Rhea’s next idea.

Sheena looked her in the eye, “It’s kind of a scary smell.”

Apr 10
0

Remains

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A little after nine that night Rhea followed Sheena along the top of the cement embankment of the LA River. Daylight was nearly gone; shadows were long. As they neared the Chavez Bridge, Sheena pointed down, to a clump of debris under the bridge.

“There.”

“Stay here.” Rhea told Sheena as she scrambled down the bank where it trickled under the Chavez bridge. She walked a few yards to the remains of a homeless camp: a moldy sleeping bag, some squishy old sweat pants, three empty Cheetos bags and an empty can of diet Coke and Progresso Lite Pot Pie soup.

A sudden whoosh of air brushed down on her. She thought nothing of it – LA was a city of Santa Anas – she was used to sudden gusts. But the tail end of the second gust carried on it a faint smell. She knew it well. She looked around for a body but she knew it would be a little farther away. She took another whiff then looked up the opposite embankment toward the street above. A Chavez street bridge crossed over it. The young woman photographer was walking over it. Then she stopped. Through an opening between balustrades, Rhea could see the woman was barefoot. Was she homeless? Rhea wondered, though she seemed too clean. Plus she carried an old 35mm camera and an air of cool. Then she stopped. She looked down. At Rhea. Her expectant look pulled Rhea in like a memory.

“Find anything?” Sheena’s voice broke the spell.

Rhea turned. Sheena was about to skitter down the embankment.

“Stay there!” Rhea called up to her. Rhea glanced back up at the woman on the bridge. She was moving on, crossing to the side Sheena was on. Rhea decided the woman was just another hipster photog, looking for a moody downtown LA pic.

Rhea went back to Sheena. “You have somewhere you can stay for a few nights?” she asked her.

“What is it?”

“Probably just a dead dog or racoon. I’ll get animal control to pick it up in the morning. Is there somewhere you can-”

“I can crash downtown–”

“Try the shelter on San Pedro–”

Sheena shook her head. Hard.

“They’ve got better security now–” Rhea half-heartedly tried to convince her but Sheena wasn’t having it. Rhea understood – it would take an army of security and the compassion of masses to stem the violence and troubles of the homeless in LA. Rhea dug around in her pockets and gave Sheena almost seventeen dollars.
“Get some food. And be careful–”

Sheena took the money. Suddenly she grabbed Rhea and hugged her close. “You too.” she cautioned then hurried across the street and headed downtown.

Rhea walked across the Chavez Bridge. Below her was the homeless camp. Behind her was the city skyline. A few yards from the boulevard on the northeast side of the bridge was a sagging, shuttered old bar called Domingos. She went around to the back. She checked in trash cans and knee high weeds, sniffing and honing in on a spot behind an old tire. There it was: a rotting dead possum. She backed away then turned around. She was facing the back of the bar. She sniffed; smelled something. She walked to the bolted back door and put her nose to the edge of it. She sniffed. She went around to the front. That door was jammed tight with twenty years of grime and a ten dollar lock. Deciding the smell gave her cause, she jimmied it open. Air that held the whiff of charred beans kissed her as it escaped the place. She went inside.

Her eyes adjusted to a hazy darkness. The significant light of an LA night bled through three small curtained windows. She saw a bar against one wall, a pool table in the middle of the small room and a closed door in the back. A page of smoke slid out from under it. The door was locked. Three kicks knocked it open. Smoke veiled the room. Rhea walked through it. A blackened stove stood against against a burned wall, splattered with the scorched remains of a pot of beans that had exploded.

Rhea slid a finger through a layer of soot that covered everything. It was pitted by drops of water from the ceiling sprinklers that had put out the fire. But they hadn’t put it out fast enough. There was a spent extinguisher on the floor, still in the hand of a dead girl lying there. Rhea braced herself against the smell and bent over her. The girl looked Mexican. Her other arm reached out to two more dead Mexican girls, huddled together by the bolted back door. The girls from Chinatown. Their arms were around each other. Their eyes were open. Their bodies were splattered with extinguisher foam. They’re nostrils were blackened with smoke. The youngest one was still warm. Rhea checked for a pulse.

She pressed the sides of the girl’s mouth open. Her blue lips puckered like a snap dragon. The air above her shimmered and rippled then fluttered away, as though she’d exhaled one last dream.

Rhea jumped, a little freaked by the other-worldliness of it.

Back outside on the cement bank across the river from Domingos, the photographer dropped to one knee, steadied her lens and snapped off a half dozen pictures of the shimmer as it rose up into the night sky just above Domingos.

In the blackened kitchen, Rhea checked again for a pulse on the little girl. Nothing. The girl was dead. Rhea took out her phone and snapped a few pics of the dead girls. Then she called the boss.

Jun 21
0

Baseball Nut

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It was Detective Sergeant Matt Strickland’s night off. He’d had Stouffer’s lasagna for dinner, with an added sprinkle of romano, grilled to bubbling in a toaster oven. He’d watered the 57 succulents he kept on the screened-in little terrace of his ground-floor one-bedroom Hollywood apartment. He’d watched the nine o’clock news then taken four herbal sleep aids. He woke up fast when his cell phone buzzed. When he heard Rhea’s familiar cadence, “Hey Strickland–” he was fully awake.

“Detective– ” he automatically responded, “Are you ok? Where are you?”

“Fine. Cesar Chavez, a half block up from Pleasant. Place called Domingos.” She said no more. She didn’t need to.

He already had one leg in his pants. He hung up, stuck his other leg in, gave his balls a sprinkle with Gold Bond, swished a mouthful of Listerine, shrugged on a worn-out short-sleeved shirt, grabbed his gun and was out the door.

Nineteen minutes later he was inside Domingos, standing next to Rhea, looking down at the three small bodies. He took out his phone and called it in. Rhea hung close, trying to hear as he asked dispatch who was available to partner.

“Who’s coming in?” she asked him after he hung up. He ignored her and looked back at the dead.

“Think they died of smoke?” Rhea asked him for an early opinion.

He knelt down and looked closely at the girls’ sooty mouths. “Probably but…” He looked around “If there was enough smoke to kill them… why wasn’t a fire called in?”

“Grease fire…?” she suggested.

He agreed with the probability. He looked around the room. There were no other exits— “Just these two doors. Locked.” He looked at her. She agreed, pointing to the kitchen door. “I busted that one down.”

“Three girls. Locked in.” he continued his early questions, adding, “Mexican?”

Rhea looked back at them. “I’d say so. They have that beauty.”

He looked around the room again; he peered into empty cupboards and into the empty pantry. Rhea spotted a dense cobweb strung from a corner of a worn counter to the wall. She blew on it. Dusty smoke scattered.

“This place has been closed for awhile.” she realized.

He nodded. “Might be a stash joint.”

“For Illegals.” She said. He nodded again, still thinking. She watched them for a minute, sad. “Some sanctuary city we are…”

He went over to the stove, he studied the burned food that had exploded against the wall. “Probably just cooking some dinner and it caught fire.”

Rhea nodded, “Still… somebody locked them in. Once we find them–”

He turned and gave her a long look. “We?”

Rhea ignored him. She looked closer at the burnt food on the wall.

“Have you even gone to therapy?” Strickland asked.

“Yes.” Rhea answered then looked away, concentrating on some sticky white blob on the counter. Strickland watched as she smelled it. She searched the room for a trash can, finding one in a corner, she looked inside. There were some plastic utensils, two empty soda cans, an empty refied bean can dusted in soot.

She went back to the blob. She looked at Strickland.

“I wouldn’t.” He told her.

She tapped it then licked her finger. She tasted and concentrated. Finally a revelation: “Baseball Nut.”

“What?” Strickland asked.

“It’s Baseball Nut ice cream. Baskin Robbins.”

“You sure?” Strickland asked.

“Yeah.” she was sure. “They only have it in the summer. It’s pretty good. Vanilla with raspberry swirl and cashews.”

Strickland paused, taking a moment to acknowledge her deduction. “I’ll be sure to tell Dawson when he gets here–”

“Dawson.” Rhea shook her head.

“Dawson is a good cop–” he tried to cut her off.

She argued, “Dawson’s wants a headline. There’s no print in dead illegals. He’ll ditch it.”

“Maybe it’s just a fire, and that’s all.” Strickland ended it for now.

Rhea looked back at the bodies on the floor; studying them. Powerless.

Outside, across the river the photographer stood on the bank, searching the skyline. Her name was Daisy Valentine. She was twenty-seven years old. Her blonde hair hung down her back. Her t-shirt said “Endeavour”. Her stance was strong and patient as her eyes searched the skyline for any more puffs of light. Her Pentax was strung around her neck. She held it in her hand, supporting the old zoom lens; The moon was full and rising. She moved her lens until it reflected a beam of moonlight then bounced it over the river bed, pooling its way across the crack in Domingos’ bolted back door.

Inside Domingos’ kitchen, that reflected moonlight found its way through that crack and crossed over the dead girls like a laser. It hit something purple on one of their bodies. It shimmered, catching Rhea’s eye. She looked closer. Transfixed. A sound caught in her throat, a cry. Strickland turned to her and looked at what she was looking at. On one of the dead girl’s wrists – barely visible but now glinting in the sliver of moonlight – was a plastic bracelet with a purple tin charm on it that advertised “Boom Boom Carneceria. Ensenada. Mexico.”

Jul 13
0

Cold Tacos

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Strickland stared at the cheap little Boom Boom charm. He knew this could mean something. It could mean everything to Rhea.

Or… “It could be nothing.” He reminded her.

“Boom Boom is two doors down from Joe’s–!” Rhea nearly yelled, hating that she was getting emotional.

“I know where it is.” Strickland broke in. “But not every kid that goes missing near Boom Boom was snatched—”

“One was.” She reminded him.

“All I am saying is, you know how this goes– we’ll follow the evidence, but–”

“You need me on this.” She interrupted, emboldened.

“As soon as Dr. Gallows clears you.”

“Eighteen, Strickland. The guy was eighteen–”

“He’d been eighteen for four days.”

“Still… Legal.” She pointed out. Not for the first time. “And this is my case.”

“It’s the Department’s.” he corrected her.

“No pay.” she bargained with him, “The department won’t have to pay me. I’ll stay on unpaid leave and just work this-” Rhea gestured toward the dead girls. He saw the urgency in her eyes and the clarity. He knew she’d be an asset to the case. He knew he probably should let her back on the squad. But she’d messed up. Finding her with some teen going down on her in the back seat of her car set a bad example. Yeah the kid was eighteen and she’d hadn’t paid him – yet – or officially broken the law but Strickland was pissed at her. And hurt. Why she chose barely legal boys was beyond him. He’d invested so much in her. He’d taught her everything he knew about life. About being a cop. He knew he didn’t have a chance of influencing her romantic or sexual choices but he sure as hell was going to make her pay for her bad judgement.

“Go home.” he told her, trying to usher her out of the room.

“I’ve stopped– I promise. OK?”

He turned away as they heard cars drive up. He walked toward the door. She followed.

“OK?”

“Go home.” He told her again as he held the door open for her to leave.

Outside, Rhea crossed over Chavez and sat on a cement bridge railing.

She watched as three of her colleagues walked into Domingos: The CSI tech, the ME and smarmy Detective Dawson. It was hard being outside. She was burning with anger. This was her case. And what if–? What if it led to what happened to her sister outside Boom Boom twenty two years ago? Maybe she should go to the chief – tell him she’d been wrongly probated– But she knew he’d only listen to Strickland. Man she was hungry. She wondered if nearby Guisados was open. She wondered what young men were hanging out at Tommy’s or Torung or Alegria, eating Dim Sum and Phad Thai and French Fries and how nice it would be to eat an onion ring off of one of them. She shook her head to get those thoughts out of it. She forced her mind back to the scene and waited. She looked over the bridge, below it the 101 and the 10 freeways converged. She watched the streaks of red tail lights pouring into LA. This was nearly the exact same spot she was at on her first night in LA., completely alone at seventeen. Twenty plus years later and here she was again, still looking for her sister. What a fucking failure.

She sniffed the air, then sniffed her clothes. She pulled the last Barragan’s taco out of her pocket. The napkins it was wrapped in were blotched with grease. She ate it. It was cold and flattened but still pretty good. She opened her phone notepad. She typed a few words: sausage, ancho, warm night, dollar.

Half an hour later, the ME gently carted three small body bags out. He glanced across the street as he closed the back of the morgue van. He saw Rhea. He raised one hand in a small, inconspicuous wave. She did the same, acknowledging the solidarity. He was the only one who contacted her after her back-seat bust by Vice nine and a half weeks ago and her subsequent temporary expulsion for “indecent behavior”.

Another twenty minutes later, Strickland and Detective Dawson left Domingos and headed four and a half blocks to Main Street Headquarters downtown.

Rhea got in her car and followed. She parked her LeBaron outside and waited for Strickland and Dawson to come out. She was impatient. She took out her phone. She went to an INFO app she used to find addresses and looked up Domingos’ address. She got the name of an owner. She looked him up. He owned a furniture warehouse on Palmetto near Fourth. Just under twelve blocks away. “Furniture. Well hmmm–” she thought. She started her car and took off, heading south, toward Fourth Street.

Inside Headquarters, on the sixth floor, Strickland was online, using department software to find who owned Domingos. He loved that the internet sped all this up. Twenty years ago, he’d have to wait for “business hours” and then call around and visit the various records departments. But back then, they almost had a handle on child exploitation, child trafficking and kid porn. They were almost closing in on it; it felt like they could see an end. But now? No way. The internet was a sickos playground and there were millions of sickos in the world.

Four minutes into his search, he had a name: Leland Hays.

Jun 26
0

Peanut Butter Cups

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Fifty-four year old Leland Hays was aging well. But then again, it was LA. In his mind, he was thirty two and after years of Juvederm injections, botox and a chin implant, he looked about forty four. Still hot enough to get cool girls. Right then on the showroom floor of his furniture warehouse, he was bending a boyish young Thai waitress over the end of an antique platform bed he’d just imported from China and slamming her from behind. Then he bent her over an Indonesian loveseat, then a Moroccan chaise until he finally came in her over an oversized ottoman sadly re-upholstered in a purple and gold polyester damask. Not his best piece. He loved antiques. Though these pieces he imported were faux-antiques, they were mostly still beautiful and people in LA paid a decent price for them.

The waitress was quiet the whole time. He liked that. He’d told her that if she was quiet, he’d give her a present. She did make some noise when she unwrapped a peanut butter cup and ate it when she was bent over the chaise but other than that, she was good. He let her pick out a small punched tin Mexican light for her apartment before kicking her out.

Rhea was parked across the street from the loading dock of the Palmetto Street warehouse. Next to it was a little green door under a nondescript sign that read: H&H Imports. She stared at the door, wondering what to do. She still had her badge. She kept it tucked in a kleenex packet in her glove box, hoping she’d be re-instated at any moment. Though she wasn’t supposed to use it, she had. Twice. Once for free valet-parking at the Grove and once for a free Metro ride to Santa Monica. Using it now could really piss Strickland off… if he found out. She figured she had about another twenty minutes to decide; she was sure he’d be over here himself with Dawson pretty soon.

The green street door opened. A young Thai woman hurried out, carrying a Mexican lamp. The woman got in her Kia and drove away. Rhea opened her glove box, unwrapped her badge and got out of her car.

Hays had decided to do some inventory. He was in his office when someone started banging on the street door. He thought maybe the girl had forgotten something. He opened his door still wearing his bathrobe. A woman cop named Porter who smelled like cilantro thrust a badge in his face and wanted to know if he owned a place called Domingos on Cesar Chavez.

He knew she knew the answer so he told her he did. “Why?” he asked her, “What’s going on?”

Before Rhea could answer, Strickland was beside her. Dawson was right behind.

“What the Hell–?” Hays asked.

“There was a fire in the kitchen at Domingos.” Strickland stepped up, shooting Rhea a look and moving in front of her.

Rhea bristled when Dawson added, “We found three bodies. Girls. Probably died trying to get out.”

“Was it bad?” Hays asked.

“Well.” Rhea commented, jostling for relevance, “There’s three dead girls in there.”

“Know anything about them?” Dawson continued, showing Hays a snap of the dead girls. Hays looked quickly and shoved it away, like he’d been dirtied.

“No. No – it’s a bar. We don’t let kids in there. Maybe they’re neighborhood kids who broke in or something and couldn’t get out–”

“Any of your employees have kids they might’ve brought there. Any of your friends?”

“No. Besides, it’s been closed for a couple weeks now–”

“Why’s that?” Strickland asked, trying to get back into it.

“The place was strictly an investment. It used to be packed. Hip types used to come in for a beer and a game of pool after doing their foodie thing on Breed Street. But ever since the city shut down all the taco pushers a year or so ago, the foodies stopped coming around. Business dried up. I opened on weekends for awhile but not recently. I was really never there and frankly, I haven’t even driven by in over a week.” He waved his hand over the warehouse, “Furniture is my main business.”

He stepped aside, allowing them a glance into the warehouse. It was cursory but something caught Rhea’s eye.

“Anyone else have access to Domingo’s, Mr. Hays? A manager, bartender, friend?” Strickland continued.

“I had a bartender but I laid her off when I closed the place. She gave her key back.” Hays told him.

“What’s her name?”

“Ahhh…” he thought for a moment, “Myrna.”

“Last name?”

Hays ran his hand through a shock of sandy blond hair plugs. “I really can’t remember.”

“Want to check your records for us? Give us a name?” Dawson asked. Hays was quiet. “No records?” Dawson pressed.

“She came in, asked for a job. She said she’d work for tips.” Hays smiled, “I’m sure she reported them all. I trust people, Detective… it’s the only way to get through life.”

“Where do you get your product from?” Rhea asked, casually.

“China, Indonesia, Thailand, a little from India, even a little from France.” Hays answered, always the salesman. “You looking for something in particular? We have good price on beds right now.”

Rhea ignored him. She pointed to a spot inside, where a rustic Mexican desk stood. “That. What’s that? Indian?”

“Ahh… Mexican.” Hays answered as Strickland looked back at Rhea. “We get a little of that but not much. Hard to compete with La Fuente and Direct From Mexico. I can give you a police discount. Five percent.”

“Thanks. Let me think about it.” Rhea said, then added “You mind if I take a quick picture?”

Hays stepped aside, gesturing for her to go ahead. As Rhea took her phone out and snapped a picture of the desk, Strickland followed her lead and asked:

“How long have you been in the furniture business, Mr. Hays?”

“Too long” Hays laughed, “A little over thirty years.”

Dawson gave Hays his card and told him to call if he remembered anything.

Hays had one last question, “Let me ask you– do you get rid of the bodies or–”

Dawson explained that they’d handle it and let him know when he could have access back to Domingos. “Might be a week. Maybe less.” He told him. Hays nodded.

As the detectives started to leave, Strickland turned back. “One last thing,” he asked, “You have insurance on the bar, right?”

Hays nodded, “As basic as it gets. I’ll be lucky if they pay for a coat of paint. Believe me, I’m the one losing out here.”

“And the dead girls.” Strickland reminded him.

A smile slid onto Hays’s face like a cat’s second eyelid. “Of course, Detective; goes without saying.” He closed the door.

Rhea held back as Strickand and Dawson walked away.

The two men reached Dawson’s car. It was parked next to Rhea’s. They waited for her to catch up.

“That wasn’t cool, Porter.” Dawson started in on her.

Rhea walked to her car, opened her car doo, paused and turned back to him,

“Say hi to Stacey for me.”

Dawson nodded.

“You’ve been together a long time, yeah?” she asked, lingering; waiting for Strickland to get closer, within earshot.

“Ten years.” Dawson admitted, curious–

“What is she now, almost twenty-six?” Rhea commented. She looked at Strickland, got in her car and drove away.

“What a piece of work.” Dawson muttered after she’d gone.

“You know her story–” Strickland started to defend her; “Sister got taken in Ensenada–”

Dawson shrugged. “Long time ago, yeah?”

Strickland nodded, “We think she was taken by some guy bringing furniture up to LA.

Dawson shrugged again; his arm gestured the myriad of warehouses, half a dozen were furniture importers. “We’ll see what we see.”

Aug 26
0

Taquitos

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Out of the almost Seventeen hundred bars in LA., Rhea narrowed her search down to twenty-seven. Knowing that a fifty-something year old Mexican woman wouldn’t be mixing Twinkie-tinis at the Skybar or pulling drafts at Barney’s Beanery or keeping it neat at the Frolic Room eliminated close to a thousand. Adding in the geography of LA and transit times, that knocked out another six hundred.

Rhea started at eight at La Golondrina. It was Friday night. The popular place stayed open until eight-thirty. Weird. Especially for a tourist place but that’s the way it was. She knew Myrna probably wouldn’t be there but La Golondrina was on Olvera Street and walking Olvera was a good place to start – walking Olvera was also, for Rhea, a self-inflicted wound.

The trinkets and sweet treats sold at the brightly-colored wooden vendor booths hadn’t changed in twenty years, making it easy for Rhea to let the pain of her past memory there fuse with the goal of the present. Pain always focused Rhea, as did guilt. And the three-buck taquitos with green sauce at Cielito Lindo momentarily took the edge off. She bought two classic ones. She took them to a little green table and dug in. Heaven. Not wasting the moment and thinking ahead, she took out a little paper notepad she carried and a pencil and jotted down a few words: Young. Creamy, Hot Mouthful – about the creamy tang of the signature sauce that blanketed crispy curled tortillas and the promising guy who was dipping them into the fryer.

Downing the last bite, she walked across the brick path to the famed La Golondrina. The bar area was packed. The two bartenders were male. “Is Myrna on tonight?” Rhea asked one of them. “Who?” he replied. Rhea waved him off; knowing it was a long shot to ever expect to see a woman bartender working an old-school Mexican restaurant.

Next up, she crossed Alameda and went into Union Station. The deco Traxx restaurant had an old bartender who looked like Nosferatu. But they didn’t have a Myrna.

The third, fourth, fifth and sixth bars were scattered over a few blocks around downtown. All bartenders were men except for one transgender Russian woman. None had heard of a Myrna.

The seventh was a dark-red old-world bar in a classic Chinatown joint that featured Mu Shu pork, Won Ton soup and lots of plum sauce. Behind that small bar was a snake-skinned old dame named Madame Wu. Rhea asked her over a sidecar if she knew of another woman in town who poured named Myrna. Her dyed-black eyebrow barely raised. But it raised in recognition of the name Myrna. Ignoring Rhea, she moved down the bar to pour a shot of Chartreuse for a ninety-year old dancer. Rhea now had an answer. Myrna Saldano was real. And local.

It was last call. Rhea left three-fourths of her sidecar on the bar and left.

Once home, Rhea forced her mind away from bartenders and darkness and tried to finish her taquito review. She fished the notepad from her purse and jotted some more thoughts down. She liked using paper. She’d been using paper to take notes ever since she got her first notepad from Strickland when she was sixteen, a terrified kid looking to him for hope on the darkest night of her life.

“…write down anything you remember.” He’d told her as he wrote his phone number on the pad, “Anything at all, then call me. Anytime.”

She wished she could call him now and tell him how sorry she was for letting him down. But she couldn’t. She wrote. She had to make a lot of it up… “–a sinewy gaucho casually walking by bought me three taquitos with extra heat for five-twenty-five and he sprung for a Champurrado. In the back of his Camaro parked in a lot on Main, he turned me into a liar for every time I’ve ever said “no” to a man or a meal that could set me on fire..” She hated making it up. She wanted it real. She found a snack sized bag of Maui potato chips and turned on the tv. Not much was on her basic cable. OVC. News reruns. Old PBS shows. She settled on a Huell Howser re-run. He was visiting Porto’s Bakery. It was an entire show about cakes: Mango cheesecake. White chocolate raspberry mousse. Kiwi merengue torte. Grand Mariner with chocolate ganache. Lemon curd pound cake. Vanilla custard cake with pineapple filling… she should have turned it off but her mood was dark and so she watched and let her mind be pierced with thoughts of her sister.

A pledge break reeled her mind in. She turned the tv off and went outside to the courtyard. It was late. All the apartments were dark. She sat in a plastic chair by the pool. The only sound was the constant whisper of cars driving by outside.

A moving shadow startled her. A young coyote darted from behind a trash bin enclosure. It stopped when it saw her – stared her down, unafraid. Finally it skulked away and slipped out between the rails of the courtyard gate, heading up Laurel, toward the hills. A greeting came to it from somewhere in those hills, the sound of its entire pack howling. It died down. Rhea shivered. She looked at her phone. Three AM. When the quiet settles into the cracks of the night and the ghosts in the air kiss your skin.

Apr 05
0

Uncaged

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“Maybe I didn’t love you quite exactly as I should have…” Steve’s favorite CD played as the three Porters headed south down Interstate Five. Aggie had her little pink sunglasses on, looking cool, singing along. By the time they reached the border, the Willie CD had played almost nine times and Aggie had taught Poo to meow along with the chorus, “You were always on my mind. You were always on my mind…” Poo was pretty good. It cracked Steve and Rhea up.

Sprawled lazily around a the Port of Ensenada, the low-rise city neither welcomed nor refused anyone. Steve drove familiar streets into the outskirts of the business district and parked in front of Renaldo’s party supply store… pinatas, plastic wreaths, ornaments and a hundred dolls hung from strings across the open front. The three Porters went in. Poo stayed in the car.

Inside, the wonderland was crammed wall to wall, ceiling to floor with stuff. Boxes and boxes, shelves and shelves of stuff. Dozens of birdcages hung from ceiling fans, door knobs, ladders, water pipes, light fixtures and the branches of a big dead tree stuck in a giant pot in the middle of the room. Each birdcage had one or two or three blue parakeets in it. Sometimes a feather would fall from their cages to the floor.

Rhea went straight for the costume jewelry: bangle bracelets crusted with plastic jewels, giant glass rings and brooches and chokers sporting dragonflies and bees. Steve and Renaldo searched the store for every baby Jesus night light they could find. Aggie stood in the middle of it all, saddened by the birds. They were always quiet; not a peep, not a song. Surely unhappy to be caged inside a party store.

One of the cages hung low on a dead tree branch, about eye level with Aggie. The bird was watching her as it plucked one of its feathers and pushed it between the wire bars so it fluttered to the floor. Aggie picked it up. She looked at the bird; it looked back at her, like they were talking. After a while, Aggie unlatched the bird’s cage door. It nodded at her as it slipped out. But it didn’t fly away. It hopped over to its nearest friends, two parakeets in a cage that was hanging from a coat hook. With its beak it unlatched that cage door and the two birds hopped out. They split up and fluttered over to three other cages, one was sitting on the counter where Rhea was trying on a pair of Freida Kahlo earrings. It caught her eye. She turned and saw Aggie, holding the little blue feather. Rhea figured it out in a flash and hurried over to her.

“What are you doing?!”

“Nothing…”

As the birds stealthily continued their prison break and Steve and Renaldo remained preoccupied, Rhea called out to Steve.

“We’re hungry, Dad. OK if we go over to Joe’s?”

“Yeah, OK. I’ll be there as soon as Renaldo packs all this up. Order me something.”

“OK.”

“Watch your sister.”

“OK.”

Rhea took Aggie’s hand and felt something in it; she was still holding the blue feather. She had an orangeade soda in her other hand. Rhea took the feather and tucked it into Aggie’s pocket.

“C’mon. Let’s fly.” she smiled as she pulled Aggie out of there.

Apr 06
0

Bye Bye Birdie

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A gray mist filled the December sky, saturating the colors of the busy street at Christmastime… saturating the bright blue of the parakeets flying away.

Aggie wove through the throngs of people in the street. She kept her eyes up, on the one bird in the sky who seemed to linger a bit, letting her keep up. She approached Boom Boom Carnerceria just as Panama Jones came outside. He was holding two churros and a soda. He was a little nervous but a couple puffs had calmed him down. He concentrated on following the directions of Leland Hays who had told him to, “Use a churro or anything sweet.” to get a little girl into the new blue van he had lent Panama. “We’re helping them.” Hays had explained, “Taking poor little Mexican girls– who are by themselves. We put them with a nice family in LA – give them a job for life. They get new dresses, plenty of food and a room of their own. They love that, their very own room…” Plus, there was the van. Panama had slept in that van the night before. It was nice. Safe. Warm. And it was his to use if he sometimes got a little girl and drove her across the border to LA. Plus he got paid. Pretty good deal.

A little girl’s voice made him look up.

“Bye bye Tyrone!” Aggie called up to the parakeet in the sky as she hurried past Boom Boom, right past Panama Jones. He watched her as she turned a corner and disappeared down a side street while chasing after a bird.

Panama followed Aggie around that corner. After about a half a block, he called to her softly, in Spanish. “Ninita– Ninita–!”

She was so fixated on the bird in the sky, she didn’t see him until he touched her arm and held a sweet churro out to her, asking her:

“Quieres un churro?”

She didn’t have time to try and understand – Tyrone flew close by and she ran down the street following him, sharing his joy.

Panama saw that she was focused on the birds. He followed her and he called to her, over and over in Spanish,

“Vamos a coger el chirrido. Podemos coger el chirrido. Podemos coger el birdie más rápido en el coche -” (Let’s catch the birdie. We can catch the birdie faster in the car–)

She didn’t understand a word he was saying but it sounded important so she stopped and turned to him.

“Huh?”

They were only inches from where the blue van was parked. Close enough for him to scoop her up and put her inside. Blink of an eye. He strapped her into a seatbelt and pointed up through the sunroof as Tyrone flew by.

“Ahi esta!” He said as he started the car and pulled away. “Lo atraparemos!” (We’ll catch him!)

Exactly four minutes and twenty-eight seconds after Aggie had first run out of Joe’s, Panama drove her north on a two lane road out of town. Into the desert. Easy Money.

Apr 06
0

Gone

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Joe gave Rhea a taste of the Yellowtail straight out of the pan – man that made her smile. For a sixteen year old SoCal girl, she had eclectic taste in food. Sure she liked Taco Town tacquitos and the potato wedges at the Arco am pm mini-mart but she could also taste the distinct edge of sweetness in the lime Joe used and was curious where it came from.

Impressed, he told her it came from a tree in his mother’s backyard. She lived by the sea and the salty air brought out the lime’s sugars. She had goats, too and their milk was tangy and sweet. He’d thought of trying to use it in some desserts.

“Maybe I’ll try and make a cake for your sister the next time you come down–” he told Rhea.

“You hear that, Aggie?” Rhea turned to her sister. The table by the door was empty. The door was open. Aggie was gone.

Rhea dropped her fork and ran.

Outside there was an urgent flow of people shopping, but no little white girls. Rhea stopped dead and looked in every direction. Then she saw her Dad, walking toward Joe’s with a big box full of Jesus night lights. She ran to him. He saw the panic in her eyes.

“Where’s Aggie?”

Apr 07
0

A Tremble

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The moment Aggie got taken, Detective Matt Strickland was starting his second cup of coffee after a late lunch at The Pantry – eggs over medium, rye toast, sliced tomatoes. When he set the cup down after a sip, his coffee trembled – rippled like when a small earthquake aftershock rolls through. He looked up. No one else noticed anything. He knew this was internal; an instinct he almost wished he didn’t have – it had happened twice before. He finished the coffee, paid the bill and went back to LAPD Central and waited for the call he knew would come. It did. About seven hours later, a little after nine that night. It was Donnelly, calling about a missing little girl named Aggie Day Porter and a possible abductor who said his destination was a three hour drive from the border at Tecate.

“You call San Diego?” he asked, knowing the answer.

“Yeah, but… thought we’d better get you in right away. Kid’s American.”

Shit. It didn’t matter what nationality a kid in danger was to Strickland. But it mattered to others. It mattered in the media. An American was a bigger deal.

“Where’re the parents–” he started. “Here.” San Diego Detective Rudy Canon got on the line, letting Strickland know this was not likely a familial abduction. It was the second time that year he’d talked to Strickland. This was the third kid they’d talked about. The other two were Mexican girls – six and nine. Only the six-year-old had been found… decomposing in a trash bin on a construction site near the fourth street bridge on the east side of downtown LA. No leads. No suspects. No hope.

There was a chance the other girl and now Aggie weren’t in LA but there was a good chance they were. It was becoming a popular destination for trafficking as well as the usual runaways and illegals. And at just over five hundred square miles and nine million people, it was easy to disappear there.

“I’ll need pictures.” He told Canon, “Tonight.”

“House is in Norwalk. I can get them there by one.” Canon promised.

Strickland put out a BOLO: five year old female, blond hair, forty pounds, wearing a green jacket, white tutu and jeans. Possible suspect Mexican-American male, approximately eighteen, driving a late model blue VW van. He opened a case, drank two cups of coffee, ate a vending machine Honey Bun then at midnight, he jumped on the five and headed south.

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