Los Angeles Noir - Denise Hamilton [78]
Next are a bunch of shots of storm-drain covers spraypainted in bright, bold metallic colors. The paint looks layered on, the iterations of multiple artists on many different occasions.
There’s something familiar about the shape of these drain covers, the way the upper hinges taper off to points on either side of the large circle.
Shepherd_79: hello?
Shepherd_79: are you ignoring me too bitch!
The messages are getting to him. Someone is closing in on him, has him under a microscope.
He clicks the IM window and types, hitting the keys hard.
CAN’T TALK NOW.
A mistake? Just by typing a few words he has brought her back. A ghost in the machine. Although this ghost is thinner than smoke.
The next image of the drain covers reveals it all. The spray-painted eyes, nose, whiskers. Cats. They are graffitied to look like cats.
Another message comes through IM.
Shepherd_79: sorry … you okay? is there news about your sister?
He jumps up to her bookshelf and starts tearing through books.
Captions under key images begin to point him to a general location. Hopping back onto her computer, he starts opening documents and searching for keywords. Frogtown. Atwater Village. County Flood Control. Mural Registry. He starts sketching on the back of a piece of paper.
After much work, he has a map, a goal. He is about to leave when he notices the IM window is blinking again. He knows he will have to close the program before he leaves. Keeping it open will make for a suspicious scene, even though the books and papers he has pulled out make the ransacked place suspicious enough.
He reads the last communication.
Shepherd_79: what’s the matter?
Shepherd_79: hey! HELLO!
Shepherd_79: Who are you?
(Shepherd_79 has signed off.)
He exits the program. He imagines that Shepherd is heading here, to this house, to investigate. It hardly matters now. He won’t be here. He is heading back to the river.
He knows who she is. He knows how to find her. The rest is fate.
In the dim light of the riverbed, he has trouble seeing the graffiti on the drain covers, but he knows he’s at the right place. Six cats, six drains. The large painted faces hang perpendicular to the ground. During heavy rains they will swing up, releasing torrents of run-off into the violent river come to life. Now they are silent, each recessed into an individual hollow in the channel’s cement wall. He takes a moment for a deep, shaky breath. He twists his wrist to look at his watch, but the time doesn’t even register. His mind is on what happens next.
Really, what is he doing here?
Thoughts crowd his head. He should go to the police, he should go get help, he should just walk away and pray for this day to end. He shakes his head, pulls the paper he ripped from her diary out of his pocket. With a faint click he turns his flashlight on and reads:
In real life, stories never actually end; they simply change. If you are in a loveless marriage, you can’t just type “THE END” and move on to the next story. No, you make choices and you change, your story changes. A main character is swept to the side. A supporting character rises to take on more importance. New characters are introduced.
Nothing ever stops, not for a single moment.
Six cats in front of him. He chooses one. Kicks at the cover. Solid. He touches it hesitantly, thinking that it’s probably dirty. The slightly moist surface is cold from the night air. It says to him, Choose again.
The next cat he selects reacts differently. It gives when he touches it, making a squeaking sound not unlike a low meow. One of the top hinges is broken. The cover opens easily. Beyond is a cement tunnel, almost six feet in diameter.
He steps up. Inside. The beam of his flashlight melts into black. The entire inner surface is covered in graffiti tags of multiple colors. Catching the writing out of his peripheral vision gives the illusion that the tube is slowly rotating. He tries to concentrate on the sloppy seams of the poured concrete, concentric rings that disappear into darkness. He walks slowly at first, then with determination.
The