The Crime Writer

Los Angeles, land of endless promise. And endless failure. Los Angeles of the petty cruelties. Los Angeles of the instant hierarchy, the spray-on tan, the copped feel. L.A. of the bandaged, postoperative nose, the chai menu, the slander lawsuit. Of the hyphenated job title. The two-SUV garage. L.A. with its wide-open minds and well-formed opinions. L.A. of the high-octane sunset, the warm night air that leaves you drunk. L.A. of the prolonged adolescence, the slow-motion seduction, the ageless, replaceable blonde. L.A., where a porn star runs for governor and an action figure wins. L.A., where anything can happen at any time to some poor schmuck or lucky bastard. Where anything can happen to you.

Where anything had happened to me.

Chapter 2

I am in the Highlander, driving up a sharp grade, the only illumination coming from my headlights and a branch-occluded streetlight. Sweat runs down my forehead, stings my eyes. An acrid smell, like smoldering rubber, lingers in my nostrils. I am driving fast. The street is absurdly narrow, and I swerve to dodge parked cars. I know this street. I negotiate a hairpin with a screech, and there it is, drawing into view.

Genevieve's house.

It looms darkly overhead, a wooden face staring out from the cliff wall. The stilts reach down into the earth like tentacles. Ivy crawls up the clapboards, fluttering.

The dashboard clock glows 1:21 A.M.

A spasm of fear seizes my chest. I pull over too hard, a front tire jumping the curb and snapping a sprinkler at the edge of the modest strip of lawn. I throw open my car door, run up the steep walk, concrete pavers shifting underfoot. The bitter smell grows stronger, almost unbearably so. Behind me the open car door dings, competing with the crickets.

I nearly trip over the last step and stumble up onto the porch. I hear music something classical and majestic. In my head?

The philodendron quivers in the breeze. I lean forward, grasp the terra-cotta pot with sweaty hands as glossy leaves brush my face. The plant tilts easily but slips back through my hands, cracking the clay saucer in a lightning bolt that almost reaches the lip. I wipe my palms on my jeans, angle back the pot again, and there, glittering in the grime, lies the brass key.

My head screaming, I came awake in a tangle of sheets, lost in clammy, adrenalized panic. Heat raged along my scar, so intense that when I fingered the line I thought for a moment it was wet. It took a few moments for me to get my bearings. My bed. First night home. My window had split into two floating rectangles. I squinted hard, fighting to bring the wavering panes back into one. My tongue tasted bitter, like the rind of a hard fruit. 11:23 P.M. stared back at me from my bedside clock.

I tried to slow my breathing, but my dream kept cycling through my head, a disorienting loop of agitation. It felt different from any nightmare I'd had. More real and more surreal at the same time. Had I recaptured a segment of time? Myself driving over to Genevieve's the night of September 23? Earlier tonight? Or was it just Freud in overdrive, fantasies at play while the censors took a coffee break?

In the dream my car tire had snapped a sprinkler. And the terracotta pot had slipped through my hands, cracking the saucer beneath. The images meant nothing. But what if that sprinkler and saucer really were broken? At last something concrete I could confirm with my own eyes.

I threw off the sheets and rolled out of bed, drowsy, feeling as though I were walking underwater. The air was inexplicably cold, and suddenly I had a sense of movement downstairs. I trudged onto the catwalk and peered over the railing into the living room.

Resting on the carpet downstairs was a four-foot metal rod. In my grogginess it took me a moment to identify it as the security bar that fits into the track of the sliding glass door opening to the backyard. I heard the wind suck against the frame, out of view, and became aware, again, of the cold air rising to my bare skin. The sound of traffic down on the freeway was faint but unmuted.

Standing there, I tried to unfreeze myself, to find logic. I'd probably come in from the deck, exhausted, and neglected to close up. After all, I'd just come off four months of having no control over when the doors opened or closed. But doubt nagged. The security bar maybe I would've overlooked, but forgetting to slide the door closed behind me? With the chill that had settled in out there?