Orange County Noir (Akashic Noir) (36 page)

A home is a home. Square footage and harbor views can t
measure pride or pain. I wanted to tell him about the family in
Santa Ana I'd evicted just last week, immigrants who'd worked
two decades to buy a teeny two-bedroom. They raised six kids
there and kept it immaculate right up until the father was deported during an INS sweep at the taqueria where he worked.
This guy needed to hear that story. I wasn't about to tell him.

"I have to go," I said, eyeing Pussy.

"Shit storm's comin'," he slurred.

"Please don't blame the messenger."

That's when he started clenching and unclenching his
fists. He dropped his eyes to the floor, looking for some last
chance to snatch his fantasy life from the swirl as it all circled
the drain. He spoke quietly. "Don' go. I'm just ... need a few
hours t'get m'head together. All this dark matter. You c'n do
that for me. Ya gotta do that for me."

I tapped my watch. "If I don't check in soon, the office'll
come looking for me. It's policy."

"Tha's bullshit."

"It's really not."

"I said i's bullshit."

"I know you did. Doesn't change policy, though. They
keep a pretty close eye on us."

He thought about that for an uncomfortably long time.
"So you're saying I'm fucked."

"I'm not saying-"

"This's really happenin'?"

He was losing his tenuous grip. My situation wasn't exactly improving, either. I edged another step closer to the door. I'd
watched him scratch Pussy between the ears. That was good
enough for me. I'd take my chances with the tiger.

"Instincts!" he reminded, his voice rising.

When I hesitated, he stepped around the upended La-ZBoy, and in three quick steps was halfway across the room,
coming directly at me. His groped into his pocket and the
robe fell open, exposing his chest, his remarkably flat stomach,
and the withered manjunk of a still-breathing fossil.

"Meaning?"

"They crush th' windpipe, but it takes minutes to die. No
sudd'n moves, now."

He pulled the gun out almost casually. There was a tremor
in his hand that I hadn't noticed before. He stopped about
twenty feet away, swaying. Even so, the barrel looked awfully
steady, pointed right at my head. "I ask't you a favor, tha's all.
One little favor." He stepped slowly forward.

"You're trying to make it look like I had something to do
with this," I said. "I can't let you do that."

"You two broke into m'house, you and partygirl there.
Y'got into my thin's. I saw all that."

"You know that's not true. The cops will know it too."

He was maybe ten feet away, but still coming. I retreated
until my back hit the corner where the window met the wall.
Nowhere else to go. I went for my belt.

"See this?" I said, holding up a tiny canister.

He wobbled, trying to make sense of the sudden change
in my voice. He came two steps closer, but it wasn't a hostile
advance. He lowered the gun and squinted at my hand like
a man who wished he'd brought his reading glasses. That's
when I hit him with a jet of forced-cone pepper spray. Nailed
him right in the eyes.

The gun fell to the floor as both hands shot to his face.

"Christ!" he screamed. "Y'prick!"

He staggered, shrieking as he backpedaled. Behind him,
Pussy rose into a crouch. Her ears lay back against a head the
size of a medicine ball. She twitched her whiskers, missing
nothing.

"I was kidding!" he screamed. "Christ Jesus, it burns!"

The La-Z-Boy was right behind him, and he hit it in full
backward stride. The impact sent his feet straight into the air
and he came down hard on his back, robe fully open. He tried
to leverage his momentum into a backward somersault, but
tipped to one side and fell hard against the edge of the couch.
It knocked him back to the floor, where his head thumped the
hardwood. His hands never left his chem-scorched eyes even
as one of his flailing legs caught Pussy square on the jaw. The
big cat snarled, hackles up.

"Gaaaaaaa!" he screamed.

Pussy was on her blinded prey in a single bound. The roar
that announced her attack was brief and deep, all business,
the sound of heavy equipment at full throttle.

"Pussy! No!"

The animal didn't stop. She batted him with her powerful
right paw, almost playful, and the blow sent him reeling. He
regained his balance, but her claws had opened wide gashes
along his left shoulder. His orange skin hung in ribbons as
he groped blindly with one hand for the source of the pain.
Desperate to orient himself, he tried to open eyes that were
all but welded shut.

I edged closer to the hallway door.

Pussy's shoulders rose, her head dropped. When he fell to
his knees, she lunged.

"Yaa" was the only sound he made before she clamped down on his throat. She held him to the floor with giant forepaws as his skinny legs thrashed.

By then I was racing for the front door. Behind me, the
same sound of savagery I'd heard on all those National Geographic specials. They never ended well. My heart was pounding as I jerked open the heavy front door and stepped back
into the cramped serenity of Balboa Island. I pulled the door
shut, muffling Pussy's roar.

I prayed my thanks there on his doorstep, waiting for my
breathing to slow. Before I moved toward my car, I looked
around. The cottages and mansions of Balboa Island were
bathed in brilliant midmorning sun. The sails of passing
yachts bobbed along the harbor's main channel. Nothing was
changed. Life went on. But behind me I felt a real and unmistakable force, like the gravitational pull of something dark
and invisible.

hen the first letter arrived, Fred Mackie was
standing just inside his front door. He didn't know
or care if the mail carrier saw him through the
curtains as the envelope slipped through the slot, bounced off
his right shoe, and glided across the floor tile until it stopped.
He'd had a feeling today would be the day, and he savored
being right. Like with a lot of items he'd order from unreliable
dot-coms, Fred was never sure whether or not anything would
arrive. But this wasn't some item he'd ordered. It was a connection that he hoped would transform his life. Way too shy
to approach a pretty woman, he was well past thirty without
every having a real being-in-love relationship.

He'd made a New Year's resolution that he wouldn't be
alone after this year.

In California, people doing time weren't allowed to have
e-mail. But there were websites like InmatePlaymate.com
that exchanged people's snail-mail addresses for a reasonable
fee. Playmate number 403, with her long blond hair, sparkling
blue eyes, and mysterious smile, had taken him on.

He picked up the pale-yellow envelope and turned it over.
The flap illustration showed three kittens in a wicker basket,
playing with a ball of pink yarn. California Frontier Institute for
Women was stamped diagonally across the image. Turning the
envelope back over, he observed the old LOVE stamp and someone -centers to update the postage. The postmark was February 14-Valentine's Day. She'd written his address in childish
handwriting, the "i" in Mackie dotted with a little heart. Smiling
and shaking his head, Fred went to the kitchen to get a steak
knife, and slit through the paper flap with precision. There was
a single sheet inside. He sniffed, but it wasn't scented.

Hi Fred,

I recieved your message after you saw me on the website. I am writting this letter to thank you for being my
"penn pal" lot. I am "403" but please call me Angel. The
address to write to is on the envellope. From now on write
here. Did the website tell you the rules about how mail gets
read by other's both ways?

Take care,

Kiss kiss Angel

Fred liked that last part-so affectionate. He was careful
wording his reply, wanting his first letter to be eloquent. He
hammered at the keyboard, glancing every few minutes at the
color image of Angel's website profile lying beside his desktop.
He'd Photoshopped the image to put himself there, behind
her, grinning like a mega-lotto winner, hands resting on her
shoulders-actually, pretty close to the swell of her chest. He
wrote how glad he was to hear from her, how much he'd already thought about her.

He didn't mention anything about her being in prison.
That could wait. In a way, it was beside the point. He wanted
to help her think about the future and forget her troubles.
Instead, he asked if she had a boyfriend. I bet you have a boyfriend, he wrote, but if not, consider me a candidate! He added a smiley-face icon, something he thought he would never do,
but here it just seemed right. Fred told her about his life and
where he lived in West Garden Grove in a remodeled home,
well maintained but in need of a woman's touch. He hoped that
wasn't too forward. He didn't want to scare her away; that was
why he left out his picture. He wrapped up by asking her to
please write back ASAP

Going over his letter, he polished it up. He took out the
part calling himself a shy geek, also the mention of how many
cops lived in his neighborhood. He got rid of his horrible
childhood, how he escaped his hateful parents by moving
from the upper Midwest to California and hadn't seen them
in years, what he secretly called his "witness self-protection
program." He called himself single instead of never married.
Why be negative?

Fred printed it, signed it, sealed it in an envelope, and
drove to the post office. He used the automated machine to
send it express. He didn't need some snotty clerk snickering
at Angel's prison address. They might even throw it in the
trash-after they ripped it open and read it, the creeps. Someone should go postal and rip them open.

After the first exchanges, things moved pretty fast even if the
mail didn't. Then Angel wrote that even though he couldn't
call her, she could call him collect. Fred did a solitary endzone
dance and demanded in his reply, Why didn't you mention it
before? Call me any old time! He gave his home number, but
not the cell or office. Too distracting.