That’s when I got nervous because I didn’t know if the man was part of the plan to pick up the money or if he was just that, a homeless guy who found a bag full of money left in a park and decided to add it to his collection of street detritus. The thought of Valenti hearing about the latter scenario sent shivers down my spine for what he would do to Hector who in turn would do to me.
I caught sight of the man and his cart in one of the pools of light. He was following the path towards its north-side exit. I calculated how far the park entrance was from me and what I was going to do when he walked through it. Three more times he passed under the light and now he was no more than two hundred feet from leaving the park. I watched the final pool of light for the man, but he never appeared. I waited and still nothing.
“LOST THE TARGET”, Badger texted.
And I fell into full panic mode. My instinct was to run down there but I didn’t want to alarm the man or whoever might be watching him that wasn’t on our three-way text. I instead walked purposefully in his direction, trying not to call too much attention to myself.
My phone buzzed with the incessant texts from Hector wanting to know what was happening. Each one grew shorter than the last. I envisioned him hammering away with each text and getting angrier with each send. I resisted the inevitable as long as possible, which was to reply with the truth that I lost the man.
I pulled up the phone to answer his question and typed three dreadful words: “I DON’T KNOW.”
The phone then fell out of my hand. I looked around, disoriented, and realized I had run headlong into the homeless man’s shopping cart. We looked into each other’s eyes. My gaze was rooted in fear. His look was rooted in schizophrenia.
“Motherfucker,” he muttered and pushed the cart like I was not standing there. I jumped out of the way but the front wheel caught my foot and left a track on my polished loafers. The man continued on down the street in the direction where I had just come. Rather than tail him directly, I grabbed my phone and crossed the street to the sidewalk on the opposite side, giving him a little distance.
I wanted to text the boys that I was on his tail but couldn’t risk being distracted or being spotted doing suspicious activities. I crossed in front of a small Catholic church with a well-lit Virgin Mary and then the Italian social club next door. The homeless man was maybe forty feet in front of me. I kept him in my peripheral vision. We continued on for a few more buildings and then he stopped in front of one of the cars parked on the side of the road. I stopped also, thought better of it, and continued on at my original pace.
I came up even with the man and casually glanced across the road just in time to see him hand the duffel bag over to someone inside the car. In return, he was handed something which looked like money.
I kept moving but I heard the car roar to life. It swung out from the curb and into the middle of the road to head in the opposite direction. I made myself as small as possible but kept my eyes on the driver of the silver compact, the same shitty car that Nelson used to try to run me over.
The Filipina nurse — both her pudgy hands gripping the steering wheel and her eyes trained straight ahead — roared past me.
I took off down the road towards my car. Fumbling with the key, I got the engine started and sped after her. But the road was just an empty stretch of asphalt with no red taillights to follow. The twinkling lights of Chinatown ahead were a false siren.
As I passed Bishop Street, I caught a pair of taillights out of the corner of my eye. They turned right and out of sight. I put both feet onto the brake and came to an angled stop. I reversed without checking and luckily found open road. I pulled onto Bishop and hoped I hadn’t made a mistake.
Zooming up the road, I ran one stop sign and then another and finally caught up to the taillights. As I followed it onto the onramp to the 110 freeway, relief and excitement washed over me like a cold shower — the silver compact was idling at the entrance and waiting for an opening to pull onto the freeway. I slowed so as not to get too close but managed to pull out my phone and send a very simple, reassuring text: “I’M ON IT”
A WOMAN’S LAUGH
It was easy to tail her in the moderate traffic heading back to Pasadena. Tala didn’t change lanes, which allowed me to stay in the same one without fear of getting too close or slipping too far back. For three steady miles there was a consistent two car distance between us.
I took that time to fill in Hector and Badger with the details. Hector texted back that he was in his car and coming my way. Badger was too far from his own car but he would do the same without delay.
We drove all the way to the end where the freeway funneled us onto the surface streets leading into Pasadena proper. We turned right at California and moved our way through the leafy neighborhood before moving south towards Hermon. I began to wonder if Tala knew I was following her because she could have gotten off at an earlier exit on the 110 to get where we were now. I slipped back to be extra cautious.
Tala took me on a journey of endless turns and loop-backs to the point where it felt like we were going in circles. Without any visual guides in the dark night, namely the looming San Gabriel foothills, I had no way to tell if we were heading north or south. Each new street looked like the one we just got off.
But then I began to pick out landmarks — a familiar billboard here, a recognizable street name there — and I started to feel less like a raft adrift at sea and more like a canoe with one oar. I finally spied the unmistakable glow of Dodger Stadium at night and I realized that we were headed back into the city, back to the very area in Chinatown we had just left.
I followed the small compact back over the concrete bridge into the backdoor — once the front door — entrance into the city. I eased up on the accelerator to put even more distance between me and Tala’s compact. We were the only two cars on the road for a good half-mile. As we glided over the crest of the bridge, I straightened the car for the wide open stretch downhill and called Hector with my free hand.
“Where are you?” he asked in place of any sort of greeting.
“I’m still following her. We are heading back into Chinatown, just crossing the bridge now.”
“What street?” he asked.
“Spring.”
I heard the squelch of tires over the phone as he turned his sedan around in the opposite direction. Over the roar of his engine, “I’m coming now.”
I trailed the compact down a wide, empty street fringed with industrial buildings. They were windowless structures with iron-faced front doors. Even with a great distance between us, I still felt exposed. My headlights must have been like beacons in her rear view mirror. I slipped back even further despite the fear that I would lose her.
That was a mistake.
Suddenly, the two red orbs were no longer. The road that lay ahead was dark and empty and the numerous cross streets had little to no activity on them. I couldn’t tell which street the compact pulled off on, if at all. Panic set in and I was convinced that I had gone too far and quickly turned around. I zoomed back from where I came but soon, much too soon, came upon the bridge and realized I’d backtracked too far. I spun around again, arcing too wide and careening into the curb. I floored it and rumbled down the street in the original direction.
The corporate hack in me immediately ran through a series of excuses why it wasn’t my fault that I lost her. I was ashamed at how easily this instinct came. And I was amazed at how good the excuses were in such a brief gesticulation period. All began with “we,” the classic maneuver to position failure as a shared responsibility.
There were a lot of things we could have done differently…
A lot of things we couldn’t anticipate…
The excuse diatribe would end on a positive note, a look-forward at the next steps to get us back on track. Unfortunately that was where I came up blank. There was nothing I could think of to do. This was the last step.
I pulled over and let the weight of that conclusion set
tle in. Hector couldn’t be far from me at that point. It was only a matter of minutes and I put my phone onto my lap as I waited for the expected call. The street was refreshingly quiet. Sometimes you have to go to the heart of the industrial complex to find true peace. I sat there and marveled at the lack of sound and thought of nothing. It was incredibly peaceful.
I saw movement in the darkness. Or, at least I thought I saw something. It came from the cross street off to my right. I used the old trick of looking out of the corner of my eye, which somehow made it easier to see things in the dark. I sat there, head tilted towards the steering wheel, hopeful that a flicker of movement would appear in my peripheral vision. None came, but I felt driven to search further and put the car into gear and turned onto the street.
This road had no parking limitations and therefore was lined with vehicles serving as makeshift homes for unseen occupants. Back windows were shaded out with towels and newspaper to provide a sliver of privacy to the sleeping souls behind them. Most of the cars didn’t look like they were in shape to drive more than a mile but in truth all they had to muster was a thirty foot hop to the other side of the road on street cleaning days.
One car, though, stood out.
Tucked between a van and a grime-covered station wagon was the compact I had been searching for. I cruised past it towards the end of the block and shut off my lights. I glided into an open slot at the end and parked in a fire zone as a cool wash of relief spread over me — there would be no need for collective excuses tonight.
I texted Hector and Badger my location and then took a moment to scan the area. When I had passed the compact it didn’t look like Tala was inside. She had to have slipped into one of the industrial buildings, but which one I couldn’t be sure because the few windows on this near-windowless block were all dark. I got out to investigate.
Any movement would easily be noticed on this quiet street. I couldn’t risk spooking Tala into flight so I looped around to the back of the buildings which sat on a wider block because of the loading docks that drove the activity during the daytime. I made my way down the alley, hugging the sides of the building to avoid the light cast by the occasional lamp. At about the spot where the compact was parked on the opposite street, I noticed a solitary window on the second floor with a dim, orange light emanating from inside. I drifted towards it like an insect towards a porch light.
I clambered up the loading dock. Two large, rolling, steel doors and a regular-sized one formed an impenetrable entrance. Shading the entire area from the relentless southern exposure and from the occasional thunderstorm was a roof jutting ten feet out from the building. It was also a good ten feet above me. Having humiliated myself before in attempts to touch the rim of a basketball hoop, I searched for another means of reaching the roof.
Back in the alley I found a rusted length of pipe and dragged it back to the dock. I leaned the pipe into the corner where the roof met the building and then wedged the bottom end against a pillar. I monkey-crawled up the pipe but was winded a third of the way and had to rest. I pressed on until the back of my head touched the edge of the roof. Unfortunately I hadn’t thought ahead to figure how I was to move my grip from the pipe onto the edge of the roof without falling to a very painful landing below. With my forearms growing numb, I knew I had to stop deliberating and just try. I uncrossed my legs and let them dangle below, nearly dangling myself off the pipe. With one hand on the pipe, I twisted around and threw my other hand towards the roof and grabbed hold of the edge. A sharp pain greeted my palm which soon grew damp with blood. I donkey-kicked my leg up to the edge and pulled myself on top.
I was gassed. I sat on the roof in a dazed stupor, my head swirling in oxygen-deprived blood. I glanced up and made out the view to the north with a clear shot of the park and then understood the importance of this building’s location relative to the drop zone. That seemed to give me a jolt of energy and I got to my feet to face the next hurdle, a far less challenging one which was to get up to the window above me. The light coming through the one window illuminated the chicken wire embedded in the glass and didn’t look like it had been opened in thirty years. Next to it was a second window, black as the night but its blackness was from the unlit room behind it. It was my only way inside.
I positioned myself below it and made the very do-able, bottom-of-the-net leap to reach its sill. I gritted my teeth and pulled myself into the room. On the floor was a pair of binoculars a third of the size Badger used for a similar purpose earlier that night. The presence of the binoculars led me to wonder if more than just Tala was involved in the ransom. My mind leapt to Jeanette but I dispelled that notion, for now, anyway.
With the filing cabinet and desks and papers piled on top, it appeared to be an office to a still-operating business. I remained at the foot of the window and strained my ears for any sounds coming from the other rooms. It was as quiet as the street outside. The only sound in my ears was from my own heartbeat thumping away. I made my way to the door, careful not to trip on anything and call attention to my presence.
The hallway was empty. The only light came from the room to my left. I stood for what felt like twenty minutes but was just a single minute. I took out my cell and texted to Hector and Badger.
“I’M INSIDE”
The reply was immediate. From whom, I wasn’t sure, but the phone buzzed in my hand and broke the silence in the hallway.
I thought I heard a click. I waited, my eyes fixed on the door a few feet from me, but nothing came out. I detected movement inside, or rather, the faintest shift in the half-light as something, or someone, passed in front of the light’s source. I concentrated on my breathing but nothing could suppress the sounds emanating from my chest. It felt like anyone outside on the street could hear my panicked attempts at air.
The barrel of a gun slowly emerged from behind the door jam, then the pudgy hand that held onto it. Tala fully stepped out of the room. She seemed focused in the opposite direction at the stairwell that led below. It hadn’t occurred to her that someone might be behind her.
I could have done several things — rush her while my position was still unknown, turn back into the darkened room and leap to safety onto the loading dock roof below — but I did nothing. These were options somewhere in the recesses of my mind but they never fully emerged.
As if sensing something behind her, she slowly turned and faced me. She looked around with a slightly perplexed look. I watched her go through the thought process as she put the pieces together — someone found me, it isn’t the police, he is alone. The gun raised ever so slightly, the grip firmed up on the butt.
There was a whirr of black behind her as a figure moved forward with mechanical, almost robotic efficiency. A face was illuminated in the light from the room — Hector’s impassive stare — and then disappeared as he slid in behind her. There was a glint of silver metal, then an arm came over the one holding the gun, and I heard something that I thought sounded like a woman’s laugh, but wasn’t. I watched how effortlessly the arm with the gun came down. The hallway flashed bright, followed by a roar as the gun discharged a bullet into the floorboards. I covered one of my ears, trying desperately to get at the dull tone drilling inside my head.
It looked like Tala wanted to sit down, to rest a spell after a long day of work at the hospital. Hector obliged by hooking one arm under her shoulder and gently lowering her down. She sat there on her folded up legs in an awkward pose on the floor. One arm propped her upright but strained under the weight and didn’t look like it would hold much longer. As the ringing in my ears subsided, I heard it.
The sounds coming out of her were a quiet plea that I knew would go unanswered. They were so feminine and fragile. And I fought the urge to rush to her side and if nothing else, just hold her in my arms. Instead, I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to watch it. But the sound didn’t go away.
I’d never heard anything like that in my life and I wished to all’s end that I never would again.
&nb
sp; NO KIDS
Badger showed up a short time later and surveyed the scene. When he saw the body lying in the hallway, he calmly approached and felt for a pulse on Tala’s neck even though by the way she lay there it was clear she was dead. He used the backs of his fingers, felt nothing, then rose and checked his watch. It felt to me like the moves of someone whose next move was to flee and pretend he was never there — no fingerprints on the skin, no evidence at all to place him at the scene. I expected him to request that Hector and I leave him out of the entire story we told the police. And I didn’t blame him in the least. He had more experience than I did in what lay ahead for us and he was wise to not want to experience it.
“It’s ten-forty,” he announced. “We call 911 first but we call our lawyers immediately afterwards. Let’s make sure we have the numbers handy because this thing will go down faster than you ever thought possible.”
Badger wasn’t running, and I felt sorry for doubting him. He called 911 and told them the minimum amount of facts. It appeared like the operator was trying to pump him for more information but he hung up on them. He then dialed his lawyer and filled him in. I took Badger’s lead and called the only lawyer I knew, my ex-wife Claire. As a commercial real estate attorney she knew nothing about criminal law, but she was all I had. I also held this growing need to be near someone I knew and Claire was the closest person I had in all of Los Angeles.
I got her voicemail.
“Claire, it’s me. I think I am about to be arrested. I am in Chinatown so not sure where I will be held. Can you help?” Before I hung up, I felt the need to add, “Sorry to bother you with this. I’m in trouble.”
Hector didn’t call anyone. Badger and I pleaded with him, but he ignored our requests. I thought of calling Valenti directly but worried that would only complicate matters. Hector could have easily placed the call to the old man himself but he chose not to. I didn’t know his reasons but I respected them.
The Eternal Summer (Chuck Restic Private Investigator Series Book 2) Page 18
