Julio’s on his sixth drink of the day, and it’s not even noon.
Empty shot glasses lie on their sides in front of him like wounded soldiers.
He’s a tequila man, likes Patron when he can get it, Cuervo when
he can’t. Me, I’m a scotch drinker. I toss my jacket on the
bar, slide onto the vinyl stool next to him, order a Johnny Walker Black,
neat.
“
The fuck you doin’ here, man?” he says, taking a sidelong
glance at me through unfocused eyes. Besides the bartender, we’re
the only ones here. Cozy’s Bar and Grill on Magnolia isn't the worst
in town, but damn close. Everything’s done up in faux red leather
and brass tacks; walls, seats, the bar itself. Looks like Hell if Satan
were a lounge singer. Julio’s a regular. If he isn’t working
or at home with his wife, Mariel, he’s in here tossing back a few.
“
I was about to ask you the same thing,” I say. “You were supposed
to be at Simon’s last night. You talk to the Italian?” Simon’s
this English guy we do jobs for. Pick ups, drop offs. Find people who
don’t want to be found. He arranges deals throughout the city, has
fingers in more pies than I can count, and a few I don’t even know
about. Need something, talk to Simon. Don’t pay him back, talk to
us.
“
Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I talked to him.” His voice trails
off and he gets that thousand yard stare over his shot glass. After a
moment he looks up at me, a plea in his eyes so pathetic, I have to pull
my eyes away. “I can’t do it, man.”
“
Do what?” Julio just shakes his head, starts muttering in Tagalog.
I look him over a long moment. He’s a mess. Eyes are bloodshot,
he hasn’t slept. Jumpy, more skittish than I’ve ever seen.
Hands are shaking. He’s the biggest Filipino I know. Six-foot-two,
about as bad-ass as they come. Benches three-fifty, dragon tattoos on
his shoulders, breaks two by fours with his head for fun. If Julio’s
scared there’s one hell of a good reason for it.
Last night Simon tells him to lean on Sandro Giavetti, this Italian guy
from Chicago. Head down to his hotel, bring him back for a talk. Simon
knew him in England way back when. Has a scary rep that has Simon worried.
I tell him Julio can handle himself.
Last week Giavetti comes into the store that Simon fences stolen goods
out of. Looking to buy things that don’t get bought. Figures Simon
can help. Turns out he can, so he hooks Giavetti up with three boys he
knows are good at breaking and entering and gets a nice fat cut for being
a middle man. As usual, no questions asked.
Well, now Simon’s asking. Word’s getting around that Simon
got these boys bad jobs. Two of them have gone missing, the third one’s
dead. Blew his own brains out night before last. Guy I know on the LAPD
says they found a clip’s worth of shell casings, but only one bullet.
Giavetti might know something, might not.
Looking at Julio, I’m thinking Giavetti knows a lot.
My phone chirps at me from my jacket pocket. It’s Simon. “Joe,” he
says, cockney coming through like he hasn’t spent fifteen years
stateside. “Have you found him?”
“
Yeah,” I say. “Got him right here. Says he talked to Giavetti,
but I can’t get anything else out of -- ” I jump to the sound
of shattering glass. Julio’s reached over for his bottle of Cuervo
and smashed it against the bar. I can’t imagine he would come at
me with it, but I roll off the barstool anyway, torquing my left knee
in the process.
He shoves the splintered bottle into his throat, tears a ragged gash from
adam’s apple to jugular. He’s bleeding out like an oil derrick.
I drop the phone. Try to stop the bleeding. I can hear Simon’s tiny
voice from the phone saying, “What? What?” over and over again.
I’ve got bar towels, my jacket, anything that can stop the flow.
Julio’s eyes roll up into the back of his head, his life bubbling
red down the front of his shirt.
***
“
You’re full of shit,” Detective Tanaka says. He’s pacing
and yelling at me in one of the interrogation rooms at the North Hollywood
police station. They did a crappy job with the sound-proofing and I can
hear the traffic on the 170 freeway a block away.
Frank Tanaka’s one of those little Japanese guys that martial arts
students get warned about. He’s small and wiry and I have no doubt
he can kick my ass.
“
Talk to the bartender,” I say for the fifth or sixth time. “He’ll
tell you the same thing. Julio killed himself.” By the time the
cops get their act together it’s already 4:00 in the afternoon.
I’ve managed to clean up a little, but there’s still this
stickiness on my hands that won’t come off no matter how many times
I scrub. My shirt’s caked with Julio’s blood, and my knee’s
swollen from where I twisted it at the bar. The damn thing throbs if you
look at it funny ever since I tore it wrestling in high school. It’s
usually not a problem, but I really tweaked it back there. The least these
bastards could do is give me an Advil.
“
Don’t bullshit me, Sunday.” Tanaka sits in the chair opposite
me, the sleeves of his salmon oxford rolled up to his elbows, his Mr.
Miyagi mustache twitching. Why do cops always have such ugly ties? “Julio
Guerrera’s not the kind of guy to kill himself.” He’s
got me there. Four hours ago I would have agreed with him. Hell, I agree
with him now. Julio and suicide are not two things that go together.
“
Maybe he was depressed.” Tanaka’s looking at me sideways.
He knows I’m holding something back. He knew Julio almost as well
as I did. God knows he’s arrested both of us enough times, just
never with enough to make it stick.
We go back and forth like this a couple more rounds, as if he thinks repetition’s
going to get me to change my story. Then he drops a grenade into the conversation.
“
So what’s the deal with Sandro Giavetti?” I almost jump when
he says it, but I’ve been in rooms like these since I was selling
pot down in Venice twenty years ago.
“
Sandra? Never heard of her,” I say. “Julio’s wife’s
gonna be pissed.”
“
He. And don’t hand me anymore crap. I know Julio was with Giavetti
last night.”
“
I don’t know who you’re talking about.” Tanaka shuts
up and does the Stare. Every cop’s got one. Most folks will spill
their guts just to fill the void. I’m not that easy.
Five minutes later there’s a knock, and a uniform sticks her head
in. “Counsel’s here to see him,” she says. Her and Tanaka
glare at each other with the kind of look that screams bad break up. Lucky
me. She ushers Simon’s lawyer, Norman Wertheimer, into the room
before Tanaka can so much as open his mouth.
Norman’s got on a bright blue Armani suit, conspicuous Rolex. His
comb-over’s looking better these days. “Detective,” Norman
says. He gives Tanaka a look like he’s caught him sneaking peeks
into the girls’ locker room. “Good to see you again.”
“
Counselor,” Tanaka says. He knows he's got nothing on me. This interview's
over. He stands, pulls a card from his pocket, scribbles a number on the
back. “You want to talk some more, call me.” He drops the
card in front of me and leaves, the door slamming behind him.
“
You certainly know how to make friends, don’t you, Mr. Sunday?” Norman
says. He sits down in front of me, places the calfskin briefcase on the
table, pops it open. “Sorry to hear about Julio,” he says
with as much emotion as if he’s ordering a sandwich.
“
Yeah. It sucked.” The business card is glaring at me from the table.
I stick it in my jacket pocket just to get it out of my sight.
“
Did you kill him?”
“
Christ, not you, too.”
He holds his hands out, placating. “Just have to ask,” he
says. “I take it that’s a no, then. I have it on authority
that the bartender is giving the same story. We should have you out in
no time, considering that you haven’t been formally charged with
anything.”
“
How long is ‘no time’?” I say.
He looks behind him at the door. “Give it a few hours. The detective's
pretty pissed.”
***
I’m on the deck of Simon’s place near the old Getty museum,
overlooking Pacific Coast Highway. Watching the long line of headlights
snake their way along the oceanfront, wondering what the hell is going
on.
Simon’s not here. I let myself in with a spare key and alarm code.
After Norman got me out, I headed home, iced my knee and cleaned up. Spent
the whole time wondering what I was going to tell Julio’s wife.
Didn’t know if the cops would do it, knew Simon wouldn’t.
Oh, she’ll be taken care of. Simon’s got this thing about
loyalty. Once you’re in, you’re in. But no way was he going
to talk to her.
Julio never told her what he did for a living. She thinks he’s a
manager for a construction company in Hollywood. Julio met her back in
Manila where she grew up thinking she couldn’t do anything by herself.
Thinks she needs a man around to make things happen. If nobody told her
to leave a burning building she’d just stand there and go up with
it. Julio told me once that she made him feel necessary. I told him it
was fucked up.
On the way over to Simon’s I called her, got an answering machine.
Julio’s gravelly voice telling me to leave a message, so I did.
Started to say that Julio killed himself, but it felt weird telling a
dead man’s voice what it should already know. Told Mariel to call
me later, that it was about Julio.
Keys jangle at the front door. “Joe,” Simon says, coming onto
the deck with Norman in tow. “Wasn’t sure if you were going
to make it. Norman, get the man a drink.” I raise the beer I helped
myself to and he nods. “Then get me one.” Simon’s built
like a fireplug, squat and solid, but a good twenty years older than he
looks. His hair is thinning and he likes boiled British food a little
too much for his doctor’s comfort, but he doesn’t care. He’s
got deals running all over the place. He can afford to live large.
He claps a thick hand on my shoulder. “You all right?”
“
Yeah,” I say. “Just been a long day.”
He hangs his head, nods. “It has been,” he says, peers up
at me. “Going to be longer still.” I knew this was coming,
had hoped it wouldn’t.
“
What the hell’s going on?” I can feel my anger bubbling just
below the surface. “Do you know why he did this?” I show him
my hands. Blood is caked under my fingernails where I couldn’t scrub
it all out. “He tore out his own fucking throat.”
Simon steps back, face impassive, almost sad. “S’pose I owe
you that,” he says. He looks around, peering into the hazy shade
of blue that passes for a dark night in Los Angeles. “But not here,” he
says and heads back inside.
He slides the door closed. Locks it. “I don’t know if that’ll
help,” he says, more to himself. Norman hands him a scotch and soda.
He tosses it back like water, throws himself into one of the leather Manhattan
chairs.
“
Giavetti killed Julio,” he says. Holds up a hand when I open my
mouth. “Let me finish, Joe. Please. I don’t know how, but
I know he did it. He and I, we go back quite a ways. Truth is when he
came to see me I near about shit myself. I’m sixty-four. Met Giavetti
when I was eighteen. He looked just as old then as he does now. Are you
following me?” He pauses a moment, to let it sink in. It doesn’t.
“
I saw the guy,” I say. “When he first came in to see you.
Got to be in his eighties.”
“
I said the same thing back in 1959.”
“
You sure it’s the same guy?”
He laughs. “Oh yes. Man like Giavetti, you never forget. I did odd
jobs for him. Much like you do for me. Had his hands in a couple of brothels
in London, horse racing, poker clubs. That sort of thing.”
He pauses, takes a deep breath. “Queer thing. Spent a lot of time
down at the libraries at Oxford. Aside from the occasional roughing up
of a man who hadn’t paid, I used to deliver books to him he got
from overseas. Pick them up from the dockside, take them to his flat.
“
One night,” he says, “pal of mine gets the bright idea to
bump him off. Gonna hide in a closet, strangle him in his sleep. My job
is to get him in the house. I’ve got keys, I know when the ol’ bugger
goes to bed.”
“
You tried to kill him?”
“
Not tried, Joe. Tied him up good, slit his throat. Let him bleed out on
his Persian rugs. Stuffed our pockets with a bit of scratch and anything
looked valuable. Set the place alight. He was dead, Joe. I watched him
burn.”
I look over at Norman to see if he’s buying any of this. He’s
looking like a kid at camp hearing ghost stories. “Bullshit,” he
says.
“
You’re saying Giavetti’s back and he killed Julio?” I
say. “Come on, Simon. Nobody lives forever. Sure, it’d be
nice, but it just doesn’t happen. You killed him, what, almost fifty
years ago? It’s somebody else. What about the guy you did this with?”
“
Lost his nerve,” he says. “Threatened to go to the police.” Knowing
Simon that meant he was at the bottom of the Thames. Scratch that lead.
“
Who else knew?”
“
Christ, besides you two, I’ve never told a soul. Giavetti had connections.
Word got out we’d done the deed, we were good as dead. No one else
knew.”
“
All right,” I say, a scenario coming together. “Somebody’s
screwing with you. The three guys you hooked him up with were in on it.
Have to be.”
“
What about the dead one?” he says.
“
Lost his nerve, like your buddy in London. They took him out. You’dve
done the same.”
“
The missing bullets?”
“
Vests. Lead’s stuck in these poor bastards’ Kevlar.” Starting
to make sense, pieces all lining up. Norman’s nodding like a bobble
head car ornament on a bad road. Simon’s looking from him to me
and back again. You can almost hear the gears working.
“
All fine and good,” he says after a moment. “So why’d
Julio kill himself?”
***
It’s after midnight when I leave. Norman’s taking Simon out
of town. Road trip to San Diego. While he’s out, I’m going
to have myself a chat with Mr. Giavetti, or whoever the hell he is.
I head up PCH, windows down. Cold air blowing in the smell of the ocean
keeps my mind as sharp as exhaustion will allow. My knee aches past the
beer and Advil and my brain's working overtime. Every scenario I come
up with leads me back to Simon’s question. Why'd Julio kill himself?
I hang a right, beginning the long, curvy wind through Topanga Canyon.
My cell phone chirps. I fumble it out of my jacket, flip it open.
“
Yeah,” I say.
“
I just got home.” It’s Mariel. “You called.”
I need this right now. “Have the police spoken with you, yet?”
“
Police?” she asks, wariness creeping into her voice. “Is Julio
with you?”
“
No,” I say, not sure how to proceed. “He… Look, Mariel,
are you gonna be up for a while? I think I should come over.”
A considering silence. “What happened to Julio?” How do you
tell someone that her husband ripped through his own throat with a broken
bottle?
There’s a noise on the other end. “Hang on,” she says,
puts the phone down. A few seconds go by. “God, Joe, you had me
scared there.”
“
Sorry?” I say.
“
Julio,” she says. “He just walked in. You want to talk to
him?” Her voice fades in and out as I drive through a dead patch
and start to lose the signal. “Honey,” she says away from
the mouthpiece. “Joe’s on the phone.”
“
Mariel. Listen to me. Whoever that is, it’s not Julio.” But
I get a burst of digital static and the line goes dead. I throw the phone
into the passenger seat, stomp on the gas and tear through the canyon
as fast as my car will take me.
***
I pull into the driveway of their tract home, skid to a stop behind Mariel’s
Acura. I don’t bother to knock, just hit the front door at a full
run. There’s Mariel, sitting on the floor at the foot of the sofa.
And there’s Julio sitting on the couch, Mariel’s hand in his,
head moving from side to side. He’s got wide eyes, like he can’t
remember how to blink, a ragged flap of snake-belly white skin and muscle
where his throat used to be. His mouth is working like a grouper, trying
to make a sound, but nothing’s coming out, not even a wheeze. Takes
me a second to realize it’s because he’s not breathing.
Mariel turns to me when I come in, tears streaming down her face, mascara
painting dark lines down to her chin. “Help him,” she says
to me. “Oh God, please help him.”
I have no idea what to do. Call Simon? No. Need to keep him out of this.
He’s too spooked as it is. He’d hit San Diego and just keep
going. Paramedics? A little late for that.
Then I have it. I dig around in my jacket for Tanaka's card. Grab Mariel's
phone, dial the number.
Mariel’s obsessively patting Julio’s hand, rocking back and
forth, saying, “It’s okay, baby. It’s all gonna be okay.” From
the look of her, I’d say she knows it’s not going to be.
“
I heard him come in,” she says, her eyes fixed on her husband. “After
you hung up I came out here. He was sitting on the couch. Like this. I
didn’t know what to do.” Her body heaves with fresh sobs. “I
don’t know what to do.”
The phone rings once, twice then clicks as Tanaka comes on the line. “Hello?” he
says, voice groggy with sleep.
“
Frank,” I say. “Joe Sunday. Look, Julio…” I’m
not sure what to say. I’ve got a dead man on the sofa and I need
some help? I think Giavetti might have something to do with it, and, oh
by the way, my boss thinks he’s the ghost of a guy he murdered in
London fifty years ago. And did I mention that the dead guy is still moving
around? What the hell am I doing, calling him?
“
What?” he asks.
I take a deep breath. I need somebody who can think straighter than I
can, and right now he’s the only one who comes to mind. “It’s
Julio,” I say. “He’s-“ There’s a loud click,
and at first I think he’s hung up on me, until I realize that I’m
not getting a dial tone.
“
You can put the phone down,” says a voice. Giavetti steps out from
the kitchen. He’s got a Beretta pointed at my chest. I do what he
says, put the phone back in its cradle.
Tall guy. Wrinkled and balding, liver spots on his hands and face, but
there’s a sharpness in his eyes that has me worried. His hands and
neck are all wiry muscle, and he’s standing up straight as a Marine.
I’m sure I can take him, but I need to get closer. At this range
it’s a crap shoot whether he’ll miss. And if he misses he
might hit Mariel. Something tells me Julio won’t mind it much if
he takes the bullet.
“
Joe, who is this?” Mariel asks. Giavetti smiles at her.
“
Sandro Giavetti,” he says. He grins at some inside joke only he
seems to know about. “You could say your husband and I are close.”
She stands up. Steps toward him. “Can you help him? He came home
like this. I don’t know what to do.”
Giavetti moves to the side, the gun trained on me the whole time. “Nobody
can help him now. I was hoping this time would be different.” Mariel
looks even more lost than before.
“
You did this to him, didn’t you?” I say, more statement than
question. “Who else? The two guys who stole for you? You tried to
get the other one, but he killed himself before you got to him, didn’t
he?”
“
I’m not having this conversation. I only want my property.”
I look back at the mess on the couch that used to be Julio. “Your
property?” I lower my hands. “You’re not taking him
anywhere.”
“
Is this where you say something like ‘over my dead body’?
Because we can do that.”
“
With what?” I say, trying to stall him. “That? All these houses?
You pull that trigger, cops’ll be down on you before you step out
the door.” Still too far away. With my knee in the shape it’s
in I won’t get to him before he gets a shot off.
He thinks about this. “You’re right. Julio, kill him.”
Julio lurches off the couch with an inhuman speed he never had when he
was alive. Mariel screams, beats her fists against his chest. He backhands
her with the force of a bulldozer. She hits the wall like a rag doll and
her neck snaps with a loud crack.
Bad knee or no, I’m moving. I duck around Giavetti’s arm,
grab for the gun, pull it out of his hand before he can pull the trigger.
It clatters to the floor.
He’s quick for an old man, slips out of the wrist lock, drops down
and twists, throwing me off just enough for my knee to seriously pop out
this time. I go down in a wave of agony and torn tendons. Before I can
get up, Julio’s hands are around my throat. He lifts me off the
floor and shakes me like a dog with a gopher.
I’ve got no air. My kicks and punches are useless. I snag the skin
flap at his throat, tear a chunk off. He doesn’t even blink, just
squeezes harder. He’s crushing my windpipe and I can’t make
him let go.
My lungs are screaming. I can feel my eyes bugging out, blood and pressure
so tight in my head that my face is burning. My entire chest is ablaze
and I get tunnel-vision, shades of gray fading in from the edges. I can’t
even raise my arms to fight him, anymore, just this compulsive empty gasping
as my body tries to get some oxygen.
In the distance, a thousand miles away, I can hear Giavetti laughing.
***
When I open my eyes I’m sitting on the cold tile floor of a busted
up shower room, hands cuffed over my head to some pipes poking out the
wall. One overhead fluorescent flickers gray shadows across the room,
highlighting graffiti sprayed over any surface that can take it. There's
a stink in the air, like meat gone too long in an unplugged fridge.
The last thing I remember is Julio crushing my windpipe, squeezing me
like an over-ripe tomato. Breathing feels funny, air not coming in quite
right. And something wrong with the sound in the room. Quiet in some way
I can’t place. Something’s missing.
I run through my catalog of injuries and they’re all coming up blank.
My throat, my knee, all those aches and pains that I’d learned to
ignore are gone, conspicuous in their absence. What the hell is wrong
with me?
I pull on the cuffs, more to give me something else to think about than
any realistic hope of getting out. Solid, police issue. No way I’m
pulling these things off.
Giavetti steps into the hazy pool of light, footsteps echoing on cold
tile. He's wearing a blue polo shirt, chinos, a pair of slip-on loafers.
Aside from the Beretta in his hand he looks like somebody's grandfather. “I
was wondering when you'd come back.” I give the cuffs a theatrical
tug. Like I could be anywhere else.
"
What the hell is Simon's problem, sending his monkeys after me? We made
a deal. I got no beef with him." I'm not sure whether to believe
him or not.
“
He just wanted to talk,” I say. “Find out what happened to
the boys you hired.”
He rubs his face with one hand, squinting with exasperation. “Just
talk,” he says. “So he sends that goddamn gorilla over with
a pair of brass knuckles? Just like London." He twists his mouth
and a pretty good impersonation of Simon comes out. “‘No ‘ard
feelins. Bygone's ‘n all that.’ Limey cocksucker. Well, they're
dead. Figured they could rip me off for your boss.”
“
What the hell could you possibly have that Simon would want?”
He laughs. “You don't know what this is about, do you kid?” he
asks. “It's about immortality. Livin’ forever. Simon knows
I can do it, too. Thought he offed me back in London. Little this, little
that, I’m fifty years younger and good as new." He looks down
at the sallow skin hanging off his arms, the liver spots on his hands.
Things start to click into place. The missing burglars, Julio. Like it
or not, the answer’s staring right at me. “You got old again,” I
say. “You needed something that would make it permanent, something
here in L.A. So you get Simon to give you some muscle to make it happen,
and they try to take it from you.” When I find Simon we’re
going to have a conversation. I don’t like being lied to.
“
Used to be, you made a deal, it was done,” he says. “Backstabbing
son of a bitch.” He fishes an opal about the size of a plum from
his pants pocket. “There's only three of these in the world. British
snagged ‘em from the Aborigines in Australia a hundred years ago.
Simon's boys got it off a collector in Beverly Hills. Doesn’t look
like much. But this baby’s what makes it all possible.”
“
Oh yeah,” I say, remembering Julio. “Works great.”
His face twists into a frown that makes him look even uglier. “It’s
taken me a few tries but I think I finally got it right,” he says. “Those
buddies of yours were my screw ups. They've already fallen apart.”
Has Giavetti gone and done this to himself already? Julio was goddamn
unstoppable. If this is Giavetti as a zombie, I’m screwed. “You
finally work out the kinks?”
“
I don't know,” he says, giving me this look like I'm a fish in a
bell jar. “You tell me.”
The world drops out from under me. I tell myself that I don't feel any
different, only I do. My lungs, the missing aches and pains, my knee.
My body feels like somebody threw the off switch, but forgot to tell me
about it.
Bastard laughs at me again. “Yeah, I’d say I worked out the
kinks,” he says. “Oh, one last thing.” He points the
gun at my head and pulls the trigger.
There's a blast of light and sound, an echoing boom that reverbs across
the tile and whips my head back like it's been hit by a semi. I can feel
bone shatter like glass, leaving an abstract painting of blood and tissue
where my head hits the wall. No pain, but I'm blind in one eye. Can't
move.
And then, like one of those reverse time lapse nature films back in high
school, I can feel the bones of my skull start to knit back together again,
skin and brain folding in on themselves, swelling like a balloon. There's
this disgusting slurping sound as it all pulls together, and in a few
minutes I'm covered in my own gore. Blood and bone matted in my hair.
Not even a scratch on me.
Giavetti's got a look on his face like I just shit out the Vienna Boys'
Choir. "Jesus," he says. His face is gray and he looks like
he's about to hurl.
It takes me a minute to find my voice, overwhelmed panic freezing up my
vocal cords. "Gimme the gun,” I croak, “and I'll show
you what it feels like from this side.”
He swallows, and I can see that he's sweating. "Nah. Think I'll just
toss you down a hole and pour cement on top of ya. See what an eternity
buried in rock does for your attitude." He pockets the gun with a
shaking hand, grips the stone with white knuckles. “Gotta prep a
few things," he says and backs away into the darkness.
Any doubts I might have had are gone. I hold my breath. A minute stretches
into ten. Instead of that tight, chest-crushing feeling there’s
nothing. I feel my left wrist with the fingers of my right. No pulse.
My panic fades as I think things through. It occurs to me, as I’m
wondering if I’m dead or not, that it doesn’t really matter.
I’m still moving. I can think. I’ve had my head blown open
and resealed like a run-flat tire and I haven’t turned into that
thing that used to be Julio. There could be some benefits to this.
Giavetti wants to drop me down a hole and leave me there? I’d like
to see the little fucker try.
***
The place Giavetti’s holed up in is huge. Lots of trashed white
tile, boarded up windows, and industrial walls. No lights, but I don’t
seem to need any. Everything’s clear as day. No freeway noise, either,
a virtual impossibility in this town. Makes me think we’re up in
the Hollywood Hills, somewhere. Used to be some sanatoriums in the canyons
built in the Twenties and Thirties. Guess they didn't all get bulldozed.
I flex my hand, feeling new ligaments where I broke the thumb at the joint
to get out of the cuffs. Didn’t hurt, but there was this sickening
pressure and grinding snap that made me wince. It wasn’t as bad
as I thought it would be, which somehow makes it worse.
I don’t know what Giavetti did to me. Everything feels empty, cored
out like a jack-o-lantern. My body feels too still, all those unconscious
little pulses and movements missing. Reminds me of the first time I spent
a night out of the city. Couldn’t sleep for all the quiet.
And there are questions. Am I going to age, like Giavetti did, or am I
stuck like this? I run a hand over the half day’s growth of beard
on my face. Am I stuck with that, too? Do I eat, sleep? I bring in a large
chestful of air, enough to bring my lungs to bursting, but I don’t
feel it. I never thought I would miss breathing.
The hallways zig one way, zag another. I double-back twice when I hit
dead ends. Eventually I hit a staircase littered with burned out bed-frames
and rotting mattresses. I pick my way past them, make my way up to the
next floor, the smell of rot stronger than down below.
There’s a dim, yellow light in a room at the end of the hall, and
I can hear voices. Clearer as I get closer, I realize that it’s
Giavetti and, of all people, Simon. Simon who should be in San Diego.
“
We had ourselves a deal,” Simons says. “Both of us. I help
you get the rock, you do both of us.”
“
The deal changed,” Giavetti says, “the minute you sent your
monkeys over.”
“
Well, you didn’t have to turn ‘em into fucking zombies.”
I step into the room and all conversation stops. Giavetti standing there,
Beretta in hand. Simon, sitting on the floor, hands on his knees. Over
in the corner there’s Norman, the back half of his head blown off,
lying face down next to the corpses of Julio and the two burglars. Giavetti
turns the gun on me. Fat lot of good that’ll do him.
“
Joe,” Simon says. “Thank god you’re all right.”
“
Don't,” my voice climbing, angry. “When were you gonna tell
me about this? Or were you? Afraid I’d horn in on your little deal
here?”
He puts his hands out, placating. “It’s not what it looks
like. I didn’t know about all this until just now.”
“
Then how’d you know to come here? How come you’re not in San
Diego?” Simon stammers, looks for a way out of the hole he’s
dug himself.
Giavetti rolls his eyes. “Christ, you’re a piss poor liar,” he
says and shoots him through the chest. Blood pours out in a thick, dark
stain as he pitches forward. Giavetti and I stand there, staring at each
other.
“
Guess that just leaves us,” Giavetti says. “You wanna deal?”
I look around the room. The corpses are piling up. It occurs to me that
Giavetti is the only one left alive in the room. “I don’t
see you having much to deal with.”
He pulls the opal out of his pocket. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he
says. “What I did, I can undo. Or not. You want, you can live forever.
Or you can be among the living again. Settle down, grow old, die with
dignity.”
That empty feeling, like I’ve been ripped open and hollowed out,
flares like lightning inside me. I’m Pinocchio in reverse. The real
boy turned into a wooden puppet. “I can go back to breathing,” I
say. “Or I can have this for eternity.”
He nods. “Or I can turn you inside out and make you rot where you
stand,” he says. “I give you what you want and you leave me
alone. You screw with me, and I’ll make what I did to your buddies
over there look like Club Med. Your choice.”
Yesterday, if someone had given me the option of living forever, I’d
have jumped at it. But now, having a taste of it, I’m done. I want
to go home, I want to go to sleep. I want to take a deep breath and not
have it feel like I’m just going through the motions. Maybe he’s
bluffing. Maybe he can’t do it, but I want my life back.
Before I can answer, a voice behind me says, “Drop the gun.” Tanaka
steps into the light, his eyes watering at the smell of days old corpses.
The cavalry has arrived. Too early or too late. Either way the timing
sucks.
Giavetti doesn’t listen. He empties the clip. I jump between them.
Yelling at him not to shoot, trying to shield him from the inevitable
return of fire. I can’t have him die on me. Not now. Bullets pepper
the walls, the doorway. Two of them tag me. One in the chest, and the
other in my kneecap, yanking my leg out from under me.
Tanaka takes his shot, snapping Giavetti's neck back with a well placed
bullet to the head. I drag myself over to the body, my wounds already
closing up, the bullets worming their way to the surface. I grab him,
shake him, but it’s too late.
The opal falls from his fingers and I snatch it up. Without Giavetti,
it’s just a useless chunk of rock, but I hide it in my hand, anyway.
“
You all right?” Tanaka says, coming over to me.
“
Yeah,” I say. “I’m fine.” I pull back the urge
to kill him, stand up. The bullets fall to the floor from my rapidly sealing
wounds. Tanaka looks at them. Looks at me. Leaves it alone.
“
Thanks for covering me,” he says. If he only knew. He takes in the
blood, the wild hair, the cuffs dangling from one wrist. “Caller
ID grabbed Julio’s number. We found his wife over there.”
“
How’d you find this place?” I’m running scenarios through
my head. I could kill Tanaka, hide out. But then what?
“
Luck.” He unlocks the cuffs hanging from my wrist. “Put an
APB out on you and your car. Couple of uniforms found it up the road.” He
looks at the carnage littering the floor.
Voices and running footsteps. Four cops come down the hall, guns out.
Any thoughts of killing Tanaka go out the door the second they walk in.
One of them throws up right there. Another looks at me, starts to call
for paramedics. Tanaka tells him no, gives me a look. The last thing I
need is to have the paramedics check me over. How does he know?
Tanaka pulls me into the hallway, out of earshot of the uniforms. “I
know there’s more going on here,” he says. “Giavetti
was into some weird shit, weirder than you probably know.” He looks
behind him at the uniforms efficiently closing off the scene. “Go
home. Get some rest. I’ll get a statement from you later.”
“
Why are you doing this?” I ask.
“
I don’t know what’s going on,” he says. “But I
can guess.” I start to deny anything, but he puts up a closed hand
to stop me. “I saw what I saw. You tried to cover me. Got in his
way and it fouled his aim.” He opens his palm showing two blood
covered bullets, drops them into my hand. “You never got hit.” He
points me down the hall, gives me a little shove. “Get outta here.
And get yourself cleaned up.”
I make my way through a set of open double doors at the end of the hall,
confused and lost. Dead men walking, cops helping me out. I step outside
onto a gravel patch. Morning sun peeking up over the hills, the light
just a little too bright for comfort.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephen Blackmoore lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two immense dogs, writing about his city more than is probably healthy. He is currently working on a novel. He can be reached at his website, L.A. Noir.
Return to Summer 2006 Table of Contents
© 2006 SPINETINGLER Magazine - All rights reserved |
