Short Fiction Collected by Gary Brandner

Author:Gary Brandner [Brandner, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2025-08-13T00:00:00+00:00

XIII

THE NEXT DAY, Saturday, Sammy Chung arrived at Los Angeles International Airport with a short list of names and addresses of people connected to the principals in the Romo/Barr murder cases. In a car rented at the airport he drove to the first address, on the list—an aging apartment building of scabrous yellow stucco in the shadow of the Hollywood Freeway.

Chung’s visits to Los Angeles were frequent enough that he was not shocked by the changes in Hollywood. Still, he would admit that he much preferred the city in years past when Hollywood Boulevard was a sparkling, glamorous thoroughfare where movie stars sometimes strolled among the common folk. Modern Hollywood had suffered the same blight as New York’s Times Square and San Francisco’s North Beach. The boulevard was lined with tawdry shops, and the strollers were hippies and Jesus freaks, runaway kids and dirty old men. But never a movie star.

The name that went with the Hollywood address was Nathan Barr. Chung had chosen this as his first stop because it promised to be the most difficult. Only last night Nathan Barr had been officially notified of his daughter’s death. It was not a pleasant time to talk to people. It was, however, a time when people often spoke without their built-in censors. Chung got out of the car, climbed the concrete steps to the apartment entrance, and walked in.

The odor of meals cooked and eaten long ago by people long gone permeated-the walls and the worn carpet. Overpowering all was the sour smell of loneliness. Chung located the groundfloor apartment occupied by Nathan Barr and knocked lightly on the door.

“What is it?” came a ragged voice from inside.

“It is about your daughter, Mr. Barr.”

There was a grumble of complaint from inside the room then the sound of feet shuffling across the floor. The door opened and a man peered out with blinking, watery eyes. A few strands of hair lay across his skull, and several days’ worth of beard grew like white fungus on his face. His breath was heavy with the sour-sweet smell of wine.

Sammy Chung held his badge and identification out for the old man to see. “I am Inspector Chung of the Honolulu Police, working with Las Vegas authorities. I offer my sympathy on the death of your daughter.”

“It was bound to happen,” Nathan Barr said, “considering the people she ran around with.” He beckoned Chung into the room and dropped onto a sagging couch covered with a gray blanket.

“You did not approve of your daughter’s friends?”

The old man stared down at the backs of his hands where the veins stood out like blue worms. “What difference does it make what I approve or don’t approve. When Jewell went off on that fancy scholarship she went out of my life forever. It wasn’t easy for me, raising a daughter alone after her mother died. Do you think I ever got any thanks? Do you think she ever paid back any of the money I put out to feed her? Not on your life.

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