Racers of the Night: Science Fiction Stories by Brad R. Torgersen

by Brad R Torgersen

  “You would know,” Josefina snarled, her vehemence plain.

  I felt my face flush. “Goddammit, I’m sorry I was such a pendejo when I was here the other night. Okay, alright, would I be thrilled if my daughter came home having gone Special? No. Frankly, it would kind of freak me out.”

  Josefina turned away from me, but I grabbed her elbows with both arms and forced her to look at me—no small feat, given she had me by twelve inches and twenty-plus years.

  “But she’d still be my daughter,” I said, looking up into Josefina’s enraged eyes with all of the sincerity I could muster, “and regardless of who or what she’d become, I’d never stop loving Angela with all my heart and soul. She’s … she’s one of the only decent things I have left to show for myself! Her and Adam, my son.”

  Josefina’s lips quivered, and tears openly flooded out into the feathers on her face, dropping across them to land on the lapels of my jacket.

  She sank down to her knees, fists balled on my stomach, and began to sob into my chest. Almost reflexively I wrapped my arms around her head, again marveling at the incredible softness of the inhuman plumage that had replaced her hair. I found myself quietly whispering in Spanish, the same reassurances I had often given to Angela and Adam when they’d woken screaming from a nightmare. Josefina’s long arms circled the small of my back and almost crushed me as I held her, her wings gently and reflexively quivering along her back.

  “We’ll find who did this to Elvira,” I said. “I promise you.”

  • • •

  Josefina went to work that night, and I went home to my own apartment in Culver City. After unsuccessfully trying to reach Carlita on her cell phone, and next Angela on her cell phone, I collapsed into bed feeling extraordinarily exhausted. I wondered—until sleep took me—about the anglo woman who liked flamingos.

  In the morning I appeared at the Aerie, prepared for another day of quietly subtle poking and prodding, when one of the other security guys not so gently told me I was to report to Madam Arquette’s office immediately. That there was trouble was obvious, so I grimaced and made my way up through the building until I reached the penthouse office suite, unofficially referred to by us guards as The Nest. I rapped on the frosted glass double doors that separated Madam Arquette’s world from the reality outside it.

  The doors parted, humming open on motorized hinges.

  I saw Josefina, standing near Madam Arquette’s desk, her head down towards the floor. She wouldn’t look at me, though Madam Arquette herself stared across the room with the malice of a diving falcon. The Madam was naked, but for her layer of plumage, her breasts dappled with blues and purples.

  “Come in, Mister Soto,” said the Madam in her characteristic French-laced accent.

  I entered, realizing that I’d never actually been in the Nest proper before. Three walls were nothing but glass that looked out on the smog and bustle of the city. To our west we could see the heaped metal skyscape of Los Angeles, baking nicely in the advancing morning sun. I had to tear myself away from the unexpectedly impressive view when the Madam cleared her throat and indicated a huge leather chair in front of her desk, a feather-coated hand flourishing artfully.

  I slowly but purposefully took a seat.

  “Monsieur Soto,” said the Madam, “Josefina here was caught snooping into the master schedule. It is forbidden by contract for any employee to research or view the schedule of any other employee. Our clientele demand the strictest discretion. What do you suggest be done about this matter?”

  “Madam,” I said, “Josefina was acting purely under my direction. I take full responsibility for the breach of company directive.”

  Madam Arquette simply stared at me, then stood up from her stool—her wings resplendent with emerald and sapphire feathering—and walked around her desk to stand imposingly over me.

  “You are privately investigating the death of Elvira,” the Madam said.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “You realize that if word were to get out that client information had been leaked to either a security firm or the police, the Aerie would be ruined.”

  “Yes.”

  “I could even bring civil charges against you and Josefina both for grossly and negligently violating your contracts. What do you have to say about that?”

  I raised my hands out to my side, palms up, and said, “you have to do what you feel is the right thing, Madam.”

  She stared down at me, her eyes brilliantly lit up with fury, then turned and walked quickly to the wall of windows that looked out over the city, her very-high platform heels making clock-clock sounds on the polished simulated wood flooring.

  “Elvira was not the first girl to die here,” the Madam said, as if talking to the view outside the Aerie’s top floor. “Before you came to work for me, Monsieur Soto, I always managed to have the matter dispensed with discretely and at great legal difficulty. It was unfortunate what happened in those cases, but I’ve spent twenty years building this business up from nothing, and I was not going to allow a few mishaps to ruin everything.”

  “Her sister was murdered,” I said.

  “Yes I know that,” said the Madam.

  “And that means nothing to you?”

  “Do you take me for an animal?” the Madam said, spinning to face me, her wings rustling with tension. I elected not to speak the first answer which came to my mind.

  “I take you for a very focused businesswoman who has perhaps allowed the bottom line to get in the way of certain perspectives, about the people who work for you.”

  She seemed to evaluate that response, a tongue running along the inside of a cheek.

  “And if I have lost these perspectives, as you say, Monsieur, what do you propose be done about it?”

  “Give me information on one person, someone who saw Elvira many times, then suddenly stopped.”

  “Josefina has told me about her. I know of whom you speak, and she is a client of the highest social caliber. There is no way possible she is involved in this.”

  “But she might be someone who can tell us who is involved,” I said.

  “And what will this client think, when you show up at her doorstep, playing the investigator? The Aerie has an iron-clad reputation in this city, our clientele expect the utmost privacy. Even one exception could destroy us.”

  “And if I went to the Beverly Hills press, starting rumors that the Aerie allows killers to come and go on its premises, without prejudice? What do you think that will do to your excellent reputation?”

  Madam Arquette eyed me coldly. Then she turned to Josefina.

  “Leave us. You will do no more on this matter, or I will throw you out. Say nothing. To anyone. Is that understood? My quarrel is with the Monsieur now.”

  Josefina walked quickly out of the room, her own very-high platform heels going clock-clock, until the Madam and I were alone.

  She walked over and rested her buttocks on the edge of her frosted-glass desk.

  “You are an older man, experienced, why do you do this for a strange girl?”

  “Because someone has to do it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because some things just have to matter more than other things, and sometimes you can’t just turn away and make something disappear. Josefina couldn’t leave it alone, because it’s her sister.”

  “And you can’t leave Josefina alone, because … there are benefits I am not aware of? Security personnel are not allowed to solicit from the staff. That too is a violation.”

  “Bite your tongue, bitch, she’s young enough to be my daughter. And if you’d stopped cutting back on security staffing when I told you to, maybe Elvira would still be alive, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now, yes?”

  For the first time, the Madam’s eyes dropped to the floor.

  “I do not celebrate Elvira’s death, whatever else you may think of me.”

  “Prove it. Give me what I need to keep tunneling on this. If it goes nowhere,
that’s my fault. But I’ve got an old cop’s hunch, and I can’t move on it without your help. Josefina aside. Come on Madam, show me that the Aerie’s vaunted reputation is about more than just money.”

  Her eyes stayed on the floor for a very long time. Then she circled back around to the other side of her desk, sat on her stool, pantomimed some commands to the computer, and waited while a piece of hardcopy spat out of a nearby, slim-line printer.

  The Madam handed the copy across to me.

  “Get out of my office.”

  I looked at the paper, a tiny smile on my face, then popped up out of the chair.

  “With pleasure. Good day, Madam Arquette.”

  • • •

  The Madam had been right. The anglo lady who liked flamingos was of the old money Beverly Hills upper crust. I still didn’t have a real name, but I had an address and I had contact information. The split with her husband had not affected her lifestyle to a great degree, both of them being from wealthy families, and she still maintained a significant estate. One I’d be hard-pressed to visit with any degree of subtlety. So I did what I thought best. I sent her an anonymous text with an address for a public library, and attached a picture of a flamingo to it. Then waited at the Frances Howard Goldwyn branch for her arrival, at the date and time specified.

  I was not disappointed. Her designer womens’ suit and expensive sunglasses gave her away against the backdrop of working-class readers who lined the aisles and sat at the computer terminals. I was off in a corner, a hard-bound Audubon edition on Phoenicopteridae displayed prominently. I saw her before she saw me, but when she saw the cover on the book, she bee-lined over and sat down.

  “Who are you, and what’s happened to Elly?”

  “I am a family friend,” I said, keeping my voice low, to match hers. “And I am very sorry to say that Elly is dead.”

  The woman’s hand shot to her mouth, the small clutch in her other hand nearly falling to the floor.

  “My God,” she said, genuinely and horribly startled.

  “That’s what I need your help with,” I said. “I used to be a police officer, and am handling this matter privately for Elly’s family. I was hoping you could tell me about some of the last conversations you had with Elly when she was at the Aerie. You were intimate with the Aguilar’s daughter, were you not?”

  “No! I mean, well, yes, but no. Not in the way you’re thinking.”

  “Did Elly seem afraid of anyone, the last few times you were with her?”

  “No,” said the woman, slowly removing her sunglasses and reaching for a handkerchief in her clutch. Tears had begun to flow down her face.

  “Did she say anything about anyone at work? Someone who might have been bothering her?”

  “No,” said the woman.

  “Did you and Elly have any trouble? Maybe, a fight of some kind?”

  “I told you,” she said through sniffles, “we weren’t like that. Elly was … she was pure. And beautiful. More beautiful than anything or anyone I have ever seen. Graceful and poetic, yet young and playful in the way only … I don’t think I can explain it, Mister . . ?”

  “Rodriguez,” I said, reaching out a hand to shake hers. “Of the Los Taltos firm, out of Thousand Oaks.”

  “I’ve never heard of them,” she said.

  “Not many people have. We’re small, because it allows us to be discrete. Please know that anything you tell me today is in the strictest confidence.”

  She nodded, blowing quietly into the handkerchief.

  “So there was nothing amiss?” I said. “Nothing at all?”

  “No.”

  “Then what stopped you from seeing Elly last month?”

  The woman blew her nose one more time, and collected herself.

  “I did it for Elly’s sake. I could tell I was falling in love. Literally and truly. I was going to cross lines that would destroy Elly if I didn’t take myself away. And I couldn’t live with that. So one day I simply stopped making appointments.”

  “And you never saw her again after that?”

  “No.”

  I sat back in my chair, frowning deeply.

  “Mister Rodriguez, who would hurt that girl?”

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly.

  We sat for several moments, the woman staring at the tabletop. Then she looked up at me, her red eyes mournful.

  “There is one thing,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “Last time I was with Elly, she seemed distracted. Bothered. I asked her what was wrong, and she said her brother had called her from East Los Angeles, asking her to come home. She said they’d had an argument on the phone, then she’d laughed it off like it was no big deal. She and her brother had never gotten along, or so she said.”

  I mentally filed this as Very Important, and waited for the woman to continue.

  Which she didn’t.

  I finally stood up.

  “You’ve been helpful,” I said. “If you remember anything else, please contact me using this text address.”

  I handed her a plain white card with a number on it.

  “Again, strictest confidence,” I assured her.

  She took the card and put her sunglasses back on.

  “Mister Rodriguez,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “If you ever do find out what happened, please let me know?”

  “I can do that,” I said. And meant it.

  • • •

  Josefina’s apartment was even more messy than last time.

  “Antonio and Elvira never argued,” she said as she handed me a cup of hot, lightly sugared coffee. It was early morning, and she was just going to bed, while I was just getting ready to head back to the Aerie

  “The woman said they did,” I told her. “And you expressed to me that you thought there was no telling how much the family might hate you, after Elvira came out and went Special at your advice.”

  “Yes, but I expected them to hate me, not her.”

  “Would they have hated either one of you enough to kill?”

  “I could never think that …”

  “But?”

  “But, last time Papa and I spoke, he said I was dead to him.”

  “What about your brother?”

  “Antonio and Papa always got along. Like father, like son.”

  “Where is Antonio now?”

  “When he left home, he went to find work on the farms.”

  “Do you have an address?”

  “No, but I am betting my parents do.”

  “Do they have an address?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then it’s time for me to talk to your parents.”

  “No!”

  “Their daughter is dead. The city has already sent the official notification. If my daughter were dead like that, I’d sure as hell want someone to tell me why, or who had done it.”

  “No,” she insisted.

  “Josefina, do you really want to find out the truth?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Then let me finish this.”

  • • •

  The barrios of East L.A. weren’t a hell of a lot different from the barrios of Oakland. Row upon row of mid-20th century cheap housing that had slowly been churning through the hands of the poor over the last hundred years. The little bungalow I stopped at was a near carbon copy of the house where I’d grown up, and though they were older, the Aguilars were about what my Mom and Dad would have been, had my father not died young and left my other to struggle in solitude.

  Taking me for a city official—I neither confirmed nor denied that identity, as they welcomed me into the front room and offered me a cold glass of water—the Aguilars expressed deepest regret at the fate of Elvira.

  “Never should have let her go,” said Papa Aguilar. “It was bad enough when her older sister turned on the family.”

  “You had a falling out with Elvira’s older sister?” I said innocently.

  “She
is a pervert,” Papa Aguilar said. “Ran off and turned herself into an animal who screws rich gringos. Disgusting.”

  I experimentally swirled the icy water around in the scratched acrylic tumbler they’d given me.

  “I’m sorry that things didn’t turn out well for you and your daughters.”

  “You make it sound so neat and clean,” he snorted.

  Mama Aguilar placed a firm hand on his bicep, gave him a knowing look.

  “We have lost both our daughters,” Mama said. “Please forgive us if we are not as polite about it as we should be.”

  “Understandable,” I said, then took a drink.

  “At least we still have Antonio,” Mama said.

  “Your son?”

  “Yes, he’s been home from Santa Clara for a few months now. He’s earned some money, now we’re going to help him go back to school.”

  “What was he doing in Santa Clara?”

  Mama lead me into the kitchen, where she pulled a mason jar off the top of the refrigerator. It was filled with a viscous, golden substance. “Bee-keeping.”

  My hair stood on end.

  Mama handed me the jar of honey, and I hefted it experimentally, choosing my next words very, very carefully.

  “Did the coroner tell you exactly what caused Elvira’s death?”

  “Does it matter?” said Papa. “I got the notice. I crumpled it up and burned it without needing to read the fine print. Elvira was gone the moment she chose to follow her sister.”

  I carefully replaced the mason jar on top of the fridge.

  “Mister Aguilar,” I said, “did Antonio ever go visit either of his sisters after he came home?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes … well, I don’t think he did.” Papa’s eyes narrowed. “What are you getting at?”

  “If you’d read the full text of the coroner’s findings, you’d know that Elvira died because she’d been injected with bee venom.”

  Both of them froze in place, eyes narrowing at me, then slowly widening in comprehension.

  “La policía …” Papa Aguilar breathed.

  There was a slam as the back door opened and closed. Clomping footsteps came up the stairs, and a young, fit man appeared at the other doorway to the kitchen.