God bless apathetic teenagers. If it wasn’t for the bleached blonde girl who was busy doing her nails a sick shade of green as I paid for my gas and a mound of energy drinks, I wouldn’t have made it to Gus’s. I’d probably have been arrested, my ass thrown in jail for who the fuck knows what anymore.
The dry and perpetually unamused girl barely glanced at me and certainly never picked up the Los Angeles Times that day. If she had, she would have noticed that yours truly was on the cover. Not a big picture – that was reserved for a report on the country’s economics around Christmas time – but I was there, in the corner, right under the headline ‘Los Angeles Brothers Shot Trying to Stop Domestic Dispute.’
I so called it.
After I left the scene of the ambush – Sophia’s set-up – I sped up the I-5 until I’d reached the town of Valencia. I finally checked into a motel under Connor Malloy and started planning my next steps.
They all involved Gus.
I brought out the number that Ellie had given me and let it ring a few times before hanging up in fear. What if Gus wanted nothing to do with me without Ellie? What if he wasn’t as trustworthy as Ellie had seemed to think? I barely knew a thing about the guy except that he was an ex-LAPD officer, the same police department that was probably combing Sophia’s apartment for clues. I was glad that I never brought anything into her house except a case of contacts and solution. Everything else had stayed in the car, including the briefcase.
Gus would have to be worth the risk. I’d have to trust Ellie, even from afar. He was the only way I could find her, somehow I knew this.
I dialed his number again and this time he picked up gruffly, with a slight accent that I couldn’t place. Maybe Texas or the deep South. It wasn’t obvious but lately I’d been paying more attention to these types of things.
“Hello?” he’d asked.
“Is this Gus? Ellie’s Gus?”
There was a pause. Then, “Is this Connor Malloy?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Not quite. I’m getting there.”
“I’m going to assume from the tone of your voice and the fact that Ellie’s not on the phone, that something’s happened.”
My smile faded. I clutched the receiver hard and sat up straighter on the motel bed.
“She’s gone.”
“On her power?”
“That … that I don’t know.” I explained, as briefly as I could, what had happened. I left out the part about Sophia and her brothers. That could wait, or so I thought. Besides, I was still too angry and exposed over it. To talk about it, dwell about it, would rub the wound raw.
Gus seemed concerned but fairly calm about the whole thing. I liked that he didn’t lose his shit over it though at the same time I hoped Ellie was as important to him as I hoped she was.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Ventura,” I lied, picking the closest town that could still have the same area code.
He grunted then told me his address: 141 Rosewood Drive, Pismo Beach. It sounded too pretty.
“Meet me tomorrow at noon,” he said, then hung up.
It was only luck that got me there at noon. After I saw my face in the paper, the same paper I managed to swipe on my way out without the teenager noticing, I kept my face down and my driving calm as I worked my way up the coast. The ocean was glittering like blue scales, the cliff sides were lush with December rains. It was so gorgeously beautiful here in contrast to my life in the desert that my heart thumped for Gualala, for me and Ellie on the beach there, living in the freedom that only the surf can bring.
I stopped at one empty lookout spot on my way up and got a better look at the newspaper. There were a few things that were wrong about it which might have saved my ass without me knowing it.
In the statement, Sophia had told the cops about us getting back together in Palm Valley and wanting to start a new life before I turned on her and beat her up. I was in the process of stealing her money, “child support” she was saving, when she called for her brothers to help. One of the brothers was in serious condition in the hospital with a broken larynx (and nose, I was sure, since I busted that fucker up), while the other escaped unscathed. Sophia told the police that I was driving a green ford Mustang but she had no idea what the plate number was. In fact, I was driving an olive green Pontiac GTO with racing stripes. Not at all like a Mustang, not to most people anyway. I was more than grateful for her lack of interest in cars.