Tag

food | An LA Crime Story - Part 3

Apr 05
0

Pacific Dreams

By | Serial | No Comments

At seventeen, Panama Jones was achingly, heartbreakingly beautiful… from his Mexican green eyes to the arch of his feet to the warmth of his smooth, sweet skin.
He didn’t think about it much, all he thought about while working part time as a janitor at the Vasquez senior center on Whittier Boulevard was making enough money to hang on to the studio apartment he shared with his mom, Lourde. 

After work on a Monday in August,  he cashed a paycheck for $237.12. He bought two milanesa tortas at La China Poblana and ate a late dinner with his mom at home. He put two hundred bucks in the drawer in the TV stand for rent. An hour later, Lorde’s boyfriend showed up with a stash. The two of them smoked an old one then found they were out of papers. “Do us a favor would you mind and get us some?” Lorde asked Panama. She opened the tv drawer, took out a five and handed it to him. She opened it enough that the boyfriend noticed the cash. Panama noticed the boyfriend seeing the cash. They locked eyes, for a second.

“Sure.” Panama told his mom as he took the five and left, hoping the weird feeling he had would go away.

Panama left, closed the door and was three yards down the hall when he heard the deadbolt latch shut. He went back and tried the door. Locked. He knocked. He heard them talking. He knocked harder. No one came to the door. And he knew. He wasn’t welcome. He said a silent goodbye to his mom, hit the boulevard and started walking. It was a little after eleven.

Panama dropped down Alameda to Venice then headed west. He bought a donut and coffee at the Donut King then didn’t stop until he hit the beach a little before seven am. He’d never been there before, never seen the ocean, never left home. The cool mist surprised him. It cocooned him.  He had three and a half dollars and nowhere to go but he knew he wasn’t going back.

Before the sun set that day, he ventured in. The force of the waves close to shore surprised him; knocked him down. 34 year old Chelsea was just ending a long ride on a short board. She grabbed him up. Then she took him in. For three months and four days, she called him “Baby.”

“Hey, Baby, bring that lotion over here. Lie down, now… roll over on your back.” Or “Baby, you hungry?” And sometimes, “Baby, you’re gonna break my heart.”. 

She shared her bed with him, her food and soon enough, her heart. She knew she couldn’t keep him but she tried.

“Just get in there, Baby, get in there. Hold your breath and dive under until you feel the rush pass over.” Chelsea taught Panama how to get past the first set of waves until they got to the breaks that were big enough to ride. He took to surfing like religion. Indeed, it was his savior. Every time he went under a wave, he forgot everything. Every single wound, every single fear. The first time he rode one, good things almost seemed possible. He used Chelsea’s board every morning while she was at work. But afternoons and weekends, she wanted it for herself.
“A good used one’s under two hundred bucks.” She’d tell him, “You can save that in no time bussing tables on the or even working at McDonalds.”

She could’ve bought him one but she knew he’d probably take it and run – he was starting to talk about the breaks at other beaches he’d heard about: Point Dume, San Onofre, Imperial, San Felipe. 

She also knew he could find another woman to buy him one. And he did. 

Women gave Panama everything: shelter, food, sex, pot, love. They turned him on to the chili verde at Felix’s in Redondo; the surf breaks at Solana, San Elijo, Rosarita; the strips at Huntington; Lady M weed; Astro Burgers’ onion rings; Kama Sutra positions four through sixty-nine and the Yellowtail marinated in tequila and lime at Joe’s café in Ensenada.

Panama had just finished a plate full of the fat, sizzled fish and was buying some twinkies – they called them “Bimbos” down there – at Boom Boom carneceria just down the street from Joe’s when he first met Leland Hays. He’d been between women for a few months, sleeping on the beach, making a few bucks selling joints to surfers from the two ounces of Salinas Gold a woman in San Diego had given him.

“Could get you killed.” Leland mentioned as he slipped Panama a twenty for a joint of the smooth weed.

“Hey man, be cool.” Panama backed away, “Just a couple sticks’s all I got–“.

“I am cool.” Leland leaned in, “Just sayin’, sellin’ can get dangerous. Cartel doesn’t like competition–”

“Three sticks. That’s all I got– just need a few bucks for food.” Panama walked away.

Leland’s words slowed him, “I can get you five, six hundred for a few nights work.  Easy money.”

“Easy money.” Words that should’ve made Panama run. But he was so young then… stoned and way less worldly than he thought. Five or six hundred was enough for a month’s stay at the San Ysidro Motel –  he was a little scared of sleeping on the beach ever since  a friend of a friend had got his head cut off one night sleeping at Imperial. Plus he could get a board of his own. He’d sold the second hand one a woman in Pismo had bought him – he’d had nowhere to keep it.

He followed Leland across the street.  As Hays got into a sweet, sweet ride – a new blue VW van, Panama was right behind him.

“How easy?” he asked.

Apr 05
0

Uncaged

By | Serial | No Comments

“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 05
0

Asombroso

By | Serial | No Comments

Rhea held tight to Aggie’s hand as they made their way through Christmas shoppers to Joe’s café four doors down. The only vacant table in the tiny café was right by the front door. Rhea sat Aggie down at the table and told her to “Stay right here and don’t move. I’m gonna go order us some lunch.”

“OK.”

Spritely Joe Leybas was cooking in a battered old frying pan on a two burner stove in the back of the unadorned room. He looked up as Rhea approached. A smile creased his eyes.

“Rhea! Hola. Back so soon!”

“We ran out of Jesus night lights.” Rhea explained. “They’re our biggest seller.”

Joe tossed a fat hunk of fresh fish into a pan sizzling with garlic and lard.

“Is that Yellowtail?” she asked, breathing it all in.

He nodded and smiled then splashed some tequila on it from a bottle of good Asombroso.

“Oooh, I’ll have that, please. Dad, too, he’ll be here in a minute.” She turned to Aggie, who was already looking bored. “Aggie, what do you want to eat?”

“Cake please.” Aggie chimed.

“I don’t have cake–” Joe started–

“That’s OK. I’ll get her some cupcakes at Boom Boom.” Rhea told him then asked how, exactly, he was making the Yellowtail.

He loved to talk about food. So did Rhea. As he told her how – first – the fish needed to be so fresh you could smell the Pacific, then you marinate it in tequila – Asombroso if you have it – and lime… Rhea got lost in the story.

Sitting all alone by the door, Aggie was getting antsy. A fat man came in. Aggie felt a flutter of shadow cross her face and turned and looked out the gap where the door hadn’t quite closed.

A blue parakeet flew by. My oh my! Then six or seven or eight followed. Aggie ran out, after them.

Apr 06
0

Bye Bye Birdie

By | Serial | No Comments

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

Tecate

By | Serial | No Comments

Four dusty miles from the US border in the beer town of Tecate, Panama pulled over again. He waited thirty-some minutes for night. No one else was on the road. He opened the side door to the van and pushed aside four carved wooden rustic Mexican dining chairs. Behind them was a small wooden sideboard. He opened the cabinet doors and told Aggie to get inside.

“The road’s gonna get bumpy.” He told her. “Inside there, you won’t get sick.”

Aggie got inside. Panama rolled up his jacket to make a pillow for her then gave her another churro.

“Keep really quiet. Maybe even try and go to sleep. I’ll check on you in an hour.”

Aggie took the churro. “Unless Rhea comes before.”

“Yeah.”

He closed the cabinet, sprayed some more air freshener, closed the van doors, got in the front and drove on, into Tecate.

Except for the brewery, Tecate was a small-building, low lying town. Panama drove down streets of tiny houses and markets and beauty salons and car repair shops, criss-crossed with railroad tracks. He followed the signs to the border. As he pulled up to the crossing, he noticed Aggie’s pink sunglasses were lying on the front seat.

There were two guards at the gate. The bigger one, a strawberry blond twenty-five-year old named Donnelly, walked around Panama’s blue van with a sniffer dog, Yodel. Inside, Panama tried to look calm and sober despite the little pink sunglasses he’d stuck on his head, using them to hold back his long hair. He watched Donnelly and Yodel in the rear view. When they looked done, he stuck his head out of the window.

“We bueno, dude?”

Donnelly approached the window, looked at Panama. “Quirky.” He thought to himself. “Young. Tired.”

“The road’s pretty wind-ey ‘til you get to the eight. If you get tired, you should pull over.” he warned Panama. “Guy last week fell asleep two miles in and went off a cliff–”

“I’ll be OK.” Panama told him as he shoved the sunglasses back down on his head – they were small and kept popping up, “In three hours, I’m home–”

He started the van, waved at Donnelly and drove across the border. And into the blackness of the hills.

About an hour after he’d let Panama through the border, the phone in Donnelly’s booth rang.

Apr 07
0

A Tremble

By | Serial | No Comments

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.

Apr 07
0

Notepad

By | Serial | No Comments

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 07
0

Night Train

By | Serial | No Comments

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.

May 24
0

Paradise Motel

By | Serial | No Comments

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 08
0

Frankincense

By | Serial | No Comments

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.

error: Content is protected !!