A WOMAN’S LAUGH
It was easy to tail her in the moderate traffic heading back to Pasadena. Tala didn’t change lanes, which allowed me to stay in the same one without fear of getting too close or slipping too far back. For three steady miles there was a consistent two car distance between us.
I took that time to fill in Hector and Badger with the details. Hector texted back that he was in his car and coming my way. Badger was too far from his own car but he would do the same without delay.
We drove all the way to the end where the freeway funneled us onto the surface streets leading into Pasadena proper. We turned right at California and moved our way through the leafy neighborhood before moving south towards Hermon. I began to wonder if Tala knew I was following her because she could have gotten off at an earlier exit on the 110 to get where we were now. I slipped back to be extra cautious.
Tala took me on a journey of endless turns and loop-backs to the point where it felt like we were going in circles. Without any visual guides in the dark night, namely the looming San Gabriel foothills, I had no way to tell if we were heading north or south. Each new street looked like the one we just got off.
But then I began to pick out landmarks — a familiar billboard here, a recognizable street name there — and I started to feel less like a raft adrift at sea and more like a canoe with one oar. I finally spied the unmistakable glow of Dodger Stadium at night and I realized that we were headed back into the city, back to the very area in Chinatown we had just left.
I followed the small compact back over the concrete bridge into the backdoor — once the front door — entrance into the city. I eased up on the accelerator to put even more distance between me and Tala’s compact. We were the only two cars on the road for a good half-mile. As we glided over the crest of the bridge, I straightened the car for the wide open stretch downhill and called Hector with my free hand.
“Where are you?” he asked in place of any sort of greeting.
“I’m still following her. We are heading back into Chinatown, just crossing the bridge now.”
“What street?” he asked.
“Spring.”
I heard the squelch of tires over the phone as he turned his sedan around in the opposite direction. Over the roar of his engine, “I’m coming now.”
I trailed the compact down a wide, empty street fringed with industrial buildings. They were windowless structures with iron-faced front doors. Even with a great distance between us, I still felt exposed. My headlights must have been like beacons in her rear view mirror. I slipped back even further despite the fear that I would lose her.
That was a mistake.
Suddenly, the two red orbs were no longer. The road that lay ahead was dark and empty and the numerous cross streets had little to no activity on them. I couldn’t tell which street the compact pulled off on, if at all. Panic set in and I was convinced that I had gone too far and quickly turned around. I zoomed back from where I came but soon, much too soon, came upon the bridge and realized I’d backtracked too far. I spun around again, arcing too wide and careening into the curb. I floored it and rumbled down the street in the original direction.
The corporate hack in me immediately ran through a series of excuses why it wasn’t my fault that I lost her. I was ashamed at how easily this instinct came. And I was amazed at how good the excuses were in such a brief gesticulation period. All began with “we,” the classic maneuver to position failure as a shared responsibility.
There were a lot of things we could have done differently…
A lot of things we couldn’t anticipate…
The excuse diatribe would end on a positive note, a look-forward at the next steps to get us back on track. Unfortunately that was where I came up blank. There was nothing I could think of to do. This was the last step.
I pulled over and let the weight of that conclusion settle in. Hector couldn’t be far from me at that point. It was only a matter of minutes and I put my phone onto my lap as I waited for the expected call. The street was refreshingly quiet. Sometimes you have to go to the heart of the industrial complex to find true peace. I sat there and marveled at the lack of sound and thought of nothing. It was incredibly peaceful.
I saw movement in the darkness. Or, at least I thought I saw something. It came from the cross street off to my right. I used the old trick of looking out of the corner of my eye, which somehow made it easier to see things in the dark. I sat there, head tilted towards the steering wheel, hopeful that a flicker of movement would appear in my peripheral vision. None came, but I felt driven to search further and put the car into gear and turned onto the street.
This road had no parking limitations and therefore was lined with vehicles serving as makeshift homes for unseen occupants. Back windows were shaded out with towels and newspaper to provide a sliver of privacy to the sleeping souls behind them. Most of the cars didn’t look like they were in shape to drive more than a mile but in truth all they had to muster was a thirty foot hop to the other side of the road on street cleaning days.
One car, though, stood out.
Tucked between a van and a grime-covered station wagon was the compact I had been searching for. I cruised past it towards the end of the block and shut off my lights. I glided into an open slot at the end and parked in a fire zone as a cool wash of relief spread over me — there would be no need for collective excuses tonight.
I texted Hector and Badger my location and then took a moment to scan the area. When I had passed the compact it didn’t look like Tala was inside. She had to have slipped into one of the industrial buildings, but which one I couldn’t be sure because the few windows on this near-windowless block were all dark. I got out to investigate.
Any movement would easily be noticed on this quiet street. I couldn’t risk spooking Tala into flight so I looped around to the back of the buildings which sat on a wider block because of the loading docks that drove the activity during the daytime. I made my way down the alley, hugging the sides of the building to avoid the light cast by the occasional lamp. At about the spot where the compact was parked on the opposite street, I noticed a solitary window on the second floor with a dim, orange light emanating from inside. I drifted towards it like an insect towards a porch light.
I clambered up the loading dock. Two large, rolling, steel doors and a regular-sized one formed an impenetrable entrance. Shading the entire area from the relentless southern exposure and from the occasional thunderstorm was a roof jutting ten feet out from the building. It was also a good ten feet above me. Having humiliated myself before in attempts to touch the rim of a basketball hoop, I searched for another means of reaching the roof.
Back in the alley I found a rusted length of pipe and dragged it back to the dock. I leaned the pipe into the corner where the roof met the building and then wedged the bottom end against a pillar. I monkey-crawled up the pipe but was winded a third of the way and had to rest. I pressed on until the back of my head touched the edge of the roof. Unfortunately I hadn’t thought ahead to figure how I was to move my grip from the pipe onto the edge of the roof without falling to a very painful landing below. With my forearms growing numb, I knew I had to stop deliberating and just try. I uncrossed my legs and let them dangle below, nearly dangling myself off the pipe. With one hand on the pipe, I twisted around and threw my other hand towards the roof and grabbed hold of the edge. A sharp pain greeted my palm which soon grew damp with blood. I donkey-kicked my leg up to the edge and pulled myself on top.
I was gassed. I sat on the roof in a dazed stupor, my head swirling in oxygen-deprived blood. I glanced up and made out the view to the north with a clear shot of the park and then understood the importance of this building’s location relative to the drop zone. That seemed to give me a jolt of energy and I got to my feet to face the next hurdle, a far less challenging one which was to get up to the window above me. The light coming through the one window illuminated the chicken wire embedded in the glass and didn’t look like it had been opened in thirty years. Next to it was a second window, black as the night but its blackness was from the unlit room behind it. It was my only way inside.