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story | An LA Crime Story - Part 4

Apr 07
0

Notepad

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You’ll find her.” She said.

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

“We’ll try our best, Mrs. Porter.”

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

Apr 07
0

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.

Apr 08
0

Rustic Imports

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I know.” Panama interrupted–

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

“I know.”

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

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

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

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

Ozrin nodded, “How much?”

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

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

“You’ll make that back in a week.”

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

Apr 09
0

Petunia Print

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“OK” she told Ozrin and walked toward him.

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

Apr 08
0

Frankincense

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

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

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

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

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

“Now get outta here.”

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

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

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

“Yeah.” Rhea agreed.

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

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

May 27
0

Lake Hollywood

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

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

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

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

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

To Be Continued…

Apr 09
0

Almost

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

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

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

Apr 09
0

Sandwich Cookie

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

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

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

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

“Ummmm… a hundred twelve dollars?”

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

“I have rent to pay–” she protested.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Apr 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.”

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