Lola: Chapter Four
Lola slept on the bus. This was not a good idea. She was kicked out at the end of the line and now she’s in a worse part of town than the one she started in. She pleads with the bus driver, but he doesn’t care, she’s not his problem, he sees this every day, drugs addicts, homeless, why does this one girl think she’s any better than they are.
And now she’s not. She’s walking down the street in her cheap flip-flops and once nice but now ravaged black dress that has been through an evening of drinking, a night of murder, a morning of a bomb blast, and an afternoon of riding city buses.
Man, this is a pretty bad street.
Lola is getting worried. A few cars cruise the streets. There are a few other girls out on the corners. There are a lot of homeless and drug addicts wandering everywhere. Lola would be even more worried for her own safety if she wasn’t so fucking tired. The sleep on the bus helped a little but not enough. Her body is sore from the day’s activities. She needs to rest. She leans against a stoplight. At least she should be safe there under its bright light.
The stoplight turns from red to green but the only car waiting for the light doesn’t move. Lola’s eyes are still closed. The sound of the car’s engine revs louder. She opens her eyes. The passenger side window of the of the older model gray Mercedes rolls down.
What the fuck is this guy doing?
Curious at what the fuck this guy is doing, Lola leans in to the passenger side window. The guy leans over from the driver’s side.
“How much?”
Lola is confused.
“What?”
“How much for an hour?”
You have got be fucking kidding me.
Lola takes a second. She’s going to tell this guy to literally go fuck himself.
But in that second she catches a hint of her reflection in the guy’s glasses. She looks down at her cheap flip-flops on her sore feet. She has a better idea.
“Five hundred.”
“Five hundred?”
“That’s the price.”
The guy looks her up and down. Even though she’s beat to hell, she is quite attractive in her once nice black dress and all.
“Okay. Where?”
“I want the money now.”
“Now?”
“Yes. Now.”
“I don’t know.”
“Half now, half at the motel.” Lola revises her offer, quickly reassessing her leverage in the situation.
“Otherwise, no deal.”
The guy thinks for a second, he looks her up and down for a second, he looks out at the other girls on the other corners. Lola’s the best looking one. Maybe she’s worth it. He reaches for his wallet.
“This better be good.”
He takes out the money and holds it in the air. Lola goes to take it. He pulls it back.
“Where?”
Lola doesn’t hesitate. “The Starlite Motel. Room 118. You know the place?”
“Yeah, I know the place.
“I’ll meet you there in a half an hour.”
She goes to take the money. He pulls it back again.
“How do I know you’ll meet me there.”
“I’m not getting in the car with you, I’m not that stupid. That’s not how this works.”
“Yeah, but, how do I know you’ll meet me there.”
Lola leans in to the car seductively. “Honey, you think I’m out here walking down this shithole street because I like the night air. I’m working. I want the other half of that money. I’ll meet you there.”
Lola can be convincing when she wants to be and the other party wants to be convinced. The guy drives off. Lola watches him leave. Maybe her luck is changing. She sees a taxi and waves it down and gets in.
“Where to?”
“As far from here as possible.”
Apparently, Redondo Beach is as far from here as possible because that’s where the cab driver takes Lola. It wasn’t a short ride or a cheap ride, but it did get her to the water. Lola always liked the beach. If she could remember she would remember that was one of the reasons she moved to Los Angeles. The beach. The beautiful ocean. Not those stagnant lakes in the middle of the country where she is from. She paid a heavy price to live in a place with a beach. Maybe she should have moved to Florida instead.
In the early 2000s the beach towns of the south bay area of Los Angeles weren’t quite as expensive as they would become in only a few years time later in the decade, so Lola is able to find an affordable motel for the night. Another motel. Hopefully, this one doesn’t blow up.
The clerk doesn’t seem concerned about potential explosions. He seems bored because he is bored. He checks Lola in and she pays with cash and he doesn’t care she doesn’t have any identification. Better to not ask questions about these kinds of things.
Lola gets her room key and walks to her not quite seedy motel room and opens the door and goes straight to the bed and sits down. Unlike most times in her life when she’s entered a motel or hotel room, she doesn’t have anything to unpack, just her past and she doesn’t remember that. She notices the phone on the bedstand. She takes out the Dorothy Drake card and dials. Now that her luck is changing maybe the second time will be luckier than the first.
The phone rings.
And rings.
And rings.
The machine picks up again, the automated voice telling her to leave a message again. Lola leaves a message again.
“I need to talk with you. It’s urgent. It’s a matter of life and death. Please, pick up if you are there.”
Lola waits.
And waits.
No one picks up.
The line beeps, her time is up. Lola hangs up and falls back into the bed sideways, her feet still on the ground. She closes her eyes.
Finally, sleep. Real sleep. In a bed. In a bed without a dead guy next to her. It’s amazing how quickly one can get into a dream state when one is so damn tired. She drifts into dreams.
But a thought hits her like a slap to the head.
Damnit. I need sleep.
She fights the thought. The dreams are so much nicer than reality. Let me stay in the dreams. But the thought keeps nagging. And nagging. And punching her in the face.
Fuck it.
Lola gets up from the bed, her feet never leaving the ground, and walks out of her room and to the front desk. The bored clerk is still there, still bored. For some reason he isn’t excited to see the lady in the black dress who paid in cash coming back to the front desk to break up his boredom. She’s probably here to complain about something.
“Can I ask you a favor?” Lola asks him.
She’s definitely here to complain about something.
“I guess.” The bored clerk warily answers.
Lola holds up the Dorothy Drake card.
“Can you look this person up for me?”
She hands him the card.
“Dorothy Drake. I can make your dreams come true.” The clerk reads the card aloud. Now this is interesting. The bored clerk is willing to help interesting requests. He goes to the computer and googles the name and phone number.
“Are you looking to buy a house?”
“What?”
“Dorothy Drake. It looks like she’s a real estate agent.”
“I guess that explains the tagline.”
“What did you think she was?”
Lola is flummoxed. She honestly has no idea. But somehow a real estate agent is so less exciting than any of the other possibilities. So pedestrian, so mundane. A real estate agent doesn’t seem like someone who would trap you in motel rooms with dead guys and bombs and write messages telling you goodbye. This must be one fucked up real estate agent.
“Is there an address?”
“No. No address. Just a name and number. Honestly, the site doesn’t look professional. I don’t know if I would trust this Dorothy Drake person.”
“Thanks. I’ll remember that.” Might be a little too late for that advice.
Lola turns to walk back to her room. The bored clerk doesn’t want to let it go now that he has decided to be helpful.
“If you want her address maybe you should give her a call?”
As she uses her shoulder to exit the door Lola answers the clerk. “Yeah, I might try that.”
One unproductive visit to the front desk later, Lola is back in her room, back sitting on her bed sideways, staring at the business card of Dorothy Drake and the key that looks like some kind of house key, trying to remember. Trying to force herself to remember. She lays back into the bed again, even more exhausted then when she laid back into the bed a couple of minutes ago. Her whole body hurts. Her head still hurts. Her feet hurt. Even her fingernails and toenails hurt. What a fucking day. Finally, finally, finally, she falls asleep.
A car sits across the street from the moderately priced one-story Redondo Beach motel. Walters is in the car. He watches the light that is still on in Lola’s room as she sleeps. He takes out his phone to call someone. That someone is Jackson.
He doesn’t bother with pleasantries when Jackson answers.
“I don’t think she’s the one.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Call it a hunch or whatever. She’s not the one we should be after.”
“I don’t care about your hunches, she’s the one.”
“She’s not acting like I would expect her to act, like she should act if she planned this. She’s acting more like... she’s trying to remember or trying to find something out. She’s not the one.”
“I know Moreno put you on this, but I’m running the show. She’s the right girl. Only one person emerged from the rubble and it was her. I don’t want any of your fucking hunches, got it?”
Walters doesn’t answer.
“Got it?”
Walters still doesn’t answer.
“I’m asking you a question, do you understand me?”
“Yes.” Walters finally answers.
Click. Jackson hangs up. Walters looks at his phone.
“Asshole.”
Walters sets his phone down and keeps watching the motel room with its one light on. Walters hunches down in his car and reclines his seat. It’s going to be a long night.