There is no response.
‘Can anybody hear me?’
It would seem they cannot.
‘Damn it.’ She takes a breath, tries to process what’s happened. She knows when you live in LA you must always expect some kind of disaster to befall you at some point. It’s a dangerous place. For example, wildfires are common, so you must take precautions. Earthquakes are not so much common as a daily occurrence so, again, you must take precautions, and if you’re clever like Lola, you study the fault lines, even the ones that are lesser known, and make sure you don’t buy a house on one. But this? Exploding vehicles all over town? Well, she can’t imagine how you could ever prepare for that.
With difficulty she drags the iPhone from her back pocket, swipes it open with her thumb and is surprised to find it has a pretty strong signal in spite of everything that’s happened. She dials 911.
It’s busy.
‘Of course it is!’ She dials another number. Bowen. ‘Come-on-Matty-come-on-Matty.’ It goes to voicemail. ‘Christ.’ She leaves a detailed message which describes her predicament. She then hangs up and dials another number. It rings — and is answered.
‘Hello?’
‘Scott!’
‘Hello, sweetness.’ That’s what Scott Ford calls her. Sweetness. ‘Everything okay?’
She keeps it upbeat. ‘Well, yeah, actually I’m trapped. I have a — I think it’s a metal beam — lying across my thigh and I can’t seem to move it.’ She says it like it’s some minor inconvenience she often has to deal with.
In fact she says it in such a breezy manner that Scott thinks it’s a joke. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Oh, yeah, absolutely.’
‘Oh, man. That’s terrible. Jeezus.’ He sounds concerned. ‘Can anyone help you?’
‘Well, no, the place seems to be empty. When the explosions started I took shelter in a building thinking it’d be safer inside. So I was wrong about that. Anyway, there was a huge blast, part of the building caved in and, well, here I am.’
‘That’s terrible. I hear it’s pretty bad out there.’
‘It is. Anyway, I know it’s a big favour, but can you come and help me?’
‘Where are you?’
‘Doheny, near Pico. It’s a big storage building painted white and blue. I’m on the ground floor.’
‘Oh, yeah, we shot Galaxy Chef around there.’
Lola remembers that last year Scott starred in a film about a time-travelling, universe-hopping, short-order cook who’s searching for a long-lost recipe book but ends up saving the planet from annihilation in an intergalactic bake-off. It managed to capture the Zeitgeist by fusing the audience’s long-standing love of science fiction with its newfound interest in cooking competitions. It did 250 million domestic and 400 foreign and wasn’t even in 3D.
‘I’ll be there ASAP. Might take a while. I can’t drive, obviously.’
‘No, and if you see a car, or any kind of vehicle, with exhaust that’s purple, or turning black, get away from it fast because it’s about to explode.’
‘Yeah, they’ve been saying that on the TV.’
‘You should tweet it if you can.’
‘Oh, yeah, good idea. Okay. Hang in there.’
‘I will. If I manage to get free I’ll call you.’
‘Okay, sweetness.’
He hangs up and she looks at the phone for a moment. That seemed kind of — formal, but then his usual laid-back, half-mast, gravelly-voiced flirty talk wouldn’t have been appropriate considering the situation. What’s important is that he said he’d come. She remembers reading somewhere, probably in one of her clients’ screenplays, that you get a true sense of someone’s character in a crisis situation. Well, so far so good. Scott had volunteered to help her immediately.
Lola’s leg is really throbbing now so she decides to lift the beam again to alleviate the pressure. She grabs hold of it, takes the strain and pushes it upwards. Man! It seems even heavier than before, takes all her effort to raise it half an inch, and she can only hold it for five seconds this time. She rests it back on her thigh and it hurts like a bastard, makes her eyes water.
She smells something. Pungent, sharp. She lifts her head, scans her surroundings.
Smoke.
A light haze hangs in the air. It must have blown in from outside—
A flame jumps to the right. The smoke didn’t blow in. Fifteen metres away a clump of insulation burns, must have been set alight by the explosion. The flames are not big, not yet anyway, but they’re big enough.
‘Perfect!’ She needs to get out of here.
Very soon.
26
The sun drops through the purple-grey smog towards the horizon and casts a dull, eerie glow across the city.
Corey finally has the hang of this riding thing, almost finds the rhythmic tick of the gears relaxing as he follows Judd down Santa Monica Boulevard; Spike is close behind.
The Australian glances behind him to make sure the ponytailed mofo isn’t following in the Prius. He isn’t, but if he was he’d have a tough time navigating Santa Monica Boulevard this afternoon. Not only is it gridlocked by the smoking hulks and flaming wreckage of every kind of vehicle imaginable, but scores of people wander through the destruction in a daze.
Corey’s never seen anything like it. ‘How much further, mate?’
‘It’s close. This way.’ Judd takes a right turn, navigates a sidewalk, passes a burnt-out van and crosses onto a quiet street. A line of towering eucalyptus trees casts a large shadow across a row of neat apartment blocks. ‘What was the number again?’
‘1138. Apartment seven.’
‘Here.’ They pull up under a eucalyptus and Judd nods at the white, three-storey apartment block opposite. ‘That’s it.’ He thinks about it. ‘Number seven should be… on the first floor, second from the end.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘We lived around the corner, just off Wilshire. I used to ride my bike down this street.’
‘Right.’ Corey takes in the building. It has a security door at the front. At the rear is a narrow alleyway that runs the length of the block and services the ground-floor parking area. Overhanging the alleyway is a line of eight balconies, at the very end of which sits a large dumpster. The alleyway faces the blank wall of the next block so it’s relatively private.
The Aussie grins his crooked grin. ‘Think I have a way in.’
They hide the bikes behind a row of large-leaf plants in the building’s front garden then move down the driveway to the dumpster. It’s both heavy and unwieldy, but they muscle it to a position under the seventh balcony, then climb on top, grab the railing and pull themselves up. On the balcony sit two sad, rusty metal chairs and a rickety wooden table.
Corey looks over the railing and speaks in a low voice to Spike on the alleyway below: ‘I need you to be a watch dog, for a while, okay? Keep a look out and if you see anything, don’t be shy.’
Spike barks up at him.
‘Yes, if there’s lemon sorbet I’ll get it for you.’
Corey turns to Judd as he pulls on the handle of the balcony’s sliding glass door. It’s locked. ‘How are we going to —’
Smash. Judd swings one of the chairs into the glass and it shatters.
‘What are you doing?’
‘What? It’s not like the guy’s going to mind.’
‘I’m trying to keep everything low-key and quiet, whispering to the dog, and you’re smashing windows? What’s got into you?’
‘Nothing.’ Judd leans through, unlocks the door and slides it open. ‘I just want to get on with it.’
They step inside. It’s dark. The place has the dank smell of unwashed laundry. Burger King wrappers and drink containers cover the cheap, nasty furniture. It’s a classic bachelor pad, lacks both charm and even a nod to basic hygiene.