The City of Angels

“Welcome to Los Angeles Union Station. For those of you who’ve travelled with us all the way from Chicago, we hope you’ve enjoyed your three day tour of the Great American West. Please watch your step as you disembark…”

The driver’s voice blares through the train compartment, and Ella Sue looks at me, rubbing a bleary eye. It’s eight in the morning and she only got up fifteen minutes ago. Even with her hair a tangled mess and just a touch of make-up on, she still looks hot as hell in her ripped overalls and thin white top, dressed for the “Cali winter,” as she put it.

Despite that, she looked mortified when I suggested that she post a selfie to her Instagram.

“So…” Ella Sue mumbles, following behind me as I heft her luggage onto the train platform. She taps on her phone a few times and squints at it. “Looks like the map wants us to take the bus to the apartment. We switch buses at Venice and Broadway…”

“It’ll just be you heading there,” I say, checking the time on my phone. “I promised a friend that I’d meet up with him first thing getting here. Could you text me the address of our place?”

“Um… okay?”

She gives me a look, one which I deftly avoid as I step out of the way of a lumbering guy exiting the train. My phone chimes a second later with the address. It’s an East Hollywood location. Well, it’ll be close to the action, if nothing else.

“Thanks,” I say, waving at her. “Catch you later today.”

“Bye,” she says, watching me as I trudge off the platform, hefting my backpack over the dress-shirt that I’ve worn twice now.

It’s nearly nightfall when I press the buzzer to the apartment. A couple blocks away from the City College and adjacent to a number of gay bars, I’d call it a fine neighborhood— certainly a step up from the shitty corner of New York I used to call home. Down the street, a couple Mexican guys are smoking in front of an old church, jawing off in a mix of English and Spanish. The angels in the architecture are staring at me.

I thumb though my phone, waiting for Ella Sue to get the door, and tap into the Affection Multiplier. I take stock of the scores that have changed since I’ve last seen them:

Erin Najbreit, Score: 85 (+50) (as Markus), 0 (as Claude)

Genevieve Cavanis, Score: 85 (+35) (as Markus), 0 (as Claude)

Ella Sue Sergeant, Score: 0 (as Markus), 60 (+60) (as Claude)

Inspector Vidocq, Score: -1150 (-150) (as Markus), 0 (as Claude)

The news here is as expected, but there are two important tidbits that I take away from the check. First, my score with Vidocq has decreased below -1000. I had thought that I’d already hit the lower bound on the score, considering that was Father’s score with me too, but it apparently goes lower—and that means I must have done something to really tick him off. All of a sudden, it’s a lot more plausible that his hospitalisation might be something serious.

The second thing I notice is that my scores are still separated out into Markus and Claude for everyone save Mr. Samuel. Erin and Genevieve still don’t know what my alternate identity is, and more importantly, Ella Sue and Vidocq haven’t cracked it either. The Affection Multiplier is a surprisingly powerful tool, and it just got more powerful: now, I’ll know the moment Vidocq cracks my alter-ego, and have a chance to react appropriately, instead of being caught with my pants down. For tonight, at least, I can rest easy knowing that my new identity is safe.

“Hey, is it Claude?” Ella Sue’s voice crackles over the intercom.

“You bet,” I say, and I hear a soft click as the front door to the building unlocks.

We’re on the second floor of the apartment, unit A, and by the time I’ve climbed up the steps, the front door is open and Ella Sue is standing there, waving at me.

“Hey, what took you so long?” she asks, mock-pouting at me.

“Was talking with my friend, we kind of lost track of time,” I say, trying to look guilty and probably succeeding all too well.

“What, and you also just happened to buy a muscle tee and surfer shorts?” she asks, frowning at my new attire.

I spent the hours covering my tracks so that you don’t get murdered in the middle of the night, I want to say, but instead, I smile and laugh, saying: “Yeah, he surfs, and we uh… might have caught a couple waves.”

“Oh, that’s super cool! You’ll have to take me sometime!”

“I’m sure we could manage that,” I reply, stepping into the apartment. The main living area is lightly furnished with a wooden table and a couple chairs to match, lightly cracked yellow wallpaper, and a wilted potted plant in the corner. “And well, this place has got a charm, huh?”

“You’re being sarcastic,” Ella Sue says, rolling her eyes. “Come on, we can go to IKEA to shop tomorrow and decorate the apartment! Oooh, you’re an artist, I’m sure you have loads of super cool ideas for what we could do. Maybe you could paint a painting for our walls!”

“That’s not really my kind of art,” I say, dropping my bag off on a chair. I poke my head into each of the two bedrooms. Both of them look similarly drab, though I see that Ella Sue’s claimed one for her own, her suitcase opened up and clothes sprawled everywhere over the room already.

“So, this is my room?” I ask, nodding my head at the one she’s taken.

“Hey!”

“I mean, it is where I’m going to be sleeping tonight, isn’t it,” I say, tongue-in-cheek.

“Keep this up and it won’t be true for much longer,” she replies, folding her arms over her chest. But then, she suddenly points at the room’s corner: “Wait, we could move the bed over to that side, and then get a dresser here, next to the closet, and then get some cute curtains to match and then the room will be so good!”

“Right,” I say, bemused at her never-ending enthusiasm. “I should mention, I might not be able to join you tomorrow for the furniture shopping. I have an appointment in the morning that might run long. But get whatever catches your eye, I’ll split the bill halfway if its for the apartment.”

“What’s the appointment?” she asks.

“I shouldn’t tell you,” I say, and I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth.

I see the frown scurrying across Ella Sue’s face, and then her eyes narrow.

“Your hair’s not brownish anymore,” she says, dead serious.

The accusation hangs in the air, and I suddenly feel the weight of her eyes boring into me.

“Should it be?” I ask, casually.

Another mistake.

“Well, it was when I first met you,” she says. I can see the way her eyes flick around the room, checking for exits, resting on the window, perhaps wondering if she could escape through there if it would be necessary. I feel sorry that she has to do this.

“Yeah,” I sigh.

She’s not stupid. I’ll need to give her a part of the truth if I’m to keep up this charade.

“I was using some hair dye, it must have washed out when I was at the beach,” I say. I never went to the beach today, but it’s a plausible lie that reinforces that earlier one. “It’s like my temporary tattoos. I was trying a look.”

“But why?”

“My appointment tomorrow, it’s with a plastic surgeon,” I say. “I’m here to fix up my appearance some, and so I’ve been… experimenting. Trying different looks, different styles, seeing what fits me. It’s why I’ve been changing through all these outfits, too.”

She looks at me, and I can tell she’s judging me a little for the admission. I shrug.

“I’m thinking of going public as an artist. You as well as anyone knows that image matters a whole lot. So, I decided to change how I present myself, in a way that’s consistent with who I am and who I want to be.”

“Oh,” Ella Sue says, thoughtful.

She stands there, facing me for a minute, thinking things through. She’s relaxed a bit, shoulders less hunched, but something’s clearly going in her head. Am I going to need a find another place to sleep tonight?

“I think you shouldn’t go public,” she finally says.

I give her a questioning look.

“You’re hotter when you’ve got a mystique,” she says, mouth twitching, and I laugh.

“I’ll consider it,” I say. “But I do need to do this appointment tomorrow. It’s as much for me as it is for my work.”

“No worries! Let me know how it goes,” she says. “You’d better still be hot afterwards, though.”

“Hotter than this?” I ask, flexing in my muscle tee, showing off a whole lot of nothing for her to see.

“You’re an artist, you’re hot in a different way,” she giggles, and I don’t have time to react before she’s slid up to my body and pressed herself against me, all is forgiven, she’s kissing me lightly on the lips, and together, we laugh and fuck in this new bed of ours, forgetting the dinginess of the space for a few hours.