High Life (16 page)

They backed off a couple of steps and stood with their red faces and calcified eyes looking down at me—not guilty like they’d been caught at something illegal, but wary and waiting for another chance at whatever they thought I had in my pockets.

Crows.

Hyenas.

I felt zoned, like I’d got up too early after a night of speed, but the winos were old and physically fucked and it was easy to catch them. At first they thought it was going to be the kind of superficial beating tramps get as a matter of course every couple of weeks—bloody nose, black eye, that sort of thing—and when I got hold of them they started to curse me. But that stopped pretty quickly.

The first one collapsed after I laid a fist into his Adam’s apple, fell to his knees, and made choking noises, contorting his mouth to try and get air past the ball of blood and gristle he’d just found in his throat. Number two backed into a wall and took a few in the guts, stupidly doubled up, and got a knee in the face which split his nose and bounced the back of his head off the corner of an air-conditioning exhaust vent.

After that I was too tired to carry on. So I walked out of the alley onto a secondary road and went hunting for early-morning coffee. I had things to think about.

I was in Hollywood, within walking distance of Emmet Terrace. A block east of the Chinese Theater I found what I needed, a twenty-four-hour grease joint; vagrants, whores, junkies, and fuck-ups—pinned eyes and sucked-white skin—trying to make believe another day wasn’t starting.

“I want my burger, and I want it NOW! I said I want it NOW!”

A black guy, totally fritzed and not in a mood to be trifled with, had a problem with the service. He stood at the chest-high counter sweating and rolling his head, running his palms over the hot glass and polished steel.

“I paid for the motherfucker and I want it. Hear what I said? You think it’s funny, holding my burger back there? You think that’s funny? I can see it, man. That’s my burger right there. What did you say? I need a WHAT? WHAT? Yes you did, you ofay motherfuck, you said NIGGERBURGER!”

He started to climb over the counter, but two cops came in just then and maced him and dragged him out to their vehicle. It was quieter after that.

I ordered a pint of coffee and found that the winos hadn’t been the first to come across me in the alley. Small change, keys, and wallet—gone. Inconvenient, but not major—nothing in the wallet but twenty bucks and the Latin’s business card. I had a spare for the Prelude back at the apartment, and the super would have one for my door. I paid with a fifty I kept in my sock for just such an L.A. emergency, bummed a cigarette from a couple of hookers, and found a table in a patch of sun. Outside, the cops had the black guy cuffed and in the car and were feeding him pieces of a hamburger through the open rear window.

Alone—sitting, smoking, stirring sugar into my coffee.

What was the story? One minute, night in the back of a Jaguar heading for Kidney City, the next, flat on my face in dawntime Hollywood with vags going through my pockets. I checked my guts. No scar, no cut. Evidently I had been spared the doc’s kidney acquisitiveness. But what about the free medical treatment? The free dope and the horny nurse? Had that happened and been wiped with chemicals? Or had things been interrupted for some reason before the knives came out?

Quick date check with the nearest table. Yep, the morning after. I’d been gone, shit, not even six hours. Maybe much less, depending on how long I was out in the alley. Fucking bizarre.

I tried to recall an image, a smell, a sound. Anything. But there was only Silverhair’s drug spray and a minute of his babble afterwards … And something which had to be a phantom memory, the imprint of a past dream. I tried to shake it, but it lingered. The sensation of lips … a mouth … sucking … on my … On my dick? I’d been drugged and dumped in an alley, scavenged by winos, and the thing that haunted me was the impossible memory of a blow job?

I needed downtime.

But first there was the hassle of tracking down the super to get my key. No sweat. The washrooms would yield something for sure, there were enough drag-ass end-of-the-nighters around to make it worthwhile for someone. I finished my coffee.

At the sink in the men’s room a Chicano chick was washing her cunt—miniskirt hiked past her hips, briefs around her knees, a lather of soap over her bush and the tops of her thighs. Her hand made sucking noises as she moved it backwards and forwards. Oblivious, baby. On some other planet where you could do this kind of thing. She hummed to herself, something that sounded like “Lover Man,” her eyes were focused way beyond the surface of the mirror.

A guy in chinos and an Australian surf shirt lounged in an open stall and watched her absently. I scored a wrap off him and did it on top of the paper-towel dispenser.

Bang. Out on the street. The coke had been badly cut, but there was enough of something in it to make getting home and getting a key easier than it might have been. I moved through the smoggy, sunlit morning air like I was jet-propelled. Over pink concrete and dirty brass stars with the names of famous people on them. I thought about how those people must all be waking up in places a lot cleaner than Hollywood Boulevard, about how they probably shuddered when they had to come down here for a premiere or something.

Chapter Sixteen

The Latin called. I had the blinds down against the afternoon sun and the light in the room was calm and isolated. The bleep of the phone made me jump, incoming calls were not frequent.

“You have a job.”

“Oh, hi.”

“Do not mistake this for forgiveness. The only reason I give it to you is that she insisted.”

“I understand.”

“Clean up whatever pigsty you live in. She will come to you.”

“Who?”

“Someone with money, that much is certain. Of which you will get none. Call it an apology for the damage you did my business.”

“What does she look like?”

“I could not say—she phoned. I wanted to send her Rex, but she described you and would not be dissuaded.”

The afternoon rotted outside. I lay on the bed and remembered how the girl in the warehouse had looked. Not her actual death, but the way her body had lain so still and heavy on the floor after they put the jackhammer away, like something made of rubber. The image got me hard and I would have jerked off if I hadn’t had a gig.

She turned up around nine.

I opened the door and for a second the world seemed to shimmer in a kind of horizontal vertigo. I had trouble understanding what I saw. Then everything synched up again and I let her in. The woman from the party, of course.

She walked to the middle of the room. I’d made an attempt at tidying it, but with her there it looked as attractive as an open wound. She turned slowly, scanning, and the light blouse she was wearing pulled tight against her breasts. There was no disgust on her face at what she saw, not even surprise, just a neutral taking-in of her surroundings.

It was all scripted and cinematically perfect. The way we locked eyes, the warm breeze through the open window, even the way the evening city light flung itself across the floor to make a languid pen about her feet.

The quilted Chanel bag she was carrying slid from her arm. She shook her hair free of a small gold clip and stepped out of her shoes. The buttons on her blouse didn’t snag as they came undone—TV buttons, doing their bit for this TV scene. The blouse was silk, it took forever to drift to the floor.

Three steps and I was against her. She pressed her face to the side of my neck. All my clothes and the rest of hers fell away. I was solid and she was soaking and both of us were in some twilight heaven of the senses where touch and taste and sight and smell were all one supersense that did not differentiate.

A leg snaked around my thigh. I lifted her onto my cock. We fucked standing up, jerking and balancing and moaning at each other, straining in the warm air. Sweat ran between her tits and over my stomach. Our faces were wet with spit. Her kisses fell in smears from my forehead to my chin.

I pushed my middle finger into her ass, as far as it would go. She spasmed and we almost fell. I pumped come then lowered her to the floor and stood over her looking down, the last of my jism dripping onto her belly.

Later. On the bed, nighttime L.A. scouting the room—sodium light and dry air that felt freshly washed even though it carried, as always, its signature scents: eucalyptus, exhaust, pizza, doughnuts, coffee, and, even this far inland, something that would have been missing without the sea.

Her name was Bella and she was a few years past thirty. Her skin was expensively healthy and her clothes were expensively tailored. But money had been obvious from the start.

And beyond this, I could feel something intangible—her power, a sense of otherness that rose from her like a dark perfume. There, but potently indefinable.

The sheets were wet. We stank of fish. I blew cigarette smoke at the ceiling.

“How did you find me?”

“Your friend gave me the number of your agency.”

“My friend?”

“The man you were with.”

“He was paying.”

“Obviously.”

“You must have been impressed.”

“I have the luxury of being able to act on my feelings.”

“And what are they?”

She didn’t answer, just looked around the room, then:

“Are you really this poor?”

“Poorer.”

“Why?”

“Because I am. What do you mean?”

Bella twisted to arrange her pillow then propped herself against the wall. While her back was toward me I noticed she had a tattoo at the base of her spine. In the dim light it looked similar to the scarab Karen had on her shoulder blade. She waved at the apartment.

“You’re good-looking and smart. You could do better.”

“Everyone’s good-looking and smart in California. What’s that saying about wishes?”

“What do you mean?”

“If wishes were horses …”

“… beggars would ride?”

“Yeah, that’s it. You have money, obviously.”

“Yes.”

“Where from?”

“My mother’s family, back a few generations. Water and oil. I’m not talking anything like that, though, just something better than you have.”

“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”

“Do you want to stay a hustler?”

“It’s a distraction. But after the other night I don’t expect I’ll be working much.”

“Distraction is important to you?”

“Isn’t it for everyone? Sometimes?”

“How far do you go for it?”

There was something about her eyes when she asked this that made me feel a little out of my depth.

“Oh, just the usual perversions.”

“I don’t think there is anything usual about you at all. You have a small life, but you want a bigger one, I can tell. And it’s possible, Jack. It could happen. All it takes is the courage to push yourself further than the rest of the sheep.”

Maybe she thought she’d got a little too intense because she paused for a second, then went on like it hadn’t been important.

“What would you do if you had your choice of jobs?”

“Something on TV, I guess.”

“What, exactly?”

“I’d like to present a show on movie stars, one of those ‘Hollywood Report’ things. I’ve done a course in telehosting.”

“I don’t watch a lot of TV myself.”

“Too lowbrow for you?”

“Not really, I just find other people pointless.”

She split later that night.

And five minutes after she’d gone, Ryan arrived. Opened the door with his G-man tool kit and walked straight in. I didn’t bother to get out of bed. He sat on the edge of the table.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“And we had such fun together last time.”

“I’m not in the mood for another girlie show.”

“This is more in the line of business. I’ve been talking to some of the hookers who worked the same patch as Karen, turns out she was pally with a couple. Wanna take a stab at what they told me? No? Well, it seems she was loaded just before she disappeared. You know what I’m saying? She was in possession of a disproportionately large amount of cash. Didn’t say where she got it, but she flashed it around plenty. Don’t tell me you don’t know anything about it.”

“We weren’t close at the end. Whatever money she had was her own business.”

“Let’s talk about that shiny slope-wagon you drive.”

“What about it?”

“Jackie …”

Ryan put on a dangerous face and flexed his fingers.

“Okay. All right. The car was a present. She bought it for me.”

“Yeah. DMV lists it as being registered in your name only eight days before she was found. You didn’t think that might be important? Like it couldn’t possibly have something to do with what happened to her?”

“I don’t see what buying a car could—”

“I’m talking about the money, fuckhole. Where did she get it?”

“I don’t know. The last time I saw her she split because I was hassling her to tell me. We had a fight about it.”

Ryan shook his head and moved to sit down next to me on the mattress. I shifted closer to the wall.

“Jackie, seems like every day turns up something else that don’t look good for you. You shoulda told me about the money.”

He took hold of the sheet and lifted it so he could look at my body. I knocked his hand away. He smirked and stood up.

“Got anything to drink?”

“Jesus, don’t you ever buy your own?”

“Not when I got friends like you.”

He went into the kitchen and came back with Southern and two glasses, filled both of them, and stuck one out at me. I didn’t take it at first, but he kept it there until I did.

“I owe you for checking me into that motel.”

I didn’t say anything, just stared past him out the window at a night that had no depth to it—a black sheet that looked like it was going to hang there forever. He sipped his drink for a while, then cleared his throat delicately.

“I saw a little thing on the drag the other night. Maybe you can help me with it.”

“Oh yeah?”

“You and someone in a black Jaguar.”

“A black Jag? I don’t remember …”

“Yeah, you do. You talked for a couple of minutes, then you got in and drove to Beverly Hills. It didn’t look like your average faggot pickup.”

“You’re still following me?”

“I put my heart into my work. Who was it? Where did you go?”

“If you were following you ought to know.”

“The Beverly Hills Patrol thought I looked suspicious trailing such a fine car and pulled me over. By the time we straightened things out I’d lost sight of you.”

“Jesus, you’re so far gone even other cops don’t recognize you.”

“Careful, Jackie.”

“Well, fucksake, you don’t think that’s ridiculous?”

Ryan shrugged.

“They’re a private outfit. Answer the question.”

“Shit, it was just some guy who wanted a blow job. We parked near Sunset, I did it, then he split. That’s all.”

“Name? Description?”

“I don’t spend a lot of time looking at their faces, you know? Why didn’t you check his license plate?”

“I did—no trace. Which means the plates were false. Which means I want to know even more.”

“What can I say? Show me his cock, maybe I’ll recognize it.”

“Okay, try this one. Who was the slit you had in here. Arrived about nine.”

“You’ve been out there that long?”

“Like I said, I put my heart into it.”

“She could have been visiting anyone in the building.”

“But she wasn’t. Too much money to hang around a place like this, something odd about it. And if it’s odd and in this building, my money says it’s you.”

“I do some work for an agency. They sent her over. I don’t know anything about her.”

“Looked like a good fuck.”

“She was.”

“Which way did you give it to her?”

“Fucksake.”

“Come on, Jackie. From behind, like a couple of dogs? Woof, woof, woof. Well? Don’t tell me you just got on top.”

“We did it different ways.”

“Like?”

“Jesus. Standing up, bent over the table, in bed with her on top.”

“That’s better. How about when she sucked you off? Did she swallow, or did she make you squirt it over her tits? I like it when they let it dribble down their chin.”

“Can we drop it, Ryan?”

“Bet I know more about her than you do.”

“Sure.”

“You know her pussy, but I know her name and where she lives. You see what she was driving? Beemer, eight series. I ran the plates through DMV. She’s a Malibu baby, prime-sector address. Would you like that info, Jackie? Huh?”

“What for? It was work.”

I would have liked her address, for sure, but I was fucked if I was going to ask fatso for anything.

“How about I get her number and you call her up and ask her back for a freebie and I set it up so we can video it?”

“Fuck off.”

“That bitch looks like she could lay out plenty.”

I put my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. I heard Ryan pour himself another drink. I wished I was someone famous enough to have lawyers and bodyguards to make him go away.

“Maybe you’re right. A scam like that takes a bit of planning.”

I kept my eyes closed and didn’t respond. After a while he left.

* * *

Early
A.M.
In my room with the blinds shut tight. Cigarette smoke in the air and an awful silence outside. I lay on my back with the lights off, straining to hear the sound of traffic—a police siren, a gun shot, anything to let me know there was a world out there and that I was still part of it, that I wasn’t as completely alone as I felt.

I had come on my hands, my thighs, over my belly. The crowbar picture was on the floor by the mattress. I’d lost count of how many times I’d jerked off over it. All I knew was that my dick had finally gone soft and that the five Lorazepam I’d stuck under my tongue an hour before had started to take hold. I couldn’t see the picture too clearly anymore but it was burned into my head—heavy white flesh, black steel jammed up her ass. If I hadn’t had the pills I wouldn’t have been able to stand the desire to see what her body actually felt like. I imagined it as cold and smooth and quiet.