“When you’re done with the beer I need you to get to the magazine racks. Fucking kids got ’em all messed up again,” Mo says over his shoulder. I already did the racks. Great stuff there: “DOG-FACED MAN MARRIES WORLD’S HAIRIEST WOMAN!,”“ABDUCTED WOMAN GIVES BIRTH TO TWIN ETs,” and “FAITH HEALER CURES MOVIE STAR WITH CRYSTALS!”
The beer is in the storeroom, which is also the office. The room itself is a mess, but I know where everything is. For example, the Michelob is against the far wall, which is north from the doorway. Domestic beers line the west wall, except for where the desk is. I get the Michelob and take it out to Mo.
“Thanks, Charlie. Listen, catch the racks later. Some kid just dropped a bottle of SoBe over by the video games. Gotta get it mopped up. Get all the goddamn glass, OK?”
“You got it, Mo,” I tell him, and head back for the storeroom, where the mop is.
In the storeroom, I’m about to reach for the mop, but I’m really thinking about the desk. It’s cluttered on top with paperwork and receipts, candy bar wrappers and Styrofoam coffee cups. I sit down in front of it—on the wall in front of me is a calendar. A girl with enormous breasts spilling out of a bikini sits on a motorcycle, looking through me and smiling. She’s part Asian, and a chill of rage goes through me as I see Tanya, taunting me from the chopper.
In the top right drawer is a gun. I take it out. It’s a Walther P38-K and the clip is full. I put it back and close the drawer.
Another time, during college, I worked in one of those little photo huts in a supermarket parking lot. FAST-FOTO, it was called. I would look at the pictures and then seal them back in their packets. The people would come. A packet to the worried-looking woman in the beat-up sedan. Her pictures were of a young girl in a leg-brace walking on the beach, blowing out candles, opening presents, and smiling on a playground swing; in this last shot the brace is right out front. A packet to the teenage boy in a Jeep, with its loud, rumbling engine. He seemed to like taking photos of marijuana plants. They were in a series: growing in the yard, hanging upside-down from a clothesline, drying in the sun, and, finally, stuffed neatly into clear bags and displayed on a bed. A packet to the man in the red sports car—he had photographs of turds in a toilet, six of them. Photos, that is. The rest were of his car in a driveway. And Mo calls me strange.
I’m losing focus. I wheel the mop and bucket out to the game area. It’s packed into a corner, past the magazines, at the end of the aisle where the canned goods are. Three kids are playing at the games, dressed alike in jeans and long tee shirts. They all have the same sneakers and haircuts, short on the sides, spiky on top. I try to move into position to clean up the SoBe under the middle machine, Invisible Enemy.
“Hey, Pop, you’re messin’ up my game.”
“I have to clean up under there,” I tell him.
“I got high score of the day and three fuckin’ rockets left, dude,” says the kid. These kids could play forever on one quarter. I mop at the edge of the puddle by his foot.
“You better not mess with Bobby’s game,” says one of the other boys, who just now ended his own battle with RoboCop. He looks about sixteen. I’m thinking it’s time to call Mo, but instead I push the wet mop up against Bobby’s tennis shoe.
“Hey! You mess with my game I’ll fuck you up,” Bobby says without looking up. He has a gold hoop in his ear. I yank the cord on the machine and bend Bobby over so his forehead touches the panel.
“Bobby?” I whisper, “Can you hear me?”
He tries to nod. His friends are edged up against the racks.
“Bobby, I am the Invisible Enemy and you’re all out of ships. What do you want to do?”
“Nothing, man. Let me go.”
“Bobby, I’ve been resurrected from the dead. What do you think of that?” I ask him.
“Nothin’. I think you’re a fuckin’ wacko.” He’s struggling now, but I have more to say.
“Wrong, Bobby. It’s life that’s wacko, son. It’s not me. Chew on that for a while. Here . . .” I straighten him up. I hand him the mop and slap a quarter on the game counter. “Try to get all of the glass.”
I turn around and walk down the aisle, past the magazines, past paper plates and Lipton tea, past the carousel with the sunglasses, past Mo, who’s punching up fifty dollars worth of Lotto tickets for an old lady—she buys her food here with welfare stamps—and on into the office. I take off my apron. The drawer sticks shut and for a moment I worry that it’s locked, but then it opens.
I’m in the parking lot now, the gun stuck in my pants. As I start my car I see Mo looking up from the register, a puzzled expression on his face.
Sorry, Mo.
15
I put the gun in my glove box. It would be legal in my trunk, but the Z doesn’t have one. My cellphone barks and I snatch at it. Caller ID tells me it’s a private number. I put it on speakerphone and clip it to my visor so I won’t get stopped for using it while driving.
“Sweatin’ a little?” A high, nasal voice, male. I know the voice, but I can’t place it.
“Who is this?”
“This is Jason Hamel. You’ve got something I want, I’ve got something you want, and I’m tired of fuckin’ around.” If this is Jason Hamel, he’s thrown out his scripture-quoting, righteous Christian act like it’s last night’s Halloween costume.
“Where’s my daughter? Put her on the phone, now.”
“Listen, you freak, I don’t know how you survived a bullet in your head, but I should have put another one between your eyes.” A whiney snarl in my ear, hard to square with the silver-maned gent on the website.
Confronted with my killer, I can only blurt, “MINDY . . . NOW,” a spastic shout while I swerve to avoid an SUV full of kids in baseball uniforms trying to make a left turn through the light that I was running. The Z’s on its own now, skidding at an angle until it mashes into a parked pickup truck full of furniture. The guy driving the SUV rolls down a window and yells, “What, are you crazy?” and drives away. I watch as the pickup driver starts to get out of his truck.
The voice on the phone says, “Stew on it a bit longer, bitch,” and clicks off. I do the prudent thing under the circumstances and peel out, heading toward the coast.
¤ ¤ ¤
It’s a hot and crowded day at the beach. I have to park off Main on Brooks and walk because I don’t have any money for beach-lot parking. I cut through a river of people milling on the boardwalk and past the park where the Rollerbladers skate to music blasting from a portable PA system and skateboarders perform tricks on a wooden ramp.
At the shoreline, children are wading in the shallow water. A skinny man in oversize flowered trunks stands knee deep in the surf; I watch a wave hit him in the chest and knock him over. I’m wandering now, still without a plan, clutching my cell phone and waiting for Jason Hamel to let me talk to my daughter.
I head south on the boardwalk, caught in the current of tourists and locals, hustlers and crazies, and other regulars roaming the strip between the shops and the beach. Kids dressed up like hippies from the sixties are hanging out, the girls wearing tie-dyes and granny glasses. Cops follow close on the heels of a group of five black teenagers wearing baggy pants, oversize tee shirts, and identical basketball shoes. A turbaned man playing a guitar glides by on Rollerblades, weaving through the slow-moving crowd.
To my right, on the perimeter of the sand, are the vendors, their wares laid out on colorful blankets; jewelry and carved wood, stone pipes with screens in them, pottery, and herbal health potions. I navigate around a knot of people crowded around two jugglers throwing flaming kerosene-dipped torches, a volunteer onlooker now standing in the line of fire as the burning sticks sail behind and in front of him, only inches away. Wild-eyed panhandlers pick on the tourists at the edge of the throng.
North of Thornton, the crowd thins out. I’m about to turn back when I notice a familiar figure in the sand. He looks up and grins.
“Hey, my mon, Charlie, I been waiting on you.�
�� It’s Daniel, sitting at a card table full of small prisms and colored-glass pyramids. At the center of the table is a deck of odd-looking cards and a placard that says, “Past, present, future, right here, right now, only ten dollars.”
“Sit down, sit down. Good to see you, mon.” Daniel gestures for me to sit in the empty chair at his table. A bearded dwarf wearing only speedos and wraparound sunglasses is bearing down on me, pulling a cart with a legless man playing a Cajun waltz on an accordion. Daniel whistles and says, “Some mighty strange people we got here. And I seen plenty strange.”
“I’ll bet you have,” I say, taking a seat. “I don’t have time for chit-chat. I’m in a jam, big time.”
Daniel grins again and says, “Charlie Miner, battling de forces of evil, all by himself.” Why he thinks this is funny, I don’t know, but it’s pissing me off.
I gesture toward the prisms and cards on the table. “So what’s up with this bullshit?”
“Props, mon, all for show.”
“Props?” I turn over the top card of the deck. It shows a man hanging upside down. Or is the card upside down?
“De white mon don’t believe in direct knowledge of de hidden world. So he need to see juju, voodoo, mumbo jumbo. Props . . .” He makes a gesture of dismissal at the items on the table. “They are not necessary for seeing.”
“And what do you see for me? Somebody’s got to see something, because I’m flying blind.”
“For you?” Daniel locks eyes with mine, seeming to stare right into me. “In you I see a sickness of de mind and spirit.” He pauses and seems to consult some inner voice. “Give me your hand.”
I hesitate. I don’t need some charlatan’s crap about my planets being out of alignment. On the other hand, this guy has definitely got an angle I’ve never seen before. I let him take my hand.
A current passes between us, powerful but gentle. Daniel grips my hand and closes his eyes, then opens them and says, “Commune with your spirit to begin healing.”
“Commune with my spirit?”
“You’ve been given a chance to heal. Death hasn’t been allowed to touch you. Do not leave your body for too long, or He will have his way and collect you.” Totally uninflected English, without a hint of an accent.
“What’s too long?” And how does Daniel know about roaming?
“You will know. You can feel it when it’s close.” I remember the panic that almost took me at Tanya’s hotel room. Daniel’s hand relaxes and lets go of mine.
“That’s it?”
“For now, yes.”
“They have my daughter.”
“Yes, the man who took your life.”
“How do you know that?”
Daniel laughs, then shrugs. “I see it.”
“I know who you are now.”
“That’s good. We’ve been worried about you.”
“What happened to me?”
“You were part of the twenty percent.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We have an eighty percent recovery rate. Four out of five of our patients are clean after a year.”
“And the twenty percent . . . ?”
“Well . . .” Daniel picks up the hanging-man card and shows it to me. “Some have psychotic breaks and are never the same, and some completely repress the whole experience. Like you. We brought you home and I watched you go back to using as if nothing had ever happened.”
“How does all this explain my condition?”
“There’s no answer to that, except that we’ve seen it before.”
“There are others?”
“Yes, Charlie Miner. You’re looking at one.”
There’s nothing left to say.
I look up as Daniel nods toward the passing carnival. A pair of female body builders approaches, hard round breasts pushing against identical British-flag bikini tops. One of them is carrying a Chihuahua, taut and wiry, against her muscular tan body.
I shake my head after the women pass. “You know what they say about making love to a gorilla?”
“What’s dat?” Now he’s back to doing the Rasta thing.
“You’re not through until the gorilla’s through.”
Daniel grins and says, “Dat’s what dey say about heroin.”
“Yeah, it’s like that too.”
16
Tanya’s phone chirps in my pocket. I don’t recognize the number, but then why should I? I flip it open anyway and Tanya screams at me. I’m walking up Brooks, back to my car, listening to her rant about stealing her car and how dare I fuck her and run after she got me out of jail. I wait until she runs out of steam and say, “Sounds like you finally got a good night’s sleep, sweetheart.”
“Don’t you sweetheart me, asshole. I’m calling the cops.”
“I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you tell me exactly where this Jason Hamel lives so I can try and get my daughter back that he KIDNAPPED AFTER BURNING DOWN MY FUCKING HOUSE?” I’m screaming now, and people are stopped on the sidewalk and staring at me.
A big tourist in an “I Love Venice Beach” tee shirt says, “Hey fella, watch your language.” He’s shielding his wife and two little kids as if I’m a hyena loose from the zoo. I keep walking.
“He what?” Tanya sputters. I repeat myself, quietly this time. Save the rage. Focus.
“That’s crazy, Charlie, he’s not like that at all.”
I tell her Cal’s version of the fire and about the phone call.
“He called you a bitch? He must have gone completely insane. What are you going to do?”
“As soon as you tell me where he lives, I’m going to track his sorry ass down and make this right.” Now there’s a plan to admire, but I do have at least one useful tool on my side. Like I’m not afraid of guns.
“Charlie . . .”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“I need my car. And my phone. And I’m sorry.”
I tell her where the BMW is, keys under the seat. Can’t help her with the phone, I’m on a mission. She gives me an address: 2412 East Rustic Road in Santa Monica Canyon.
She’s sorry.
¤ ¤ ¤
What’s really sorry is the condition of the Z, with its front end all mashed in and the hood buckled. And the parking ticket. But who gives a shit at this point?
I buckle up and take off, turning north on Main. Rustic Canyon is a neighborhood embedded in Santa Monica Canyon, a funky-rich world of its own between the beach and Sunset Boulevard.
My phone barks. My ex-wife. I’m not in the mood, but she might have heard from Mindy. I flip the phone open.
“You fucking prick! I call your home line, your office line, your fucking cell phone, Mindy’s cell, and nobody has the courtesy to fucking pick up?” She’s snarling at me. I should be used to it but I’m not. It’s why I left. It’s why Mindy had to leave. Sober, Allison is cold and sharp and keeps her acid voice level. I prefer her drunk.
“I thought she was with you.” Truth, the first casualty of war, and the white flag is in shreds. I hang up.
Tanya’s phone rings. I’m heading down the California Incline toward the Pacific Coast Highway. Caller ID says “Alan Hunter.” Might be an interesting conversation, but now’s not the time.
A right on Entrada gets me into the Canyon. A few twists and turns and I’m on East Rustic, which dead-ends at 2412. A jungle of sycamore and ivy, out of control Korean boxwood hedge competing with bougainvillea, an open gate and a long curving driveway.
I take the Z slow up the bumpy driveway, crunching gravel. I get past a bend to the right and see the house, a traditional Spanish bungalow restored to showcase condition in the midst of vegetation gone wild. Under a picture window, up against the house, there’s a perfectly tended rose garden. I turn off the engine and hear dogs yapping. I pull the gun from my glove compartment, tuck it in my pants, and button my jacket to cover it.
Dogs yap furiously as I approach the door. It opens before I knock. I’m standing face
to face with a mild-mannered gent, slender with silver hair and round, wire-rimmed glasses. He’s wearing an Argyle cardigan sweater, gray flannels, and oxblood loafers with shiny pennies in them. Old school. The dogs are golden cocker spaniels and they shut up when the guy makes a little gesture with his hand.
“Can I help you?” This is not the guy who told me to “stew on it a bit longer, bitch.” Who said he was Jason Hamel. But he is the guy from the mining website, which makes him the real Jason Hamel. Identity theft? Multiple Personality Disorder? I’m clearing my throat and trying to decide whether to pull out my gun or apologize for bothering him, but he glances over at my car and says, “You must be Mr. Miner. Come in, please.”
I follow him into an attractive, bright, and spacious living room. The picture window looks out on a short yard and a view of the canyon. Hamel gestures for me to sit on the sofa. My back is to the window. He sits opposite me in a richly upholstered dark leather chair.
“I hope you brought the documents?” He says, businesslike, but pleasant. The gun wants to come out, but I keep my cool.
“The documents aren’t the issue right now, Mr. Hamel. My daughter has been kidnapped and nothing else is going to happen until she’s safe with me.”
He stares at me, blinking furiously, then looks down at his feet. He pulls a cell phone out of his pocket, hits some keys, and hands it to me.
“Is this your daughter?”
And there’s Mindy, her black eye makeup smeared, her hair wild with its streak of green, looking at the camera like a feral cat about to reach out and slash someone.
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