O U T S K I R T S O F L O S A N G E L E S
John wheezed through his ventilator as he sat squashed into a wheelchair beside Miller, who had seated himself opposite a twenty five year old tech recovery worker in the booth of a highway diner.
The young man laid his fingertips out over Miller’s laptop keyboard.
Miller leaned forward, his voice calm and soft considering the urgency of his request.
“So, can you do it?” He asked.
The twenty five year old had been bribed with cash and swiftly removed from the computer hardware store he worked part time in.
He was a handsome, brown eyed and Puerto Rican.
He had a thin line of dark facial hair above his upper lip and a heart tattoo on his wrist.
He wore a pale blue short sleeved shirt and a loosened tie around his collar.
The ‘Tech R’ Us’ name badge pinned to his chest read ‘Hayden’.
“Yeah,” Hayden nodded, his posture stiff and awkward, “It’s a pretty big file. But uh, I can recover it, f’ sure …”
He glanced at the old man in the wheel chair, his wrinkled skin, long yellow finger nails, sharp teeth and damp nostrils stuffed with plastic tubing …
He then rested his eyes on the smartly dressed middle aged man, who took a satisfying sip of his coffee after hearing Haydens words of reassurance.
“Perfect,” Miller whispered.
Hayden cleared his throat.
“Why do you need it back so bad?” He asked, his eyes narrowing at the video clip on the laptop screen, “How did you get someone this famous to do something like –”
“-- Listen. The whole thing, it’s a big secret. It took a lot for him to do that, and it took a lot for me to delete it …” Miller took another sip of his coffee, swallowing down the milky liquid before continuing, “... And it’s taken a lot for me to ask to get it back …”
Hayden weighed up the idea of retrieving such a personal file …
What someone like Miller and his elderly friend would do with such footage …
Hayden closed the laptop up, deciding not to venture further down a rabbit hole that already seemed pretty dark.
“You’ll have it in your inbox tonight. One thousand dollars, like we agreed.”
Miller smirked, that number of money mere pennies to him.
He held out his hand.
“A good price to fulfil someone's dying wish…”
He turned to John and winked as he shook Hayden’s hand.
It took all of John’s energy for him to grin at Miller with a crooked smile that said,
‘Finally, I get him …’
As Hayden packed up the laptop and readied himself for an evening of file recovery, Miller stood and reached out, tapping him on the shoulder.
Hayden turned, the laptop tucked under his armpit.
“Hey, kid … If you ever want to earn more than a thousand …”
Miller handed Hayden a calling card, “... You know where to go.”
Miller turned away and held onto the bars of John’s wheelchair.
He then wheeled him past Hayden and out of the front doors of the diner, where their private car would take them from Los Angeles to New York …
Hayden looked down at the calling card, his thumb brushing over an illustration of a house surrounded by white feathers.
