LA Modern Noir: Chapter 10a Wilson

Link to previous Chapter 9b

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Chapter 10a - 5472 words

The flight to Cleveland was at seven on Monday morning. Wilson couldn’t help but wonder who was flying it regularly enough to make it a viable regular route, but the flight was nearly full. Still, he wasn’t ready for it to be three in the afternoon when he landed. The five am cab to LAX meant the day felt like it should be done already and, as they’d descended into Hopkins airport, he’d decided to rent a car, head to a hotel, and start investigating Earl tomorrow.

The arrival lounge changed his plans.

There was a woman in a dark suit holding a white board with his name scrawled across it. He saw it as he came through the doors and considered ignoring it and heading to the car rental booths, but she was actively looking for her pick-up and must have had a picture of him because she locked eyes, lifted her placard, and called, ‘Wilson.’

Wilson nodded and made his way towards her.

She said, ‘You Wilson’ At his nod she carries on, ‘Harry Albarn says I’m to drive you where you need to go and help you with whatever it is you’re doing.’

‘Did Harry tell you what it is I’m doing?’

‘No. But he says you have a whole bunch of stuff to work through and I’m to help. But if it’s more than driving you around, I’m not a whole lot sure how much help I can be.’

‘Well, if Harry thinks you can help, I’m sure you can. I’ve got a hotel booked. It’s the (name), do you know it?’

‘Sure. You want to go there now? I got the impression you’d be heading straight to, well, wherever you need to go.’

Wilson said, ‘Saturday I spent the better part of eleven hours in the car. Yesterday I-’ He stopped and looked at the woman. ‘Sorry, I didn’t ask your name.’

‘I’m Hazel.’

‘Hazel, right. And you already know I’m Wilson. So look, Hazel I have a whole bunch of stuff that I need to sit and read through, I need to have a shower and something to eat. Then I’ve got to try and find someone who I have a probable first name for all while trying not to melt because when I looked at the weather it’s every bit as hot here as back in California. I thought it was colder up here.’

‘In the winter, sure. But this is a hot ass summer. So once I’ve dropped you off, are you saying you don’t need me again today?’ She led the way out to the parking garage and up to a third level deck where they climbed into a dark blue Chevy Malibu.

‘I don’t reckon so. Though if that puts you in a bind with needing to report in with anyone I can have you hang around for three or four hours.’

The car tires squealed as Hazel fed them down the ramps to street level. Wilson found himself looking at the city as it came in to view, instinctively comparing it to Los Angeles. He didn’t expect it to be the same but the differences were more than just the shape of things. There was less concrete, more brick, and fewer cars. At least, judging by how quickly they got out of the airport and onto the road to the city, that’s how it felt. Maybe it was the same in other cities which were smaller, had fewer people trying to move around. And surely there were fewer tourists. Sure, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was somewhere in the city but as big a draw as it may be there were probably as many people went to see the La Brea tar pits on an average day.

They drove alongside a light railway, the carriages looked similar to the newer ones on the LA Metro. He wondered if they were as busy. He turned to look at Hazel and asked, ‘I don’t suppose you knew Earl did you?’ He didn’t think Earl would have supplied him a driver who would know anything, but asking didn’t cost him anything more than half a breath of air.

‘LA Earl? The financial guy? Yeh I know him. He’s here every couple of weeks.’

‘You don’t know who his woman was up here, do you?’

Hazel flicked a glance at Wilson, a look which was wary, as if he was asking about something he shouldn’t know about. She focused back on the road and the slowing traffic as they headed to an intersection.

Wilson said, ‘I know he was with someone called Lucy. I need to find her.’

‘Best ask Earl. It’s none of my business.’

‘Here’s the thing, Hazel, Earl was in a car wreck on Saturday. He’s not able to answer any questions. Now, you said Harry told you to help me. If you know Lucy, that would be a big help.’

‘A bad wreck?’

‘Yes.’

An ambulance siren cut through the noise of the traffic and the aircon. Hazel eased the car to the side of the road along with everyone else and a vehicle painted in yellow with a blue stripe down the side eased past, picking its way through the narrow path created by the traffic. Wilson wondered why LA didn’t mandate ambulances bear similar colors. It sure stood out in the flow.

Hazel said, ‘I can take you to Lucy. I know her.’ She glanced at the dash. ‘She’ll still be at home, she works evenings. We can go straight to hers, or I can take you by the hotel first.’

‘Take me to see Lucy.’

They took the next right, and Hazel drove them through sub-divisions which were greener and leafier than the ones he saw back in LA. The streets looked narrower than he was used to, and the houses were taller, up to three stories instead of the two that an area like this would be back home.

They pulled up next to a large property with three cars parked down the side of the house, though all of them looked to be somewhere round the ten-year-old mark.
‘You sure she’ll be in?’ Wilson asked.

A delivery van pulled up behind them and the driver jumped out, package in hand, and headed to the house. He banged the door once and dropped the package on the porch.

Hazel said, ‘That’s her car at the side.’

The front door opened and a blonde-haired woman about five-foot-six stepped out, watched the van pulling round their car, saw Hazel, and waved, a confused smile sitting wide on her face.

‘That’s Lucy,’ Hazel said.

‘She looks nothing like his partner.’

‘I don’t know her. But Hazel said she was a soon to be ex-partner. She’s been looking at property where she wouldn’t be sharing with two other folks.’

They got out the car. Hazel called, ‘Hey, Lucy, how you doing?’

‘Hey, Hazel. What you doing here?’

‘Wilson here, he’s from LA.’

Lucy looked at Wilson, weighing him, and calculating it was trouble. But trouble she’d rather hear inside. She said, ‘Come on in. I’ve got coffee on the go.’

Wilson hadn’t shared accommodation since college. Several of his colleagues did, had, and he’d been to a few of them. In general, they preferred to come to his place. It was smaller in square footage, but it was his alone. Several of them had complained about roommates who felt anything in the fridge was shared property. It was something Wilson knew he wouldn’t have coped with. So, while he’d had less to spend on stuff – and what money he did have, he spent on whisky – he also had a place that was peculiarly, explicitly, his own.

He let Hazel go ahead of him and followed the women inside. They entered a room with polished pine floors, but a worn and scuffed polish which told of care which could be better. The sofas bore much the same aura. Lucy waved them to a seat and asked about creamer or sugar. Wilson said neither, Hazel took both.

When Lucy brought the coffee through, three mugs balanced between her two hands, she handed them round and said, ‘What’s happened to Earl?’

Hazel snapped to look at Wilson and he saw it out the corner of his eye but he was watching Lucy already and while he wasn’t ready for the question, he thought it was something which could be coming.

‘Earl was in an accident on Saturday,’ Wilson said.

‘Is that why he hasn’t called?’

‘Did he call you often?’

‘Every day.’ Lucy sat on the same sofa as Hazel, looking at her friend, and seeing a smile of concern in her face.

‘Lucy, I’m sorry to bring you this news. Earl died on Saturday. We didn’t find out until yesterday, but we thought you should be told in person as soon as possible.’ Wilson kept his gaze on the suddenly bereft woman.

Lucy clasped both hands round her mug, but held it without drinking. ‘What happened?’

‘There was a crash on the freeway, the car hit a trailer. I’m sorry to let you know like this.’ Wilson figured she wouldn’t want to know about Earl already being dead, and in the trunk in pieces. And now he needed to know what else she might know. ‘Lucy, I need to ask, did you know Earl had a partner back in Los Angeles?’

Lucy looked up, her eyes were thick with as yet unfallen tears. She nodded. ‘He said he was going to tell her this weekend. He was coming back at the weekend, as said that we’d be together.’

‘Lucy, did Earl ever hit you, or threaten to hit you?’

‘No! Why would ask such a thing?’

‘Because he beat Allison, did he tell you his partner was called Allison? When he left here on Thursday he went home and beat Allison so bad she was in hospital.’

‘That’s a lie!’ Lucy said. ‘Allison was a cold and heartless bitch who used him to have somewhere to live.’

Wilson thought back to visiting the apartment in uniform. He thought about how Allison had looked, how her eyes had stiffened with fear when she’d realised Earl had come and stood behind Wilson while they talked in the kitchen, how her fingers had slid Wilson’s card into her top. He remembered that she’d never called, even as he’d hoped she would over the coming weeks.

He said, ‘Whatever he told you about Allison, he definitely beat her so bad she was in hospital. But I guess I don’t need to ask if he was violent to you. If he had been you’d have said, or at least been relieved it wouldn’t happen again.’

There was silence, a weight of belief and knowledge and fear and things known and unknown.

Wilson broke it. He asked, ‘Did Earl ever give you a package, or tell you about packages that he was sending?’ The flicker of Lucy’s eyes was almost non-existent, but he was watching for it.

‘No,’ Lucy said. ‘And he never even threatened to hit me.’

Wilson said, ‘Hazel, could you get me the file I left in the car? It’s got some stuff Lucy might want to know in it.’

‘Erm, sure, Wilson.’ Hazel looked at Lucy. ‘You okay?’

Lucy nodded. Hazel stood, and made her way across the room, looking at Wilson quizzically. When the front door clicked shut Wilson said, ‘I need to know about whatever Earl had you do. Trust me, you need to tell me.’

‘Did he really die in a wreck?’

The question caught Wilson. He knew he hadn’t, but not necessarily for the reason Lucy thought. He said, ‘He really died in a wreck. And as far as we know, it was a dumb accident.’ He watched her nod in relief. He continued, ‘But, there are folks who really want to know about the packages he had you take for him. And if you know anything, you suspect they aren’t nice folks, and that includes your friend Hazel. She might not say or do anything, but you can be sure she’s telling folks who will.’

Lucy looked at Wilson with wide eyes, they were blue, but puffed with sorrow. She said, ‘He had me send some stuff to his apartment. It was five packages. He said it was what we needed to break free.’

‘Did he say what it was that would let you break free?’

Lucy shook her head. ‘No. It was just five packages. I figured it was something to do with whoever he and Hazel work for.’ She glanced towards the door, a look that ensured Hazel hadn’t managed to come back within hearing range. ‘Mr Wilson, he was scared of the people he worked for.’

The front door opened. Hazel brought in the green folder Wilson had held on his lap through the flight from LA. She handed it too him with the look of someone who suspected something but couldn’t prove it.

Wilson took the folder with a nod of thanks, but without taking his gaze from Lucy. He wanted to ask about the packages Earl had sent, but knew that anything the grieving woman said would be fed back to Earl and then there’d be a session of questions to clarify but the questioners would have less concern for the grieving woman.

Wilson flipped the folder open and slid out the papers inside. He pretended to inspect them, giving Hazel the report she could feed back. He came to a page which seemed to be relevant and stopped. He read down the page in his hand and then looked up at Lucy, holding her with a firm, unwavering gaze. He said, ‘From this, Earl suggested there was inventory missing from the accounts he was undertaking. Did he mention such to you?’ He looked at her with a blank gaze, hoping it invited a similar response.

‘Earl never spoke about his work,’ Lucy said.

‘But you must have known something. You know Hazel.’

Lucy barely flickered a look at her friend. ‘We’ve known each other for more years than Hazel’s worked for, whoever it is you both work for.’ She looked at Hazel and said, ‘Sorry, I was never good at listening.’ She breathed in, it caught in her throat, and she coughed, spluttered and then sobbed, collapsing back into the sofa. Hazel reached forward and wrapped her in a hug, she looked at Wilson with an unspoken accusation. He stared back and shrugged. Lucy continued to sob.

Wilson said, ‘I’m going back to the car. You ladies take the time you need.’ He left them hugging. Back in the car he looked through the file again, wondering what he could add, what he now knew. He believed Lucy had sent packages on Earl’s behalf, and at the same time reckoned she had no idea what was wrapped up in the packages. What had he told her? Whatever it was he tied it into a promise that they would be together, that Allison was no more than a mist which was to disappear.

It was another fifteen or twenty minutes before Hazel got in the car. She slid in without looking at Wilson, put the key in the ignition, started up, and headed to the bottom of the street. They turned left and Hazel said, ‘Lucy says she doesn’t know what you were asking about.’

Wilson looked at the street name, fixing it in his head, and remembering what Lucy had said about Earl having her courier packages. The woman was smart. Not smart enough to see through a brute like Earl, or enough to be taken in by him.

‘Do you want to go to the hotel?’ Hazel asked.

Wilson wasn’t sure there was anything else he needed from Cleveland. He’d found Lucy. He knew Lucy had sent packages for Earl. If Earl had help putting the packages together then he reckoned they’d already be speaking, Harry would have heavies leaning on anyone in the places Earl could have taken the stuff from, so anyone who knew was already compromised, coerced. He said, ‘Yes, take me to the hotel. You’ve saved me a whole bunch of time and effort. Thank you. Letting me know about your friend must have been conflicting.’

‘It wasn’t so much. I’m so sorry for her though. I’m kind of glad you were there to tell her about what happened to Earl. She’d be tearing herself up if there’d just been nothing from him.’

‘I think she’s lucky. I saw first-hand how he treated his woman in Los Angeles. From my experience, men who beat one woman, will beat others. It might start all sweetness and light, but when he gets frustrated, angry, then he doesn’t have a way to regulate his emotions properly. He seeks a release of frustration and hitting out is the way he does it. Hitting the woman in front of him is what he does. A man like that is coward, a—’ He stopped, conscious that this was becoming a diatribe, more reflective of things he’d seen in life than in what Lucy had experienced with Earl, or that Hazel may have witnessed.
‘Anyway, enough about Earl. Tomorrow I’d like to see where it is Earl worked when he was up here, meet the folks he was around. We can do that, right?’ Hazel nodded. Wilson said, ‘How was Lucy when you left her? Will she be okay? I imagine it’s tough for a stranger to rock up and say the guy you were planning on being with has died.’

‘She’ll be okay. But I think she’s calling in sick for work. No one wants a hostess crying all over their chicken parm because it reminds her of a date with her dead lover.’

They made small talk the rest of the journey, with Hazel admitting she was hopping to leverage being helpful for Harry into getting a move out to California. Wilson got the impression she hoped to find a way into acting. Another mid-west dream doomed to die.

Wilson booked into his room, took a shower, and looked at the bed longingly. It might only be four, but he’d been on the go since just after five am and half-a-continent away at that. He dressed in jeans and a plain t-shirt, slipped on his jacket, and headed out.

Getting back to Lucy’s would have been easier in a cab but taking the metro most of the way allowed for time to rest and let things percolate in his head. Most of Sunday had been spent at his table with a legal pad mind-mapping the way things were going. The knowledge that Harry had people he reported to, who engendered fear in the man, had eroded some of his mystique, but not to the point that he was stupid enough to not worry about the kind of violence her would dish out if he felt Wilson had betrayed him in some way.

From the metro stop Wilson did take a cab. The street was busier now, more cars were in drive-ways, there were children playing on bikes and scooters, one garden had a paddling pool out front of the garage and several primary school age children were jumping in and out, splashing each other with joyful abandon.

Lucy answered the door, looked at Wilson, and said, ‘I thought it’d be tomorrow before you came back. Come in.’

‘Hazel said you weren’t going in to work tonight, so I thought I’d come by.’

‘Come into the kitchen, I’ll make coffee. You want to know about the packages, right? The thing you were careful to stop talking about when Hazel came back in the house. And that’s why I knew you’d be back.’ Lucy put a fresh filter and coffee in her machine.

Wilson sat at the small table and watched Lucy get cups and creamer out. She had the air of a woman who’d spent time deep in thought, was still in the process of thinking. He wondered if she was someone who had already done her crying, or if that would be coming later. Maybe it was both, he was no expert on grief. But it didn’t look like she’d just finished weeping.

‘Look,’ Wilson said, ‘If you felt up to it I’d like to hear how you and Earl got together, and what he told you about the work he did, and what he said about the packages you posted for him.’

Lucy wiped the surface with a cloth and leaned against it. She looked at Wilson, tucked her bottom lip over her teeth, and popped it against her top lip. The faint sound just carried over the sound of the coffee machine.

For a moment Wilson thought she was going to refuse, maybe tell him about the packages, she’d pretty much already agreed to that. He said, ‘Hazel says that she was responsible for you meeting.’

Lucy nodded. ‘Hazel and I go way back. We worked in bars and restaurants together, and auditioned for the same theatre shows. Then, about eighteen months or so ago, she took this job doing whatever it is she does and at first I couldn’t figure it out because it meant she wasn’t as flexible for auditions but then she came into the restaurant with a couple of guys who were from LA and it kinda made sense. I’m really focused on theatre, but Hazel wants to do tv or movies and figures if she can get to LA that’ll make it easier. Anyway, she’s there with these LA guys one time and Earl’s with them. They’re obviously part of the, er, consortium which owns the restaurant, and were sitting drinking long after we closed. We got to join, and I sure wasn’t going to pass up the chance of a glass or two of the very expensive wine the table had been getting.’ The coffee machine spluttered, indicating the last of the water was in the filter. ‘Do you take sugar or creamer, I don’t remember.’

‘Black, one sugar. Thanks. So was it just like an instant click between you and Earl or what?’

‘No, but over a couple of visits he was always really nice and then the third or fourth time he hands me a little envelope, which I thought was a tip, but when I went to put it in the tip pool it as a note with his number asking if I wanted to go on a date next time he was up. I messaged him and said yes.’ Lucy brought Wilson’s coffee over. She sat at the other side of the table and wiped away something that Wilson hadn’t seen. She continued, ‘That first date was interesting. We hadn’t had our starters when he tells me that he lives with a woman back in LA. It’s not what you expect to hear on a first date. All kinds of things went through my mind, but he was just real sweet. Said it what a tough situation and he was trying to work a way out.’ Lucy tilted her head to one side and stared through the wall, straight into the past. ‘I almost cut it then. Not really interested in drama, I get that in the theatre. If I hadn’t been starving, I probably would have. But work had been quiet and I hadn’t as many shifts as I needed and, well, by the time we’d finished I’d agreed to see him the next night and by that time he left that trip there was already something.’ She looked back at Wilson. ‘You know that thing where the stomach gets a little fluttery? Or is that just a girl thing.’

‘No. Us guys get it too. Some of us even admit to it. So, what happened with him asking you to courier stuff for him?’

‘We’re lying in bed one night,’ Lucy nodded her head and pointed above her, ‘in my room up there, and we’re talking and I ask him how come he works for the people he works for and he says that when he started, he didn’t know.’ She flicked her eyes to look at Wilson, sudden look of worry on her face.

‘Yeh, don’t worry about me saying anything to any of them.
I’m an outside contractor who was bought in to find Earl, and the stuff he stole from them.’

‘The packages I sent.’

‘Yep, that’ll be it.’

‘He said he was taking something which would allow him to get out, that we’d be able to move somewhere together and not have to worry about criminals or his ex or…’ Lucy tailed off and tears welled in her eyes. She blinked a few times and then wiped.

Wilson waited a few moments, sipping his coffee, then said, ‘Can you remember where you sent the packages, and how many of them were there?’

‘There were five. I sent them all to the same place, but he made me use different couriers. The address I still have written down if you want it.’

‘That’d be useful, please,’ Wilson said. He had a good idea what it would be. He suspected Earl had couriered the money to himself.

‘It’s in my room, hold on.’

Her steps were quick and light. Wilson listened to them go up the stairs, move around in the room above, and then come back down. She handed him a sheet of paper and, as expected, it was Earl’s apartment. ‘Thanks,’ he said, and tucked the paper into his jacket pocket. ‘I don’t suppose Earl told you what he was stealing, did he?’

Lucy shook her head. ‘I told him it had better be worth it. The way it was packaged I couldn’t figure it out. I guess he’s hidden them, and you can’t find them now.’

‘That’s about the shape of it. I would suggest that you don’t tell anyone else that you helped him. It’s not the police, the folks he worked for won’t be telling the police anything about the theft, but if they come asking it’d be safer to say nothing about you and him moving away, or you sending anything for him. They aren’t nice people and, well, you seem like you don’t need the hassle of trying to explain to mindless thugs that you don’t know anything.’ He stared across the table, holding her gaze. ‘You don’t know anything, do you?’ His feeling was she didn’t. There’d be some hint. If this woman had opened a package and found a million dollars she wouldn’t be sat here. The look on her face as she shook her head confirmed his feeling. As a cop he’d seen people lying about all kinds of things, money included – admittedly not as much as this – but she was either the best damned actor in the history of the profession or she was telling the truth. ‘Look, can you tell me where you dropped the packages off? Then I can get out of your hair and let you get on with… well, let you get on.’

‘Sure. If you’ve got that piece of paper I’ll write them down for you.’ Wilson handed it over and she scrawled down three addresses. ‘They’re all downtown. Will you find them okay?’

‘I’m sure my phone will be able to give me directions.’ He drained the last of his coffee and stood. ‘I do need one final favor though, when I go out would I be best going left or right to find a cab or the way to the metro?’

‘You don’t have a car?’

Wilson shrugged, ‘Sometimes the provided transportation isn’t the best way to move around.’

Lucy looked at him confused, but said, ‘Probably best going down the street, so turn left. At the bottom there’s a bus stop and they run to the metro stop. Or you could just call the cab to collect you here.’

‘It was already dumb having a cab drop me here. I’ll not compound it by having one pick me up. Thanks for the coffee and the information.’ He looked at her, and lowered the tone of his voice, ‘Stay safe, Lucy. And maybe try to find a job where the business isn’t run by crooks.’

‘You know, there’s an open call on at the moment for a new show that’s going to tour. Maybe it’s time to go be a full-time actor.’ Lucy stared back at Wilson. ‘It can’t be any worse than this, right?’

‘There’s no promises, but I’m sure you’d do well.’

He walked up the street without looking back. The late afternoon sun was hot and by the time he’d gone thirty yards sweat bloomed on his head and back. He walked past the house where the kids were still playing in the paddling pool and eyed it jealously. Meanwhile he let his meeting with Lucy replay in his head, watching for anything he’d missed as it happened, any inflections, hesitations, elisions, which would indicate she knew more than had been admitted to. There was nothing which stood out.

Back on the metro he mused on the differences between Allison and Lucy. Not that he had anything but that single meeting with Allison to compare, but there was a worn timidness in her which was missing in Lucy. He couldn’t help but wonder how long it would have taken Earl to change that.

Back at the hotel he showered, ordered room service, and spread sheafs of documents out on the desk. He went through them again, looking for anything which could indicate the location of a second storage unit. The food came and he ate it while continuing to read, amazed again at the level of detail from Earl’s life which was available to him on such short notice. Detectives would routinely complain about the length of time it took to get records of cases they were investigating, even high-profile drug or theft ones. Yet here he had bank and phone details for a man who had been missing for only a few days.

And they told him nothing.

He pulled his yellow legal pad over, stood from the desk, and went over to the bed, propping himself against the backboard and putting a music channel on as background noise. He flicked back through the notes he’d been making since he’d first been handed the file by Harry, on Friday.

The first notes were where to consider looking for a missing man, and he’d covered the main ones, even putting a note to look at possible affair partners. And there had been an affair partner. But she’d added precious little to where the money Earl stole could have gone. There were no calls to rental units, to unidentified businesses who may have been willing to store something on the side. No calls to anyone or anywhere which didn’t make sense. Harry, Lucy, Allison, NuMeat, a cab company in Cleveland, offices which Harry had identified as work numbers. Indeed, the last few months of Earl’s life painted the picture of a man with little to no social life, very little life at all outside of work.

Maybe it was why he’d started up with Lucy. It didn’t explain why he beat Allison but then, Wilson had never understood how anyone could profess to love a person and then treat them in such a way. Psychologists probably had some fancy explanation.

At least Allison wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore. She was well out of it. ‘SHIT!’ Wilson sat upright, and picked the pad from his lap where it had fallen while his thoughts had drifted.

He flicked through the pages too where he’d written down what the neighbour had told him Saturday morning. Allison had been spirited away by a friend.

The money had been delivered to the apartment. Maybe she’d opened a package and seen the money, and that’s why he beat her so badly.

And maybe Allison was the answer to where the money was now. Earl flew back from Cleveland Thursday and beat Allison senseless, disappeared on Friday, and was found butchered in the trunk of his own car on Saturday.

There were two real options, that Wilson could see, as to where the money was. Either it was in the car when whoever killed and butchered Earl took him, and the killer now had an unexpected windfall and no need to worry about disposing of the vehicle or most of the body, or Allison and whoever her friend was had disappeared with it.

Tomorrow, he’d go and check the offices and speak to the people there, he’d have Hazel drive him round the courier offices to ask questions, but he already could feel there were no answers here in Cleveland.

Chapter Break

I wrote this post about a story where I had a first chapter written. I'm trying to push on and finish a first draft in 2024.

If you'd like to be tagged in for future chapters, let me know.

Thanks

Stuart

Link to collated chapters HERE

Link to the short story which is the seed for this is HERE

Any LA based or knowledgable folks who want to pitch in on local things I get wrong, please do. I've never been and there's only so much I can learn on the internet.

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