Ryan Jahn - Low Life

He ran his fingers through his hair and then wiped his sweat-damp and pomade-oiled palms against the legs of his pants.

His thoughts were directed inward and he didn’t even notice the girl until she was standing directly in front of him, her knees inches from his knees, her breasts directly in front of his eyes. He tilted his head up to look at her face. She was maybe eighteen, certainly no older than twenty. She was wearing a short skirt and a white blouse. Her hair was short and black. A backpack was strapped over her right shoulder, and there were childish tchotchkes – lanyards and key-chain ornaments – hanging from the various zippers. But there was also something sensuous about her that – combined with the childishness still clinging to her despite her tentative steps toward adulthood – made Simon uncomfortable. A woman’s body despite the young face and something in the eye that said she knew a lot more than she pretended. Or perhaps she was pretending to know more than she did.

‘I was worried about you, Professor,’ she said. ‘Where did you get that scar on your cheek?’

‘I cut myself shaving.’

‘It’s kind of sexy.’

‘And you are?’

‘Is this some kind of game?’

Simon smiled out of nervousness, because he didn’t know what else to do.

She smiled back.

‘Kate Wilhelm,’ she said, and Simon saw by the sparkle in her eye that she thought it was indeed a game of some sort. ‘And I’m having an awfully difficult time learning all the hard, hard math you teach.’ She sat on his lap. Simon saw something like nervousness flicker behind the eyes and realized that she was acting, playing a part she’d seen in movies, or imagined herself playing while sprawled out on her bed, pretending to be all grown up. He could understand that: playing a role you had been assigned or had assigned yourself. It was part of life, wasn’t it? Every day, in order to live with others, you pretended to be something just a little different from what you really were. That it was obvious with Kate, that the role she was playing didn’t quite fit on her, made him like her. ‘Maybe you can tutor me. I saw in the paper that your wife has a thing tonight. Maybe I can come over and we can run through some equations.’

‘She expects me,’ he said. ‘Tonight. To be there.’

‘So,’ Kate said. ‘Go but leave early. She has to stay all night. You don’t.’ She stood up and touched the scar on his face, ran a red-painted fingernail along it. ‘I’ll be waiting for you.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ he said.

‘Oh, goody.’

She stood and pivoted on a shiny black shoe and swayed away, sparing a glance and a ‘See you later’ before she disappeared into the hallway.

Simon tongued the inside of his mouth and felt a heaviness in his gut like he’d swallowed a brick.

He ate lunch – which is to say he ordered lunch and picked at it without eating much of anything – at a Greek sandwich joint on Ventura in North Hollywood. Once he’d tired of staring at the food on his plate – a gyro and hummus and tabouleh – he got back into his car. He took Ventura to Lankershim, and drove north toward Dr Zurasky’s office.

Ten minutes later he pulled into a parking lot in front of a strip mall. The first floor was filled with standard businesses – a pizza joint and a dry cleaner’s and a barber shop and a liquor store – but the second floor had quiet little businesses with no signs, or small signs that couldn’t be read until you were already upstairs. The kind of places you’d never see unless you already knew they were there.

Dr Zurasky’s office was on the second floor between an aromatherapy place and a medical marijuana place.

He pulled open the fingerprinted glass door and walked into the cool blue reception room.

Ashley was sitting behind her desk, and when he walked in she glanced up. At first, there was a look of confusion on her face, and then she smiled.

‘Hello, Mr Shackleford.’

‘Ashley.’

‘How are you today?’

‘I’ve been worse.’

‘That’s thinking positive. I’ll let Dr Zurasky know you’re here.’

She got to her feet and walked around her desk. She did not have a pretty face – she was rather plain and her hair was dull and flat and colorless – but she had unbelievable legs, long and muscular and perfectly shaped, and Simon was pretty sure she knew it. She took every opportunity to show them off. She could as easily have let Zurasky know Simon was here by telling him over the phone’s intercom. She poked her head into Zurasky’s office and said something inaudible, pulled her head out, and closed the door.

‘He’s got a few more minutes with his one o’clock.’

Simon nodded and sat down on a vinyl couch.

There were several magazines spread across a coffee table, but he didn’t even consider picking one up. Instead, he sat there wondering where Zurasky fit into the picture. He had something to do with this. Simon couldn’t figure out what though. He had been Shackleford’s doctor as well. It couldn’t be simple coincidence that two men who were nearly identical had been seeing the same shrink. Never mind the fact that Simon hadn’t seen him in over a year. Los Angeles probably had more shrinks per capita than any other city in the world – it certainly had more people who needed one – so it couldn’t be simple coincidence. Somehow Zurasky was involved.

That thought made Simon feel sick to his stomach. Had Zurasky been manipulating Shackleford? Had he been—

‘Hey, Jeremy.’

Simon looked up. Zurasky was standing in the doorway to his office and the glass front door was swinging shut behind a heavyset blonde woman who was wearing a pair of pink sweatpants and a man-sized T-shirt.

‘Hi.’

Zurasky was a kind-looking man with a wild head of hair and round cheeks and glasses. He was wearing a pair of striped slacks and a blue shirt with one of the sleeves rolled up and a pink tie with pictures of golfers on it. He had one bad arm, a stump which he said he was born with. It grew about six inches past the elbow and ended in a smooth rounded-off mound, but today the sleeve was folded over it and pinned up so it wouldn’t flap about like a windsock.

He smiled a wide open smile.

‘Are you coming in?’

Simon blinked.

Zurasky suddenly seemed cold behind the jolly facade.

Simon stood up, took a step toward Zurasky, and then stopped.

‘You know – I’ve changed my mind.’

‘You’re already here,’ Zurasky said. ‘You can’t change your mind.’

‘But I have.’

‘Nonsense. Come on.’

He stepped aside and gestured for Simon to enter his office. Simon had seen it many times – blue walls and carpet, just like the waiting room, with a big oak desk and shelves lined with books and a vinyl chair and couch that matched the one he’d just been sitting on – but somehow today it seemed incredibly uninviting. He didn’t want to go in there. He didn’t want to go in there at all – not until he knew how Zurasky fit into this.

Simon shook his head and backed toward the glass door.

Ashley simply sat at her desk. The phone was to her ear but she was staring at Simon. He didn’t like the look on her face. She was probably in on it – whatever it was.

‘Jeremy,’ Zurasky said. There was a sternness in his voice, but he kept on smiling. Simon didn’t like it. His adoptive father, when leaving a car dealership, or flipping the channel on a politician or a televangelist, had liked to repeat a saying he attributed (incorrectly, Simon thought) to Mark Twain: ‘Never trust a man who prays in public or one who smiles all the time.’ While he hadn’t liked his adoptive father much, it had always seemed very good advice.