Bardeaux

Copyright © 2001 by Steve Payne.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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It was a cold, hard rain. Steady. Relentless.

I first became aware of it drumming on the brim of my fedora.

It was half off my head, pushed forward over my glasses. The cable hook legs had kept the wire rims from being knocked off my face. The lenses were heavily spotted from raindrops. It was impossible to see through them.

All I could see was the rain. Backlit by a powerful single lamp, somewhere high overhead.

As sensation flowed back into my body, the first thing I noticed was that I was soaking wet. Drenched from head to toe. I’d been lying in the rain for a long time, it seemed.

I shivered forcefully.

I was aware of laying on a heap of rubbish and broken orange crates.

Half propped up on an overturned steel garbage can, my head resting on it’s caved-in side, cocked at an odd angle. My neck ached fiercely.

At first I could not move my body. Only my eyes. All I could see was dark gloom and darker shadows.

I could smell the rain. And the dank must of a little used alley. Not far off I could hear the sounds of a busy street. Traffic sounds. A horn honk. The sounds of tires on wet pavement.

It was night. That was obvious. I was in a city, or a town. I had a distinct feeling that it WAS a city. A big city.

I tried to shift position. I managed to sit up a little bit.

My arms and legs did not seem to respond to unconscious suggestion. It took effort and concentration to move even the slightest amount.

My head throbbed. I had a splitting migraine. Through that pain, and at it’s center, was an even sharper pain.

Something warm and wetter than the rain was soaking my hat, running down my neck and into my collar, saturating my shirt and coat. I managed to touch a hand to my temple. It was sticky, tender, ripped open.

Blood! Congealing blood. My blood!

A deep, ragged crease ran across my temple, past the ear. It cut a part in my blood matted hair. It passed just above my glasses frame, and just below the brim of my hat. It had also split the inside surface of my ear. The blood had stained the whole of my right shoulder.

Regaining motor control, I sat full up, and cleaned off my specs.

I surveyed my surroundings.

I was in the middle of a blind alley. It bent and deadended where several tall, dark, ramshackle buildings converged. Their little-seen backsides were complete with rundown porches and balconies, rickety stairways, and the spaces between were crisscrossed with power and phone lines. Someone’s’ laundry hung from a line between porches, getting a rainwater rinse.

I didn’t recognize this place. I was pretty certain I’d never seen it before. My head throbbed with each beat of my heart, and there was a terrible pain in my chest.

Looking down at myself I realized I’d also been shot in the chest. There was a massive bloodstain covering most of my torso.

I didn’t know where I was at, or why. Or why I’d been shot, for that matter.

Forcing myself to think I got snatches of shredded memories.

A sharp, loud, crack… . like thunder. A burst of blinding light. Something dark and spinning moving in unworldly slow motion headed at my right eye. A searing pain. Then white, as if I’d held a fresh sheet of typing paper close to my face… . a lamp bulb behind it. Then it quickly decayed into total blackness. Then… . nothing.

The memory of being shot. But nothing really useful. No face of the killer, or silhouette of the gunman.

It was no greater mystery who shot me, or why, than the issue of my own identity, however. Who was I, to have ended up here, like this?

There was a word for this… . amnesia. That much I remembered. The harder I tried to remember important things, the more my head hurt.

What was worse was that the harder I tried to concentrate, the more my mind seemed to pull me in two opposite directions at once, splitting like a fork in a road. It was as if I were two completely different people. The brain and body pulled one way, the mind and the spirit pulled another.

I managed to stand up, with some difficulty. I leaned against the dank brickwork of the wall behind me. A deeply cantilevered second story afforded some cover from the rain. The bright light I’d seen before revealed itself to me. A powerful all weather lamp mounted over a truck service entrance, with a metal roll-up loading door.

It’s harsh glare allowed me to see the hole in the breast of my trenchcoat, just to the right and below of my heart. A fatal wound. I certainly should be dead by now. The blood from the entry had soaked through the shirt, the vest, the suit coat, and spread across the trenchcoat.

I couldn’t understand how I’d survived.

I felt something heavy pulling down on my left shoulder. Something bulky under my left arm. Under my suit coat, in a shoulder holster, hung a vintage Colt internal hammer 38 semiautomatic pistol. Built by Colt off a Browning pattern it was a popular pistol in the 1930’s and ‘40’s. To me it seemed an antique, having first been manufactured prior to World War One.

Apparently I had not expected trouble. The holster was still snapped shut. No attempt had been made to draw the weapon.

I may have known the person who shot me. Been expecting them. Waiting for them.

I began to search my pockets. Hunting for clues.

I really expected a badge to go with the gun, or a PI. license.

I found a thin single fold wallet, but no shield inside. Just a driver’s license, a gun permit… . a special issue for concealed carry… . some business cards, and some cash. No EI. card.

The totally unfamiliar face staring back at me from the driver’s license and gun owner’s permit photos matched the equally unfamiliar name the two cards proclaimed.

Nicholas Trenton Slane. Height: 5’ 10". Weight: 180 pounds. Eye color: Green. Hair color: Silver gray. Birthdate: 04/16/1923.

I’d awoke in the Twilight Zone. It was the only explanation.

The date was correct, but the month and the year was wrong.

Suddenly I distinctly recalled that my birthday was August 16th, 1956.

Issue date: 04/16/1943. Expiration date: 04/16/1953.

I suddenly found myself hoping it had not already expired.

The addresses on the driver’s license and the gun permit didn’t match, but both were California issue. The other information was the same.

The license address was 210 Sunset Drive, Malibu.

The permit address was 10 Bardeaux Street, Los Angeles.

I was in a quandary. I felt weak. I flipped over an empty trashcan and sat down. I kept searching my pockets for clues as to who this Nick Slane was.

There was nothing to explain the gun and the special permit.

Perhaps I was a special undercover agent, or a spy, or a gangster. If I were a government agent of some sort I should have I.D. to that affect , and if I were in the military I’d at very least have a dogtag. If I were a security guard or house detective I’d at least have a card or badge.

All I found was an L.A. Public Library card and a scrap of paper with a single name… . ‘Monique’… . and a phone number… . 895-1062, and a cryptic cipher. 07-92-11 LRL. That meant nothing to me. It couldn’t be a date, even if the scribbled ‘9’ was really a ‘7’… . besides, the seven was crossed. If the nine had been a seven, it, too, would be crossed.

One pocket yielded a single photograph. Kodachrome. Old. Dog-eared. Faded. Yellowed. But the shabby condition of the photo could not hide the enigmatic beauty of the girl in the picture.

She was very, very gorgeous… . and very, very young. Seventeen. Perhaps younger. She was looking over her shoulder in a cheesecake pose. It was the kind of photo a gal had made when she was trying to break into modeling, or the movies.

She was wearing a thin, almost vaporous cotton halter top and a matching pair of french cut tap shorts, and an impish smile… . all practically invisible. It was easy to see she wore no undergarments at all. Her feet were also bare. Cheesecake photos almost always had the girl in impossible to walk in ultra high heeled pumps or sandals.

Her hands rested on her knees, legs bent, body leaning over, her ample posterior aimed at the camera like a cannon. She was up on tiptoes. Her dark hair was tied back in a pair of ponytails. She gave the impression of naughty innocence… . the kind of girl who loved to tease and misbehave.

On the back of the photo was the date 07/19/1949, and the name, ‘Monique’ carefully printed below it. So, I had a face, and a body, to go with the name and the phone number. I tucked the photo away.

I took out the money and counted it.

It was quite a wad. Robbery certainly wasn’t the motive. I had over fifteen hundred bucks on me!

Ten hundreds, eight fifties, eight twenties, three fives, and two ones. I also had eighty seven cents in change.

The newest date on the bills was 1949.

I took the hundreds and folded them and put them in my trouser’s watch pocket for safer keeping. I took the fifties, divided them in two equal groups and put them in my shoes like an insole. The rest I replaced to the wallet’s slit pocket.

My pocket search had also come up with a solid gold Papermate pen… . perhaps one of the first ballpoints ever made.

A hornrim comb, wide toothed. A linen handkerchief. A single blade Case pocketknife, with a liner lock, brass hardware and bone grips.

One pocket turned up a receipt from a garage in Orange, California. A bill for a rebuild and tuning job on a ‘50 Mercury flat-head V8 in a ‘33 Ford Victoria Tudor sedan. The bill amount was for three hundred and ten dollars and seventy nine cents. It was stamped ‘Paid in Full’ and dated 06/25/1952. The bill was fresh and still crisp. It was recent.

Apparently I had a car… . a 1933 two door Vickie. Perhaps it was somewhere nearby.

I had two sets of keys. One was on a gold chain clipped to my belt. The other loose in my pocket on a cheap spiral ring. The chain had a car key, a IPO. Box key, and several door keys. The ring held a duplicate of the car key and Post Office box key, a Safe Deposit Box key, and what appeared to be some sort of locker key… . large, oddly shaped, with a number stamp cut into it.

Undoubtedly one or more of the several house keys fit the doors at 10 Bardeaux Street, wherever and whatever the address implied.

The rest likely fit the doors at the 210 Sunset Drive address. It was probably a residence address. I knew that Sunset Drive was an extension of Sunset Boulevard, after it turns west and snakes through the hills down to U.S. One and the ocean between Malibu and Santa Monica. I’d been on it many times… . but that was in the early 1980’s. It would likely be much less developed in the early ‘50’s.

Of course, I had no idea if I was even IN California, much less Los Angeles. Back alleys look much the same everywhere in the U.S. But I had this strange impression… . like automatically knowing which direction you’re facing… . that I WAS in L.A., probably not too far from this Bardeaux Street address… . but I still didn’t know where in L.A. it was.

I staggered along out of the alley. It was full of bends and narrows, dictated by the architecture. I felt as though my body was rapidly healing itself. I felt hot, feverish.

I stumbled out onto the sidewalk, using a building for balance. I probably looked