Los Angeles by Peter Moore Smith Page B

police. I touched the top of my head and realized I still had my mother’s octagonal pink-tinted
     glasses on, too.
    Great.
    She sighed. “Would you like a glass of iced tea, Angel?” Luckily, the altruistic impulse to rescue this pathetic refugee she
     had discovered in her bathroom was prevailing.
    I took a breath and it came out ragged. Nervously, I folded the washcloth and placed it over the lip of the sink. “I’m so
     terribly sorry. I don’t know what to say. I don’t —”
    Her voice had become gentle. “Come this way.” She led me a few steps into a spacious kitchen, Victor chuckling behind us.
     I was his afternoon entertainment, I realized. He would be talking about this on the playground for weeks. “Sit down.” Victor’s
     mom was the kind of woman who performs well in emergencies, I realized, Maybe she really was a nurse. “And we’ll get everything
     all straightened out.”
    There was an imitation mission table and chairs in here, just like the furniture in the living room. I pictured her in Ethan
     Allen with her arms crossed, biting her lower lip, deciding between the classic Hollywood collection and the eclectic
Friends
suite. I took a seat while she opened the refrigerator and found a carton of pre-made Lipton. She poured it into a blue glass
     and added a few ice crescents from the freezer. Sitting at the small wooden table on the stiff, uncomfortable chair, I rubbed
     my temples. At least the headache had mostly — not entirely, but mostly — faded.
    Victor stood in the narrow hallway between the kitchen and the living room, rocking back and forth in his oversize Adidas
     and wearing an equally oversize grin.
    His mother turned to him. “You have homework?”
    He rolled his eyes.
“Mom.”
    “Victor.”
    Seconds later, I heard those Adidas thumping up the stairs.
    “Victor said your name is Angel?” Victor’s mom said, turning to face me. She set the glass on the table.
    “Yeah.” Gratefully, I took a sip and let the coolness flow through my empty body. “And again,” I said, “I’m so —”
    “You’re looking for Jessica.”
    “Well,” I answered, “not really. I mean, I know she’s not here. I just wanted —” I thought for a moment. What did I want?
     “I just wanted to find out something about her.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like anything,” I said.
    “May I ask why?”
    “Jessica is my next-door neighbor.”
    Victor’s mom wrinkled her brow.
    “She moved to West Hollywood,” I said. “Into my building. But now she’s… now she’s missing.”
    She put a hand to her mouth, not in a shocked way, but in a slow, measured gesture to let me know she was concerned.
    “Just to be sure,” I said, reaching into my pocket, “this is the person we’re talking about, right?”
    When Victor’s mom looked at the photograph, she furrowed her brow. “Was she mad at you?”
    I looked at the picture… the half smile, the half sneer, the middle finger. I didn’t answer, saying, “I think she’s in trouble,”
     instead.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Something happened. She… she called me, and from the sound of her voice, I could tell she was calling from the dark.”
    “From the dark? What did she say?”
    “She just said my name, and then she was cut off.”
    Victor’s mom narrowed her eyes. “How do you know she was in the dark?”
    I remembered how difficult this had been to explain to those cops. “I just know,” I said. “It’s something I could hear in
     her voice. I could be mistaken, but I don’t think so.”
    “When was this?”
    “Yesterday, in the morning. I called the police, who didn’t come until the middle of the night. They went into her apartment,
     but it just looked like… it looked like nothing had happened. I found a couple of envelopes with this address on it, so —”
    She brought a hand to her mouth again. “She probably went on a trip, a last-minute thing. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
    I shook my head, then looked up.