Black

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Lorenzo yawned as he watched the sun set over Santa Monica, the warm orange fading across the ocean and transitioning to red as its last lambent trace sank into the horizon. It had been another long day in the FSA offices, sorting through countless rumors, tips, articles, and whispers, sifting for the gold amidst the pyrite.

His love for his job was still strong even after four years, in spite of the brutal hours and the workload and the relentless expectation of perfection and dedication from Freddie, who sat like a spider in the center of his information collection web, making decisions about how to present the tidbits he deemed worthy of the company's attention. Lorenzo was the first line filter; if it made it past him, then it got passed up the line to his boss, Serena, who made the call whether to bump it up to Freddie or kill it.

It was a pecking order that worked well, and Lorenzo, one of the company's first employees, had watched with thrilled amazement as the company had gone from just a few trusted staff to an organization with hundreds, working round the clock. The website had become synonymous with celebrity news, which in reality was nothing more than the latest dirt. But for FSA, it was paydirt, and Freddie always shared the wealth - to a point.

Lorenzo continued plowing through the endless stream of information and lost track of time, as he often did. It seemed like only minutes had passed, but when he glanced at his watch, he saw that it was pushing nine p.m. - a thirteen-hour day, one of many he'd devoted to the greater good of getting the juice on the stars FSA followed like a pack of hungry wolves.

"Ciao, sweeties. Be back in the swamp with y'all tomorrow," he called out, adjusting his fitted jacket as he exited his cubicle. A few tired faces looked up at him, but most of the day staff had gone home already, leaving only a handful of the night shift settling in. Now that was a gig nobody in their right mind wanted. Everyone who worked the graveyard shift was doing so in the hopes of moving up to a day job at some point, figuring they had to pay their dues. Lorenzo knew that Freddie encouraged the rumor that it was a sure way into the big leagues. He also knew that only one person had ever made the leap - the rest of the story was to encourage misguided dreaming that convinced the young and the foolish to work all night for lousy pay.

He stopped in the restroom on the way out and checked his look - cropped black hair gleaming in the artificial light, stylish horn-rimmed glasses for a brooding intellectual edge, swarthy good looks still firmly in place, if a little shopworn. If he hurried, he could grab a quick dinner near his apartment and then take a shower before spending a few hours trolling the West Hollywood clubs.

Downstairs, he pushed through the heavy glass security door and ensured it locked behind him before starting down the sidewalk toward the parking lot. He knew that traffic would still be heavy on Santa Monica Boulevard headed down to Pacific Coast Highway and the beach, and he thanked Providence that he'd be going in the opposite direction, east into Los Angeles. If things worked out smoothly he could be eating at the café a few blocks from his house in no more than half an hour and out on the town by eleven at the latest. That would work.

He rounded the corner and nearly collided with a laughing couple, the woman a stunning blonde in her thirties, the man not so fetching, in his fifties. Love always managed to find a way in L.A., he'd found - popular grist for the company's mill. Even better when the honeymoon was over and the accusations started flying, which was a regrettable byproduct of the lifestyle.

A homeless person shambled along near the parking lot, incongruent with the meticulously sculpted trees that lined the street and yet also an indelible part of the landscape. The down and out, the addicted and the deranged seemed to gravitate to Los Angeles as if it were the Promised Land, and one quickly grew inured to their shabby parade in even the swankiest areas of town. Something about the beach, coupled with the concentration of wealth, acted as a magnet for lowlifes, and Lorenzo didn't even grant them a second glance nowadays - he'd come a long way since moving there seventeen years earlier with aspirations of being an actor, only to become hardened by the town, as everyone eventually did. The endless empty promises and broken dreams seasoned even the most generously predisposed inhabitants, and compassion was perceived as weakness in the city's cutthroat environment.

He was approaching his Ford Festiva when he heard the rustling behind him, and he'd just begun to spin to face whoever was there when the first icy lance of pain shrieked through his chest, his lung punctured instantly by a wickedly sharp blade. He tried to scream but found he couldn't breathe, and when the second blow landed, slicing through his carotid artery and most of the side of his neck, all he could muster was a groan of agony as he sank to the ground, his blood streaming through his hand, which clawed in futility to stem its flow.

His eyes began losing focus as his brain starved for oxygen, but even so he could make out the silhouette of his attacker, who stood silently, watching him die, occasionally glancing around to confirm that they were alone.

The 'vagrant' knelt next to his corpse once he'd bled out and methodically went through Lorenzo's pockets until locating his wallet. Inside were a hundred and seven dollars, five credit cards, an ATM card, and his security card for the building. The killer also took his keys and then moved along the structure's brick wall to the far street to disappear around a corner, leaving Lorenzo to be found by the security company that would occasionally swing by to police the lot several times each night.