Welcome To Wherever You Are

by John Marrs

  WELCOME TO WHEREVER YOU ARE

  JOHN MARRS

  Welcome to Wherever You Are.

  First published in 2015.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission from the author.

  Text © John Marrs

  Cover design: Lee Dalgleish

  Cover photography: depositphotos.com

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Author’s note: This book has been written using British spelling.

  ‘Our goal is to discover that we have always been where we ought to be. Unhappily we make the task exceedingly difficult for ourselves.’ – Aldous Huxley

  PROLOGUE

  VENICE BEACH, LOS ANGELES

  ‘That’s her,’ the driver yelled to the three men waiting in the rear of the transit van.

  He pointed a gloved finger in the direction of a slender woman walking along the sidewalk up ahead.

  ‘Are you sure?’ a gruff voice asked. ‘It’s pretty dark out there.’

  The driver was very sure. He’d watched carefully as his target walked confidently and with purpose in her high heels, and recalled how she’d looked an hour earlier climbing up the silver pole before slowly, seductively, descending.

  ‘Yeah man,’ the driver replied, ‘I’d know that pretty little ass anywhere. You don’t forget a body like that in a hurry, even from this distance.’

  As the streetlamps and shop signs above illuminated the glitter in her hair with neon colours, the driver was confident their mark was completely oblivious as to her impending fate while she struggled to find something wedged in her clutch bag.

  The driver lifted his foot slightly from the accelerator and dipped the headlights as he continued to stalk his prey. Meanwhile, his three colleagues slipped black balaclavas over their faces and adjusted their bodies into position – one knelt with his hand gripping the door lever ready to open it on command; another held plastic restraints and the third clasped a hunting knife with a serrated blade.

  ‘Ready?’ the driver asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ they grunted in unison.

  The van picked up the pace, but not so quickly as to throw the hunters from the positions they’d rehearsed many times that day. Then, once the side of the van was parallel to the girl, the door flew open and the first of her assailants sprang out.

  The man with the restraints was the first to reel backwards into the vehicle when a bullet from the woman’s revolver tore its way through his shoulder blade, taking fragments of collarbone with it.

  For a split second, the flash from the gun’s muzzle illuminated the van’s interior as she pinpointed two more would-be assailants poised to drag her inside. Twice more she pulled the trigger, twice more she heard the men screaming from inside. The driver remained rooted to his seat, baffled by how off kilter their mission had suddenly become. There was no Plan B.

  ‘Go, man . . . go!’ yelled a desperate voice as another bullet lodged itself into his flesh.

  The van’s tyres squealed as the vehicle lurched forward and along the road, before veering across the central reservation, then crisscrossing back towards the sidewalk.

  A combination of adrenaline and fury propelled the girl to kick off her heels and run, firing twice more at the van and shattering the rear windscreen. The vehicle clipped an LA Times newsstand, hurling newspapers into the air that fell like large chunks of confetti.

  She fired one last time, but the van had already corrected itself and sped off out of range. Then she watched in horror as the force of that final bullet sent a stranger ahead sprawling face forward onto the pavement.

  Time momentarily froze as the consequences of that last reckless bullet resonated.

  She had just killed an innocent person.

  PART ONE – THE ARRIVALS

  CHAPTER 1

  DAY ONE – TWO MONTHS LATER – VENICE BEACH INTERNATIONAL HOSTEL, LOS ANGELES

  Empty cans of Budweiser and paper plates stained by Bolognese sauce and stiff spaghetti strands littered the corridors as Tommy made his way from his dormitory towards the hostel reception desk.

  Three young men, wearing only brightly coloured boxer shorts, lay in a crumpled, unconscious heap, unaware their drunken state had been taken advantage of and their faces and chests used as canvases for felt-tip pen graffiti. Tommy chuckled at the crude images of penises, expletives and slurs.

  As was the norm for such an ungodly hour, the vast proportion of guests at the Venice Beach International Hostel were fast asleep and scattered throughout the building’s twenty-five rooms. Those drowsily slumped across lounge sofas were surrounded by rucksacks and awaited shuttle buses to transport them to LAX airport, Amtrak railway or Greyhound coach stations.

  Tommy knew it didn’t require a genius to do his job, checking people in and out of the hostel. There wasn’t even a computerised system to master – just a tatty, leather-bound ledger, with a date written in biro on each page and the names of who was allocated to which room. But it was a role he enjoyed, despite the long hours. And secretly he got a kick from being responsible for choosing which rooms the travellers looking for no-frills accommodation were placed in. Those who barely spoke English were squirreled out of the way towards the back of the building, and those who Tommy hoped to build up a rapport with were placed in dormitories that surrounded his. But the bunk adjacent to his was kept free for when Sean arrived. If he ever arrived.

  Tommy reached the end of the corridor, walked down a small flight of steps and arrived at the reception desk where he’d spend the next couple of hours of his morning. He turned on a portable television and scanned the ledger to see who’d checked in overnight.

  Once up to speed, he gazed around the room as the darkness outside began to lift and the orange morning light crept through the large windows. A yucca plant had outgrown its pot and its roots spilled from cracks in its side; a water cooler missing a plug housed a half-full plastic bottle and a surface enveloped by a delicate skin of green algae. Brown carpet tiles that only covered patches of floor were frayed and mismatched. A rack of pamphlets was mostly empty, with the exception of a few outdated excursion opportunities to Disneyland, Six Flags Magic Mountain and Universal Studios. There was no getting away from the fact the hostel was a dump, but it was a dump Tommy affectionately called home.

  He glanced at some of the familiar faces of people he’d met during his last two months in Los Angeles in photographs pinned to the wall. Most of them, like him, were in their early twenties and while he couldn’t always recall their names, he never forgot a face and they never failed to conjure up a smile. He examined an image of himself and realised his irregular eating patterns meant he’d lost weight since the picture had been taken some eight weeks earlier. He could feel his ribs under his T-shirt and even his handful of friendship bands hung loosely from his wrist. His dark brown stubble disguised the gauntness in his face and he made a vow to himself to eat at least two proper meals a day.

  ‘Morning, Ron,’ Tommy chirped as the hostel’s owner appeared from a small office behind the reception desk.

  Ron’s glasses hung from a silver chain around his neck, broken links held together by sticky tape. His grey comb-over lifted from his thinning scalp with each step he took and his posture reminded Tommy of a question mark.

  ‘Eight beds need filling,’ Ron muttered, making his way up the stairs and out of sight.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks for asking,’ mumbled
Tommy.

  ‘I didn’t,’ Ron shouted from the distance.

  A poster peeling from the wall drew Tommy’s attention like it always did. Welcome to Wherever You Are, read a large font placed over an image of a white sandy beach and the bluest of blue oceans. When Tommy asked what it meant the night he arrived, all Ron replied was, ‘It means it doesn’t matter where you are, just as long as you’re somewhere.’

  The hostel was Tommy’s somewhere, and it was a million miles from the nowhere in England he’d run from.

  CHAPTER 2

  Beads of sweat gathered across Eric’s hairline, the breeze wafting through the vehicle’s open windows failing to cool him down.

  He pinched the corners of his eyes, pushed his aviator Ray-Bans up to the bridge of his nose and continued to drive slowly up Pacific Avenue. Hunched over the steering wheel he looked through the windscreen searching for numbers attached to buildings. All night spent behind the wheel of their 1970s pick-up truck with no power steering or air conditioning made him grouchy and achy and feeling more than his thirty-two years. The wonky sun visor couldn’t keep the rising sun from touching his head and he was glad he’d decided to clipper his thick auburn hair tightly before he left England.

  ‘It feels like we’ve been driving round in circles for hours,’ he moaned.

  ‘I’m looking but most of the buildings aren’t numbered,’ replied Nicole, his passenger. ‘Maybe buildings in LA think they’re too cool to be identified quickly.’

  Her thighs were stuck to the leather seats and made the sound of breaking wind each time she fidgeted. Eleven hours ago it had amused them both; now it was just another thing that irritated them. Nicole swept her damp cinnamon brown hair behind her ears and brought the map closer to her eyes so she could read the small print. A gust of warm wind rustled the empty potato chip and candy wrappers strewn across the rear seats.

  ‘Remind me again, why did I give up a good job in London to join you on this magical mystery tour?’ Eric asked.

  ‘Because you hated your “good job” just as much as I hated mine and once we find what we’re looking for, we might not need to work again for a very long time.’

  ‘Providing this thing gets us there.’

  ‘It’d better; I paid enough to ship it over. Besides, it’s a classic pick-up.’

  ‘What do you know about trucks, Jeremy Clarkson? It’s a classic heap of shit. We could’ve rented a 4 x 4 over here with that money, or at least something with air con and a satnav.’

  Eric reached into the door pocket to find a bottle of water but with no success so he glanced to his side to see where it had rolled to.

  ‘Eric!’ Nicole screamed.

  Alarmed, he looked up to spot a dishevelled young man in dark skater shorts and a backward facing baseball cap and shirt, shuffling across the road. Eric jammed on his brakes and swerved, the truck’s tyres hitting the kerb with a jolt. The man continued ambling across the road in his own little world, oblivious to his close call, and entered a building.

  ‘You bloody idiot!’ yelled Eric, craning his neck out the window while Nicole took deep, calming breaths. He stormed outside to examine the damage, and then kicked the hubcap in frustration.

  ‘Brilliant,’ he began, ‘I bet it’s already started deflating.’

  ‘I know the feeling, but if it helps, I think we’re here.’ Nicole pointed towards the building ahead of them. Eric tilted his head towards a faded sign reading ‘Venice Beach International Hostel’.

  The once whitewashed walls of the rectangular building were greying, and plaster had flaked and fallen from the front façade, leaving parts of the brickwork exposed. Trainers and towels had been hung out to air from the open windows on all three floors, and from the side of the flat roof, poles and tatty flags from around the world drooped, including countries that no longer existed.

  Nicole offered a half-hearted smile but Eric was too busy rolling his eyes to notice.

  CHAPTER 3

  ‘You nearly got yourself killed there, mate!’ Tommy warned Joe as he stumbled up the stairs towards his room, only stopping to rotate his baseball cap to the correct position.

  Tommy wondered why Joe always waited until he entered the building before sliding his cap around, as if he assumed the hostel had a straight headwear policy. Then he realised trying to second-guess a crystal meth addict was as pointless as giving a dog a Rubik’s cube. He hoped that one day, Joe might have a light bulb moment, like those Tommy read about in self-help books travellers often left in the hostel library. They’d helped get him through many a boring night shift, and Tommy briefly considered anonymously leaving one on Joe’s bed. But he knew that unless Joe actually wanted to alter his life, he’d be stuck in his ever-decreasing circle until an inevitably premature end.

  Meanwhile outside, Eric and Nicole unstrapped their suitcases from the flatbed truck and faced the hostel’s mucky glass doors, propped open by two buckets of sand and littered with cigarettes butts from around the world. Eric removed his sunglasses and mumbled something to himself about jumping out of a frying pan and into the flaming bowels of hell.

  ‘If I’m going to have the American experience Mrs Baker wanted me to have, then I’d like to meet people in the same boat as us, not a bunch of cheerleaders on Spring Break,’ Nicole began snootily.

  ‘So you were serious when you said we were staying in a hostel and not a hotel, then? I hoped you were kidding.’

  ‘All the travel guides say it’s a rite of passage to stay in Venice,’ she replied defensively. ‘John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac and Truman Capote were supposed to have spent nights under this roof back in its heyday.’

  ‘Oh, did they? And who are Steinbeck, Kerouac and Capote, just out of interest?’

  ‘Um,’ Nicole paused, and wracked her brain. ‘Blues singers?’

  Eric shook his head at her ignorance and let out an exaggerated sigh.

  ‘Besides,’ Nicole continued, ‘the only difference between a hostel and a hotel is the letter “s”.’

  ‘Yeah, and in this case the “s” stands for “smells like a shit hole”.’

  Nicole was aware she was fighting a losing battle. For the most part, Eric was her kindred spirit – he could make her laugh like nobody else and he’d been there for her in her darkest days when she’d needed him most. He’d given up his career to spend the last six weeks with her in America on the hunt for something that might not even exist, so she was willing to forgive his occasional moodiness.

  ‘Are you looking for a room?’ smiled Tommy, ignoring Eric’s presence and focusing entirely on Nicole. He was instantly attracted to her warm smile, her fresh face and her casual attire of cut-off shorts and white vest. Such attention didn’t go unnoticed by Eric. She, meanwhile, was surprised by Tommy’s British accent considering his California tan and surfer-dude look, albeit a slightly skinny surfer dude.

  ‘I emailed a few days ago to book a private room for three nights,’ Nicole replied.

  ‘The Internet connection’s a bit iffy and nobody checks the emails,’ replied Tommy apologetically. ‘We don’t have any private rooms left, but we’ve got a couple of free beds in a dorm?’

  ‘We’re expected to share with other people?’ interrupted Eric.

  ‘That’s the hostelling experience,’ smiled Tommy.

  ‘No, that’s the homeless shelter experience.’

  ‘It’s $20 a night each, plus a $5 key deposit. You’ll be in room 14; your beds have clean sheets on them already, blankets are an extra $2 a night, as are towels. There’s food served every night in the kitchen, although the chef’s not Gordon Ramsay, so don’t go expecting much. Oh and there’s free beer on Wednesday and Saturday nights at the party in the lounge. I’m Tommy – if you need anything, just come and find me.’

  Nicole and Tommy shared a smile and, as she paid him in cash, a cockroach scuttled across the counter.

  ‘Are those complimentary?’ asked Eric wryly.

  ‘Only if you buy them dinner fi
rst,’ replied Tommy.

  While Nicole grinned at the lame joke, Eric frowned at Tommy and picked up the pair’s luggage and headed towards the staircase. A thin man in baggy clothes and a patchy beard attempted to slip in behind them, unnoticed.

  ‘Oi, there’s no reason for you to be here, Wayne,’ said Tommy firmly, and shook his head as the man left without argument.

  *

  ‘Don’t think I didn’t see you giving him a look,’ Eric began as he and Nicole made their way along the hostel corridor, examining their new surroundings.

  ‘What “look”?’ she replied in mock innocence, and willed herself not to break into a schoolgirl blush.

  ‘A look that’ll put you on the sex offenders’ register for ten years.’

  ‘He’s not that young.’

  ‘You’re thirty-two, sweetheart, he’s old enough to be your son.’

  ‘Yeah, if I had him when I was about twelve,’ sighed Nicole, stepping over a discarded trash bag. ‘Okay, so the rubbish doesn’t make it the Hilton.’

  ‘It does if you mean Perez Hilton. Why don’t we just find a couple of cardboard boxes and sleep under a bridge tonight?’

  ‘Anyway, Grazia says it’s flattering to be thought of as a cougar by a younger man.’

  ‘A cougar? You’re more like one of those mangy old alley cats on their last legs and with no teeth and half an ear missing,’ Eric offered with a cheeky grin.

  Nicole’s lips moved, ready to respond, when the door to their room burst open and four young women in swimsuits ran past them, carrying beach towels and chatting in a language neither she nor Eric understood.

  ‘Of course hostelling isn’t all bad,’ conceded Eric, turning his head to watch as they disappeared down the corridor.