Chapter 22
22
I left David to whatever he wanted to do and took the elevator straight to the second floor. I didn’t even ask him what had occurred to him while we were at Henry’s car. I didn’t care.
I opened his apartment with my own keys, made my way inside, feeling very much at home, and started stripping. I knew he wouldn’t mind finding my clothes littered all around the place when he came back—or he shouldn’t, anyway. And even if he took his time doing I didn’t exactly know what, chances were I’d still be in the shower when he returned. Not because I was going to be waiting for him, but because I needed a long, relaxing, hot shower so badly.
I went to David’s bathroom wearing my most daring Commando mid-rise thong and Agent Provocateur sheer bra and was about to start the shower when I saw an incoming call. I didn’t turn the faucet on because I knew the conversation would take a while. I also knew that I had to answer.
I couldn’t catch a break, could I?
“Victor,” I answered, trying to sound normal, perhaps even cheerful. Have I already mentioned that I am the absolute worst? Perhaps you had deduced it even if I haven’t told you.
“Elena,” he said. Did I also have to do the heavy lifting with this conversation? You bet I did.
Several reaction lines popped in my mind: I guess you read the article in the Voice, I’m sorry I didn’t pick up before , I’ve been meaning to call you all day . This time I think I found the one combination of words that made the most sense.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I sounded sincere because I was. I should have broken up with Victor weeks before. And, since I pledged truthfulness to you, I’ll admit that I was, perhaps, using him to portray an image—that of an independent woman who had it all, including an aspiring job as a screenwriter on the brink of breaking through, and a gorgeous boyfriend. But I was broadcasting that image, the one that encompassed the highly enviable boyfriend, mainly to one viewer who also happened to be my neighbor. And by that, I don’t mean fucking chatterbox George.
I know the whole thing of pretending you’re above everything and are self-sufficient while still wanting to impress your ex all the time must be the worst paradox ever.
But I tried to stop thinking about me, for once, and put my mind to the task at hand. Nobody deserved to find out via link, the way Victor had, that their romantic partner was having a dalliance with their ex. Not even if their relationship is a non-exclusive one. I should have been the one to tell Victor.
“So it’s true then,” he said. “Because the article was so badly written, and it misrepresented your situation in such a way that I wasn’t quite sure.”
And there it was, the reason I’d never gotten to breaking up with Victor, other than my selfish will to make David jealous every single day of his existence. I liked Victor—and he got me. He was also a nice person. And, during those few first months that I was into him, he’d been quite the decent—sometimes even remarkable—lay.
“I guess I should have realized something was amiss,” he continued.
“Is it bad if I do the whole, It’s not you, it’s most definitely me thing?” I asked.
He sighed. “Are you breaking up with me then?”
“Aren’t you breaking up with me?”
“I’m going to be completely honest with you. If you’d picked up the phone when I called this morning, I would probably have done just that,” Victor said, but he sounded calm and measured. “I was enraged.”
“I get it.”
“But we have an open relationship,” he conceded.
“So you can’t complain...” I regretted those words the moment they left my mouth. But, by now, you know I am truly the worst.
“Elena, sometimes I think you have the emotional intelligence of a five-year-old,” Victor said. “But I like you nonetheless, and I’m a believer in mending things. I feel we had the perfect partnership. I’m not saying we shouldn’t talk about it. A few details could be ironed out going forward.”
Ironed out? Who the hell uses that expression when talking about a relationship? A politician, that’s who. Also, as you may have grasped, I’m not big into ironing—literal meaning or otherwise.
“We did have a great partnership, but it felt more like a business than a romance, no?” I argued. “You needed a plus one for a work event, I’d go and try my best at innocuous small talk. And then we’d leave the event, you’d go to your place, and I’d go to mine.”
“Well, nobody is perfect,” Victor said.
“Are you quoting Some Like It Hot to me?”
“Would it help my case if I said I was?”
I mean, yes. But I couldn’t keep doing the whole triangle thing. It wasn’t fair to him, and it wasn’t fair to me. Because, let’s keep things real, I was doubting my feelings about Victor, but subconsciously I knew what I felt about David. And it didn’t even come close.
“Can you promise we’ll be friends?” I asked.
“Ouch. Not even Billy Wilder could help me.”
“I was always more of a Hitchcock person—though it’s hard to ignore the stories about how he treated his actresses.”
“Of course.”
“But can we be friends?” I insisted.
“If that’s all you want to be, we’ll be friends,” he promised, and I knew he’d find a way of keeping his word. If for no other reason than I was still his boss’s daughter and someone incredibly well connected in Los Angeles. “Elena, be careful though. I’ve heard things. You know I’m not a gossip, and I know nothing about your personal relationship with David. But are you sure he’s telling you everything?”
“What do you mean?”
Victor paused, then said, “There are rumors.”
“He didn’t kill Dashing Henry,” I said, sounding perhaps a bit too frustrated.
“I wasn’t referring to those rumors.”
“What rumors were you talking about then?”
“The ones about a job offer, tentative to his ability to remain independent.”
“He’s always been independent.” I dismissed Victor’s words, his warning.
“In your view, perhaps. But there are people who think being linked to the mayor’s daughter disqualifies him. But these are just rumors, don’t put too much weight on them. I’m more worried about him being a killer.”
I scoffed. “He’s not a killer!”
“I gather you haven’t read the latest article?”
“Which one would that be now?”
“Sending the link right now,” Victor said. “Take care,” he added, and I know he meant it.
We finished saying goodbyes with the same fondness we’d always shared for each other and, before opening the link he’d sent me and simply moving forward to a new event on an extremely eventful day, I allowed myself to think about us. I cherished the time we’d shared.
We’d met almost a year before when he’d just moved to Los Angeles. My mother introduced us at some city hall party. He was her newest recruit. He was originally from Boston, and the fact that he was a stranger in a new city attracted me to him instantly, endeared me to him. Well, the fact that he looked outrageously sexy in a suit may have helped as well. And I say that fully aware that suits and blonds had never ticked anything for me before.
We managed to get drunk on the free booze at the party. Technically, he was off the clock and didn’t start working for the city until two days later, and I’m simply an incredibly bad influence. We told each other our life stories—a sanitized version of them, at least—and we ended up on a run to a pharmacy in need of condoms and from there straight to his place. I’d never been one to fuck on a first date, let alone the day I met someone. But it felt the most natural—and urgent—thing to do with him.
It fizzled out extremely fast after that though, and we soon found ourselves in a comfortable relationship based on frequent outings, infrequent chats about the same interests, and even more infrequent intimacy.
My phone buzzed then because I still hadn’t checked the message Victor had sent me with the link. I was brought back to that Friday in February where I had to add a breakup to the long list of things happening in a single day. I remedied my inattention to my phone and opened the link to the article Victor had shared with me.
Investigative Reporter David Ramos Looks Guiltier by the Minute
The LAPD has found new evidence that links former LA Gazette contributor David Ramos with the death of celebrated LA Misconducts actor Dashing Henry. Ramos was seen this morning at the Downtown police station with Mayor Aurora Valls’s oldest daughter, the perennially unemployed screenwriter and wild child Elena Freire Valls.
By Gloria Fucking Kingsley
We’ve already told you about LA Misconducts illustrious actor Dashing Henry’s fatal death in a hit-and-run that went terribly wrong. His body was found yesterday at the garage of the Downtown art deco apartment building Eastern Columbia.
Today new evidence arises connecting the death of the actor to the so-called investigative reporter David Ramos. Only a few hours ago, the city beat journalist was first suspected of having been the one driving and dispensing the final blow to Henry. Now the evidence against Ramos keeps piling up in a difficult-to-ignore way.
Sources familiar with the investigation say Henry’s autopsy results have shown high amounts of alcohol overdose. Even if the autopsy wasn’t able to determine the exact type of substance Henry drank—due to how quickly alcohol metabolizes in the body—the LAPD has hired the services of an expert forensic odor profiler.
What the actual fuck! Not in my wildest, most imaginative moments as a screenwriter would I have thought about adding a character who was a smell expert! I was hooked by the turn of events, and I continued reading.
The smell expert was brought in by the lead LAPD investigators to determine if there were any connections between the evidence found at the crime scene and a potential suspect. Law enforcement sources who wish to remain anonymous say the forensic odor profiler was able to identify the intoxicating beverage Henry had drunk before his death as Fernet-Branca Liqueur.
Fernet-Branca has a characteristic licorice-like odor and around 75% of its world production is consumed in Argentina.
Ramos, who is of Argentine descent, is a self-proclaimed Fernet-Branca lover. The reporter has openly written about his taste for this spirit in several of his posts on social media, and the police believe this furthers their case against him. They believe Ramos would have made Henry badly intoxicated before running him over. They should be ready to make an arrest in the next 24 hours if Ramos stops running interference.
The journalist was at the LAPD Downtown station on Friday morning to recant his previous statement where he’d lied and said he’d been alone all night on Wednesday, the night the killing of Henry took place. Ramos was joined at the station by intermittent girlfriend Elena Freire Valls and their lawyer, Mateo Freire, who also is Freire Valls’s father and is married to Los Angeles mayor, Aurora Valls.
A Now Tarnished, Once Promising Journalistic Career
But facing being charged with murder is not the only issue that should be a source of preoccupation for Ramos at the moment as the journalist may also be confronted with questions about his reporting.
There have been insinuations that Ramos could have concocted the allegations made against Henry when he first published a series of damning articles about the actor six months ago. Even if we’re still gathering evidence to corroborate it, Ramos is suspected to also have fabricated some of the sources on his articles that were meant to end Henry’s career.
That’s where I stopped reading. As if Gloria Fucking Kingsley could pretend she’d ever cared about the appropriate way of gathering evidence while writing an article.
It was preposterous that she was insinuating David had fabricated any evidence or sources in his reporting against Dashing Henry.
I was so enraged that I did the only logical thing. I called my dad. My hands trembled as I dialed his contact.
“Did you see the article?” I asked when he picked up the phone, trying to breathe slowly, my heart rate spiking.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, and good afternoon to you too. How are you doing?”
“Not so great. Just read another article in the Voice . This one is saying that David made up the evidence against Henry to ruin his career.” My tone was elevated, and I was hyperventilating. But my dad had a way of calming me. He’d always had.
“That’s preposterous!” he said.
“Exactly my thoughts.” Long inhale in, long exhale out. “Papá, call the cops and tell them I’m willing to talk to them in case they’re giving any credibility to that article. David didn’t kill Henry in fear that he was going to uncover him as a fake reporter who made up sources. I can tell the cops exactly what Henry tried with me and how he was unequivocally a predator. I can talk to them about how David’s article probably helped a lot of people by stopping him.”
“Are you sure about talking to the police?”
“Completely. Haven’t been more sure about anything in my life. Should have told David years ago, all of it. If I’d been a source in his article, he could have published it months before. The pervert probably tried and succeeded in assaulting and harassing other people during that time, and I could have helped.”
“Elena, you know why you did what you did,” my dad reminded me.
“Yes, and there’s not been a day when I haven’t regretted it.” It was true. I breathed deeply again, but I felt better just by saying what I did. “Reach out to the cops. Tell them I’m ready to offer my testimony about David. And Papá, I’m gonna talk to him.”
“I’m not going to tell you not to do it, carino. You should have probably done it months ago.” Dad showed his wisdom once again. “You may not want to tell your mom about it, though.”
“I don’t care what she thinks.”
“Are you sure about that?”
My dad had a point, but I wasn’t keeping quiet any longer. I sent him a hug and hung up.
Now where the hell was David.