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sex | An LA Crime Story - Part 2

Apr 04
0

Front seat

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Javier Adelente’s old battered ’79 Toyota truck sat low to the ground. The cab seats were shredded from wear and the front windshield steamed from the breath of Rhea and Javier, locked in the singular passion of young love in a front seat.

“No no no no no… Rhea mumbled as he kissed her over and over… His warm brown skin smelled like Dial soap. His hands slid down her body–

“Oh. Oh. Oh. OK…” she panted as Javier shoved his hands under her ass and lifted her onto him. They’d been there before. He was her first love and she was his. She was sixteen, he was seventeen and it was getting harder and harder to “wait”. She could feel the Christmas lights from the little houses on Normal Road blinking on and off, like some absurdly merry warning.

“No,” she told him again but he kissed her neck and pushed her right knee down so she straddled him. She barely managed to whisper, “We promised we’d wait till Christmas. It’s only a week away”.

“I know…” he agreed. She pulled away.

The birth of Jesus had nothing to do with first time sex but they’d thought it was a good idea; a present to each other. They were teenagers, full of gesture.

“Let me have another.” she asked. he reached down and grabbed a grease-spotted brown paper bag and held it open for her. She took out a handful of fresh fried tortilla strips scattered with sugar and cinnamon. The warm sweetness filled her mouth as she crunched down, still straddling him.

“These are sooo good.” She told him. “Tell your mom thanks.”

He watched her eat it – watched her joy – watched as she spilled cinnamon sugar down her chest. She tried to brush it off.

“I’ll get it.” He said as he started to lick it off. Whatever resistance she’d had disappeared with the feel of his tongue on her skin and the warmth of his breath. She opened her sweater and let the sugar spill further down into her bra. He followed it with his tongue, reaching around with one hand and undoing her bra, freeing her for his mouth.

Feeling him big and warm underneath her, she pulled his mouth to her breast and closed her eyes. As his tongue flicked her nipple, he slipped his hand inside her panties and slid a finger into her. Man it felt good. She moved against him. She pulled off her sweater and pressed closer to him. Then he screamed…

“There’s a spider!” and threw her off of him as he scrambled to get away from it as it crawled across the driver’s side window. She slammed against the steering wheel. The horn honked LOUD.

“Get down!” She grabbed him and they tumbled to the floor and tried not to make a sound; freaking a little as they heard the door of a nearby house creak open.

She sneaked a peek down the street. Three houses down, Steve was looking out her front door. After a moment, he went back inside. She sat back up, but Javier stayed on the floor.

“Is it still there?”

“The spider?”

He nodded. She looked around then saw the spider, still walking across the window. She looked closer. It was kind of wobbling. She looked closer still. It looked just like Tamarind. She let it crawl onto my hand.

“What are you doing!?” He kind of freaked.

“I’m taking it.” She told him. She kissed him with the promise, “I’ll see you Christmas night.” She opened the door and got out. She never saw him again.

Apr 05
0

Pacific Dreams

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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 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.

May 24
0

Paradise Motel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Apr 09
0

Petunia Print

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“OK” she told Ozrin and walked toward him.

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

Apr 09
0

Sandwich Cookie

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

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

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

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

“Ummmm… a hundred twelve dollars?”

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

“I have rent to pay–” she protested.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Apr 09
0

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.”

Apr 10
0

Salad Nicoise

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Anna Sakuri was sixty-nine inches of hedonistic glee packed into forty four years of ruthless will. She sold real estate in Beverly Hills… a young man’s game but she ate young men for lunch. Which is where Rhea found her: at the Polo Lounge, at her usual table with a thirty dollar tuna salad and a blow dried junior agent to munch.

“You’re a long way from Cinco Puntos.” Sakuri snickered as Rhea approached.

“About nine miles and a million bucks.” Rhea shot back, then added: “I need a favor.”

Sakuri kicked junior out. He went to the bar. Rhea slid in to the booth.

“You want me to take George back.” Sakuri said.

“God no”, Rhea told her, “She’s happy.”

“Fuck you.” Sakuri stabbed back.

“No thanks” Rhea shot back then Anna leaned in with a languid smile and said,

“Sweetie, it’s only sex and gin”.

“About that favor…” Rhea pressed.

“Shoot.”

“You still do business on the east side?”

“Just sold a three bed Spanish fixer in Silverlake for two point two to Gary Ozrin – the son of that cheeseball producer who made all those bible porn movies. Why?”

“Do you know anyone who needs a housesitter or is renting a room?” Rhea asked, a little sheepishly.

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

Jul 13
0

Skinny Dipping

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“What was that about?” Dawson asked Strickland as they walked to his car, parked half a block down, in front of an upholstery fabric warehouse.”

“You know, Porter’s sister was kidnapped by someone taking some furniture up from Baja.” Strickland informed him.

Like most cops, Dawson knew her history, “Long time ago, yeah?”

“Yeah–” Strickland acknowledged, “Hays’s been here longer, though.”

Dawson looked around at two other furniture import warehouses. “Still a long shot, though.”

“Prob’ly.”

“I’ll get a rush from Wisnevitz and arson on the cause then, depending, we can try and track down that Myrna.”

“Sounds good.” Strickland agreed then added, “I might ask around a little tomorrow, though-”

Dawson shrugged, “Suit yourself. I’m working an NCIS film shoot down on Olympic and fifth. Text me if anything turns up.”

Strickland nodded. They got in Dawson’s car. As they drove toward headquarters, Rhea pulled out of her parking spot and headed west on Fourth.

Dawson dropped Strickland at Headquarters. Strickland got his car and drove home.

Strickland knew in his saddest bones that the fire would be ruled accidental. End of story. Their bodies would remain unclaimed. Their ashes would be stored in small paper bags at the county crematorium with the hundreds more of unclaimed bodies that year. They’d all be buried in a single mass grave at the county cemetery on the corner of 1st and Lorena streets in Boyle Heights. “2017” would mark the plot. He also knew there might be more to this. He also knew he needed Rhea.

He parked his Honda in the underground garage and quietly walked up the steps to the courtyard. He walked past Rhea’s old place. It was dark. Moonlight shone down on a palm tree, next to the pool. RHea was standing there, leaning against the tree, finishing off a bag of Fritos. She tugged at her T-shirt, pulling the V neck down to flick off bits of salt and crumbs. She looked up and saw him there; caught him looking where her tugging had highlighted her cleavage. He blushed.

What the fuck? she thought as the heat of realization rippled through her. It threw her for a minute. It was weird. For all the unsuccessful homework imagining she’d done about fucking him, she’d never considered the fact that he thought of her that way. I mean, good lord, he’d scraped her off the sidewalk more than once. Pulled her out of a dozen dark nights. Wiped her flu snot. Wiped her ass when when they’d both eaten some bad Chicken Mole on the Day of the Dead. Sure, if she thought about it, he was kind of hot in a James Comey way but he was a second father to her. More than that, he was nice. She didn’t know what to do with this. Neither did he.

“How’d you get in?” he asked.

She pulled the garage gate clicker out of a pocket. “Through the garage. They never asked for my clicker back. What’s at the warehouse?”

He knew she had followed them to the the warehouse. He’d expected her to. He took a breath.

“Back off.”

“Let me back.”

He started to walk away.

“What do I have to do?!”

He did walk away.

“Oh come on, Strickland–” she whined then begged, “Don’t do this to me–”

His apartment was on the other side of the pool. He could hear her start to follow behind. He heard a little clunk. Then a swish. Then the sound of bare feet on the cement. He turned and looked back. She’d taken off her shoes, her skirt and was lifting her T-shirt up over her head, laying bare her breasts. She dropped the t-shirt on the ground. All she had on was a pair of men’s boxers.

She slipped those off – paused for him to get a good look – then she dove in the pool.

He watched her swim under the water – rippling, shimmering, open, wet. He looked away and went inside.

Rhea treaded water, looking around for Strickland. His lights were out. Maybe he’d just popped in for a towel, she thought as she waited for him. But she could feel something else, a vibe. It wasn’t a good one. She swam to the steps, got out, pulled her clothes on over her wet body and hurried out of there.

She knew she’d made a mistake, a big one. But she wasn’t going to think about that. No way. She needed chili cheese fries. They had some good ones at Tommy’s on Hollywood and Bronson.

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