Gregg Hurwitz: The Crime Writer

I woke up with IV's taped to my arms, a feeding tube shoved through my nose, and my tongue pushed against my teeth, dead and thick as a sock. My mouth was hot and tasted of copper, and my molars felt loose, jogged in their beds from grinding. I blinked against the harsh light and squinted into a haze of face, too close for casual a man straddling a backward chair, strong forearms overlapped, a sheet of paper drooping from one square fist. Another guy behind him, dressed the same rumpled sport coat, loose tie offset from open collar, glint at the hip. Downgraded to bystander, a doctor stood by the door, ignoring the electronic blips and bleeps. I was in a hospital room.

With consciousness came pain. No tunnels of light, no bursts or fireworks or other page-worn cliches, just pain, mindless and dedicated, a rottweiler working a bone. A creak of air moved through my throat.

"He's up," said the doctor from far away. A nurse materialized and fed a needle into the joint in my IV. A second later the warmth rode through my veins and the rottweiler paused to catch his breath.

I raised an arm trailing IV lines and fingered my head where it tingled. Instead of hair, a seam of stubble and stitches cactused my palm. Light-headedness and nausea compounded my confusion. As my hand drifted back to my chest, I noticed dark crescents caking the undersides of my nails.

I'd dug myself out of somewhere?

The cop in the chair flipped the piece of paper over, and I saw that it was an eight-by-ten.

A crime-scene photo.

A close-up of a woman's midsection, the pan of the abdomen crusted with dark blood. A narrow puncture below the ribs faded into blackness, as if a stronger flashbulb were required to sound its depths.

I raised a hand as if to push away the image, and in the dead blue fluorescence I saw that the grime under my nails carried a tinge of crimson. Whether from the drugs or the pain, I felt my gorge rise and push at the back of my throat. It took two tries, and still my voice came out a rasp, barely audible around the plastic tube. "Who is that?"

"Your ex-fiancee."

"Who… who did that to her?"

The detective's jaw shifted once, slowly, left to right. "You did."

My car occupied slot 221 in the impound lot. A Toyota Highlander, the hybrid model selected so I could drive an SUV and still think highly of myself. I turned over the engine and sat with my hands on the wheel, readjusting to the familiarity of this object that was mine. My head hummed; my scar, largely hidden by grown-back hair, prickled. I felt pressure beneath my face, as if I wanted to cry but my tears had forgotten the pathways. My radio had been left on, Springsteen still going down to the river despite the fact that it had yielded nothing but blue-collar heartache for three decades now. I wondered if I'd left the radio on myself or if somewhere along its towed journey someone had smacked the button. Had I been listening to music on my last nighttime drive? Had I been behind the wheel? Alone?

Of course, I had to pay a vehicle storage fee, six hundred-some bucks. I used a credit card that my keepers had been considerate enough to leave in my wallet while they'd safeguarded it for me. Driving home, I passed a flickering yellow sign and felt a sting of excitement as I parked, the promise of a new liquor store.

"I'm looking for bourbon. You got Blanton's?"

"Nope." The guy at the counter didn't look up from a black-and-white television the size of a clock radio. A cigarette dangled from his lips, supporting an impossible length of ash. I couldn't see the screen, but a reporter was providing updates about some schmuck who had the same name as me.

"Knob Creek?" I asked. He shook his head. "Maker's?"

His eyes pulled over to me, snagged for a beat. "Jack Daniel's."

I could've pointed out that Jack Daniel's is Tennessee sour mash, not bourbon, but I figured that my first stand back in the world should be over something of greater consequence. Box wine, maybe.

"Single-barrel?"

"Yeah, we got the single-barrel."

I felt his stare on my back as I left the store.

Two minutes later I was on Mulholland Drive. The asphalt vine clings to the ridgeline of the Santa Monicas, shooting tendrils north through the Valley to the Santa Anas and south into the L.A. Basin. On its eastern stretch, tourists pull over to snap shots of Hollywood writ large in white block letters. Persian palaces and mutant Pueblo Revivals perch along crests and hillsides, hiding behind gates and rock walls. It's a dangerous road, soaked in affluence and romance, home to the breached guardrail, the meandering Marlowe, the David Lynch fantasy, the 2:00 A.M. drunken head-on. You'll drive it too fast and be glad you did.

Tonight I went the speed limit, figuring I'd had my fill of problems. I rode Mulholland west, banking downslope just before the 405 and easing right off the stop sign. My cul-de-sac was as it always was, pinprick lit with porch lamps and walkway goosenecks, the freeway distant enough to sound like sighing waves. My house was unlit, but I paused to recognize its contours. Despite my absence, it looked the same Richard Neutra on a budget, a steel, glass, and concrete rise of intersecting planes and right angles that came together nicely but fell short of elegant. After my third book deal, I'd begged, borrowed, and borrowed to catch the lip of the ever-receding tide that is L.A.'s real-estate market. I'd paid too much, but the million-dollar view tacked on to the abrupt backyard consoled me in that. IfI couldn't afford it before the trial, I sure as hell couldn't now.

There were no news crews camped on my front lawn. No paparazzi hiding in seedy cars. No Geraldo Rivera in camo gear and full mustache, ready to pounce.

I pulled in to the garage, plucked the jar from the cup holder and the brown paper bag from the backseat, and headed inside. It felt odd to be carrying so little after so long. No suitcases, no carry-on, just the clothes I was wearing, a bottle in a bag, and a brain tumor in a jar.

I'd been gone four months, but the familiarity was undiminished. The catch of the opening door as the weatherboard scraped the threshold. The particular scent of the interior, a layered blend of carpet and tile, coffee and candle wax. Objects I'd bought, choices I'd made. The emotion rising through my chest broke the instant the door closed behind me. Alone in my house, I finally wept, standing, head bowed, tears dotting the floor at my feet despite the hand I'd clamped over my eyes in a futile attempt to keep the anguish from flooding out. I don't know how long I stood there shuddering, but when I removed my hand, the overhead light made me squint.

I trudged through my kitchen with its stainless appliances and teak cabinets, through the entryway with its repetitive Warhols that even I'd tired of long ago, past the wide staircase. Everything in the house was cold and sharp flagstone underfoot, marble corners on countertops, pointy knobs on drawers. The ambience now felt affected, hubristic. I supposed I should have been relieved to be home, even happy, but all I felt was unsure of myself.

I went to the only worn-in piece of furniture in the house, the club chair in the family room. Distressed leather, brass studs, matching ottoman displayed curbside at a garage sale near Melrose, it had brought my Highlander to a screeching halt. I seated Jack Daniel's and the brain tumor together on the coffee table, figuring they could swap trade secrets, collapsed into the chair, and felt my shoulders go limp for the first time in four months.

Deep breath. Longer exhale than seemed possible.

Nothing I'd written could compare to this. And I'd had ample opportunity for contrivance. I'd published five books, three of them optioned by the studios, one of which was actually made into a movie, albeit unrecognizable to my readers the three who saw it and myself despite the fact that I'd written the first draft. The produced script, about a priest bounty hunter, was named, I'm ashamed to admit, Hunter Pray, and it starred a crossover TV star who didn't cross over. My books feature Derek Chainer of LAPD's Homicide Special (unhappily converted into Father Chainer for aforementioned flop). In them, pain causes white bursts before the eyes and anger makes the head throb with rage. What my books don't do is capture the feeling of seeing your ex-fiancee's mutilated body in crime-scene photos. Or how hard it is to scrape dried blood from under your fingernails.