#oversharing in the tags. struggling thumbs up emoji

[jetglider]

today you get this. tomorrow who knows

[suddeninklings]

Summary. Louis Bloom needed a change. Alone in a new city, he is ready to make his mark as he had in Los Angeles. Sadie Sims is alone, too. But she knows the city in ways he doesn’t.

Introduction.

The dinner rush at Whitney’s on 4th had long passed. It had been busy, for a Tuesday. Customers of all sorts had come and gone. Tourists, locals, and regulars, but the crowd was mostly middle age. This wasn’t a place where young blood flocked. It was a staple of the Inner Sunset, but it had remained more or less unchanged since Ben and Vera Whitney had purchased the property in 1972. Too old to be hip. Too young to be a historic treasure…

Now there were only the hangers-on. An older couple sat in the coveted corner window booth, sipping decaf, indulging in a hard-earned, comfortable silence. Two men were seated at the counter, eating eggs and reminiscing. There was only one patron who sat alone by the front window. Louis Bloom. He occupied the same booth he had the night before. And the night before that. It was the only storefront on the block still open. The others, consisting of a family-owned pharmacy, a chain deli, a hardware store, a UPS store and a hippy gift shop, were all closed for the night, their windows darkened. Street side, he sat just under the “h” in “Whitney’s” that had been painted on the window in a curly, but dated font. The paint had been scratched away here and there, a victim of age and weather. The booth he chose was in better shape than most. It was perhaps too plush, covered in a cherry red vinyl, but it was clean. In front of him sat a plated omelette, barely picked over, and a large mug of black coffee.

His attention was directed at his phone, a pair of cheap, black headphones crammed into the aux adapter. One bud was stuck in his ear. The other hung down in his lap. He was listening intently, scrolling through several online police patches he had discovered thanks to a local reddit board. He switched between them every third minute, but it was turning into a dead night. Aside from a few low key robberies. Maybe on another night he would have considered pursuing them, but he needed something big if he was to maintain a good relationship with the contact he had made at one of the local stations. His name was Robert Dean and he was primed for Louis’ intervention. His station was struggling in the ratings and he was desperate for a leg up. The perfect partner. It was no small miracle that he had been able to track one down only two weeks into his tenure in this new city. San Francisco.  

The decision to leave Los Angeles wasn’t an easy one, but he couldn’t deny that circumstances needed to change if he were to continue to grow in the industry he had revolutionized. His relationship with Nina had soured. The competition had grown since he had exploded onto the scene. The number of copycats had risen significantly in a matter of months. It didn’t surprise him. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, they say. They. He thought, bitterly. They were ruining everything. He was no longer a lone shark in a large sea. He was one of many, hunting and feeding at the first scent of blood. Bait was being gobbled up so quickly, he was lucky to get by with one good story a week. It wasn’t enough. He needed more. A new sea, one untainted by the mimics that clung to him as if he were some giving, door-opening host. He thought long and hard about where he would choose to move. Chicago had been his second choice. Perhaps he would find himself there, eventually. But the city by the bay had some scintillating perks. It was a city in flux. The burgeoning, nationwide class war was escalating faster here than in most urban areas. The beloved streets, still rife with historical infamy, were now caught between the poorer sentimentalists and the vampiric greed of Silicon Valley overlords. A battle wouldn’t decide the victor. This was a war. The tension was palpable. He could smell it on the air as soon as he arrived in town, with only his equipment and his car. It thrilled him. What need was there for uppers or alcohol when the night brought a rush that could sustain him for days.

“Refill?” A waitress stood by his table, a tired but sincere smile gracing her face. She must have been at least forty years of age. Her hair was dark, her teeth and fingernails showed signs of steady smoking, but she never smelled of it. She wore a small name tag clipped to her apron, bearing the name “Annie”. He smiled back, maintaining eye contact.

“Yes, thank you.” He said.

“Anytime, honey.” She replied, before shuffling away.

He liked Whitney’s. The staff was amiable and attentive, but never chatty or meddlesome. For the most part, they let him be, only stepping in when it was clear he needed something. Aside from the owner, there were no men working there. At least, the night wait staff was all female. There were three of them: Annie, Laurel and Sadie, each working five days so that there would always be at least two to support Vera at the counter while Ben hovered over the kitchen staff most nights. Except for the first and third Monday, when the diner was closed altogether. Annie was off on Sundays & Mondays. Laurel on Tuesdays & Wednesdays. And Sadie on Thursdays & Saturdays, most likely because she was the youngest and therefore the most likely to want to be out and about on such a vital weekend night. Vera was a warm woman, portly with a throaty voice, but she seemed rather attached to the youngest waitress. At first Louis thought them related in some way. They had the same bright eyes. He had never met the day shift staff, since he was usually tied up at his place, editing or planning his route for the night, running errands or sleeping if the need presented itself.

He shifted in his seat, sighing as his eyes flicked from the screen for a moment. His stomach constricted. That’s right, he had come here because he was hungry. He reached for his fork, severing another large bite and swallowing it down. The omelette was more cold than hot now, but he barely tasted it. He focused again on the screen, this time turning his attention to a watchdog group he had found on facebook. He had gone to the effort of creating a burner account for the sole purpose of gaining access to the group. It was made up of locals throughout the city, and while he had only found two leads worth following, it was proving to be a helpful tool as people seemed to post to the thread day and night, hour by hour. It baffled him, people’s need to overshare, to shout to the technical ether every thought and experience they deemed worthy of public consumption. Though in most cases, not a single shred of it was worth more than a scrap of trash. What was it about the social networks that lulled the masses so easily into a false sense of security? Didn’t they realize people were always watching, cataloguing it all? It baffled him. But people clung to it as if they were made from it. As if every post or like or emoji were connective tissue, vital to survival. Pathetic, he thought, padding through another thread. Eyes searching for various keywords. But helpful. That he couldn’t deny.

“Uh, sir?” Came a soft call.

He looked up. It was Sadie this time. She wore the same royal blue dress as the others. It sported a wide wrap around white collar, with five large buttons that came together at the front. Unlike the older two, she pinned her name tag to the side the cropped apron tied around her waist. Her hair, a natural ashy blonde, was choppy and short, but she had most of it tied back away from her face by a thin folded floral bandana.

“We’ll be closing in ten minutes.”

“Alright,” He said, his eyes drifting to his watch. It wasn’t often that time slipped away from him unnoticed.

“Was there anything wrong with your food?” She asked.

He looked to his plate where a good portion of the omelette still sat untouched.

“No, actually, could you box it for me?” He asked, his dark blue eyes meeting her cool, almost grey ones.

“Sure,” She said with a smile. It wasn’t as seasoned as Annie’s but Louis could appreciate the effort. She took the plate and headed into the back. He watched her disappear through the door, the chatter on the radio in his ear dimming. There was something strange about her, something familiar. He had yet to put his finger on it.

She returned a moment later and handed him the box in a brown paper bag.

“Thanks,” He said, thumbing a wad of bills in his pocket.

“Oh, you pay at the front,” She said, gesturing over her shoulder.

He pulled a twenty loose and held it out to her. She eyed it, almost suspiciously.

“Split it?” He explained. “With Annie.”

She nodded, taking the bill in between her thumb and index finger and folding it. “Thank you.”

Her gaze fell away from him, dodging his eye. Louis thought little of it. He was used to it. She looked as though she wanted to say something else, but drifted back to the counter, calling for Annie.

He took one last listen to each station, hoping for some sort of lead before he would need to resort to drifting up and down the streets. He was still familiarizing himself with the streets and alleyways. Which ones were less traveled, which were highly looked after. Fortunately for him, at seven miles, it was a much smaller layout to anything he was used to. He didn’t expect it would take him much longer to learn the ins and outs of the landscape. For now though, he was taking it easy. Acclimating.

With nothing sparking his attention, he slid from the booth tucking the phone into the back pocket of his jeans and slipping the other earbud into place. He stepped outside, pausing at the edge of the street corner, trying to remember where he had parked.

He heard the faint tinkling of the bell that hung above the entry door behind him.

“Goodnight, Ms. Sadie.” It sounded like Annie’s voice.

“Night, Annie.”

“You walk around the panhandle, you hear me? And head straight home. I don’t like the thought of you wandering around.”

Louis pivoted slightly, watching them from the corner of his eye. Sadie was rolling her eyes.

“Annie,” she said, seemingly over a conversation they must have had more than once. “I don’t wander, I just walk. And I’ve never run into any trouble.”

Annie just tutted, stepping of the curb and crossing the street to her car. “That don’t mean you won’t.”

Sadie lifted a hand to wave her goodbye, then turned on her heel and headed down the street towards the park. As she walked, she pulled the kerchief loose and stuffed it into the pocket of her jean jacket. The jacket was at least two sizes too large for her. She reached into the backpack slung across her left shoulder and pulled a folded baseball cap out, plunking it onto her head. It was a deterrent. With the large jacket, short hair and hat, she could easily be mistaken for a boy.

Follow her. A voice in his head urged. He wasn’t sure why. There was potential there. A young woman walking alone through the streets at night…it meant trouble certainly. But was it newsworthy? Or was it an everyday tragedy. Too familiar and too frequent for people to care. Really care.

He took one step towards the park when a blaring siren shattered through the relative peace of the dark, empty street behind him. His fingers went to his ear, pressing the bud deeper in as his free hand fiddled with the tracer on his phone.

Finally, he thought, listening greedily to the dispatch. Something good.

He spun back around, heading for his car and his equipment.

Thanks for reading! This was really just to get my feet wet I guess. This story is just flowing out of me and I can’t be stopped.This story will eventually go to some dark and creepy places. It’s the nature of the character and noir after all.