City of Angels

by Kristi Belcamino

  When it sank in that nobody was going to take care of me, I cried, feeling sorry for myself and ashamed about it at the same time, burying my face in the vinyl slipperiness of my sleeping bag. Nobody cared. Not only that, but nobody even knew I was sick. I could die right there and nobody would know.

  I WOKE THE next morning feeling better, but with a knot of anxiety in my stomach. Rain was just like me. Nobody cared about her either. I was the only one searching for her. If I forgot about her, she would disappear into nothingness, discarded like a cigarette butt.

  I sat on my futon, staring at the magazine picture of celebrities I’d taped to the wall. Which one was Rain’s mystery man? The black car had not been around our neighborhood since the night Rain vanished. I went over everything I knew about Rain’s disappearance. Somewhere in the scraps of information lay the answer, the clue that would lead me to her.

  Words floated through my mind in big black letters.

  Black Car. Insights. Tongue cut out. Young girls. Disappearing. Never seen again. Attempted mugging. My bag.

  The mugger didn’t want my money. It didn’t seem to be random. My bag contained a small makeup bag, a journal and…my camera. My camera. I usually kept my camera in my bag. That must have been why that guy wanted my bag and not my money. They—whoever they were—had sent him to get my bag with the camera inside.

  I had taken pictures of the car in front of the American Hotel. The windows were too dark to see inside, so the only pictures I got were of the car’s exterior. Did they know I couldn’t see inside? They must have known. There must be something else in that picture they didn’t want me to see. Then it hit me and I stood up and started pacing with excitement. Oh my God. I might have the car’s license plate number. I sat up, but then I slouched back down on the ground. So what? Even if I had the license plate number, how was that going to help me? If I was a cop, I might be able to trace the owner through the license plate. But I wasn’t. I was a dumb kid. Or at least that’s what the cops thought—that I was some stupid teenager and that Rain was a junkie. They wouldn’t take me seriously.

  I put my head in my hands, closing my eyes tight. Think. Think. Think. Who could help me? My eyes popped open wide. The downtown cops might not help me, but maybe someone else would. Maybe a cop who wasn’t so by the book. Like Ernie. He helped me before. But this was a bigger deal. Maybe if I made it worth his while.

  I walked over to a small photo shop in Little Tokyo and handed the clerk my rolls of undeveloped film. It would cost me several days’ worth of tips to develop them. The idea of seeing those pictures of the surfer boys made my chest hurt. But I also had some of Rain that I could show people when I looked for her. The people at the photo place deflated my enthusiasm when they told me it would be a week before I got my pictures back. But I had to do something. I couldn’t sit around and wait for the answers to come to me.

  Maybe I could find out more about the three celebrities in back issues of magazines. I walked the eight blocks through downtown to the Los Angeles Central Library. The library arched high into the L.A. sky, a stone, square, monolithic fortress topped with a colorful pyramid at the pointy triangular top of the building.

  I spent an hour scanning back issues of magazines for articles on the three celebs. They were the closest things I had to any suspects. I wanted to see if any of them used a chauffeured black car, but I didn’t see anything helpful other than a small blurb about the comedian, Andy Martin, starting a three-month gig at a comedy club in West Hollywood.

  I walked out of the library empty handed but full of hope. I wasn’t even close to ready to give up. I raced down the steps of the library and out in the L.A. sunshine, taking the steps three at a time. I leaped, skipping the last few steps, flying high in the air and landing with my legs spread wide, feeling invincible. I was on to something. I knew it. I wasn’t quite sure what it was yet. But it was there. Now, there was no turning back. I wouldn’t stop until I knew what happened to Rain.

  The next week, I got to work early and waited in the parking lot behind the restaurant for Ernie. Earlier, I had flipped through my newly developed pictures, trying not to glance at the ones of the surfer boys, until I got to the shots of the black car and found one that showed the license plate number.

  I tucked that picture into my inside jacket pocket as I waited, pacing along the perimeter of the ten-foot high fence surrounding the restaurant’s parking lot. The smell of deep fried tortilla chips and carnitas tacos seeping out of the restaurant made my stomach growl so I lit a smoke to stave off the hunger and calm my nerves.

  More than once, I decided asking Ernie for help was a terrible idea and started to head into the restaurant. One time I even had the back door open before I turned back around. I needed his help. I didn’t like it one bit, but if I hoped to find Rain, I was going to have to be smart. Ernie could tell me what I needed to know.

  When I saw I was already late to work, I yanked my hair back in a ponytail and wrapped my apron around my waist, so when I walked in late Amir would think I had already been there a while and ducked outside for a smoke.

  Forty-five minutes after I was supposed to be at work, Ernie finally arrived in a big, rusted-out, four-door sedan. I felt a little sorry for him seeing his crappy car. Sadie had told me the other day about how Ernie had gone downhill after he found his wife having an affair with a daytime television producer. She bailed with his two kids and moved to the producer’s Hollywood Hills house.

  Today, Ernie’s thinning hair was combed back as if he’d just showered and his bushy moustache was trimmed, but he still looked like he had been through the ringer—weary, beaten down. It wasn’t only the red veins snaking out from his nose or the dark bags under his eyes—it was the look in his eyes, as if he’d seen it all and was done with it. Seeing him like this somehow made it a little easier to ask for help.

  “I got a problem.” My voice was wavering.

  He gestured toward my cigarette. “You know, smoking’s bad for you.”

  I looked at the lit cigarette stuck between his lips and rolled my eyes. He turned and eyed the door to Little Juan’s, seemingly eager to get started drinking.

  “Wait. Remember that girl I asked about? My friend?” This time my words came out more steady. Almost calm.

  It took him a second, but he slowly moved his chin up and down.

  “She was taken by someone in this car.” I tried to hand him the photo that showed the license plate number on it. My hand was shaking. He briefly glanced down at the picture, but wouldn’t reach out to take it. Instead, he shoved his hand into the front pocket of his jeans.

  I tried to sound assured. “I need to know who owns this car.”

  Ernie glanced around the parking lot. “I can’t run this plate for you. It’s against the law.”

  “I’ll make it worth your while.” I stared at him. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. His shoulders dropped and a small smile twitched the corner of his lips. I was talking his language.

  “Fifty bucks.”

  He looked off into the distance, squinting as if there was something to see besides big gray buildings.

  “Please take it.” Now I was begging and I didn’t care. He waited a long moment. I reached up and pressed the photo into his palm, bending his fingers closed over it. Our faces were so close I could smell his aftershave. I looked into his eyes, only inches away. “Please.”

  He didn’t answer, only turned and walked away, slipping the photo into his shirt pocket.

  After that night, Ernie stopped coming to Little Juan’s. Sadie said he went back east to care for his dying mother. Just my luck. I had a hard time believing he was unselfish enough to care for a sick woman unless maybe there was a lot of booze in it for him. He was probably waiting for her to kick it so he could collect on the will or something.

  Rain had been gone for two months now.

  I’d never been so lonely in my life. I sat in my room sometimes with my back against the door and listened to other people
walking by, laughing, having fun.

  One time, I heard the footsteps stop and could sense someone on the other side of the door. I waited, holding my breath, then someone said, “Come on, dude, just forget about it,” and the footsteps faded away.

  I was disappointed and relieved at the same time. But my goal was to find Rain. That was all that mattered. I spent my mornings before work walking through downtown L.A., taking pictures and keeping an eye out for a pink-streaked head. I also spent hours at the library, checking out books and browsing the magazines for articles about the three celebrities. I’d read the book Insights and still didn’t know if it was a clue left for me or just a book some customer left on the ledge.

  One day at the library, I was flipping through the magazines when a stack of Time magazines caught my eye. The latest issue of the magazine was on top of back issues. The cover story was about the high cost of college tuition and how some kids couldn’t afford to go. Um, yeah, that was me. I scanned the article and was about to put it with the others when the issue beneath it caught my eye.

  The cover of the May 6, 1991 magazine had a blue and purple exploding super nova, just like the cover of Insights, except up close the super nova was comprised of people’s eyes. Creepy.

  I flipped to the article inside. Within four paragraphs, a name jumped out at me: J. C. Hoffman. I paused. Why was that name so familiar? I was late for work, so I stuffed the magazine in my bag, promising myself I’d return it to the library later.

  THAT NIGHT, IN my room after work, I realized why the author’s name J.C. Hoffman had seemed so familiar in that magazine article. He was the author of Insights. I scrambled on all fours over to a stack of books and magazines in the corner. Yep. J.C. Hoffman. Same guy, all right. The article was about Hoffman founding a religion called The Church of the Evermore Enlightened. The church was really big in Southern California, apparently. It even had a special “star” center for its celebrity members.

  Rain had said her mystery man was famous, important. A celebrity.

  What if the man in the black car was a member of the church? That would make sense. It would explain why Chris left that book for me since the guy who wrote it founded the church.

  But there was no mention of The Church of the Evermore Enlightened in Insights. I flipped to the back of the book. The word enlightened wasn’t even listed in the index, although it did list words like aberration and fetus and hypnosis and zombie. The next day, I visited the library and smuggled out three books on The Church of the Evermore Enlightened. I didn’t want my library card connected to checking out those books.

  I wasn’t sleeping well. I looked like shit. My eyes had dark circles under them and I had lost so much weight I had to fold my work skirt over at the waist and my jeans hung down around my hips. Rain was out there with some creep in a black car that really didn’t care about her. If I didn’t try to help her, nobody would. She would be another lost and forgotten girl swallowed up by L.A.—just like Frank said.

  In some ways I felt like L.A. was swallowing me up as well. I barely spoke to anyone outside of the restaurant. I missed Danny. I wanted to be friends with him again. One night, when I was feeling especially heartbroken and lonely, I tried.

  On my way to the bathroom, I found him standing in front of his door, guitar on its strap around his neck, fumbling with a giant wad of keys, trying one key after the other in his lock. I hadn’t seen any new poetry tacked to his door for weeks.

  At first, I’d been tempted to walk by without saying anything, but he’d looked so forlorn and pathetic that I’d stopped. Sighing, I took the keys from him and after a few tries, unlocked his door for him. He was bleary-eyed as I led him into the room. I missed his grin and cackling laugh so much it hurt. But maybe it was too late to apologize. It seemed like ancient history. The damage had been done.

  “Thought you hated me,” he said softly, and stared down at his feet.

  I pushed away the urge to hug him and instead felt a surge of anger that he was high again.

  “What’s up, Danny? Why are you doing this to yourself? What about your poetry?”

  He ignored my question, threw his guitar on the ground where it bounced a bit, and plopped on his bed. “Some fucked up angel dust, man. Gotta lay down.”

  I left, turning out the light and gently closing the door behind me. Seeing him like that and his poetry abandoned, brought back a familiar feeling in my stomach, one of grief and loss.

  Every night I worked, I hoped Ernie would return, but figured even if he hadn’t permanently moved back east, there was no way after all this time he would have remembered to run the license plate for me.

  ONE NIGHT, SADIE sat a group of five young men—all dressed in pressed black slacks and crisp white t-shirts—in her section. They had slicked-back hair and flashing diamond rings on their fingers. The oldest one probably wasn’t old enough to drink. I gawked, frozen, holding a plate of tamales, unable to stop staring. Sadie winked as she swept past.

  The youngest one, the runt of the litter, held his two fingers up to his mouth and stuck his tongue through them making an obscene gesture. The one who was clearly the leader of the group smacked him on the head. The older boy crooked a finger at me. My eyes widened. I dropped plates off at my table and walked over, wary.

  “Excuse me, miss. Sorry to bother you, but Freddy’s got something to say to you.” He jerked his chin toward the scowling skinny youth who couldn’t have been any older than Rain.

  The younger boy’s eyes glittered dangerously. “Sorry.” He mumbled it so low I could barely hear, but could tell it was laced with venom.

  The older one, who was very good looking up close, smacked him again. “Say it like you mean it.”

  The younger one scowled and looked down at the table for a moment. The veins in his neck and forehead pulsed and his face grew darker, purplish. It was a dangerous moment, but the older boy only smiled at me. The four other guys at the table ignored the show down, unfolding their silverware from the napkins. I would have bet money that under that table all five of them had guns.

  But after a few seconds, the younger boy swallowed. “I’m sorry,” he said, a bit more sincerely, but his eyes looked like they would cut me into a thousand pieces if given the chance. This little shit who I could probably beat at arm wrestling was actually the only one at the table who frightened me. He obviously had something to prove. Even so, I itched to photograph him, scowl and all.

  The older kid, who was poised beyond his years, smiled so widely and charismatically I couldn’t help but smile back. “Thanks for taking time to come over. I apologize for Freddy. It won’t ever happen again. Tell Amir that Carlos said hello.”

  I hurried off to Amir’s office.

  “Hey, I think Sadie sat a bunch of gang members out there. And they said to tell you hello.” I was still a little breathless after my odd encounter with them.

  Amir looked up from his paperwork and glanced at the video screen that captured the restaurant’s interior with security cameras. What he saw made him smile. “Oh, yes, those are my friends. They get free refills on their soda.”

  “Your friends?”

  He nodded. “Do you know where I am from?”

  I shook my head. I was anxious to get back to work, thinking of my customers waiting for me.

  “I am from Iran. Do you know about the political history of my country?”

  I was embarrassed that I didn’t.

  “My people have only known a life of fear. They live each day not knowing whether, on a whim, someone will arrest or kill their brother. Or mother. The government tells the school children what schoolbags they may use, what television shows they may watch, and what to read.”

  I stopped swinging my leg against the desk when I saw the glint in Amir’s eyes.

  “They drag little girls by their hair out of their beds, shoot them dead for nothing. For nothing.” Amir spit a little and began pounding his fist on his desk.

  I jumped back, startled b
y his words and sudden violence. He lifted his clenched fist off the desk and closed his eyes, but not before I saw the tears glistening there.

  “Amir?” I said. “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  When Amir opened his eyes, the tears were gone. He stared in front of him, seeing nothing. He was back somewhere in his mind, maybe back in Iran. “I will tell you more another time, but you should know that in my country we grow up with the knowledge that authority is almost always corrupt. The right thing to do has nothing to do with what the government or law says.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t a big fan of the law or government either. They hadn’t done anything for me lately, especially by not believing me when I told them Rain was kidnapped.

  “Let me tell you a little story,” Amir continued, his eyes behind his silver-framed glasses once again focused on me. One night, Amir said, when the gang members came in, Ernie stomped into Amir’s office. “You can’t serve them. They’re known gangbangers.”

  “I can serve whomever I want,” Amir had told Ernie. “If you don’t like it, you can leave.”

  “I’m not leaving. They are.”

  A few minutes later, a squad car pulled up, and some uniformed officers filed into the restaurant, staring the gang members down. Some gang law prohibited known gang members from fraternizing in public, or at least that was what the officers told Amir, who, sensing this wasn’t the time or place to wage his battle against authority, asked the gang members to leave, apologizing profusely and saying it was out of his hands. However, as they walked out, Amir slipped the leader of the gang a slip of paper with this on it: 546 JKT.