What Waits for You Page 7

  They exchanged another look. “We’re probably gonna take off. Long drive back to Pasadena.”

  Jarsdel hesitated. “I really wish you’d stay.”

  Neither man answered. As Jarsdel went with the deputy, he saw the waiter come out with their food, and Baba signaling for the check.

  * * *

  After he was done meeting with the deputy, Jarsdel went back to Monsieur Marcel on the off chance he’d been wrong about his dads. He wasn’t—they were gone. The waiter handed him his dinner, boxed and still a little warm.

  “You can have it here, if you like. Your friends wanted to take theirs with them, so I wasn’t sure.”

  Jarsdel thanked him and took the food back across the street to his apartment. As he was about to cross Third, he noticed one of the gas-mask man’s flyers taped to the base of a streetlight. After reading a few lines he tore it free and tossed it in a trash can. The city was sick, and the last thing it needed was more poison. He considered wandering the neighborhood, looking for more flyers to tear down, but he was tired and hungry and wanted the evening to be over.

  Once inside, he turned on a new Jeff Peterson album he’d bought, Ka Nani O Ki Ho’alu, and prodded at his food. He didn’t have enough enthusiasm to eat, and after a few minutes tossed his leftovers in the fridge. Jarsdel poured himself a glass of Meiomi pinot noir, tucked himself into the corner of his sofa, and picked up Dr. Alisha Varma’s textbook. It was called Matter over Mind: Security Concerns from a Psychosocial Perspective. He’d purchased a copy after attending her talk. The prose was stiff and clinical, even for a textbook.

  “A structure designed to welcome visitors,” she wrote, “consists of a harmonious marriage of affordances and visual transparency. A business indicates its accessibility by offering clear modes of entry, and these are designed to provide as little resistance as possible. Automatic doors pose the least impediment, requiring nothing of the customers other than their presence. These doors also allow for large purchases to be easily transferred from the store. An abundance of glass windows and an illuminated interior signify openness, trustworthiness, freshness, and cleanliness.

  “Obstacles, if present, are scaled to assist and encourage proper physical interaction with the space. Barriers, for example, are only built high enough to signify a path or a boundary, not to obstruct the view or frustrate a determined infiltrator.”

  Jarsdel skimmed ahead. He was due to meet with her the next morning, and he wanted deeper insights into her thinking than why shopping at big-box stores was such a breeze. The following section, “Anti-Affordances,” looked more relevant.

  “According to Gibson, an affordance is any characteristic of the environment offered to the animal—whether for good or ill. A flower is an affordance to a bee, but so is a pitcher plant to a fly. For our purposes, however, we’ll follow Dr. Norman’s narrower definition. An affordance is therefore an environmental cue or signal intended for a prospective actor upon that same environment. In other words, the inclusion of an affordance affects a causal relationship with usability, or human-centered design. The reverse is also true: the lack or purposeful omission of an affordance restricts usability.

  “But what of the anti-affordance? Here we finally encounter the proactive deterrent, and I include in this definition…”

  Jarsdel put the book down and rubbed his eyes. It was getting late, and he’d had too much wine. He wasn’t in the mood to hack his way through Varma’s text.

  Outside, someone screamed.

  It was no mere shriek of revulsion or fear—a spider dropping onto your shoulder, perhaps, or a pan of hot oil catching fire. This was the high, sustained scream of absolute, mortal terror.

  Jarsdel froze, listening. The night seemed to listen and wait, too. When no other sounds came, he opened the floor safe in his closet and took out his service weapon. Holding the Glock 40 at his side, he crossed quickly through the apartment, opened the front door, and stepped outside.

  He’d been expecting other doors to be open, concerned citizens peering out. He’d tell them he was with the police and ask them to point him in the direction of the commotion. But the street—in fact every street in view—was empty.

  Jarsdel reached back inside and traded his weapon for the Maglite he kept in a caddy near the door. He flicked it on and cut left, sweeping the beam over parked cars and hedges and—was that a man, crouching low in the dark? No. One of those old-fashioned wire-mesh trash cans. Jarsdel had mistaken the refuse bag as some kind of rain slicker. Now that he looked more closely, he saw there was no resemblance at all. Strange how the eye and the brain conspired against their host.

  “Hello?” Jarsdel called. “Everyone okay?”

  Nothing. Park La Brea was a large, multibuilding apartment complex—really its own gated village—with the Farmers Market to the north and the La Brea Tar Pits to the south. Jarsdel lived on Maryland Drive, not far from the Third and Burnside vehicle entrance gate, and he thought he’d check with security to see what was going on.

  The guard, probably a UCLA student, was writing a screenplay on his laptop. A tag on his uniform read “Bachelor,” and it took Jarsdel a moment to realize that was the man’s name, rather than a decree of his marital status.

  Jarsdel knocked on the jamb, and Bachelor looked up.

  “Hey, I’m a resident here but I’m also LAPD.” Jarsdel showed his identification.

  “Oh,” said the guard, staring with amazement at the badge. “What’s—what’s going on? I’ve only been on shift for like a half hour, so if something happened…”

  “I heard a scream. Three or four minutes ago. You hear anything?”

  “A scream? I don’t think so.”

  “No one called anything in to you?”

  “No. Where was it? Inside the complex?”

  Jarsdel frowned. “I don’t know. It was loud. I guess it might’ve come from off the property.”

  Bachelor took a clipboard off his desk and made some notes. “This is an incident report. You guys probably use the same kinda thing.”

  “I’m familiar.”

  “And you say you heard this scream when?”

  Jarsdel shook his head. “Forget it.”

  On his way back to the apartment, he became aware of a growing chorus of sirens. Turning the corner onto Maryland, he saw the lurid red and blue lights of emergency vehicles. They splashed the sidewalk and danced on the buildings beyond the small pedestrian gate on the La Brea side. He debated going out there, but whatever it was, there were already plenty of officers on scene. If they wanted to know what little he had to tell them, they’d canvass his block.

  Before he went back in, he noticed that despite all the police activity, still no one had ventured out to see what was going on. That the arrival of the Creeper had diminished daily niceties had been something Jarsdel was learning to live with, but this was something new entirely. Now his fellow Angelenos didn’t even seem to enjoy the relative pleasure of gawking at each other’s misfortunes.

  3

  Another tremor—not as powerful as the last one, but still formidable—jolted the city awake just before sunrise. This time, some claimed the sound of the quake closely resembled the word over. Or perhaps it was older. What did it mean? It was perfectly vague, and invited dedicated speculation. Whatever it was, it certainly couldn’t be good.

  Appearing that morning on Good Day LA, UCLA psychology professor Lorimer Todd tried to rein in such superstitions, assuring the audience that the attribution of speech to the earthquake was the result of a cognitive illusion. “It’s audio pareidolia. We tend to seek out patterns in random fields of data. We do it with our eyes when we look at clouds or tree bark, and we do it with our ears when we play Black Sabbath records in reverse.”

  Jarsdel didn’t care if the earthquake recited all five stanzas of “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” He guarded his sleep jealously, and to have
it snatched away so rudely had soured his morning. He was even less enthusiastic than before—if that were possible—to meet with the LAPD’s lauded consultant.

  Dr. Alisha Varma had set up her makeshift office in a small, mostly unused conference room. The place smelled like old coffee, and Varma had put out several small beeswax votives to combat the odor, giving the overall impression of a low-rent spa. She’d also had a bookshelf installed, which already bulged with manuals, textbooks, and federal, state, and county legal codes. The walls were bare—no degrees, maps, or calendars—save for one piece hanging to the left of the desk: a print of a bleak Renaissance masterwork.

  The painting depicted three men, bloated, their expressions stupefied, who lay sprawled on a patch of barren earth beneath a bent and leafless tree. There was food all around—a wheel of cheese, pastries, savory pies—and stranger offerings as well. A soft-boiled egg ran on squat, fleshy legs, a spoon jutting from its open shell. A roast pig, carving knife already slipped into its flank, meandered near a bush made from loaves of bread. Meanwhile a half-dressed knight squatted under a lean-to, his mouth open wide; in the distance, a figure clutching a wooden spoon crawled out from a mass of what looked like dough or pudding.

  Jarsdel thought the piece a little strange to be hanging in the office of a department employee and supposed it was part of some one-size-fits-all strategy Varma used to psychoanalyze her visitors. She hadn’t arrived yet, which was suspect in itself, and Jarsdel would be amazed if she didn’t lead off by asking what he thought of the painting. “Sorry, I’m late,” she’d say. Then, indicating the painting, “Weird, huh? Some people say it reminds them of their dreams. Does it resonate at all?”

  On the desk in front of him was a perfectly square, leather-bound volume. It wasn’t a book, though. Instead of pages, there were plastic sheets, hundreds of them—each a different color. Out of curiosity, he picked it up and began thumbing through them. They seemed to be samples of some kind, each one having its own name. Equator Dawn, Picasso Blue, Seasick Green. They reminded him of the names for different hues of paint you’d find at the hardware store, though none of those would’ve been called Seasick Green or Bastard Red.

  “Sorry, had to use the restroom.” Varma crossed the room briskly on her lean, shapely legs. “Really should’ve scheduled these in twenty-five minute chunks instead of half hours. Live and learn.”

  “Not at all,” said Jarsdel, beginning to stand.

  “Oh, no need to get up.” Varma gently touched his shoulder and the two shook hands. Instead of going behind her desk, she rolled her chair around to his side. She pulled up close, their knees almost touching.

  “Like those gels?”

  “Sorry?”

  “What you’re holding,” said Varma. “Color’s a magical thing. It affects our moods, our emotions, even our actions.”

  Here we go, thought Jarsdel. He set the sample book back on her desk. “Uh-huh.”

  “Part of my job is in R&D, and I spend a lot of time with color. Work with lighting designers to find out which hues are most offensive to the human eye.”

  “Why is that good?” asked Jarsdel.

  “You’ll see. Presentation’s next week. Hope you can make it. Anyway, you’re Detective Jarsdel. Am I pronouncing that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the derivation of that, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “It’s English. Almost extinct, actually. I think my dad and I are the only Jarsdels outside the UK. And they’ve only got a handful over there.”

  Varma smiled, revealing a slight overbite. “How interesting. An endangered surname. I don’t think such a thing ever occurred to me.” She cocked her head. “You know, you look familiar.”

  “I was at your presentation.”

  “No, from something else. Maybe you look like an actor or something?”

  This had happened to Jarsdel before. “I was on a case not too long back. It got some publicity. Possible you came across my picture somewhere.”

  Varma studied him. “Did someone do a book on that? The murders?”

  “Two, far as I know. Might be others by now. Had all the right ingredients. Pathos, torture, insanity, theatrics. And nonsexual serial homicide is rare, so when it comes along, people eat it up.”

  “Oh.” Realization dawned. “Oh. Right. I think I know the one you mean.” She looked at him with renewed interest. “The, um, that insane Hollywood guy. You were the one who caught him. So you’re kind of famous now, right?”

  “Not even a little,” said Jarsdel.

  “Even compared with your peers?”

  Jarsdel shrugged. “I guess. Doesn’t do me any good at work.”

  “Still.” She leaned forward. “You’re probably good publicity for the department. Someone people can get behind. I mean, how many lives did you save in just that one case, I wonder?”

  “No way to say.”

  Varma pursed her lips in thought. The two sat in silence a moment.

  “Well,” she said eventually. “I want to start off by thanking you for coming in. I assure you my presence here isn’t in any way a reflection on the work done by you and your fellow detectives. I also imagine this whole thing probably strikes you as a bit unusual.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  Varma’s smile broadened. “Not as much as you might think. It’s true that folks like me usually work more behind the scenes, and the changes we suggest are implemented with more discretion. But every technology—whether physical or social—requires a design, and virtually every design can be improved. I’m here to make some adjustments, and the kind I’m planning require the participation of everyone in this division.” She paused, evaluating him. “You’re skeptical.”

  “No.”

  “It’s okay. You’re not gonna hurt my feelings.”

  Jarsdel considered. “I’m curious, mostly. I know enough about bureaucracies to question their motives. They rarely do anything for the right reasons, and this feels more like a cover-your-ass maneuver in case the city keeps going to hell.”

  To his surprise, Varma laughed. “I agree completely. It’s definitely a case of CYA. But just because they do things for your so-called ‘wrong reasons’ doesn’t mean the goal itself isn’t worthy. A whopping fine might be the only reason a power plant doesn’t dump its waste in some pristine river, but the result would be the same if the executives were dedicated environmentalists: the river stays clean.”

  “Fair point. What do you need from me?”

  Varma raised her palms in a gesture of magnanimity. “Anything you like. Anything you want to tell me. What you think about the force, for example. How it’s commanded, how it can be improved. Totally between us. Or perhaps what could be done proactively on the street. Hollywood Area is, in a very real sense, a laboratory. We’re going to try things that haven’t been tried, and see how they work. I’ve been given pretty wide latitude.”

  Now it was Jarsdel’s turn to smile. “How the force is commanded and how it can be improved? I see. And am I protected by doctor-patient privilege?”

  “No. I’m not your therapist and you’re not my patient, so I’m not legally bound to keep our conversations confidential.”

  Jarsdel was about to protest, but Varma cut back in. “But c’mon, how long would I be in business if employees of the organizations I consult for didn’t trust me? I give you my word, if I need to communicate anything you’ve shared in this or any other meeting, your name absolutely will not be used. I’ll also make sure nothing you’ve told me is traceable back to you. No obvious details that would mark you out in some way.”

  “That implies,” said Jarsdel, “your judgment is refined enough to discern which details would mark me out.”

  “My judgment is excellent.”

  “Really?”

  “You don’t have to take my word for it. For what it’
s worth, I’m a member of the Prometheus Society.”

  “Oh.” Jarsdel nodded. “I guess that’s pretty impressive.”

  “Haven’t heard of us?”

  “I…”

  “Don’t feel bad. We’ve only got about a hundred members. You know Mensa, I presume? The hi-IQ society?”

  “Sure. Actually, my uh…” Jarsdel cleared his throat. “Ex-fiancée was a member. She even put it on her business card.”

  “Understandable. Lots of folks do. Puts you in the top 2 percent of the human population, intelligence-wise. That’s about one out of every fifty people. The Prometheus Society only admits members at the 0.003 percent mark, or about one in thirty thousand.”

  Jarsdel was glad he hadn’t shared how he actually felt about people who advertised their IQs. “Okay,” he said. “But can you really equate judgment with intelligence?”

  Varma smiled but didn’t answer the question. “Let’s start off easy. How safe do you feel? While you do your job, I mean. What’s your sense of the vibe out there?”

  “You should talk to patrol.”

  “I will. But right now I’m talking to you.”

  Jarsdel shrugged. “I’m a homicide detective. The vibe is generally not good.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, I guess I mean by the time my partner and I show up, the damage is done. I don’t get to do a whole lot of conflict resolution.”

  “Okay. So you—”

  “Not much schmoozing in general with the living public. We don’t visit grade schools, hand out police badge stickers to the kids.” Jarsdel didn’t know why, but he felt himself growing angry.

  “Is that what you think might be missing? More community outreach?”

  “That’s…” Jarsdel sighed and shook his head. “That’s not even my point. Forget it.”

  “I don’t want to forget it. Please, go back and see if you can develop that idea some more.”