Developed by Stal Lionne Read Free Book Online

                                          Developed
     
    Asher Coleman was trying to keep cool and get his job done at the same time, which in the middle of summer in Los Angeles is damn near impossible. Like any job, being a crime scene photographer had its good days and days where all you wanted to do was stay held up in your apartment and pray that there was something decent on television. Thing is, for Asher, he needed to go out. 
    He usually developed his pictures in the darkroom he set up in the small space that separated his bedroom and his bathroom. That day though, he had tripped over his last tub of developing solution, and was without a way to get his crime scene photos printed and ready to bring to the station by the time the detectives went on the late shift.
    The only store left in Los Angeles that still sold that kind of thing was clear on the Westside, but he was on Beverly and Vermont in an old building that once had Bing Crosby singing in the lobby. Now it held those who were living out the rest of their lives in anonymity in the harsh landscape that Hollywood casts over Los Angeles.
    His best bet was to brave the last bit of sunshine and head down to Western Boulevard to see if he could find a shop that could develop his pictures on the fly. He’d worry about the poor sap who was behind the counter and had to look at the bloody reality that’s not shown on the news.
    Out onto Beverly Boulevard, Asher put on his fedora and straightened his tie, perhaps to make himself feel like a bigger man than the men who were always drunk leaned up against the liquor store wall even though he knew his night would probably end drunk up against some wall somewhere. No shame in that.
    His tanned face wasn’t young, but it had that perfect age to it – lines deep enough to hold the weight of knowledge, but not heavy enough to sag the skin. His frame was broad and impressive – old school powerful in its movement and tone. He turned left down Berendo Street, where the apartments were amazing duplexes with incredible exteriors shaded well by the palm trees that always blew nicely during this time of the day.  In one of the windows from the second floor of a Spanish style duplex, a woman watering her plant noticed Asher walking past and nearly knocked her plant off its ledge. He looked up, smiled and tipped his hat, but just as she was about to wave back, a strong arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her back into the house. Husband. Asher moved on, knowing that there were more women on second floors in Los Angeles than there were husbands to bring them inside.
    On his stroll, he bought himself a shaved ice from a small pushcart and gave the little kid a dollar more than he was charging. It cooled down his tongue, and made his style of suit look even more perfect against the old style buildings. Asher couldn’t for the life of him figure why young men were so obsessed with wearing sagging jeans and tennis shoes.
    He made a right down 1st Street and headed towards Western Ave., which he knew had one of the few places left to have pictures developed. He’d never used it before because he’d always done it himself – something about using his hands in all of those chemicals and producing a physical object that he could hold. There was a satisfaction with sliding the pictures he developed himself across the detective’s desks and picking up an envelope filled with cash. The world was no longer a place where such tangible pleasures could be found so easily.
    He crossed on to Western Ave. where his suit, skinny tie, dress shoes and argyle socks were no match against the mini-mall reality of the day. The store he was looking for was situated right next to a 24 hour tanning salon. Asher shook his head at why anyone in Los Angeles would want to tan when the sun never relents from doing its thing.
    As he got to the window of the shop, a young woman on her cell phone was about to turn