The Blacktop Blues: A Dieselpunk Adventure (The Crossover Case Files Book 1)

by Richard Levesque

  It looked like nothing I’d ever seen before, but I knew better than to ask what it was.

  She offered me a smile then and a handshake. “Good luck, Jed Strait,” she said. “Thanks for your help.”

  It was about the most human thing she’d done since I’d met her.

  “I’m glad it worked out,” I said as I accepted her limp handshake and kept myself from squeezing too hard. “I don’t think I would have made it through that checkpoint on my own. I guess it’s a good thing my car didn’t make it.”

  She shrugged and then made to turn away.

  “You’re not going to lock up your car?” I asked.

  “I never said it was my car,” she returned. The half-smile I got now was mischievous.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Still not Malibu,” was all she said, and then she started walking, suitcase in hand. “Don’t forget your papers,” she called back over her shoulder, and that was it. A few seconds later, she had blended in with the other pedestrians on Hill Street, heading north. I figured I’d never see her again, and that gave me a little pang of regret. The odd connection we’d had over the last few hours, silent though most of the drive had been, had been the closest I’d felt to another human being since I’d left Sid’s pawnshop for the last time. And the funny thing was, I hadn’t even noticed while it was happening. It was only in her absence that I realized I had kind of liked being around her.

  She was gone now. All I could do was shrug and pick up my suitcase. I opened the passenger door again and reached in to pop the latch on the glove compartment, ready to reach in for my measly pieces of paper—the only things that tethered me to a past or a future—and then I saw the gun again. I’d forgotten about it during the whole checkpoint ordeal and the long, quiet drive that had followed. Now the little gray handle was looking at me from underneath my folded papers. It was like the gun was saying, “Hey, Jed! Don’t leave me here all alone. You know what that’s like. Give me a break, huh? I won’t do you wrong.”

  Still standing next to the Swan, I pulled out my wallet and took inventory. I had exactly twenty-eight dollars. When I checked my pocket, I found another forty-three cents—three pennies, three Mercury dimes, and two Wilson nickels. I weighed my options for only a few seconds before sitting down inside the Swan, taking a quick look around to make sure no passing pedestrians were giving me the eye, and taking the little gun from its hiding place. It wouldn’t make a huge difference in the long run, I told myself. Pawned, it would bring me a few more dollars. Left in the glove box, it would go to the first street punk who gave the door handle a try at three o’clock in the morning, so I figured it might as well be mine instead. Gemma wouldn’t mind. It probably wasn’t even her gun.

  I slipped the little piece into my front pants pocket along with my forty-three cents, and then I got out of the Swan. Whatever bed I ended up in tonight, it wouldn’t be as soft as the seat I was leaving behind, and I had another pang of regret as I closed the door for the last time. I started walking in the direction Gemma had indicated.

  The Hotel Dorado was a white five-story affair on a corner two blocks down. It looked decent enough on approach. I’d had no idea what kind of place Annabelle had ended up calling home once she got to the city, but I’d been reasonably certain she wouldn’t have settled for a dump and absolutely certain she couldn’t have swung the rates at the Biltmore. When I walked into the lobby of the Dorado, I saw that I’d pretty much nailed it. The place was strictly middle-of-the-road with no pretense at luxury and, at the same time, no indication that the regulars included rats and roaches.

  The lobby was clean but sparse—a few chairs, a utilitarian luggage cart, carpeting that had seen a lot of traffic, and an unassuming front desk. This last was manned by a woman, late fifties and no nonsense. She looked at me through wire-rimmed glasses, sizing me up. When she saw the state of my suitcase, she raised an eyebrow, and I figured the battered look of my baggage just might mark me as the kind of guy who was one bit of bad luck away from being a vagabond. That was accurate, of course, but I didn’t want her to know that.

  “Afternoon,” she said, her tone skeptical. The single word was almost a question.

  I didn’t have a watch—having sold mine to Sid along with the Harmon in preparation for the drive west—but there was a clock on the wall behind the clerk. It read 2:45. Definitely afternoon. Since just after sunrise, I’d been intensely focusing on a variety of things—on not dying, on keeping my westward plans from being thwarted by overzealous cops, and on the odd nature of the damsel who’d rescued me in my distress. Paying attention to the time had been the least of my worries. The moment I saw the clock, though, my stomach reminded me that its relationship with food had been stretched terribly thin for quite a while.

  “Good afternoon,” I offered the clerk, flashing a little smile before setting the suitcase on the floor in front of the counter. It would be out of her line of sight there, which I hoped might mitigate her prejudice a little. “I was hoping you had a room for a couple of days?”

  She gave me a serious stare for a few seconds and then said, “Just a single?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The look turned skeptical at “ma’am,” but she glanced down at something on her side of the counter and said, “I can put you on the fourth floor. Four dollars a night. Paid in advance, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Let’s just start with the one night, and we’ll go from there.” I pulled out my wallet and made a show of flipping through the bills inside. When I found the lone ten-spot, I pulled it out and said, “Can you make change? This is the smallest I’ve got.”

  Her face told me she wasn’t buying it, but at least she had the decency not to say anything snide—just took the bill and gave me six bucks back before having me fill out the registry.

  Now that she had my money, I figured it was time to try getting a little something more in exchange. “A friend of mine told me she was staying here,” I said as I began filling in the registry, using the address of Sid’s pawnshop. “Annabelle Anderson. I was hoping she’d still be here.”

  The clerk took the registry from me and perused it, ignoring my question. When she’d read it over and apparently achieved some level of satisfaction, she said, “I can’t comment on the status of other guests.”

  “Can you at least tell me if the name rings a bell?”

  She stared at me over her glasses, and then she said, “It might.”

  I nodded. It had taken me a moment, but I had her number now. “Is there any sort of house special you offer?” I asked. “The kind of thing where guests get a little extra for a small fee?”

  “We might,” she said.

  I reached back into my wallet and put two more singles on the countertop. “That about do it?”

  She looked at my meager offering. I wasn’t about to tell her I’d just spent almost a fourth of all the money I had left in the world, but then again, I didn’t think that kind of information would move her one way or the other. It came down to a staring contest; she looked up at me and I looked back at her. We both waited, and then she blinked.

  My money was gone in a second, and she said, “I think I remember a girl with that name who stayed here a couple weeks. You don’t see many Annabelles these days, you know?”

  “So, she’s moved on,” I said and got a nod in response. “Any forwarding address?”

  The clerk looked like she was thinking about this for a moment, probably trying to figure if she should make the effort of attempting to squeeze me for another buck. She must have figured she’d be pushing her luck, as she half turned and bent down to get a thick ledger from under the counter. Keeping the book turned so only she could see its contents, she flipped through the pages. When she stopped, she said, “Your friend checked out of here on the third. Stayed here a total of fifteen days. No forwarding address.” She looked up and added, “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, hoping I was doing a good
job of hiding my disappointment. “I appreciate your looking. You don’t happen to remember if she had visitors or said anything about a job or anything like that?”

  Now it was me who’d pushed his luck.

  “You have any idea how many people come through here?” she asked. “Business travelers and tourists and God knows how many desperate kids thinking they’re gonna be the next Wilma Pringle or Bradley Constantine. They come and they go, in and out that door just like you came in today and are gonna go out tomorrow. I ain’t running a detective agency here, fella. I can barely keep track of our patrons. To think I could also keep track of their comings and goings and all their failings…you gotta be kidding, bub.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I just figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.”

  “Well…” She had a sour look on her face now, and I could see she was tempted to say that my question had hurt but then realized how ridiculous that would sound. She opted to say nothing instead, just closed the ledger and bent to put it back on the shelf it had come from.

  There was a rack of keys on the wall behind her. She turned to this now, pulled one off its hook, and slid it across the counter to me. “Room 412,” she said. “At the back. Check out at noon. You want to extend your stay, I need you to let me know by eleven. Otherwise it’s check out and check back in again.” She pulled her hand back and added, “If we even have a room, that is.”

  “Fair enough,” I said and took the key.

  Opting to ignore my hunger for a few minutes more, I picked up my suitcase and turned away from the counter.

  The place had a flimsy-looking birdcage elevator that a parakeet would have thought twice about stepping into. Still sore from my walk in the desert that morning, I knew the four flights of stairs would get the best of me, but I preferred that fate to being trapped somewhere between floors while the desk clerk threw all her enthusiasm into finding a repair service.

  By the time I hit the fourth-floor landing, I was in better shape than I’d expected. I paused to take a few breaths and then pressed on. As my new friend had said, 412 was at the back of the building, one of two rooms in that section of the hallway. I opened the door and had a look around.

  The room had a bed that didn’t look too friendly, a little writing desk with a chair beside it, and a scarred wardrobe on the wall opposite the lone window. In front of the window was a little chest of drawers that came up to just below the windowsill; it had a decorative cushion on top that I supposed made the chest double as a bench for anyone inclined to sit by the window. The tiny bathroom smelled of mildew, but the rusty faucets produced water and the toilet made it go away, so that was good enough for me. I went to the little chest of drawers by the window and raised one foot to its cushioned top, leaning forward on my upraised knee to contemplate what turned out to be a perfect view of the building across the alley. If I stood at just the right angle, I could see part of a neon dentist sign over on the next street. There was a fire escape outside the window, so I knew if I was feeling adventurous, I could climb out there and maybe get a better look at something, probably just more buildings, though.

  Costume jewelry, I thought, recalling Gemma’s opinion of the city. Chipped and faded.

  I stood there for a few minutes, looking at the solid walls in front of me and wondering what my next move should be. “Where’d you go, Annabelle?” I asked my reflection in the glass. A dark-haired almost-thirty-year-old with a slightly crooked nose looked back at me; his dark eyes looked like they’d seen too much, or maybe like they belonged to a guy twice his age. Looking at my reflection was unsettling, and for a moment I had the feeling it wasn’t me looking back. I blinked a few times, and the feeling faded.

  You’re beat, I thought as I turned away from the window and went to the bed where I’d already laid my suitcase. Then I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the two pieces of paper that had crossed the continent with me—my military discharge and Annabelle’s letter—rubbing them together for a few seconds before turning to take a seat.

  The bedsprings gave a lazy squeak when I sat down, a noise that would be just loud enough to wake me every time I turned over during the night. “Perfect,” I grumbled and unfolded the letter for what must have been the hundredth time. It wasn’t that I was compelled to linger over the curves of Annabelle’s penmanship—although I’d have to admit it was damn near perfect. No, I read it over the same way I’d looked at coded messages during the war—because that’s what it was: a code that needed to be cracked or maybe even a treasure map. Its author hadn’t known she was drawing a map for me, one where the treasure marked with an X was the restoration of faith in my sanity, but that’s what it was.

  The first step had been to get to California, and here I was.

  The next had been to make it to the Hotel Dorado, and—again—here I was.

  If things had gone right, that would have been it. Annabelle would have still been here. I’d had no plan about what I was going to say to her if I found her at the hotel. All I’d known was that I needed to see her. Doing so might not have proved I wasn’t losing my mind, but it was something, and it was a better option than having myself committed. It also offered the possibility that I might be able to figure out what the hell had happened to me in the Break O’ Dawn.

  The one thing I knew for sure was that nothing would get figured out until I found her.

  The woman at the Dorado’s registration desk had been no help, but maybe there were others on staff who remembered Annabelle. Perhaps she’d made an impression on someone here; she was the kind of person you didn’t forget easily if you took the chance to get to know her. I resolved to make some inquiries over the next few days, as long as my money held out.

  In the meantime, I figured I’d see about a job. Anything would do. I imagined myself washing dishes in a greasy spoon, something where I could earn enough to take care of the rates at the Dorado and a meal or two a day. I didn’t need much.

  For now, I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten anything all day, and the little Bakelite clock on the nightstand told me it was almost 3:30 in the afternoon. Turning to my suitcase, I flipped it open, looked at what was inside, and saw there was no point in getting anything out except my jacket. I wouldn’t need it now, but it would be evening soon and the air would be cool; I put the jacket on and closed the suitcase.

  Chapter Five

  I still had the gun from the Swan in my pants pocket, and when I stood up from the edge of the bed, I took it out to give it a better look. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was just a prop, as there was no way to break it open and load anything into it. There was a small manufacturer’s plate riveted to the bottom of the handle, the raised metal reading simply “Garcia Industries” on one line and “Los Angeles, California” below that. Oddly enough, the fake gun had a safety, which I saw was activated, and the trigger looked like it would move. Safety or not, I wasn’t foolish enough to pull the trigger there in the room. All I needed was for the “prop” gun to go off indoors, which would land me back on the sidewalk in no time, and now with just twenty-two dollars and forty-three cents to my name. Instead of doing something stupid like pulling the trigger, I stuck the gun in my jacket pocket, thinking I might still be able to get a few bucks for it at a pawnshop before the evening was through.

  Downstairs, the desk clerk listened to my query about where I could find a place to eat nearby.

  “Columbia Buffet on Grand used to be good,” she said after a moment. “But it’s closed now. Coffee shop on Broadway, though. That’s decent and won’t be too high class for you. Just down here to Sixth, then one block over to Broadway and back up again. Or you could cut through the alley.”

  “Thanks,” I said and headed out.

  I opted for the sidewalks instead of the alley and made my way down to Sixth Street like the clerk had said. The pedestrians I shared the sidewalk with didn’t pay me any notice, which I was glad for. Nothing marked me for an outsider now that I’d dumped my suitcase in the Dora
do, and that was a good thing. I still had the vivid memory of the roadblock cop from earlier and the way he’d talked about people coming in who didn’t belong, taking up a share of what wasn’t theirs, and the possibility that he hadn’t been the only citizen to feel that way about people like me had me a bit jumpy now that I was surrounded by people instead of Joshua trees and sand.

  The coffee shop was easy enough to spot in between the garish marquees on the Broadway theaters it was sandwiched in between. I had a cup of coffee and ordered a plate of roast beef and mashed potatoes that set me back a little more than I’d been planning. Even so, the potatoes weren’t powdered, and the meat wasn’t as gray as the stuff I’d had in the army.

  Someone had left a copy of the afternoon edition of the Los Angeles Record on the empty table next to me, and I scooped it up to have something to do while I ate, not being in any hurry to get back to my room. It looked like the big story of the day was about an actor named Wily Pomeroy, who’d suffered a freak accident on a movie set the day before. While shooting a western, this Pomeroy fellow had slipped a pistol past the prop master after the cameras had stopped rolling; then, trying to impress the female lead with a swaggering joke, he held the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger, not knowing that the concussion made by a blank round fired at point blank range could do serious damage to a body even though no slug actually came out of the barrel. The actor had fallen to the floor in the commissary and been pronounced dead before dawn.