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“No, it means more than that.”
“That isn’t your job, Dom.”
“It kind of is. I’m the one who put this woman in danger.”
“No, Lydia did that. Is she sitting next to you?”
I was silent. He knew she wasn’t sitting next to me.
“You should call the police. Isn’t that what they’re there for?”
“They’re not going to do anything.”
“Well, can she just go to a hotel? Can’t you take her to a hotel and come home?”
“I tried that, but I think she’s a little agoraphobic.”
“Also not your problem.”
“I’m getting the sense you’re angry at me.”
“This would be a bad time for you to lose your bartending job.”
“I won’t lose my job,” I said. I couldn’t lose it, I’d already quit.
“You’re risking everything for someone you don’t know.”
“I’ll be home in the morning. We can talk about it then.”
He left a very chilly silence.
I said, “I love you.”
He hung up.
He was right, of course. If the situation were reversed, I’d never allow him to do something like this. Not that I was doing much. I was sitting in a car outside someone’s house. If Stu Whatley did show up, I’d call the police. Which reminded me to check the charge on the mobile phone. The little battery was half full. That should be fine. I hadn’t planned to take any other calls, so I wouldn’t be using a whole lot of my remaining charge.
Anyway, there really wasn’t a lot of risk here. I doubted Stu would be able to get onto Joanne’s property via the back. His only real option was over the retaining wall in front. I tried to remember how tall he was. I’d only met him once. He’d walked across the visiting room and sat down.
He was shorter than I am. I’m six-three, though, and that means most people are shorter than I am. Was he six foot? He needed to be to see the glass on the wall, which was five something. Five-two, five-three, maybe five-four. I remembered Stu sitting across from me. I was looking down a tiny bit. He was five-eight, five-nine.
By nine o’clock the sky was black as pitch. There were no stars, they never seemed to come out in L.A. I never saw them much in Chicago either. In fact, I’d only seen stars a few times in my life. Mostly when I was floating around the country after I left Chicago. Seemed like I’d be seeing stars again soon.
The sunsets in L.A. were pretty, though. I’d missed a lot of the one earlier. West was to my right and the sunset was blocked by houses. It was what remained of a working-class neighborhood. There were some working-class people still around. They left their garage doors open and worked on their cars in the driveway. They were disappearing though.
Spread around were houses with signs in front that told you who was rehabbing their kitchen. A few houses down a second floor was being added, along with white columns in the front. The old families would hold on for a while longer, until some minor finance guy came along and offered them a crazy amount of money—basically for the location and the view—and they wouldn’t be able to resist selling. Maybe this time the house would come down, and up would go a modernist box from one edge of the prop—
“Fuck.”
I woke up. I hadn’t even realized I was asleep. I was out of the Taurus in a flash, leaving the door hanging open behind me. I could see a man standing at Joanne’s retaining wall staring at his hands. There was a streetlight three houses down and he was defined in profile. It was Stu Whatley.
I moved quickly but didn’t run. Didn’t want to make any more noise than necessary. He took off the jacket he was wearing, folded it over, and threw it over the wall. He was going to try again. He reached up and got a hold of the wall and then began pulling himself over.
I got there in time to grab him by the waistband and pull him onto the sidewalk. He ended up sitting awkwardly on the ground, hitting the concrete with a little bounce. I wondered if he’d broken his tailbone.
“What the—” he started, then focused on me. “You. What are you doing here?”
“Stopping you from hurting someone.”
