by Jesse Reiss
Chapter 33
She met Neil in the kitchen at 5:30 am, both bleary eyed and stiff, but she having applied some make-up so she wouldn’t — in her opinion — appear like an old hag to him. He gave her a smile and she instinctively hugged him. Though she had brushed her teeth, she didn’t yet know his morning oral habits and wasn’t going to let herself be surprised by some stinky morning breath, so didn’t kiss him. He had laid out bowls of cereal, which they ate with little discussion. He smiled every time they made eye contact. She saw with disbelief that he acted like she was transfixing to him.
“You’re beautiful first thing in the morning,” he said quietly as if picking up her thoughts.
“You’re joking, right? I must look hideous.”
“No. I’m serious. Other girls must envy you.”
Angelina blushed a little and brought her hand up to her face to shield him from looking at her. Trying not to smile, she said, “Can we not talk about this first thing in the morning?”
“Sure,” he said, smiling back at her as he put his bowl in the sink.
“It seems the only times you have seen me so far are at one in the morning when I’m covered in bandages or when I’m crying or when my house has burnt down or when I’ve gotten out of bed.”
“So are you saying on those non-bad hair days, I’m going to be completely blown away?”
She shielded her face with her two hands. “Okay, that’s enough! End of conversation!”
He laughed and pried her hands away, kissing her lightly on the forehead. Though he had just eaten, she detected a minty toothpaste smell and smiled.
He had prepared two travel mugs with coffee, which they grabbed and headed out to the garage.
A strong and warm Santa Ana wind had been blowing all through the night and continued to blow, creating a spooky howling sound and rattling the garage door. It was still dark when they pulled out with a faint hint of dawn. The roads down the mountainside were empty, but they took them slowly as the wind was pushing hard against the SUV and made the bushes and trees between the houses and streets sway this way and that. Neil was alert for fallen branches and palm leaves, having to skirt around a few on the way down.
Angelina was reminded of a story from three years earlier at her school’s soccer game, which she enthusiastically told him between sips of coffee. They had started the game in the afternoon with a calm sunny day and by halftime the wind was blowing so hard, the ball was traveling along by itself and the players were doing all they could to keep it on the ground and on the field. It had been strange because there were hardly any clouds — only strong gusts of warm wind. When the wind picked up even more, a wooden goal post had fallen forward, trapping the frightened goalie in the net. At that point the refs called the game and everyone had scrambled back to their cars to wait it out.
Her story was interrupted at Los Feliz Boulevard where they had to wait as several fire trucks went tearing up the street with their lights and sirens blaring. A couple smaller vehicles and a couple police cars followed them.
“Who needs an alarm clock when you live in LA, eh?” Neil commented as he took a left-hand turn, heading into Glendale.
They pulled into the parking lot at the bird sanctuary at 6:30 am. The sun wouldn’t be over the horizon for a little longer, but light was showing, giving an outline to everything. There were two other cars in the lot and the place was dark.
Ken was standing by the entrance near his bicycle, dressed entirely in black with a hoodie over his head, which he kept pulling down tight to prevent the wind from blowing it back. He looked like he was ready for a robbery. Angelina felt like she was the one incorrectly dressed in her blue jeans, white Converse and red Gap Favorite-T. He walked over to them as they got out from the SUV, looking around carefully before acknowledging their presence with a head nod.
“I didn’t think we had to dress for a bank heist,” Neil commented.
“Shhh!” Ken said, holding a finger to his lips and pointing to the sanctuary with his other hand. “You don’t want to spook the birds. Once one gets going, they’ll all get going.”
“Like this wind isn’t going to spook them enough?” Neil asked.
“Okay, okay,” Angelina said, getting annoyed with the cloak and dagger stuff, “let’s get this done and get out of here.”
“Payment first,” said Ken, holding out his hand.
She rolled her eyes and reached into her pockets, pulling out a gold coin and handing it to him.
He inspected it as if he could personally ascertain its authenticity and was deciding if the payment was enough. He eventually pocketed the coin and they walked up to the entrance. He told them there were no cameras in the place and no alarms as no one ever broke into it, so there were no worries about being caught. Angelina didn’t like to think she was breaking into the place, but only retrieving something that didn’t belong there.
He opened the front door with his key and they entered the same cluttered reception room they had been in before. The only light inside was what came through the shades from the parking lot — barely enough to see where the furniture was.
Ken walked past the reception desk and led them to a door that went into the back offices and the bird aviaries. It was locked. He looked puzzled and looked back at his key chain. “This door is never locked,” he said, shaking his head.
“Let me try this door,” Angelina said, walking across the room to the door they had gone through before when they were there earlier. It sat next to a restroom and had an “employees only” sign on it.
Footsteps were heard coming from the other side of the door in front of Ken and a flashlight beam played under the crack.
“Oh crap!” Ken said, stepping back. The door flung open and a flashlight was shining in Ken’s and then Neil’s faces. Angelina darted behind a bookcase.
An obese young man in a light blue private security uniform stepped into the reception room and brought his flashlight beam down. He was as tall as he was wide. His uniform size was likely the largest they come in and even that was too small. Extra lumps in odd places across his rear and sides stretched the fabric to their max, making it look like he had shoved socks randomly down his pants. “Who the hell are you?” he asked.
Ken blinked his eyes furiously and stammered until getting out “I, I, I’m…Ken, a…a…a…volunteer.”
The guard wasn’t buying it. He looked at them suspiciously through his wide glasses, eyeing them carefully. “Nobody supposed to show up here until noon — it’s Saturday.”
“Right,” Neil said jumping in. “I’m his friend and we were heading out early to go camping over the weekend and he thinks he left a jacket in here with his wallet in it. We wanted to stop by and grab it, that’s all.”
“Yes,” Ken said, having partially gathered his composure, “it’s in the sssstaff…lounge in the back…there.”
“Nobody’s permitted back there,” he said.
“Oh,” Ken said, puzzled. “I’ve got my volunteer identity tag here,” he said pulling it out of his pocket and showing the man.
“I said no one is permitted back there. Now go on, get out of here!”
Neil looked over at Angelina and she slinked back down further into the shadows, waving at him furiously to not look at her and to leave the place.
“Come on Ken, let’s go,” Neil said, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him back outside.
The guard sauntered over to the door and used his fingers to pry open the blinds and watch them walk away towards Neil’s car. If he looked over in Angelina’s direction he would see her. She stared at him trying to be as still as she could. He looked outside for a moment longer and muttered something under his breath. Without looking over, he went back through the door he had come from, closing it and leaving Angelina all alone.
She took a deep breath in relief and slid down the wall on her back to the floor. She was motionless for a minute, contemplating what she was going to do. Her heart was pounding and her palms felt
sweaty. She could hear the birds occasionally chirping or hooting in the back and the wind’s howl as it whipped over the building. If he caught her she could easily outrun him and somehow escape the building, but this would surely guarantee Virginia’s death.
She pulled out her cell phone and turned it to vibrate so no noise would alert the guard. Not a moment later it buzzed. It was Neil texting her that he was waiting in the SUV for her and that she should come out and they could rethink things through.
She texted him back that she was going to try to get the owl and he was to stay there waiting for her to come out. “Be careful” was his only response.
Neil sat in the car holding the phone in his hand, brooding about how he had gotten himself in a position where he had allowed Angelina to be in harm’s way, and under her orders no less. He had known Angelina’s mother for a week, but knew Paula would have his neck if she found out what was happening right now. The thought had his stomach doing flips. If he demanded Angelina give up and come out, she surely would be equally upset with him. This is one of the perplexities women do to you, he thought in frustration.
Angelina got up from her position and tried the door she had walked up to. Locked.
The only entrance was the one that the guard had walked back into and she knew it was also locked. She walked over to it and placed her ear to the door. She heard some sounds other than the occasional bird squawking in the back, but wasn’t sure what.
She needed to get to Virginia! She was so close! She thought about knocking and talking to the man, trying to reason with him or even buy him off. Clearly he had been put here because of Virginia and the media attention and he just happened to be the one night patrol guard in a thousand who intended to do his job.
She was feeling nervous and frustrated, when the footsteps came again and the flashlight beam danced beneath the crack in the door. She spun to the right, hiding behind an ell in the wall. The guard came through the door and stood a few feet in front of her. He played his flashlight around the room to be sure he was alone. He walked over to the window and peeked through the blinds again to be sure no one was outside. Angelina squeezed herself into the corner. Her heart was pounding and she felt her stomach knot up. Please don’t look over here, she prayed.
The guard left the window and sauntered over to the bathroom, turning on the light and barely managing to squeeze his frame inside. He didn’t have room to close the door and with the sound of a strained zipper being relieved, he loudly began his business.
This was her chance! She slipped through the open door and walked briskly down the hallway to the end. She passed administrative offices on either side filled with cheap wood-laminate desks and shelves and walls covered with posters of different birds of prey and photos of people with their pets and wild animals they had saved. She saw the staff lounge area where a large TV was on, frozen on an action scene in a porn flick, explaining what all-night guards do with their time and why Ken and Neil weren’t allowed back there. Sooooo gross, she thought.
A door to her left had a push-bar and open deadbolt on it and she tried it. It took her outside to the aviaries! She closed it quietly behind her and looked around. The wind howled in the trees around the property and violently shook the large net and frame that covered the enclosure. The light outside was growing and she could see around the place. Most birds were awake, sitting quietly in their cages, hunkered down against the windstorm. Some were chirping or hopping around. She oriented herself from her recall of her visit there a few days earlier and moved to where she recalled Virginia’s cage was.
When she got there, she found it empty.
Was I too late? she wondered in a panic. Have they moved her somewhere else? She scanned the cages around her and didn’t see the bird. It would take her several minutes to scan through the cages and risk waking up all the animals and she worried she would likely miss Virginia in the poor light. She had known from several trips to the LA Zoo that animals, even in small cages, have an ability to hide and camouflage themselves.
She quietly called out, “Virginia?” Several birds spun their heads and she heard various calls cry out, none that sounded familiar. She called again and this time she heard a familiar hoot from the back of the aviary. The sound repeated itself several times and turned into a catlike meow. She followed it, moving from cage to cage, until she found its source in the back.
It was Virginia! She was in a smaller metal cage, with hardly any room to move. She was stamping her talons up and down in excitement, her head bobbing this way and that. Angelina bent down and looked into the cage with a big smile. The bandages were still on her wing. “Going to get you out. I need you to be quiet, okay?”
The cage had a large metal handle on the top and was obviously one they transport the animals in. Perfect!she thought. She picked up the handle and looked for the nearest exit. She found the one used for taking out waste and bringing in supplies, but it was locked with a padlock from the inside. The large net and frame structure covering the entire enclosure meant there was no way to climb out. She would have to exit the way she came in.
She reached the door and listened. Through the wind and birdcalls, she could barely hear the groans from the TV. She sent a text to Neil telling her she had Virginia and be ready because she would be coming out in a moment. He responded saying Ken had chickened out and left on his bike. I should demand a refund, she thought.
She placed Virginia’s cage behind the door and went over to a cage, rattling it. They were doves and they fluttered about in fright, making quiet cooing sounds. Wrong bird, she thought.
She went to some others and found a row of songbirds and rattled their cages. They chirped and fluttered about, hardly making a difference in the noise the wind and other birds were already making.
She found a cage with a beautiful osprey in it and shook it. The bird leapt off its perch and went straight for her fingers. She pulled back sharply and it missed her by inches.
Frustrated she went back to Virginia and picked up the cage so she could look right into it. She whispered to the bird, “We need to make as much noise as we can so that guard comes out here and we can escape!”
Virginia let out a sharp series of hoots, barks and calls as loud as she could. Within seconds it seemed every bird in the sanctuary was screeching, hooting, whistling and calling at the top of their lungs. Wings were spread out and beaten up and down. Cages rattled. Clouds of dust and down feathers began to fill the air, adding to the confusion.
It went on incessantly. The noise was deafening! The wind was drowned out. Angelina’s eardrums rattled and her body shook from the vibrations. She braced herself against the side of the door as it flew open and the rotund man came rushing through it, fat quivering and rolling around his body with each step. He scanned the aviaries for the intruder that had set them off, seeing only dust and feathers. The screeching and beating wings lessened. He noticed the birds were all looking directly at him with hostile beady eyes. As if on cue, they started up again, hooting, screeching and beating their wings. He turned in fright, only to see the door slam shut in his face and the deadbolt turn.
Angelina was glad the cacophony from the birds drowned out the other human screams and groans she could hear from the TV in the lounge. She ran past and down the hallway, through the reception and out the front door.
Neil was parked off to the side with the SUV. They loaded the cage and took off.
