Edge of the Pit

by Bill Thesken

  “Look at the way you’re dressed,” said Bulldog. “Black suit and tie you look like a detective, no one will tell you anything unless you have a warrant, and you ‘aint a cop.”

  “We’ll ask some kids if they’ve seen him around, they like cops. I’ll flash my private eye license real fast, like it’s a badge.”

  “They’ll throw rocks at you,” said Bulldog. He checked his watch. “It’s nearly five o’clock, it’ll be dark soon.”

  Private eyes, trained and true they both looked as one as a small car passed by with a very attractive brunette driving. She had her driver’s side window down and her hair curled away from her face in the gentle breeze, piling onto her well-formed shoulders covered in a crisp white blazer. Their heads turned as she passed following her with their eyes. She kept her head straight ahead although it must have been apparent that they were staring at her.

  “Nice Betty,” said Bulldog.

  “She’s got it going on,” said Eraser, then he whipped his head around again as it came to him, she was wearing a white uniform, he’d seen that face before. “That’s the nurse from the hospital. I’m sure of it.” He eyed the license plate and pulled a pen and notepad from the glove box and wrote it down.

  “Maybe we should follow her,” said the Bulldog.

  “Naw, I got an idea,” said Eraser. “She looked like she was heading to work. Looked like she just got in the car and was letting it air out a bit with the window down. I’ve got an idea she lives somewhere around here. This is just too much of a coincidence. We’re staying right here. Her name is Amber, I remember that much.” He got out his E-tablet and punched into the agency database system. Their set-up was way better than the cops. They could quickly search for anyone’s phone, address, credit report and police record with just a name or a license plate. He could find out what color they liked, where they shopped, what their favorite food was, and look at their online media accounts, within seconds. He punched in the license plate number and the name Amber and her whole life unfolded on the screen. Single, divorced, twenty eight, height weight, medical records, pictures, bank accounts, credit cards, address.

  “She lives at 2807 West Figueroa, apartment 3G. We’re currently sitting at 2607 West Figueroa.”

  “That’s two blocks from here,” said Bulldog.

  Eraser looked at his partner, his eyebrows arched. “That’s a coincidence. What do you think the odds might be that he’s shacking up with the nurse?”

  18.

  The phone in the apartment rang loudly five times slowly and methodically, ringing and ringing like it expected me to pick it up, and I just stared at it, a little light headed with a sore leg. I stayed put on the couch with my leg propped in the air on a bunch of fluffy pillows, and watched the phone in case it jumped off the kitchen counter and I had to catch it.

  Then the answering machine clicked on and I could hear a generic greeting in a monotone robot voice. Amber was smart not to record her own voice I thought, too many weirdos in this world, might think she lived alone. And then her voice came on the recorder. It was agitated, and loud.

  “Badger this is Amber, pick up the phone, pick up the phone, please pick up the phone. PICK UP THE PHONE!”

  Alright,alright, what’s the rush. I struggled to get off the couch. My name is Badger, but I feel like I’m the one being badgered. I hobbled to the kitchen and found the receiver and picked it up.

  “Hi Amber, everything okay?” The medication they’d given me was lingering and my words came out as slow as molasses on a frosty morning.

  “I don’t think so Badger. As I was driving to work just now I passed a car with two guys sitting in it a couple of blocks from my apartment. They were staring at me, and I think they recognized me from the hospital. It’s the two guys from the agency who were in the hospital room with you. One of the guys I’m certain is the one you knocked unconscious and put in the bed.”

  I thought as quickly as I could in my walled up mental state. A couple of blocks from here was where the cabbie let me out last night. He must have squealed when he saw the reward on the TV.

  “How long ago did you pass them?”

  “Two minutes. I went around a corner and pulled over to call you.”

  “I have to go. This is very important, now listen carefully, they’ll be able to trace me to your apartment pretty quickly, so you can’t come back here, you’ll have to stay at a hotel or with a friend for a couple of days. Find a good lawyer, not a cheap lawyer, a good one and put him on a retainer, I’ll pay you back. Tell him everything, the truth, the agency at the hospital drugging me up, I forced you to take me in that first night, and last night you took me in and helped me when I was hurt, it’s your duty as a nurse, nothing more. Get it on paper in case you need it. I won’t be back to bother you anymore and thank you for your help so far.”

  “Badger wait..”

  I cut her off, hung up the phone and got dressed. It wasn’t easy putting on my pants, I could barely bend my left knee and finally had to sit on the couch to accomplish the task. Guns, ammo, pepper spray, zapper, all tucked quickly away in pockets and holsters, grabbed the money and stopped for a millisecond to listen and plan. They were on their way. They might even be climbing the stairs right now. I pulled the curtain on the front window to the side, peered out and could see a shiny black car pull into the lot across the street and maneuver behind a wall.

  There was a back glass slider door that opened out onto a small porch area, just big enough to put out a chair, and have a smoke or drink after work or read the paper and have a view of the city. It doubled as a fire escape and a metal ladder angled down from the side towards the lower floor. It looked rusty and untrustworthy, so I climbed on slowly and let myself down to the balcony below.

  The slider on this floor was shut tight and the curtains drawn. There was a single chair and small table and the rest of the lanai was covered with potted plants like a mini forest. From here you had to physically lower the remaining ladder section to the ground below, and I got prepared to swing it down when I saw the movement at the corner of the building.

  It was the Eraser, gun drawn and sliding around the corner and along the wall, all the while looking up at the third floor windows. I crouched, trying to make myself very small like the plants surrounding me. His partner must on the opposite side of the building doing the same thing, getting ready to climb the stairs stealthily and quiet and then kicking the door down.

  I was trapped. I looked at the window that I’d just come from and was relieved to see that I’d closed it. Through a crack in the lanai I could also see Eraser cautiously looking up at the windows and counting in his head. He wasn’t sure which window belonged to the apartment I’d been in. He inched along until he was just about under the lanai I was crouching on, and looking up at the next door neighbors lanai.

  “A little bit closer buddy”, I was whispering, “just a little bit to the side”.

  I peered cautiously over the railing and he was right below me, looking up at the wrong window, face turned away from me, so I slid my good leg over the railing and dropped down on top of him.

  At the last split second he heard a small noise and whirled around and looked up just in the nick of time to see the bottom of my shoe meet his face with a crack. He broke my fall with his face, gun clattering to the side, and we crumpled to the ground with him piled under me and I heard him groan as I knocked the wind out of him.

  He was wiry like a cat on his back and tried to twist up and out from under me. Dust rose in a heap around us as he tried to push me off, and I gave him a short left hook to the chin, and karate chopped him on the L-18 ligament for good measure. I checked his pulse, still alive, neck not broken, but out cold. I looked through his pockets and grabbed his wallet from his pocket, and his gun that was laying on the side, and scanned the perimeter.

  A couple of kids had been playing in the empty scrub filled lot next door, and they were now looking straight at me, eyes wide with fear at the
sudden violent action. I put my index finger to my lips in the universal ‘be quiet’ signal. Their mouths were hanging open and as soon as they realized I was looking at them, they turned and hightailed it out of there. I followed suit, but in the opposite direction.

  I looked back and up at Amber’s third floor balcony, but saw no movement at the slider. The other guy was probably taking his time getting into the apartment, thinking that the back escape route was covered. He was wrong. When I got to the corner of the building I peeked around and saw a row of dirty metal trash cans and dropped the gun into the first one, put the wallet in the second, and headed for the street, and patted the dust off my pants as I walked.

  In the rush of the moment I’d forgotten that I had an injured leg and as I strolled calmly towards the street I had to physically offset the pain to keep from limping. I didn’t want anything about me to make people look at me, to recognize me from the picture on TV. I needed to blend in. I pulled the baseball cap lower and angled my head towards the ground, and stood waiting on the curb and waved down the first cab I saw. He pulled cautiously to the curb and I gingerly slid into the back seat and was instantly polite and well-spoken with an Australian accent.

  “Thanks mate, good on ya to pick me up. Nice town you got here. Ows about taking me to the center of town so I can ave a look around?”

  He was a middle aged Chicano, Myles Rodriguez read the license over the front passenger seat. Chicano with a born and bred SoCal accent.

  “The center of town? That’s a five mile wide area buddy, can you be a little more specific?”

  “Anywhere near the center is fine mate, I’m just here on ‘oliday, havin a look around is all. No worries.”

  “Aussie?”

  “Yeah right, Melbourne. First time in the states mate. First class town you got here, lots of pubs and friendly people I’d say.”

  He shook his head. “Depends on where you go I guess. Some parts aren’t so nice pal. I’d stay out of Compton if I was you.”

  “Why, don’t they like tourists out that way?”

  “Sure, they like ‘em well enough I guess. They eat ‘em for breakfast. Fried, roasted, raw, doesn’t matter. They’ll chop you up and put you in a blender for a smoothie.”

  I could see him trying to get a better look at me in the rear view mirror and I kept my face turned to the side while looking out the passenger window. I needed a car, a used one, the kind a school teacher or a nun would drive. Small, non-descript and blend-in-able. Somewhere on this route there would be a used car dealership. Public transportation was getting too dangerous and I needed to be mobile.

  “So what,” he continued. “Are you like that crocodile guy in the movies, here on a walkabout?” He looked in the rear view mirror again trying to pin me down. “Are you part aborigine or something?”

  Why couldn’t I get a cabbie that minded his own business? This guy was so chatty he should be a barber or a bartender. He thought I was a tribesman from the bush, and I rubbed my cheek and looked at my hand, maybe I had dirt on my face from my scramble back there with the Eraser.

  “Yeah, might be some of the wildness in there from an ancestor or two, you never can tell mate.” I kept up the small talk to keep him too busy to look at me, keep him driving and talking rather than driving and checking me out. I couldn’t blame the taxi driver from last night ratting me out to the cops, but I didn’t want it to happen again. “What about you mate?” I asked him. “Are you a Native American?” Throwing him a curveball.

  He laughed and then seemed offended. “No, I’m not an Indian buddy. Do you even know what an Indian looks like? I’m fifth generation Chicano, man. My Great Grandpa came to California in nineteen oh one to work in the oil fields right back there in La Brea where I picked you up. Those were boom times man, and he never left. Picked up a wife and started a family. A big family, ten kids. And those ten kids all had ten kids and so on. We’re Rodriguez, from Michoacán., but we’re Americans now through and through, and we’re everywhere in the city pal. Look up the name Rodriguez in the phone book and there’s about twenty five pages worth. You can’t hardly throw a rock in a crowd without hitting one of us. But I wouldn’t recommend it.” He held up his fist and shook it as a warning.

  Up ahead on the left side of the boulevard I could see thirty foot tall flagpoles with brightly colored flags waving in the wind, ten of them in all with the words alternating: Sale, Autos, Buy. Not very subliminal, but very effective. They got my attention. I made sure the driver couldn’t see my eyes as I looked at the lot as we passed. I barely glanced at it but took it all in like a high speed camera. There were over a hundred cars in the lot squeezed in from every angle. Big cars, little cars, shiny cars and dull ones. I waited until we’d gone a couple of blocks and I told him to pull over. I could tell he was a little disappointed and wanted to talk to his new Aussie friend some more. I handed him a twenty and told him to keep the change and he gave me a business card in return.

  “Call me if you need another ride, okay? And remember, stay out of Compton. Say, you never told me your name. What kind of name do Aussie’s have anyways?”

  “Kelly’s the name, Peter Kelly. My ancestor was a prisoner from Ireland sent to colonize Australia in the 1700’s, and he never left either. Bloody oath mate, you can throw a slab into a crowd and hit a Kelly. Funny world.”

  He was puzzled. “What’s a slab?”

  “A pack of beers.” I took the card, closed the door and watched as he sped away into traffic, and sure enough, there on the back of the yellow taxi, emblazoned in neon pink was the word ‘Rodriguez’.

  19.

  As soon as the taxi was well out of sight I doubled back to the car lot and crossed the street. It was empty, no customers today which made it perfect timing for me. A trailer sized office set on pilings was on the side of the lot with a staircase leading up to the door which was closed. A big sign above the door read OPEN. Floor to ceiling windows lined the front of the building and they were glazed with a silver reflective coating. Guaranteed someone was in the building standing in front of one of the windows, and looking out at me right now. Sizing me up, looking me over, figuring out the angle he was going to take on selling me a car right here and right now. Whoever it was, he didn’t know how easy he was going to have it. I surveyed the scene for a couple of minutes as I walked, then stopped in front of a nice suburban van and kicked the front tire and peered into the driver’s side window. I tried the door but it was locked. What the hell, this wasn’t the car I wanted anyways but I wanted someone to come out and show me around. I had five thousand dollars burning a hole in my pocket and I needed a car right now.

  I saw the one I wanted, had it picked out even as I walked across the street. On the back row, tucked into a corner, a small white passenger car practically hidden by the tall SUV’s around it. It was downright insignificant in appearance, dull, neutral and boring, no one would ever want to look at it twice. If it ran it was perfect. Finally, I saw in the reflection of the car window, behind me the office door swung open and out strolled a slick salesman, late middle aged, around forty eight or fifty years old I estimated, straightening his tie and cinching up his slacks as he made his way down the stairs.

  “How’re you doing today?” he asked with a wide smile, white teeth gleaming in the glare of the overhead lights, with his hand out. “Bob is my name, they call me big Bob, glad to meet you.”

  I shook his hand. “How do, name’s Tex Parker. Mighty fine lineup ya got cheer.”

  He took a step back and whistled. “You from Texas, that how you got your name?”

  “Yessir,” I said. “Born and raised in the Lone Star state. Got transferred here yesterday for my job in the phone company and I need a vehicle.”

  “Well you came to the right place son. And just in time too, I reckon.” An old salesman trick, mirroring his customer’s traits, trying to make like he was a hick like me. “I noticed you limping a little when you was walking up here, time to get you off your feet
and into a nice ride.”

  Damn, he noticed my limp. “Yep,” I admitted. “I’m used to wearing cowboy boots, but they got me wearing these here city slicker shoes and I’ll be damned if I got me a couple of blisters the size of Dallas.”

  He laughed at that and put his arm around my shoulders and maneuvered me over to the row of trucks. “One of these will make you feel right at home young man. As you can see, these are Texas sized trucks, V-8, four by four, lifted, fat tires and rims, and ready for action, son.”

  The guy smells like gin and I think if he calls me ‘son’ one more time I might have to bust his lip. I flexed my knuckles just in case.

  He continued on. “Now, all our vehicles are inspected by a top notch mechanic at an independent facility, and are virtually free of any defects, mechanically or otherwise. You can rest assured that when you buy a car from big Bob, you can rest at ease. Now which one of these trucks do you want to test out?” He smiled at me hopefully.

  I shook my head. “None of ‘em. I have to drive long distances for my job and I need to have good…, no make that great gas mileage. I’m a conservative.” I pointed to the car I had picked out. “How much for that little white car sitting back there?”

  He grimaced. “That car?” He was sorely disappointed. His commission was going down by the minute. “You don’t want that car son, it’s…it’s.” He was at a loss for words. “It’s not a very manly car to be blunt. That car is made for a little old lady, bottom line. You heard the saying about the little old lady from Pasadena? Well that’s her old car, she traded it in cause it made her look too old.” He smiled and was having fun with me, but I was in a hurry and it was time to take him down a notch.

  I took a step back with a serious demeanor and sized him up. “What are you trying to say about my taste in a vehicle? Do you want to sell a car today or not?” Bluffing that I was pissed off.