Denise Hamilton - Los Angeles Noir

Couple of silly females , I’d tell him. Chara just fell off her goddamn shoes. Marcus and Terrell and I would laugh about Chara later. I’d sit on that creamy Naugahyde with my arm around her and we’d be drinking a beer and laughing about poor Chara and her stupid shoes.

The guy reached out his window and grabbed Chara’s arm with his giant’s hand. He started to roll forward. Chara had to run along with him. He sped up. Terrell was running too, trying to peel his fingers from Chara’s arm.

I hurried back to my mother’s car. I opened the back door and the case fell out onto the ground. It fell hard and I worried about breaking whatever was inside. I picked it up. Something inside had come loose. Something was bumping around in there.

“Here!” I came running toward the town car. “Take it.”

Chara was trotting now, and blubbering. On those spike heels she was jogging, but she was getting tired. She stumbled and then she fell and made this horrible choking sound, but he didn’t let go, he just dragged her along next to him. Terrell screamed then. A beautiful, high scream, as much like a bird as a woman, in so much pain it hurt my heart to hear it. She put her fists over her eyes.

Good , I thought. Good. No one should see this. My sweet baby can’t see this . The driver dragged Chara until she stopped flopping, and then he dropped her. She lay there and he backed up and ran right over her. Then forward. There was this popping sound, loud as a firecracker but more hollow and round, and then a scuffling, and when I looked again, Chara’s legs were flat, but her arms were clawing in the dirt. I wanted her to die so she’d stop that noise, stop scratching. She was like a fly with its wings plucked off. Terrell had fallen to her knees. I had the case in my hand.

“Here!” I screamed again at the guy. “Here!”

Take this, leave my girl alone. Take this suitcase.

I ran toward him, but he was spinning his car in the dirt, doing a 360, heading for Terrell. She got up. She was no fool, and she started to run. She zig-zagged back and forth so the car couldn’t follow her. Made me so proud the way she ran and tried to save herself. She ran like the wind, like a nymph, like an angel. I was coming straight toward the car. I held the case in front of me. He was coming for both of us.

“Stop!” I screamed at him. “Stop!”

I flung the case at the car, but the catch opened in the

M ICHAEL C ONNELLYis the author of seventeen novels, many of which feature LAPD Detective Harry Bosch. He lived in Los Angeles near Mulholland Drive for fourteen years and now splits his time between California and Florida, where he grew up.

R OBERT F ERRIGNOis the author of nine thrillers. His most recent book, Prayers for the Assassin, was a New York Times best-seller. For more information, visit www.prayers-fortheassassin.com and www.robertferrigno.com.

J ANET F ITCHis the author of the novels Paint It Black and White Oleander. She is a third-generation resident of Los Angeles, where she lives in the Silverlake district. Currently, Fitch teaches in the Masters of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California.

D ENISE H AMILTON’Scrime novels have been shortlisted for the Edgar Allen Poe and the Willa Cather awards. A native Angeleno, she is a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times and a Fulbright scholar. Visit her at www.denisehamilton.com.

N AOMI H IRAHARAis the author of the Mas Arai mystery series, featuring a Japanese American gardener and atomic bomb survivor living in Altadena, California. A former editor of The Rafu Shimpo daily newspaper in Los Angeles, she has produced more than seven nonfiction books related to Southern California and Asian American history. Her latest novel, Snakeskin Shamisen, is an Edgar Award finalist. Her website is www.naomihirahara.com.

E MORY H OLMES IIis a Los Angeles-based writer. His stories have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Sentinel , the New York Amsterdam News, Written By magazine, and other publications.

P ATT M ORRISONis a veteran Los Angeles Times reporter and columnist, host of a daily program on NPR affiliate KPCC, commentator for NPR’s Morning Edition , and author of a best-selling book on the Los Angeles River [non-fiction, really]. She has been a six-time Emmy-winning host and commentator for a local PBS public affairs program, and host of a nationally syndicated book show.

J IM P ASCOEmade a name for himself in the noir/crime fiction community as the copublisher of the critically acclaimed indie press UglyTown, which brought out his first two books, By the Balls: A Bowling Alley Murder Mystery and Five Shots and a Funeral. He is writing a dark manga series called Undertown, as well as a number of original comics based on Hellboy Animated. He lives in Los Angeles.

G ARY P HILLIPSwrites about crime, giant three-armed robots, babes with Ph.D.’s in tights, and other such subject matter. He is finishing up a novel set during World War II, coediting the Darker Mask anthology of edgy superhero prose stories, and writing a coming-of-age graphic novel about black and Latino teenagers growing up in ’80s South Central L.A.

S COTT P HILLIPSwas born in Wichita, Kansas, and spent many years in Paris before heading to Southern California. After moving, over a twelve- or thirteen-year period, from Studio City to Ventura to Woodland Hills to Koreatown to Pacific Palisades, he eventually gave up and relocated, tail between his legs, to St. Louis, Missouri.