Part 2 (2/2)

Before Brock could be thrown against the ground by Liza's force, two white-clothed orderlies grabbed a hold of her and dragged her to her room. Her shrieks faded as the two orderlies carried her away.

Brock touched his cheek. She clawed him once, though the marks didn't bleed. He hung his head down, blowing out a deep breath of air and feeling his heart settle in his chest. ”I guess I deserved that.”

”No you didn't, Brock.”

A gray haired woman in her late forties dressed in a lab coat, jeans, and an aqua green midriff approached him. Dr. Schmitz had suffered more wear and tear on her face from the last time he'd seen her. The doctor's everyday routine involved a mix of movie stars, rock stars, and average people with enough money to afford Sun View who fought withdraw with varying success rates. She was happy to see Brock because he wasn't one of the troubled. She hooked her arm though his and kindly ushered him to her corner office.

Edging the door closed, she then sat behind her desk and offered Brock a seat. ”So what brings you by, besides being mauled by Liza Stanfield?”

”Stanfield, that's her last name. I'm so sorry me being here caused that.”

”She's on suicide watch, but I don't believe locking up a person in that deplorable condition is healthy. They need suns.h.i.+ne, human interaction, and who knows, maybe taking the jabs at you will make her feel better.”

”That woman blew her top. She wanted me dead.”

Dr. Schmitz pointed at his neck. ”Are you sure you're okay?”

He waved her concerns aside. ”I'm fine. I needed a wake-up call. I came here without an appointment. It's Karma catching up with me.”

”I never believed in Karma. Or luck. Things happen, or they don't, and whether you get what you want in life or not, its earned. Only the timing is luck, and still, it's up to the person to react and deal with their situation, good or bad.” She picked up a snow globe on her desk of Sun View Rehab Clinic inside it and shook it up. ”Take Liza, for instance. She was doing great four months ago. She was determined to quit drugs. She was going to New York for work in the Broadway musical Cats. Sure, it's a smaller role, but it's work, and she gets caught up in how she used to be an A-lister, and how she deserves better, and then the drugs creep back in, and back here to rehab she goes. Liza's got a long road ahead of her to recovery.”

She placed the snow globe back onto the desk. ”I'm proud of you, Brock. I watch ”America's Got Flair” every Tuesday when the new ones are on. You're always good at pointing out the obvious in a deadpan kind of way to the contestants.” The way she asked the question, the doctor seemed to be afraid he was here to check himself back into rehab. ”So what brings you back to us, Brock?”

He was proud to rea.s.sure her he wasn't returning for a stay at California's best rehab clinic. ”I received a letter from my sister. I guess she's holed up,” he laughed, ”at a bed and breakfast in Virginia. Can you believe it?”

”What is Angel doing these days?”

It was terrible her own brother didn't know these things, he thought. ”I don't know. But she wrote me saying she wanted to see me. It's been two years since I've had any contact. I'm driving out tomorrow on a little road trip to visit her.”

”Oh fun. So you're probably wondering how you should handle the visit.”

He nodded, overhearing another raucous cry from down the hall. When it tapered off, he continued, though he wondered if it was poor Liza again. ”Yes. I don't want to say the wrong thing, or scare her off again. I don't know if she's sober, happy, needing money, or just wanting to kick my a.s.s.”

Dr. Schmitz thought for a second. ”Then don't go into the visit thinking she needs anything except a friendly conversation. Talk to her. If she needs something more, whether it be money, or,” she softly bit her lip, ”kicking your a.s.s, she'll let you know. Women are good at that, I promise.”

”So be cool, is what you're saying.”

Dr. Schmitz smiled. ”Be cool.”

Liza makes me remember rehab. I guess everything does at some point. I was Casper the s.h.i.+tting ghost, haunting the pot, flus.h.i.+ng down vomit, s.h.i.+t, bile, and cocaine, and G.o.d knows what else down into the sewers. I feel sorry for the janitors at any rehab clinic. People do anything to get the drugs off of their mind. They tear up the walls, break furniture, rip the paint off the walls with their fingernails, and one dude named Norman would scuff the floors with his shoes until there wasn't an inch of blank s.p.a.ce left.

Forget Liza's problems, Angel was worse off. She'd shove safety pins between the skin of her thumb and forefinger to abate the cravings. Angel was caught doing that in rehab, and her room was cleaned out. I think that was when she decided rehab wasn't for her. She wasn't ready to quit. She just couldn't do it.

I think both of us had the same reaction after our father's inheritance that the average Joe Blow does who makes thirty, forty grand a year and then suddenly they win the lottery. They don't know what to do with the fortune that's fallen into their laps. They quit their jobs. Pay their debts. And then what? They have no plan. Nothing to waste the hours away, so they start drinking, getting depressed, sinking into that deepening hole, and they end up worse off than they were without the money, and that's where Sis and I ended up, worse off than before Dad died and we had nothing else left to do but blow our fortune on self-destruction.

There was a TV special about how we dismantled the Richards estate, and I even remember the TV spot. Some Australian home interior guru and tabloid personality saying, ”Room by room, we'll recreate the destruction, and play-by-play, we'll have real witnesses give their true accounts to the rise and fall of the Gene Richards estate.”

Brock's wrist ached, so he concluded the writing session. He wasn't used to committing anything to paper except signatures on checks. Brock left his apartment and walked down the block and ate a hot dog from a street vendor. After eating, he sat under a tree overlooking the Beverly Hills Open Air Park, feeling guilty for eating a piece of greasy meat, but also frustrated he was still afraid to completely open himself up on the page. Oh well, I guess I have an entire road trip to figure it all out.

It was already mid-afternoon. He still had to pack his clothing, but at seven o'clock, he had a date with his most favorite blue hairs in the universe.

BAD ROAD TRIP.

Present Day Private investigator Mike Kinsley drove on the back roads of Madison, Virginia, seeking Hampton Hills. It was a small town along the foothills of the Appalachian Valley. His trek had turned into an aimless one, being lost, though he swore he had the directions right. He stayed on the back road surrounded by dense deciduous forest seemingly driving in circles. Everything looked the same. There were no breaks in the woods, road signs, or any indication he was going the right way. After battling to decide if he should check his GPS again, a road sign appeared with the words ”Hampton Hills” painted crudely in yellow paint.

No fancy road signs in this place.

Mike sipped his morning coffee in victory, awaiting the jolt he needed to get his day going. That was the problem all along, he thought. The coffee wasn't working its magic yet.

Driving along the b.u.mpy terrain, rea.s.sured he was finally on the right track, his thoughts drifted to his mission. He flipped open the top of the file sitting on the pa.s.senger seat and viewed the picture of a woman named Peggy Albright. She was thirty-one. Single. Friends said she was visiting Hampton Hills to hook up with an old flame. She didn't come back. The bills were stacking up. Friends and family were concerned. They called the police. The police's case was ice cold. Then Mike had been hired to investigate Peggy's disappearance by her family.

Rumors Mike was hearing involved other people going missing in the general area, though the investigation was slow-in-the-coming because the people missing weren't just from this area. They were located across the United States in random pockets of the nation without an obvious pattern. That wasn't his problem. His problem was Peggy Albright.

”Whoa, something stinks.” Mike pinched his nose. ”Did I run over a dead carca.s.s?”

The tires didn't b.u.mp over anything in the road. He checked the rearview mirror, and the road was clear.

”Seriously, what was that?”

The vents kicked out more fetid air. So strong, it was visible. The color was a dark tint of yellow. The tendrils curled from the trees around the road too, wrapping around their trunks, bending, and twisting, and spreading to obscure the distance. He turned, and Peggy Albright's file was suddenly blank and dripping with ink. No, not ink, he thought, but a strange black oil. It was growing soggy until it started to smolder and smoke the strange color of earthy brown until it vanished into thin air.

Mike reached out to his police frequency radio when the receiver itself softened, the plastic melting into his hand, threading through his fingers, latching on, and burning through his skin. He slammed the gas, trying to escape whatever was surrounding him. He was speeding ahead and gaining distance until the terrain turned rough. The tires popped, and once the car swerved, skidded, spun out, and then stopped, the dirt had changed into a lake of tar black oil stinking of death. Human bones floated on the surface belonging to hundreds of bodies. Absorbing the macabre scene, Mike's car was sinking fast. Steam obscured the winds.h.i.+eld. Everything was so hot so fast, the gla.s.s burst, the pieces slicing him up mercilessly.

Picking gla.s.s shards out of his eyes with his free hand, the steaming, boiling, popping oil filled up the car, slos.h.i.+ng in from all the windows. He was scorched alive, the skin melting from his bones instantaneously.

The last thing Mike processed was the sound of many voices talking or shouting over one another. As they were speaking, he too became one of the voices among the dead.

NEW PLANS MADE.

Carlos Miloh was blowing gra.s.s clippings across the parking lot when Brock crossed paths with him. The super was wearing a white s.h.i.+rt underneath a checkered yellow and black flannel s.h.i.+rt that clung to his sweaty body. Carlos took a break, turning off the blower, and intercepted Brock before he could make it to the staircase.

”Busy man, eh? Too busy to enjoy your vacation?”

Brock shrugged his shoulders. ”I'm visiting my sister in Virginia. I haven't seen her in two years.”

”I have sisters in Mexico, down the Tijuana way, but they have no green card. They speak English as good as they can work a chainsaw. Being a Mexican, you have to be able to work every tool in the shed, or else it's the unemployment line for you.”

Carlos had known him for two years, and the man had the uncanny ability to read people. He surveyed Brock's face and withdrew the truth from him. ”This isn't a fun visit, I take it.” He pressed his fingers at each end of his lips. ”You're not smiling.”

”I'll say one thing, and I'll leave it at that.”

”Sure, senor.”

”I don't think my sister's curbed her drug habit. She's looking to big brother for help. I'm ready to do what it takes to save her from herself. It's a big challenge. I'm not stepping out of her life ever again. I want her to be healthy.”

”You mean that, don't you?” Carlos leaned down to turn on the blower again, but first said, ”I'll keep an eye on your place. Good luck, friend. Family is all you got.”

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