From the outside, the car appeared empty. Even if someone was inside, windows the color of dark charcoal prevented prying eyes from ascertaining its contents. Once, a neighborhood entrepreneur made an attempt to repurpose the car radio. He cracked the door wide enough for his hand to fit through the opening before tearing off down the street faster than a found gun would accidentally fire itself. No one could get a word out of him about what he saw. All his friends knew was that the harbor patrol found his body the next morning as the waves battered his body against the rocks at Hazard Cove.
The car had been parked at the head of the alley the last three days. Two days ago, the car got a makeover, complete with fancy cement tires and a spray-painted tattoo down the passenger side. None of which seemed to bother the potential occupant as long as no one tried to peek inside. The younger boys satisfied their curiosity – and their innate desire to prove their manhood – by throwing rocks at the windows. From a distance, of course. But they soon tired of the endeavor and went back to pick up games of neighborhood survival, which consisted of walking to school and then back home in one piece.
From the second-floor window of a rented room across the street, a man kept his eyes on the alley. Arriving hours after the car did, he had paid for the entire week in cash. By the second day, he had found the hidden exit through the crowded storeroom, filled with dust covered boxes and spiders that scurried away at the first sign of light. The door led to another alley, the width of a really large cheerleader, through which not even the mutant rats of Los Angeles dared pass. This was the path he would take each night to buy a pack of smokes or to flirt with the churro lady, the one departure from his carefully laid plans.
He knew the risk involved. Someone might identify him, disguised as he was. But the plump, cinnamony, sugary, doughy, Mexican treat called to him stronger than the voice of caution did. The churros weren’t bad either.
If it didn’t happen tonight, he would have to give up the twenty-four-hour vigil, which would cut the probability of success in half. The seed had been planted. Would the target fall for the bait? Would it be tonight?
The man leaned back in the chair so that his head rested in the corner of the wall. An escaped storeroom spider rappelled down a silky rope and laid eggs in his hair, because that’s what spiders do. The man kept vigil between power naps, waking whenever he heard a deep voice and for his hourly cigarette.
A shrill blast woke him for good. He rubbed the spider webs from his eyes and cleaned off the face of his watch, which had inexplicably become covered in a thick layer of powdered sugar. 7:02, it read. He rolled his neck in an attempt to stretch it out and peered into the darkness descending over the city.
His building was the only one with a second floor. Other than this structure – which housed a defunct Korean restaurant below and rooms for rent above – single story homes, the size of double wide tents complete with barred windows and an average of four cars in the yard, lined the street. The odor of spoiled kimchi mixed with mariachi music lingered in the evening air like Madonna before her rose petal baths. He coughed twice and lit another cigarette.
The night started to come alive even as the hard-working people, who made up the bulk of the neighborhood, hid themselves behind barred windows and locked doors. Dogs barked at intruders seen and unseen. The distinctive click-clack of single-shot derringers (the only weapon legally available after California’s latest foray into reducing crime) signaled the gangsters that their time had arrived.
This was Tortuga territory. Mexican flags dominated the air. However, out of respect for Ji Park’s heritage, the flag of South Korea was allowed to appear on his taco truck. The green, white, and orange of Ireland waved also.
Two blocks down, crossing interstate 105, the color red reigned. An invisible wall ran down the middle of the interstate, causing more than a few accidents. As long as the Tortugas stayed to the north and the people of another color stayed to the south and the people of no color stayed wherever they do, the rival gangs observed an unwritten truce. The same kind of truce that Hitler observed in August 1939. Tonight, however, the tension threatened to boil over into a blitzkrieg of undocumentedly fired bullets. Just like every other night.
The man propped his feet on the table beside the window and took another leisurely puff. The smoke eased upwards in a lithe, carcinogenic clump. A bushy-tailed rat snuck up beneath the chair and waited to collect the tobacco crumbs which fell every time the man tapped his cigarette on the armrest.
Third night in a row. Orders of the boss. Cigarettes and black coffee were barely enough to buoy his eyelids. He flicked off the final burning ember and tossed the moistened butt to the ground. A deck of cards flashed from his pocket and lined themselves into seven columns of increasing length on the table. Instinct moved the cards as he continued to watch outside.
He counted no less than seven federal crimes being committed, two of which were not permitted in Los Angeles. At 7:31 precisely, a truck pulled onto the street and blocked his view of the alley. The rear door rolled up and sixty-two members of the new work force spilled onto the asphalt. Scattering like pellets from a shotgun blast, they took a small card handed to them and headed into the night for destinations unknown. The lucky ones headed northeast towards Abbott Road. There, standing next to a payphone, a man in a leather jacket sold vials of what turned out to be the best jam this side of the Mississippi River to passersby. The man with the cigarette occasionally heard the Picasso of Preserves yell out, “Jorj. It’s pronounced Jorj,” to indifferent clients.
The truck engine ignited, and the metallic beast rumbled down the road. The man banged the table as he jumped out of the chair, spilling the cards in the process. He quickly repositioned the directional microphone and put on his headphones. Static and cumbia crackled through the speakers, distorting the words, which had already begun between the two opponents.
“… leave … what’s best.”
The large woman, whose family tree may or may not have had a branch which evolved from the wooly mammoth, jawed at a lean but somewhat muscular young man with dark hair and beautiful, chocolate-brown skin. A tattoo of a tortoise with a shamrock on its shell adorned the back of her hand. Her meaty fingers poked at his chest. He remained unmoved even as raging spittle sprayed across his face.
Fragments, intermittent pieces of her one-sided conversation came through. “And if … skinny blonde runt … wants some of this … I’d strangle her with … little pinky … you don’t need to … say a word … every congressmen … is corrupt … all they do … is lie to you … look out for their own … pocketbooks … raise taxes … get kickbacks … I’d like to strangle them all … Blarney stone!”
The man had no idea what the context of the missing words was nor what it had to do with the young man’s visit, not that he disagreed with the sentiment. He shook the microphone in the time-honored tradition of making things work better. The receiver fell off, hit the floor, and shattered in a cloud of dust. He stared at the pile of debris for a moment like a teenager would do the moment after he backed his dad’s finally restored, ‘Don’t you dare drive it!’ corvette through the garage door. With no other options available, he decided he would have to rely on the lip reading and body language seminar he took as part of an FBI training on how to entrap innocent people.
“She doesn’t like him,” he stated out loud. A spider rolled five-hundred and sixty-two eyes at once in response to the obviousness of his statement. “And he doesn’t care for her.” The other five-hundred sixty-two wandered towards the upper arachnid eyelids.
Four meaty fingers jabbed into the young man’s chest and curled inwards in pain. The large Irish woman grabbed her hand and turned it so she could look at her throbbing digits. Her face became as red and as hot as an Irish volcano. A glob of molten saliva appeared between her lips and erupted outwards. The young, black man dipped his shoulders to the right to allow the goober of disdain to pass by without harm. He, then, ducked and slipped to his left as a vicious right hook slid over his head, rustling the short, tight curls.
More threats and blows followed. A vicious left slap. A kick towards the gender deciders. Grabs of fury. Promises to ‘rake the eyes off yer potatoes’. (That one was loud enough to hear from across the street.) All of which the young man deftly avoided with a juke, a sidestep, a dip, or a twist as they thrusted and parried their way into the alley where the parked car sat like a silent observer.
Each miss infuriated the woman more. In her anger, she lunged towards her opponent, who pivoted a quarter turn while simultaneously sticking out his foot and grabbing the woman’s shoulders to give them a spin. The mass of Irish ire lost her footing and tumbled through the air as though she were an untethered astronaut on a spacewalk. She hit the ground with a thud. The earth shook. A condemned building crumbled. The seismologists at UCDL rushed to their machines and walked away in disgust at the lowly 5.6. The young man stood over his downed opponent and stuck his finger out, gesturing in a way to indicate she better stay away from his blonde friend or perhaps a congressman.
And, then, he made a mistake. The young, black man turned his back on the woman and headed out of the partial gloom of the alley. With the nimble leap of a tiger springing a surprise attack, she bounced off the ground. A ray from a streetlight shimmered off the steel object in her hand moments before it plunged into his neck. A stream of blood, molasses brown in the half light, seeped out of the wound.
Now, the fury resided in his eyes. He spun at the same time the blade made its second strike. His left hand made a perfect chopping block, fracturing the wrist of the attacker. Before she felt the pain, his right hand flew towards the woman’s face, giving her the nose job she had longed for since a kid. Brittle bones cracked, and the molasses flowed over her lips.
The knife fell from her hand. The young man picked it up and tossed it beyond the parked car. A white handkerchief emerged from his pocket to dab at the blood on his neck which had already begun to clot. He headed down the street past a throng of oblivious loiterers, who only took notice when one of them realized he was not of Hispanic descent. For some reason, they decided to let him ago without so much as a warning.
The man in the window reached into his jacket and pulled out the mushed remnants of a churro. His teeth sunk into the dough, releasing a batch of endorphins, a twinge of guilt, and a sour flavor. The churro dropped from his mouth, crushing a cockroach who had been dreaming its whole life for a moment such as that.
The large Irish woman walked past the car in search of her knife. The light was scarce, and the man could only see shadows as she rummaged through the trash with her good hand. Every once in a while, she dabbed at the blood on her nose or stood up to kick at a rat which scurried out of a pile of refuse.
As if the rats headed out of the alley was a signal of sorts, throngs of people decided to head inside their homes, leaving the street sullen and empty. It’s time, he told himself. He picked up his jacket and returned to the window for one last look. A dark shadow crossed the mouth of the alley. A somewhat thin man dressed in black clothes stepped out of the darkness, his pale face partially hidden by a baseball cap. He must have said a few words to the woman, who turned towards him. Her posture betrayed neither surprise nor fear.
The woman raised her right arm, wincing as she did so, and showed it to the thin man. He took hold of the broken wrist with great care, inspecting it for a moment and nodding with compassion as she talked to him. A giant, Irish tear leaked from her eye, and the thin man stretched out his hand. The woman dropped her head so that her cheek rested in his palm.
A moment later, the conversation ended. The thin man reached inside his cloak and pulled out an object, holding it in front of him as if it was a peace offering. Even from so far, the man in the window could see the stained blade of the knife, the tip of the shiny metal dulled molasses brown. As she grabbed for it, the thin man drew it back. Instinct flipped her hand over. She looked at the palm and back up at him. Her brows furrowed into a visible question mark as a dull, molasses brown liquid dripped down her arm.
The thin, pale man lifted his head in sadistic laughter as a lion might do upon hearing a lone hyena threaten its life. Forgetting the pain and her broken wrist, the woman lunged at the thin man, who shifted his weight ever so slightly to get himself out of the path of the lumbering beast. A small shove, just enough to knock her off balance, and her face made a lasting impression in the car door. Her body slumped to the ground. Quick as a jaguar, the thin man flung himself on top of her. A bony hand grabbed a mass of hair and pulled the head upwards, exposing the sinews on the side of her neck. The knife in his other hand crept across her skin. The edge caressed her cheek like his hand had done a moment before. His whole body shook in laughter or pleasure or relief; the man in the window couldn’t tell which.
One more laugh. The thin man let go of the woman’s hair, stood up, and offered his hand to her. She rolled over and, with a snarl on her face, took hold of the hand, allowing him to help her up. He put his arm around her shoulder and said something to her. She scowled, let loose a few choice words, and started to walk away.
The thin man smirked. He called out to her twice. The third time, just before she exited the alley, she stopped. The scowl on her face had departed, replaced by a reluctant grin. She turned and took a few steps towards him. He beckoned for her to come closer. She obliged but not without some hesitation. A few steps more. The smile on his white face radiated like the morning sun. The final steps and they stood no more than a couple feet apart. He reached out again, taking hold of the back of her neck. A dark cloud spread across his face as the smile disappeared.
The man in the window watched silently, smoking the final cigarette in his pack. Again and again and again, the blade plunged into the woman. Her hands went up in a desperate attempt to protect herself, but the knife continued to strike and slash into her face, her neck, her chest, anywhere it could reach. Blood spurted like miniature fountains from wounds all across her body. She tried to run, but he held on tight. With one great heave, she spun around and took a step forward. The knife crashed into her back, and she crumpled to the ground. The thin man jumped on top of her, his hand rising and falling, over and over until the woman moved no more. Even then, he continued to stab her as if he could kill her a second time.
Finally, when all the strength had left him, the attack ended. The thin man cleaned the handle of the knife, opened the door of the car, and threw the knife inside. Pulling the hat down low over his head, he stepped out of the alley. The people had started to come out of their houses again, but no one seemed to notice the lone man, dressed in black, slink down the sidewalk.
The man in the window dropped the half-smoked cigarette to the floor, extinguishing the embers with the toe of his shoe. Silently, he slipped down the hallway and went out the back exit of the storeroom to his own alley. He peered into the street to make sure no one was watching him. A group of five people, attracted by the stream of blood leaking into the street, gathered on the other side of the road. Others began to crowd in until the entire block formed a semi-circle around the entrance of the far alley.
The man headed northeast towards the pay phone. He dialed three numbers and waited for the other end to pick up.
“What’s your emergency?” the voice on the other end of the line asked.
“There’s been an assault,” he said. “I saw someone stabbing a woman.”
“What’s the location, sir?”
“Off of Abbott, a few blocks east of State.”
“Did you see who did it?”
“Yeah. I didn’t recognize the man, though.”
“Can you give a description?”
“Tall, but not too tall. Wearing dark clothes. A black guy. Like I said. I don’t know who he was, but I’d probably recognize him if I saw him again.”
“And what’s your name, sir?”
He returned the receiver to the lever on the pay phone without answering and turned the corner. He had to walk a few blocks until he found the place where he had parked. The roar of cars rushing across the interstate above blocked out all other noise. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled on the handle of the door. The odor of one too many hotdog lunches wafted out of the opening. He sat down and turned on the radio. The airwaves crackled with the voices of a dozen people.
Taking a deep breath, he waited just a little longer. Not too far away, sirens wailed their approach. A pair of rousted pigeons batted the air with frightened wings. He rubbed his hands together, took hold of the transmitter, and pressed the button.
“Badge 4668,” he said. “Off duty but in the area. On my way to Abbott and State.”