Southside (9781608090563) by Krikorian Michael

Author:Krikorian, Michael
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Midpoint Trade Books Inc
Published: 2013-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

Just after ten a.m., before it got too crowded, I went to The Grove, the promenade attached to the old Farmer’s Market at 3rd and Fairfax. At Barnes & Noble I stocked up on books and magazines that would help my born-again freelance career: 2014 Writer’s Market, Starting Your Career as a Freelance Writer, and 100 Best Magazine Markets.

I walked back to the Farmer’s Market—the one where there are no farmers—went to Short Order and had an Ida’s Old School Burger and a Charlie Brown, a milkshake with 114-proof Old Grand Dad bourbon. With a red pen in hand, I began searching and marking the Writer’s Market for magazines to query.

I flashed back twenty-one years, when I was a ninteen-year-old aspiring writer with no clips, scanning the same book in search of a forum to showcase my first story, which would become that magical clipping that would unlock doors of editors throughout the country. How I longed for that first byline. It would finally come in Cycle News, a report on a motocross race in Santa Maria. It felt so good. Countless times did I proudly gaze at my name—“By Michael Lyons.” It did not fling open a new world for me, but still, it was the start.

I was doing the same thing again, but now I had scads of clips. Excellent ones. Prize-winning clips. So many grand clips I felt it was beneath me, the best street reporter in the city, to even have to talk about them or include them in a goddamn query letter. Still, it was kind of exciting. Like starting over. Like being young again.

On my way out, I walked over to Littlejohn’s to get a pound of English toffee for Francesca. She loved that stuff, one of her few indulgences, one of my many. Then to Bob’s Donuts to get glazed crumb and chocolate for Francesca’s son, Oliver, and his buddies.

The sweets reception was disappointingly lackluster from Oliver and Francesca, both busy, he on his Mac, she on her Samsung. I headed to my cottage on Landa Street.

Not ten minutes after I got home, my front door was rattled with one powerful knock. I knew that knock.

“My two favorite detectives. Come on in,” I said, hoping LaBarbera and Hart were not here regarding my attempted visit last night to King Funeral. They were, but not for the reason I thought.

I tried to be nonchalant. “What brings you here? You find the guy who shot me?”

“No. We have a few questions,” Hart said, looking around my neat one-bedroom pad.

“Okay. You guys want some coffee? Water?”

“We’re good,” Hart said.

“How about some Olde English?”

Hart ignored that and asked pointedly, “Where were you last night between midnight and midnight twenty?”

“Why?”

“Just answer, Lyons.”

“What happened?”

“Where were you?”

“I’m a suspect in something?”

“Answer the fuckin’ question, Lyons,” said an annoyed Hart. LaBarbera just studied me.

“You know where I was. And Sal, thanks, man, for last night. I know it was stupid. Thank you.”

“You’ve helped me. Now we’re even. Just answer Johnny’s questions.

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