Hidden Bodies (30 page)

“I knew her a little bit,” I say again. “But I didn’t even know she was missing.”

“I was surprised to learn that you’re an opiate man,” he says, assessing me. “You with the early morning jaywalking. You seem jacked up now, if I were to guess, I would
have said coke. Speed. Maybe juice, but then no. You’d be a hell of a lot bigger if you were juicing.”

This is taking too long and Love is going to wonder where I am. “What do you want?”

He sighs. “I want to know how to work the headphones you gave me,” he says. “Do you have the instructions?”

“No,” I say, and now I’m sweating. But it’s not possible that the police linked me to Henderson through those headphones. Every asshole in Los Angeles has Beats
headphones.

“That’s too bad,” he says. “Do you know how to adjust them? See, my head’s bigger than yours. You have a tiny head. I bet you hear that a lot.”

“I don’t know how to adjust them.” I give him nothing.

“You don’t know how to work your own headphones?” he asks. “Don’t you think that’s kind of funny, Bed-Stuy? I mean, they’re pretty worn in. You’ve
had them for a while. You don’t know how to work them?”

“I should get back in there,” I say, edging away.

He smiles. “No, you shouldn’t,” he says. “You’re not on the IMDb page. You’re not doing anything in there but hanging out. The only way I even knew you were
on set is because your buddy Calvin showed me your girlfriend’s Instagram page.”

Fucking social media and he is jealous and he drove all the way here from LA, working himself up. This is probably illegal but it doesn’t matter. The police protect their own.
“So,” he says. “I’m asking everyone in the Lawns, particularly those who were close with Delilah, you haven’t heard from her?”

“No,” I say. It’s the truth.

“You haven’t reached out to her?”

“No,” I say. It’s the truth.

“When’s the last time you bumped into her?”

And it is with great joy that I tell him more truth. “The night of the Henderson memorial I was at the UCB,” I say. “I had a fight with my girlfriend. I left the UCB. I went to
La Pou. I saw Delilah at the bar. I sat down with her. She was waiting for her boyfriend to get there. She wouldn’t tell me his name. She said he’s famous. She made it sound like he
lives in the neighborhood. He didn’t show up. She was inebriated. I helped her get home.”

He is deflated, like a fat kid who just got told the Oreos are all gone. And I bet he
was
a fat kid. I bet he got picked on but what they don’t want to tell you about bullying is
that sometimes, the kid deserves it.

He tries again. “You helped her get home.”

“We live in the same building,” I remind him. I love it when the facts are on my fucking side. He, however, does not.

He walks up to me and gets in my face. “I don’t like your attitude, Bed-Stuy. And I don’t like the fact that you’ve failed to apply for legal residency in this great
state.”

“I will,” I say. “I promise.”

“I don’t think a promise from a piece of shit New Yorker means anything.”

“Are we done here?”

“No,” he says, and he should have said yes. “But you can go back inside.”

I turn and walk up the driveway toward the house. My stomach is pounding and he had no right to hit me. He had no right to accuse me of anything either. He has no evidence. All he has is
hate
and he will pay for that.

I feel his eyes burning into the back of my head, stronger and more cancer-causing than the sun above. I’ll have to get rid of him, there’s no other option. You just can’t have
a fair shot at life if there’s a cop out there who wants your ass behind bars.

INSIDE,
nobody asks where I was. Everyone’s too excited about the big Cabo announcement. Love’s dad needs my Social Security number so
that he can expedite a passport. The movie wrapped and I missed the last shot. A lot happens while you’re being wrongfully interrogated.

Champagne flows and music comes on and I say that I’m gonna take a nap. Love understands. “You’ve been running so much; I’m worried you don’t get enough rest
lately.”

She hugs me and I flinch. “Sorry, went overboard with sit-ups,” I cover.

“You don’t need sit-ups,” she says. “You’re perfect.”

She kisses me and I go upstairs. Unfortunately, Love
should
fucking worry about me. The movie is done but my nightmare is just beginning. I close the bedroom door. I pace. I have to
kill Fincher. But this is America: If you kill a cop, you die. That’s how it is. I try to be calm. Be positive. We are going to Cabo, so there’s that. Mexico’s the kind of place
where people just go around cutting heads off and shit, so I have that in my favor.

Knowledge is power. I need the lay of the land. I Google
La Groceria.
If I know Love’s mother, she would have invited some sort of upscale website or magazine in to shoot her
home, same way she did with the Aisles. Sure enough, I find an article about La Groceria and already I feel more centered, more focused, the way the sniper finds his target in the crosshairs. I
find the address of La Groceria and take a fast course on the development where Love’s family makes another home, the
famous residents
who live nearby, and the houses up for sale.
And boom. Axl Rose lives in the development. Axl Rose is the type who would have a secure home. He has nut job fans and he’s been around. His home has been on the market for years—and
his schedule is good news too—he hasn’t been to Mexico in a while. As in, not going any time soon, as in, the house belongs to real estate agents.

It gets better. Axl’s home is a perpetual project, unfinished renovations, a pool that’s not done, landscaping indecision, a cobbled cornucopia of yellowing lawns and half-formed
cupolas. Real estate websites supply me with pictures of this house that showcase an ongoing conflict about whether to tear it down or continue with the nouveau riche terra-cotta thing.

Another point of contention, according to the comments section of a high-end real estate blog: the
home recording studio.
“Home recording studio” is real estate jargon for a
soundproof fucking cage and some anonymous commenter likens this airtight box to a
panic room
and this is good news. I could use this. I could put Fincher there. But first, I have to get
him there.

So now I have to convince Robin Fincher to come to Mexico. But you can’t seduce anyone without knowing what they’re into. Because of the headshots in his car, I start at IMDb, where
he has a comically long bio in comparison to his few credits. He moved to LA to be an actor, downgraded his dreams and worked as a stunt man, a stand-in, a crew guy, and then finally he gave up and
joined the LAPD. But Robin Fincher also has a website. And it is immediately clear that he did not become an officer of the law to protect and serve. Robin Fincher became an officer of the law to
get back at Hollywood for kicking him to the curb.

He crossed his IMDb-LAPD streams in 2011 when he started moonlighting as a
celebrity bodyguard.
He brags that he
can protect you and hang out with you all at once
. And yes,
that phrase is trademarked. The most recent picture is of him and Teri Hatcher.

I lean back in my chair. He claimed he’s on a mission to find Delilah, California, that he
cares about our girls.
Well, we’ll see about that. I search for projects currently
shooting in Mexico and there’s nothing but a remake of
Romancing the Stone
. No, I need to appeal to his obvious desire to be
friends
with these beautiful fucking people. I
create a new e-mail account:
[email protected]
.

She’s the perfect bait. She has a family to protect, like Teri Hatcher. She’s hot. I learned from the Sony hack that people in this business don’t bother to spell check so here
we go:

If I got an e-mail from someone claiming to be Megan Fox, I would assume it was spam. I would think someone was fucking with me. Fincher is a cop. He’s not a moron. But maybe he is because
look at his fucking response, almost immediate:

Wow is right. LA is a mirage. Robin Fincher is a
police officer.
The man carries a weapon. And we all know the stereotype of the bad cop—racist, violent—and we know the good
cop—the one who pays for the poor mom’s groceries and winds up in a viral news video. But what about this cop? What about this Angeleno, the one who pushes his headshots on Megan
Fucking Fox, the one who isn’t even savvy enough to maybe wait until getting to Mexico to start pimping his no-talent ass?

We need some sort of awareness program about aspirations, the way they degrade the brains of Los Angeles.
I am honored 2 serve and protect.
No, Robin. The word is
to.
No,
Robin. You don’t serve or protect anyone and if you did, you’d be hunkered down over a cloudy cup of coffee, reviewing every step that Delilah ever took. Obviously, this fucker is never
going to find her. And while this is good news for me, it’s also devastating for the population of the city he loves so much. We Angelenos are not served. We are not protected. The city
can’t afford to look after everyone and the county is just too spread out. I would kill Fincher even if he weren’t hell-bent on putting me behind bars. I will kill him because he failed
us all when he chose Megan Fucking Fox over the young dead girl, the one whose whereabouts will remain unknown, forever.

IT’S
nine
A.M.
but the other passengers on
The Love Boat IV
are already drunk. The Quinns own four boats in
Cabo and this is the one they use for fishing for marlin, which is what we’re doing, supposedly. It’s a
guys go fishing while girls get mani-pedis on the cat boat
arrangement.
We have enough food and beer and tequila to feed fifty people, but it’s just me and Forty and Milo and a couple of guys from production whom I didn’t know all month, don’t want to
know now.

I’m sitting in a plastic bucket seat holding a fishing rod and Captain Dave is telling me what Love and Forty were like when they were kids. Captain Dave is a salt-and-pepper guy who looks
older than forty-six. He doesn’t have kids of his own. Some people are born to be uncles and Captain Dave is that kind of people. He’s also a recovering alcoholic who’s obsessed
with what everyone else is drinking at all times. Life is hard for some people.

“But you know,” he says, segueing from a story about the first time they jumped off the boat, holding hands. “It’s really hard to talk about Love and Forty without
talking about Milo. I mean, he was always there too, and you should have seen his hair back then.” He laughs. “Huge.”

“I gotta see pictures,” I say, and kissing ass is hard work, but I need Captain Dave to be on my side. I’m gonna need his help this weekend. And lucky for me, he’s
likable enough.

“We got pictures on all the boats,” he says. “I just don’t know where exactly on this one. There are more on the yacht.” He twists the cap off another
O’Doul’s. He sips. “But yep, that’s why I called Milo the third twin.”

I look at him. “Did you say you called Milo the third twin?”

He answers through a burp. “Yawp. You need another drink?”

I shake my head, and he continues to yammer on about Love and Forty and Milo always together and I stare at the water. I thought Forty came up with that phrase and Captain Dave finishes his fake
beer. He stands, stretches. “All right,” he says. “I think it’s about time we chum up.”

“Aye aye, Cap,” I say, as if I know what that means. I offer to help Captain Dave with the barrel he’s messing with, but as always, he says he’s
all set.
He
peels off the top of the barrel and now I smell death and decay and I cover my mouth and he laughs. “Boy’s first chum,” he says. “Don’t worry. Ya
don’t
get used to it.”

Then he whistles and his assistant First Mate Kelly, a fat guy from Georgia, rings a bell and blasts Jimmy Buffett. Apparently it’s time to go fishing and Captain Dave scoops chum into the
water. All I can think about is Fincher and how I can drive this boat out here and drop him into the water, just like I did with Delilah, the girl he’s supposed to be looking for. Done and
done.

Forty is plastered and he barely makes it to his chair and Captain Dave stuffs his fingers in his mouth and whistles. “Nope,” he says. “Give it a sober ten and then come
back.”

Forty whines but Captain Dave isn’t having it. “My boat, my rules,” he says.

Forty goes back down while First Mate Kelly helps Milo and me set up our rods. We dangle them in the water and Milo hums along to Buffett and tells me about Johanna, the makeup artist from
Boots and Puppies.
They slept together last night and she’s young and hot and I guess he deserves to rub it in my face a little. Forty returns and asks for a rod and Dave says no and
Forty lunges for the chum bucket and nearly falls in.

Captain Dave screams. “Wheelhouse,” he commands. “Now.”

Forty obeys and Milo laughs and I shake my head. “That captain is something,” I say.

“What do you mean?” Milo asks. And it’s funny to me that I was going to kill him a few days ago.