Wrong City (13 page)

T
he Beverly Center was a mall, not an
office building, and it seemed highly unlikely he’d find Sparky here. Nine
stories of poured concrete slathered in dark gray paint, monstrous and looming,
taking up an enormous chunk of prime real estate on the easternmost edge of
Beverly Hills. A smattering of restaurants on the ground floor, then six levels
of parking crowned by three floors of upscale retail establishments. Vish took
the escalators to the seventh floor, then stood and stared at the shop displays
of luxury goods, uncertain.

Did Lon know
what he was talking about? Vish hadn’t been here in months, but it looked much
the same as his last visit. Shops. No offices.

At the customer
service desk, a woman was deep in conversation with the uniformed young man
behind the counter. She wore a black suit with an impeccably tailored jacket
and high black boots with narrow spike heels. She was tall and Asian, with
bobbed hair that gleamed copper in the light, and she looked very familiar.

Of course.
Sparky’s glamorous friend Poppy, who’d picked him up after the party in the
hills, who’d signaled to Vish not to accept Sparky’s offer of a ride. The young
clerk slid a plastic mail bin overflowing with large padded envelopes across
the counter to her. Screenplays, maybe, or manuscripts.

Poppy hoisted
the bin. She balanced it on one hip, then headed toward the escalators leading
up to the highest levels. A small avalanche of padded envelopes shifted and
spilled to the marble floor. She paused, teetering in her boots. Her mouth
twitched in irritation.

Vish hurried
forward and gathered up the fallen envelopes. The addressee was Poppy Kang, not
Sparky, but he was in the right place. He gestured toward the bin. “Do you want
me to carry that?” he asked.

She looked at
him and smiled. No trace of recognition on her lovely face, not that she’d
remember their one fleeting prior encounter. “Thanks. That’s very cool of you,”
she said. She passed the overflowing bin to him. “I’m on the top floor.”

He followed her
up two flights of escalators. The interior of the Beverly Center was nicer than
the exterior, all glass walls and glossy marble floors, open space and
skylights. Poppy strode ahead of him, her boots clicking smartly.

Top level.
Mostly just the food court, plus a few orphaned shops. There’d once been a
movie theater here, Vish had heard, a multiplex, but it’d gone out of business
years ago. The entrance had been plastered over to match the seamless white
wall on either side, and now there was no sign the theater had ever existed.

Poppy headed
toward that white wall. Vish trailed her as she walked straight up to a door he
could hardly see, just an outline against all the white. No doorknob. She
inserted a key into a white-painted lock and pushed it open.

“This is me,”
she said. She held the door and gestured for him to enter. “Care to come in,
Vish?”

Vish’s mouth didn’t
drop open, but it was close.

“You recognized
me,” he said at last.

“Sure.” Poppy
had dimples, like Troy. She groped around the wall just inside the door and
flicked on the overhead lights. “I was expecting you. If not today, then
sometime soon.”

Vish found
himself in an unfinished space. No dividing walls, a ceiling lined with exposed
pipes and dangling electrical wires, bare floorboards. A desk sat near the
door, covered with stacks of screenplays and messy piles of paperwork. Poppy
nodded toward the desk. “Just put the mail down there.”

Vish shifted
aside a tower of scripts to make room for the bin. “Lon Hartford said I might
be able to find Sparky here.”

“That was
optimistic of Lon.” Poppy grinned. “Sparky almost never comes to the office
these days. You’ll have to make do with me. Grab a chair from over there and
have a seat.” She sat down behind her desk.

Vish saw a
stack of collapsed folding chairs resting against the wall. He arranged one in
front of the desk and sat.

“I’d offer you
something to drink, but the amenities are limited,” Poppy said. “There’s a
Starbucks in the food court if you need anything.”

Vish glanced at
the bare walls, the lack of furnishings. “Did you just move in?” he asked.

“We’ve been
here three months. This is as settled as we’re going to get. Sparky likes to
switch offices a lot, so it’s never worthwhile to invest too much effort in
appearances, especially since he’s barely ever here.”

She pawed
through the stacks of papers on her desk. “You’re here somewhere. I was just looking
at it last week. Give me a second.” She picked something up. “Aha.”

She held up an
unbound sheaf. It looked about manuscript-length. Vish glanced at the title
page.

“That’s my
book,” he said. His voice sounded muffled and strange in the cavernous room, or
maybe something had gone wrong with his hearing. The blood rushed in his ears,
and he felt kind of dizzy, because Poppy had his book, which he’d never sent to
Sparky.

“Sure. You
wanted Sparky to read it, right?”

“Yes, I did.
But… I didn’t send it to him,” he said.

Poppy shrugged.
“You sent it to someone. Sparky asked me to track it down, I sent out feelers,
and some agent or publisher or whoever passed it along to me. No real mystery
to it.”

“Why didn’t you
ask me for a copy?” Vish asked.

“Same result
either way. My method worked, and I didn’t have to bother you. From what I
hear, you’ve been tied up lately with other matters.” She placed the manuscript
on her desk and flipped through the first few pages. “Sparky hasn’t read it
yet. He’s been meaning to, he keeps saying, but between you and me, he probably
never will.”

“He didn’t
sound terribly enthusiastic when I described it to him.”

Poppy rolled
her eyes skyward. “That’s Sparky. If you’d managed to work in a cyborg ninja or
a nitrogen tank explosion or something, he would’ve perked right up. I read it,
though,” she said. She tapped a finger on the title page. Her nails were long
and covered with glossy beige polish. “I liked it. It reads very well. Maybe a
little soft for the current market, but there’s probably a place for it.”

“Thank you,”
Vish said.

“I’ve suggested
some changes throughout. You want to make them, we’ll see if we can get this
sucker in the hands of the right publisher.”

She passed him
the manuscript. Vish flipped through it. It was a mess of red pen marks, no
page left untouched. Jotted notes in the margins, crossed-out lines, entire
paragraphs covered in scribbles.

Vish picked a
page at random and reviewed her changes. She knew what she was doing. His
sentences were tightened, his prose was punched up, until it read in a swifter,
cleaner, easier rhythm. Just at a glance, it was clear she’d made it better.

Some of her
changes, though… Vish looked up at her. “You changed character names?”

“Not all of
them.”

“Katherine to
Kathleen? What difference could that make?”

“On the
surface? Not a thing. But on the level I’m working at, it could mean the
difference between being published and not being published.”

Vish stared,
not sure how to express his thoughts without giving offense. She smiled at him.

“If it helps,
think of your manuscript as a blueprint, the foundation for something that has
yet to be built. What I’ve done is take the next step toward building it.”

“But… it’s so
arbitrary,” Vish said. “Changing one name to another… you can’t possibly know
this will help my book get published.”

“Nothing’s
certain, of course. Do I know what will increase the chances of selling it,
though? Absolutely.” She shrugged. “If you work with me and Sparky, we can get
you published and make you very, very happy. That’s a promise. But I understand
you might be reluctant to believe I know what I’m talking about. It’s a leap of
faith.”

“I’m sure
you’re very good at this, but I don’t even know who you are,” Vish said. “I
don’t even know who Sparky is.”

Poppy examined
him. Her expression seemed fond yet remote, like he was someone’s kid brother
she’d been tasked with entertaining. “Want to grab a drink with me?”

“I… suppose,”
Vish said.

“Excellent.”
Poppy flashed her dimples again. She stood and led the way out of the theater,
locking the door behind them.

They took the
elevator to the first floor, which put them right in the middle of the parking
structure. Vish expected Poppy to head for the sidewalk, maybe to one the
restaurants lining La Cienega, but instead she strode toward the back of the
parking structure, in the opposite direction of the exit.

She pushed open
an unmarked door and led Vish to an enclosed outside courtyard. Gravel covered
the ground. A black acrylic bar ran the length of an ugly concrete wall, with a
smattering of iron bistro tables shaded with patio umbrellas arranged in front
of it.

Two exquisite
young men with dark suits and expensive haircuts sat on tall stools at the bar,
sipping Scotch and conversing. They glanced back at Poppy and Vish and fell
silent for a moment, then resumed their dialogue in hushed tones, their heads
close together.

The patio
tables were all unoccupied. Poppy sat down at one and gestured for Vish to take
the seat across from her. “This okay?” she asked.

“Sure.” Vish sat
and looked around. “I had no idea this place was here.”

“Most people
don’t,” she said. “Nobody goes here who doesn’t belong.”

“What’s that
noise?” he asked. It was an electronic hum, omnipresent, not loud but
impossible to ignore.

“It’s the oil
well,” Poppy said. At Vish’s confused expression, she explained. “The mall is
built around an oil well. They put up a barrier to hide it from the street, but
it’s active.”

Vish glanced at
the wall. “Is it safe to have a bar here?” he asked. “Wouldn’t there be all kinds
of chemicals in the area?”

“Sure.” Poppy
gestured with her chin at a multicolored chemical hazard placard mounted on
the bar. “It’s not like they don’t warn people. It’s probably fine, as long as
you don’t lick the ground or anything.”

A waiter came
over, lithe and beautiful in a black collarless shirt, his dark hair swept off
his face in a ponytail. “Your usual, Ms. Kang?”

“Please.
Thanks, Alec.” She turned to Vish. “What will you have?”

“Ah… The house
red?”

The beautiful
waiter smiled and nodded, as though he wholeheartedly approved of Vish’s
choice, then withdrew. As soon as they were alone, Vish cleared his throat. “I
actually didn’t come here to talk to Sparky about my book.”

“Figured as
much. What’s on your mind?”

“I saw Sparky
at Kelsey Kirkpatrick’s birthday party. He said he’d gotten me into trouble,
and he was sorry about it.” Vish closed his eyes and tried to remember the
exact words. “He said, ‘
She’ll kill you if she can.
’ I just want to know
what he meant by that.”

“Huh.” Poppy
raised her eyebrows until they disappeared under her heavy sheaf of bangs. She
rested her elbow on the table and braced her chin in her hand. “That’s
enigmatic.”

“That’s what I
thought,” Vish said.

“Do you have
any idea who ‘she’ is?”

Vish shook his
head. “I thought he might be talking about my girlfriend, maybe. She dumped me
immediately after the party, and I don’t know why.”

“Any reason
she’d want to kill you?” Poppy asked.

“Not at all.
Not even remotely.” Vish exhaled. “It’s all very confusing.”

The waiter
brought their drinks. A Manhattan for Poppy, four cherries. They drank in
silence.

“This is
Sparky’s business, and I don’t know how much I should tell you,” Poppy said.
She shrugged. “For that matter, I don’t know the whole story. I imagine he’ll
find you at some point and explain things.”

“Do you know if
I’m in any danger?” Vish asked.

She smiled.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, and something about the way she said it, both
kind and dismissive at once, made Vish feel better about the whole situation.

“Can you tell
me anything about Sparky? Anything at all? What does he do? Why do people get
so… weird about him?” Vish asked. “Lon Hartford said he runs things. What does
he run?”

“It doesn’t
matter who he is,” Poppy said. “If you need to know about him, he’ll make sure
you figure it out.”

“You want to
help me publish my book, and yet you won’t tell me anything about who you—you
and Sparky—really are?” Vish asked. “That doesn’t seem very fair.”

“Of course not.
Fair
doesn’t factor into this.” Another flash of dimples. “As I said
earlier, it’s a leap of faith. And it’s entirely your decision. We’d be happy
to work with you, but it’s not going to crush us if you turn us down.”

He could say
yes. He could agree to work closely with Poppy, he could make the changes she’d
suggested to his book, and maybe he’d find out more about Sparky in the
process...

He shook his
head. “Thank you for the offer, but no.”

“Suit
yourself.” Poppy winked at him. She didn’t seem upset by his decision, and
Vish’s chest relaxed. He hated confrontations, hated disappointing people, and
somehow it seemed like a good idea not to annoy Poppy. “If you change your
mind, you know where to find me.”

“Why didn’t you
want to give me a ride?” Vish asked.

The smile
faded. Poppy’s brows drew together. “Sorry?”

“At the party
in the hills, when you picked Sparky up after his car got wrecked. You shook
your head at me when he offered me a ride.”

“I did?” Poppy
looked confused.

“You did. It
seemed….” Vish thought a minute. “It seemed like it meant something.”

“Well, it
doesn’t matter now, does it?” The smile returned, lighting up her beautiful
face. “Sparky’s odd. You’ve probably figured that out. I mean, I’m not going to
say anything against him, because he’s my boss and he’s also a friend, sort of,
but…” She shrugged. “Being around him tends to make life more complicated. I’m
not saying I was trying to warn you, but things might’ve been simpler for you
if you hadn’t called Sparky.”