Orange County Noir (Akashic Noir) (35 page)

What do you do when you peak at nineteen? You move to
Balboa Island, that's what. You fall down a well.

"Dark matter?" I said.

He stood up straight and squared his shoulders. "Astrophysics. Cosmology. C'mon, you know."

He swayed and bumped against the doorframe and motioned me closer, like he was about to share a secret. I stood
my ground, but leaned in a little, near enough to smell the
booze but far enough to cut and run if he was as drunk and
nuts as he seemed. I also caught a whiff of something that
made me think of a dirty litter box.

"Can't see dark matter," he said, "'s invisible. But it's there."

"Where?"

"All 'round its. Most of th' mass in th' observ-a-ble universe?" He grinned. "Dark matter."

"I'll be damned. And you can't even see it?"

That brought a somber shake of his head, still crowned by
that goofy hair-metal cut, improbably black. "But y'see what
dark matter does."

I took a small step backward. His breath was toxic. "Which
is?"

He lit up. Perfect rows of bright white teeth split the weathered skin of his face. "Changes things. Affects things. See, mass
has weight, and weight creates grrra-vi-ty." Took his time pronouncing each syllable of the word. "And grrra-vi-ty doesn't lie,
man. Doesn't lie." Another wink. "C'mere. I'll show you."

With that he turned from the open door and scuffed down
the hall, the soft soles of his UGG boots making a schik-schik-
schik as he moved away. For some reason, don't ask me why,
I followed. Say what you will about celebrity, but there's definitely something magnetic about it. Seductive. Dangerous.
No one's immune. Maybe that's what he was talking about?
Anyway, as soon as I stepped across his threshold I was thinking, Dude, you really gotta ask for that raise.

More than eighty rehab facilities dot the Balboa Peninsula
within a mile of this exclusive island; Southern California's
celebrities like to dry out in tidy, well-appointed luxury, and
by the beach. I'd never been inside one of those, but this
place struck me as probably the exact opposite. Piles of stuff
everywhere-books, clothes, newspapers. One side of the hall
was just drywall, installed but never plastered or painted. The
other side was '70s-era flocked wallpaper hung by an amateur.
A classic Fender Strat with a snapped neck lay at the base of
a stairway leading to a second story, its looping strings holding
the pieces together like thin steel ligaments.

"Mind your way right here," he called back over his shoulder, sidestepping something. It looked like a mound of shit the
size of a football.

When I got closer, I realized it was a pile of shit.

"Whoa," I said, and stopped.

"Cheers," he said, lifting the glass again as he moved off
down the hall. "Best to let it air-dry a bit."

He waved me on, turning left toward a sun-filled room
facing the harbor's main channel. "Right in here."

My father taught me caution in all things. He lived life by
the Law of Worst Possible Consequences and communicated
it to us daily. An unbuckled seat belt would lead directly to
death. So would a carelessly placed skateboard, improperly
inflated tires, or an incautious remark to the wrong cop. To
be honest, it's probably why I gravitated to a career wreaking
legal vengeance on people who live too close to the edge. Still,
something irresistible was pulling me around the corner into
the unknown, into a room filled with cast-off dorm furniture.

The space itself was a realtor's wet dream. Vast windows
overlooked the main channel of Newport Harbor. Electric
Duffy boats slid past, and the mast and mainsail of an enormous passing yacht briefly dominated the view. Here was a
daily parade of all that the Good Life could offer, no longer
within reach from this ringside seat.

No matter how ramshackle this castle, the thought of losing it must be torturing the king.

"Sweet," I said, crossing between a battered couch and a
shredded La-Z-Boy recliner, which lay on its side in the middle
of the room. It looked like a toy tossed aside by a giant child.

I joined him at one of the windows. "You've lived here a
long time, right?"

He drained his drink before answering. "Three albums.
Three marriages."

He turned away from the view and headed for the bar
across the room. That's when I noticed her.

She was stretched out in a claw-footed tub, gray and
glassy-eyed and naked except for a pair of strappy red-stiletto
heels. Maybe early forties, with the look of a tired old groupie.
She had stringy, damp blond hair on her head. The dark roots were the same color as the fluffy patch between her legs. He'd
half-filled the tub with party ice he must have bought last
night or early this morning at the 7-Eleven on the peninsula.
A dozen crumpled plastic ice bags were piled at one end. Best
guess: she hadn't been there long; for an ongoing obsession,
he'd be using dry ice.

I tamped down my clutching fear. I'd never seen a dead
body before.

"Sh-she may need help," I managed.

Absurd, I know. My other option was to just crap myself
and run.

"Who?" he said, his back to me, pouring himself another
drink.

I pointed to the tub even though he wasn't watching. "Her."

When he turned around, he was stirring his drink with the
index finger of one hand. He did that for a long time without
saying a word, without even looking at the chilling body in the
middle of the room. Suddenly, he seemed to notice her.

"Hoo boy," he said, cheerful, as if he'd simply neglected to
introduce her. "Dam'nest thing, that."

"She definitely doesn't look okay."

"Oh no. She's definitely not." He took a sip. "No par-medics
necessary, 'm afraid."

Time to go. I sidestepped toward the hallway.

"Wait," he said. "Her ... this ... tha's not what I wanted
to show you."

"Dude," I said, "this is seriously fucked up."

"I know!" he said. "She comes by th' house to party, then
overdoses. Self-control's sush a problem with some people."

She didn't look like she'd been killed. No blood. No bullet
wounds or knife holes. No bruises at her throat. Just the waxy
gray corpse of a woman who'd stopped by to party.

On ice.

"When, um..."

"Lass night. She found my coke and jus' . . . overdid!"

"Jesus," I said. "I'm sorry."

"Me too! Terrific talent, that one." He winked. "Not a kid
anymore, but she sure knew how to work it."

I struggled for words. "Sorry for your loss."

"But now y'see what I mean 'bout dark matter?"

I sidestepped again toward the hallway, quietly unsnapping the plastic holster of my pepper spray as I did. "Not
really."

He reached into the pocket of his robe. When he pulled
it out, I saw something black in his hand and swallowed hard.
Who carries a gun in their bathrobe? Nobody sane. He seemed
as surprised as I was to see it. He slid it back in and fished into
the robe's other pocket. Whatever he pulled out of that he
pointed across the room toward me. The widescreen beside
me blinked to life.

A TV remote.

"DVD," he said, `°s a Science Channel thing on the cosmos or some such, 'bout dark matter. Been watching it all
mornin', tryin' to sort this out. All this shit slidin' toward th'
center, t'ward me. I mean, where do I go from here? M'whole
comeback thing?" He nodded to the dead woman. "This'll
complicate plans a bit."

A bit?

"You said it was an accident. I can't imagine they'd-"

He waved my words away like gnats. "So I'm listenin' to
this show, about how dark matter's invisible, but y'know it's
there cause it has gravity, 'cause it pulls things into its orbit.
All sortsa things. And I'm thinking, see, how I'm sort of like
dark matter."

I said nothing. He sensed my confusion.

"Shit happens, you know? To me. All the time. I always
seem to land right in the middle of it. And I had this ..."
He paused to enunciate. "... epi-phany. I just wanted t'show
somebody."

I looked at my watch again. Made a point of doing so.
"Really gotta get back."

"Won' take long. Wanna drink?"

"Can't."

"I told you to stay."

Those final words were hard and sharp enough to cut
glass, scary, the dopey-drunk voice completely gone. I stared
at him until something flashed in the corner of my eye. My first
glance to the left registered nothing. The second registered
something that didn't compute at all. Why would a full-grown
Siberian tiger be standing in the doorway, right between me
and the only way out of the room?

Things started to add up. The giant shit pile in the hall.
The suffocating litter-box smell. Even the shredded La-Z-Boy,
which I suddenly realized was just an overworked scratching
post.

"Really need to get going," I said.

"Pussy, sit!" he called out.

The tiger didn't move, just kept its intense yellow eyes
fixed on me. It filled the door frame.

"Sit!" he commanded.

I sat back on the window ledge, just in case he was talking to me. Slowly, the tiger sat. Head level. Ears back. Gaze
steady.

"That's Pussy!" he said. "Raised 'er right here. Took'er in
as an orphaned cub, had 'er a year." He wandered across the
room and scratched the tiger between the ears. "Harmless old bird now. Mostly. No sudd'n moves, though. Big cats never
lose those instincts. Don't want 'er thinkin yer a threat. Y'sure
don' want her thinkin' yer wounded."

My body was flushed with primal juices. Every nerve was
on fire. "It lives here?"

He shook his head. "Refuge. Up in Ventura. Snuck'er out
yesterday and drove 'er down in my panel van, brought 'er in
after dark." He gestured grandly around the room. "We lived
here together once. Happy days, y'know, and I jus' wanted her
to see the place again, b'fore ... well, you know."

"I see."

"Figured we'd spend a li'l time together before the big
move." He held an index finger up to his pursed lips. "Don'
tell the neighbors."

"Not a word."

"Nice people, but they'd go apeshit. Always do." He
tipped his glass toward the bathtub. "Course, now there's this
situation."

"Complicated, like you said."

"I still generate a lot of grav'ty, even if I'm invisible."

"I'm sure you do." I don't know why, but I added: "I played
AniMosity to death when I was a kid. Great album."

"Thanks."

I'd kicked into some weird survival mode, desperate to say
anything that might get me out of this. He hadn't threatened
me. I didn't think he was capable of violence. On the other
hand, I was in a room with a dead groupie, a live tiger, and a
desperate armed man who was drinking heavily before 10 a.m.
Things were beyond weird already.

"I even liked the second album."

I instantly regretted my phrasing, but he smiled.

"Beastiary?" he said. "More mature, don' you think? Re cord company hated it. After that, they just bailed on the
third record. No support a'tall."

"Bastards," I said. "For what it's worth, though, I bought
Zoology too. Got all three."

"Appreciate that."

"You guys ever think about a fourth studio album? Reunion tour, maybe?"

"Never been that desp'rate."

"I'd love to see that. Lot of people would."

He drained the rest of his drink during the awkward silence, dumped the ice into the tub, and set the glass gently
on the dead woman's pubic mound. When he turned back
toward me, the look he gave me had the same edge I'd noticed
in his voice.

"So I guess we have a l'il situation, then?" he said.

"Meaning?"

"You barged into m'house like some stalker-fan. You and
this woman."

"You invited me ... Wait. Me and this woman?"

The wheels were coming off this bus pretty fast. Could he
hear how loud I swallowed?

"'s a big house," he said, picking up the empty glass again.
"What were you two doin' upstairs all night, anyway?"

An alibi wouldn't be a problem. I was at dinner with five
friends until midnight. Which was completely beside the
point. Nothing mattered now except the moment. And with
this guy's loose grip on reality, I was in no position to argue.

"My lips are sealed," I lied. "You can handle this any way
you want."

"You're in my house."

"Yessir, I am."

"You followed me in."

"You told me to."

"The hell I did."

"I'll just go then."

I'd taken about three tentative steps toward the door
where the tiger sat when the highball glass exploded against
the window frame just beside me. Heavy crystal ricocheted
off the back of my head. When I touched the spot, my fingers
came away bloody.

Straight ahead, Pussy leaned ever so slightly forward.

Which would be a more pathetic end to my life? Death at the
hands of my teen idol-now an aging, drunk rocker-or death
by tiger attack in the rocker's Balboa Island rumpus room?
Either way, I imagined snickering at my funeral.

"You're pretty upset, I can tell," I said. "It's a bad time ..."

He walked halfway across the room, his chest heaving.
Either he was working himself into a rage, or he was out of
breath from throwing his glass.

"Don't patronize, you little prick."

"Never."

"You have no idea what this is like for me."

"I can't-"

"To lose a home? To see everythin' taken away? What tha'
does to a man?"

I knew. "This won't help, but doing what I do, I know there
are a lot of people out there going through exactly what-"

"Christ!" He swept an arm across a scene littered by the
debris of his reckless life. "You think I'm a credit whore, doncha? You think tha's what this's about? I earned all this."

"Of course you did. You rocked."

He took a deep breath. "Don't mind me sayin', but it takes
some big-ass cojones to come into my house, tell me I'm just like all those assistan' credit managers and den'al hygienists
and Roto -Rooters who couldn't pay the mortgage on some-"
He spat the next word. "-tract house. You thin' they have a
clue whaddit means to lose somethin' like this?"