Follow Her Home (5 page)

“Song?” He blinked squinted eyes. I could almost hear the dry wrinkle of his slept-in contact lenses. “You look a mess. What the hell happened?”

He opened the door wide and I barged in, kicking off my shoes. A man I didn't recognize slept like a heap of laundry on Luke's couch. There were four pairs of shoes left in the entrance, including a tiny pair of jeweled flat sandals whose owner was either out a pair of shoes or behind closed doors. Bottles, cans, loose playing cards, and crushed tortilla chips littered Luke's floor. The place looked like hours of work for whatever poor soul was cleaning up.

I plopped down on a chair at his dining table, across the room from the couch.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“I don't know. Seven?”

“Good grief.” He sat across from me, dragging wooden chair feet in a fibrous rustle through the carpet. “You must've had a fun night.”

“So I've heard. Do I really look like I just did a walk of shame?” My head throbbed.

“Well, those are last night's clothes, and you don't look like you spent much time sleeping.” He propped his wrists on the table and held his hands together. “I got your text around midnight after you went and disappeared. What the hell happened?”

“To be honest, I can't say for sure, but nothing good.” I drummed the table with my fingers. “Luke, is there anything I should know about this little mission you've sent me on?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know, any reason to think it's dangerous?”

“I don't think so.”

“Let's say your dad was having an affair with this girl. Would he take drastic measures to keep it quiet?” I bit my lip and looked up to see his face tighten with apprehension.

“Jesus, what are you getting at?”

I stood up, walked over to his side, and leaned on the table next to him, half seated. “Feel this.” I indicated the swollen bump on the back of my head with a few light taps.

He reached up and ran his fingertips across my hair. “Holy shit. What happened?”

I outlined the events of the night before, from the Chanel to the ride, to the BMW. “Anyway, I was trying to look in the window to see if I could make anything out, and that's it. When I woke up, I was on Larchmont, so I came here.”

He wore a look of puzzled horror and rubbed his knuckles against the tabletop. “What do you mean, that's it? What happened?”

“Well, I'm pretty sure I got sapped.”

“You mean like by a cop?”

“More likely a bad guy.” I sighed. “You know, Marlowe gets cold cocked in like every Chandler novel.”

“I didn't know that. Whatever I know about Chandler I've gotten from you.”

“Okay, well, did you know
The Big Lebowski
is based on
The Big Sleep
? I think that's why Lebowski gets knocked out twice.”

“Occupational hazard?”

“Yeah. Occupational. It's always because someone doesn't want him snooping around, or because someone wants to know what he knows—because he's doing his job. Do you see what I'm getting at?”

He started to give a tentative nod.

“I'm not a detective, Luke. This shouldn't have happened to me.”

He brought both hands to his cheeks and dropped his elbows onto the table. “I'm sorry. I'm still processing this, but I swear, I didn't think anything like this was even possible. Do you believe me?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I believe you.”

“Good. I'd be really sad if you didn't. Are you okay?”

“My head feels pretty abused, and truthfully, I'm a little shaken. But I guess I'm as okay as I can be.” I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. “I'm glad they left me near your house.”

We sat for a few minutes, absorbing the changes in the air.

Luke spoke first. “Do you think we should call the police?”

It took me a few seconds to register the question. “I hadn't thought of it, to be honest.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I think I've been thinking a lot more about private eyes than police since I woke up. Strange how fast you can disconnect from the real world.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“About the cops? I don't know. Should I? What do I tell them?”

“That you were attacked, I guess. And…” He lowered his voice. “Do you think this happened because of my dad?”

“I don't know, Luke.”

“It would kill me if he was part of this.”

“Honestly, I have no idea. I will say something untoward could be up with Lori. You were probably right about that. Whether your dad is what's untoward, I can't say.”

He found a pen on the table and twirled it between two fingers. “This wasn't supposed to happen. I want to know whether my dad's cheating, not whether he can be put in jail.”

“Look, I don't feel like talking to cops right now anyway. They'd brush me off. I really don't have much to give them.”

He nodded. “So what now then?”

“I guess first thing, I need my car. Can you drive me?”

“Yeah, of course.” He hesitated but he didn't say anything. I assumed it had to do with the passed-out drunk on his sofa and the nameless Cinderella in his bedroom. I took a split second to consider being considerate, and pretended not to notice.

“Great. Can I borrow your bathroom first? And some toothpaste? And some Advil?”

“Go for it. Toothpaste is on the sink. Advil's in the medicine cabinet.”

I shuffled across the room and through a short hallway to the bathroom, noting the closed bedroom door before shutting myself in and switching on the light. I locked my elbows, gripped the hard, white sides of the sink, and stared at my reflection.

I did look a mess. My teen admirer must have been missing his glasses. Wisps of hair stood in waves and lumps on top of my head where my ponytail had come loose. My bangs were no longer swept to the side but hung sadly in a greasy black curtain over the rightmost two-thirds of my forehead, leaving the last third bare. My eyes were rimmed in smudged charcoal a full centimeter around, giving me more the look of a gaunt, overworked hooker than of a panda bear. Blackened gobs of sleep gathered in the inner corners of my eyes. I was missing an earring.

I washed my hands with a pump of soap, pushed a finger into each eye in turn, and coaxed my contacts out from where they stuck to my irises, shifting them slowly up and down and side to side. I blinked hard and my eyes watered. I found Luke's toothpaste and squeezed a tricolored dollop onto my right index finger. I loosed a thin stream from the faucet and wet the paste, then shoved it this way and that into my mouth, across my teeth, over my gums, down my tongue. It failed to foam, but the mint tasted clean. I gargled and spit, gargled and spit. I rinsed my hands and splashed my face, then helped myself to the cleanser by the faucet and washed up, scrubbing well around my eyes. It took me a good twenty seconds to get rid of all the black. I dried my face and hands on a feather soft towel hanging on the wall, then retied my hair. A mirror check showed a tired but socially acceptable face. I wet my bangs and combed them out of my eyes. I opened the medicine cabinet and zeroed in on the Advil. I pressed open the cap and shook out two burgundy pills. I shoved them in my mouth and gulped them down with a palmful of sink water. I wiped my lips dry on my wrist and hobbled out to the living room.

“Thanks. I feel human again,” I said. I took up my purse and dropped in my widowed earring. “Shall we?”

*   *   *

We trudged, dazed and dog-tired, to the elevator, down to Luke's dirt-speckled black Porsche in a Porsche-heavy garage. It was a Cayenne hybrid, pretty and fast, a car designed for the Saks Fifth Avenue liberal. Luke was still in his pajamas, a pair of dirty sandals on his feet. I asked, “Dude, did you brush your teeth?”

He pulled out a pack of Orbit. “Want one?”

We chewed as we got in the car.

“So where are we going?”

“Fourth and Citrus. Take a right on Sixth and another right after Highland.” I patted down his disaster cloud of cappuccino hair. “I take it you had a better night than I did.”

He took a second to contemplate whether he had to address my innuendo and realized that he did. “You could say that.”

Luke had a couple girlfriends in high school and a couple more in college, and when he did, his eyes never wandered. But as he shed his smooth layer of boyish dough in his first years at Yale, girls started to notice him. He was never one to spew testosterone, but he learned the rhythms of flirtation with relative ease. When he was single, he had his pick.

“After all your judging last night, you get to sleep with whoever you want. Some feminist you are. Who's the girl?”

“We have a couple classes together. Took me by surprise, though. She isn't anyone you've heard about.”

Luke and I kept each other up-to-date on our personal lives, but given the circumstances, that was the extent of my curiosity. We drove without talking through smooth curves on Sixth.

After a minute, Luke exhaled. “I still can't believe someone knocked you out.”

“It's unreal. Pretty scary, and I'm pissed off, too. The back of my head feels like a placenta. Or what I think a placenta would feel like, anyway.” I palmed the gooey bump. “Do you know anything about a black BMW with the license plate I texted you?”

“Doesn't ring any bells.” He paused. “But whoever knocked you out last night obviously wasn't in the car, right?”

“Right.” I thought for a second. “Right. But I can't—they have to be related, right?”

“I guess so. I mean, unless someone just didn't like that you were curious in general.”

“Maybe. I kind of doubt it, though, because it would've been pretty easy for another car to just kind of chill while I sniffed out the beemer, you know? Though we can't rule out that whoever did this to me is a total idiot. My guess would be that the sapper was looking out for the shady bastard in the beemer. What do you think?”

“I mean, I have no idea. It doesn't really make sense to me.”

We pulled up to 432 South Citrus. I caught myself breathing easier at the sight of my darling car parked safe and demure where I'd left it. I fished out my keys and unbuckled my seat belt. Luke parked his car behind mine and killed the engine, and we lumbered out into the gauzy warmth of a Los Angeles summer morning unbothered by wind and damp, unbothered by the crimes and follies of the night before.

“Uh, Song? Isn't that your mystery car?”

It hadn't occurred to me that the BMW might still be there, so I hadn't even thought to check across the street until Luke pointed directly at the spot where I'd ended my waking night. Sure enough, it sat parked where I'd seen it last, in mannered concert with my Volvo.

I power walked across the street and stood right in front of the windshield, arms akimbo, leaning forward at the hips, staring inside. Luke came up next to me and mirrored my pose. The black tint was solid and unapologetic, even in daylight.

He sucked in air noisily through his teeth. “This confuses me. Does it confuse you?”

“Well.” I kept staring. “Well, fuck.”

“It's a shady vehicle, I'll give you that.”

“Don't tell me this is just a neighbor's car. Who tints their windows like that?”

“So where does this leave you?”

“Where does it leave me? Nowhere, apparently. My big lead was this license plate.”

“Lead to what?”

“Who knocked me out, why, and what Lori Lim's got to do with it all.”

He was quiet for a second. “You know, maybe you don't want to keep investigating her. I had no idea it could be dangerous.”

“I guess I should be more careful, but I can still talk to Diego. And I can try and talk to Lori again. In daylight.”

He shuffled his feet and made an arc on the concrete with one toe. “I'm scared of what you'll find out.”

“Do you not want to know anymore?”

He thought about it. “No. I think I need to know, especially now. I'm rooting for you to clear my dad.”

“I am too.”

“And you know, if you think it's better that you call the police, don't hold back for my sake. I didn't mean to discourage you.”

“Thanks, Luke. We'll talk later. I haven't really had a chance to think this through, and I'm not a hundred percent right now.” I walked toward my car. “I'm going home to shower, and then I have to do a thousand things. Don't worry, though. I'm not going to tell the police to arrest your dad. That would be absurd.”

“I guess so, huh?” He gave me a weak smile. “Can we catch up later? Get lunch or something?”

“I can do dinner. I just have a lot to take care of today. I should probably take a nap, too.”

“Okay, dinner works.”

“I don't have my cell, remember, but I'll try to get a new one today. Otherwise try me at home.”

“Okay, that sounds good.” He gave me one of his mild, brotherly hugs, a loose circle draped over my head, clasped with wrists resting above the small of my back. “I'm sorry this happened to you.”

“Me too.” I gave his torso a good squeeze and got into my car. He stepped back and waved. I started the car, eased my foot onto the accelerator, and left South Citrus to swallow my dust.

 

Four

The single-mile drive from Lori's to Park La Brea took two smooth, uneventful minutes. I didn't hit one red light.

I pulled into the garage and slammed the brakes on the slope to my spot as a jogger with a death wish bunny-hopped across the ramp. A thud sounded from the trunk and I felt my stomach drop as if my intestines had been yanked out from underneath it like a magician's tablecloth.

It could have been a bag of bowling balls, maybe a floor lamp. It was definitely not the shopping bag of dry cleaning that I had put into my empty trunk the morning before.