In the end, that might not even matter. That vision of the Empty Spaces suggested that Summer got her power from a predator. Maybe it was inside her body like a parasite, maybe nearby, but it was connected to her somehow. I’d seen both. Maybe she didn’t know how dangerous it was, or even that it was there.
That predator, if that’s what it was, had to be destroyed. The big question was: could I destroy it, whatever it was, without killing my friends?
I kept driving west and pulled into the second park I saw. The grass was dead brown, but what did that matter to me? I carried the Ralphs grocery bag to a bench beneath a tree. There were two bottles inside: a liter bottle of water and a little blue bottle of liquid Maalox. The first thing I did was pour water over my wrist, washing away whatever acids Summer had left there. It didn’t stop hurting, but it stopped getting worse.
Then I guzzled some of the water. The heat was oppressive, and the sweat on my face made my eyes sting.
Once the water bottle had as much fluid as the Maalox did, I poured the antacid in and shook it up. It worked surprisingly well, and soon I’d rinsed off my face and hands completely.
I stood. It wasn’t enough. The faint, choking stink of tear gas still clung to my clothes, and my skin was beginning to crawl.
I used a clean shirt from my jump bag to wipe the drying Maalox from my face. The empty bottles went back into the grocery bag along with the cellphone. I wrapped them up and dumped them into the trash.
I drove back toward the freeway until I came to a Best Western half a block from an exit. The vacancy sign was lit.
My shirt still stank, but the clerk didn’t care. I don’t think she cared about anything except her air-conditioning. I rented a room on the second floor and trudged upstairs.
The room was clean and plain. I stood by the bed with the TV remote in my hand for a full two minutes and tried to convince myself to shower. The temptation to sit in front of the tube in a trance state was so strong it was like a death wish. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine myself watching TV while predators spread through the city, killing people. I couldn’t do that, no matter how much I wanted to rest. I carried my bag into the bathroom.
I stripped down and threw my clothes into the bottom of the tub. I had brought a small bottle of laundry detergent, and I scrubbed the sweat, stomach medicine, and tear gas by hand. The cold water felt good on my hands. Then I hung them by the window, turning off the air just below them.
Then I took a shower of my own. My skin was raw and red where Summer had touched me. I switched to cold water. It was uncomfortable, but I wanted it that way. I’d seen a predator on Summer and I’d backed off. I had to stand up and stay in the fight. I had to endure.
My clothes were not even close to dry when I finished. I took my last clean shirt, a white button-down, from the bag and put it on. Then I looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t look like a hungry ghost anymore, just a guy who needed a good night’s sleep. At least I had cleaned the sweat off my face. I’ve always hated the feel of dried sweat.
I got back into my car and drove to Silver Lake, giving a wide berth to the Bigfoot Room and the street where I’d parked Bud’s truck. I wasn’t ready to run into them again.
Caramella’s place was a little house, which surprised me. It had a lawn about the size of two postage stamps and a lot of Spanish stucco on the outside. As on just about every street in L.A., the houses on the block were a mishmash of styles, but hers was a basic A-frame that had been troweled over with a pueblo exterior. I took out my ghost knife.
A Corolla was parked in the driveway. There were two tall windows at the front of the house, and I nearly walked into the tiny flower garden to peep through the glass. It was just after 9 P.M., and I was planning to break and enter a friend’s house.
Instead, I pocketed the ghost knife and rang the doorbell.
No one answered. I fidgeted a little, then rang it again. Again there was no answer. My Escort was parked at the curb, but the idea of driving away felt like defeat. Where would I go after this? I didn’t know where Caramella worked. I didn’t know where she hung out. A detective might have started walking around the neighborhood, asking about her at every diner, deli, and bar, but I wasn’t a detective. I was a criminal.
I took out my ghost knife and slid it through the lock. The front door opened easily, and I let myself in, pushing the door closed behind me.
The house looked even smaller on the inside, but it was nicely furnished. Everything I owned had come out of a yard sale, but Melly’s tables and chairs were new if not fancy. The plaid couch and recliner matched the curtains, and there were tiny white throw pillows everywhere. A pair of lamps on either side of the couch threw a pale blue light around the room, and the ceiling light in the bathroom was on.
But while the room looked tidy and homey, it was sweltering hot and stank of garbage. The smell made my eyes water. It wasn’t a dead body, I didn’t think. I’d smelled bodies before.
It felt strange to stand in Melly’s empty house, but what the hell. She had walked into mine without knocking.
First, I wandered around the room. I was concerned that the garbage smell would hide the stink of a dead body, but I didn’t find one behind the furniture and there were no blood splashes against the walls. The bedroom was empty—the bed was neatly made, in fact, and the little desk in the corner was tidy.
Then I went into the bathroom. The medicine cabinet was standing open. I pushed it closed, getting a glimpse of the dark circles under my eyes. The shower curtain was drawn, and a couple of the rings had been pulled free. I peeked through the gap into the tub. I couldn’t see anything in the bottom of the tub, not even droplets of water.
I went back to the living room and noticed a mail slot just beside the front door. Below it there was a small wicker basket full of mail. It looked like a couple of days’ worth, but I couldn’t tell exactly. I fanned through it and saw that most of it was addressed to Luther Olive.
There was a list of phone numbers on a notepad by the phone. I picked up the receiver and dialed the one at the top, labeled work. The woman who answered announced that it was a hospice-care facility, but she wouldn’t answer any questions about Caramella and she wouldn’t transfer me to her voice mail. I left my real name and a
