Jonathan Kellerman_Petra Connor 01 Read Free Page A

also said the park got started in a weird way: A crazy guy named Colonel Griffith tried to kill his wife, and he had to give the land to the city in return for not going to jail.
    So maybe there’s something about the place that’s unlucky for women . . .
    Six hundred forty acres is a square mile, so with 4,100 we’re talking major humongous. I know, because I’ve walked most of it.
    Sometimes the rangers stop and smoke and talk, too. A few weeks ago, a man and a woman ranger pulled over to the picnic area just after midnight, got out, sat down on their car’s hood, and started talking and laughing. Then they were kissing. I could hear their breathing get faster, heard her go, “Mmm,” and figured they’d be getting it on pretty soon. Then the woman pulled her head away and said, “Come on, Burt. All we need is for someone to see us.”
    Burt didn’t say anything at first. Then: “Aw, spoilsport.” But he was laughing, and she started laughing, too; they kissed some more and felt each other up a little before they got back in their car and drove away. My guess is they didn’t forget about having some sex, probably waited until work was over and then went somewhere else to do it. Maybe to one of their homes or one of those motels on the Boulevard where you pay for rooms by the hour and the prosties wait out in front.
    Now I stay away from those motels, but when I first got here a prostie—a fat black one wearing bright shorts and a black lace top with nothing underneath—tried to sell herself to me.
    She kept saying, “C’mere, boy-child.” It sounded like
“Me bocha, me bocha, me bocha.”
Then she pulled up her blouse and showed me a gigantic black tit. Her nipple was lumpy, big and purple like a fresh plum. I ran away, and her laughter followed me the way a dog follows a chicken.
    In a strange way she made me feel good, that she thought I could do it. Even though I knew she was probably kidding. I remember that nipple, the way she stuck it out at me, like, Here, take it, suck on it. Her mouth was wide open and her teeth were huge and white.
    She was probably joking on me or just needed money bad and was ready to do it with anybody. Most of the prosties are junkies or crackheads.
    The way those two rangers laughed was a little like the way the prostie laughed.
    Is there such a thing as a
sex laugh
?
    Being treated like a kid can be good or bad. When you go into a store with money, even if you’re in line ahead of adults, the adults get served first. A bigger problem is the Boulevard, and all the smaller streets full of weirdos and perverts out to rape kids. Once I found a magazine in an alley and it showed pictures of perverts doing it with kids—putting dicks up their butts or in their mouths. Some kids were crying; others looked sleepy. You don’t see the perverts’ faces, just their hairy legs and their dicks. For a long time, it gave me nightmares, those kids, the way their eyes looked. But it also made me careful.
    I’ve had guys pull up in cars when I’m walking, even in bright sunlight, waving money or candy bars or even their dicks. I ignore them, and if they don’t butt out, I run. Used to be when I was in a bad mood because of no dinner or a night full of bad dreams, I’d flip them off before I’d run. But a month ago one of them tried to run me down with his car. I got away from him, but now I keep my finger to myself.
    There’s no telling what’ll cause problems. A week ago, two guys got into a car accident on Gower, just a small dent in the front car, but the guy got out with a baseball bat and smashed the other guy’s windshield. Then he went for the other guy, who ran away.
    You’ve got maniacs yelling and screaming at everyone and no one, gunshots all the time at night. I’ve even seen guys walking around during the day with bulges in their pockets that could be guns.
    The only dead person I saw was one of the old shopping cart guys lying in an alley, his mouth open like he was