Slow Squeeze (Iris Thorne Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  Panic set in among the McKinney Alitzer employees worried about children who were still at school and loved ones at work throughout the city. Herbert Dexter sent everyone home.

  Iris rushed to retrieve the Triumph and queued up to get on the freeway, feeling conspicuously well-dressed and affluent. The freeway became a kind of demilitarized zone, above the turmoil of the streets below, but still suffered from its own type of anarchy implemented by motorists who, realizing the cops were deployed elsewhere, drove as recklessly as they wished. From the vantage point of the Ten, Iris spotted flames across the city.

  In Santa Monica, there were lines at the gas stations and supermarkets. Everything was closing early due to the dawn-to-dusk curfew. Everyone wanted to get the hell home. Iris managed to get cash from an ATM machine and gas but gave up on food.

  When the evening drive time finally arrived, the streets were eerily clear.

  At home, Iris ventured onto her terrace. Police helicopters beat the sky. The air smelled of smoke. Gray ash settled everywhere. The ocean glowed a troubled copper, and the sun shone red. Disoriented birds flitted every which way, looking like windblown scraps of fabric.

  She secured all her doors and windows and sat in the middle of her living room floor in her bathrobe with a wooden baseball bat across her knees, the remote control at her side. She ate a Sara Lee butter pecan coffee cake with her fingers while she watched the city burn on eight local and many cable channels.

  Night fell. Sleep was out of the question.

  News helicopters gave bird’s-eye broadcasts across the city. Julie’s, the street-level bar in Iris’s office building where she’d often dined with John Somers, was ablaze. In Mid-Wilshire, a man had been shot to death in a supermarket parking lot near Iris’s first apartment. In Hollywood, the pink granite and brass-inlaid stars along the Walk of Fame were crisscrossed with fire hoses. Frederick’s of Hollywood, a favorite Saturday night stopping point for Iris and her college friends, had been looted of its fur- and feather-trimmed lingerie. A fire burned out of control nearby, threatening Frederick’s garish purple tower, which now seemed precious. The camera caught a glimpse of Musso and Frank Grill, the venerable old-Hollywood eatery down the street from Frederick’s where Iris had dined after her high school prom.

  Firefighters were guarded from snipers by the police, both uniformed and plainclothes. One plainclothes officer stood in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard with feet firmly apart, a shotgun held in both hands, his eyes scanning the street. The camera took a closer look. It was John Somers. Iris shoved the coffee cake and bat off her lap and crawled to the television on her hands and knees to get a closer look, but the tenuous image disintegrated into pixels. She didn’t recognize this dangerous man.

  The telephone rang.

  “Ms. Thorne, this is Chief Greenwood.”

  “Hello.” She sniffed and wiped her face and nose with her hand.

  “Are you all right?”

  “No.”

  “Are you in trouble?”

  “No. It’s just…the city’s burning.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.”

  “Ms. Thorne, we believe Lorraine is on her way south. She bought a bus ticket in San Jose for Santa Monica, but never boarded the bus. Someone at the bus station reported seeing her hitch a ride on a big rig. Has she called you again?”

  “No.”

  “We’ve got an APB out on her, but with everything that’s going down in L.A., I doubt there’ll be any action on it. So stay inside, keep your doors locked, and don’t open up unless you know who it is.”

  “I’m already doing that.”

  “Call me if you need anything.”

  It was sometime in the early morning hours. The aluminum coffee cake pan was on the carpet next to Iris. Its contents had been stripped of its filling and frosting and reduced to crumbs. The baseball bat was squared on the floor in front of her. She was eating saltine crackers, one after the other, from a long, rectangular package and watching the news.

  She became aware of a noise. She didn’t know when it started but she heard it now, like an alarm clock finally buzzing through a sleeper’s dreams. Someone was trying to put a key into her front door.

  She set the crackers on the floor, stood, picked up the bat, leaned it against her shoulder, and held the base with both hands. She crept up to the peephole in the door and quickly looked out. The corridor was empty.

  She jumped when she heard someone trying a key in the bolt lock. Her heart pounded against her ribs. She looked through the peephole again and saw irregularly cut blond hair.

  “Lorraine?” Iris said through the door in as assertive a voice as she could muster. “Lorraine, is that you?”

  A key jiggled in the lock. “Damn son of a bitch!”

  Lorraine flung her hand away from the lock, and Iris saw a flash of cobalt blue.

  “Lorraine, I’ve had all the locks changed. I have a gun and I’m not afraid to use it.”

  Lorraine put her face up to the peephole, startling Iris who jumped away. Iris flattened her back against the door, then thought better of it and crouched down, anticipating gunfire.

  “I-ris, open the door,” Lorraine said in a saccharine voice. “Don’t be afraid.”

  Iris stood and quickly looked through the peephole.

  Lorraine was hurling herself at the door. Her eyes were wide and she looked peculiarly alert, in spite of the dark circles under her eyes, as if she were more than awake. The impact startled Iris, and she dropped the bat, which rattled noisily on the hardwood floor.

  “Fucking bitch!” Lorraine screamed. “Art told me you’d be hiding.”

  Iris ran to the telephone and pressed 911. It was busy. She tried again. Still busy. She put the phone down, half crawled to the door, snatched the bat, and stood with her back flat to the wall for many minutes. She heard no sound, and her peephole view of the corridor was empty. None of her neighbors had come out to see what was going on.

  She sat back down on the floor in front of the television. The butter pecan coffee cake and the crackers suddenly seemed disgusting. She pushed them away. She clicked the television’s volume down to a whisper and sat alert, with her back rigid and the bat across her knees.

  She attempted 911 again and again until she got through. She was put on hold. She waited. Someone finally answered.

  “A woman’s trying to break into my condo. She intends to harm me.”

  A fatigued female voice asked, “You’re not hurt now? This woman’s not in the house now? I’ll put you on the list, ma’am, but I don’t know when someone’s going to get there. We’ve got a riot going on.”

  Iris gave the operator her address and hung up. There was nowhere to go. There was no one who could come. She got up and checked all the doors and windows again, her legs trembling and the bat shaking in her hands. Everything was secure. She took deep breaths to calm herself down. She stopped shaking.

  “The Triumph!” she moaned.

  She stood in her living room and wrestled with the decision.

  “It’s just a car.”

  She again sat in front of the television with the bat across her knees and clicked through the flaming images without seeing them. Half an hour passed.

  “She’s got to be gone by now.”

  Iris waited another half hour, watching the minutes click by. “But it’s not just a car!”

  She went into the bedroom, took off her bathrobe, and pulled on a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, and sneakers. She took her house keys and the bat, checked the peephole and listened at the door, then quickly opened it and thrust her head into the corridor. It was empty. She heard a television through her neighbor’s door loudly broadcasting the news.

  She quickly locked the bolt lock and ran down the corridor. She decided to take the stairs rather than the elevator and jerked the stairwell door open. The stairwell was empty. She jogged down the stairs, burst through the door into the lobby, jogged across it, and hit the do
or to the garage running. She didn’t look back to see if anyone was standing behind the door until she was in the middle of the garage. She jogged through the garage, looking between the cars and behind the supporting columns. She seemed to be alone.

  She ran to the Triumph, held the cover up, and looked underneath as she walked around the car. It was fine.

  She heard glass breaking. The garage’s cement floor and walls distorted the noise, making it sound as if it had come from inside the garage. Iris skipped down the driveway between the cars, turning back and forth. She didn’t see anything. She walked through a door that was cut into the garage’s security gate and went outside onto the sidewalk. Then she heard the string of brass bells on her terrace door rattling.

  Iris ran into the quiet street to get a better look. Her terrace door was open. A pane of glass near the doorknob had been broken.

  “Son of a bitch!” She swung the bat hard onto the asphalt. The impact of the wood made her hands ache. She swung the bat again. “Damn her!” She put her hands on her hips and looked around the empty street. She looked back at the terrace.

  A large plastic trash can had been upended and placed in the shrubs beneath the terrace. A hard plastic milk crate was on top of it. Those two items alone weren’t tall enough to reach the terrace, but it put someone within reach of a low branch of a pine tree that grew in front of the building.

  Iris saw Lorraine walk past her terrace windows.

  “Get out of my house!” Iris screamed.

  Someone in a neighboring building peeked out from behind their drapes. Someone else did the same thing. No one offered assistance.

  I have my car keys. I should just leave. Lorraine passed her windows again. “The hell I am!”

  She walked resolutely to the building’s front door, unlocked it, and marched back up the stairs and down the corridor to her condo. Her front door was still locked. She opened it and stood in the entryway.

  “Lorraine! Get out of my house.” Iris stepped through the kitchen, then through the dining room and the living room, holding the bat in both hands over her shoulder. There was no Lorraine. Smoke and the smell of burnt wood traveled in on the wind.

  Iris threw on lights as she walked. The guest bathroom and second bedroom were empty. She heard noises in her bedroom. She didn’t see anyone there. Then she saw motion in the walk-in closet.

  Lorraine grunted as she tore one of Iris’s blouses. Several other torn garments were on the floor.

  “Lorraine!” Iris squatted and held the bat ready. “Get out. Now.”

  Lorraine looked up as if awakened from a trance. She dropped the blouse she had been tearing and lunged at Iris. Iris swung at her with the bat, hitting her in the side, then swung the bat to hit her again. Lorraine kept coming. She plowed into Iris and knocked them both onto the floor. The bat rolled under the bed. They writhed on the floor in the narrow area between the bed and the dresser. Lorraine grabbed Iris’s hair, lifted her head up, and smashed it against the hardwood floor. Iris tried to dig her thumbs into Lorraine’s eyes. She got a fix on one eye and pressed. It felt springy and resilient.

  Lorraine let go of Iris’s hair to pull the hand from her eye. Then she put her hands around Iris’s throat and squeezed. Iris tried to pull her off, digging her fingernails into Lorraine’s hands, piercing the skin. Lorraine continued to squeeze. Iris began to see spots. She felt for the bat, which was under the bed. The large end was toward her. She got her hand around it and banged it against the back of Lorraine’s head, but she couldn’t put any force behind it. Lorraine writhed against the blows but still maintained her grip on Iris’s neck.

  Iris put one hand on each end of the bat, put it between them and pushed against Lorraine’s neck as hard as she could. The black spots grew larger but still she pushed. Lorraine began to choke, but maintained her grip. Iris kept pushing. Her arms trembled. She wasn’t aware of herself. All that existed was the bat. She gave it one final push. Lorraine let go.

  Iris blinked to clear the blackness. She had a sensation of Lorraine stumbling past her and down the hallway, wailing in a way that sounded angry and mournful at the same time. Iris managed to stand and stumbled down the hallway after her, dragging the bat by the end, not having the strength to lift it.

  Lorraine was gone.

  Iris picked up the phone to call Greenwood. The phone company said the circuits were busy. On the third try, she got through.

  “I’m on my way,” Greenwood said. “I can’t get there in less than three hours. Maybe I can find Wilkin and get him over to you. He’s got to be someplace in that mess down there.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Lorraine meandered down the middle of the street. The few cars that passed drove around her. She carried her suitcase, which she’d stashed in the bushes in front of Iris’s building, and flailed her free hand in the throes of some internal conversation. She looked up at the sky as she walked, ignoring the cars.

  She saw a large hotel and walked to it. A single, brave taxi was parked in front. She asked the driver if he would take her to Marina del Rey. He looked her up and down and asked her if she had any money, then wanted to see it. Lorraine reached into her pocket, took out a roll of bills, and handed it to him. He peeled off one bill too many and told her it costs extra tonight because of the risk.

  The streets were quiet until they drove through Venice Beach, where crowds of people milled around. The cab wove through them. In Marina del Rey, the streets were again quiet. The driver left Lorraine in front of Barbie’s old apartment building.

  Lorraine walked up the side stairs to the third floor, then down the corridor to Barbie’s apartment. Yellow police ribbon made an X over the door. A large adhesive label that said CRIME SCENE DO NOT ENTER was pressed in the corner between the door and the frame. Lorraine grabbed the police ribbon and pulled the bottom free, letting the two strands dangle from the top of the door. She tried to break the adhesive label with one of her remaining fake fingernails, but the label wouldn’t give. She looked around. In front of the apartment across from Barbie’s, someone had set out a plastic bin containing refuse to be recycled. Lorraine dug through it and found a tin can with its circular lid still partially attached. She pulled the lid free. It cut through the label easily.

  The door opened on its own. The crime scene label was the only thing holding the door closed against the broken frame. Lorraine went inside. She propped a bar stool against the door to keep it closed.

  The air was stale. Silver-gray dust from the police’s fingerprinting efforts was thick on the counters, woodwork, and table tops.

  Lorraine opened the sliding glass door and let in the marina air and smells and tinkling sounds. She stood on the terrace and began to cry. Her shoulders shook. Mucus rolled down her face. She wiped it with her hands then took out the roll of cash, pulled off a bill, and used it to blow her nose. She threw the bill off the terrace, where it landed in a wad on the walkway below.

  She went back inside and pulled the sheer inner drapes across the open sliding glass door. They billowed in the ocean breeze. She walked into the kitchen, where a roll of paper towels was still neatly in its holder underneath a cabinet. She pulled off a few towels and wiped her face. She opened the cabinets. They contained the few household items that Barbie had purchased to set up the apartment. Lorraine opened the refrigerator. It held a half-eaten cantaloupe, nonfat yogurt, cottage cheese, and a small piece of the bear claws that Barbie had bought for her. The freezer held some diet frozen dinners. Lorraine touched them.

  “Charlotte,” she sobbed. Her legs folded under her and she slid down the refrigerator onto the floor. She laid her cheek against the linoleum and cried.

  “Why am I such a fuck-up?” she sobbed. Eventually, she got up and walked into the living room. The telephone answering machine was still on the floor where she’d left it the previous Friday. She circled it a few times.

  She pulled the purple sash out of the suit jacket pocket. It grew longer and longer, like a m
agician’s scarf trick. She threw it on the couch. She undressed. She neatly folded the suit and sweater and put them on a corner of the couch, then picked up the pile and the sash, walked up the three steps to the bedroom area, and put the clothes under the bed, out of sight.

  She rubbed the sash down her sides and across her body, pressing the smooth fabric against her skin, then dropped it on the bed.

  She upended her purse. The plastic containers tumbled out onto the bed. She stood them on the nightstand, went into the kitchen, found a tall glass, half-filled it with water, and topped it off with bourbon from the bottle that still stood in the middle of the living room floor. She walked back to the bedroom and put the glass on the nightstand. In the nightstand drawer she found a pad of paper and a ballpoint pen that Barbie had used for phone messages.

  Lorraine sat on the bed, clicked open the pen, drew a few small circles to get the ink flowing, then started to write.

  I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to turn out like this. I love you, Mom and Dad. I wish I could have been a better daughter.

  Lorraine set the pad on the nightstand. She picked up the satin sash, tied it in a bow around her neck, then examined the pill containers, taking the child-proof caps off certain ones. She plumped the pillows against the headboard, then abruptly got up and went into the bathroom to pee. Sitting back down on the bed, she leaned against the pillows and arranged the satin sash around her neck so that it draped smoothly down her bare chest.

  She picked up a container of pills, poured some into her hand, tossed them onto the back of her tongue, and took a big gulp of the bourbon and water. Finishing the pills in that container, she went to the next one and the next one until the last of her selected drugs were gone.