Hidden Bodies (5 page)

I quicken my stride and I reach the shop but the music in my head ends abruptly. The door is slightly ajar. If Amy came in early she would have closed the door and Mr. Mooney hasn’t been
to the store in years. I yank the door open and step inside. I see dust particles in the air and my nose adjusts to the shop, the way a place smells different when you return after a few days. My
senses are on fire and we’ve been robbed and I don’t want this kind of distraction after such a good weekend.

The violets I bought Amy are on the floor, scattered, dry, the vase in pieces. There are papers everywhere, books tipped over. My laptop is gone. I tip-toe around the counter and quietly remove
the machete from my hiding spot below the main entrance. I haven’t held it in a while and it’s heavier than I remember.

I am not calling the cops—they are not all Jenks and I’ve learned my lesson. I creep toward the back of the shop, checking the stacks to my left, to my right. I move past fiction and
biography and at the back of the shop, the basement door is ajar too. The silence of the shop bears down on my brain. They are long gone, I think. But if they are still here I’m slicing their
throats. I clench the machete as I descend the stairs slowly, soundlessly. When I reach the bottom step, I gasp and drop it. I don’t need it anymore.

There is nobody here, but someone
was
here all right, someone who eats
superfruits.
There’s a bowl on the floor next to the gaping hole where the yellow wall of
Portnoy’s Complaint
s used to be.

Amy.

She stole every last copy, didn’t even leave one for me. She took the Yates first edition too, the one she blew me for, the one that started it all. There’s a blueberry-stained copy
of
Charlotte & Charles
on the floor, right next to my computer and the pink keys, the ones I made for her. I grab my phone and call her and of course this number is now dead, out of
service, gone, just like all the others.

I drop to my knees and scream. She left me. She stole from me. I bought that bullshit about her needing her own bed and she must have come here right after I dropped her off. I throw her
superfruits at the wall.
Supercunt.

I pick up
Charlotte & Charles.
I understand the meaning of that fucking book now. Don’t trust women. Ever. I open it and there is a message scribbled inside:

Sorry, Joe. I tried. But we really are the same. We both hold back. We both lose control. We both have secrets. Be good to you. Love, Amy.

I haven’t made a comprehensive list of everything she took, but so far, I estimate $23,000 in rare books. She knew what she was doing the day she walked in here, and I fell for it. I
should be dragged into a field and shot for being so fucking stupid, dick-blind, cock-sucked.
We’re the same
, she said. Fuck me. Fuck her.

She pulled the wool over my eyes with her latex gloves and her dick-sucking eyes. This was never love, not on the beach in Little Compton, not in this cage, not in my bed. The bitch came here to
trick me, to rob me, and I made her fucking keys.

I grab the laptop and get the fuck out of this fucking cage and I lock it—a little late, asshole—and I trudge up the stairs and I lock the basement door—what a fucking asshole
I am, I should lock
myself
in the basement—and that’s when I see another mess. Amy ransacked my least favorite section of the shop: drama. She stole acting manuals:

An Actor Prepares

10 Ways to Make It in Hollywood

How to Make Them Call You Back

Monologues for Women Volume IV

Are you fucking kidding me, you lying thieving hairy-legged beast?
My head spins. Amy was not an untrained sociologist, wearing college paraphernalia to experiment on human behavior.
She was not lying to Noah & Pearl & Harry & Liam. She was
acting
. Why else would she steal those manuals?

I sit down at the counter and wake up the laptop. She claims to be so
off the grid
and above this computer shit, but she managed to erase the recent search history. My cheeks sting at
the idea of her on that floor, trying to block me, trying to clear the search she conducted on
my
computer. Well, she should have learned a little bit more about how these machines work,
what they can do for me. Chrome isn’t that simple. She only cleared the last hour of her time on my computer, not the whole fucking history. I know my recent searches—rare books and
motels in Little Compton—and it’s not exactly difficult to shine the light on her key fucking words:

UCB, cheapest headshots, free headshots, UCB classes cheap, Ben Affleck, top dollar used books, selling rare books, Philip Roth price, auditions, casting calls, blond girl next door
audition, sublet Hollywood

She also didn’t clear her fucking downloads and I bring up her application to an Improv 101: Improv Basics class at Upright Citizens Brigade and a script for some short fucking film with a
cover page that references a Craigslist ad. So the bitch has run away to try to make it in Hollywood.
Making It in Hollywood
is the most disgusting phrase in the English language.
It’s more disturbing than
prolific serial killer
and
rare terminal illness.
I can’t wait to catch her and tell her what a deluded loser she is.

I print her search history and there is nothing more terrifying than realizing that the one who knows you best loves you least, pities you even. She knew I was fucked up and alone. She knew I
wanted a blowjob and a girlfriend and she knew I wanted these things so badly that I would let her watch
Cocktail
fifty times a fucking week in my bed, that I would give her a fucking a
key. I did that and I can’t undo it. But I can find her. I can eliminate her.

And I will. She doesn’t get to walk around thinking she got away with this. Fuck no. She doesn’t get to think that I’m a sucker who you can fuck over and dump with
Charlotte & Charles.
I lapped her nipples with my tongue and I ate her hairy bush and she used me. She is evil. She is dangerous. She is incapable of love. She is a sociopath. Worse
than a borderline. That’s why she uses fucking burner phones. She’s a criminal.

She thinks she’s so smart but if you erase an hour, it doesn’t mean shit, not unless you erase the weeks leading up to that hour. She thinks life is better off the grid. Yeah.
She’ll die thinking that. Cunt. I call JetBlue. I buy a ticket. Sorry, Amy. You lose.

IF
there’s one thing I learned from that horny charlatan Dr. Nicky Angevine and his patient/mistress Beck, it’s that you can’t
control what other people do. You can only control your thoughts. If there’s a mouse in your house you have to make it your business to remove that pest, set the traps, check the traps. Amy
is my mouse, but this is
my
house and I’m deep into the extermination process already. I called the UCB and claimed to be a guy named Adam checking on my registration. This is how I
was able to confirm that there is a girl named
Adam, Amy
reserved for an improv class.

I gave notice on my lease. Fuck that shithole and it’s time I got the hell out of here, out of my apartment where I bring the wrong women into my bed, cold city girls—their hearts
are hard and pale—and I can’t become one of those New Yorkers who lets the city win. I won’t sit behind the counter of that fucking shop the next time some chick walks in and bats
her eyelashes at me. I’m fucking done.

It’s June and the city is ripe with meaningless fecal heat. It will be a different kind of hot in LA, the kind that made the Beach Boys all tan and giddy, a heat that doesn’t harass
you in the shade.

I get on the train and begin my last humid, smelly ride to Mr. Mooney’s. I thought about writing him a letter or calling him, but it’s been too many years. I owe him a good-bye. My
trip ends, finally, and I leave the train where a mariachi band sets up and hoochies take selfies. Good-bye, subway people.

A guy in a suit emerges from a deli across the street with fresh roses, running, trying, believing. Idiot. I walk into the butcher and pick up Mr. Mooney’s favorite sausages. I hope he
doesn’t cry. I hope he doesn’t try to lock me in his basement. I turn the corner and knock on his door.

He doesn’t smile. “Don’t tell me we got robbed again?

“No such luck, Mr. Mooney.” I laugh. He was almost happy when I called and told him about the robbery. He said that insurance money is
the most beautiful kind of money there is
in this world.

“Well, what’s wrong then?” he jabs.

“Nothing,” I insist. I hold up the sausages. “You hungry?”

He pushes open the screen door and waves me in. His house smells like kitty litter and old ladies and he doesn’t have a cat or a wife. He has two eggs on the stove and the radio on.

He puts my sausages in the old fridge. “You want some coffee milk?” he asks.

Nope. “Sure!”

He shakes the powdered concoction and sets a small chipped glass down on the table in front of me. He talks about a pillow he bought off an infomercial, how the dame on the phone said he
couldn’t return it because thirty days had passed. He talks about the eggs at his local market. They used to be cheaper but now they’re ridiculously priced because they’re from
some farm nearby. “In which case, they should be cheaper,” he rails. He waves his saggy arm. I don’t want to be like this someday, alone, frying eggs, eating local food in a
stingy rage. But at the same time, I can’t imagine ever loving anyone ever again.

Mr. Mooney finishes frying the eggs and sits down with me at the table. The eggs are overcooked, glistening. I think he used a pound of butter and I don’t think he’s cleaned the
skillet since 1978. “So to what do I owe this honor?” he asks.

I drink my coffee milk. By some miracle, I keep it down. “Well,” I say. “I’ve decided I need a change. I’m moving to Los Angeles.”

He burps. It’s wet. Flappy shards of eggs fly out of his mouth. “What’s her name?”

“Whose name?”

“The girl,” he says. “Nobody moves anywhere unless it’s about a girl.”

I hesitate, then tell him about Amy, her desire to be an actress, the way she kept it from me. I don’t tell him that she was the thief.

“I knew there was a girl.” He dips his finger into the ketchup on his plate and licks it off. “You might be wiser to let her go.”

I shake my head. “This is something I have to do.”

Mr. Mooney sighs. “Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.”

“Frank Lloyd Wright said that.”

“He was right.” Mr. Mooney rises from his seat and tosses his rank sponge in the sink. “Los Angeles is the seat of evil, Joseph. It’s the womb of idiocy. It’s where
everything bad comes from, the peak of the volcano of this nation’s stupidity. It’s no place for an intelligent man. That’s why there’s nothing to watch on the damn
television set. You’re better off here.” He’ll never say it but he’s going to miss me. “I’ll give you my e-mail address so we can keep in touch.” He takes
my plate and stacks it on his. I know if I offer to do the dishes he’ll be pissed. “E-mail is baseless,” he dismisses me. “Just promise me you won’t waste your life on
a damn computer.”

I say I’ll see him again soon and a cockroach scampers by and he stomps on it with his boot. “You don’t know that,” he says. “There’s no way you could know
that.” He tells me to lock the door on my way out. “Goddamn Girl Scouts are pushier than ever.”

MY
apartment is empty. Everything I’m taking with me is in my dad’s giant duffel bag, the one I’ve never used because I’ve
never gone so far away, never had an occasion to pack up everything I want, my books, my clothes, my pillow, my computer. There’s a knock at my door and I don’t check the peephole,
figuring it’s the landlord to complain about the damage. But no. It’s Mr. Mooney, in sunglasses. I can’t see his eyes.

“Word of advice,” he begins. “Get your dick sucked.”

“Okay.”

“Get your dick sucked,” he repeats. “Don’t sleep with actresses. Don’t waste your time with In-N-Out burgers. Don’t watch too many movies. Don’t eat too
many vegetables. Don’t refer to vegetables as veggies. Don’t go in the pool. It’s cold and dirty. Don’t go in the ocean. It’s cold and dirty. Don’t have a child.
Most born there become whores.”

“I got it.”

He stares at my unplugged refrigerator. “Is the shop locked up?”

“Yes,” I declare. “Bolted, shut down.”

“Good,” he says, and he smiles. “Maybe I’ll run away too.”

“Do you want to come in, have a seat?”

But there’s nowhere to sit. He reaches into his breast pocket. He pulls out a thick envelope and hands it to me.

I protest. “I can’t take this.”

“Yes, you can,” he says. “You’ll need it.”

He ambles down the stairs, and I realize I might never see him again. I gather my things and slip the key under the door. A fat kid on the first floor asks where I’m going.

“California,” I say.

“Why?” he asks.

“To make the world a better place,” I answer. I give the kid some books, none of them rare, all of them important. The kid is grateful and I’m noble and it’s true. I am
gonna make the world a better place. That kid is already leafing through
Lord of the Flies
. Next up: Amy, hog-tied, sinking to the bottom of a swimming pool.
California.

I
don’t read during the flight to LAX. I don’t watch a movie. I fuck around on Facebook—I finally joined for real, as Joe Goldberg,
as me—but it’s not what you think it is. I
have
to fuck around on Facebook. I’m a hunter going on a wild safari and I need guides on my trek through this small segment of
the foothills of Hollywood known as Franklin Village. I need camouflage. I need
friends
and it’s not the worst thing in the world to need people. I am inspired by the
Fast &
Furious
movies where the heroes Toretto and O’Conner can’t hunt the bad guys without first assembling a team. I need help finding Amy, the same way they need help finding a corrupt
Brazilian drug lord. And I can say this for the aspirings in the Upright Citizens Brigade: They’re an open bunch. They accept
Joe Goldberg, writer
as a friend, and these people talk
a lot. About the dry cleaner and Tinder and their shoes and their auditions. And
yes
, they talk about someone they refer to as
Amy Offline.