This Rancid Mill by Kyle Decker

Author:Kyle Decker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PM Press

23

I was shaking like the San Andreas. My heart pounded in my ears like John Henry while my brain swam the English Channel. Someone had been in my home. Someone who meant me harm. There is no way to explain the level of violation. But damn it, I’m going to try. To come into someone’s home is to crawl under their skin, burrow to their most sacred parts, and take up residence there. Los Angeles in 1981 was intimidating on the best of days. Hell, the whole world was terrifying. The general consensus, especially among my peers, was that the world was going to end at any second. Nothing mattered and nowhere was safe. But there should always be one place where that’s not on your mind. One place you can let your guard down. And that was your fucking, goddamn home. Suddenly, the very place I lay my head was as scary as the darkest West Hollywood alley. And every single one of my meager possessions was now caked in filth.

I had no idea what had happened to Tom. His walls may have had some scary-looking graffiti and razor wire on the ramparts, but they had turned out to be made of Styrofoam bricks. Trauma and partially developed frontal lobes are a volatile mix. He was either dead or would have that possibility hung over his head as a means to some horrible, dog-fucking end. I closed the door behind me and turned around. Templeton had been pinned to the door with a hunting knife.

They’d taken my witness, threatened my client, destroyed evidence, and murdered my roommate. If they were trying to scare me, they’d done it. But fear is quite the motivator. And they kept showing their hand. Making the kind of power plays that only served to narrow down my leads. Half this city had wanted Jerry dead. Seems even more had a reason. But not all of them had cops in their pocket and black sedans in their motorcade.

I went outside and knocked on my neighbor’s door. He wore a gun on his hip. From the looks of it, the list of states it was legal in was short and did not include California. Fuck me with razors. I’d been stealing papers from this guy? I was lucky to be alive.

“Hey. I’m Alex. I live in the building next door. I was wondering if you saw anything suspicious earlier this evening.”

He sized me up and decided he didn’t like the look of me. “You’re kiddin’, right?” he snorted.

“Earlier,” I said. “Did you see anyone come or go from that building?”

“I saw the cops arrest some punk kid. Nothing odd about that. Now get outta here.” He closed the door, but I blocked it with my foot. He did not like that. At all.

“Do you know what they arrested him for?”

“No. He was probably drunk ’r high ’r somethin’. He was yelling. I heard ’em and looked out the window. They dragged ’im out of the building. He was resisting.

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