Read Online Indigo Slam: An Elvis Cole Novel by Robert Crais - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Crais
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could either let my feelings for the place be changed by that event or not, but either way would be my choice. The event is what you make of it.
I spent the next two hours cleaning both bathrooms and the kitchen and the floors. I threw out my toothbrush and opened a new one, and I washed the sheets and pillowcases and towels. I pulled the plates and the silver from the cupboards and drawers and loaded them into the dishwasher, and vacuumed the couch and the chairs and the carpets. I scrubbed the floors hard, and spent the remains of the day cleaning and drinking until, very early the next morning, I had once more made peace with my home.
I packed, then fell into a fitful sleep as Jimmy Buffett sang about Caribbean sunsets, over-the-hill pirates, and a world where fifteen-year-old girls didn’t have to carry the emotional weight of their families.
Later that morning I went to Seattle.
7
Seattle is one of my favorite cities, and I often think that if I did not live in LA, I might live there. Where the sky over Los Angeles is more often dimensionless and ill-defined, Seattle is capped by a continually redefined skyscape of clouds that makes the sky there a visibly living thing, breathing as it moves, cooling the city and its people with a protective cloak, and washing the air and the land with frequent rains that come and go in a way that freshens the place and its people. You can get the best coffee in America in Seattle, and browse in some of the best bookstores, and fish for silver and blackmouth salmon, and, until recently, the real estate prices were so low compared to those in Southern California that herds of Californians moved there. A friend of mine from Orange County sold her house and used the equity to buy a beautiful home on the water at Bainbridge Island. Cash. She used the balance of her equity to invest in mutual funds, and now she spends the bulk of each day painting in watercolors and digging for butter clams. So many Californians did this that property values in the Seattle area went through the roof and many native Seattleites could no longer afford to live in their own town. Whenever I visit I say I’m from Oregon.
I picked up a Ford Mustang and a street map from the Sea-Tac rental people, then followed Highway 509 north toward Elliot Bay and a seafood house I know that lies in the shadow of the Space Needle. I had a crab cake sandwich and fried new potatoes and mango iced tea for lunch, then asked a parking meter cop for directions to Wilson Brownell’s address. With any luck, Brownell and Clark might be sitting around Brownell’s place right now. With any luck, I might be on the next flight back to LA and not even have to spend the night. It happens.
Brownell lived across the Duwamish Waterway in an older, working-class part of West Seattle called White Center. It is a community of narrow streets and old apartments and wood-framed homes surrounding a steel mill. Young guys with lean, angry faces hung around near the mill, looking like they wished they could get work there. The ground floor of Brownell’s building fronted the street with a secondhand clothing store, a place that refinished maritime metalwork, and a video rental place called Extreme Video. The video place was papered with posters of Jackie Chan and young Asian women tied to chairs with thousands of ropes. Extreme.
I missed Brownell’s building twice because I couldn’t find the building numbers, then found it but couldn’t find a place to park. I finally left the car by a hydrant six blocks away. Flexibility in the art of detection.
Three young guys in T-shirts were hanging outside the video place when I got back, drinking Snapple. One of them was wearing a Seattle Mariners cap, and all of them were sporting black Gorilla boots and rolled-cuff jeans. A stairwell protected by an unlocked wire door had been carved from the corner of the building just past the metalwork place. There was a directory on the wall, and a row of
I spent the next two hours cleaning both bathrooms and the kitchen and the floors. I threw out my toothbrush and opened a new one, and I washed the sheets and pillowcases and towels. I pulled the plates and the silver from the cupboards and drawers and loaded them into the dishwasher, and vacuumed the couch and the chairs and the carpets. I scrubbed the floors hard, and spent the remains of the day cleaning and drinking until, very early the next morning, I had once more made peace with my home.
I packed, then fell into a fitful sleep as Jimmy Buffett sang about Caribbean sunsets, over-the-hill pirates, and a world where fifteen-year-old girls didn’t have to carry the emotional weight of their families.
Later that morning I went to Seattle.
7
Seattle is one of my favorite cities, and I often think that if I did not live in LA, I might live there. Where the sky over Los Angeles is more often dimensionless and ill-defined, Seattle is capped by a continually redefined skyscape of clouds that makes the sky there a visibly living thing, breathing as it moves, cooling the city and its people with a protective cloak, and washing the air and the land with frequent rains that come and go in a way that freshens the place and its people. You can get the best coffee in America in Seattle, and browse in some of the best bookstores, and fish for silver and blackmouth salmon, and, until recently, the real estate prices were so low compared to those in Southern California that herds of Californians moved there. A friend of mine from Orange County sold her house and used the equity to buy a beautiful home on the water at Bainbridge Island. Cash. She used the balance of her equity to invest in mutual funds, and now she spends the bulk of each day painting in watercolors and digging for butter clams. So many Californians did this that property values in the Seattle area went through the roof and many native Seattleites could no longer afford to live in their own town. Whenever I visit I say I’m from Oregon.
I picked up a Ford Mustang and a street map from the Sea-Tac rental people, then followed Highway 509 north toward Elliot Bay and a seafood house I know that lies in the shadow of the Space Needle. I had a crab cake sandwich and fried new potatoes and mango iced tea for lunch, then asked a parking meter cop for directions to Wilson Brownell’s address. With any luck, Brownell and Clark might be sitting around Brownell’s place right now. With any luck, I might be on the next flight back to LA and not even have to spend the night. It happens.
Brownell lived across the Duwamish Waterway in an older, working-class part of West Seattle called White Center. It is a community of narrow streets and old apartments and wood-framed homes surrounding a steel mill. Young guys with lean, angry faces hung around near the mill, looking like they wished they could get work there. The ground floor of Brownell’s building fronted the street with a secondhand clothing store, a place that refinished maritime metalwork, and a video rental place called Extreme Video. The video place was papered with posters of Jackie Chan and young Asian women tied to chairs with thousands of ropes. Extreme.
I missed Brownell’s building twice because I couldn’t find the building numbers, then found it but couldn’t find a place to park. I finally left the car by a hydrant six blocks away. Flexibility in the art of detection.
Three young guys in T-shirts were hanging outside the video place when I got back, drinking Snapple. One of them was wearing a Seattle Mariners cap, and all of them were sporting black Gorilla boots and rolled-cuff jeans. A stairwell protected by an unlocked wire door had been carved from the corner of the building just past the metalwork place. There was a directory on the wall, and a row of
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