Wrong City (12 page)

With a sinking
feeling, Vish scribbled down Troy’s name and her cell number. Maybe Troy would
repeat what she’d told Lola about thinking Vish was evil. That’d go over well
with grim Officer Guerrero.

He handed the
notebook back. She jotted down his vague, jumbled physical description of the
surfers, copied his personal information from his drivers license, asked a few
general questions about the incident.

“Sorry you had
that experience,” she said. “Haven’t heard of any similar problems lately, but
we’ll be on the lookout.”

“Thank you.”

She hesitated.
“Your girlfriend… Any chance she could be behind the attack? Maybe carrying a
grudge about something?”

“No,” Vish
said. “It’s not in her nature. She wouldn’t do anything like that.” Guerrero
nodded thoughtfully.

The nurse
arrived as they were wrapping up. He was a burly man with massive forearms
bulging out from a tight white polo shirt. He gave Vish a once-over, shone a
bright light in his eyes, made him flex his arms and wrists and legs, and gave
him the all-clear. “You’re good,” he said. “You got anyone to drive you home?”

Vish shook his
head. “I’m just a few blocks from here,” he said, or tried to say. He erupted
into a coughing fit mid-sentence. The nurse gave him a whack on the back with a
beefy hand.

“Sounds like
you got what everyone’s got. Bad strain of flu going around,” he said.

“Getting over
it,” Vish said.

“Lucky you.
Most people are just catching it now,” the nurse said. “If it keeps spreading
like this, it’ll knock out the whole city.”

Vish walked
home. He felt newly exposed after the attack, frightened by the wide expanses
of sand and water around him. He felt better once he was on the street,
sheltered by the upscale, sprawling apartment complexes and oceanfront hotels
that dotted the area. What had they said?
He can’t reach you here.

He shouldn’t
expect that to make any sense. He was a random victim, or mostly random,
someone they’d slotted into some sort of paranoid fantasy that drove them to
attack him.

Maybe they
hadn’t said “he”. He’d been with Troy both times when he’d seen them before.
“She can’t protect you”—now that Troy wasn’t around, maybe he was fair game?
Was that a completely bizarre thing to think, that somehow Troy was involved in
this?

Sparky Mother
had warned him about Troy, or about someone at least, and then there’d been
that explosion, and then immediately after that Troy had vanished from his
life. And now he’d been attacked. Random events, or was there some connection
he was missing?

Troy was a dead
end. He could try ambushing her at her duplex again, but she’d just refuse to
see him. Sparky, though… maybe he could find Sparky again, and maybe Sparky
held some of the answers in this.

It was a relief
to get home, to pull the blinds shut, to flip the double bolt and put the chain
lock on the door. He pulled Sparky’s business card out of the junk drawer in
his kitchen where he’d stashed it a couple weeks ago. That logo, the stupid
cartoon tiger with the firecracker.

He dialed the
number again.

Again, no
connection. No ringing, no dial tone, just an electronic void. A rising and
falling pulse, a series of far-away clicks, like an electronic echo. But Sparky
had known he’d called before…

“It’s Vish,” he
said into the dead line. He felt like an idiot. “I’d like to speak to you.”

The void didn’t
respond. He listened to the echo for a few seconds longer, then hung up,
feeling foolish and oddly scared.

I
t was tricky getting to Ridpath’s house in
Tarzana on the bus; anything in the Valley was sort of a no-man’s-land for
people without cars. Vish had pored over the map of the public transit system
online before settling on a route he thought would work, and even then he
wandered through residential neighborhoods for a couple of miles, consulting
the little map he’d printed from the MTA’s website and trying to find something
that looked familiar from the time he and Troy had gone to Ridpath’s barbecue.
He didn’t have a phone number, or even his full address. He remembered the
nearest major intersection, he thought, and he hoped he could navigate his way
to the right house from there.

After a few
wrong turns, he found the place, a cute two-story cottage in dusty blue with
cream trim. There was a lemon tree in the front lawn, graceful and fragrant. He
rang the doorbell and heard answering barks. Ridpath had pugs, two of them.

A man’s voice
spoke something unintelligible. The barking ceased. The door flew open.
Ridpath, shirtless and glistening, grinned at him. “Vish!”

“Hi, Ridpath.
I’m sorry to just drop by like this. I didn’t have any other way to contact
you.”

“No, it’s no
problem. I was just doing some free weights. Come on in. Something to drink?”

Vish squeezed
in past the dogs, who milled about and sniffed his shins. Ridpath led the way
into the kitchen. He glanced back over his shoulder. “Everything okay?”

“Yes. Fine.”

“You got a
little banged up,” Ridpath said.

Vish touched
the purple welt on his forehead. His ribs had some yellowing bruises on them,
and he felt stiff, but that was the extent of the damage. “I got mugged,” he
said. He tried to make it sound light.

Ridpath
stopped. “No kidding. Really? When did this happen?”

“Day before
yesterday. I was walking on the beach in Venice. It’s fine. I wasn’t badly
hurt.”

“Was Troy with
you?” Ridpath opened the fridge and started rooting around. “Beer, bottled
water?”

“Nothing for
me. Thank you.” Vish watched as Ridpath twisted the cap off a bottle of water
and took a long pull from it. “No. Troy and I… we broke up.”

Ridpath set the
bottle down on the counter and stared at him. “Sorry to hear that,” he said at
last. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,
other than it was her idea. She’s… not really speaking to me anymore.”

“You want to
sit down?” Ridpath asked. He gestured for Vish to follow him into the living
room. “Well, that’s too bad. I thought you two were good together.”

“So did I,”
Vish said. He sank down into an armchair, which absorbed him into its cushiony
chenille depths.

Ridpath settled
on the couch. His upper body was a triumph of fitness, crisply defined ridges
and taut skin, not a visible trace of unwanted flesh anywhere. “Is that what
you wanted to talk to me about?”

“No,” Vish said.
“You’re Troy’s friend. You know her better than you know me. I don’t think it
would be appropriate for me to discuss her with you.”

Ridpath nodded.
“Good call,” he said. “So…”

Vish thought
this through in advance, rehearsed it in his head during the long bus trip
here, made sure it sounded plausible. “I talked to one of the guests at
Kelsey’s party, this manager, I think he’s a friend of hers. He asked me to
send him some of my writing, but I lost his phone number.”

“And you want
me to see if Kelsey has it?”

“If you don’t
mind, yeah. I hate to ask, but since Troy’s not talking to me, I don’t know any
other way to contact her.”

“Sure, no
problem. I can do that.” He thought for a moment. “This guy doesn’t have
anything to do with Troy, does he? He’s not why she left you?”

“No. Not at
all. Nothing like that.”

“Good. I like
you just fine, but I’m not putting myself in the middle of some messy breakup
drama.” He smiled. “What’s the guy’s name?”

“Sparky
Mother.”

Ridpath
snorted. “Easy to remember, I guess. Sparky a nickname?”

“Probably, but
as far as I know, everyone calls him Sparky.”

Ridpath picked
his phone up off of the coffee table and handed it to Vish. “Okay. Give me your
phone number, and I’ll give you a call when I talk to her.”

“Thanks a lot.
I appreciate it.” Vish entered his information into Ridpath’s phone. “Hey, do
you think the show’s ever coming back?”

“Nope. I think
the network’s looking for an excuse to let it fade away. This season’s been a
big embarrassment for them.”

Vish nodded.
“Are you all right with that?”

“I think so.”
Ridpath considered. “Steady paycheck, that’s awfully nice, but it’ll be a
relief to be done with it, honestly. I suppose there’s a chance the writers
will get their act together during this hiatus.” He raised his eyebrows at
Vish. “Though I’d guess you’d have a better idea about that?”

Vish shook his
head. “They won’t,” he said.

“No surprise
there.” Ridpath shrugged. “Maybe we’ll work together again on something
better.”

Nice thought,
but Vish couldn’t see it happening. His job had been an out-of-the-blue fluke,
a gift from the skies that had come along with Troy. It seemed very unlikely
another such gift would ever come to him again.

Ridpath called
the next day. “Sorry for the delay,” he said. “Kelsey had to check with her party
planner. Anyway, yeah, she knew who you were talking about, this Sparky Mother
dude, though she’s really just met him at other parties and stuff. She wasn’t
even sure what he does, other than he’s in the industry.”

“Did she know
how to contact him?”

“Not exactly.
Here’s the thing: She didn’t invite him, or her party planner didn’t invite
him, or however that works. The invitation went to some big-league agent who
couldn’t make it, so he passed the invitation along to Sparky. This agent
called Kelsey’s planner ahead of time and got Sparky on the guest list.”

“Who was the
agent?” Vish asked.

“His name’s Lon
Hartford. He used to have his own agency, but he’s retired. He represented
Kelsey when she was a kid. Or more of a kid, anyway.” Ridpath snorted. “He
still shows up at events, but he’s no longer active in the industry. Maybe your
friend Sparky used to work with him or something? Anyway, he’d know how to get
in touch with him.” Ridpath read off a phone number; Vish jotted it down on the
back of a magazine.

“Thanks,
Ridpath. I owe you.”

“Hell, that
wasn’t anything. Take care of yourself, Vish.”

Ridpath hung
up. Vish sat on his couch and stared at the wall, stumped. What was his next
move? Was this crazy, chasing down Sparky this way?

He dialed the
number. A bright female voice answered, perky yet professional. After Vish
fumbled his way through an explanation, she put him on hold for a very long
time.

“Mr. Hartford
doesn’t give that kind of information out over the phone,” she said when she
returned.

“Ah.” Well,
that made sense, didn’t it? Lon Hartford didn’t know Vish; he had no incentive
to give him information about one of his friends, or employees, or whatever
Sparky was to him. “I see. Well, thank you.”

“But if you
were to drop by his home tomorrow after two, he’ll be available,” the bright
voice continued seamlessly.

She rattled off
an address. Vish fumbled to grab a pen and write it down. Beachwood Canyon,
high in the Hollywood Hills. Tough to reach by bus. “I’ll be there. Thank you
very—”

He was talking
to a dead line. The efficient woman had already disconnected the call.

Vish searched
online for Lon Hartford. What with the nebulous cloud surrounding Sparky
Mother, it was comforting to see hundreds of results come back for Hartford,
who seemed to be wholly legit. Vish found articles in the trades mentioning his
past deals, photos of him at parties, quotes from him in the
Los Angeles
Times
speculating on next year’s Oscar nominations.

Once again, he
Googled Sparky.

One result.

Weird.

B
y the time he reached Hartford’s place, it
was almost three. Vish, who was compulsively early by nature, was furious with
himself for underestimating how long it would take to get there. He’d given
himself an ample cushion of time, he thought, but the journey had sucked up his
afternoon. A bus to downtown, a subway to Hollywood, and then on foot into the
hills, hiking up twisting roads that snaked in all directions and ended without
warning. His map led him astray. He was parched and sweaty by the time he reached
the mansion.

He rang a
buzzer beside the front gate, which swung open and allowed him access. He
walked up a cobblestone circular driveway to a pair of enormous doors flanked
by white concrete pillars. Only a single story tall, the mansion sprawled over
enough space for four or five more modestly-sized houses. The exterior was
painted flat yellow, the color of buttercups, and had a low white concrete
porch. The huge windows on either side of the door had no curtains; Vish could
see straight through the house, all the way through the sliding doors against
the back wall to the swimming pool in the backyard.

Lon Hartford
answered the door. He might’ve been in his seventies, maybe even older, but his
deeply-tanned skin was tight and smooth, and his swept-back hair was dark and
glistening. In one hand he held a tall glass filled with mint leaves and what
could be tea or bourbon. “You must be Vish. Come in, come in. Call me Lon.”

Lon ushered him
into the house. He clapped Vish on the shoulder, like they’d known each other
for years. “I’m sitting out by the pool. Join me for a drink.” He wore a pale
yellow golf shirt and white linen pants. He was barefoot, and it looked like
he’d had a recent pedicure.

Just beyond the
front entrance was a dining area. Bare walls and pale wood floors, an enormous
white marble dining table surrounded by eight high-backed white leather chairs
arranged at evenly-spaced intervals. The dining area connected to the living
room with little indication to show where one started and one ended, all part
of the same open space.

The living room
featured a sofa and two vast armchairs upholstered in a sickly yellow suede,
like gigantic pats of warm margarine. A shaggy white rug enveloped the floor.
He should’ve taken his shoes off by the door, followed Lon’s lead and gone
barefoot, because there was no way he’d be able to walk across that rug without
tracking dust from the canyon roads.

Unlike the
dining area, the walls in the living room weren’t bare. Vish wished they were.
Eight oil paintings in total, huge unframed canvases hanging high on the walls,
done in vivid pinks and roses and beiges and browns. Headless naked women were
featured in all of them, bulging breasts and tiny waists and long, long legs,
entwined in erotic positions with each other. The heads looked like they’d been
severed just under the chin, a glimpse of cut bone and sawed flesh at the top
of the neck stumps.

It was
seriously creepy.

Lon glanced at
him sideways as they passed, gauging his reaction. Vish kept his face neutral.
“Amazing work, isn’t it?” Lon said. He raised his glass and saluted the
paintings. “Local artist. Talented fellow, divinely gifted. He
worships
the female form.”Though not the female face. Vish made some noise of polite
acknowledgement.

They moved on
through the sliding doors to the backyard. The pool glittered in the sunlight,
blue and clear. It’d been overcast by the beach; here in the hills, it was
sunny and stark, the low sun and cloudless sky conspiring to make Vish feel
exposed.

A teenaged girl
in a gold-and-green bikini sprawled on her stomach in a lounge chair, eyes
closed, the fingertips of one hand stroking the pavement. She glanced up and
saw Lon and Vish, then stood and, without a word, moved to a small mobile wet
bar set up in the shade by the house. She picked up a set of tongs and flicked
ice cubes from a teak bucket into a tall glass. She splashed something from a
pitcher over the ice, then padded over and thrust the glass at Vish.

“Ah… thank
you,” Vish said, but she padded off without acknowledging him. She slipped
inside the sliding door and yanked it shut behind her, leaving Vish alone with
Lon.

“Sit. Please.”
Lon gestured toward one of the teak recliners surrounding the pool. He smiled,
his teeth flashing white against his tan.

Vish sat on the
edge of the recliner. He took a tentative sip of his drink. Iced tea, strong
and sticky-sweet, a chemical blast of peach flavoring. Lon pulled around a
chair to face him, then sat and beamed at him. “So I hear you’re looking for
Sparky.”

“Yes, sir,” Vish
said. “I met him at a party a while ago, and he offered to read a book I’ve
written, but I don’t have any way to contact him.”

Lon nodded. “So
you’re a writer. Good, good. Work on anything I’ve heard of?”

“I’m currently
writing for
Interstellar Boys
,” Vish said. Sort of the truth, more of a
lie.

Lon kept
nodding. “Good show. Good stuff.” Another smile. The skin around his mouth
pulled tightly over his chin and cheeks, lending his face a skeletal
appearance. He sat back in his chair. “I’ve known Sparky for an awfully long
time. He’s got a good eye for talent. If he’s interested in you, it probably
means you know your craft.”

“I don’t know
that much about him,” Vish said. “But he seemed like a pretty cool guy.”

The smile
twisted a bit. Almost a grimace, and then it relaxed. “He’s quite a fellow.”

“Did he work
with you?” Vish asked.

“He took over
from me.” Another tight smile. “Took my clients. What the hell. It was time I
retire anyway, huh?”

“What does he
do, exactly?” Vish asked. “Is he an agent, or a manager, or...?”

“He runs
things.” Lon looked out over the pool and shook his head. “Runs pretty much
everything in this industry, really. If there ever was a man behind the
curtain, that’s Sparky. He does a hell of a job of it, too. Better than I
could, then or now.”

“There’s so
little information about him out there,” Vish said.

Lon nodded. “He
likes it that way. He controls the flow. It adds to his legend, I suppose.”

He was still
staring at the pool, his expression distant. Just as Vish wondered if he should
say something to fill the void, Lon returned to the present and faced him
again.

“Kelsey
Kirkpatrick’s party. Was he there to see you?”

It took Vish a
moment to follow him. “Ah… No. I saw him at the party, but I barely got a
chance to talk to him. I first met him about a month before that.”

He wasn’t sure
Lon was even listening to him. “He wanted to go to that party. He asked for my
invitation. I wondered why, but it’s not the sort of thing I could ask him.”

“Why not?” Vish
asked. “Wouldn’t he have told you?”

“He probably
would have. And that’s the problem. The more Sparky tells you about his life,
the worse off you are.” He gestured at Vish with his drink. “Which is why I’m
not asking for your story, son. You’ve got your reasons for finding him, and if
he wants to see you, he’ll see you, but I don’t need to know about it.”

Lon took a long
drink of his tea, then appeared to reach some conclusion. He nodded to himself.

“He moves his
offices a lot. I don’t know his current number, if he even has a phone right
now, but he’s set himself up in the Beverly Center these days. You want to see
him, try there.”

“The Beverly
Center?” Vish frowned. “Are there offices there?”

“That’s
irrelevant to Sparky. He wants to set up in a place, he’ll do it, and the place
will adapt to his needs.” Lon set his empty glass on the cement beside his
chair. “Ask around. Someone should be able to point you in the right
direction.”

Vish nodded.
“Okay. Thank you,” he said. He rose.

Lon got to his
feet as well. He extended a hand; Vish shook it. Lon’s hand was dry and
withered, as light as a pile of twigs, and his grip had no power behind it.

“Tell him I
helped you,” Lon said. His tone was light, but Vish thought he detected
something sneaking out behind the words, something tense and almost frantic.
“Mention my name, will you? Let him know it was me.”

“Of course.”

Lon smiled and
patted him on the shoulder. He walked with him back into the house, through the
living room with the creepy paintings, and out the front door. The gate stood
wide open, and just the sight of the road beyond it made Vish feel relieved.
This was the kind of place where someone could disappear forever.

When he was
safely on the road, ready to retrace his meandering journey back home, he
glanced back at the house. Lon was still standing barefoot on the concrete
porch and staring after him. Lon waved his glass at him in farewell. Vish
returned the wave. His hand trembled.