Unzipped (10 page)

Once inside, I glanced into my fridge. Three pears and a carton of skim milk peered back. I opened the freezer, where a package of Snickers bars resided in cool comfort. I didn’t really like Snickers bars frozen—why mess with perfection—but it discouraged me from impulse eating. I considered the pears again, then pulled out a Snickers and peeled back the wrapper.

Even frozen it had nutrition beat all to hell. I poured myself a glass of milk and munched contentedly as I peered out my living room window. The dirt in my yard was beginning to crack. I gave that some consideration, licked my fingers clean, and stepped onto the stoop, but something leaped at me from the bushes. I screamed and swung my elbow like a battering ram. The something staggered back, materializing, rather irrationally, I thought, into J.D. Solberg.

“Jesus!” he whined. “What’d you do that for?”

I glared at him as my brain cells filtered back into some semblance of a normal pattern.

“What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?” He pulled splayed fingers from his nose, checked for blood, then glared at me. “You stole my damned car.”

“I did not steal your car.” There was some blood, which immediately fostered a modicum of guilt on my part. “Technically.”

“Then where is it?”

“It’s . . .” I tried not to cut my eyes toward the garage, to pretend the little Porsche was a million miles away, but I’ll never make an actress. A crocodile hunter maybe, or a pirate. Pirates are cool. “In a safe place.”

“In your garage?” His voice was starting to squeak. “You got my Porsche in that stinking little hole?”

“No.” Thirty-three years old and I still couldn’t lie worth shit. It was disgusting is what it was. Probably even pirates could tell a decent lie.

He guffawed and strode stiff-legged up to the door. It listed toward the south as if tired. He grasped the rusted handle and gave it a mighty heave. Nothing happened. He glanced to the right, searching the stucco. “Where’s your opener?”

“My—”

“Your opener!” he spat, fists propped on his scrawny hips. “You might as well hand it over, I can override ’em all.”

Ummm. “Not this one,” I said. “It’s a . . . deluxe ultra . . . ray.”

He snorted. “I’ve never even heard of it.”

“It’s brand-new.” Things as they were, a garage door opener was way down my list of necessities. First I’d need a garage door with more than one hinge. “State of the art.”

“State of the art, my ass,” he said and turned toward the battered little Beetle he’d parked half on the sidewalk. The residents of the suburb of Sunland use their sidewalks for a variety of purposes: lucky for him walking isn’t amongst them.

“Listen, Solberg, I just need a little help,” I said.

“I already helped you and look where it got me. I should call the cops.”

Panic rushed through me. I’d been threatened before, mostly by prepubescent blood relatives, but still . . . “You’re not going to call the cops,” I said, and hoped I sounded as confident as I had when James had threatened to tell Mom about me and Micky Jay. But I had had firsthand knowledge concerning a shoe box stuffed with pot that was hidden under James’s bed. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on your perspective—I’d never looked under J.D.’s bed, and he must have realized my disadvantage because he made a harrumphing noise and pivoted like an insulted Pomeranian.

I said the first thing that came to mind. “Ever heard of sexual harassment?”

He stopped like he’d been shot and turned back toward me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Oh, yeah, he was familiar with the term, I thought, and I was hardly surprised. A guy like Solberg was probably charged with harassment every time he opened his eyes. “What would they think down at NeoTech if there was another complaint filed against you?”

He turned pale under his newly purchased tan and held up a placating hand. “Listen, just give me back my Porsche and we’ll call it even.”

It almost seemed fair, but I didn’t want fair, I wanted the cards firmly stacked in my favor. “Even?” I shook my head. “I drive you all the way home so you won’t wind up wrapped around a sycamore somewhere in Altadena and you end up copping a cheap feel.”

“Well.” He had the good graces to look chagrined. I wish I could say the same about myself. “That wasn’t why you were supposed to drive me home, was it?” I tried to come up with a disclaimer but he was already yammering on. “And—hah! You’re not going to call the cops, not with what you got hangin’ over your head.”

He made an interesting point, but I still needed help. “Listen, J.D.,” I said, shifting seamlessly into wheedle mode. “I’m not asking much. Nothing you can’t handle.”

He snorted as if the idea of any sort of ineptitude was inconceivable.

“Just a phone number.”

But he was already striding toward his Beetle. “I’ll be back,” he said, “and next time I won’t be leaving without my Porsche.”

From across the chain link fence erected to keep my yard wreckage at bay, Mrs. Al-Sadr stared at me, her dark eyes disapproving between the coordinated fabrics that hid practically every inch of human flesh. I gave her my everything’s-hunky-dory smile, but she just turned away. I did the same a moment later, sliding into my little house and locking myself inside.

I spent most of that night searching the Internet for any sort of clues. I came up with basically nothing except a grainy, outdated photo of Bomstad and his ex-fiancée. Sheri Volkers was a blond woman with big hair, a big smile, and big boobs.

Digging through the phone book, I came up with Volkers’s number, and although I didn’t know what I was going to do with that information, I fell asleep feeling somewhat better for the knowledge.

The sun was shining through my window when I awoke, highlighting every streak of dirt to full advantage. But window-cleaning was low on the priority list, just below buying a chimpanzee and polka-dancing on the moon.

I showered in a fog, thanked God it was currently uncouth to wear panty hose, and shoved myself into a linen suit. My sling-back shoes matched to perfection. I hopped down the hall, dragging on the second one and grabbing a pair of Oreos from the cupboard. Opening the front door, I remembered my Saturn was not yet back from the dealer and simultaneously realized Solberg was sitting in his Beetle and pointing at my garage with something that looked like a remote control on steroids.

He caught sight of me through his open window and swore with some panache. I might have been impressed if I hadn’t grown up Catholic.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, still fighting with my shoe.

He got out of his vehicle, his contacts gone and his horn-rim glasses firmly back in place. His spidery hair reached out in all directions. “What the hell kind of opener did you say you have?”

I glanced down the street, hoping for some kind of help, but that damned knight in shining armor must have lost his trusty steed again because he was notably absent. I turned back toward Solberg. “Want to give me a ride to work?”

“What? Are you crazy?” His hair seemed to reach new horizons at the thought. “You stole my Porsche.”

I found I liked him marginally better when he wasn’t leering at me.

“Give me a ride and I’ll give you a clue about the opener.”

He was swearing again as I squeezed behind the Beetle’s dash. I could understand why he wanted the Porsche back. The Beetle was like eating earthworms after filet mignon. Which inexplicably made my mind return to the thought of Sheri Volkers. Perhaps I should give her a call, see what she could tell me about Bomstad. Then again—

“So what kind is it?” Solberg asked, as he bumped onto the 5.

I pulled my mind from my current dilemma. “What’s that?”

“The opener,” he snapped, looking frazzled and making me wonder just how long he’d been working on my door. “What the hell kind is it?”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just help me out?”

We pulled into traffic. The sun was baking down on us from a faded blue-gray sky, and stinking, fuming vehicles were stretched out as far as the eye could see. The Beetle’s fans were working hard enough to blow my eyes closed, but it was still hot on the passenger side where the unblinking sun hit me full strength. I lifted the hair from my neck and immediately felt Solberg’s gaze slither in that direction.

“It ain’t gonna work.”

I blinked at him. “What’s that?”

“You ain’t gonna wheedle any more information from me with your woman’s wiles.”

Woman’s wiles. Uh-huh. “Fair enough,” I said and searched the hills for some sign of sanity. There was none, because houses were stacked like oatmeal cookies along the steep slopes. What the hell kind of a person would build a two-million-dollar home in the desert? I slumped down in my seat, feeling lumpy and lethargic. Traffic was struggling along like sun-baked Galapagos, and I could think of no good reason to refrain from sleeping. True, Solberg might decide to take me to some secluded beach and drown me, but I was too tired to give it much thought.

When I awoke, he was parked in front of the strip mall that housed my office. I yawned and slid upright, feeling groggy and rumpled.

“My buddy’s got a yacht,” Solberg said, his tone defeated.

I turned toward him and noticed that his magnified gaze had settled on my chest.

“He lets me take guests on it whenever I want.”

I stifled a sigh. “I’ll give you your car back,” I said. “Just get me a couple phone numbers.”

But apparently his car was a matter of pride now, because he shook his head like a petulant child. I disembarked and he puttered down the street, leaving me to wander dismally into my office building without the promise of a yachting weekend or the much-needed phone numbers.

7

There is none so troubled as one who thinks himself perfectly sane.

—Frank Meister, M.D.,
professor of Psychotropic Medications

T
HE HOURS CREPT BY. Angie Fredricks talked about her sexual fantasies, which were surprisingly inventive considering she’d passed the seventy year mark nearly a decade before. Melvin Osterman told me about the time he’d bicycled down Owens Avenue wearing nothing but a smile. It’s amazing what some guys will do for a six pack and a cheap thrill, and Mr. Ulquist, father of two, admitted he had had a crush on his science teacher who happened to be male and as handsome as a Greek god! Hormones ruled the world, but none of their problems seemed to compare to mine. Some kind of psychologist I was.

Around five
P
.
M
. Elaine drove me home. There, Solberg was sitting across the street in his Beetle. I gave him a wave. He slapped a hand distractedly back at me, and I lumbered into my house.

The phone was already bleating by the time I locked the door behind me. I answered on the fourth ring.

“Chrissy?”

“Mom,” I said, sliding into a nearby chair and prodding off my sandals. My toenails were now neon pink thanks to insomnia and lightning-bolt frustration. I prefer to consume a vat of cookie dough when frustrated, but I’d settled on a pedicure instead.

“What’s wrong?” Mom’s tone was tight, like it used to get when I told her I really
had
been at Molly’s house
all
night and wouldn’t dream of sneaking out to meet some boy.

“What do you mean?” Just the sound of her voice made me sweat, and I was pretty sure my acne was already reviving itself. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“You sound stressed.”

Two thousand miles away and her maternal instincts were as sharp as a bloodhound’s. “Just a long day.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.” Since breakfast. I crossed my fingers and said a half dozen Hail Marys.

“Tell me the truth,” she said, her voice deepening like a boxer’s.

“The air-conditioning went out on my car. It’s a hundred and ten here.”

“Well.” She sounded relieved, maybe that my problems were so insignificant, maybe that she had proof that she’d been right about L.A. “It’s beautiful here. Seventy-four degrees.”

“In three months it’ll be seventy-four below.”

“Keeps the riffraff out. You should move back.”

It was an ongoing disagreement. So far I had won, but there was no guarantee that would continue to be the case. I was only thirty-three and not quite ready to live on my own, at least according to Connie McMullen, who was made of no-fail instincts held together with barbed wire.

“What else is wrong?”

Damn.

“Chrissy?” There was already the threat of retribution in her voice. I winced, but at that moment the doorbell rang. Maybe I was being overly optimistic to feel relieved under the current circumstances.

“I’m sorry, Mom, I’ll have to call you back. Someone’s at the door.”

“Who is it?”

I wanted to tell her I was a psychologist not a psychic, but I wasn’t brave enough to give my mother lip. I’d almost rather face Rivera, who happened to be standing on my stoop at that very moment.

He wore dark sunglasses and seemed to be gazing into the Al-Sadrs’ immaculate front yard when I opened the door.

He turned slowly toward me, removing his shades as he did so. “You an environmentalist?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Are you trying to save water, or do you just hate grass?”

I glanced into my yard, feeling immediately guilty. Growing up, Dad had maintained our lawn like the back nine of Pebble Beach and had duly implanted the idea that I should do the same. “I’ve been a little distracted lately,” I said. “What with being accused of my attacker’s murder.”

Rivera’s lips flickered, making me wonder if that was his version of a genuine smile. “A little nitrous might help.”

I tried to keep up but it had been a long day. Mr. Osterman had presented several photos of his cycling exploits. His belly had been as pale as an onion and just as round. The idea of him biking past elementary school kids like a hirsute root bulb had left me somewhat shaken. “Nitrous?”

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“‘Nitrous’?” I repeated.

“For your grass.”

“Do the good citizens of L.A. know you drove halfway across California to give me lawn care advice?”