Blind Date (25 page)

“Better than anyone else,” he said. “I am George Levanter.”

“Are you the George Levanter who sent a telegram about arriving yesterday in Los Angeles?”

“I am.”

A long silence. At the other end people were talking in muffled voices.

“Then why didn't you arrive?” asked the man.

“My luggage was misdirected. I'm flying out today.”

Another silence. Again a chorus of faraway voices.

“Were you coming to Los Angeles to visit friends?”

“That's what I'm going there for,” said Levanter.

“Haven't you heard the news?” asked the man, his voice hushed and uncertain.

Levanter thought perhaps Sharon's baby had been born prematurely. “What news?”

The man hesitated. “There was a tragedy here,” he said. “Sharon and her houseguests are dead. They were all murdered last
night.” Mechanically, he listed all their names in full. “Also killed was a stranger, a man whose identity we still don't know. He must have driven up at the time the others were being killed. When your telegram was found, we assumed he was George Levanter.”

Levanter felt his heart lose its rhythm. He fought for breath. His mind was in chaos. All he could think of was how strong Woytek was. He whispered, “Woytek?”

The man seemed to know what Levanter was asking. “Shot twice. Struck on the head thirteen times. Stabbed fifty-one times.”

“And Gibby?” Levanter murmured.

“Twenty-eight stab wounds. No more questions, please,” the man added quickly. “I shouldn't even have told you this much. You can hear the rest on the news.”

As he listened to the radio reports, Levanter stared at a stack of snapshots Woytek had sent him recently of himself and Gibby with Sharon and other friends. Then he looked at the collection of college diaries that Gibby had given him, and reflected that from now on her clean, slightly square handwriting remained his only connection to her.

Levanter thought back to the first time he had met Woytek. Several boys were playing “Name the Jew” in the schoolyard. In that game, one boy stood in the center while the others slowly circled around him. He was “the Rabbi,” and he had to guess which boy had been designated “the Jew.” Each time the Rabbi guessed wrong he was fined a penny or a possession. The sooner the Rabbi found the Jew, the fewer fines he had to pay. Everyone had a chance to be Rabbi, and the Rabbi with the fewest wrong guesses won all the fines lost by the others, becoming “the Greatest Taker of Them All.”

As Levanter was walking past the group, the Rabbi spotted him and called him into the circle. He refused to play the game, and the Rabbi ordered him to be brought over by force. Three or four boys rushed toward Levanter. He pushed the first one away and had almost managed to escape from the others when two more boys cut
him off. Suddenly a tall boy whom Levanter did not know came along; although he was not a Jew, he said, he found the game disgraceful. Single-handedly, he knocked down two attackers, the rest backed off, and the game was over. This tall boy was Woytek.

Levanter had visited Woytek and Gibby when they first moved to Los Angeles. One afternoon, the two men went for a drive in a car Woytek had borrowed from one of his wealthy friends. They drove through Beverly Hills on their way down to Sunset Boulevard, passing the lavish bungalows and sprawling villas. Shiny automobiles stood in the curved driveways, apron-clad gardeners manicured the grounds, strings of invisible sprinklers sent up fine sprays that turned sunlight into rainbows. No sound broke the serenity of the hills and the private enclave.

In minutes they were in Hollywood. Groups of haggard young men and women in shabby jeans, many barefoot, strolled aimlessly along the crowded sidewalks or lounged on the pavement. Vacant looks on their faces, they seemed to have little to say to each other, nothing to do, no place to go.

“In other countries,” said Woytek, “people like these would be starving, and they would join the Party to fight the rich.”

Levanter was suddenly aware that his friend's English had improved so greatly that it was now the language they spoke even with each other.

“Here they're not hungry,” Woytek continued, “so they have no need to join anything. They sleep through the day and in the evening crawl out to the streets. I call them Crabs of Sunset. But they're not like nature's crabs, because Crabs of Sunset are out of balance with their world. I think they may be the missing link between man and robot.”

Woytek steered the car through the traffic, stopping from time to time to watch the sluggish mass crossing in front of them. Levanter noticed with some amusement that Woytek looked pleased when several young men and women enviously eyed the expensive custom-built sports car he was driving.

“Had California been an independent country,” Woytek said, “it
would long ago have gone fascist — Left or Right, it wouldn't matter. For the Right, Crabs of Sunset would become the fuel for the draconic measures that would be used to get rid of them; for the Left, they would be the ignition for the revolution that would swallow them later. As it is, the State of California has become the embodiment of their mental state: neither Right nor Left, with no shape or direction, a giant amoeba. Here everything stretches — nature and people.”

They turned around, heading back toward Beverly Hills.

“You know,” said Woytek, “one night, when they are hungry, these Crabs of Sunset may stretch out as far as their neighbors in the hills.”

“Why do you suppose that hasn't happened already?” asked Levanter.

“They simply haven't had time to stretch that far yet.”

“And the people in the hills? Don't they fear the Crabs might come?”

“Those are rich people,” said Woytek. “They think they always win. But in fact they're losing twice: once while they're alive, because with so much to lose they never really take chances; and once when they die, because being rich they lose so much.”

They were back up in the hills again. Sumptuous homes stretched on all sides.

“Some of these people take only the most naïve precautions,” Woytek said. “This house, for example.” He pointed out of his window. “It's probably equipped with every conceivable electronic safety device, and every person on the staff may be armed — even those two little spaniels might be wearing sound transmitters on their collars.”

Levanter chuckled. “Isn't that sufficient security?” he asked.

Woytek shook his head. “I once asked a man who lives near here, ‘What if Crabs of Sunset stop you in your car, outside your fancy fortress? These hills of yours,' I said, ‘have everything but pedestrians who would hear your screams and rush to the rescue. You might not have time to activate your Citizens Band radio.' The man said he thought I had a sick imagination.”

Levanter asked, “What about the police?”

“They don't have homes in the hills, you know. Police will show up the morning after. To collect the bodies and fingerprints, and to talk to the reporters about the supposed motive.”

“Yet you and I are not afraid here,” said Levanter.

“We are not,” said Woytek, “because we've known greater fear in other places.”

The news reports went on all day. Levanter kept imagining it was the night before and he was with his friend.

Woytek is alone in the living room, looking out the window. Way below, as far as he can see, the boulevards and freeways of Los Angeles stretch like a thousand runways of a giant airport. It is twilight; he is waiting for Levanter to arrive. The blinking lights of the city are beginning to fuse with the blinking of the stars. Perhaps, Woytek thinks, that's why the city was named Los Angeles. From here on Cielo Drive, the drive of the sky, it almost seems one can look down on the angels. He thinks of Levanter; his departure from Paris must have been delayed by one of those French strikes. Paris, he muses, Left today, Right tomorrow, or the other way around.

It is getting darker. Gibby is in a bedroom reading. Sharon is resting in her room. Jay, an old family friend, is elsewhere in the house. Levanter is on his way to Los Angeles, the city he likes so much. Woytek stretches out on the sofa. All is quiet. A peaceful house on Cielo Drive, he thinks, a peaceful hill, far above the caves of the scruffy hordes of Crabs of Sunset. He dozes off.

He is awakened by unfamiliar voices. He opens his eyes. A gun is pointing at him. It is in the hand of a pale young man who has a solid swelling under his cheekbone. Three teen-age girls stand next to him, each holding a knife and loops of rope. In their limp cotton skirts and loose hanging blouses, they seem lost in the room, unsure, and they glance occasionally at the solid walls and the massive beams of the ceiling. All four stare at Woytek vacantly. Crabs of Sunset, Woytek thinks.

“What can I do for you, sir and ladies?” asks Woytek sarcastically.

The man motions with his gun. “Don't move, pig. We're here to kill you all.” His stare remains fixed and indifferent.

“What are you, ghosts from a Boris Karloff movie coming to meet your maker?” says Woytek, stretching up slowly. “This is Cielo Drive. Old Boris's ghost lives on Bowmont.”

Like a stiff-jointed dummy, the man steps forward and hits him on the head with the butt of his gun. Woytek hears the crack and for a moment loses his balance. He wants to jump at the attacker, but the man holds the gun to his head. Woytek lies down again, feeling a trickle of blood from his forehead.

His gun still trained on Woytek, the man turns to one of the girls. “Tie him up,” he snaps. “And bring all the other pigs to this room,” he orders the other two girls, who trot off like trained retrievers.

The one assigned to Woytek tucks her knife into her skirt and edges toward him, a stubborn look in her eyes. As she leans over him to tie his wrists behind his back, he smells her unclean body and sees her face covered with blemishes, the pus ready to be squeezed out. Woytek's blood smears onto her, but she ignores it. Under the gaze of the pale young man, the girl goes to the other end of the sofa and starts to bind Woytek's ankles. He watches her; she seems to be following a script prepared by an invisible agency monitoring her from afar.

“What is it you people want?” asks Woytek. “Money? Love? Fame?” He is suddenly conscious of his foreign accent.

The man with the gun turns away and, without a word, leaves the room. The girl has finished her job; she looks at Woytek with no passion, no fear, no excitement. His blood is soaking through her blouse and Woytek wonders whether it is seeping onto her small breasts. She catches his gaze. Suddenly, she grabs her knife and stabs Woytek in the leg, then, rapidly, in the chest and belly. In sudden pain, Woytek jerks away, howls, and almost rolls off the sofa. Sneering, she pokes him back into place with the knife.

Blood oozes from the wounds, clinging to his jaw, wetting his clothes, staining the sofa. The girl stands over him. His bleeding and pain make no impact on her. He tries to reassure himself that women are accustomed to the sight of blood because they menstruate, and that the girl is only trying to intimidate him. His leg goes numb. Still, behind his back, he is trying to wiggle his wrists free. To distract her, he turns his head to the side and looks at her bloodied skirt. It could almost be her own blood, he thinks. Again, the girl catches his gaze. She raises her knife, lunges forward, and drops her hand, digging into his chest. As the shriek tears out of his throat, Woytek feels the blade hitting a rib, which stops it from sinking farther. His legs kick spasmodically, and she withdraws the knife. Fresh blood gushes out. He no longer doubts that she intends to kill him. Woytek weakens and for a moment feels weightless.

He is about to give in to this sensation when he hears Gibby scream. He turns, raising his head, and sees her on the staircase, being urged down by one of the girls, who keeps jabbing her with a carving knife.

Gibby's face is bruised and pale, her glasses have been knocked off. There are red marks on her white robe. Does Gibby have her period? He can't remember. There was a time, he recalls, just after they became lovers, when she couldn't bring herself even to talk about it. She was ashamed of her body, ashamed of going to the bathroom, too shy to show affection, too proud to ask for it. But that is all past now. She has learned to give generously of herself. Her body is free; she is not afraid to receive pleasure or to give it. Their love has survived its harsh beginnings: they are finished prompting each other with hard drugs; at last they are at ease together.

Gibby is shaking and crying. The girl behind her swings her hand down and, pitching forward, stabs her; the red marks on Gibby's robe grow larger and blood is streaking down her legs. Gibby is falling down the stairs. She crashes against the railing, then gets up and tries to run, but she falls again. The long knife is
flashing in the girl's hand. She brings it close to Gibby's neck to show she is ready to slash her throat. The redness spreads all over Gibby's robe.

Woytek hears Gibby offering the girl money and credit cards. He hears the girl's cackling laughter. She says she does not want Gibby's paper and plastic.

“Gibby, run!” he shouts, his voice tearing through his body as the pain mounts in his chest.

Spinning violently, the girl beside him rams him with her knife again. It sinks deep into his groin. There is so little time left, he thinks, howling. He closes his eyes, pretending to faint. Gibby should try to bluff her way out. She should tell the attackers who she is — they must have seen her name in thick bold letters on cans in every supermarket they've ever been to. She should tell them they can gain nothing by killing her; she is rich, among the richest in this rich land, and she can give them money if they will let her go. She should tell them who she is, tell them about her money. Anything to stop them. He thinks of shouting all this at them himself, but his mind is tired, clutching at the thought: one wrong phrase and Gibby may again think he's trying to use her money to pay off other people. He is growing confused: his thoughts drift back and forth from his native tongue to English; he cannot anchor them in one language or the other. As he writhes, he feels the rope loosening on his wrists. He has one chance only; he waits for the appropriate moment to make his move. He keeps his eyes closed, even when he hears the screams of Sharon and Jay and the sounds of a scuffle. He hears the man with the gun order one of the girls to keep watch outside. He hears Gibby scream again, then Sharon pleading for her baby. Jay yells for Sharon and Gibby to get out if they can.