C H A P T E R • 14
When we parked in front of 215 where the paper has its offices, he didn’t get out and he turned to me. “Pearl, our conversation gives me an idea. I saw you chanting to Cecelia on the street this morning. Do you teach meditation?”
“I teach kids in L.A. It’s amazing how super aware they already are each day of their lives as they navigate their world. I tell them to turn their awareness inside.”
“That’s good. But I’m not talking about the kids. I’m talking about my people. Can you do it without the religious thing—the Buddhist thing? They might hear it from you, I think. You have chops and a persona. I don’t think they would sit still for some otherworldly guru.”
“I wish I could. But I’m leaving this weekend.”
“You can come by on Friday as the shift changes. We have training in our roll calls. Meditation will be our training on Friday. I’ll say so. It’s at 3:30. They can stay or come early. We’ll see who shows up.”
“I like it,” I said. “Very much the fierce practice of city meditation.”
He said, “That’s right. That’s how I practice when I’m on the job. I learned to turn the energy coming at me in the street when I started fighting. And it is fierce. It’s all about the energy.”
“That’s the language I use to lead meditation,” I said. “We talk about turning the energy.”
“When you teach meditation, do you also teach them to fight?”
“Roger is my partner. He teaches martial arts. I usually block the kicks, but I can’t risk showing up on the set black and blue.”
I got out of the car with a mind full of ideas and had to make an effort to turn my attention from planning my mediation back to being in the present on 125th Street.
The nomadic businesses were gone but they had left their garbage. There was the pungent smell of a dried puddle of piss. One of the horseplayers from Off Track Betting must have decided not to buy a burger next door at McDonald’s to use the toilet. Perhaps he had lost his last 69 cents.
I went to unlock the metal door next to the building’s glass entrance now covered by metal gates. “Look at this. Strange,” I said to Obie.
“Strange how?”
“It should be locked.”
“Wait. Don’t touch anything else.” He put on gloves to inspect the sophisticated lock box and pushed the door open. We found the lobby empty.
While we waited, Obsidian ranted about people not doing their jobs.
“I was making my rounds,” the guard explained as he walked out of the elevator and into the lobby. “What are you doing here at 9:30 at night?”
“Why is the front door unlocked, Max?” I asked.
He started over to check. “Hell if I know. Are you sure?”
“Don’t touch it,” Obsidian barked at him. “What time do you rattle the doors?”
Max actually came to attention. “Always every two hours. I’ve been here since 7.”
“Come on, Pearl. Let’s get this over with,” Obie said.
“The Captain’s in a hurry?” Max asked me as Obsidian stalked off. “In the middle of the night? Something I should know about?”
“I hope not.”
Obsidian stepped off the elevator upstairs first, with his hand on his gun. He took my keys and unlocked the newspaper’s front door.
“Notice anything different?” he asked. “Look carefully and put on these gloves.”
I inhaled through the layer of tension I’d carried with me up the elevator and looked from the doorway. I put on the gloves and walked behind the desk to the heavy black floor safe.
“Okay. The bank documents were in the safe and they’re gone. It wasn’t broken into. I actually don’t think it can be. But I don’t know who all has the combination.”
“As soon as we finish here, write down everything you remember about those documents. And for now, don’t touch anything else.”
I took off the gloves and put them on the desk and put my hands up to smooth my hair in a nervous gesture I couldn’t help.
When he walked over to the desk and held out his hands with both palms up, I hesitated before I let mine drop into his. He held them for a moment before he raised them to his lips, then let them rest on his shoulders, and he circled my waist with his arms.
“We’re a good fit,” he said.
“I remember.”
I pressed his arms, which didn’t give. “You’ve kept up your training,” I said.
“I have to work hard and train hard to police these streets,” he said. “And you’ve kept up your training. I can feel it. You’re strong, tight.”
“I have to work hard and train hard to make those movies. And I rarely use stunt doubles. It’s kind of the least I can do to be real in the made-up movie world.”
“Indeed.”
I loved the smell of him and the taste of his lips, tentatively, slowly, and then, in a breath, his mouth was searching mine and my whole body was in that kiss. I rode a wave of memories on it too.
He stopped. Maybe I would have stopped eventually. I can’t say. Seems unlikely.
“Soon,” he said. “But we’re not quite finished here.” He stepped away.
I was annoyed.