And so it begins.

Here you go — ~1000 words, starting with the concept of:

Eddie J Roberts. I last saw you about 20 years ago. I am in Los Angeles now and I want to catch up with you. You were born in Epsom and have a brother Charlie.

As this is a mostly-U.K.-based effort, and I assume we're going to pick the UK Epsom (there are two in the US) as the protaganist's origination point, I've made an attempt to translate terms when I know there are US/UK differences. Please do not hesitate to correct me where I've messed up, and I'll edit this post plus try to get it right on my next turn.

— Valerie

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Chapter One

Ryan tried to ignore the two men leaning on his car and focus on his map. Somehow he'd taken a wrong turn — missed the turnoff for Interstate 10, as best he could tell. Which meant he had driven a lot further south than he had intended. The man nearest his passenger window was laughing. This couldn't be a good thing. The one to his right was digging around in a worn backpack and shaking his head.

And Ryan realized his focus had drifted. Where was he again? He traced the line on the map, looked up at a street sign. Crap. If his assessment was right, he was somewhere between Watts and Inglewood, and he had no idea what the rules were down here. He was only sure that he was breaking them somehow.

The windows were steaming up on the inside. He had to reverse his steps — how many times had he turned, again? — and get back on the freeway heading north. And he had to do it soon.

The man nearest him lifted his hand from Ryan's window to scratch his head, leaving a faint handprint on the glass. Ryan took advantage of the moment to pull away from the kerb, trying hard to read the map, make a U-turn and avoid possibly being shot at at the same time.

It was just one more in a series of events that had made it clear that Los Angeles was an alien place, and that Ryan didn't speak the language. In fact L.A. felt like a conglomerate of foreign countries; he would drive into a neighbourhood and see all signs suddenly in an unfamiliar alphabet, open his window and hear nothing resembling English. Mobs of people sometimes appeared out of nowhere and directed his car away from a certain street, or blocked a driveway. The weather was oppressively sunny and cheerful. People he met for business lunches told him about their divorces or their most recent operations before he had learned their last names.

He had a month or two here at least, enough time to find Eddie if he could, and enough leeway in his job to wangle the time longer or shorter as needed. It wasn't going to feel like home, but damned if he was going to keep on feeling like a target. So what if half the population had a gun?

Ryan hadn't mentioned Eddie when he'd volunteered to come out to the Los Angeles office for what were being called Contract Negotiations and what were really Preparations for Cutting You Off at the Knees. But Eddie had to be out here somewhere — really there was nowhere else in the U.S. that made sense — and Ryan felt he owed it to him to catch up. Not that he could make up for what had happened, but that perhaps he could provide some explanation, offer some long-delayed help — hell, buy the man a beer at the very least. He'd run a hundred Internet searches, put an ad in the personals section of the L.A. Times, and found a few tantalising leads, but it was increasingly clear that a little detective work was needed. And that said detective work might take him right back to the type of neighbourhood where strangers used your car for a back support.

It seemed very much to Ryan like detective work in a minefield.

He righted himself on the freeway and sped northwards, ignoring the insistent ring of his mobile. It was probably Caro, and he didn't want to listen to another of her alcoholic late-night rants, the endless guilt trips, the vague sense of shame they left behind. He was overdue at the downtown office for yet another meeting, and he'd missed lunch — he hoped they had something other than doughnuts on the table at this one.

Steak was what he really wanted, but Ryan settled for a cheese-filled pastry and a cup of weak coffee and tried to turn his mind to corporate problems. An attractive olive-skinned woman named Feelo? Phyllo? appeared to be trying to catch his eye throughout the meeting, while handing out an endless stream of historical press releases that were utterly useless to real discussion. Across the table from him a thick-necked bloke called Rod wiped sweat from his forehead and doodled in a black notebook. Two thin fellows in grey suits, Dave and Sid, were the objects of the meeting, but they left the talking to an expansive and red-faced young man whose name Ryan instantly forgot and whose voice he would recommend to nail file manufacturers.

It was past five when he finally escaped. Knowing better than to risk the hotel minibar, Ryan had come prepared with a bottle of Duty Free, but after pouring a finger put the bottle back in his luggage. He took the glass out on the balcony and looked south over the city, trying to reason out of himself the sense of discomfort and displacement. For now, at least, he had to pursue what he could to find Eddie. Maybe he would get lucky and the trail would take him home again.

But home meant Caro and all the attendant implications. Irritated by the turn of his thoughts, Ryan tossed back his drink, came in off the balcony and shut the door, noticing for the first time that the message light was blinking on his room phone.

Of course the voice mail instructions on the phone weren't correct, and Ryan had to call down to the desk for advice. When he finally picked up the message he was surprised to hear an unfamiliar woman inviting him down to the bar for a drink. He listened to the message again, and realized the voice was not unfamiliar; it was Phyllo. Feelo. Whatever. Ryan looked at his empty glass and tried to decide what he wanted to do.