Intimate Relations: A Finn O'Brien Crime Thriller

by Rebecca Forster

  Her husband waggled his head. His large hands went to his face and when he looked again it wasn't at her. His wife turned her head. She saw nothing but empty space. It took her a moment to understand what that meant. The Asian man was gone, stealing up the stairs. Emi pushed her husband, but there was no controlling him now. He knew what was happening. If the artist wasn't going to give the man what was his, that man would take it.

  "No. No. No," she whispered, baring her teeth. "Let him have her."

  "No. Never."

  The artist's voice rose until the wail of it caught the attention of more than one guest. Women paused, men's heads turned. A few smiled thinking that this was the sound of pleasure. Others were annoyed at the disruption of their own.

  "Hush," Emi pleaded, near tears as she took his arm. He shook her off. She fell back against the wall, but scrambled up before her husband could give chase.

  "I'll get him," she said. "You stay here. Please, Enver. Let me."

  "Do not interfere." The artist took his wife by the shoulders, and looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. "Go change your clothes. You shame us looking like a peasant in your work clothes. Take that scarf off your hair; that smock off your body."

  "No," she said. "I will not."

  He paused when Emi snapped at him. She seldom angered. Now she was full of fury, shaking with it. Still, it wasn't enough to stop him.

  "You're right. It doesn't matter what you look like. Leave me alone. Throw those people out."

  With that he pushed past her and bounded up the stairs. Emi's fury became panic; just as suddenly panic passed to calm. The wheels had been set in motion long ago, and to make a scene now would ruin everything. Still it would be even worse if she didn't stop both men from going upstairs. She gathered her energy. She would do what she could.

  Emi had her foot on the second riser as she thought through her plan. The sound of her husband's footsteps as he pounded up the stairs became fainter the farther he climbed. He stopped on the first landing taking enough time to lean over and look at his wife.

  "It is over. She stays."

  With that he was gone, and Emi collapsed against the wall. She was exhausted in body and soul; she was terrified in her heart. She thought of the Asian man already steps ahead of her husband, and was almost sorry for him. She was sorrier still for Enver, and herself, and for whatever would come after this. Then she started to laugh. It was a tragedy, yes, but it was also tragically funny. This Asian man didn't know she existed, her husband didn't care that she did, and all because of her.

  Emi looked up, but there was nothing to see. Her ears pricked but there was nothing to hear. Her eyes went to the strange and beautiful people in her living room, people whose names she didn't know. She should tell them to go, but before she could gather her strength a sound came from above that turned her blood to ice.

  The concrete walls did not absorb it, the narrow stairwells did not bottle it up. Heads went up. The guest's eyes darted here and there as they tried to identify where it had come from, this muted howl of agony. Women moved closer to men who hoped they would not be called upon to be heroic.

  The sound was like the roar of a distant train carrying a cargo of insanity. Emi took two steps down. She pushed herself into a dark corner of the alcove where moments ago she had tried to assuage her husband. One of the guests rose from his chair. He smiled as if the sound thrilled him, but his anticipation soon dissolved into a look of confusion.

  Worse than the inhuman cry, was the silence that followed. That quiet was huge and filled with something so horrible there was no name for it. Before the wealthy people could decide what to do, the artist rushed down the stairs, ran past his wife, and threw himself into the big room. He fell against one wall and rolled onto another before standing tall and raising his arms to heaven. In that instant, he issued another abominable cry. This one was so deep and long that the guests froze with their eyes wide and their mouths open.

  Someone dropped a glass, and it shattered on the hard floor. Collectively, the guests fell back one step. Wild-eyed, the artist staggered around the room. All the fancy folks scurried away. His size cowed them. The look in his eyes spooked them. And the fact that his shirt was red with blood terrorized them.

  Clearly the party was over.

  2

  Finn O'Brien caught the call at 2:26 a.m. On a normal day he would be dressed, armed, and out the door on his own. This morning his partner, Cori Anderson, was by his side. She had been in Finn's bed when the call came. She slept alone, grateful that her partner had offered his roof while her home was being tented.

  The night before she had arrived with Chinese, an overnight bag, and a litany of complaints about the little buggers eating her out of house and home. It was costing her a small fortune to kill them dead, not to mention putting everyone out. Thomas Lapinski had offered her shelter, but she declined. She and Lapinski — attorney at law, brilliant, and lovesick —were on the edge of a relationship. Cori wasn't sure if she wanted to leap into the abyss or retreat, so spending the night at his place seemed unfair. The fact that she and Finn were on call settled the matter.

  The sleep-over had been a success. Cori and Finn worked a little, followed up the Chinese with ice cream Cori found smashed in the back of Finn's freezer, managed the bathroom without a fuss, and went off to bed at a reasonable hour. Cori was sleeping like a baby when Finn yanked her awake with a shake and a shout out that there was 'business to be done'. Now here they were, headed out to a dust up.

  "Are you going to sit there wasting your best scowl or will you talk to me, woman?" Finn cast her an amused glance as they sped through the dark on deserted streets.

  "Contrary to the great male wisdom, O'Brien, almost nobody likes to be thrown out of a warm bed with a 'get up, woman'. No wonder you're single if that's the best you got."

  She slid her eyes his way and almost smiled. The man looked the same no matter what time of day. Granted that wasn't much of a challenge when you shaved your head, your T-shirt and jeans were a uniform, and your square jawed face was pretty damn perfect.

  "Sure, didn't I say it nicely, Cori? Woke you like a princess, all soft spoken and everything." He exaggerated the Irish in him as he tried to make her smile, but Cori didn't give in easy.

  "Yeah, you were sweet as honey," she said. "But you're one noisy guy in the morning when you're rushing around."

  "'Tis is the dead of night in my book. I'm quieter when it's not work I'm dressing for," Finn said.

  Now Cori did smile. Her partner had settled into the man she knew well. Finn O'Brien was a hybrid of the seventeen year-old Irish immigrant he had been, and the red-white-and blue American he had become. It was such a pleasing mash-up that she settled down too. It wasn't his fault the call came, nor that they were on unfamiliar footing.

  "I never liked a call like this," Cori said. "It's a neither-here-nor-there time. Wake up after two in the morning you never get back to sleep. You toss and turn and work yourself up into a lather, so you're a witch all day. That's what I hated when Amber was a baby. I would get up, feed her, she sleeps, and I'm left staring at the test pattern on the TV."

  "Television hasn't had test patterns since 1963," Finn said.

  "Have you watched TV in the last ten years? It's all as good as a test pattern," Cori said. "No matter. I hate this time, and I'm none too fond of this part of town either."

  "Anything else?" Finn asked. Cori chuckled, and it was a sad little sound.

  "Sorry. I'm just worn slap out, O'Brien. Amber's taking classes, and it's a scramble between us to see to Tucker. And if you don't think a two year old can be like a bat out of hell, you don't know much. Now I've got problems with the house." She waved her fingers, tapping the backs of her nails against the window. "Pretty soon I'll be gnawing on the beams with the termites 'cause I won't be able to afford food."

  "Pity, they don't pay us by the call," Finn said.

  "We'd be in high cotton if they did." Cori rested her e
lbow on the window's edge, then put her brow against her open palm. "I never knew how much I liked Wilshire Division before they lent us out. I know this assignment isn't a forever thing, but this part of town is friggin' depressing."

  "It does feel like people never leave once they land," Finn said.

  "Don't say that. I mean what if they reassign us permanently? You don't think they could make us stay, do you?"

  Cori dropped her hand, ran it under her long hair, and tossed it back. Finn smiled. Cori should be strutting a runway with a beauty queen sash on her shoulder instead of a holster. Even yanked out of a sound sleep she managed to tease her hair Texas-high, and shade her eyes with her favored blue eyeshadow.

  "It's possible we might have to stay here," Finn said.

  "You don't think Captain Fowler is punishing us for something, do you? I thought things were going pretty good for us at Wilshire," she said. "Why didn't he send Sanders and Lopez over here? Or Black. Steve Black could have come. Why not send him? He's between partners."

  When Cori paused long enough to let him know she wanted him to speak, Finn said:

  "Captain Fowler gave us the nod, and here we are. East L.A. for at least a month. Truly it's as simple as that, Cori," Finn said. "And if it weren't that simple, there's nothing we could do about it right this minute."

  "Well, it sucks," Cori said.

  "That it does."

  Finn blew through a red light at North Main and Caesar Chavez, staying tight on Main. They had passed Olivera Street a mile and half back. The birthplace of Los Angeles was quiet now, but by noon every restaurant and souvenir store would be packed with tourists. San Antonio Winery was a darkened blur. Later in the day lawyers and judges, clerks and bailiff's would find their way to the place for lunch. In the near distance was the UPS fulfillment center sprawling over a good half a mile of land. Their destination, The Brewery, was a mile and a half beyond that.

  "I hope we can wrap this up PDQ. I've got to check in with the ME on that old guy later today. The one the insurance company wanted autopsied? You're supposed to follow up with the Martinez family, too. I swear, this captain's been dumping more than our share on us."

  "The captains have their work, we have ours," Finn answered. "Truly I wouldn't want theirs, so let's be grateful we're not the ones doing the assigning."

  Cori started to laugh, but immediately sobered. It wasn't as much that the sour mood had passed as the time for fun and games was gone. They were close to whatever had called them out in the dead of night.

  Finn leaned forward; Cori leaned back so he could look past her. The geography of this division was a far cry from Wilshire. Since they would be traveling it at least another six weeks, Finn looked for landmarks to map it out in his mind. There wasn't much of merit. To Finn the whole place looked like real estate Morse Code: dots and dashes of open spaces and structures. The open spaces were the dots — few and far between. The low slung buildings that housed small manufacturing businesses, offices, and duplexes were strung together like architectural dashes. The message it spelled out was that this was L.A.'s version of fly-over country.

  Here and there single-family homes popped up. Some of the houses were abandoned and some not, but all bore wounds. Paint peeled off window sashes, house numbers were faded, and weeds sprouted from the cracks in the crumbling sidewalks. Now and again a patch of greenery struggled to survive in a tiny fenced yard or an errant sunflower reached for the sky.

  Bars covered all the windows, the metal bolted to the exterior walls. It was clear there were no interior release mechanisms. A spark from a barbeque, a space heater, an illegal firework, and the buildings would go up in flames. There would be no way out for the people inside, and no way in for the fire crews.

  In this city, release bars were the law. Still the politicians could pass a million laws to protect their citizens, but without enough people to enforce them or money to comply the laws meant nothing. The marginalized populations would have to take their chances.

  "There."

  At Cori's call Finn slowed the car. He didn't see the entrance to property. He did see a landmark he would not soon forget. Up ahead, towering thirty-feet off the ground, was a fiberglass statue of a cowboy astride a gargantuan horse. It was the kind of thing one would see at the entrance to an amusement park. In the darkness of the early morning, though, the cowboy looked like the guardian of Hades.

  Dark patches marred the horse's white flanks where the California sun had taken its toll. The cowboy's blue pants and red shirt were faded. His face was pock-marked, a chunk of plaster had been taken out of his chin; one eye was worn away. But none of this bothered the cowboy. He grinned, ready with a how-dee-do. The horse reared with gusto. The cowboy's arm was raised and he held his ten gallon hat skyward, beckoning all to enter.

  This way.

  Come on, y'all.

  Wonders to be seen; adventure to be had.

  This way, suckers.

  Finn gave a soft snort, a whinny if you please. It wasn't likely that there was anything wonderful to be had this night. Still, he accepted the cowboy's invitation and pulled a hard right through a wide gate. The gate was part of an impressive iron fence that stood ten feet counting the curls of barbed wire on top. He rolled through a parking lot. Each space was occupied. Some of the cars were fine; others looked as if they were ready for the junk heap. Finn stopped. Both detectives scanned the grounds. There seemed to be no direct path to the interior. Cori got on the horn with dispatch to confirm the exact location, but before she finished her query Finn said:

  "We're good, Cori. I see."

  He backed up and made a tight turn and another turn quickly after that. They were on a wide walkway that ran between two buildings, heading toward a pulsing halo of red light. Cori popped her belt. They had arrived at their destination, but two black and whites beat them to it. Finn inched past an ambulance and came to a stop between the two cherry tops. He and Cori opened their doors and closed them as if their movements were choreographed. They hitched their jackets: Finn to confirm his weapon was at the small of his back, Cori that hers was in the holster under her arm. They took note of their surroundings as they went toward a young officer.

  Two EMTs were in the back of their vehicle, sheltering in place, waiting to be called. One, a woman who looked more like a girl, hopped to the ground. She held onto the open door of the van and watched them. The detective's arrival signaled that something would be happening soon. Finn would remember what she looked like in the same way he would remember the odd layout of the property. It was always this way when he arrived at a scene. It was a skill and a blessing, his hyper vigilance.

  They walked across a concrete slab that looked like a village square. There were no vehicles other than those of law enforcement. The utilitarian buildings surrounding the area were of varying heights. Some had a great deal of space between them; others were so close together they shared walls. Picture windows punctuated the taller buildings; squat buildings had no windows at all. Every concrete block had a door and over that door was a number. Industrial fans were embedded high in the walls for ventilation. Raised concrete walkways framed the lower structures. Wooden railings that looked like hitching posts studded the length. The spaces in front of some units were swept clean; others were a riot of potted plants, furniture, and toys.

  People had come out of their apartments, awakened by the flash of the lights and the sound of cars where no cars should be. They were a motley crew. Leaning over the wooden railing in front of one of the units was a couple who had come straight from their bed. The girl wore a T-shirt; Finn wished her boyfriend had been as modest. He wore something like a thong and nothing else. From the looks of his middle, he was a man who enjoyed his Guinness. They seemed neither amused nor alarmed by the goings on and were minimally curious.

  A young girl with a thatch of hair growing out of the top of her otherwise shaved head, was filming on her phone. She would get nothing more than the red glare of the light from atop
the police car since she was shooting into it. No payday for catching a cop-doing-wrong on video.

  Another woman - gorgeous and tall, dressed in a flowing kimono-like robe - leaned against a post smoking. It was only when Finn passed that he realized it was a young man with glorious hair and not a woman at all. He eyed Finn, did the same to Cori, and dismissed them both as not worthy of his notice.

  "We've got a guy recording at four o'clock, too."

  Finn swung his eyes up at the person Cori had tagged.

  "We'll be on the nightly news if we cross our eyes," he said.

  "How do I look?" Cori said.

  "Prime time worthy," Finn said.

  "You are a class act, O'Brien."

  "I try," Finn said.

  He picked up the pace. Cori matched it. When they got where they were going they positioned themselves on either side of the uniformed cop who only had eyes for his partner's back. That man faced off with a woman in the doorway of the large unit. She stood alone, frozen in the glare of the car's headlights.

  "Detective O'Brien." The officer glanced Finn's way when he introduced himself. He looked the other way when Finn said, "Detective Anderson."

  "Hunter," the cop answered.

  "And him?" Finn said, indicating the officer in no-man's land.

  "Douglas," Hunter said. "Senior officer."

  "What have you got?" Finn asked.

  "Dispatch sent us out on an assault call."

  "From?" Finn asked.

  Hunter pointed to an old man with very long hair.

  "His name is George. He says he has insomnia, so he walks this place at night. Likes to think of himself as security. He stopped for a smoke, was checking out the stars, and he sees some stuff he didn't like. There had been a woman in the window." Officer Hunter pointed to the third floor of the unit in question. "When she disappeared he figured she had gone to bed. Then he saw someone else in the room. He thought it looked like that person had a weapon. A club or something. He worried about an assault on the woman. That's all we got."