“Bernie,” Ms. Sims said, “for gosh sakes, let’s get her out. Call it in and give me a hand.”
“Call it in?” I asked. “To whom? Who are you calling?” But Bernie was already on the phone and his partner was on her way inside.
Good Samaritan Sims lacked the upper-body strength to pull me through the window, and Bernie, impervious to pleas, wouldn’t help. So we settled in to wait for the Harbor Division police. I felt like a West African goliath frog, whose throat swells to five times its size in order to croak. I felt like a circus woman, preparing to be shot out of a cannon. I felt like an idiot. My only comfort was that Simon was not witnessing this.
There’s a psychotherapeutic technique called rebirthing that was big in the 1980s or ’90s, where a therapist hypnotizes you so that you can reexperience the trip down the birth canal in order to work through the trauma of it all. I had never done this technique. Now, thanks to two San Pedro law enforcement officers pulling with all their strength, I would never have to.
Eventually, I was sitting at the receptionist’s desk of Au Pairs par Excellence, rubbing under my arms and repeating the story I’d told the security response team, this time implying without actually saying “I work here.”
The cops listened with no indication of whether they believed me. They were mildly interested to learn I was a contestant on a reality TV show, which I needed to get to-fast. They were somewhat more interested in how far I was from West Hollywood, my home address. Their attitude was as polite and respectful as one could ask of two men who had intimate knowledge of my waist and thighs and size eleven feet.
“Do you have any proof that you work here?” the younger of the two asked. He had a curly-haired cherubic look; I pictured him sitting for Leonardo da Vinci, the model for the archangel who tells the Virgin Mary the good news about her pregnancy.
“Like a paycheck or a time sheet?” I said. “Gosh, I don’t. You can call Marty Otis. He runs the show. Here’s his home number-” I pointed to the speed-dial list on the telephone, where “Marty-home” was listed as No. 4, right between FedEx and Gianni’s Pizza. I was pleased with myself for having noticed it and hoped I gave the impression of familiarity with the office.
“Is that the 9032 number?” Bernie, of the security company, asked. “That’s what we got on file. Already tried it. Got a machine.”
The older cop, Asian, tired-looking, and a little crabby, nodded. He tried the number, left a message for Marty Otis, then turned to Bernie. “All right, we’re headed back to the station. You people got keys, right? You can lock up after us.”
“So you’re all finished with me?” I asked.
“No, you’ll come with us.”
I didn’t ask if I was under arrest. It’s the kind of thing Joey or Fredreeq would get clear on right away, but I’d function better pretending we were buddies driving to the station to sort out details. I’d hate for them to go into good cop, bad cop mode, when we were doing okay with good cop, crabby cop.
There were two cars in the seedy parking lot, neither of which was Joey’s husband’s BMW. No one asked me which car was mine, which was good, because I had no idea how to explain being without wheels so far from home.
In the back seat of the squad car, I hugged my backpack. It was the middle of the night. I was in San Pedro being transported to God knows where, some distance from the last place my friends had seen me, by police officers who probably did not consider me one of the good guys, in a vehicle that did not smell particularly… fresh. At least I was an American citizen and spoke English without an accent. Annika, in a similar situation, might have been a lot more scared than I was, and I was, frankly, scared.
Simon. Many hours ago, he’d told me to call him. I’d wanted to, but I’d been too busy trespassing, burgling, and misleading the police to find the right moment. Maybe after my sentencing hearing I’d get back to him.
LAPD Harbor Division had an actual building, more substantial than the LAPD West Valley trailers, although for a potential suspect, “substantial” isn’t a big selling point. But Curly and Crabby walked me past the building to a trailer, a detectives’ office much like Detective Cziemanski’s. Few of the desks were manned or womanned at this hour. I was shown to a hard wooden chair and told to wait, while my captors did paperwork and checked voice mail. I brought up again the necessity of getting back to Los Angeles and Biological Clock as fast as possible, but no one got too excited about it.
I studied the carpet, not the teal blue I’d come to expect, but a nice dirt gray. I thought of Prana, what her reaction would be if she were awakened with the news that her daughter was in jail in San Pedro. She might be proud. She’d probably have some Zen-like take on it, that this was karmically necessary for my personal growth, that there are no accidents, that-
“That was your boss,” the older office said, hanging up the phone. “Says you were authorized to be there. Next time take your key, save some trouble. Stay out of windows.”
I stood. “I’m free to go? Really? That’s… great.”
“Wait around, we’ll get you a ride back to your car.”
Uh-oh.
Officer Crabby left. I called Joey’s cell phone and got voice mail. This was not surprising, since Joey’s cell phone often lies around forgotten on her kitchen table. I wondered how I’d explain a missing car, and if I’d have to fill out a stolen car report, and whether that would be perjury, and then, since Joey would be long gone, having given up hope of ever finding me, if there was anyone else who’d come from L.A. to give me a ride, since it was cheaper to charter a yacht from San Pedro than to take a cab. What was I doing in this godforsaken place?
I looked over at the next desk, at Good Cop Curly, diligently filling out reports, and had a moment of divine inspiration.
“Officer?” I said. Curly looked up. He had an approachable face. I prayed for the ability to lie to it. “The reason I was working late is there’s been an accusation about one of our au pairs, and if it’s true, I’m worried about her taking care of kids.”
The face continued to look open for business. I explained the au pair program, and then-here’s the sort of thing I appreciate myself for sometimes-I pulled out of my backpack the Führungszeugnis I’d been carrying around for days. “We know she has a police record, but for what? If it’s littering, that can wait till Monday. If it’s child molestation, I have to know, because then every day she’s with children is on my conscience.”
Curly took the document and looked at his watch. “Germany’s nine hours ahead,” I said. He nodded. Crabby stuck his head in the doorway and told me I had a ride. Curly told me to wait in the lobby. Well, I’d bought myself a few minutes in which to concoct a car story.
I didn’t need them. In the lobby, a familiar voice and a mass of red hair was chatting up the officer at the front desk. I went weak with relief, and waited for the officer to pause for breath. “… want to remember,” he was saying, “is a drug case, that goes to a detective, but if it turns into murder, that could get it bumped to Robbery-Homicide. Now those guys, they just want to close their case. If they’re tracking a murder suspect, they don’t stop to arrest jaywalkers, see what I’m saying, unless the jaywalker’s useful to them.”
“Joey?” I said.
“Gee whiz, Wollie,” she said, turning. “I drove over to your work to pick you up, and the security guys said you were here. What’s up?”
“Gee whiz yourself,” I said, pulling her aside. “What did you do, break into Marty Otis’s house and murder him so you could answer his phone?”
“What a good idea. No, I went and banged on his door and said I had his box of photos and if he did us one small favor, I wouldn’t deliver them to the INS or the IRS.”