The Detective & the Pipe Girl (16 page)

26

I
pulled the Cobalt off Sunset onto a little road that would take me to a hike I knew and liked. I found the trailhead, parked, changed into some shorts and running shoes. No one around, I did it right out in the open. Didn’t feel nearly as twisted as I had sitting at the surf break in a T-shirt and nothing else.

I headed up the trail. Look we’re not talking Grizzly Adams here, there were old ladies who walked these trails, but it was nice. Outside. Sun. Fresh air. The intensity of L.A. no longer choking me.

I was winding my way up into the sky. Thinking. Thinking about some of the other maybes. Like, did Suzanne tell Neese that she was going to quit or wanted out, and he got pissed off and popped her because of that? Can’t see it. Just doesn’t seem like good business. There must be some turnover in his bizarre world. He must allow them to leave at some point. Well, maybe Suzanne told him she was going to quit, he put some pressure on her to stay because she’s good for business, clearly that’s true, and
then
she broke her promise and told someone else what she did for a living. Come on. No way. She’s not a moron. See, that’s what bothered me. That’s why I wasn’t in the Cobalt headed downtown to talk to Ott. There had to be more to the story. It was very likely in my mind that Neese had this twisted system set up, but that he
didn’t
kill her. That maybe Jimmy Yates did. That maybe someone I hadn’t met yet did.

I was making myself crazy. I simply needed more information. I was getting too theoretical here. Too far down a little path called Maybe Lane.

Thirty minutes later I was almost at the top of the trail. I looked behind me and saw the big mass of sea—the Pacific. The waves breaking on shore seemed tiny when set against the now blackish-looking monstrosity of water that stretched into infinity. That stretched all the way to that curved line that was the horizon. It felt haunting, powerful. When I looked the other way I could see all the way to downtown L.A., the buildings in a little cluster covered in haze. I was sweating, and even though I was telling myself not to, I was running through possibilities in my head.

There was a smaller, less traveled trail that intersected the main one I was on just beyond where I was standing. It went up, even higher, to the peak of the mountain. I took it. It wound around through some thicker brush and trees. This trail was less maintained, less walked on, so there were bushes and vines haphazardly crossing it.

This trail had more mystery. More unknowns to it. It more represented what was going on in my head. Lots of variables, lots of strands and vines I just didn’t quite understand yet. And few that seemed to sync up and connect for me.

I got to the top of this trail, as high as you could go on this hike. The space opened up and there was a sort of natural viewing area here. It was private, peaceful, quiet. I sat down on a big, smooth, warm rock. I looked down at the ground next to the trail. Twigs and brush and . . . something moving. I sat very still and watched as a snake, a California rattler, moved, unaware of me, from the brush bordering the trail to right
on
the trail. Slithering. Moving,
slanting
, sideways and forward at the same time.

It was frightening, I had never seen one before. But it was headed away from me, it appeared to be simply crossing the trail. I was very, very focused on it. Aware that if I moved, it might panic, turn around, and strike me.

I was frozen, but locked on it, until it disappeared into the brush on the other side of the trail. It was a relief that I could no longer see it. The old ostrich mentality. You know, I can’t see it so I must be safe. When I finally stopped looking at the area where the rattler had been I was hit with a presence around me. I jerked my head up and to the left. Two men were standing above me. One guy had his arms at his sides. He was big, muscular, with a pockmarked face and black hair. His black hair had one of those white streaks in it. Skunklike. But not dyed. The guy didn’t put it there. It was natural. Caused by a birthmark, I think. I’d seen one before. Just a two- or three-inch white streak amid a shock of black. The other guy was big too. But bald, shaved clean. He was holding a crowbar. Old school.

This was going to get very ugly.

In my mind, my chances appeared. They raced by. I had no gun. Nowhere really to go. There were cliffs and precipices all around. Crowbar Guy reared it back. But it was White Streak who punched me hard, hard in the jaw.

I was down on the ground. And instinctively I looked for the snake. Where was that slithering menace? Another thing out to get me. Crowbar Guy brought the steel tool up high and swung downward hard, right at my head. Okay, these guys were not fucking around.

I dodged it.

White Streak was now in front of me. I kicked him in the balls. I didn’t get a direct hit, maybe the side of one ball, but enough to neutralize him for a few seconds.

I got to my feet. Crowbar Guy had it up again and it was coming down at my head a second time. I moved but it caught me in the shoulder. I punched him in the throat. Got him, he was down, the crowbar out of his hands lying on the trail. I went for the crowbar, get the weapon out of there, but didn’t get to it. White Streak punched me hard in the ear. A flash of red light exploded in front of my eyes, and I heard a piercing ringing that I knew wasn’t there.

I turned to face White Streak. I went for his nose with a right, but he blocked it. I kicked him in the nuts again, full contact, then tagged him in his left eye with my left fist.

I was jacked up, folks, I was all in.

White Streak was standing there, open, open for the kill. I went for his nose again, but he moved just slightly. I got him in the side of the face, but hard, very hard. But he didn’t go down.

I turned around. Crowbar Guy was crawling toward the crowbar. He grabbed it. I stomped on his wrist, may have broken it. The crowbar was set free. Myopically I went for it, leaned down to grab it. I was on it, it was in my hands, when a foot collided with the back of my spine. I shot forward, landed on the brush, landed on, I think, a cactus, whose spines, thirty, forty of them, went into my stomach. I was stuck to the earth essentially.

Down on my stomach, I still had the crowbar. I couldn’t do anything with it from my position, and I didn’t want them to get their hands on it, so I threw it over the side of the trail. It disappeared over the edge. It was twenty yards away now, down the canyon, out of the picture. I turned over, pulled myself off the cactus. White Streak, who had kicked me in the spine, stood over me. I grabbed a tennis ball–sized rock and threw it at his face. I caught him in the same eye I’d punched him in. Bright blood splattered in the air and formed a red mini firework in the sky. I got up, spines sticking out of me, and stood in front of both of them. Jim would tell me to get out of there, this one wasn’t winnable, but I wanted more.

I was going to go at Crowbar Guy, who was now crowbarless. And whose right wrist hung at his side, lifeless, at a strange, unsettling angle.

White Streak turned around, then back, and now held a gun pointed at my face. It was wrapped in a navy blue towel to silence the blast. I could just see the barrel sticking out the end. There was a calm over both of them. I thought: These guys are killers. Their orders? Kick the shit out of me, then end it, end me. Was this where it was going to be? Here on a side trail in the Santa Monica Mountains? With a silhouetted hawk overhead? With snakes and scorpions hiding in the brush beside me?

White Streak kept the gun on me. Crowbar Guy took two big, fast steps and kicked me hard in the chest. I went down, backward. My head banged against the hard sand. It was a dull, deep thud. Now dizzy, bleary, disoriented, staring skyward at the sun. The two men were hard to see, the sun was blinding me. I looked over to my left. And that’s when I saw the rattler. He was hidden in the brush but his face was inches from mine. Inches. I looked right at the creature’s diamond-shaped head, but mostly at the two dots that were his black, soulless, indifferent eyes. His eyes were the same,
the same
, as the eyes of Richard Neese. The snake’s head was frozen, perfectly still, but his neck was coiled, cocked, ready to strike.

Crowbar Guy grabbed my shirt with his good hand, lifted me up, pushed me against the rock I’d been sitting on when they appeared. White Streak pointed the gun right between my eyes. Crowbar Guy looked at the gun, then at White Streak.

All he had to do was pull the trigger. If I went for the gun, he could pull it. If I just sat here, he could pull it. A rock and a hard place—with my life on the line. I was scared, I was very, very scared. My body tingled and a wave of blood rushed through me, my insides, on their own, preparing for something big. And then I had an oddly rational thought.
John, you have a choice. Would you rather die scared or die strong?
And I said to myself:
Fuck it. Let’s do it
. And I sat up as straight as I could and looked right into the barrel, into that oily, black circle of death. My conscious mind, my subconscious mind, every part of me knew I had maybe one second left. Images began to appear in my mind. Quickly, but each one clear and searing and vivid. A dog I had as a child running to me across our lawn. My brother and me on a roller coaster, looking at each other as we roared down a deep drop. My mother hugging me and putting her cheek against mine and her hand on the back of my head. And then my father, sitting in his chair in a light blue dress shirt, giving me a tender but heartbreaking smile. And then one final image. It was a giant white oblong balloon sitting, floating, on top of a placid, blue, sun-dappled body of water. It was so beautiful. It was so peaceful. I waited for the bang.

It didn’t happen. White Streak didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, he first punched me in the face in the same exact spot the surfboard had hit, right above my left eye. A flash of pain went through my body. I felt the pain collect in my spine. Then he leaned down, picked up a rock, held his hand high in the air—pronouncing that it was coming—and struck me on the skull. My head jerked back and I could feel cool air hit the wound on my now opened cranium. Hot blood trickled down my face.

Then, the barrel of the gun was right in front of me again, but it was Crowbar Guy who said, “You know Richard Neese?”

I almost imperceptibly nodded.

He said, “No, you don’t. You think you do, but you don’t. Trust me, you don’t. Stop doing what you’re doing.”

They walked away, down the trail. I heard twigs snap, and muttering as they faded away.

I sat, my back against that same rock. Some blood had found its way into my mouth. I looked out into the canyon and said to no one in particular, “No.”

27

I
had shut my eyes, and fallen asleep. Not a smart thing to do with a head injury. But I didn’t drift off into the infinite of some kind of coma. Instead I just opened my eyes, hours later, no longer sitting up against the rock, but instead lying on the now cool dirt of the trail.

My friend the rattlesnake was nowhere around. At least I didn’t think so. It was dark out. And beautiful. Moonlight dappling the brush and the trail. And a quiet you almost never hear in L.A.

I got to my feet. The world moved and shifted and finally settled before me. I pulled the remaining cactus spines out of my stomach and started down the trail. Taking it slow, pondering where I was with this thing yet again. Neese’s boys were sent to rough me up, so I would stop looking into his ring. But he didn’t send them to kill me. Too risky right now. He doesn’t know enough about what I know, what I might have told, and who I might have told.

I stumbled down the trail, the sky spotted with stars, the moon out, full, hanging over me, its doppelgänger looked to be sitting right in the ocean, right
on
the ocean.

I made it to my car. I got in. Looked at myself. The spot above my left eye was more swollen than ever and cut too. Looked like I’d need stitches. The swelling caused my left eye to sit slightly closed. I felt the back of my head where the guy had put the rock. Yep, a second golf ball on my head, and lots of dried blood there too. I’d need stitches there as well. Jesus, my head was covered in massive bloody bumps.

I drove to Santa Monica Medical Center. It was a strange, surreal drive down a dark PCH. I was woozy, disoriented, and I had to put an exhausting amount of energy into focusing. Into not crashing my car and dying. At the medical center, they took me right in. As part of a continuous haze, I was behind those swinging doors, then in a chair, then down a hall and into a bed. I had a nurse over me, cleaning, looking at me, concern in her eyes. She was probably thirty, Mexican I’d guess, dark hair, dark eyes, soft features.

She was beautiful.

Her soft touch as she examined me and cleaned my wounds, sadly, was almost worth getting the shit kicked out of me. She was very lightly rubbing my face and head with cotton balls soaked in alcohol. At a few points her face was right up near mine. Her lips right in line with my lips. I almost kissed her. I was opening and closing my eyes. And the comfort I felt with the nurse, and the relief that I was getting the attention I needed, caused me to close my eyes and drift away. In and out of sleep—at one point I saw a doctor with a needle and thread, repairing me like a goddamn sweater. But the nurse still looked on behind him. And then at some point, blackness and deep, uninterrupted sleep.

I woke up alone in a hospital room. Sun streaming in. I looked at my watch: 7 a.m. The nurse from the previous night walked in.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning.”

“You feel okay? You were pretty banged up.”

Man, I was right, she was beautiful.

“I feel okay.”

And I did. I felt okay.

“You’re still here? How long is your shift?”

She narrowed her eyes and gave me a sly smile. “Oh, I’ll do anything to make sure my patients get better.” And then she laughed at her own playful bravado. “I went home. For like eight hours. Now I’m back.”

I felt my face above my left eye.

“Stitches there,” she said. “Just a couple. But about ten more in your head.”

The doctor walked in. I vaguely recognized him from the previous night.

“Mr. Darvelle, you’ve got a couple deep cuts. One on your face, one on your head.” Long pause. Then: “Head injuries are dangerous. What happened?”

Everything he said was very matter-of-fact. Almost no emotion attached to his comments. Judgment, but not much emotion.

“I was hiking, slipped and fell, tumbled down the side of the gulch, rocks banged me up.”

He didn’t believe me. No way. But he was too much of a pro, or maybe too tired, to get into it. “Get some rest. Keep the cuts clean. Nancy, give him cleaning instructions, please. And tell him when he needs to come back to get the stitches taken out.”

The doctor looked at both my cuts quickly, then flipped around and exited the room. Nancy did as told and gave me cleaning instructions. Then she told me to get dressed and she too left.

I got up, put my shorts and T-shirt back on, not sure how they got off, and walked out of the room. Nancy was there waiting.

“Do you play Ping-Pong, Nancy?”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “I’m excellent.”

Then she looked at me. “All those scrapes and bumps on your head. That’s nothing compared to what I’d do to you if we ever played Ping-Pong.”

I was in love with her.

I left the hospital, got in my Cobalt, and sat there for a moment. Then I got back out, walked back in the hospital. Nancy was still in the waiting room. I motioned for her to come over to me.

“Nancy, I might need to call you with questions about my injuries.”

“You can call the center. The nurse on call will answer any questions you might have.”

“Well, maybe I want to call you and ask you to play Ping-Pong sometime.”

She looked at me. Made me wait for what seemed like an interminable amount of time. Then she forked over the digits.

I was beat to shit. I was in a wild, concussive fog. And I still had lots of unanswered questions about the case. But I did have the phone number of a nurse named Nancy Alvarez.