Cold Shoulder

by Lynda La Plante

  1

  Los Angeles, April 11, 1995

  She had almost died that night. The hit-and-run driver had probably not even seen her, and Lorraine couldn’t remember a thing. She had been taken to the hospital with head injuries. The following weeks were a blur, as she was moved from one charitable organization to another; she had no money left and no medical insurance. Eventually she was institutionalized and preliminarily diagnosed as schizophrenic. To begin with, she was not thought to be an alcoholic because so much else was wrong with her. She had severe abscesses on her shins, a minor venereal disease plus genital herpes, skin abrasions, and was in poor physical condition from lack of decent food. She weighed only 105 pounds and as she was over five feet eight, she looked like a walking skeleton. Her body was pale, almost bluish, but her hands and face were tanned from living on the street. Eighty cigarettes a day had left her with a persistent heavy cough. She contracted pneumonia, and for a few days it was doubtful that she would live. When she pulled through, the hallucinations, screaming fits, and vomiting made the doctors suspect severe alcohol withdrawal symptoms.

  A string of psychiatrists and doctors interviewed her and prescribed various medications. Two weeks after the accident, she was transferred to the nightmare of L.A. County USC Medical Center—with no insurance there was no other place that would or could take her. The wards were full of L.A. County’s worst cases, the dropouts and no-hopers. Drug-crazed kids, deranged old ladies, suicidal middle-aged women—every fucked-up female soul who walked the earth seemed to be marooned in the same wing with Lorraine. They added chronic alcoholism to Lorraine’s list of ailments. Her liver was shot, and she was warned that if she didn’t give up drinking she would be dead within the year. Eventually she was transferred to the White Garden Rehabilitation Center.

  Rosie Hurst was working as a cook at the center, one of those women who worked for the rehabilitation program in order to participate in it. Rosie, a plump, sturdy woman with short, frizzy permed auburn hair, was a recovering alcoholic with six months’ sobriety. She worked hard and was as friendly as she could be with the inmates, a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God attitude never far from her thoughts. Some of the saner inmates were allocated menial jobs in the kitchen, and that was how Rosie got to know Lorraine Page.

  Lorraine didn’t want to live. She had been waiting to die, wondering hazily why she wasn’t already dead, and then musing that, perhaps, she was. And this was hell. It wasn’t such a bad hell—the drugs made her more relaxed—but God, she longed for a drink. It was the only thought that occupied her dulled senses. Her mouth was thick and dry, her tongue felt too big, and she drank water all day, bending down to the small fountain in the corridor, hogging it, mouth open, hand pressed down on the lever for the water to spurt directly into her swollen mouth. Nothing dulled her thirst.

  “How long you been an alcoholic?”

  Rosie had been watching her in the corridor. Lorraine couldn’t say because she had never thought of herself as an alcoholic. She just liked to drink.

  “What work did you do?”

  Lorraine could not recall what she’d been up to for the past few years. All the weeks and months had merged into a blur, and she could hardly distinguish one year from another. Or the bars, dens, seedy, run-down clubs where she had been drunk alongside girls she had once picked up and locked away. They had liked that. And the pimps she had hassled and booked in her days as a Vice Squad trainee liked being able to sell her so cheaply. She was known to go with anyone, as long as they kept her supplied with a steady flow of booze. Hotels, bars, dives, private parties … Lorraine would be cleaned up and sent out. It didn’t matter how many or who they were, just as long as she made enough money for booze. She had been arrested, not just for hooking but for vagrancy, and released, pending charges, but had never made her court appearance. She had simply moved on to another bar, another part of town.

  At the time of the hit-and-run accident, Lorraine had reached rock bottom. She was so far down in the gutter she couldn’t even get a trick, so no pimp wanted her attached to his stable. So many truckers, so many different states, she was unaware she was back in L.A. She owned only what she stood up in, had even sold her wedding ring. She was such a wreck that the prostitutes didn’t want her hanging around them. She was even out in the cold from the street winos, because she stole from them. She had become incapable of caring for herself or earning a few cents for food.

  No one remembered her as Lieutenant Page—that was all so long ago. The human flesh trade moves on and changes fast. Most of the young vice cops who saw her falling down in the streets had no idea who she was.

  No one cared, not even Mike or her children. Mike had tried often, over the years, to help her. He heard from her occasionally on the girls’ birthdays and at Christmas, but she was usually incoherent on the phone or else just asked him for money. The calls stopped when Mike remarried and moved to a new house. The children settled into a new school, a new life. They no longer asked about their mother; they had a new, better one. Lorraine made no attempt to contact Mike again, almost relieved that she had at last severed every tie. Mike stopped her alimony payments and gave her a settlement. She never contested it, unaware that accepting it meant she lost even visitation rights to her daughters.

  Only Rosie, because of her own problems and her open friendly nature, wanted to help Lorraine, so thin and pale, with that strange waiflike blond hair that hung in badly cut, jagged edges. Her fingers were stained dark brown with nicotine, and she had lost a front tooth. She also had a strange way of looking at people, her head tilted as if she were short-sighted, an odd, nervous squint, made more obvious because of a nasty scar running from her left eye to her prominent cheekbone. The shapeless regulation blue hospital gown hung loosely on her skinny frame. She wore overlarge pink slippers that flopped at her heels as she walked.

  Rosie and Lorraine worked side by side, helping to dish out food and make up trays. As the weeks passed, Rosie realized there was more to Lorraine than appeared on the surface. She never had to be told twice which inmates required a special diet but always passed out the food to the right women.

  “You must have had a job once. How old are you?” Rosie was trying to make conversation.

  “I guess I must be around thirty-six. D’you have a cigarette?”

  Rosie shook her head. She’d given up smoking when she gave up booze. “I used to work on computers. What sort of jobs did you do?”

  Lorraine was delving among the food scraps in the trash can, looking for a butt end. She gave up and dried her hands. “Rosie, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I’ll go an’ see if I can steal one.”

  Rosie watched as she shuffled over to Mad Mona, who really was out to lunch but always had a closely guarded pack of cigarettes. She watched Lorraine searching Mona’s pockets, pretending to tickle her, and then the screaming started as she caught Lorraine with her precious pack. But Lorraine got one, and came back puffing like an asthmatic on an inhaler.

  “Do you have any family?” Rosie asked, as Lorraine leaned against the door, eyes closed, relishing her smoke.

  “Nope.”

  Rosie remarked that she had a son somewhere, but hadn’t seen him or his father for years. She busied herself at the sink, and was about to resume her conversation when she saw Lorraine had gone. Rosie took off her overall and went to collect her wages, a pittance, considering the number of hours she put in, but she was only part-time, and most of the staff were Mexican. Probably they were paid even less. She smiled at the receptionist as she buttoned up her baggy cardigan. “I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

  The receptionist nodded. “It’s gettin’ warmer now. You won’t need that on.”

  Rosie shrugged—she had arrived so early that there’d been a chill in the air. She asked how long Lorraine was being kept in the ward.

  The receptionist checked on the clipboard behind her. “Oh, she’s due to be released. May not be here when you come back Thursday. The
doctors haven’t signed her out yet, but she’s down to leave. Has she been okay in the kitchen? You know the way they are—steal anything …”

  Rosie’s shopping bag suddenly felt heavy: the chops and half-chicken she’d taken along with the sugar, potatoes, and carrots meant she’d be fired if she were caught. She hurried off, saying she wanted to catch her bus.

  Lorraine, however, was still a resident when Rosie returned two days later. She looked even paler, and coughed continually. Rosie smiled warmly and said she was glad she had not left.

  Lorraine shrugged. “Yeah, I guess it’s nice to have someone here that speaks English.”

  Rosie chuckled, and as Lorraine moved on down the corridor, Rosie could hear her persistent coughing. According to the receptionist, she had developed a fever, so they were keeping her for observation. Rosie was concerned but didn’t have time to talk since she had to prepare lunch. But just seeing Lorraine leaning against the corridor wall, as if she needed it to prop her up, made Rosie feel a strange compassion; there was something about Lorraine. She reminded Rosie of some kind of wounded bird, the ones that immediately make your heart go out to them because you want to help them, and you take them home in a cardboard box with every intention of making them better, feeding them milk with an eyedropper, and then they make you feel hopelessly inadequate because they won’t feed, they just fade away. Lorraine was fading before Rosie’s eyes, but it was not until later, when they were washing up, that she could ask Lorraine how she was. She seemed reluctant to talk and didn’t bother helping Rosie with the trays, more intent on guarding her position at the water fountain. Her need for alcohol was becoming more desperate each day; she craved sweets and nicotine, stealing treasured hoards of chocolate bars and cigarette packs from the unwary.

  With no money and no place to live, Lorraine decided she’d have to turn to Rosie, who might have somewhere she could stay—and something worth stealing. That was her sole motive for talking to Rosie. Lorraine wanted a drink, wanted money, wanted out of the crazies’ ward. All Rosie wanted was a friend, and Lorraine was the pitiful little bird needing to be fed and cared for.

  “You know, I could help you—if you want to help yourself. If you tell me, say, ‘Rosie, I want to help myself,’ then I will do everything in my power to help you. I’ll take you to my meetings.… We have counselors, people you can really talk to, and … they’ll help you get work. You’re an intelligent woman, there must be something you can find …”

  Lorraine had given her that odd squinting look, smoking a cigarette down to the filter. “Yeah. Maybe I could get my old job back.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I was a cop.”

  Rosie chuckled, rolling out pastry. She jumped when Lorraine came up close behind her, so close and so tall she had to lean over.

  “I am arresting you on the charge of molesting that pastry, Rosie. Anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence against you …”

  Rosie laughed, and Lorraine tickled her, just like she tickled Mad Mona. Far from naive, Rosie was beginning to suspect that Lorraine was after something. She wondered what it was. She dropped heavy hints that she was broke just in case Lorraine had thought otherwise and was after money.…

  Lorraine had been found on April 11. Now it was the fourteenth of May and she was given her marching orders. While she waited for Rosie to arrive, she cleaned the kitchen. Then she helped Rosie all morning, but it was quite late before she mentioned that she was leaving. To her surprise, Rosie told her she already knew. “I’ve been thinking about all the things you’ve been telling me, Rosie. And, well—you’re on. I’ll come to one of these meetings ’cos I want my life back.” Her voice was hardly audible. “I’ll tell you a secret. I really was a cop, a lieutenant.”

  Rosie looked up into the pale face. “Is that the truth?”

  Lorraine nodded. “Yeah. Look, can I crash on your floor until I get a place of my own?” She figured if Rosie knew she had been a cop she would trust her. It worked.

  Rosie gave a wide grin, concealing her hesitancy. “Sure you can, but it’s not much of a place. Do you have a lot of stuff?”

  Lorraine lied, telling Rosie that her belongings were with a friend she didn’t want to see because she was another drinker—and she wanted to stay clean.

  Rosie understood, knowing it was a mistake for a drinker to return to old friends and old habits.

  “Okay. You can stay at my place.”

  At 4:00 on the afternoon of May 15, Rosie waited for her outside the hospital. Lorraine was wearing an odd assortment of clothes. Nothing fit—sleeves too short, the skirt waistband hanging around her hips. She carried a clean set of underwear in a brown paper bag, and seemed even taller, thinner, and stranger-looking than she had in the safety of the rehabilitation clinic. Someone had given her a pair of pink-framed sunglasses, the lenses so dark they hid her eyes, and most of her scar. Seeing her in the bright crisp May sunshine, Rosie had severe doubts about taking her in. She wished she had not been so friendly, wished Lorraine did not or had not reminded her of some silly bird. She was, Rosie knew without doubt, a lot more trouble than any small feathered creature you could stick in a cardboard box.

  “It’s a lovely day,” Lorraine said without enthusiasm.

  “Yes, it is,” Rosie said flatly, as they headed for the bus station.

  Lorraine was silent on the long journey to Pasadena. She didn’t like going back to her home territory, but there was no place she could think of that she’d rather go.

  “You know Pasadena at all?” Rosie asked staring from the window.

  “Nope.”

  “Well, I live in what used to be a real nice area, part of the old Pasadena, lotta trees, and they’re real old, see the trees?”

  Lorraine nodded, staring at the massive trees spreading their branches across the road. She had a memory of her apartment, of Mike, but she shrugged it off. Better to lie, say she didn’t know Pasadena, rather than admit she’d actually worked as a police officer there.

  “Most of these houses have been taken over by Hispanics or Blacks. This is the Orange Grove area, only a few more stops, then we get off.”

  Lorraine nodded. The heat inside the bus was oppressive, she felt tired out, and Rosie’s continued travelogue was beginning to get on her nerves.

  “I live on Marengo. Cops made it a no-parking zone during the day and we had drug dealers parked bumper to bumper every night. Now it’s real quiet and residents are allowed to park there in the day, but the whole area’s kinda run down.”

  Lorraine nodded. She could feel the sweat begin to trickle down her neck, and wiped her face with the back of her hand. The bus was filling up since it was almost rush hour, and it seemed to lurch to a stop at every corner. Lorraine sighed when Rosie nudged her as they passed some bars with their windows boarded up.

  “See? These places get robbed over and over and the cops do nothin’, that’s why a lot of ’em got bars up. ’Round this place come dark, you get the drunks, and once the sun goes down they start out sellin’ their drugs to kids, lotta crack sold ’round here.”

  Rosie suddenly stood up, nudging Lorraine again. “Next stop is Orange Grove, might as well push our way to the front.”

  Lorraine was glad to have Rosie—even felt a strange desire to hold her hand, afraid she would lose sight of her, and at the same time glad she did not live anywhere near her old apartment in the better part of town.

  As they were walking along toward Marengo Avenue, Rosie maintained her travelogue monologue, mostly because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. She wafted her hand toward a liquor store. “There was my downfall, too close to the apartment. Now I stay this side of the avenue.” She pointed to a grocery store. “I shop there and live just along the avenue. It’s very convenient. Might as well buy a few things, you wanna come in with me?”

  Lorraine nodded. Even from this distance she could see the liquor section in the grocery store. Her body broke out in a sweat, her m
outh felt rancid, and she kept licking her lips. As she stood at the counter next to Rosie, who was buying bread and salads and coffee, she felt like screaming. Her eyes constantly strayed to the bottles: she wanted a drink so bad she felt faint. Rosie was having a friendly exchange with the Mexican owner of the store. She turned to introduce Lorraine but he moved on to another customer before she had the chance.

  Rosie ushered Lorraine back out into the sunshine. She was sweating herself by now and a little embarrassed about her apartment. It was not that large; it was by any standards very modest … well, if one wanted to be truthful, it could be described as a little bit on the squalid side. Part of Rosie’s constant chatter was out of nerves, she had never had anyone stay with her.

  “It’s number two twenty-three,” Rosie said, nodding farther up the street. “It’s a blue house, set back from the road. One time it must have been real nice. Now you can see all the houses with iron bars or boarded-up windows, sad, used to be a real nice area.”

  Lorraine stopped and cocked her head to one side. “Rosie, it sounds like you’re making excuses. I don’t care if you live in a two-by-four hut. Right now I have nobody and no place, so I am just happy we met, okay?”

  Rosie nodded, then beamed. Sometimes her round, pretty face was like a plump child’s. The sweat had made her frizzy auburn hair form tight little ringlets around her forehead and the nape of her neck. She had a habit of blowing air upward, in fast short puffing sounds, acting as her own fan, but she was still sweating profusely as they arrived at number two twenty-three. The two-story house was very run down and broken up into numerous apartments. The old sashed windows had all seen better days; in fact, the whole property looked in need of restoration—some windows broken, others boarded up. A group of kids playing on the front steps stared insolently at Rosie as she passed them.