CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When the door opened, Jessie tried to hide her shock.
Thomas Bradford looked very little like the photos that Jamil and Beth had sent. On his website and in his driver’s license photo, he was borderline good-looking, with short blond hair and tan skin. But the man in front of her now only shared a passing resemblance to that guy.
“What do you want, lady?” he demanded, sounding put out, although his eyes hungrily scanned her chest.
“Please,” she said urgently, “my car broke down across the street. I called the auto club but they said it would be another half hour before they could get here. While I was waiting, some guys walked by and started catcalling me. I got really nervous so I came over here, hoping someone might let me stay at their place until the tow truck shows up.”
“So why are you knocking on my door?”
“Because,” she said, her voice dropping to a loud whisper, “your name was the only one in the directory that, um, that sounded like mine.”
“What does that mean?” he asked, though she saw his eyes gleam at her words.
"You know," she said, leaning in conspiratorially, "not like Mexican."
“What, you don’t like Mexicans?”
“It’s not that exactly,” she said, pretending to be slightly embarrassed. “I would just prefer to wait with someone—more like me, you know?”
“I do know,” he said, actually looking above her neck now. Apparently he was impressed. “Come in.”
He opened the door wide enough for her to enter. She forced herself not to look back at Sam as she stepped inside. He closed the door behind her. For a second she thought he might try to lock it, but even this scumbag seemed to know that doing so might raise alarm bells.
“I’m Jessica,” she said extending her hand.
“Tommy,” he replied.
“Thanks so much for helping me out, Tommy. I know I probably come across as small-minded, but I just didn’t feel comfortable out there. Things just felt—unsafe.”
“Trust me, I get it,” he said, not taking the bait as aggressively as she might have hoped.
“Could I please have a glass of water?” she asked.
“Sure.”
As he moved to the tiny kitchen, she looked around the apartment.
It appeared to actually be two converted motel rooms. Through a door connecting the two, she could see that the other looked like a traditional motel bedroom.
But this side had been reconfigured to include a small living space and a kitchen nook.
The second bathroom was now a closet with a washer and dryer.
She studied his walls, which were covered in posters.
One had a photo of a little blond boy and girl holding hands and read: white and proud of it!
Another had a blown-up newspaper headline that looked to be about the 1921 Tulsa race riots.
A third was a movie one-sheet for the infamously racist silent film, The Birth of a Nation.
Thomas Bradford had basically decorated his living room in bigoted tropes.
Jessie felt slightly sick to her stomach but did her best to ignore it.
“Here you go,” he said, handing her the water. “I see you’re checking out the décor.”
“Yeah,” she said, pretending not to be disgusted. “You’ve definitely got a vibe going on. I was worried that I might have offended you when I said I was uncomfortable in this neighborhood. But I guess I shouldn’t have been so concerned. Do you collect stuff like this for a living?”
“No. Finding racial pride imagery is just a hobby. My day job doesn’t allow me to go crazy buying too many expensive pieces so I have to limit myself.”
“Oh, what is your day job?”
“I’m a medical claims examiner for a health insurance company,” he said. “Basically, my job is to make people jump through hoops before getting access to services.”
“Do you like that?” she asked.
“It’s a living,” he told her, though she suspected that he probably got off on rejecting the medical pleas of people in need. He seemed like the type.
“We all have to get paid, right?” she said sympathetically.
“Right,” he agreed. “What do you do, Jessica?”
“Oh, I work for the city. Boring stuff, really. I certainly don’t have the resources to collect posters or other memorabilia.”
“Yeah, well, it’s part of my true passion,” he said, finally seeming comfortable enough to peel back the metaphorical white hood.
“What’s that?”
“I run a civic organization in my spare time,” he said with real enthusiasm.
“Oh, cool. What kind of organization?”
"We point out instances of our traditional culture being degraded. We operate a website that tracks instances of Caucasians being victimized, either by other groups or by the authorities."
"Wow, that sounds like it should be a full-time job!" She did her best to feign being impressed.
“I wish it was.”
“Of course, some people don’t just point unfair stuff out,” she said leadingly.
He looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you see that story on the news today about the two women who were recently killed? They were both from foreign countries and there were green cards found on plates at their tables. Sounds like whoever did it wasn’t a big fan of immigrants.”
Bradford’s eyes narrowed. Jessie realized she’d been way too clumsy about broaching the crimes.
“I must have missed that story,” he said.
She didn’t believe that for a second. Even if he wasn’t involved, Thomas Bradford struck her as extremely online. The notion that he’d missed a story as juicy as this was laughable.
“It’s everywhere,” she said. “All the radio stations were covering it when I was in the car, even the music ones.”
“I’ll have to check that out later,” he said coolly. “So Jessica, what are you doing in this neighborhood. It’s not exactly USC-adjacent.”
He nodded at her t-shirt.
"Oh, I wasn't coming from there. I actually graduated about a decade ago. I was on my way to meet a girlfriend in Glendale, but the freeway traffic was terrible, so I got off to use surface streets. But I got all turned around and then my car conked out. Super fun afternoon."
“Right,” he said, still guarded. “Hey, what exactly do you do for the city? You look really familiar to me.”
“I do candidate evaluations on behalf of government agencies,” she said, not technically lying. “It’s pretty dry stuff. I doubt that’s how you know me. But a while back I did some TV work. Maybe you’re remembering me from one of the crappy things I acted in?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t consume much Hollywood entertainment. It emphasizes minority representation to the exclusion of majority culture. No, I know you from somewhere else.”
As he finished talking, she saw his expression change. Something had clicked for him. Her gut twisted up slightly as she realized: he recognized her.