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I’m many dollars poorer by the time my Uber arrives at Lelani’s address later that night. I’d had to go all the way back to Matteo’s to care for Trog, back to Genius Comics to meet the tow truck driver, and then into the city. This is not the time I want to watch my bank account dwindle to zero, given I’m contemplating quitting my job.
And now that I’m responsible for all the rent on a house. That I’m not even living in.
Maybe I can ask Casey Junior for an advance, or at the very least charge him an invoice for services already rendered. Ignoring yet another text from Matteo, I scribble a note to myself in my phone as we pull up outside a stately brick building across from the Mann Chinese Theatre. A soul food restaurant on street level sends the delicious scent of fried chicken and spicy greens into the air. By the look of the line out front, it’s a good one, and my stomach rumbles.
I dig through my messenger bag and am rewarded with a granola bar that I think is possibly a year old squashed in the bottom under my sketch books. Beggars and all that, so I tear off the top and pop a bite into my mouth.
“No food in the car,” the girl up front says as if she has crumb radar. I meet her gaze in the rearview mirror, shove the granola bar into my mouth, slide out and eye the building as if it’s going to bite me. The girl zooms off without another word while I chew frantically. Knowing Lelani, she probably has a “no food in my house” rule.
I’m not disappointed when several moments later I’m buzzed up through a pristine lobby to the seventh floor. Lelani’s apartment is Monica Gellar clean, and I immediately see the similarity between her place and Matteo’s. Only where Matteo’s is refined but still somehow welcoming, Lelani’s furniture plainly says “stay off”. Gleaming chrome, black silk, and her signature hue of red run right up to a whole wall of glass that overlooks the theater across the street. Beyond that, glittering lights ebb and flow on the Hollywood hills.
“Impressive view,” I say by way of breaking the silence that has prevailed since Lelani let me in her door five minutes ago.
I turn to find her eyeing my outfit.
“What?” I ask, looking down too.
“Are you wearing that?” she asks, motioning to my jeans and tee.
“I wasn’t sure of the dress code,” I say, pulling my messenger bag over my head and setting it on her counter. I see her visibly flinch, but ignore it. I pull my sketch books out first and set them aside, then pull out the other clothes I’d grabbed from home. “Are we going more for breaking and entering chic, or black tie-up casual?”
I swear she’s about to crack a smile, but instead she just points at a pair of black paratrooper pants and a plain black tank top. “Nothing memorable,” is her only instruction as she shoos me toward the powder bath in her hallway.
When I emerge again, she’s straightening my sketch books into the neatest, most exact stack she can—the same way I’ve seen people poke at moldy fridge food. I take the offending books from her and push them back into my messenger bag along with my jeans before slinging it over my shoulder.
She glances over me once then gives a quick nod, though her eyes hitch slightly on my sparkly black flats. Her own look is serving more Air Marshall than cat burglar—a dark slim pantsuit—but she has sensible shoes on and her dark hair is pulled up in a Lucy Liu-inspired pony tail. With the jangle of her keys, she motions for me to follow her.
“I thought we were going to talk,” I say as I jog to catch up with her.
“We’ll have time in the car,” she responds.
“Okay then, I guess this is a little more baptism by fire than parlor session.”
She doesn’t even dignify it with an answer, and instead pushes the button on the elevator. We ride down in silence to the basement level and walk out into rows of gleaming vehicles—all easily worth triple what my bucket of bolts is worth. Guess the rent here is pretty spendy. I wonder briefly if Lelani is well-off or if she’s just dressing for the job she wants. She clearly has expensive taste, but I can’t even begin to ponder what a lifestyle like this in downtown LA would cost.
As if in confirmation of my suspicion, I note that the black tote she has tucked under her arm is Gucci. And not a knock-off, I know real stitching when I see it.
I head to where her familiar red sedan is parked, cozy among its family of two similarly gleaming sedans, but come up short when the car that chirps to the keyless fob is a dark Range Rover to my left.
I pause and pivot, and indeed Lelani is approaching the driver’s side door as if this is totally normal and to be expected.
I reverse pedal until I come even with the passenger door and warily walk up to the side. Who knows at this point, maybe Lelani is planning to kill me and bury my body. I’d been wary of the wrong boss.
“New ride?” I ask as I clamber into the behemoth of a vehicle and buckle my seatbelt.
“There are traffic light cameras and surveillance video in a lot of downtown LA,” Lelani says, adjusting the mirrors, and clicking her own belt. “I find it best to rotate vehicles for this sort of excursion so that there’s less of a chance of being tracked.” She glances at me. “This is a loan from a friend.”
“Ah,” I say nodding. Though the way she says “a loan” is the same way the Godfather says “a favor”, so I decide there’s still a possibility that she’s not being one hundred percent above board with all of this.
We pull out of the parking garage, and into the twilight several moments later. At a red light, Lelani types something into her phone, and then follows the directions of her navigation to a part of the city I haven’t been in before. It’s an area of dense residential that falls away to a more down-trodden area with apartment buildings and gas stations that have bars on the windows. We turn down a small, tree lined street and I’m pleased to see that while the houses are smaller, it’s better off the beaten path. There are yards with play equipment, nice succulent gardens in front of stoops with benches. Even one house that has both a small fountain and several wagons planted with summer flowers.
We pull up alongside a yard with a Little Free Library brimming with books, and I have to wonder how much of LA I judge from the main street without seeing the people beyond. Lelani points to a house a few doors down. “His parents’ house, his dad died while he was in jail, his mother still lives here and is in some financial difficulty.”
I blink twice. I hadn’t found that much information in my own research, and I’m supposed to be the P.I..
I risk asking a stupid question. “So, how do you know he’s going to do something worth following?” I’m thinking of all the errands this guy could be running for his beloved elderly mother after being away from his family for years.
She eyes me. “I don’t. That’s the whole point of following him.”
“But you have to have some reason to suspect him instead of Frank LePitez.”
“Yes, of the two, Frank has less of a reason to resume his presumed nefarious activities.”
“Uriah’s mother’s money troubles.”
She nods an affirmation, and we settle into our seats, eyes down the street. Though I’m full of questions, she hedges her answers on each one and I get nowhere. Rideout would have a hard time questioning her; no wonder she’s still out here with us mortals.
About an hour later, Lelani sits up in her seat. I’ve been watching a grasshopper make slow and thorough work of the weed under my window, and I hit my elbow on the arm rest as I too snap to attention.
The garage door of the little house pulls up, and out backs a seafoam Ford Taurus that’s seen better days.
I duck down while Lelani freezes in place. The spill of red light illuminates our vehicle for a brief moment as the car bottoms out on the sloped drive, then the rev of an engine as someone heads away from the house.
“The question is,” I muse as Lelani turns over the engine, and I pull my seatbelt across my body, “is he headed to the pharmacy for milk and ibuprofen?”
“It’ll be a short night if he is,” Lelani answers, eyes on the road. Without changing her attention, she reaches down and fishes through her Gucci bag between our seats. “Here, put this on.”
She tosses what I think is a T-shirt at me, but I realize it’s a big fabric scarf thing.
“Over your hair,” she clarifies. “It’s way too easy to see.”
Fair point.
“This is the way,” I say stoically as I pull the head covering over my head and tie it in the back like I’ve seen L do with his do rags sometimes. Lelani doesn’t even crack a smile. To complete the look, I slip on a pair of big dark sunglasses, but then take them immediately back off because I can’t see a thing.
While I’m fiddling, we’ve taken several turns, and now seem to be headed to the highway. The last thing we need to do is follow some dude on the start of his road trip. Things are silent and tense while we pull into traffic several cars behind, and settle in.
It’s not long though before the Taurus exits and heads down into a sketchier section of the city. In fact, as we watch the Taurus pull up on a dimly lit side street outside a warehouse, it’s not far off from where I’d had my first encounter with the tied-up drug guys at the waterfront. Lelani’s instincts may have been spot on.
We stop several streets down, and Lelani turns the lights off while leaving the engine running. We wait in silence for about twenty minutes, watching the occasional pedestrian walk by, or car pull out of a garage. I’m not sure if maybe he’s somehow figured out he’s been followed, but patience wins out in the end.
At 8:35, a figure dressed in jeans and a dark T-shirt approaches the Taurus, and from the glint of the glass, I assume Uriah rolls the window down. The guys shake hands, and the guy in the jeans walks away. Not three seconds later, Uriah’s brakes flare to life as he starts his car and pulls onto the street.
I buckle my seatbelt in anticipation of us doing the same, but Lelani instead reaches into her bag and pulls out an honest-to-god set of small binoculars. As if she’s a casual nighttime warehouse-district birder, she puts them to her eyes and watches for several minutes while sipping at her water bottle.
“So, we’re not going to . . . follow . . . him?” I ask nearly five minutes later, when it’s clear we’re not.
“He was buying, not selling,” Lelani answers, still watching through her binoculars. We wait so long, my legs start to fall asleep, so I unbuckle my seatbelt and move around.
“You wiggle a lot,” Lelani says on a sigh. “You’d be a terrible assassin.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I’m more shark than eagle. Keep moving to keep the life-force flowing.”
Another five minutes roll by, then a flash of headlights across the back of our car. In my side mirror, I make out a Jeep Cherokee on the street behind us. It slows to a crawl near the intersection in front of us, rolls through the stop and pulls over where Uriah Pender’s car had parked not long before.
“Are they—”
“Also buying, we’re not interested in them.”
“Pretty smart to make appointments,” I say just to say something. “Maybe they use an app to schedule it. Drug dealers of the 21st century. Maybe this ring is smarter than the last.”
This earns me a look from Lelani. But she cuts the engine, and ties back her hair. “Okay, come on, let’s go. And we’re in stealth mode, so no talking. I’m in charge, you follow my direction. We are going to go get our answers, and bust a bad guy.”
I’m stunned as I watch her slide out of the vehicle, ease the door shut and cross behind us and slide into the shadow of a building.
I look at myself in the mirror before shaking my head and following. Apparently this training mission is my first real day on the job. I should be panicked, but I’m almost giddy inside. I’m actually doing what I’ve been writing about for years. Boots on the ground, Golden Arrow style.