What the f**k is the matter with failure? It’s everywhere under the sun… flavored coffee, anything soy, Domino’s pizza and my relationships, every f**king one. Failure’s always an option, always a choice, like Del Taco and Madam Wu’s pork buns. But I digress.

George lost the Trop. But I needed coffee, bad. I’d been up all night wrestling with six unruly words and a twenty year old busboy I wish I’d had. George was now working the counter at the Beachwood cafe so I drove up the hill for a cup. Since I rarely came up this far, she wanted to know what was up. There was a girl at the counter, beautiful, strong, eating eggs over easy and ketchup-ed hash browns. When George brought her a side of two short stacks, I noticed slung over the girl’s slender arm was a thirty year old M.E. Pentax. As cool as the look in her eyes.

George poured me a coffee and asked, “You bailing on me tonight?” … she was gonna make us a grilled onion and Romano pizza from scratch… and read our cards from a forty year old deck that once belonged to Garbo but got snatched. Now… I could use some direction, a little clairvoyance, any glimpse into my future I wouldn’t shrink from. But I was wary of reading too much into negligible leads… the ones I’d had, had dried up like mist in an August dawn. So I told her, “Yeah… I gotta work, gotta chase down a beer-battered prawn.” My apatite, I could always count on.

And who knows… maybe I’d run into someone.

Rhea.

I know the scent of cumin in a tikka masala; I know how much Kim Chee it takes to burn its memory into a night. I can smell Peking duck from half a block down and I memorized every Grand Central chili in one bite. But I don’t know me.

I used to know what I wanted from a day: to see a little beauty, eat cheap and good, avenge my sister and write. Now I wake up as late as I possibly can… I try to avoid the light. I don’t want to see the anger in my own eyes; don’t want to see what everyone knows isn’t right. But it’s a new year and I was hoping to start out strong so I’d vowed to get up no later than 4 hours past dawn. And knock on doors in the light of day… particularly the one in Elysian where one of those two stolen girls was still prey.

Ten-o-five, AM, I was back on the road, Sunset to Alvarado to Arvin east of Avalon. One frightened peek in that back bungalow window and I knew now both girls were gone. And as I looked and the weeds in the yard, and into the room that looked long unused, I wondered had it all been a dream: the angelic visions, the trouble, the girls… all a grand distraction, to make up for letting her out of my sight, to ease this twenty year emotional infection. I’m going with yes.

Think I’ll go get a kalamata and eggplant pizza and see if I can become any less.

Rhea.

The romance of L.A. eludes me.  But I didn’t come here for the vibe.  Still… I’ve gotten used to the Tamarind sodas on York and even Olvera has an OK side.  And the air in October, when a Santa Ana blows, holds light like it’s in somebody’s eyes.   But don’t go thinking you know me.

To you I’m the leather faced hard ass, the old woman behind Domingos bar, the bitch who hates having to serve you…  and the mother who’s spent fourteen years trying to get her stolen kid back… yeah, that too.

So when that Porter chick comes in talking camarones to my guy like a liar’s foreplay,  I could  give a rat’s ass if she thinks the A La Diabla oozes heat, where I come from it can save the day…. for any mojada slipping across the border.

But I shut up and stay away – that woman is up to no good.   And whenever I can, I slip down the boulevard, west, into the angel-ed air of the Hills of Hollywood.   And hope one of them helps my child get away for a minute or two but what’s the likelihood?  Still, I wait at the bus bench halfway up the hill in case she could.

I won’t tell you what I’ve done, I won’t tell you what I do but I’ll tell you, you might do it too… given the circumstance.  So laugh at my snarl, wonder why I’m socially employed but don’t go asking me to dance.  You don’t want to know me.

Myrna.

I always go back to the bad ones.  Not for long, but long enough to regret.  The neon Cheetos, the doughy onion rings, the frozen buttercream frosting for breakfast… and the aging wannabe musician who was still f**king his ex.

Dust had nothing going for him except a wayward smile and the promise of a vagabond life.  But like most everything else in this town, it was a beautifully crafted lie.  And it’s not that I bought it and it’s not that I believed; I just never felt the urge to do any better.   He ate Erewhon mung beans, he rhymed “oh Girl” with “my world” and his love of himself was unfettered.   But he was an easy enough place to get lost in and he knew how to move.  And I was tired tonight of thinking of lost and dead girls and tired of not knowing what to do.

I was good last night, I wrote my review, paid homage to the street party L.A. dining has become…   I only had two beers and I went to bed before one… with every intention of waking up early and doing what I had vowed, long ago, to do… knowing full well the light of day would cripple me with doubt like any other fool.  But lately my lack was weighing on me and I craved a stronger tool.

So as dark blanketed the L.A. sear, I ventured out with my numbing need.  I stopped at the Astro for a greasy high then cruised over the Froo Pool Room where Dust hung out, by Cherokee.   Hours later I woke up next to cold onion ring crumbs on sticky sheets.  But then came the hour of three.  When the quiet settles into the cracks of the night and the ghosts in the air kiss your skin…  Aggie was at the window… my ghost, my reason, my kin.  “The hell you doing?” she yelled at me, though only I could hear, “You gonna f**k away another ten years?!”  I left Dust’s bed as she nagged “You better buy this kid pretty soon and find out who’s snatching these girls.  You think you’re tired?”  She asked me “I’ve been waiting for this for thirty two years.”    I followed her out the window; she let me down on the street with a thud.  I thought I’d better buy her a breakfast burrito from the Burger Hut.  To calm her down.

But the Hut didn’t open until six thirty so we headed to Denny’s for an original Slam… pancakes, bacon, eggs over easy, creamed coffee, me and Aggie and no man.  And in the two hours left until dawn, she said to me before the butter got runny: “Why don’t you just stay up?  And get your ass over to Sakuri’s house before dawn, before you wimp out again, and hit her up for the money.”  Not a bad idea.

Rhea.

I’m starting to get worried about the light in L.A…. it’s never really night anymore.  The bleed from the streets washes far past the moon and I’m losing hold of all those things the cover of darkness bore…  like dreams unburdened by light.

Now It’s ten past midnight, the sky’s an orangey haze, the streets are littered with grease trucks selling street hip croquettes and fusion moles but I’m so freaked about what I thought last night that all I want is the comfort of a can of Old El Paso frijoles… with a pile of cheddar melted on top..  But Teddy wants two hundred words on these hipster roach coaches so I’m back on the boulevard, full stop.  But I can’t stop thinking…

Ten minutes into a twenty minute line to buy a fried polenta pocket stuffed with peaches, laced with maple cream, I remembered the dream.   Now maybe it’s the sputtering neon mist that passes for night that’s altered my reason, but damn if I didn’t think my idea to buy a girl was good…   and that this means to an end wasn’t treason.

I paid two bucks too much for the polenta peach pocket, though it was worth about fifty words; I got a chili feta pupusa at the truck parked a block away and two raisin empanadas at the one parked on third…   I ate them fast, jotted down notes then headed to the Sunset Food For Less.  I got my El Paso frijoles, a hunk of Kroger cheddar and a six pack of Tecate, to temper the mess.

Back home, as the hot cheese folded into creamy beans, and the cold beer went down a treat, I focused in on the task at hand and I hope I didn’t cheat: To buy one of the girls I’d need to know, first how to get one, who to ask?  Then, how much do they cost?  I couldn’t ask Myrna, she hated me and Panama would either lie or laugh… and I didn’t want to tip him off in case his innocence was a mask.  Besides, he might prove useful down the line.   Then I remembered, Anna Sakuri would know all… and I knew where she dined.

I slept, then, deep through L.A.’s darkest hours until dawn crept in, barely lighter than this night… and I felt the flurry of my sister’s wings leaving my window in flight.  She’d been watching me.

Sure hope she agreed.

Rhea.

I once got lost in a forest lit, I swear, solely by luminous wings that reflected a light born of death and other transparent things.   I could have stayed there forever, sat in that light, on that moss, until I died.  But there was no carnitas stand nearby, no place to get a nice piece of banana cream pie.  So I walked out of that padded mystical light in search of a more carnal love and calamari, deep fried.

I’m suburbia born, L.A. bred, no other forest had ever invited me… this city was perverted neon dream, a forest of longing.  Four + million hungry for fame or minimum wage and there’s a man on the corner, eating alone without rage.  Don’t know why but these are the things I see.  And though I write about nine kinds of salsa and the best place for ghee, no way am I a foodie.  I’ll never get a Pulitzer for poblano prose and I don’t care which food truck dusts their sweet potato fries with cloves; my palate remains unrefined.  The reward I crave is only city-wide: a plaque for nailing the kidnappers, as if I’d…  Dreams of glory, yeah, but hey, this is L.A.

So I tell myself I can’t go to the cops because Ozrin’s a rich Bel Air producer who’d convincingly lie about the Mexican child stashed in his little maid’s room.  But I know I really want to get him myself.  So I better think big… and soon.

Then I remember: she had a sister, held in that back room in bartender Myrna’s Elysian Park bungalow around the corner from that Greek place that sells greasy artichoke calzones.  And if it’s true, these girls are for sale, just a bid won… then maybe all I have to do to get the truth is to, somehow, buy one.

Rhea.

Maybe it was the heady scent of his tacos al pastor but I thought he was glad to see me.  I saw a flicker of heat when he twitched a wry smile but then he walked away like I was after his gris gris.  It hurt, ’cause I didn’t even like the guy.  Our night of naked heat with Ana’s gorditas, I thought, should’ve been enough for him to want a second round.  I wasn’t gonna take this lying down.

I hung back, let him amble away, sipping his guava atole.  I stopped at Granada’s tamale cart for a carnitas combo, but I kept my eye on the goal.  He crossed the street, heading back toward eighth, then got in an old Nova, a faded gas station bathroom green.  I had just enough time to get back to my LeBaron, down the pambazo and follow the dream.

He cruised back up to the boulevard, headed west then eased to a corner around Lucile.  A skanky looking broad oozed to the curb as he rounded it, looking to make a deal.  There was barely a whisper, barely a pause then she smiled and slid into the Nova as it shushed around the corner.  I whipped a U, followed them down the hill to a block of garden apartments shaded by lost promise and ardor.

Under an old scrub Oak, he eased to a stop, turned the Nova off and didn’t get out.  I parked half a block back, unseen, but welcoming my old friend doubt.  The one thing I thought I had going for me was a food and sex combo that verged on devout.  I’d been replaced by a foodless chick who charged by the mouth.  And I had no new info on the case.

I don’t bow to anyone’s expectations, especially my own and I’ve set the bar pretty low.  But somehow, sitting there, still hungry and alone I let my mind roam.  And it didn’t go to counting my faults; it went a long way back, to sisters, to home.

I got back my conviction, turned the car around and drove back onto the street full of warriors, unsung.  Luck for me, the night was still young.

Rhea.

Let me tell you, this chick was the definition of addiction… Garbo mouth, fractured soul, skin like some heady dose of cumin-scented fiction.  I was hoping L.A. would be as wild as they say but I never expected her shattered conviction… to pungence in mole, sexual vengeance and the need for ghostly validation.

So yeah, when I saw her round that corner down by eighth, I was a little weak at the knees but no way was I glad to see her.  We’d been here before, with gorditas from Ana’s and the crazy sex of consenting strangers.  I say let it lie.  There was a need to her original deception.  But now she was out of her league.  And I’m not talking about the pambazos.

She’d asked her questions; I’d told her good lies now she was back and it wasn’t for me or the Breed Street flautas.  The woman wanted information.  Now… I could f**k her like I wanted, lie like she needed, and walk away with just the scent of her glee.  But the first one’s always free.  One more night of her carnal abandon and I just might spill the beans.

So I turned my back on that narcotic invitation and walked away.

Two hours later, half a block south of the boulevard, in the back seat of my ’96 Nova, parked in front of a cracked pink stucco bungalow… I looked up at a shadow and knew… that addiction had followed me home.

Panama G.

Sometimes it takes me awhile to remember…. the surprise of the bacon in a Bull Taco burrito, the pain of the light of day or the truth in what people say.  George had left at a quarter to two, after we’d eaten her last four pear cream tarts.  Two hours later I was still wide awake, thoughts running through my head even after nine drops of white chestnut bark.  Then one thought slammed home like tomatillos and lime or the truth after a night of lying:  I remembered Sakuri at the Polo Lounge saying , “…he must’ve bought one…”  she wasn’t talking about a Malibu view or the Forty dollar Kobe Burger,  medium well done.    She was talking about little girls and Matt Ozrin.

When I’d first followed the child there, I’d hoped, against gut, he was some kind of saviour.  Who’d ever want to believe there’s evil in a well-lit neighbor?  But I knew what I knew: she was the child I saw in Ensenada transported to an alley in L.A. where my dead sister flew.   And Ozrin owner her.  And Myrna had driven her there.  And somehow, Panama had been wooed.  He couldn’t have been intentionally involved; after all I’d f***ed him.  And though I never seemed to get good guys, none knew the devil as kin.   And… he was still my only way in.  And he liked the pork buns at Madame Tu’s and Garcia’s chorizo pambazos.

In the big picture, I knew Ozrin didn’t act alone.  Somewhere, there was a network, a distributor, a supplier, a boss.  And I needed to figure it all out and take the girl back home.  I was hoping he’d just bought her for a maid and she was comforted by a warm place to sleep in her own little room somewhere in back.  And I was wishing I was more than a hack.  But I wasn’t.  Still, or because of that…

I waited until dusk, until the end of the day at Manuel’s auto repair.  Fernando Alvarez does transmission work there… and he knows every taco in town.  I paid him thirty bucks for an oil change and a tip on where else a pambazo devotee might be found.  I waited an extra hour after dawn then headed east on the boulevard… turned right off Chavez down Pleasant to Boyle then south a little below Eighth.   Then I saw him: fluid on the street, eating a crispy flauta, oozing red chili and faith.  Now this I remembered.  Stopping halfway down the block, I could feel his addiction.  He felt something too and turned to me, hungry, like this city’s fiction.

I think he was glad to see me.

Rhea.