Kill the Messenger

Jace pushed himself up off her and bolted for the door.

Goddammit, goddammit, goddammit!

An older man, with thinning gray hair and wild eyebrows, jumped back, startled. He had a big wrench in his hand.

Jace shoved past him and ran down the stairs so fast, he couldn’t believe he didn’t fall on his face. The poodle woman was sticking her head out a door at the bottom of the staircase, eyes wide, mouth hanging open.

Jace skidded around the base of the staircase and ran for the back door, feet slipping on the old polished pavers. He kept his eyes on the double doors and the courtyard beyond.

He hit the doors running. Burst outside. The little courtyard had flowers and shrubs, and a seven-foot stucco wall surrounding it.

Don’t think. Act. Don’t think. Act.

He grabbed a wooden bench, dragged it to the wall.

Stepped back, took a deep breath.

The guy with the wrench came through the doors, shouting.

Jace hit the bench seat running. Launched himself.

Grabbed the top of the wall. Hurled himself over.

He couldn’t help crying out as he hit the ground on his feet and pain exploded in his ankle and shot up his leg like glass shattering.

Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.

Jaw clenched, he struggled to his feet and moved forward, limping heavily. He had to get gone. He couldn’t hide. The cops would bring a dog. And a chopper wouldn’t be far behind.

Across the street, down the alley. Cut between houses. Across another street, down another alley. Doubling back toward the Mini. If he’d been riding The Beast instead of driving a car, he could have jumped on and been gone, flying down side streets and alleys in a blur. No one could have touched him.

His head was pounding. He couldn’t hear. He couldn’t hear a siren. He couldn’t hear anything but the jarring thud of his feet beating the ground, the rasping of air sucking in and out of his lungs.

He could see the car. He stuck his hand in his coat pocket and yanked out the keys, nearly fumbling them.

Unable to stop his momentum, he ran into the side of the Mini, pushed himself back, yanked the door open, spilled into the driver’s seat. He was dizzy. He felt sick. He couldn’t get the key in the ignition.

Now a siren sounded in the distance.

The engine turned over and he threw the car into gear and started to spin a U-turn in the middle of the street. A horn blasting, tires screeching. The nose of a minivan just clipped the Mini, knocking the tail of the car sideways as its tires spun on the street, squealing.

And then he was moving. Right turn, left turn, right turn, left turn, headed east.

He slowed his pace as quickly as he dared. He didn’t want a trail of complaining citizens for the cops to follow.

A radio car would arrive on the scene at Abby Lowell’s building. There would be confusion, excitement. It would take time to sort it all out. Maybe there wasn’t a chopper cruising the skies nearby. If a chopper got on him, he was screwed.

He kept moving east at a normal pace, like a normal human being in a normal situation. Behind the wheel he was shaking, sweating, his heart still racing. His throat squeezed closed every time he thought he saw a black- and-white.

He couldn’t have fucked up any bigger than he had. What had he thought, that Abby Lowell would offer him a drink and they would sit down and discuss the situation calmly? Her father was dead. And as innocent as she pretended to be, she had to know something. Why else would some thug leave a death threat on her mirror? Next You Die.

Next, as if Lenny had been a warning, or just the first on a list of things to do.

Jace put a hand against his stomach and felt the package. He wondered how she would have reacted if he had told her he had it.

Shaking himself free of his thoughts for a second, Jace glanced to either side of the car. He had worked his way north and east, north and east, all the way to Silverlake, about five miles northwest of downtown.

Silverlake had been a happening place in the twenties and thirties, when silent film stars and movie moguls built homes and studios in the area. The hills above the reservoir were full of homes from that era that had been refurbished for modern, hip, artsy types with bucks.

Jace found a place to pull over and park near the reservoir. He got out of the car to move and stretch and gather his thoughts. He walked to the back of the car and swore under his breath. Madame Chen’s pride and joy was no longer pristine. Half the taillight cover was gone, left shattered on the street where the minivan had clipped him. Scratches and paint marks from the pale-colored van highlighted the area below the taillight.

What now?

Now he was wanted for a murder and an assault, home invasion, and vandalism. And for stealing who knew how much out of Lenny Lowell’s safe.

He played back the few minutes he had been in Lowell’s office last night. He remembered thinking the place was a mess. He had glanced around, looked at the television, touched Lenny’s bowling trophy and left a great set of fingerprints. He didn’t remember any safe being open.

Sitting back against the hood of the car, he drank some of the Gatorade he’d bought at the 7-Eleven, and washed down three Tylenol. He needed to keep his energy level up and try to minimize the pain enough to think through it. His brain was what kept him alive on the streets every day. The ability to see a couple of jumps ahead, yet to focus on the moment.

He took his life into his own hands every day on the streets as a messenger. Risking his own life and having someone else put him at risk were very different scenarios. He chose to put himself on the street. He knew the risks, he knew his abilities. If he went under a bus, a bus killed him, not the people on the bus. If he made a mistake, it was on him.

None of this mess seemed within his control. He’d been thrown into the middle of the mix like he’d been sucked into a tornado. The only thing he could control was his own mind, and in the end, that would be the only thing that could save him.

He wished he knew what he was up against—who he was up against. He could easily call to mind the blockheaded guy in the dark car. But when he called up the memory of the attack in Abby Lowell’s apartment, he came up blank. In his mind’s eye he tried to see things he hadn’t seen. He tried to look in the mirror, to see the guy behind him, but it hadn’t happened that way.

What the hell is going on, and why do I have to be in it?

Luck of the draw. If he hadn’t been late with the blueprints, he would have gone home that night like any night, and Eta would have told Lenny Lowell they couldn’t take his package. Lenny Lowell would have been a story buried in the paper. Jace probably wouldn’t have paid any attention to it, just as the majority of Angelinos wouldn’t have paid any attention to it. Nobody blinked at an ordinary, run-of-the-mill murder. Murders happened every day. There had to be a hook. Something kinky, something twisted, and/or a celebrity.

Jace wondered if the people in the negatives taped to his belly might be famous. Some celebrity being blackmailed over deviant sexual behavior. The kind of seedy story that made up the gritty side of LA. City of angels, city of sleaze. It depended on who was looking, and where.

The reservoir was the gray of gunmetal, reflecting the heavy clouds that hung above it, but shining metallic where the low western sun skipped rays across it. The sky in the west was the color of molten lava, purple twilight seeping down toward it. It would all disappear into the ocean soon, and darkness would fall like a cloak over the city. He would go home and maybe he would be able to sneak upstairs through the shadows, and escape Madame Chen’s scrutiny.

He wanted to go home, to be home, to stay home, or to throw his books into his bag and jump the Gold Line train to Pasadena for his social sciences class at City College. He wanted to do something normal. He wanted to help Tyler with some project for school, watch television, make popcorn. Maybe he would do that, he thought, mail Lenny’s package to Abby, get a new job, start over again, pretend none of this had ever happened.