Los Angeles (6 page)

“She’s not answering her own phone,” I said. “Besides, I don’t need to talk to her, I just need to know if she’s there.”

“Lots of ladies here,” he said. “Can you hold on?”

I waited.

I stood by the front door of my apartment in the hopes that I would hear her coming up the stairs.

“Hey!” the guy on the phone was shouting to someone. “Some guy wants to know is Cassandra here!” I held a section of the kitchen
miniblinds open with my fingers and scanned the parking lot. The blue numbers on the coffeemaker said it was nine-thirteen.
There was an answer, presumably, because the guy got back on the line and said, “Cassandra’s off tonight. Maybe another time,
all right, boss?”

The tiles of the kitchen floor suddenly felt like ice on my feet. One of my arches started to cramp, as though someone were
making a fist inside it. I hung up the phone and hopped into the living room, onto the flokati, then reached down to massage
my sole. On television, the replicant named Roy was breaking Deckard’s fingers. “This is for Zhora,” he was saying, snapping
one digit after another. “This is for Pris.”

I sat down at my desk, turned in the old, creaking swivel chair, and massaged my foot.

From here I could look into the kitchen, at the countertop populated with bottles of alcohol and pharmaceuticals. I could
see the half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the counter, the almost completely empty bottle of Stoli. They sat next to the
plastic bottles of antidepressants, antipsychotics, and anti-anxieties. It was an account, I understood, of my own decline,
an archeological site revealing the artifacts of my own undoing.

“Angel?”
Angela had said.

For some reason I thought of my aura again:

Red. Orange. Bright yellow. Burning.

The phone rang.

“Angela?”

“Angel, it’s me,” a soft voice said. “It’s Melanie.”

Shit. Fuck. Crap. It was my father’s wife. I released a heavy breath. “How are you, Melanie?”

“I’m so glad I caught you.” She gave me a nervous laugh. “Usually it’s just the machine. Who’s Angela?”

“She’s just, um —” I wasn’t sure what to tell her. “She’s someone… she’s a friend.”

“Oh,” Melanie said. “Well, I just wanted to invite you for dinner this weekend. Your father isn’t shooting right now, so he’s
home for a while, and I thought it would be great if you could see Gabriel.” Gabriel, their son, had something wrong with
him. His eyes were vacant, uncomprehending. He rocked back and forth and spoke gibberish into his knees. “He’s really starting
to come out of his shell, you know, and—”

“Melanie,” I said, “I’m expecting a call right now, actually. Can I get back to you?”

“Sure, Angel, it’s just that —”

______

The night Angela took me to the pool, she had stared into my eyes for one of those long moments that merge romance with unease.
I had been fighting the impulse to press her about her past, to ask where she came from, what her last name was, who her parents
were, anything that would reveal the life she had lived before the moment she came to my door, orange casserole dish in her
hands, sympathy written across her face. I had fought against it because I was afraid if I scratched too hard at the surface
of reality, I’d fall through the tear.

But I want you to see her. I want you to see Angela the way I saw her, to experience the way she appeared at my door, holding
that ridiculous dish, the scent of stew like perfume in the air of the stairwell, the way she approached me in the club that
night, happiness radiating from her entire body. I want you to feel her wrists, how they were all bone and so little flesh,
her thighs all flesh and no bone. I want you to know what it was like to feel her dry feet on my feet, the coolness of her
skin against my skin, the warmth of her breath mixed with mine, her limbs tangled with my limbs. Picture the way her real
hair, dark at the root, veered away in two directions from the nape of her neck, the way the fine black down in the small
of her back whirled like a miniature galaxy. I want you to visualize the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes like creases
in wax paper and the gelled implants inside her breasts, the light bands of stress pulling against the skin.

She was a universe.

The mascara smudged around her eyelids, the lipstick smeared after so much kissing, sometimes for hours, all night. The feel
of her tongue, of her lips pulling, tasting, of her cool hands on my body, my skin, the narrow, tapered fingers. I want you
to see her the way I saw her, feel her the way I feel her still, I will always feel her.

If I could, I would let everyone experience these memories, these images of Angela, I would let the world inside me just to
meet her, if only so you could understand what it felt like when she disappeared.

I
T WAS GIVEN LOW PRIORITY, THE LOWEST, OBVIOUSLY, BECAUSE
the police didn’t even arrive until quarter past two in the morning, and by that time, my anxiety, despite my ingesting an
inordinate amount of Ativan and one or two calming shots of Jack Daniel’s, had developed into a full-scale hysteria. I had
been pacing for hours, unable to sit, and when I heard the buzzer, I rushed to the door and looked at the little black-and-white
screen of the surveillance camera.

There they were, two policemen, one thin, one fat, standing between the twin midget palms like Laurel and Hardy. I buzzed
them in and listened to their heavy footsteps on the polished concrete stairs.

“I was the one who called,” I told the cops when they knocked on Angela’s door, squinting against the cruel fluorescence.
“Angela isn’t home.”

One of them, the skinny one, said, “What seems to be the problem, sir?”

The other one sighed and held a hand over his weapon, giving me a look of total disinterest.

“My girlfriend,” I said. “Somethings happened.”

“Did you hear something?”

“She called me.”

“She called you.”

“She called and said my name.”

The skinny one removed his hat and pushed his hair back. “Okay…” Then he replaced it.

“And then she hung up.”

“What’s her name again?”

“Angela.”

“The last name?”

I remembered then I didn’t know.

There was a pause while the cops looked at me. “She’s your girlfriend and you don’t know her last name?”

I didn’t have an answer.

“You an albino?”

I sighed.

One of the policemen tried the door, and it opened easily.

I cursed at myself for not trying that. I must have knocked on that door at least fifty times. Why hadn’t I just turned the
stupid handle?

“How long have you known her, sir?” He appeared intelligent, the fat one, his left eye permanently squinting. The other cop,
the skinny one, seemed tired, with sharp features and blinking, red-rimmed eyes. He removed his hat and combed his hair with
his fingers again, then replaced it again. He just kept doing this over and over.

“She just moved in a few weeks ago.” I tried to remember how many times I had canceled my psychotherapy appointment. I hadn’t
seen Dr. Silowicz once since Angela and I had met. “Maybe it was more than that,” I said. “I don’t know, a month, six weeks?”

“I wonder why she didn’t lock the door.”

“She’s trusting.”

“Yeah?”

“Forgetful, too,” I corrected myself.

“That’s more like it.”

This from the skinny one. “You said she called you?” He took his hat off again, ran his fingers through his hair again.

“And I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was calling from an enclosed, dark place, so I think —”

“Wait, wait, wait. You could tell that by the tone of her voice?”

I nodded.

He paused, giving me a long look. “I’m trying to understand what you mean by that, sir.”

I let a half second pass before I answered. “She called from somewhere,” I said, “somewhere inside something… I could hear
it. I could hear it in the way she said my name.”

“She was speaking low, whispering?”

“Exactly. So it must’ve been dark. It must’ve been —”

“You’re saying you could tell it was dark where she was calling from?” This was the skinny one again, incredulous.

“She said my name.”

The two cops stepped across the threshold of Angela’s front door, and the fat one flicked on the overhead. As usual, I let
a hand fly up to my eyes, shielding myself against the brightness.

“Your name?”

“What?”

“You say she said your name?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

“What is it?”

“Angel.”

“Angel what?”

“Veronchek,” I offered reluctantly.

“Hello?” the fat one said to the room. “Hello? Hello?”

I stood on the threshold and looked in, which is when I realized I had never been inside Angela’s apartment before.

It was nothing special, anyway. There was a blue love seat. There was a white rattan rocking chair. There was a matching kitchen
table with a glass top, also made of white rattan, and two aluminum folding chairs. Everything was brand-new, everything appeared
to have been bought yesterday. The walls were white, entirely absent of pictures.

“Look in the bedroom, Trip.”

I followed the cop named Trip, the fat one, into the bedroom, which smelled like citrus, spices, and musk, like Angela, as
a matter of fact — it must have been the perfume she wore. The overhead light was already on. A few empty cardboard boxes
had been stacked under the window facing the parking lot. The bed, which I could tell was also new because its plastic wrapping
had been tossed into the corner, was covered with a pale blue comforter and matching pillows, the
DO NOT REMOVE
tags still attached. On the floor rested a digital clock, its enormous numbers glowing crimson, and there were two hard-shell
Samsonites, both the same size, one blue, one red, with jeans, T-shirts, and underwear spilling out.

Trip turned around and looked at me. “Ah, shit,” he said, “you’re not supposed to be in here.”

“Why not?”

“What if this is a crime scene? You didn’t touch anything, did you?”

I looked at my hands. “A crime scene?”

He sighed.

“The closet,” I said. “Try the closet.”

He opened the door.

“There’s nothing here, either. Some shoes… nada.”

I stepped behind him and peered over his shoulder. All I saw were a few pairs of heels and three dresses on wire hangers.

“What does she do?” the cop asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Her job, what is —”

“She’s a dancer. But only until she finds something else.”

“Well” — Trip turned to face me — “maybe she found that something else, because she’s not here.”

“Here’s what happened.” The other one, the one I had been thinking of as the dumb, skinny one with the red-rimmed eyes, came
out of the bathroom. “Here’s what
transpired.
” He said that word like a person who had just purchased it. “She called from her wireless phone, dialed you up, you know,
and you answered. She said your name, and just like that, she lost the connection. Happens all the time. Drove out of range,
went through a tunnel.”

“She was calling from the dark.” I had heard it in her voice. Darkness. And fear. “And why didn’t she call back?”

“So she was in the dark somewhere,” he conceded. “Maybe you’re right. A bar or somewhere, probably where she works.”

“There would have been loud music if she’d called from where she works.” I shook my head. “I’ve been there. Besides, I spoke
to them already, and she’s not working tonight. This was a small, enclosed place, like a closet.” A new thought occurred to
me. “Or the trunk of a car.” I pictured a stifling obscurity, heavy air, a pair of hands around Angela’s neck, fingers tightening.

“Where is it?”

“What?”

“Where she works.”

“The Velvet Mask. It’s on —”

He rolled his eyes. “We know where
that
is.”

“Sir,” Trip announced, shaking his head, “you can’t tell if a person is in the dark just from the sound of their voice.” He
was losing his patience, I was beginning to understand, with this white mutant in his tattered bathrobe in the middle of the
West Hollywood night.

“Can you describe her?”

“Describe her?”

We had moved back into my apartment so I could give them a complete statement.

“Her appearance.” This was the dumb cop asking. He ran his fingers through his hair, replaced his hat.

“She’s black,” I said. “At least I think she is. Part black, at least. Maybe Spanish.”

“Dark skin, light skin?”

“Medium skin,” I answered. “Medium to light. Cinnamon,” I said. “Reflective.”

This got a smirk from Trip. “Cinnamon skin.”

“Anything in particular about her appearance that stands out?” the skinny one asked. “I mean, besides the reflectivity?”

“Her eyes change colors.”

They both stared at me.

“Sometimes they’re blue,” I clarified, “sometimes they’re brown.”

Trip muttered as he took down notes. “Might be wearing colored contacts.”

“Nice body?”

“Fake breasts,” I said, making a gesture. I had felt the implants beneath her skin.

“How tall?”

“Tall, I guess.” I thought for a moment, remembering how high she came up on me. I am just over six feet. “Five nine, maybe.
Five ten?” I became sarcastic. “But I’m fairly sure her height is real.”

We stood on the flokati, the three of us, and I worried about what might be on the soles of their shoes.

On television was the scene where Leon reaches into a container of freezing liquid and pulls out a pair of android eyeballs.

“Is that on TV?” Trip asked.

“It’s a DVD.”

“Oh.” He nodded.

“There’s nothing else you can do?”

“Nothing happened,” said the skinny one.

“There’s no sign of foul play,” said Trip, taking a hard look around, as if Angela might be hiding in my apartment for some
reason.

A few seconds later, they were heading toward the door. “There’s nothing to do even if we wanted to do something,” Trip said.