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July 11th, 2013 – one year later
When Calista went home, the only lights still on were the bulbs around Bianca's mirror.
"You good?" Calista called, a hand on the door.
"It's fine," Bianca said, swiveling in her chair, and Calista slipped out.
Bianca was alone with the reporter.
"Glad we could finally meet," he said.
"You stalked me hard enough." She sighed. "What do you want to know?" She looked down, twisting strands of fried and dyed hair in her fingers. Long and lean and olive-toned, a simple black dress was plenty.
Remy Dumas, staff reporter, stood facing her, leaning against the table at her booth. A mocha face, half-illuminated in pinkish light. The other half in shadow. She dug his style. Trilby hat, skinny tie, hipster glasses. She did not dig his line of questioning.
"Just for the recording, could you state your name?"
An honest-to-god recorder held an honest-to-god tape. It ran, whirring low, on the table beside him, nestled among the bottles and jars.
"Bianca della Sophia?" She sounded confused.
"Your real name." He gestured with his pen.
"Bianca della Sophia, dick." She dropped her hair and gave him a look. "And what's with the tape recorder? You don't have a phone?"
Remy smiled, kind of tragic. Shadows danced across his features.
"I write about scary people. My phone's been hacked. But try hacking a tape recorder. Can't be done." Another smile. Mostly shrouded, almost eerie.
In the quiet after close of day, the Andy Laurent Salon was like an empty cathedral. Something about the vastness made you keep your voice down. As if you might anger the spirits of the movie stars whose hair had blessed and then been swept from this holy marble floor.
Rows of booths and chairs, all pristine. Mirrors and chrome and charcoal leather. Reclaimed two-by-fours in rectilinear patterns on the ceiling. But the eye still tended to linger on the six-foot gold elephant in the lobby. Such a thing would stick out anywhere. Even West Hollywood.
Bianca had one lithe arm draped over the back of her salon chair. Her vape pen danced in her other hand. She exhaled, trying not to cough. Remy's nose wrinkled.
"Not a smoker?" she asked.
"Makes me paranoid," he said.
"Seems like everything makes you paranoid." She took another draw from the pen.
Remy looked unsure. An awkward chuckle. A long beat. Then, "Helen Cheerslaughter. Client of yours."
"Former client," she said, holding in the hit.
"Well, yeah." Remy shot her a look.
"... was murdered?" Big, shocked eyes.
"Not necessarily. More like... pushed."
"Encouraged," Bianca supplied, exhaling into the darkness. "Well, I guess I could see it. The funeral was a scandal. Everybody was talking about how she abused her meds and, like, got on street drugs or whatever, and overdosed. But nobody will say anything out loud, you know?"
"Did you see her at all at the beginning of this year? The last few months of her life?"
"Yeah." Bianca settled back, mellower now. "She came in a lot."
"What'd she talk about?"
Bianca shrugged. "Regular stuff, I guess."
Remy breathed in the pause. "Could you be any more specific?"
Well-plucked brows contorted. She toed the floor and swiveled. "It's just," she began, studying her flats, "I don't wanna talk shit. You know?" She looked at Remy, very earnest. "She was a good person."
Remy leaned in. More of his face in shadow. Pen poised over pad. The pin-drop quiet stretched out.
"Helen Hathaway didn't start out with Will. She started out with Jake."
"Jake... Asher?"
Bianca checked her reflection. "If you say so."
Remy checked his notes. Came up empty. "It's gotta be," he concluded.
"Well, she started out with him. That's how she fell in with that whole Empire crowd in the first place. Pretty classic story. Asher brought her around to meet the guys one day. "
"Why'd she leave Asher?"
Bianca rubbed her fingers together. "Money."
Remy lifted his pen. He frowned through his glasses. "The Asher family fortune is huge. Jacob stands to inherit, I don't know—"
"Tens of millions, yeah. Helen said his trust fund was big enough—"
"To run for mayor out of pocket. Cheerslaughter's gardener told me the same thing."
"And you know what rich kids are like. Jake was political. Liked causes, fundraisers, stuff like that. Helen was only ever into the spread. It's weird to say, but maybe her and Will were perfect for her each other. She smelled the ambition on him. But it wasn't as simple as her jumping from Jake to Will and living unhappily ever after. She bounced around for a while. She'd get back with Asher, then cozy up to Terry, then back to Will. But when the music stopped, I guess it was Will's lap she was sitting on. She got pregnant and married him."
Remy was glancing at his pad. "What about Cain Carter?"
Bianca gave a sheepish chuckle. "Guess she wasn't into black guys."
"Any bad blood among the partners?"
"No more than usual, I guess. But I only have Helen's side of the story. Tiff, Terry's wife, she was a client of mine, and she always hated Helen. She couldn't prove anything, but she knew they were sleeping together, even after the kid. I wouldn't be surprised if Will cheated too. You know he had options."
Remy poked her thought-bubble with his pen. "The kid?"
Bianca tried to recall. "Katie? Candace? Something like that. It's so bad I don't remember. Will and Helen's daughter."
"Cadence," Remy said. "Are you saying she might not be Will's?"
"Have you ever seen her? She looks like she was taken from his rib. It'd be easier to believe Helen wasn't her mother."
"But Helen... is her mother. Right?"
Bianca shrugged again. "She never said she wasn't."
"Informative." Remy rolled his eyes. "As usual."
"Excuse me?" Some heat in her tone.
Remy paused. Not sure if he wanted to go into this.
"It's like," he began, slowly, "I've been working this story, on my own for months. I hit one dead end after another. People don't remember. Or they won't remember. They sure as hell won't talk."
"Maybe I could help you more if I knew what you were after."
"Cain Carter had no motive for killing Terry McMahon. His confession was hot garbage. And why would he keep the burner phone? There's one piece of evidence, and he keeps it? Then sits around sniffing drugs waiting for LAPD to kick in his door? It doesn't make any sense."
"Sounds personal."
Remy paused. Too late to go back now. "The more you suffer for something, the more personal it becomes. I've written about scary people. But this is something else. Every story has a smell, you know? And this one just smells different. Frighteningly so."
"Murder's pretty scary."
"No, no." Remy waved her off. The hand holding the pad had dropped, almost to his side. "I've covered high-profile murders before. I've seen humanity's dark and twisted side. But there's something about the way people react when I bring up the Carter case. Their eyes get big and they fall over themselves, trying to get away from me. The lawyer, Bridget Marcuse—the surviving lawyer—totally froze me out. Threatened to call the cops. So I went to San Quentin, went to see Carter himself. Same thing. When he found out what I wanted, he ended the interview. Wouldn't say a word. Told me to drop the story."
Bianca dropped the hair from between her nose and upper lip when Remy paused. Guilty, she put the vape pen to her teeth.
"It's like somebody got to all of them," Remy finished. "But with what?"
"I'd be pretty scared if the police came after me." It seemed to be dawning on her that this might be a possibility. Remy gave a twitch of lip that wasn't quite a smile.
"Yeah," he said. "Me too." Bianca heard the dark hint. She lifted an eyebrow. But Remy didn't offer to explain. "Is there any chance Will knew about the affair?" he said instead.
"I mean," Bianca snorted, "they weren't exactly in love. But who knows, maybe he did kill Terry. Sometimes men kill over women. Mostly it's pride, though." Her attenton started to drift, and she started to swivel away. But then a thought occurred, and she swiveled back: "You know they were gonna push Will out of the company? Once they were married and Terry was CEO? Helen thought so, anyway. She couldn't wait to get away from him."
Remy scribbled. "She told you this?"
A shrug. "You could read between the lines."
"Did she say anything specific?"
"I pieced it all together when I saw her after Terry died. He was the 'second chance guy' she kept talking about. Then stopped talking about. Right about the same time."
Remy leaned back. Turned in profile, thinking. The lit side of his face visible in the glass.
"It all came apart after that." Bianca stared into the darkness, perhaps seeing flashes of memory there. She twirled the vape in her fingers. "She came in for Terry's funeral, and she was a different person. Her aura had wilted. Her hair was limp and dead. I couldn't do anything with it."
Bianca paused, and her eyes wandered the dark. Remy waited. The tape recorder spun.
"It was like all the life went out of her then. She didn't come in nearly as much. When she did, I didn't recognize her. She didn't lose a ton of weight, not at first, but you could see it in her face. She was losing her life energy. Growing old in front of you." Bianca shuddered. A terrible fate. "She was like a woman in a movie," she concluded. "The kind you watch when you need to cry."
"You sound like a writer yourself."
"Ugh, no. If I spent that much time by myself, I'd be weird and insane."
Remy left frustrated.
"Sorry I couldn't help more," she said as they stood outside together. She locked up with tinkling keys. The sound of traffic on the Santa Monica Freeway could be heard down the block. They moved to the edge of the curb, in the pool of light beneath a streetlamp, preparing to part ways.
"It was a stretch anyway. Can I walk you to your car?"
She held up her keychain. A pepper spray canister dangled. "Armed and dangerous." She smiled easily, now that it was over. But she'd carry a darkness home with her, that would last well into the night.
Remy watched her go. The breeze followed her, and the hem of her dress fluttered as she vanished around the building. Waving the goodbye she'd forgotten.
He turned to walk to his own aging Toyota, parallel-parked up the block.
"Talking to yourself?" asked a voice from behind him. Remy whirled to find a man, short and skinny and with wire glasses, stepping into the pool of light. "Not a good sign. Loneliness is a real killer, you know."
Remy's expression darkened. He reshouldered his bag. "What are you doing here, Lonnie? Are you following me?"
"I'm defending our shining city," Lonnie said, "from agents of chaos." He fixed Remy with a cockeyed stare.
"Oh, please." Remy rolled his eyes. He gripped the strap of his bag like a lifeline.
Lonnie’s hair fell black and flat across his brow, with a cowlick like bedhead sticking up in back. He'd spent so long sneering, his face had stuck that way. Tonight he wore his usual slacks and dress shirt, purple over gray. The City Hall ID on a lanyard around his neck read Alonso Xu. Then, beneath a picture so bad it was funny: Chief of Staff, Office of Mayor Carlos Fuentes.
"So," the mayor's notorious fixer said, flashing his infamous sneer, "whatcha doing here?"
"None of your business, Lonnie." Remy's tone was edged with threat.
"You know this is a bad idea, right?"
"Why don't you just leave me alone?" Remy tried to be forceful. But he whiffed it like a bad golf swing. Stumbled on the words.
"Oh, so I guess you just wanted a haircut, then? Maybe some frosted tips?" Beady eyes took in the salon. "Nice place. Didn't know the Culver City Chronicle paid so good."
Lonnie stepped sideways and Remy circled with him. "I'm not afraid of you." A cornered look in his eye.
"Maybe you should be." Lonnie stroked his chin. "Didn't you used to work at the LA Times?"
Remy swallowed. He said nothing.
"How much farther you wanna fall, Remy, huh?"
No reply. Lonnie gave a nasty chuckle.
"Why don't we go for a ride?"
Remy stiffened. "I'm not going anywhere with you." He took a step back. He turned, about to walk fast the other way.
But three more figures stepped into the light, blocking his path. All had the look of cops. Two big white guys in jeans and light jackets. The first was built like a punching bag, and topped with a tiny bowl cut. The second was tall, sinewy, and buzzed almost bald. The third was a woman. But not just any woman. A hardjaw Latina in a pinstripe blouse and gray slacks, with one narrow gray streak running through her tight black bun.
"Cristina?" Shock in Remy's voice. "What are you doing here?"
She held up a hand. "Don't start, Remy. This isn't personal."
"You didn't take the exam?"
"I said this isn't personal." Iron filings in her tone. Remy saw several emotions on her face.
"I thought you were better than this," he said. "Than... them." He gestured limply at Lonnie. Disappointment cut deep lines in his face. "You were a good cop," he finished. "One of the last."
She could've gotten mad. Maybe even hit him. It would only have been par for the course. Instead, she shrugged.
"Tonight," she said, through a haggard smile, "I guess I play bad cop. Hold still, son: Billy and Parker are gonna search you." She was no more pleased about it than he was.
The two men closed in on Remy like shock and dismay. They towered over him, and together outweighed him by a hundred pounds. Standing between them was like driving between tractor trailers. Except in this case, the tractor trailers were going through your pockets.
"I don't consent to this," Remy began. But nobody seemed to hear him.
The heavyset one snatched the bag from Remy's shoulder. The lean one snatched the hat from his head. He tilted it on his own dome, gave a gaptooth smile, then plunged his hands into Remy's pockets. Out came wallet, keys, phone. Remy's pants were lighter when the guy was done.
They gave his keys to Cristina, who went to unlock the Toyota. The lean one went through his wallet, absently tossing IDs and credit cards onto the sidewalk.
"Hey." He held up Remy's license. "Check it out!" A stupid grin on his face. "His name's Dumbass." He read, clearly hard for him: "Rim My Dumb—"
"It's Dumas," Remy said like a reflex. "It's Algerian French." But as usual, nobody cared.
"D-u-m-a-s," the crew cut read, squinting at Remy's license. "Dumbass." He gave a look like Remy was the clearly the idiot here, then pocketed the cash and tossed the wallet on the ground.
"Parker, please shut up," Lonnie groaned.
That made the fat guy with the bowl cut Billy. He crouched on the sidewalk, Remy's bag open in front of him. He lifted out the tape recorder. He examined it like something from another planet.
"Collectin' antiques, are ya, bud?" Remy heard the Deep South drawl. He'd heard the rumors. New blood in the LAPD. The department, starved for manpower. A special new hiring program. They'd gone to great lengths, to keep it out of the press.
Billy grinned. Tiny teeth. Parker chuckled merrily. Billy punched buttons with sausage fingers. The recorder clicked and whirred.
"Try hacking a tape recorder," came Remy's voice from the machine. "Can't be done." The guy punched another button, and the recording clicked off.
"Can't be done," Sunday said.
"Guess not," Lonnie added. They were both smirking.
"Ha! Dumbass," Parker said, giving Remy a friendly shove that nearly knocked him to the ground. Remy's eyes went to Cristina. She stood by, not laughing but shaking her head.
"Jesus," Lonnie said, "are you two done yet?"
"You want it done right, or right now?" Billy said. Lonnie slid his phone from one pocket to check the time.
"Just get him in the car."
They were kind enough to open the car door for him at least. But then they shoved him into the back seat of the vehicle. One big man on each side, with Lonnie up front.
"Drive, Cristina."
"Shut up, Lonnie." But she put the car in gear and spun the wheel. Remy kept his hands folded in his lap. Big thighs on his either side crushed his legs together. Streetlights passed overhead, shifting glares through the car windows. Undulating zebra-stripes of light across the thighs of all their pants.
"So," Lonnie said, breaking the silence. He leaned around to face Remy, arm over the seatback. "You get a nice haircut? Worth the money? You gonna leave a positive review?"
"I'm a reporter," Remy argued. "You can't strongarm me—"
"I think it looks like shit," Billy said, studying Remy's head.
"Oughta get his money back," Parker agreed.
They turned east on the freeway.
"What do you guys want?" Remy said. He tried to keep his voice steady.
"The same thing all good citizens want," Lonnie said. "A clean, safe, nice community." He paused for effect. "But some people hate the community. They'll take any excuse to point out how it's trash. We call these people journalists."
He stared at Remy with meanng. Quiet in the car as they drove through the twilight on the freeway.
"I'm only interested in the truth," he started to say.
"Don't gimme that reporter-school crap. What'd the hairdresser tell you? Don't make me get it from her."
"You leave her alone."
Lonnie laughed. The men on either side of Remy laughed. They were just a carload of joy as they rolled down the Santa Monica Freeway. Remy, stone-faced between them. Cristina, silent, one hand on the wheel.
"Where are we going?" Remy asked.
"Don't change the subject," Lonnie said. "Save us having to go through your weird tapes. Start talking."
"And we won't have to break any bones," Billy said beside him. He got an elbow-nudge from Parker on the other side, too, just in case he didn't get the point.
"She gave me nothing," Remy said. "Dead woman. Dead story. Dead waste of time. How do you even know what I'm working on, anyway?"
"This is a small town," Lonnie explained. "People call me. They trust me. Why? Because I have loyalty. Do you know what loyalty is, Remy?"
Remy rolled his eyes. "I know your kind of loyalty."
"Harassing Helen's stylist. Spamming the lawyers from the Carter trial. Bribing Will Cheerslaughter's gardener to go through his garbage?"
Remy said nothing.
"I wish that last one had worked. And why you wanna talk to everybody except me? It hurts my feelings, Remy. When I'm the one with the scoop!"
Remy looked doubtful. Only an idiot would expect the truth out of Lonnie. But his curiosity was piqued.
"Okay," he said, daring a smile, "should I turn on my tape recorder?"
A big thigh shoved his. "Shut up," Billy drawled. Remy shot him a nasty look. For all the good it did.
"Look," Lonnie said, "you know the drill by now. We all share the same ecosystem. Swim in the same sea. We live, we die, we breathe each other's shit. It’s a whole circle of life, under the sea..."
"Get to the point," Remy snapped.
Lonnie glared. He licked his lips. "This story," he said, "is off-limits. Go write about something else."
Remy laughed bitterly. "Wow, a story you don't want me to write. Some scoop."
"And what's so important about this McMahon thing, anyway? Why do you even care so much? Some dead rich guy. I thought you loved the huddled masses seeking handouts?"
"I happen to know for a fact," Remy said, "that your office was involved in the McMahon coverup. I'm starting to think you guys did the murder. So you can rough me up or whatever. But you can't stop this story coming out. Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon—"
Three rising groans cut him off.
"Save the daily affirmations for your life coach," Lonnie sneered.
"You can't bully the truth," Remy insisted.
"Yeah, you're a real superhero," Lonnie shot back. "A real beautiful soul. You're nowhere near the truth. Just to get close, you'd have to step on the toes of people so dangerous—"
"We're here," Cristina said.
Quiet in the car as she eased to a halt in front of Remy's building. Remy felt hands on him before he was all the way out of the car. No chance to run. Not that he'd have made it. And where was there to go?
"Watch the car," Lonnie told Cristina as he stood by the driver window. "I'll call you when we're ready for you."
"Fuck off, Lonnie," Cristina said, and Lonnie had to step back to keep her from running over his foot as she went to park the little tan Toyota.
They marched him through the lobby, Lonnie leading the way. Remy's apartment keys twirled on his index finger. They flew off and he had to chase them down the hallway. They caught up with him at the elevator.
The two guys frog-marched Remy in. He settled against the wall with a man on either side. A musty box, lit with flickery green fluorescence. Lonnie hit the button for the fifth floor, and the doors slid closed. It shifted alarmingly before it began to rise. Remy watched the numbers change. Nobody said anything.
The doors opened, and Lonnie went first. A long tight hallway, painted soothing blue, punctuated with dark doors and upward triangles of light from too few sconces in the walls. Hazy in here, like being in a fog. Lonnie stopped short, just past the threshold. Remy almost smacked into him.
"I thought I told you to watch the car," he told someone ahead of them.
Remy peered around Lonnie's small body to see Cristina leaning with one booted foot against the wall. She looked like she'd been waiting for them. She chewed gum. She blew a bubble instead of replying.
"How'd you even get up here?"
The bubble popped and she jerked her head down the hallway. "Stairs," she said.
Lonnie queued up one of his sneers.
"Well, come on," he snapped. He stepped over to Remy's door, third on the left. He stuck the key in the lock.
They trundled Remy through the door and into his living room. A bit of a mess, but a tastefully-appointed one. A chill style. A purple couch. An unused TV. A stack of manga comics on the couch. Laptop and notes on the coffee table.
"Let's take a look around," Lonnie sang. He vanished into the kitchen. The two big guys sat Remy down on the sofa while they collected his laptop, and stripped his place bare of papers. Cristina leaned by the door, much as she had against the wall outside. Hands in pockets, chewing gum. Taking it all in.
Lonnie returned from the kitchen, tossing an apple from Remy's fridge. He came to stand in front of Remy. He took a crunching bite.
"This is for your own good," he said through a mouthful. Remy got to watch him chew. "Be glad it's me you ran into, and not someone worse. You're messing with serious people. I don't think you get it." His Adam's apple rose and fell as he swallowed. "Stick to writing about the homeless. Human interest stories, shit like that. Isn't it sad, the poor drug addicts. You get the idea."
"We're done here," Billy came over to say. Remy's shoulder bag dangled from his ham fist, bulging with all the new stuff he'd jammed inside. Remy watched forlornly as six months of work was about to leave through the front door.
Six months of lonely work. Work he couldn't get back. While his life fell apart around him. Not just the LA Times job. His friends. His mother. They'd all said he was crazy. That he was going to get himself hurt. That nothing would ever come of it.
And now the people who had helped him, who had been kind to him and talked to him, would get intimidating visits from the likes of Lonnie and Billy and Parker. It was too much.
Remy leapt from the couch. He did it without thinking, so even hawk-eyed Cristina didn't see it coming. And he moved like a striking snake. Billy let him have the bag out of sheer surprise when he ran up and snatched it. Everybody was still big-eyed with shock as Remy took off out the door. He heard a commotion rise in his wake as he crashed into the wall of the hallway outside and scrambled for the door to the stairs.
Bootsteps behind him. Thunder on the wood floors. He knew the door by memory. He'd lived here a long time. He slammed into it, punching himself in the gut on the crossbar. The mechanism chunked and the door flew open, cracking like lightning against the cinderblock wall. No more hazy light. Bright white fluorescence as Remy bounded down the stairs, three and four at a time, some crazy hypochondriac voice wailing at him that he wasn't doing his spine any favors.
The door cracked hard again, a floor and a half above him, and Remy glanced up to see two hulking shadows circling along the balulstrade.
"Get him!" came Lonnie's distant cry, muddled by echoes. He tried to leap the railing, but he could just picture his spine crunching as he came down too hard—and then he wouldn't be running anywhere, perhaps ever again. And so he simply ran with everything that was in him down the steps. Hoping he wouldn't lose his footing.
Not to give away the ending, but that little moment of hesitation was what took him down. Well, to be precise, it was Cristina Mendez who took him down. She sprinted past the boys, already red-faced and huffing, to leap over the railing. She went a flight at at time, coming down like a cat on Remy's back, just as he was reaching the third-floor landing.
She rode him down like a gasping surfboard, till he was flat on his stomach and she was crouched on his back. He cried out as he felt his right arm twist up behind him. Knee in his back.
"Let go of the bag," she said, flat. Remy released his grip, and Cristina quit twisting his arm. He let out a breath.
"Oh my god," he said, rolling over as she stepped off him. She took up the bag and slung it on her shoulder. Remy backed away, up against the wall, breathing hard, eyeing her like the prey eyes the predator. More insulted than hurt, though. Cristina had been gentle.
He still eyed the bag. She saw the calculation in his face.
"Don't try it," she said. Softer, she added, "nothing personal, though. You know how it is."
"Cristina," he said, a desperate plea.
"I always liked you," she explained.
"But then you decided to kill me."
"You knew who you were messing with," she finished. But then, through a sad chuckle, added, "Dumbass."
Truth be told, Detective Cristina Mendez was having her own kind of hard time, and she might not have survived another guilt-trip from Remy. She might have just given him the bag and gone to see the Himalayas like she always wanted.
So it was a good thing for somebody, probably not her, that Billy and Parker caught up with her then. Lonnie close on their heels like a nipping chihuahua.
Cristina quickly lost control of the situation, as the boys shoved past her. They seized Remy's arms. Both breathing hard. Remy watched Cristina, his body all but limp, his final hopes dashed. His mind as blank as the gray concrete floor.
Lonnie's face was livid red. But his sharpest words were not for Remy.
"You two idiots," he was saying. "How'd you let him get away from you?"
The two men said nothing. But Remy felt the hands holding him arms grip tighter.
"You wanna cuff him?" Billy said.
"No," Lonnie said. "No, actually, I've got a better idea. Come on." And he pushed through the door out to the third-floor hallway.
They stood him up in front of the garbage chute, an open door halfway down the hall. A rectangle of darkness, cut into the wall. Two stories down, a dumpster.
The two big guys stood on either side of him. Cristina, behind, shouldered his bag. Her bubblegum popped. Lonnie held the door to the chute.
"For your own good," he was saying.
"Lonnie, come on, this is the third floor," Remy said. A foul smell wafted on an artificial breeze up that rusted metal maw. "You're not gonna..."
"I have to get my point across somehow," Lonnie said, high and self-justifying. He held up his hands, as if in surrender, still holding the half-eaten apple.
"This isn't funny, Lonnie." Rising panic in Remy's voice. His feet scrabbled as he tried to step back. But the two big men had all his weight. Rubber soles squeaked on hardwood.
"The Terry McMahon story," Lonnie said, "is garbage." Remy felt himself pulled forward. He dug in his heels. He skidded.
"Whoa, no, come on," he said, eyes getting big as he felt heavy hands on his shoulders, crushing him down. He bent, against his will, and lurched foward towards the chute.
"It's garbage, Remy," Lonnie was proclaiming, "dirty disgusting trash. But you love trash! You were ready to pay to sniff through Cheerslaughter's dumpster." Lonnie laughed, an awful sound, like a sneer given life and wings, and echoing off the metal garbage chute.
"No!" Remy grunted, planting a foot on the wall. For a moment, he actually managed to move them back an inch. But then they redoubled their efforts. They were big men, who together outweighed him by a hundred pounds. He crumpled like a candy wrapper as they crammed him face-first into the chute.
The rectangle of darkness opened up to engulf him as his center of gravity passed over the edge. Then it was the hot breath of garbage and the rumble of metal as he thundered downwards, bumping against the walls of the chute.
He squinted as a dark ocean of trash rushed up to meet him. He landed on his right shoulder. Mercifully, on something soft. So nothing broke but his spirit. (And even that remains to be seen.)
He heard voices far overhead, echoing down the chute. Lonnie's sharp tone. "Why you two can't just shut up and do your job," he was saying. "Mendez, lose the gum and let's go."
"Fuck off, Lonnie," came the echoing reply. She spoke so quietly, it was a shock Remy caught it at all. She popped her gum. He heard a rumble from above.
By the time he figured out it was the apple, tossed down after him and bouncing down the chute, it was too late to raise his arm.
Of course it hit him in the face. Smacked him like a sucker punch, and left a sticky spot on his cheek. Destiny's like that sometimes.
Remy lay limp in the trash. Cold, foul fluid seeped into one sleeve from somewhere. Utter darkness. It was a while before he stirred.
When he tried, he only succeeded in drizzling his arm with more garbage juice. A stench hit him, and he recoiled.
"Oh, god," he gagged, "oh, my god."
Remy Dumas had never walked away from a story in his life. Had never given in to fear like that. But maybe, he thought, as he clambered over the edge, maybe the price of truth was a little too high. Just this one time.
That was when he lost his grip, and tumbled off the side of the dumpster. He landed on his stomach. He writhed, gasping, fishlike. That might've been what clinched his decision.
They found his car in a ravine before dawn the next morning. When the flames were extinguished, there wasn't much left. No sign of the crooks who took it. The cops said they'd call him if they got any leads. Remy didn't get his hopes up.
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