Paul Kolsby - Ear to the Ground

“We were just talking,” Charlie told him.

“You should be working. What about Indio?”

“Indio was nothing.”

“There were two temblors less than a mile apart.”

“Tremors like that happen all the time out there.”

“Listen,” Caruthers said, “if you don’t think Caltech’s getting ready to make a prediction of its own …”

“Sterling,” Charlie said again, “those quakes don’t add up to a thing.”

“Then it’s your job to make them add up. We are here to predict an earthquake, gentlemen. Now, if we mark a course from Indio up to L.A. …”

Caruthers sat down at Kenwood’s work station and began to tap at the keyboard. On the screen, a map of Southern California took shape, a latticework of fine green lines. Charlie stared at it for a moment, thinking there was something delicate in its construction, a fragile balance similar to that of the earth itself. Certainly, he thought, there had to be a way to read that balance consistently. But it would take time to find.

Caruthers’s voice droned on and on as he plotted points on the computer, and Charlie stopped listening, hearing it as if through a wall. It was like a sound that came at him from the other apartment. In the last week, there had been lots of noises, and once he thought he’d heard someone in the hall, but it was only a cat scratching at his doormat, looking for a place to get warm. Charlie tried to concentrate on what Caruthers was saying, but he couldn’t stop thinking of the girl next door.

IAN WAS ALONE IN GRACE’S BEDROOM WHEN THINGS started to get weird. First the lights went out, then the darkness seemed to harden into solid particles. There was a moment of utter stillness, the most vivid stillness Ian had ever known, before a rumbling erupted all around him, the floor and walls and ceiling began to shake, and he felt himself going down.

Ian sat bolt upright, eyes blurred and rheumy, his face a greasy mask of sleep. Slowly, he took in the familiar surroundings: the wicker chair in the corner, the comfortable clutter of his clothing on the floor, and a pile of scripts — Grace’s weekend reading — by the bed. He put his hands out beside him, patting down the mattress as his breathing calmed. Solid, he thought. It was just a dream.

Suddenly the ground trembled somewhere behind the building, and the entire apartment groaned. Ian dove back under the covers, but the noise and movement didn’t last. So, after a minute, he got out of bed and looked out the window.

In the backyard, workmen were driving twenty-foot-long metal poles into the ground at even intervals. A sandy-haired man stood at the back door, consulting a clipboard. As Ian watched, the man nodded, and blasting renewed, the workmen punching another hole into the earth.

Charlie was halfway up the stairs when he saw Grace’s front door open. For weeks, every time he’d stepped into the hallway, the possibility of this moment had been at the back of his mind. Now, he felt unprepared. He hesitated, one foot dangling in the air, waiting to see her emerge.

But Grace didn’t emerge, just a wiry guy with uncombed dark hair, and a chin covered with a few days’ stubble. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. The boyfriend, Charlie thought, and passed him on the landing, taking out his keys.

“Hey.” Charlie turned around. The boyfriend was staring at him. “That your stuff in the yard?”

“Uh-huh,” Charlie answered.

“Building something?”

“It’s … an experiment.”

“You a scientist?”

“A seismologist.”

“No shit.” The boyfriend grinned. “From Caltech?”

“CES, actually. We’re a new …”

“You guys are gonna predict the Big One.” The boyfriend’s face opened in recognition, eyes bright as lasers. “I know you. You’re the guy who predicted Kobe. I read about you in the Reader .”

“Charlie Richter.”

“Yeah, that’s you.” The boyfriend stepped forward and put out his hand. “My name’s Ian. You want a cup of coffee?”

Ian finished brewing the last of Grace’s mocha java and poured Charlie a cup. “Be honest,” he said. “Is it true you guys already know how to predict earthquakes?”

Charlie laughed. He’d only known this guy five minutes, but already he was acting as if they were old friends.

“That’s what they said in the Reader ,” Ian continued. “Among other things.”

“Don’t believe everything you read.”

Charlie sipped his coffee and glanced at a stack of snapshots on the table. A pretty blonde in a bikini stood on Zuma Beach, jutting her hip provocatively and sticking out her tongue. Charlie had a pretty good idea who it was.

“That’s my girl friend,” Ian said, “Grace.”

Charlie examined the curve of her thigh, and the way her hair shimmered in the light. “Do you live together?”

“I have a place in Silver Lake, but Grace works all day. You work at home?”

“Sometimes. Today I’m buying a car.”

“Yeah? What kind?”

“I don’t know. Something simple.” Charlie paused. “A Honda Civic, maybe.”

“Are you kidding? Get something funky, a convertible, at least. This is L.A.”

“I don’t know …”

“Come on. Hondas are boring. You’re not a Honda kind of guy.”

Charlie looked down at the table, tracing a circle with his finger on the wood.

“Listen,” Ian said. “I’ll go with you. Just let me get dressed.”

When he was alone, Charlie reached for the snapshots. In each, Grace stared directly into the lens, as if she knew something he would never know.

There was one Charlie couldn’t get past, a close-up of her face. She wasn’t smiling, and her eyes flashed with sparks that could have been excitement, or anger, or both. Charlie looked at her for a long time.

Then he heard the bedroom door open, and, almost as a reflex, he slipped the picture into his pocket. Before he could reconsider, Ian appeared.

“All right, man,” he said. “Let’s go buy you a car.”

Grace raced home at lunch to pick up a script she’d forgotten. As usual, Navaro was sitting on the front steps.

“You’re looking lovely today,” he said as Grace came up the path. She smiled, but made sure not to meet his eyes.

“Hey. What’s your hurry?”

“I want to say hello to Ian.”

Navaro shook his head. “I don’t know what you see in that guy. Hangs around here all day while you work. Doesn’t even own a decent pair of pants.”

Grace continued to smile.

“Anyways, he ain’t up there. Took off with Charlie hours ago.”

“Charlie?”

“The scientist. Went to buy a car. ‘Course, I’ve been telling him ever since he moved in …”

But Grace was no longer listening. Charlie? With Ian? Weird. She brushed past the landlord, and went on up the stairs.

“WHY THE FUCK DID PARAMOUNT BID ON THAT SCRIPT before we did?”

“I thought we …”

“Don’t think, please.”

“But …”

“This office stays on top of everything! Do you understand?”

Grace had lost the jump on Paramount. That much was true. But Ethan was such an asshole. He was proud of it, and known for it. His shirts were so starched she hoped one day his collar would slice through the tender skin of his neck. He’d bleed to death, maybe be decapitated, while the office danced around him and sang “Ding-dong, the witch is dead.” Every day he trundled through those hallways, jiggling the change in his pockets, making sure his under-paid-lings did their jobs.

He’d hired Grace because he was wildly attracted to her. And not just to her sweet smile or her bouncy blonde hair. Grace was tough, and he liked tough. She was dating a screenwriter, he knew, and he’d wondered how long it would take her to bring the guy in for an assignment. It always happened, and Grace’s predecessor — an unfortunate, freckled girl named Jessica — had waited only three weeks to recommend her lay-buddy, some dolt who wouldn’t have known a plot-reversal if it slammed him in the face.