“You do?”
The other man nodded. “A friend of mine suggested it when I first moved here from San Diego. Older place in that Koreatown-Los Feliz gray area around the 101.”
Nate nodded. “Yeah, I know right where that is. It’s closer to work than the place I’m in now.”
Another nod from the Journalist. “I was only there for a few months, but the rent was cheap and it had a great view.”
“How cheap?”
The Journalist glanced around. “Between you and me,” he said, “I was paying five-fifty.”
Nate choked on some beer. It was a good price to pay if you had two or three roommates. “Five-fifty a month?”
The Journalist nodded.
“Five hundred-fifty?”
“Yep. And that included all the utilities.”
“You are shitting me.”
“Nope.”
“Why’d you leave?”
The Journalist smiled and gestured with his glass at his Hot Redhead Girlfriend. She was across the table and down a few seats, being talked at by a woman with jet-black hair and matching clothes. “We decided to move in together and got a bigger place. And...”
Nate raised a brow. “And what?”
“It’s kind of got an odd vibe to it.”
“The area or the building?”
“The building. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a great place. It just wasn’t for me.” He pulled out his phone and began brushing his fingers across the colorful screen. “I think I’ve still got the number for the management company if you want it.”
Nate felt his grin become a smile. “That’d be fantastic.”
Two
The building was a cube of red bricks lined with gray mortar, the type of building one pictured in New York or San Francisco. Two rectangles of concrete sat in the brick at the third story, each bearing the eroded image of old heraldry. Just above the wide front door, a fire escape zigzagged up the center of the building’s face. Nate knew Los Angeles had lots of old buildings like this. He worked in one of them.
It was built up on a tall foundation, sitting on top of an already-high slope. There were two flights of stairs leading up to the door. He saw them and immediately pictured the hassle of hauling furniture up them. Two trees flanked the steps and gave some cover to the downstairs apartments. They were newer additions, not as thick and sturdy as the one sprawled by the wrought-iron gate.
A small Asian woman stood just inside the gate, an orange iPad tucked under her arm. She waved to him. “Nate?”
He nodded. “Toni?”
“I am. Great to meet you.” She opened the gate and shook his hand.
Toni was one of those women it was impossible to pin an age on. She could’ve been anywhere from eighteen to thirty-five. Her skirt showed enough leg to make him think younger. The cadence of her voice and manner made him think older.
She smiled at him as she led him up the stairs. It was a fantastic smile. If it was fake, she practiced it every day. “It’s a great building,” she said. She gave one of the pillars by the door an affectionate pat. “Over a hundred years old. It’s one of the oldest in this part of the city.”
“It looks great.”
“They built them to last back then. Isn’t that what people say?” She pulled open the steel security door. The main door past it was wide open. “Come on in and I’ll show you the place.”
Above the wide front door, KAVACH was engraved on the concrete lintel in bold letter. Nate wasn’t sure if it was a word or a name.
The small lobby was straight out of a dozen noir films. Apartments 1 and 2 flanked the front door. A staircase with a well-worn banister curled up to the second floor. Beneath the staircase were two banks of mailboxes. Under the boxes were tall stacks of phonebooks. It looked like they’d been there for a long time.
“Don’t mind those,” she said. “Usually Oskar, the property manager, keeps things pretty tidy.”
“It’s not a dealbreaker,” he told her.
She gave him another smile and butterflies fluttered in his stomach. It had to be practiced. No one could naturally pack so much into curved lips and a flash of teeth.
“Let’s head up,” she said. She glanced at her iPad. “We’ll zig-zag a bit.”
She guided him up the curving staircase to the second floor and down the hall. It was all dark brown and ivory paint. They passed a narrow glass door that made him think of an old telephone booth. Toni glanced back over her shoulder and followed his gaze. “Elevator,” she explained. “It’s out of service right now, but they’ll probably have it working by the time you move in. It’s pretty small, though. You’ll have to take your furniture up the stairs.”