San Diego Noir

“Bitch,” the darkness said. What seemed to be a large bush to the side of the path reached out and grabbed me from behind. A cloth-draped hand clamped over my mouth, a thick, strong arm reached around and pinned my arms to my body. I smelled the sickly sweet odor of chloroform and tried to hold my breath. The combination of the burn of vomit in my throat and chloroform in my nose made me gag. Fury and panic took over—and somewhere, a cold reminder of one of Bill’s lessons in self-defense.

Stomp on the instep. Go for the crotch, the eyes. Spin inside thearms.

I tried to spin but the man was too strong. His arm was thick and hairy. The chloroform was closing me down. With the last of my conscious strength, I kicked up my leg, then stomped his bare foot with the heel of my shoe. He made a noise like a startled pig. I finally managed to whirl around as the man’s grip loosened. Then with a clenched fist I hit him below the stomach. My knuckles met flab and then bone, and I grabbed below the bone and twisted as hard as I could through the thick pants.

Now my attacker actually squealed. “Shit!” he gasped, curling over. Mr. Smith’s voice, definitely. And it smelled like him. I pushed him away, grabbed the sap from my pocket, and swung it wildly. It was too dark to see more than vague outlines. The sap didn’t connect. I took a step back and turned my head, following a faint movement. A shadow the size of a truck coming back to hurt me. I swung again. The sap came down with a wet crunch on Smith’s clutching hand. He drew back and squealed again, so much like a pig. I zeroed in on his head and swung again. He fell with a heavy thump, like so much dead meat.

The back door swung open and Mrs. Smith peered out. “George? George!” she called. “Are you all right?”

I ran for the gate and fled down the street. There was a tiny sliver of light in the upstairs window at the corner grocery. As instructed, I pounded on the side door. The window raised with a high squeak of old wood on wood and Mrs. Giordano peered out. “Now look here,” she called, “this is far too late!”

“Do you have a phone? I have to call the police! Let me in,” I begged.

“What’s this about? Who’s there? Laura, is it?” Her gray hair hung down in a long braid as she leaned out the window, and I wished it were long enough to clamber up, like Rapunzel’s.

“It’s an emergency, let me in! Someone’s going to kill me.”

“Well, we’ll have none of that—this is a nice neighborhood! The mister’ll be right down.” I could hear her yell something in Italian to her husband, then his heavy steps on the side stairs. The door opened and I dashed in past him. I hoped I wasn’t leaping from the frying pan into the fire. Mr. Giordano was short and round. He wore a sleeveless T-shirt and suspenderless twill workpants that exposed a great deal of pale, hairy belly.

“Come in, missy, what’s the trouble?” he asked, and I felt like crawling into his big arms for protection.

“I … I just need to use the phone. And maybe wait for the police.” I began to shake. Mr. Giordano shooed me upstairs into the apartment. Mrs. Giordano put the kettle on while I used the phone. She looked at the curtained window and the darkness behind it while the tea water boiled. “They should just try it,” she muttered, holding up the biggest butcher knife I’d ever seen. “Let them try it!”

“Watch that thing,” her husband said.

I gave a deposition about what I’d seen and a judge issued a search warrant for the house and yard. Then I headed back to the office. Now I had to wait and see if it was Mary’s body I’d found—and if there were any others there. The police brought in a team of men to shovel deep into the lush garden. They found the body in the dirt pile right away and arrested the Smiths on suspicion of murder. They kept on digging—in the dirt pile, in the lush garden beds, under the bower where Nancy had hidden Spot. The final count was six.

Six lost women. Six human beings, like me, like the girl next door, like all the rootless, hopeful young women in this goddamned country, this goddamned world.

Goddamn Bill for not telling me how bad it could get. Goddamn me for my happy little smart-girl moxie.

Mike McGowan called me with the news. “Good work, Laura. You really uncovered a can of worms. Bill would be proud.”

Bill could sleep at night after this kind of thing.

“You were lucky to get away in one piece,” Mike went on.

“A little luck,” I said, my stomach taking a twist. Mike knew about the sap, which wasn’t strictly legal. We both knew that if I hadn’t had it, I would have ended up in the garden as number seven. “Any idea what the Smiths were up to?”

“Well, it seems they were taking a novel approach to war profiteering. Girls who disappear don’t take their room deposits. Or their purses. They had a tidy sum tucked away.”

“That’s awful! Those poor girls.”