Nica of Los Angeles

by Sue Perry

  Abruptly, Mathead was gone. My eyes jumped from block to block, building to building, door to door, trying to pick up the trail.

  "Inside after her?" Mikal shielded his eyes to look up the side of the eight story office box, protecting his eyes from the sun, reflected in the rows of glass sheets that delineated each story. She had entered that building.

  Fatty thought not. "We'll lose her if we go inside. Too many options. There are at least a dozen tenants in there."

  "Oh em eff gee," I breathed.

  "What you know?" Fatty demanded.

  "I know where she went. We can go home now."

  "We give you our day off and that's all you've got to tell, bitch?"

  The three top stories of this building were occupied by Beauregard, Collins, and Ishikawa, a top-notch law firm with a policy to intercept phone calls from non-clients. In a bolt of intuition, I resolved a nagging uncertainty. Benny didn't arrange my attorney. Mathead did, for reasons I needed to understand.

  "She went to see my lawyer. As soon as I know why, I'll be happy to fill you in."

  My brain blasted me with a what-if explosion. Mathead was surely the kind of cop who would be on the take - that was a no-brainer. What if she'd been paid to set me up with Kimball? Kimball, who had taken me to get my GPS tracker installed. A tracker that the cops on my case didn't recognize and didn't know I wore. A tracker the Cysts used to follow me through the Frames. What if Mathead was in cahoots with the Cysts? Or Kimball was? Or they both were?

  "Alright. We stay outside in this motherfucker sun. Nica, you okay?"

  "No but yes. I just realized something, but it's -"

  "Let me guess. Long story."

  Nothing like an old friend.

  "You need our help investigating this?"

  "I have no idea. But not now, not just yet."

  We stood trying to see past the sun glare to the building. We could wait for Mathead to emerge. We could barge in on her with Kimball. I decided to keep going with my instinct, which told me to get the hell out of the sun and away from that building. It wasn't time to move on these suspicions; if I went inside now, I would be at a disadvantage.

  We waited in a lobby across the street, watching from behind smoked glass. Four minutes later, Kathleen Kimball and Mathead emerged. Kimball held the door for Mathead to exit, replied in monosyllables as Mathead effused. The lawyer's attitude was aloof but tense. She maintained her usual world-weary poker face, but her shoulders were shoved up by her ears, and she kept adjusting her position so that Mathead stayed in her line of sight. "Kick-ass" Kimball seemed intimidated, an unwilling participant in the conversation and probably the relationship. When Mathead departed, Kimball remained at the entry until Mathead disappeared around the corner. That reminded me of my first visit with Mathead and Scabman, when I'd walked them outside the Henrietta to be certain they were gone.

  By the time Fatty and Mikal dropped me at the Henrietta, I was out of confrontation mode and seeking commiseration, so I went to find Hernandez. He didn't even know I was back, didn't know the Framekeeps had ruled so quickly and so wrongly. I could make myself feel a bit less bad by sharing the miserable news with him.

  I walked the halls, didn't see him, smelled no cleansers that indicated he'd recently passed that way. Not at work two days in a row was odd for Hernandez, and it was no time for odd. I headed for the office to check on him.

  Every hall brought a different memory of Anya and Anwyl, including the halls where they'd never been. When would I see them again? The Framekeep answer was never but I couldn't believe that. They wouldn't just vanish on me. They wouldn't. But they would wait to return. How long? I didn't like the possible answers. But they would come see me when they could. They had to. I couldn't bear it otherwise.

  I thought about Kimball, too, and Mathead. And Benny. And Miles. Try as I might, I could find no good thoughts, anywhere; and I was in no mood to search.

  The office told me Hernandez had gone home early yesterday and called in sick this morning. With that news, I called his cell but went straight to voicemail. I called his house line and it stayed busy for one hour, 37 minutes. I didn't like that. No one should be on that line. His girls would be in school and he only kept that phone for emergencies.

  I resigned myself to renting the car an extra day and went to his house. The truck was not there. The shades were down, curtains drawn, and from inside, television blared. I didn't like that, either. Finally, I pounded hard enough to be heard over the TV.

  Before he opened the door, I thought he might be drunk or high. I found him disheveled but more sober than anyone should be. When he saw me, he walked back inside, leaving the door open for me to follow.

  "What's with you?" I greeted him.

  "Are the Cysts back in prison?"

  "Not hardly. What -"

  "You tell me first."

  So I did. While I talked, I shut off the TV and opened the shades. He didn't care. While he listened, he rubbed the arm injured by the Cobra. When I finished, he said, "They need to be put down," with a casualness that could only mean he was serious. "The bad guys won the day in court."

  "Anya warned us this could happen and it did."

  "What's our next move?"

  "I'm sure Anya and Anwyl have already made several. Us, we're waiting to see how we get a next move."

  "Invite the Cysts here," he said, and flicked something off his thumb. It hit beside me with a clink. On the floor was a can filled with pennies, surrounded by pennies. He had sat here all day, flipping pennies in the dark. He was in a foxhole of his own construction.

  "Your turn," I concluded. "What's with you to waste a whole day?"

  "What time is it shit." He rubbed his face as though to wake up, although he looked like he hadn't slept for years. "My girls will be home soon. Help me lighten up."

  "Explain."

  A long slow sigh, airlock leaking into deep space. "There were knocks on the door yesterday while I was at work and Karina was home alone. She knows not to answer and she called me when the knocks repeated. A woman she doesn't know stood on the porch and wouldn't stop knocking. I get home, see who it is and why Karina doesn't recognize her. It's their mother. Their mother at the door."

  "I thought their mother was dead!"

  "We had no word from her for so many years we didn't know for sure."

  "So where has she been? Prison? Coma?"

  "Finding herself. Landing a rich husband. She looks great. She's happy. Now she wants to know her girls again. Twelve years later."

  "I hate her already. How did the girls react?"

  "All their anger, poof. They're so excited to have her back. And I'm happy for them. Girls need their mom, no matter who the mom is. But she wants them to go and live with her for a year. A year or more. They are so excited."

  I waited.

  "She lives in Spain. She is taking my girls to Spain."

  "Shit."

  "Something like that."

  "I'm sorry. But that bond you have with your daughters, distance can't change that."

  "You and Patti both said that." There was that Patti again. "I tell you like I told her. You sound pretty certain for somebody who never had kids."

  "I had parents, dummy."

  "Okay," he said. "Okay, I see that," with just the faintest sound of hope.

  "What a rotten week. It's enough to make you believe in astrology," I said, "the way the last couple days have gone."

  "What sign are the Cysts?"

  "Nobody knows anymore, they discontinued that sign."

  He almost smiled, then watched something out the window. His truck pulled up into the driveway and his girls tumbled out. Behind it lurched a decrepit Chevy with dents like it had driven through the asteroid belt. The driver's door opened and Edith emerged, looking a little less solemn than I had seen her previously. From the passenger's side stepped Detective Henson, pretending to still her heart.

  "Edith doesn't look discouraged today."

  "The
court listened to her. And she's back home because her mother has started to listen, too."

  Her mother, Maria. I had a flash memory of the short squat exhausted woman who had reminded me of a log cabin.

  "Edith's case got scheduled. It will start in October. The court will pay for Karina to fly back from Spain to give testimony, so I will get to see her then."

  "When do the girls leave?"

  "Three weeks that will feel like three minutes."

  "Nobody loves a couch potato," Patti said, when she entered without knocking. He tilted his head back to look at her upside down. I was spared seeing them smooch by watching the girls plow past on the way to Karina's bedroom.

  "I will be at work tomorrow - that will be a good time to decide our next steps," Hernandez said to me, climbing back out of his foxhole.

  "Sure, come find me on your break, I'll be around."

  Maria. Cabin.

  I jumped to my feet and ran to the car, after the minimum necessary farewell pleasantries to ensure nobody followed me to ask what was wrong.

  I knew where Ben was.

  40. You Will Know

  Or anyway, I had a great guess where to look for him.

  The San Gabriel Mountains rise tall at the top edge of Los Angeles and separate us from riff raff to the north (JK, Bakersfield and San Francisco). Much of the mountain range is national forest with stark rocky landscapes. Bedroom communities cling to the extremities. Bedroom community. That term always sounds dirty to me. Give me a no-nonsense suburb any day. The interior of the mountains is prone to wildfires and intense rains that cause killer landslides. Nonetheless, thousands of people use the mountains to recreate. Which sounds even dirtier.

  Scant handfuls of hardy individualists live inside the mountain range, in cabins such as those nestled in Big Tujunga Canyon, a winding gash through the mountain landscape, carved by extreme weather. Their homes are not entirely theirs. In a complicated and tenuous grandfathered arrangement, they live on public land. They can't resell their cabins; when the current tenants move, the land is supposed to revert to some public agency. And so the communities cannot grow, and the hardy few have the wildlands to themselves, with neighbors that include a few humans and lots of bears, bobcats, mountain lions, hawks, rattlers, and of course, coyotes. It's only a thirty-minute drive through the canyon to the big city, but the area feels remote, undiscovered, rough, and wild. At night, it's magical there, black but for stars, noisy with critters, pulsating with the underlying connection among all things.

  Ben possesses one of the cabins. He inherited the key from his stepmother's nephew's cousin. No search of official databases would ever uncover the connection to him. Since he was a teenager, he has come here in retreat. You might assume he used the place for major benders, but that's because you don't know him. The cabin is the one place he has never gotten loaded. It is sacred to him. It is for soul cleansings and fresh starts. He flees there a few times a year. He's too sociable to live there. I've been there three times, total: on our two honeymoons and the first time he got sober - the time he did it on his own and stayed clean until he left the cabin.

  I always miss the gravel turn-off. When I got to the big rock shaped like a nose, I knew I'd gone too far and turned around, found the turn-off on the way back. Up the gravel road a couple turns, I could see the cabin lights glint between branches. It was early afternoon but already the sun was behind the mountains. I parked before the final turn to the cabin and walked softly around back to the garage. I didn't want to surprise a squatter.

  I hadn't realized what a big part of me feared the note really was a suicide goodbye, until I tugged the garage door open and saw Ben's panel truck hidden inside. I shivered. I had forgotten that it would be thirty degrees cooler here and I needed a sweater.

  The generator was grinding and hid the grating of gravel under my sandals. Ben ran the generator a couple hours a day, to supplement the solar panels and the wood stove. Come sunset, it was candles and lanterns, battery-operated devices. There was no service here. Cellular, cable, phone, internet, power, sewer, water? Forget about it.

  I was headed for the front porch when I heard his laugh. "I knew you'd find me."

  He sprawled on the back porch, his chair balanced on two back chair legs, his head propped against the log wall, making a lazy angle with the rest of his body. The fragrance of espresso wafted through the pine and the sage. How did I not smell that until now?

  I found the steps and climbed them. By then he had dragged the rocker outside for me and brought out another coffee cup. We savored a shot of espresso together. The generator powered down and it was as peaceful as the day before humans found this place.

  I finished my caffeine. "What the fuck, Ben."

  "Not Ben. Ken now. Kenneth Harris."

  He extracted a worn wallet stuffed with new identity, worked to look used. Ratty-edged photos of people neither of us knew - his new family pix. A well-handled social security card. Driver's License. Visa debit card, no doubt with several years of bank records upon request.

  "Passport also?" When he nodded I added, "What nationality?"

  "Still U.S. But I grew up in Tacoma now. Since my girlfriend left me, I've been doing some moving around. I'll probably try the east coast next. Or maybe Chicago. I'll do a rehab in one town, sober living in another. It's hard to trace people through those."

  "Is laundering your identity your only reason for treatment?"

  He sighed. "Not completely."

  I sighed. "I didn't realize your vanishing would be this heavy duty. Permanent."

  "I know." A pair of gray squirrels took turns chasing each other around an oak trunk. "I brought it all down on myself."

  "We all do. But today, Fatty and I used your note to buy you some time."

  "Fatty helped! I love that! Tell me more!"

  I told him about our trip to the police station. I didn't mention tailing Mathead to my lawyer. That was a part of my story he didn't share.

  "You did good. Great. Thank you. And thank Fatty for me."

  "Any chance Fitzpatrick will leave you alone now?"

  "For a while, definitely."

  "But not forever?"

  "You met her. What do you think?"

  "Even if she bails on the plan to make you an informant, she'll want revenge because you earned her negative attention from her supervisor." And with Ben gone, the unspent wrath might direct itself to me. Yip-te-doodle.

  "The cops aren't the only reason I left my apartment. Nica, you're messing with heavy trouble."

  "I am so sorry about what happened. I never thought my bad guys would find you. What happened, exactly, anyway?"

  "I can't talk about it. I'm just sayin', if I'm freaked, you should be, too."

  "Message received. I promise I'm being as careful as I can be." I studied him, studying me. Our memories of the other's features were indelible, yet we sharpened them for the coming separation. Eventually, I wondered, "How will I know where you are?" That you are.

  "I'll get throwaway phones sometimes and I'll call Hernandez. That is as far as I've thought it out."

  "Okay, that could work."

  "We'll never be past tense, Neeks."

  "Thanks for reminding me, I need another nickname. Somebody vile and repulsive found out about 'Neeks' and now hearing it reminds me of him. Them."

  "'Him' thems, huh?"

  "Not that kind of 'him', dolt. Business."

  "Good, because I want you to keep working on your choice of men. You were headed in the right direction. Ick was a good choice until he died on you."

  "Yeah, that was tacky of him."

  "Wanna go to bed?"

  "You're kidding, right?"

  "Okay me neither."

  But eventually we did go to bed, where we huddled in each other's arms and I worked hard to think of nothing outside that moment.

  We fell asleep. I don't know how long I was out and it took a while to figure out that I was awake again. The world was black and my on
ly sensations were the light rasp and faint tickle of Ben breathing near my ear. Lately, I had dreamed of Ben dead. Was I now dreaming of joining him? I unpocketed my phone and it was bright enough to illumine fragments of the room. The cabin. Right. I had found Ben at the cabin.

  And now I must leave him, without knowing when our suddenly unraveled paths would tangle again.

  I bumped his shoulder with my head until his breathing changed. He awoke knowing where and with whom. He pulled me in for a last snuggle and kissed the top of my head. "Skeeny," he cooed.

  "What the hell is a Skeeny?"

  "It's Neeks backward. With a -y of endearment."

  "Keep working on the nickname."

  Driving out took longer than driving in. When we stepped outside the cabin, the sky at the top of the steep canyon was white with stars, but there was no moon and as soon as my headlights went on, the world outside their beams went blacker than black. My headlights were the only illumination and I didn't know the curves well enough to maintain a steady speed. I'd be zipping along, then suddenly a granite wall would loom bright white straight ahead. I'd brake in time, find the curve, fishtail a smidge; the incident would damage my confidence and I'd need another mile or so before I worked back up to a zip. Even on the occasional straight stretch of road, a low pine branch would scrape the hood, the sound would startle me, and I'd give a burst of brakes or accelerator depending on how much adrenaline surged.

  My pitiful exit from the mountains was also a symptom of my reluctance to leave Ben when we had no foreseeable reunion.

  A couple dozen turns later, I realized I didn't need to leave yet. It's not like I had cases awaiting me. I was between men and low on available friends, as well as absent of employments. I decided to turn around and go back to the cabin, but by the time I reached a turnout, the impulse had passed. Just as well. I don't like to go back. You never can tell what the morrow will bring and you won't find out if you're facing backwards.