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downtown | An LA Crime Story - Part 2

Night Train

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Rhea didn’t want Strickland to leave. She needed his power, his confidence, his calm. She willed her mind to remember something, anything – some perfect and stunning tidbit that would lead him straight to Aggie. But nothing came. And he left. She kept staring at the closed door. She was on one side, and Aggie was somewhere outside, lost in the night. She hung on to that unbearable thought as though following it through the dark labyrinth of her imagination would lead her to her sister. But she couldn’t follow the path in her mind. She was tired. She shouldn’t be tired, her sister was missing and it was her fault – she should never ever sleep again until Aggie was home. Her eyes kept closing. What a terrible sister she was.

Stel put her thumb and forefinger on Rhea’s chin and turned her face to her own.

“Are You listening to me?”

Rhea nodded, trying to focus on what her mother was saying.

“I have to stay here, for when Aggie comes home.”

Rhea nodded again, wondering where this was going.

“Your father can’t go, look at him, he can’t even get out of that chair.”

It started to become clear. Yes! Someone in the family needed to go find Aggie because, as Stel pointed out, “That cop doesn’t know Aggie, doesn’t love her like we do. His heart isn’t in it. And she won’t be looking for him, she’ll be looking for one of us.”

“I can go…?” Rhea answered, a little unsure but as Stel firmly nodded while looking into Rhea’s eyes, Rhea became certain. This made sense. All except the details. “How will I–?” Rhea tried to make a plan–

Stel cut her off, she already had this figured out. “Trains run all night. Especially now. Christmas. Go pack a few things and I’ll take you to the Fullerton Station.”

Wow. This was really happening. Rhea felt a jolt of adrenaline and of relief. This was good. This would work. She’d find Aggie like she’d always done and everything would be back like it was.

Rhea jammed a skirt, a pair of jeans, two T-shirts, underwear, toothbrush and a picture of Aggie into her little round black patent leather case with embossed pink ballet shoes on it then zipped it up as Stel hovered, impatiently.

“Ready?”

Rhea nodded. Stel grabbed her keys. As they left, Rhea glanced at her father, searching for something in his eyes – love or at least a goodbye – but there was nothing there. She closed the door behind her.

Stel held the car door open for Rhea, trying to hurry her along. Rhea slid in. Stel hurried into the driver’s side and, not bothering to buckle her seat belt, drove them away.

At one forty nine, the Fullerton train station was still had a few people. Happy people, laughing people, setting down armloads of packages to hug their loved ones who’d come to welcome them home for the holidays.

Stel gave Rhea a ticket and a hundred and seventy-one dollars.

“It’s all I have in the house.” she said as she thrust it at Rhea. “It should be plenty for some food and a motel for a few nights.”

“Thank you.” Rhea told her mom, straining with the sudden uneasy formality.

Stel nodded and turned to leave. Almost as an afterthought, she grabbed Rhea and hugged her hard and fast. Rhea hugged back. “I’ll find her, mom. I promise.”

Stel let go. “I have to get back, in case–” Rhea nodded. Stel hurried away. Rhea got on the train alone. No one waved goodbye.

The train slipped past warehouses, trailer parks, freeways and the Firestone tire factory which was built to look like a castle.

“Is she in there?” Rhea wondered as she strained against the dirty train window trying to see a glimpse of Aggie. Or in one of those trailers? Or in that laundromat? Or that Taco Bell? So many places to look…

The magnitude of the task ahead started to creep in. But for now, Rhea just focused on looking out that window. Sometimes she glanced at the blank notepad. In the course of the thirty three minute train ride to LA, all she could think to write was: bluebirds.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Homework

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Gallows was just closing up but she had about twenty minutes she could give to Rhea.

“You calmed down?” Gallows asked as she gave Rhea a bottle of Figi water and gestured her to sit.

“You have anything besides water?” Rhea asked, deciding not to sit. Gallows didn’t. Rhea gave her the water back. “No, I haven’t calmed down. I’m freaking out a little. I got a job to make a little money but I’m not making enough to live on, so–”

“I’m going to tell you right now, “Gallows interrupted, “This is going to take awhile.”

“I’m not going to forgive myself-” Rhea reminded Gallows.

“I get it. It keeps you going. But we’re going to have to find another way into you’re being able to stop self-destructing.”

“I told you I gave them up.”

“And the desire?”

Rhea shrugged, “I have the desire to shoot every molester I find but I don’t.”

Gallows changed the subject: “Does the thought of sleeping with a nice forty year old man do anything for you?”

“Does he have to be nice?”

Gallows didn’t think that was funny.

“Sorry.” Rhea apologized. “Really, I never think about it.”

“OK. Well… start. Start there. Imagine it. Think about it. Then write down how you feel about it. We also need to figure out some practical ways that you can survive while we work on the self-acceptance thing.”

“I can work on that and do my job, Doctor. I need my job. I need the money.”

“A starting cop makes sixty three grand. You were a detective third grade– they just stopped paying you two months ago–”

“That’s why I need more money.”

“You buy a house or something?”

“I pay sixteen fifty a month. Rent controlled.”

“Don’t tell me all the money went to–”

“My mom. I send alot to my mom. They had a hard time working after–”

“You might need to get a roommate–”

“In a one bedroom?”

“Move.”

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.

Moonlight Mile

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Just across the river from Domingo’s back door, Daisy walked along the railroad tracks that ran alongside the cement LA River bank. She stopped and looked around, looked up, just above the skyline one last time, near to where she’d seen the puff of light rise. Her Pentax was strung around her neck. She held it in her hand, supporting the old zoom lens. The lens cap was off. As the rising moon brightened, a bit of its light reflected off of her lens and bounced across the river bed, pooling its way across the crack in Domingos’ bolted back door

Inside Domingos’ sad kitchen, that sliver of moonlight found its way through the crack in the back door. As it crossed over the dead girls, something purple shimmered just as Rhea glanced back down at them. She looked closer; she bent down. Transfixed. Strickland finished his call, hung up and turned to her.

“They’ll be here in five, you should go–” he told her. But she wasn’t listening. A sound caught in her throat. He looked closer; looked at what she was looking at. One of the girl’s arms was tucked under her dress; her wrist was barely visible. Wrapped around that wrist was a plastic bracelet with a purple tin charm on it that advertised “Boom Boom Carneceria. Ensenada. Mexico.”

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