Orange County Noir (Akashic Noir) Page 23

  "You invited me ... Wait. Me and this woman?"

  The wheels were coming off this bus pretty fast. Could he hear how loud I swallowed?

  "'s a big house," he said, picking up the empty glass again. "What were you two doin' upstairs all night, anyway?"

  An alibi wouldn't be a problem. I was at dinner with five friends until midnight. Which was completely beside the point. Nothing mattered now except the moment. And with this guy's loose grip on reality, I was in no position to argue.

  "My lips are sealed," I lied. "You can handle this any way you want."

  "You're in my house."

  "Yessir, I am."

  "You followed me in."

  "You told me to."

  "The hell I did."

  "I'll just go then."

  I'd taken about three tentative steps toward the door where the tiger sat when the highball glass exploded against the window frame just beside me. Heavy crystal ricocheted off the back of my head. When I touched the spot, my fingers came away bloody.

  Straight ahead, Pussy leaned ever so slightly forward.

  Which would be a more pathetic end to my life? Death at the hands of my teen idol-now an aging, drunk rocker-or death by tiger attack in the rocker's Balboa Island rumpus room? Either way, I imagined snickering at my funeral.

  "You're pretty upset, I can tell," I said. "It's a bad time ..."

  He walked halfway across the room, his chest heaving. Either he was working himself into a rage, or he was out of breath from throwing his glass.

  "Don't patronize, you little prick."

  "Never."

  "You have no idea what this is like for me."

  "I can't-"

  "To lose a home? To see everythin' taken away? What tha' does to a man?"

  I knew. "This won't help, but doing what I do, I know there are a lot of people out there going through exactly what-"

  "Christ!" He swept an arm across a scene littered by the debris of his reckless life. "You think I'm a credit whore, doncha? You think tha's what this's about? I earned all this."

  "Of course you did. You rocked."

  He took a deep breath. "Don't mind me sayin', but it takes some big-ass cojones to come into my house, tell me I'm just like all those assistan' credit managers and den'al hygienists and Roto -Rooters who couldn't pay the mortgage on some-" He spat the next word. "-tract house. You thin' they have a clue whaddit means to lose somethin' like this?"

  A home is a home. Square footage and harbor views can t measure pride or pain. I wanted to tell him about the family in Santa Ana I'd evicted just last week, immigrants who'd worked two decades to buy a teeny two-bedroom. They raised six kids there and kept it immaculate right up until the father was deported during an INS sweep at the taqueria where he worked. This guy needed to hear that story. I wasn't about to tell him.

  "I have to go," I said, eyeing Pussy.

  "Shit storm's comin'," he slurred.

  "Please don't blame the messenger."

  That's when he started clenching and unclenching his fists. He dropped his eyes to the floor, looking for some last chance to snatch his fantasy life from the swirl as it all circled the drain. He spoke quietly. "Don' go. I'm just ... need a few hours t'get m'head together. All this dark matter. You c'n do that for me. Ya gotta do that for me."

  I tapped my watch. "If I don't check in soon, the office'll come looking for me. It's policy."

  "Tha's bullshit."

  "It's really not."

  "I said i's bullshit."

  "I know you did. Doesn't change policy, though. They keep a pretty close eye on us."

  He thought about that for an uncomfortably long time. "So you're saying I'm fucked."

  "I'm not saying-"

  "This's really happenin'?"

  He was losing his tenuous grip. My situation wasn't exactly improving, either. I edged another step closer to the door. I'd watched him scratch Pussy between the ears. That was good enough for me. I'd take my chances with the tiger.

  "Instincts!" he reminded, his voice rising.

  When I hesitated, he stepped around the upended La-ZBoy, and in three quick steps was halfway across the room, coming directly at me. His groped into his pocket and the robe fell open, exposing his chest, his remarkably flat stomach, and the withered manjunk of a still-breathing fossil.

  "Meaning?"

  "They crush th' windpipe, but it takes minutes to die. No sudd'n moves, now."

  He pulled the gun out almost casually. There was a tremor in his hand that I hadn't noticed before. He stopped about twenty feet away, swaying. Even so, the barrel looked awfully steady, pointed right at my head. "I ask't you a favor, tha's all. One little favor." He stepped slowly forward.

  "You're trying to make it look like I had something to do with this," I said. "I can't let you do that."

  "You two broke into m'house, you and partygirl there. Y'got into my thin's. I saw all that."

  "You know that's not true. The cops will know it too."

  He was maybe ten feet away, but still coming. I retreated until my back hit the corner where the window met the wall. Nowhere else to go. I went for my belt.

  "See this?" I said, holding up a tiny canister.

  He wobbled, trying to make sense of the sudden change in my voice. He came two steps closer, but it wasn't a hostile advance. He lowered the gun and squinted at my hand like a man who wished he'd brought his reading glasses. That's when I hit him with a jet of forced-cone pepper spray. Nailed him right in the eyes.

  The gun fell to the floor as both hands shot to his face.

  "Christ!" he screamed. "Y'prick!"

  He staggered, shrieking as he backpedaled. Behind him, Pussy rose into a crouch. Her ears lay back against a head the size of a medicine ball. She twitched her whiskers, missing nothing.

  "I was kidding!" he screamed. "Christ Jesus, it burns!"

  The La-Z-Boy was right behind him, and he hit it in full backward stride. The impact sent his feet straight into the air and he came down hard on his back, robe fully open. He tried to leverage his momentum into a backward somersault, but tipped to one side and fell hard against the edge of the couch. It knocked him back to the floor, where his head thumped the hardwood. His hands never left his chem-scorched eyes even as one of his flailing legs caught Pussy square on the jaw. The big cat snarled, hackles up.

  "Gaaaaaaa!" he screamed.

  Pussy was on her blinded prey in a single bound. The roar that announced her attack was brief and deep, all business, the sound of heavy equipment at full throttle.

  "Pussy! No!"

  The animal didn't stop. She batted him with her powerful right paw, almost playful, and the blow sent him reeling. He regained his balance, but her claws had opened wide gashes along his left shoulder. His orange skin hung in ribbons as he groped blindly with one hand for the source of the pain. Desperate to orient himself, he tried to open eyes that were all but welded shut.

  I edged closer to the hallway door.

  Pussy's shoulders rose, her head dropped. When he fell to his knees, she lunged.

  "Yaa" was the only sound he made before she clamped down on his throat. She held him to the floor with giant forepaws as his skinny legs thrashed.

  By then I was racing for the front door. Behind me, the same sound of savagery I'd heard on all those National Geographic specials. They never ended well. My heart was pounding as I jerked open the heavy front door and stepped back into the cramped serenity of Balboa Island. I pulled the door shut, muffling Pussy's roar.

  I prayed my thanks there on his doorstep, waiting for my breathing to slow. Before I moved toward my car, I looked around. The cottages and mansions of Balboa Island were bathed in brilliant midmorning sun. The sails of passing yachts bobbed along the harbor's main channel. Nothing was changed. Life went on. But behind me I felt a real and unmistakable force, like the gravitational pull of something dark and invisible.

  hen the first letter arrived, Fred Mackie was standing just inside his front
door. He didn't know or care if the mail carrier saw him through the curtains as the envelope slipped through the slot, bounced off his right shoe, and glided across the floor tile until it stopped. He'd had a feeling today would be the day, and he savored being right. Like with a lot of items he'd order from unreliable dot-coms, Fred was never sure whether or not anything would arrive. But this wasn't some item he'd ordered. It was a connection that he hoped would transform his life. Way too shy to approach a pretty woman, he was well past thirty without every having a real being-in-love relationship.

  He'd made a New Year's resolution that he wouldn't be alone after this year.

  In California, people doing time weren't allowed to have e-mail. But there were websites like InmatePlaymate.com that exchanged people's snail-mail addresses for a reasonable fee. Playmate number 403, with her long blond hair, sparkling blue eyes, and mysterious smile, had taken him on.

  He picked up the pale-yellow envelope and turned it over. The flap illustration showed three kittens in a wicker basket, playing with a ball of pink yarn. California Frontier Institute for Women was stamped diagonally across the image. Turning the envelope back over, he observed the old LOVE stamp and someone -centers to update the postage. The postmark was February 14-Valentine's Day. She'd written his address in childish handwriting, the "i" in Mackie dotted with a little heart. Smiling and shaking his head, Fred went to the kitchen to get a steak knife, and slit through the paper flap with precision. There was a single sheet inside. He sniffed, but it wasn't scented.

  Hi Fred,

  I recieved your message after you saw me on the website. I am writting this letter to thank you for being my "penn pal" lot. I am "403" but please call me Angel. The address to write to is on the envellope. From now on write here. Did the website tell you the rules about how mail gets read by other's both ways?

  Take care,

  Kiss kiss Angel

  Fred liked that last part-so affectionate. He was careful wording his reply, wanting his first letter to be eloquent. He hammered at the keyboard, glancing every few minutes at the color image of Angel's website profile lying beside his desktop. He'd Photoshopped the image to put himself there, behind her, grinning like a mega-lotto winner, hands resting on her shoulders-actually, pretty close to the swell of her chest. He wrote how glad he was to hear from her, how much he'd already thought about her.

  He didn't mention anything about her being in prison. That could wait. In a way, it was beside the point. He wanted to help her think about the future and forget her troubles. Instead, he asked if she had a boyfriend. I bet you have a boyfriend, he wrote, but if not, consider me a candidate! He added a smiley-face icon, something he thought he would never do, but here it just seemed right. Fred told her about his life and where he lived in West Garden Grove in a remodeled home, well maintained but in need of a woman's touch. He hoped that wasn't too forward. He didn't want to scare her away; that was why he left out his picture. He wrapped up by asking her to please write back ASAP

  Going over his letter, he polished it up. He took out the part calling himself a shy geek, also the mention of how many cops lived in his neighborhood. He got rid of his horrible childhood, how he escaped his hateful parents by moving from the upper Midwest to California and hadn't seen them in years, what he secretly called his "witness self-protection program." He called himself single instead of never married. Why be negative?

  Fred printed it, signed it, sealed it in an envelope, and drove to the post office. He used the automated machine to send it express. He didn't need some snotty clerk snickering at Angel's prison address. They might even throw it in the trash-after they ripped it open and read it, the creeps. Someone should go postal and rip them open.

  After the first exchanges, things moved pretty fast even if the mail didn't. Then Angel wrote that even though he couldn't call her, she could call him collect. Fred did a solitary endzone dance and demanded in his reply, Why didn't you mention it before? Call me any old time! He gave his home number, but not the cell or office. Too distracting.

  Fred worked at a nationwide income-tax preparation company. After ten years, the job was routine enough for him to sneak online and daydream-that's how he'd found InmatePlay- mates.com. In his free time, he'd toss back a few Coronas with his cop buddy and across-the-street neighbor Manny Delgado, maybe go to a Ducks game, whatever.

  These days Fred was interested in working off a beer belly, not drinking it. Since Angel had soon asked pointedly about a picture, he dug one out taken at a workmate's wedding a few years earlier. Fred was quite a bit thinner back then-but he knew he'd be at least down to that weight by the time he could go on a visit. If he laid off the energy bars and bottled Frap- puccino and used the stairs at work, he'd be back into his old clothes in no time flat. Old clothes, nothing-he'd buy the new ones he'd budgeted for. During tax season, he couldn't get away. He'd be working long hours including weekends, so he and Angel would have to wait awhile. Besides, they hadn't even discussed a visit yet.

  In the picture, he'd taken off his glasses and held them behind his back. He wore dark slacks, a white shirt, and a narrow black tie. Now he smiled, realizing that to her he might look like a slightly plump Mormon on bike patrol. He could have altered it electronically to include sunglasses so he'd look more like John Belushi as a Blues Brother, but changing an image for his own entertainment and deceiving her were two different things.

  He wanted Angel to see how he was and think he was still okay, so her next letter was a huge relief. She even said something that gave him a hot shiver of anticipation:

  Hi Fred.

  Your picture was a pleasant suprise. I always thought men who can wear plus sizes are more attractive, they are fun to cuddle. At certain times you just need something to grab on to and who wants a hand full of skinny ribs and no butt? Your so cute I feel more lonelier now!

  Kisses and big bare hugs,

  Angel

  Bare or bear, either was fine with him.

  That next week was a blur of work: run home and see if there was a letter, eat something "healthy" from the microwave, take a quick walk, go to sleep, and get up to do it over again. Fred had explained to Angel about tax season but began to take work home so he'd be there in case she called. Soon the letters were pouring through the door slot. Twice they passed in the mail because they had so much to say. He was getting pretty good at flirting and double meanings, if he did say so himself. In fact, he'd never felt better, like on a high, full of energy, smiling. He was rocketing through the tax forms. He told Angel to call him, and soon. Her next letter said, Thanks for the offer, I will call you March 1st Friday so, dont go on a date just kidding lot!

  Did she really think he'd do that to her? With everything she'd told him about the abuse and terror her parents and exboyfriend had made her endure, all he wanted to do was protect and care for her. He didn't expect more than gratitude, at first, but he knew she would want to show it, someday, when she had the chance.

  Friday arrived. Because he didn't want to get stuck in evening rush-hour traffic, Fred left work early and undetected. He kept his cool on the freeway. There was the usual nasty honking and flipping off, but he drove just under the speed of traffic and in the slow lane, thwarting any thug who tried to use it to pass on the right. Pretty soon, he was almost to the intersection he secretly called White Trash Corners at the southern edge of his neighborhood. Twice every workday, Fred's freeway shortcut took him through the four-way stop.

  Uh-glee! The first house had gray paint, gray trim, a never-watered grayish tan lawn, and a gray fence that looked like it was put together without nails in a wind tunnel, leaning this way and that. Not to code. The old guy who lived there with a mousy little wife often put up handwritten screeds in his window about politics or the Bible. Fred didn't bother reading them.

  The second house had peeling, dirty white paint and trim. The residents were a guy and his two grown sons. It seemed all they did was watch over their beer cans as the original asphalt
driveway cracked, separated, and disappeared under the thatchy so-called lawn, where a truck and two cars were parked. The truck never moved.

  The third house took a woman's touch to be bad. In front, right on the corner, were three stumps of what had probably been palm trees. The lady there decorated those stumps for every holiday, small and large, and usually left them up until it was time for the next holiday. Just so you wouldn't forget her fat ass, she had a country-style garden decoration, really just some painted plywood, that showed the back view of some damn woman bent over, probably picking up dogshit decorations.

  The last house was the kind that even solicitors would pass by. The cinder-block wall running along the street was disintegrating a brick at a time, especially since the kids in the area started helping them. All covered with ivy up and over the roof. Big security-alarm posting by the front door. Never a sign of life; someone could be dead in there for all anybody knew.

  It was like the four houses were in a worst-yard contest, like the opposite of those shows that told you how to make your place look good. Fred decided he'd push back. He picked up some business cards at a home-improvement store and went around the corners late one night-tree trimming, painting, driveway repair, landscape, masonry-even an autoshop card under the truck's windshield wiper and a therapist's card for the religion nut jammed behind one of his window screens.

  Whenever he left that place, Fred felt glad he lived in West Garden Grove, which was totally safe. He liked coming up his street, with its parkway trees controlled by regular severe pruning. Of four models in the tract, his was the Alpine, which he kept nice with maintenance and inventory schedules for everything from A/C filters to Ziploc bags.

  His neighbor Manny Delgado, who had just made sergeant at the GGPD, liked to joke about all the old farts working the west end just before they retired-because nothing ever happened there.

  Kind of true. It was a strange city, like somebody said about Oakland, no there there. Only a mile or so north to south but stretched out west to east, Garden Grove was sandwiched between other cities like a slice of cheese. He wouldn't want to live in midtown, which might as well be Westminster and its Little Saigon, where teenage Asian gangs roamed. The east end, same thing, but with Latino gangs. He'd been meaning to ask Manny what it took to qualify for the police, be part of the solution to crime. He felt ready for a change, and he was getting in shape. Of course, Angel might not like it, but he'd talk to her.