40...

Lester closed his phone with a slight grimace on his face. He was pissed that Vanessa had no information and yet had this… this attitude. He was also pissed that he had to be teamed up with her to begin with. They’d been having the same philosophical argument for nearly ten years now and the only thing that kept them from coming to an amiable solution was that they were both horribly stubborn in different ways.
He wanted to throw the ridiculously small phone to the ground and stomp it to pieces. He realized this was not a good idea. He realized it was not the phone that he was angry at. He realized that he was letting his anger get away from him. He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing slowly and through his nose.
Lester supposed that The Big Guy had an action plan, that that was why he had probably been put on assignment with Vanessa again. Then again, it could be that The Big Guy just liked to torture his employees and that he knew the more Lester and Vanessa were lumped together, the greater the chances of a ballet-like knife fight breaking out. The fucker probably has odds laid out with the rest of the company.
And then Tommy had been thrown into the mix this time.
He realized he was being a little egotistical in assuming The Big Guy’s decisions had anything to do with his feelings. He realized that he and Vanessa had been involved with this case for a number of years and they were simply the best for the job.
But why Tommy? Tommy was younger, cuter, and more athletic. He had longish, curly blond hair and these sad puppy eyes that drove most women crazy. Quite a few men as well, truth be told. Lester hadn’t really thought that Tommy was terribly bright, but there was a viciousness in his smile that was palpable.
Lester had, at the behest of the company, recruited Tommy. He hadn’t been in charge of Tommy’s training however. That was left to the really devious fuckers on the ninth floor. Lester’s own trainer had been ambushed by a former student and fed alive to a pit full of infant crocodiles. Lester wasn’t a big fan of Tommy from the get go, didn’t really understand why he would have been a valuable member of the team, but he was smart enough to know that there were reasons for actions beyond his shallow understanding.
He realized that most of the dislike directed at Tommy was jealousy. He realized that he was envious of Tommy’s youth and good looks. He realized that if he brought this up in one of his sessions with Dr. Cooper, the company appointed head shrinker, Dr. Cooper was likely to accuse him of being gay for Tommy.
Bullshit.
Whatever the reasons for putting Tommy on this leg of the case, it felt to Lester like a jab at his abilities. True or not, it felt like The Big Guy was telling him that he hadn’t gotten the job done yet and this one obviously needed someone younger, someone a little fresher.
Lester looked down towards Tommy who was about forty yards away and showboating for some passing joggers. Lester narrowed his eyes in an annoyed glare. The kid really hadn’t changed since the day he pulled him out of his former life at NYU.

39...

Fat, nearly to the point of jiggling, a tight and drum-like stomach filled with ivy and poison oak, a large rat trundled its way through the underbrush. There was a huge rat population in the city, just as in any other city, but you didn’t really see them too often in the park. It could be that there were more predators hiding in the weeds. Maybe the rats just got more brazen when there were less shadows to cover them.
This rat in particular was doing its best to scoot out of the park and into the Outer Sunset. It dashed across a nearly empty street, scurrying near the wheels of parked cars, and dove into the thick and damp underbrush.
It’s nearly a cliché, the idea that our sense of smell is directly connected to the oldest parts of our memories. It might be remnants from the day when we had to nose the air for the musky smell of mates, or coming predators; a powerful sense hardwired to a near clinical center of survival. It wasn’t only smell that drove this rat to run a far circle around Uncle Eddie’s den, it was a sharp jab to a number of instincts in the survival center, a gift we all had before our predators became ourselves.
The rat could sense wrongness in the bushes around it, and twitched with each quick step to get out. It was almost something the rat could see, a blackness in the air that it nearly had to fight through like tight bands of paper.
If rats breath sighs of relief, this one certainly would have as it burst from the bushes and on to the curb at Lincoln. Its nose twitched, whiskers flailing, and quickly dove into a storm drain right below it. It trudged through city silt and rotting leaves, skittering beneath the street and exiting from another storm drain on the other side.
Scampering past rows of houses, driven on by the smell of the waste of a number of Asian markets, the rat nearly had its head kicked in by a white, stiletto heeled boot. The rat let out a high-pitched squeal and bolted south, following a zigzagging track through brush and gutter. The wearer of the boot looked after it with a scowl of disgust.
Vanessa Park turned from the sight of the retreating rat and once again headed East along Lincoln. If she hadn’t been wearing the heels, she would have nailed that fucker. But she couldn’t help herself, she loved her boots with heels.
She wore a skirt that only went down to the top of her thighs and boots that went nearly to her knees. Her self-assured strut belied just how cold she was, she walked with a purpose, she walked as if something hurt.
Digitally shrill notes from the opening of the song “I Will Survive” drifted out of her hip pocket. She snatched the phone out and opened it with a flick, answering with a demure yet pointed, “hello”.
She looked at the houses around her, her normally pretty face distorted by contempt. She hated the Sunset. She hated San Francisco. As a matter of fact, she wasn’t a big fan of California period.
“Um-humm,” she murmured into the phone. “Yes, I know. I know. You’re going to have to trust me on this one. Listen Lester, I know she’s on her way here.”
Vanessa stopped walking. She tilted her head to the side and smirked while Lester’s nasal voice dripped out all small and tinny.
“Because I can smell her,” she said and began walking again.

38...

Way back in a close den, within the dense branches of a stunted cypress tree, in a matted hole in the plant life that smelled of cheap liquor and piss, a large and thin man lay on dried fir needles with one sickly green eye open.
Many homeless people had used this hole before, as had many junkies. It carried a sense of desperation that drove back any feeling of nurturing that the plant life vainly attempted to throw out. The very air within was a thick and dank, fetid affair that birthed tumors of sadness, hopelessness and lost ways; it drove away images of purity like a cold wind eradicating smoke. In many ways it was the perfect place for Uncle Eddie to catch a few winks.
Uncle Eddie lay on his left side, curled with his knees towards his chest so his body made a spindly G. That one open eye turned slowly in its socket as though it were a machine, a quick, reptilian blink however, broke that illusion.
He had sensed the biker’s anger from a mile away, literally. He could feel it coming through the air, vibrating his body like a rabbity and spastic bass beat. He could smell it, like a strong and long wisp of burned toast. He had tasted it as this foul air fell in over his teeth and it had been the flavor of steel and chlorine, and something sweet; the taste of untouchable desires.
That is what had snapped him awake like an alarm bell ringing, this pulsing and delicious anger. He didn’t move, he had much better control than that. He sat and determined just where this beacon was coming from and after a moment, he slowly opened his eye.
At that same moment, Uncle Eddie felt that knot of anger ramp up into a snapping fear. This was something even more fabulous than the anger that had preceded it. Fear was the properly aged Bordeaux to anger’s piss bottled wino wine. Fear made Uncle Eddie’s cock stand up and take notice.
Once the biker was away, Uncle Eddie flared his nostrils, trying to pull up all that the biker gave. He lost the scent somewhere about the time the biker reached the ocean.
He closed that murky eye and turned his mind to dark fantasies that pulsed with an almost reptilian consciousness. Down in that moaning darkness there writhed beasts never named. These were fantasies that, visited on a normal man, would break minds like a hammer through dinnerware.
Uncle Eddie faded back into sleep, his wiry arm wrapped around the mangled carcass of a large raccoon as though it were a teddy bear.

37...

Joel Coiler was an intense rider of bikes. There was no such thing as a quick and leisurely ride in the world of Joel Coiler; he rode hard and he rode with a purpose. Normally, his mind would be a cool blank, nothing in focus, nothing absorbed. In fact, his speed rides through the park were rarely remembered when he returned home to his Castro apartment.
Today he couldn’t quit thinking about stupid drama, and it was distracting him, and nothing pissed him off faster than not being able to lose himself in a ride. He had already turned his head to look back at that guy that seemed to be nodding off on the park bench. This was such an abnormality of behavior for him that he felt the need to hit himself to try and shake himself out of it. Where most people, feeling a similar inclination, would have smacked the handlebars of the bike, Joel punched himself upside his helmet.
Anger was a familiar emotion to Joel, but it was one that he did his best to hide from the outside world, just like his dad. However, just like his dad, anger often thrived in the warm culture of his home. This was not something Joel was willing to look at fully, even though the idea sang to him like some annoying song stuck in his memory. He was also not willing to accept that this was a reason for Jerry’s leaving.
Yeah Joel and Jerry, everybody had always thought that was so cute. But what were his friends going to think when they found out Jerry was leaving him for some other guy. And how long had he been fucking this guy? Joel clamped his jaws together, grinding his teeth and with a look of fury, he pushed on the peddles even harder.
Jerry was a painter that was truly great in the mind of Jerry, but merely decent in the minds of most others. Joel had put up with his “artistic” nonsense for years, paying all of the rent and bills so that he could paint and not be fettered by society’s unrealistic expectations of a job. Jerry had always talked down him, as if being a painter was well above being an account exec. Jerry had always flirted voraciously with other artists, and wrote it off that Joel wouldn’t understand because he wasn’t a painter. Jerry had a secret hatred of his own gayness that made Joel consider him weak.
His mom would be happy, she’d never really liked Jerry. Joel just felt played. He resented having put up with Jerry’s slacker, artist bullshit just to have him run off with some art fag on Telegraph Hill.
Joel let out a rough little bark, something he sometimes did at home when he needed to relieve some internal pressure. He was already mostly through the park, back closer to the ocean where the cypress trees and various plants seemed to feed on the briny fog and grow thicker, more wild.
He suddenly felt his heart pick up speed. It was a feeling he was familiar with for sure, but it was not from the exercising, it was adrenaline flooding his system. There was a fierce flicker of fear riding his spine.
Stopping so suddenly that he nearly went over the handlebars, Joel began shaking. Some uncontrollable sense of dread was climbing over him like a living shadow. He could feel something watching nearby and he began whipping his head around to try and see anything through the overgrown brush. Only the sense of watching and waiting was there, the sense that this was no ordinary raccoon or possum in the park, but something big.
Joel jumped quickly back on his bike and peddled faster than he had known he could.

36...

Frank stared down the bike path, towards the deep depths of the park, as if he were still watching Mike walk away. He scanned through his memory of what Mike had said, trying to make sense of it, trying to form a more manageable shape for it in his mind. He was trying to figure the importance of it. Somewhere in the deep wiring of his head, where instinct curled itself on a moth eaten rug and napped, a spark was firing and trying to get his attention.
Every time that Frank felt that rush of sudden discovery, his mind would suddenly become unfocused and he would lose what he had just glommed onto. It was like hearing the song he had in his mind disintegrating under the power and volume of a pop tune blaring from a stereo.
He heard the shuffling staccato beat of a runner coming up the path and turned warily to look. He felt his heart suddenly freeze in his chest and a mad voice charging his body to bolt. This runner had no face, no features, just a plain white field that shown back the pale sunlight.
Various reasons flooded through his mind at once; a ghost, a seriously deformed person, a hallucination. When the runner got up close, Frank realized he was wearing some sort of cloth over his face, below his eyes. He assumed this was to keep the runner warm in the fog-tinged air. The guy’s cap had shadowed the top half of his face, making the illusion whole. The guy saw Frank staring gaped mouth and he slowly turned his head to give him a wary look as he passed.
Frank sat back on the bench, breathing deep and trying to calm down.
“Seriously, man,” he said to himself.
He thought of Alexis and couldn’t help smiling. He closed his eyes and could clearly see that devil-may-care grin coming back at him, the sparkle in her eyes that gave absolutely nothing away. Somehow he knew she was in some sort of trouble, so far he had a series of random clues, but no proof. All the same, he knew it with a certainty.
Frank began to develop fantasies of rescuing her from her troubles, of defending her against faceless enemies with force he did not have. He imagined picking her up at her weakest, finally, and carrying her and having her lavish him with her affections for being there. Frank would remain stoic and proud, of course accepting her passionate accolades, but never showing that they were affecting him in any way. He would take her hand, strongly and firmly, and lead her through the dark forest.
Realizing that he was beginning to drift off, Frank shook his head to wake himself. He slowly, dopily, lifted his eyes open.
Yet another speeding bike shot past him like lightening, flying away towards the heart of the park.