The Trade

“Wow. Nearly went through there. What do you think anyone can do with this piece of industrial wasteland? Matt, you got any ideas?” Matt recognized Ned’s opening salvo for negotiation on the price. Ned managed their financial affairs, bank loans, mortgages. There wasn’t a real estate broker or a banker alive who could best Ned. He could wring the last penny out of any deal.

Matt shrugged. “I’d call in the bulldozers.” His cell phone buzzed and he excused himself, walked over to the bank of darkened windows.

“Matt Lowell.”

“Matt, it’s Bobby. Listen, a heads-up. Better you don’t contact the coroner about that matter we talked about last night. Something’s come up. Okay?”

“What’s happened?”

“I’m at the desk, I can’t talk now. Just hang tight, don’t make any calls, okay?”

“Too late. I called this morning.”

“Shit. Did you leave your name?”

“Of course I left my name.”

“Shit,” Bobby said again. “Oh well, maybe it won’t make any difference. They lose bodies all the time down there, chances are they’re no better with telephone messages.”

“What bodies? What are you talking about?”

“I can’t talk right now. I’ll call you tonight. Better yet, I’ll come by. Meantime, don’t make any more calls to the coroner.” He rang off.

Slowly, Matt returned the cell to his pocket. He cleaned a circle in the filthy window with the heel of his hand. Across the street stood a mirror image of the four-story building he was standing in. Someone had enough faith in the neighborhood to try to do something with it, but not enough to trust the neighbors not to make off with anything they could get their hands on. Surrounding the old factory was a new ten-foot chain-link fence topped with a concertina of razor wire.

Matt walked over to rejoin the two men.

“Mike tells me we can turn this dump into luxury apartments,” Ned said. “You’re the design and structural arm of the firm.” For Matt, the thrill of his job was in seeing the aesthetic possibilities in the crumbling buildings they restored. He was good at it, had the imagination to see what could be, probably got it from his father. It also enabled him to see the absence of opportunity, such as this building.

Matt laughed. “Mike, you don’t believe that.”

“Sure I do. Would I lie to you guys? This is a wicked piece of property. Great potential.”

“Yeah, potential to go from bad to worse.”

“That building you were looking at, Matt? Across the street there? Sold in less than a week, asking price, and I hear it’s going to be gutted and refitted as apartments. It will bring the whole area up.”

“In your dreams, Michael,” Ned said. “Who’d you sucker into that deal?”

“Unfortunately, I didn’t have the listing, but I hear it was bought by some outfit from Canada. I could have offered this one to them, but we’ve been doing business for a long time. I wanted to give you guys first crack at it.”

The three men navigated the dark filth-encrusted stairs and stepped out into the sunshine.

“So don’t wait too long, guys,” Mike said. “This is a primo piece of downtown real estate, a steal at the price.”

He slid into his late model Lexus, tapped his horn at a kid running across the street, and drew away.

“Shall we go for it, Matt?” Ned’s tone was doubtful.

Matt eyed the street scene. A couple of guys selling foam-rubber pads and remnants of fabric from the back of a beat-up truck to small round women a long way in time and distance from their Aztec roots. Men with the same flat features leaned against walls, hats tipped over eyes, waiting for God knows what. In the middle of the block, kids converged on an old guy selling ice cream from a handcart that looked as if it had been in use since the fifties.

“Pass. Let someone else take the hassle.” Matt looked again at his watch. “See you tomorrow.”

Matt put the Range Rover into the now doorless garage, walked down the side deck past Bobby’s Harley, a Softail, parked in the middle of the ruined front garden, and let himself into the kitchen.

Bobby was sprawled on the overstuffed sofa in the living room, a box of crackers on the table in front of him, watching a ballgame on television, Barney at his feet. The Lab got up as Matt came in, gave him a swift, enthusiastic greeting, and went back to monitoring Bob’s hand-to-mouth motion. Bob held up a warning finger. “USC, Arizona, flag on the play. Oh, damn. USC’s offside.” He clicked off the set.

Bobby tossed Barney a Ritz and swung his feet to the floor. “You’ve got to find a new hiding place for the house key. That flowerpot’s history.”

Matt threw his briefcase onto the kitchen counter. The key had always been kept in a flowerpot. “I’ll get a new one.”

“And get the fence fixed while you’re at it. You’re totally exposed to the street, your neighbors are never here and this place is barely more than a shack. A quick push on the kitchen door, and you’re cleaned out in minutes.”

“You try getting anything done. Half of Malibu’s in line ahead of me.”

“What about one of your own work crews?”

“Ned would have a coronary. Leases are signed and we’re getting the Contessa project ready for occupancy. Anyway, Barney would take the hand off anyone coming in here.”

“Okay, that’s my community outreach for the week,” Bobby said.

Matt filled Barney’s bowl, took a bottle of water from the fridge. He crossed to the living room, dropped into an armchair, propped his feet on the coffee table. “So, okay, what’s happened that’s so all-fired important?”

Bob leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “A body’s been found up on Encinal Canyon Road. A girl, maybe fourteen, fifteen. White.”

Matt knew what Bobby was going to tell him, but he didn’t want to hear it. A fourteen year old. Just a kid herself. “Didn’t Encinal burn out?”

“No, not all the way down to the beach. Anyway, she wasn’t in the fire area. She was by the side of the road, and she was covered in wildflowers. A fire crew checking hotspots found her.”

“Flowers? Someone must have cared about her.”

“Or some sick bastard thought it was a cute touch.”

“How’d she die, Bobby?”

“Until we get an autopsy report, it’s just guesswork. She’s been badly abused at some time, but the scars are old. Marks on her breasts as if she’d been burned by cigars, that sort of thing. Poor kid had a short and brutal life, but whoever put her on the side of the road wanted her found. She was dressed in some expensive threads, baggy silk pants, a matching top and a shirt. The pants were blood-soaked, but someone had tried to clean her up. My guess is that she gave birth then hemorrhaged out.”

“So that’s the mother.”

Bobby shrugged. “Putting two and two together, that’s my guess. Homicide’s got it. So far her description doesn’t match any missing person on file in Los Angeles County. They’ve sent it to Sacramento, see if they get any hits statewide. I thought you’d be interested.”

“What’ll happen if they don’t get anything?”

“Nothing much. No identifying marks on her or the baby, no way to find out who they were.”

“What about dental records?”

“Sure, but not everyone visits a dentist. And anyway, there’s no national database for teeth. All we can do is find out if they’re related. After that, there’s nowhere to go.” Bobby dropped another cracker for Barney. “Don’t try to get that baby released to you, Matt. Let it drop.”