City of Angels

by Kristi Belcamino

  “That’s bullshit,” I said. “You forced her into the car. I know. I saw.”

  A thin vein popped on his forehead and his jaw clenched. For a second, I thought he was losing his temper, but then he took a deep breath and looked at me with a gleam of triumph in his eyes. “She loves me. That’s the truth. She wanted to come with me. She was just trying to play hard to get, but she loves me.”

  I felt sick because it was true. Even if she didn’t go with him willingly, I thought she’d been protecting Walker all this time because she thought she loved him. But at least he hadn’t raped her. Yet. My hands clenched into fists and my eyes narrowed.

  “You bastard.” It took all my self-control not to throw myself at him and claw his eyes out. There would be time for that later, once Rain was here before me, safe. I needed see Rain first.

  The elevator doors slid open. The room beyond was dark. As soon as we stepped into the room, a flood of automatic lights switched on. It was the room used in the movie with the dead girl. The room was dominated by a giant bed placed center stage, resting several feet off the ground on a circle platform. Cameras on wires hung from the ceilings. Leather straps were attached to each corner of the bed and a leather contraption hung above it. On a nearby brick wall, several chains were bolted to the wall at head level. On the other side of the short, thick chains were restraints—thick metal bands that went around someone’s neck, some medieval torture device.

  As I took it all in, my hand flew to my mouth. Before I had time to react, Walker turned and, with a force that surprised me after his previous gentleness, pulled me over to one of the neckbands. When I fought, he slammed the back of my head into the brick wall, stunning me long enough to fasten the cold metal around my neck, sticking the key to it in his pocket. The click of it closing sounded like a death knell.

  “Sorry, darling, I know that wasn’t gentlemanly, but I can’t afford to have you escape. Not now. This will keep you out of my hair, little princess, until we’re ready for your debut. You’ll have to excuse me. I’m anxious to see Rain.”

  He was off his rocker. I’d read that The Church of the Evermore Enlightened didn’t believe in psychiatric treatment or drugs. And this guy needed both. How long had this been going on? I suspected the church had been protecting him for a long time. Walker stepped over to the only other door in the room and slid back a large metal bolt. I arched my neck and pulled the chain connecting my torture device to the wall. But I couldn’t see inside the door.

  “Rain,” I shouted as the door slowly swung shut. The muffled sound of voices filtered through the thick door. I strained to hear if it was Rain but there was only the sound of a thump. Then silence.

  After a few seconds, the motion-activated lights went out, leaving me shivering in the dark. I kicked out my feet and arms to trigger the lights, but I must not have been standing in the right place. It stayed dark. I pried at the metal band around my neck until my fingernails broke and bled, plunging me back into the memory of my nightmare where I tore my nails to the quick trying to climb a brick wall. Just like in that dream, I wasn’t going anywhere. I knew then I was going to die.

  A clicking sound made me freeze. It was the elevator. The door whooshed open with a quiet hiss. Then nothing. No sound. It was still dark.

  I felt a chill run through my body as I strained to see in the darkness. The automatic lights flickered on, momentarily blinding me. I blinked and focused.

  It was Ernie. Holding a gun pointed right at me. His eyes met mine and his hand with the gun dropped to his side. He ran over. I blinked, my face scrunched in a frown. I shrank away from him. I started to scream, but he clamped his hand over my mouth. What was the drunken cop doing here? Was he in on it with Amir? No scenario I could imagine made sense.

  The fingers on his other hand felt around the edge of the medieval style restraint around my neck. He drew back. His eyes were not blood shot but clear and alert and intense.

  “I’m going to take my hand away now. Please don’t scream. I’m on your side. You have to trust me. Okay?”

  I paused for a second, then slowly shook my head back and forth, staring right into his eyes. No. Why should I believe him? Every other adult in my life had let me down. Why would he be any different? His eyes looked sad and he pressed his lips tightly together, nodding. “You’re right. I’m a fuck up. I know it. Everyone knows it. But I’m trying to make things right. I swear it. Let me help you.”

  For a few seconds we stared at one another. Against all odds the drunken cop, with his thinning hair and bushy moustache and red nose, wanted to help me.

  “Okay?”

  I nodded warily. He removed his hand.

  “Walker. In there.” I nodded toward the door. “He’s got the keys.”

  Ernie crept over to the door, gun drawn. Slowly, he turned the knob. With a loud crack, he burst into the room. Straining my neck against the metal, I tried to see into the room but the door swung shut.

  Within seconds, Ernie raced back into the room with a jingling sound and unlocked the band around my neck. The elevator door made a small noise. His eyes darted around the room and he pushed me, sending me sprawling toward the door he had just come from. “Go now.”

  “No way.” I had seen Walker go in there. I don’t know how Ernie got the keys from him. I hadn’t heard sounds of a struggle. Maybe it was a trick. It was irrational but in my mind that door opened up onto the world of my nightmares—endless passageways leading to dead-ends where a faceless evil waited to wrap its dead fingers around me. I couldn’t shake the belief that death waited for me in that room. I’d rather die here in the light.

  “I’m not going in there. I’m not.” My voice was trembling and my words barely coherent.

  I started scrambling backward on my hands and knees toward the elevator. Ernie crouched down and looked in my eyes.

  “Trust me.”

  That word again. I closed my eyes. I wanted to trust him. I wanted to believe that an adult would help me, not hurt me. I wanted to trust someone enough to walk into a room where I was certain death waited for me. My mind was screaming to run away. Danger. Don’t believe him. Danger! Go in that room and you will die. Don’t trust him. Don’t trust anybody.

  But maybe it was time to listen to my heart instead of my head. And he did unchain me from this torture device. I decided.

  I would do it. I would trust him.

  Springing to my feet, I raced for the door, ducking inside and slamming it shut right before the elevator doors slid open. There was no lock on the inside of the door. I was afraid to look around me. Where was Walker?

  Slowly, I turned, my eyes widening in surprise. Before me, in a room done up all in pastels with a giant canopy bed filled with stuffed animals, sat Rain. Huddled in a corner. Even paler than I remembered. Dirty blond hair stringy and longer. Pink streaks gone. Holding a bloody piece of wood in her hands. Staring at Rex Walker.

  He was face down on the ground. Blood billowed out around his body. Then, I noticed that the path of blood led to Rain. I took it all in within seconds. Behind me, in the room I had just left, a series of gunshots made my blood run cold. I had to block this doorway, keep us safe. I leaned over and pushed and pulled, shoving a big bureau in front of the door before I leaned against the dresser, breathing heavily. I wanted to run to Rain, but she wasn’t there. Not in any way besides physically. Her eyes never flickered my way. But she was alive. There were more shouts and gunshots on the other side of the door. Then nothing.

  The sound of the doorknob turning made me gasp and I leaped across the room and pressed my body as hard as I could against the dresser blocking the door. I dug in my boots and put my weight into it until I heard the footsteps retreating.

  It was unearthly quiet outside the door. I waited. I counted to fifty. Then to one hundred before I turned to Rain. She hadn’t moved. I crawled over to her. She was covered in blood. One hand clutched her ripped blouse to her chest.

  “Rain? It’s me. Are you hurt?�
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  She swiveled her head toward me. “Nikki?”

  I felt relief flood through me. “Yes. Can you stand up? We need to get you out of here.”

  “He said he loved me. He told me if I didn’t go with him that you would get hurt. But then he brought me back here… to this house.” She choked on a sob. “He…he tried to…he was going to…” She closed her eyes.

  I gently took the jagged piece of wood out of her hands. Its painted pink edge was dark with blood. She must have broken it off of a piece of the furniture. I pulled her to her feet. She only moved when I directed her. I had her sit on the chair near the door, facing away from Walker’s body while I pushed the dresser out of the way. Without the big rush of adrenaline I had when I came into the room, it took longer to shove it aside.

  I pressed my ear to the door. Nothing. Slowly, I cracked it open and the lights flickered on. The movie set room with the giant bed seemed empty. I led Rain, holding her hand and keeping her body behind mine. I headed toward the elevator but stopped when I saw a pair of legs sticking out from the other side of the big bed. Instinctively, I shielded Rain’s eyes and put my finger to my lips.

  Creeping around the edge of the giant bed, I saw that it was Ernie. Face down. A puddle of blood surrounded his head. My hand flew to my mouth. I ran over to Ernie to see if I could feel a pulse. There was nothing. I sank to the ground, holding Rain behind me.

  Then I noticed him. It was Amir. Standing in an alcove I hadn’t seen. Holding a gun by his side. Fear trickled down my scalp. There was no place to go.

  I shoved Rain further behind me.

  “You killed him. You bastard.” My eyes never left his.

  Amir’s face darkened with anger. “He was trying to destroy me and everything I’d worked toward. The director will be here any minute. He will know why I had to kill him. And why when we find your boyfriend, we will kill him, too.”

  I closed my eyes for a second with relief. Taj had escaped.

  Amir, lost in his anger at Ernie still, seemed to be talking to himself, reassuring himself that he wouldn’t be in trouble for killing Ernie. He was pretty much ignoring me, the gun hanging in his hand at his side. As if I were no threat whatsoever. That was when it struck me. He didn’t consider me a threat. At all. This was my only advantage.

  I could use Amir’s own philosophy against him. He had told me that Ernie’s mistake with the gang members was thinking he was invincible. That Ernie’s sense of power was his Achilles heel. And Amir warned me to never “underestimate the little guy.”

  Now I was the little guy. I’d always had been, of course, but now Amir was the big guy, and he had underestimated me.

  As Amir paced, talking about what a terrible man Ernie was trying to ruin his “cause,” I scooted closer to Ernie’s pant leg. I had seen something black near his ankle. A gun? Rain was nearly comatose, huddled with her arms wrapped around her knees. Her head down in her lap, staring at nothing.

  Thinking of Ernie brought a thick sob to my throat. I tried not to look at his face, but scooted closer to his body. It was a gun strapped to his ankle.

  I couldn’t grab it without Amir seeing. I had to distract him.

  “Amir?”

  He stopped pacing and stared at me, as if just realizing I was in the room with him.

  “I think Rex Walker is hurt. He’s in that room over there. He was bleeding and moaning. He said something about transferring funds to some account or something…”

  Amir cocked his head for a minute, stomped over to the door, and flung it open. In an instant I had grabbed Ernie’s gun out of the ankle strap and yanked Rain to her feet. We were at the elevator and I had jabbed the call button when Amir reappeared. His hand holding the gun was shaking. Pointed right at me.

  “You cannot leave,” he said, eyes narrowed when he noticed the gun in my hand.

  When the elevator door slid open behind me, I pushed Rain behind me, letting the doors close with Rain inside.

  In one smooth movement I clicked the safety off the gun like Taj had showed me on the rooftop. I stretched out my arms, now both hands clutching the gun in front of me. Seeing this, Amir startled me by laughing.

  “You? You shoot me? You are a child. A naïve, silly child. I told you already.” He raised his gun up higher, toward my face instead of my chest. “You are the innocent sacrifice made to achieve our goals. Today you will die for the greater good. Today you will die for my people. Today—”

  The retort of the gun sent me tumbling back off balance against the elevator doors. My mouth involuntarily dropped open as a wide crimson stain spread across Amir’s chest and a small bubble of blood formed at his mouth as he tried to finish his sentence. He made a motion moving toward me and I reached behind me, frantically punching the elevator call button until it opened behind me. I stepped backward into the elevator, not taking my eyes off Amir, who had crumpled to his knees, his mouth wide open, looking at me in astonishment.

  “Today…is not my day to die,” I said as the elevator doors slid shut.

  I hit the down button and slumped to the floor.

  My heart seemed to stop and I burst into what was a combination of laughing and crying. I must be in shock. I stared glassily in front of me, seeing nothing, feeling nothing except an icy pit in my stomach and hearing my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

  The scene before me came into focus. Rain stared at me as if only now realizing I was there. “Nikki?” She crawled into my lap and I held her close, stroking her hair. Staring at nothing. The elevator door slid open and lights and sound greeted us. People running and yelling and the sound of sirens and static from radios. But I couldn’t even force my head to look up. Someone was shaking my shoulder, kneeling down and peering into my face. Somewhere inside, I registered that the person was wearing a police officer’s uniform. A radio clipped to his shoulder emitted some static.

  “He’s dead…” I grabbed his collar and spoke so quietly he had to lean in to hear me. “They both are. Dead.”

  He leaned into his shoulder and said, “Code four here. We’ve got two DOAs. Send in EMT ASAP.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  I stared straight ahead.

  Blindingly bright red and blue lights flashed and a cacophony of screeching sirens greeted us in the driveway. A tall female officer led Rain and me past an army of rushing police officers with guns drawn and white-shirted ambulance drivers hauling what looked like small suitcases and stretchers.

  In a flurry of motion, Rain was swooped away by a medic. When I realized what was happening, I made a lunge for her, but the lady police officer grabbed me. “She’ll be fine. You’ll see her in a sec.”

  The officer led me to the back of an ambulance. I looked wildly over my shoulder, trying to see where Rain went.

  “Where’s my friend?”

  “It’s okay,” the police officer said, gently taking my elbow. “Let’s have the EMT guys look at you first. They’re checking out your friend, too.” I relaxed a little. Rain wasn’t really hurt. It was Walker’s blood. The medics began asking me questions. After a few moments, one of them said, “Well, physically she’s fine.”

  My eyes widened at the sight of a familiar figure emerging from the mass of people. It was Taj. I ran to meet him, ignoring the medic’s protests. When I reached Taj, I choked back a sob that sprung from a mixture of relief and sorrow. Within seconds, I was wrapped tightly in his arms. “They just took Rain away in an ambulance,” he said into my ear.

  I struggled to free myself but he held me back.

  “It’s too late,” he said. “The ambulance is gone. I think she’s fine, just doped up on something and they want to keep her overnight for observation.”

  “We should’ve gone with her.”

  But it was too late.

  After the paramedics gave me the all clear, a police officer came up to me and gently touched my arm.

  “Can I give you two a ride home?”

  I eyed him suspiciously. His eyes were red
like he’d been crying. He had curly brown hair and that same cop moustache that Ernie had. He leaned down. “I’m Officer Craig Nelson, Ernie’s partner. I’d like to talk to you.”

  Taj nodded his okay saying, “He helped me earlier.”

  The story unfolded as we made our way back to the American Hotel through streets still filled with smoke and rioters. Vaguely, in the back of my mind, I realized a squad car might not be the safest place to be during the riots. But the story Craig told us distracted me from anything outside.

  Apparently, Ernie had been on to Amir for months, suspecting him of arms dealing to the Iranians. All those drunken nights at Little Juan’s were staged. Part of the LAPD’s undercover operation. That wasn’t to say that Ernie wasn’t a drunk who really did lose his entire family to his drinking and had been put on probation with the department for his drunken screw-ups. But this undercover operation was his fresh start. It was going to be his way to redeem himself, not only with his superiors, but also with his family. He told Craig that once he put Amir behind bars, he would have earned the right to contact his two little girls again and be part of their lives. But until he atoned for his previous sins, he didn’t feel worthy of their love. Hearing this as I sat in the back of the squad car, I vowed right then and there to make sure Ernie’s children knew he died a hero. When I told Craig this, he became very quiet. He swiped a hand across his face and inhaled loudly.

  “Thanks.” It sounded choked. “He was a good man. And a great partner.”

  Craig went on to tell us how he and Ernie had tailed Amir from the restaurant to the Star Center earlier in the day. They were on stakeout when we arrived, and later, when they saw Amir’s car zoom out of the underground parking lot. Craig hopped out of the car to go investigate inside the center while Ernie followed Amir’s car to the beach house.