The Unnoticeables (19 page)

“What's the holdup, man? Are you guys coming or what?”

Jezza held up a backward peace sign and spat on the street.

“Fuck you!” I screamed. “You try driving this piece of shit! It's like riding a goddamned sausage!”

Gus laughed and slammed the doors. The van idled impatiently a few hundred feet away. Wash started running for it, but it pulled away when he got close.

“It's just waiting there,” he hollered, “down the next block.”

I hefted, shoved, and wiggled Daisy straight again, then motioned for Jezza to hop on behind me. A few kicks to get her going and we wobbled up to Wash. He threw a leg over the back, grabbed onto Jezza, and we were moving. I had to come to a near-full stop at every corner, putting both feet down and waddling the bike into the turns, but it didn't seem to matter. The van politely waited for us at every intersection.

We weren't chasing them down. They were leading us like a big white duck guiding her clumsy, angry ducklings.

 

SIXTEEN

2013. Los Angeles, California. Kaitlyn.

“Behold!” Carey did his best carnie impression and whipped a stained drop cloth off of a rusted, dented tangle of metal.

The motorcycle was the color of a storm drain after a heavy rain. The seat was an indistinct wad of faded duct tape. The grips were filthy rags secured with baling wire. The clutch lever was a set of vise-grip pliers clamped onto the end of a fraying cable. A thick pool of oil was curled up on top of the engine like an old cat in a sunbeam: It looked like it had always been there and had no plans to ever leave.

“Wow,” I said, “that's…”

“Daisy,” Carey finished, patting the seat by way of introduction. A seam of tape cracked open at his touch. He did not seem to notice.

“Wait—is this a Samurai?”

“No,” Carey said, eyeballing me warily, “this is a motorcycle. You're thinking of those guys with swords.”

“It is!” I pushed Carey aside and wheeled the bike out from its hidey-hole, wedged between the Dumpster and the apartment building's outer wall. I backed it into the street, and the high pipes confirmed my guess. “It's even the SS!”

“My bike's a Nazi?” Carey was throwing a leg over the seat and fiddling with the controls. He gestured for me to jump on behind him.

I looked at the thick patina of scratches and dents that had once been a gas tank. I have never crashed a motorcycle that hard in my life, and it is literally my job to crash motorcycles.

“No.” I pushed Carey backward on the seat and mounted up in the space in front of him. “You look like you don't so much ride this as you repeatedly crash it until you reach your destination.”

“Hey, that's…” Carey contemplated it for a moment.

“Fair enough,” he finished. “Like you can do better?”

I turned the key, which Carey apparently just left in the ignition, pointed the bike downhill, and pushed off. When we got a little momentum, I shifted up into second and dumped the clutch. The engine coughed into life with a sound like the laugh of a career smoker. A black cloud billowed out of the pipes. I leaned away from the turn, locked the bars, and pinned the throttle, fishtailing us into a 180. I fought the front wheel back to the ground as the torque threw the bike into a wheelie.

“Balls!” Carey swore and grabbed at my hips like a nervous prom date.

“My dad had one of these when I was a kid,” I hollered over my shoulder. “First bike I ever jumped.”

Carey's grip loosened. He stuck his legs out to either side and whooped.

“I didn't know she could do this!” He giggled. “I thought she was too weak!”

“There are no weak bikes”—I quoted my dad, the first time I complained about the little 125 he bought me for my fourteenth birthday—“only weak riders.”

“Hey,” Carey protested.

“You're not even leaning into turns. Lean with me—now!”

I pushed on the grip and ducked us around the line of post-rush-hour, pre-dinner-hour traffic gathered at a stoplight. It's always some kind of rush hour in L.A. The only real difference is in the attire and sobriety of the people caught in it. A motorcycle is the only thing that moves here, because you can split between lanes of stopped cars. It's not illegal in California … though it's not entirely legal or safe or really all that smart. But it is fast: We cut down the space between two lanes of jammed cars. It was like riding a lawnmower down a cramped hallway. Carey yelped and pulled his legs back in, narrowly avoiding clipping a bright green Prius's side mirror. The owner honked. Carey shot an instinctive middle finger up in the air. I stood on the pegs and checked the cross traffic up ahead. Nothing. I opened the throttle and shot us through the red light.

The Samurai was small, old, and weighed down too much. There was a flat spot in the throttle that told me her air-box wasn't totally sealed, but she was still running surprisingly well. Even so, we'd never be able to catch Marco in his souped-up Mercedes.

Or we wouldn't have been able to if he'd been in any other neighborhood at any other time of day. But my apartment was four blocks from the on-ramp to the 405. Cars didn't so much drive on these streets as they just parked in rapid succession. Every traffic light was a line at Disneyland: just a bunch of bored people waiting for the brief, giddy thrill of movement.

“Are you looking?” I let off the gas at every cross street, scanning the queued traffic on the adjacent roads for Marco's car.

“I was having too much fun,” Carey said. “You have to teach me how to do that.”

“You take left, I'll take right. Yell if you see him.”

It was tough, even for me, to lane-split like this at speed, all while running traffic lights, standing on the pegs, and scanning the parallel roads. It was made tougher still by the sheer abundance of cars that looked just like Marco's. Those Mercs—I was never good with newer cars, much less European models—probably cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And yet in every fourth vehicle in West L.A. was a yuppie with perfect teeth and a button-down shirt open to the chest, doing six miles an hour in a German supercar.

“Shit!” I stomped on the rear brake and locked the wheel.

An old Mexican lady just materialized into existence right in front of me. I guess she must have stepped from the space between two idling cars and started walking across the street, not even checking for traffic. The back tire of the bike squealed and darted from side to side. I rode out the slide to a full stop, not wanting to risk a high side crash in this traffic. Carey immediately set about flipping her off, but she beat him to the punch. They both yelled obscenities, waving middle fingers around and grabbing at their crotches. I planted a foot, held the brake, turned the bars, and opened the throttle: The rear of the bike spun out as I dropped into gear, shooting us into the gap the old lady had spawned from. I blipped the throttle and yanked up on the bars to hop us over the curb, then hammered it down the sidewalk. Two ripped guys in half shirts released the hands they'd been holding and hopped to either side as we rocketed into the crosswalk.

“Look left, god damn it!”

“I'm a little fucking distracted by my own impending death!” Carey protested, but I felt his death grip on my hips slacken as he turned his head.

Intersections, alleys, and driveways whipped past, but no sign of Marco.

“There!” Carey yelled. “Back there. I think that was him.”

I hit both brakes and steered us into a tight U-turn. We made the last intersection just in time to see Marco run down a kid on a skateboard while trying to nudge his way through a red light. Luckily there was no space for him to get speed; the kid was up and hollering almost instantly. I leaned into the turn hard, and we cut wide through the light. My stomach dropped to my knees from the g-forces. The little bike's old suspension sagged, bottomed out, and then slowly rebounded. I slipped us right into the space between lanes and kept as much speed as I could. I stood on the pegs and saw Marco riding the shoulder a block ahead of us. He floored it through the clear spaces until he reached a parked car, then yanked the wheel back into traffic whether it was clear or not. The crash of plastic on plastic, long honks, and angry shouts followed in his wake.

“This might be the best day of my life,” Carey said. “I get to be in a bitchin' motorcycle chase while a beautiful girl repeatedly sticks her ass in my face.”

I sat down, just now realizing where my rear end was positioned whenever I stood on the pegs.

“Heads up!” Carey said.

I snapped my attention back just in time to see a chubby lady in a PT Cruiser open her driver's-side door. Luckily the feathered-hair dude in the next lane was too busy texting to notice that traffic was moving again. He had accidentally left the slightest space between cars. I weaved into it and angled us down the center divider.

“No cuts!” PT yelled after us. I hoped Carey was giving her the hardest finger possible.

A pair of bright red Hummers were stopped in the middle of the intersection at the next light, blocking every inch of road space. They both had personalized license plates and Ayn Rand bumper stickers.

We would not be passing through here.

I honked, but the bike only emitted a nasally gasp, then a snap, and the horn clattered to the street. Annoyed, I revved the throttle, and a thick, tattooed arm emerged from the passenger-side window of the Hummer directly in front of us. It casually tossed a latte at my face. I ducked out of the way, but it must have clipped Carey, because he was already starting to dismount.

“No time.” I reached back and held him in place. He reluctantly settled back onto the seat, but when traffic started moving again, he held up a fist and punched off the driver's-side mirror as we passed.

We caught up to Marco six blocks later. I swerved around a FedEx truck just in time to see Marco's reverse lights flick on. He came rocketing backward at us from the opposite lane of traffic. I locked the bars and spat us up onto the sidewalk right as he slammed into the grill of the delivery truck.

Marco laughed, threw the Mercedes into gear, and squealed away. There was music thumping from his open windows.

No matter how far you might roam

It's still your home away from home

Home Room!

The theme song to his show.

I got the message. Cars beat motorcycles. I couldn't rescue Jackie while lying in a pool of blood and oil on Sunset. I fell back and settled for just trying to keep the Mercedes in sight. It didn't seem to matter to Marco. He didn't speed up or slow down, now that we were off of his tail. He kept right on running lights, jumping lanes, and clipping pedestrians. He didn't even think we were in a chase: This was just how he drove.

Twenty minutes later, we had wrestled our way up into the hills. Traffic had let off a little bit, and I had to keep the throttle wide open just to keep up with Marco on the winding, narrow streets. I carved easily through a set of neat S curves. I could close distance on the corners but lost it in the straights. Every other block, a car reversed obliviously out of its driveway; a jogger blindly plodded into the crosswalk; a dog chased a cat into the open road. I have never been that close to death in my life.

Carey laughed the entire time.

When we finally pulled into a cul-de-sac overlooking West L.A. and killed the engine, I glanced back to find him bright red, still trying to catch his breath, tears welling up in his eyes.

“That was the most fun I have ever had,” Carey said, “and I once fucked a girl on a roller coaster.”

Marco had pulled into a long, snaking driveway that led downhill. It was packed with cars. He opened his driver's side door, stood, and stretched—like he'd just left behind a long commute instead of a swath of destruction. He was still completely naked. He strode toward an eggshell-white mansion the size of my entire apartment building, his butt flexing and rolling like the angry sea.

I mean, I know he's a demon yanking strings inside the ravaged shell of a human being, but there is just no denying that ass.

When Marco reached the door, he turned back and hit a button. The Mercedes beeped once and flashed its lights. Locked.

Every inch of the driveway's absurd length was utterly packed with Ferraris, Bentleys, Lotuses—even a few old Spyders. There must have been ten million dollars' worth of car down there. Every single one with broken headlights, bashed fenders, or deep scratches.

Did Marco own all of these?

No—all of the lights inside the house were on. Muffled bass emanated from somewhere deep within the mansion. The gabble of distant conversation floated from an unseen deck.

It was a party.

He took us to a party.

*   *   *

“No, no. Here's the plan.” Carey was drawing diagrams in the dirt by the side of the road with a broken stick.

“I'll move up to the front door…” he continued, sketching an arrow leading from the little
x
that represented our current position to a lopsided square in the upper corner.

“Then you”—Carey drew a wide, curvaceous
w
and put two dots toward the bottom of each arch—“take your top off and bounce around some—”

I tweaked his ear. He swore.

“What? It's a distraction!”

“Take this seriously, jerk. We're trying to find my friend.” I ducked my head back around the hedge and tried to spot an open window or something. Like most of these modern-style hill mansions, the building was a series of large, flat rectangles stacked atop one another. The bottom one was featureless. The second story had narrow slit openings—but they weren't wide enough to slide through, even if they had been low enough to the ground to reach.

“It's a joke,” Carey said. “We're squatting here plotting out war games, when we're just going to go through the front door.”