High Life (17 page)

An hour after dawn I fell asleep.

Chapter Seventeen

Rex was up, way up. A brittle high-powered energy that kept him shifting in the seat of the Porsche like his legs wanted to run off by themselves. Dusk. Chasing the yellow burn of the headlights through poorly lit residential streets near the ass-end of Burbank. We had the top off and the stereo cranked up. The air blew in across us like a high-speed dream. All the ingredients for a scene from a teen movie—high school buddies tearing it up after the prom. But there was none of that wild innocence in either of us. I was living in a twilight world. And Rex was rollercoasting between the poles of a deepening emotional imbalance.

We were out for smack. Or rather, Rex was. I was along for the ride and maybe a taste. Outside the car rows of clapboard houses slipped by, neat and well-kept, but you knew every waking hour lived in them was sucked dry by the battle to make ends meet—front gardens with small dusty lawns and the odd desiccated gum tree, waist-high chain-link fences, small cars parked on short concrete driveways, kids here and there, booted out of the house so dad or mom could get an hour’s peace before the terror of dinnertime.

Rex drove fast, slinging the car around corners, not because we were racing to make a connection, but because there was no other way he could off-load the brittle anxiety that rode him.

“This guy better be in, man, he better be in. I feel like I’m going to burst.”

“I’ve got downers at my place.”

“Not good enough tonight, not anesthetic enough.”

“The Prothiaden didn’t work out?”

“It works, man, it works. Why the fuck you think I’m like this? Spins your fucking head around. Up. Down. I can’t tell anymore.”

“Stop taking it.”

“Doesn’t make any difference. This does, though.”

He stuck his arm out so the sleeve of his shirt pulled back. He had a number of small bruises on the inside of his forearm. Nothing you could call tracks, but I was surprised they were there at all.

“You want to get sharper needles.”

“Yeah, man, that’s what I want. Sharper needles, bigger bags of smack, something that’ll suck my brain out, wash it clean, and stick it back. I want a million things, man, a million things and just one. I just want it to stop.”

I’d like to think I would have said something sensitive at this point. But I didn’t get the chance. Rex had just rocketed around another corner into a street that was mostly empty lots and looked deserted. He was working the stick and doing some mad thing with his head, shaking it like he had a maggot trying to eat from one ear to the other, when a boy about nine years old ran into the street chasing a volley ball. If he’d been driving normally he might have had a chance at stopping. As it was he didn’t have time to hit the brakes until after the impact.

The boy came up over the hood, hit the windscreen, and flew. I had an absurd shot of him through the open roof, cart-wheeling against the dark sky, head down, blond hair in a fan around his face. Then the brakes took hold, no screech, they were ABS, and Rex slewed the car to the curb. For a moment he sat there gripping the wheel, eyes screwed shut, as though he thought that with enough effort he could close down his senses. Then we were out, running back along the road to the body.

The boy, incredibly, lay straight out, faceup, legs together. The only thing that made it look like he hadn’t just laid down for a nap was the way his left arm was twisted sharply behind his back.

But he was dead, there was no question.

A lot of things went through my head. I felt bad that a young life had been snuffed out, I tried to figure possible legal penalties, I wondered how his parents were going to react, if they’d start screaming when they found him. But thrown across all of this was the overwhelming relief that I had not been driving.

I looked at Rex. And I felt bad for him. He was gray and all the blood or life or whatever it was seemed to have withdrawn itself from him. He stood there, head bent, looking down at the boy, arms forgotten at his sides, sucked empty by the world. I thought he might vomit and howl, but he just stood. And then he sighed and his breath caught like he was going to cry. But he didn’t. Instead, he turned and walked back to the car and we drove away.

No one came out onto the street. No one had seen us. And somehow both of us knew that nothing would come of this. That we’d skate. Rex didn’t drive fast, didn’t drive like we had to get away, and we rolled out of the neighborhood, not to accusing shrieks and wails of grief, but to the sound of his German engine and the rustle of wind in dry gum leaves.

We didn’t speak, and we didn’t turn around and go home. We went on to the connection.

Chapter Eighteen

I started the day puking. Rex and I had stayed up half the night shooting smack. When the drugs took hold he’d opened up about the accident. He said he was never going to recover from it. I tried to offer some sort of comfort, but what can you do? It was his bag of misery and he was the only one who could carry it. The amount of difference you can make to another human being in a situation like that is really pretty limited. After a while I’d passed out. He’d left sometime after that. And now I’d woken up with a dope hangover that had turned every cell in my body against itself.

I crawled across the floorboards to the bathroom and heaved into the toilet until all I had left was black bile that stuck to the side of the bowl. It was midday before I could get off my knees. I found a blister of DF 118s and managed to get a handful down. It took a long time for the painkillers to kick in. I spent it waiting next to the toilet. A couple of hours later I woke up with tile impressions across my cheek and shoulder and although I didn’t really feel it, there must have been some improvement because I was able to lurch to the kitchen and make coffee.

I was standing with a mug by an open window, breathing slowly and fighting my stomach, when Bella phoned. She wanted me to meet her that night for a media bash downtown and she wanted me to wear a suit. The good news was that she was going to messenger over the necessary bucks. The bad news was that I would have to brave the outside world almost immediately to go get it.

Rodeo Drive. I took a cab. I could have gone somewhere cheaper, but Bella had sent a lot of money and it seemed stupid not to use as much of it as I could. I carried a plastic shopping bag with me for emergencies.

I’d never bought a suit before, but Versace was mentioned in all the mags, so I found the place and went inside. Lots of empty floor space, most of it marble, a few pieces of arty furniture, and a collection of very beautiful assistants. Straight, I’d never have had the guts to go in there. As it was, the horror of my hangover and the pills I’d taken insulated me from the worst of my inferiority.

A redheaded girl in leather pants that separated her labia picked out several sets of clothes for me to try on and escorted me to a changing room the same size as my apartment. Every time I glanced at her I caught these looks like she was really trying hard to be as nice to me as she would to anyone who didn’t look as though they’d just eaten a plate of dog shit. It was an effort for her but I appreciated it. It was way better than outright disdain.

She told me to call her if I needed anything and closed the door. I didn’t need her and I didn’t want her. I wanted to curl up in a ball in the corner and never go outside again. I was sweating and all the moving around had made my head start to pound. I made the mistake of bending down to untie my shoes. My stomach roared. The good thing was that I hadn’t let go of my trusty plastic bag and was able to catch the jet of steaming gut acid before it spoiled the decor. The bad thing was that the redhead came in while I still had my face in the bag. And when I lifted my head to attempt a food-poisoning excuse I could feel I had something stuck around the outside of my mouth. She backed out and I didn’t see her again till I settled the bill.

I chose a dark, three-button silk number. It fit pretty well, but the trousers were a little long. One of the assistants offered to have them taken up if I’d wait twenty minutes, but that was an absurd suggestion. So I took the suit as it was, laid down most of Bella’s money, and split to the street and the cab I’d kept waiting.

I had the dry heaves most of the way through Beverly Hills and I knew I wasn’t going to make it through the coming evening without some sort of chemical prop. I had the driver detour through the side streets around the drag. When he sussed what I was doing he started to get shitty, but I told him I’d give him a cut of the deal and he got flexible quickly enough.

Eight-thirty saw me downtown, standing out front of the Bradbury Building. The area is a dump at the best of times, but afterhours, when the drones have gone home, it turns into a creepy wasteland best avoided if you aren’t carrying a gun. I was safe enough, though. They’d rigged up an entrance awning with a lot of bright lights, and there were enough uniformed guys running to park cars and manning the door to scare away the human shit that would ordinarily have been heaped on the sidewalk.

I felt better than I had earlier that day, the puking had stopped and the pain in my head had fallen to a low-level throb. But between all the DFs I’d dropped and the coke I’d snorted while dressing for this third connection with Bella, I was pretty spaced. I hadn’t realized there would be valet parking, so I’d come by cab rather than risk leaving the Prelude on the streets, and now I had nowhere to wait until she showed with the invites. So I stood and watched the cars arrive.

Black limos, white limos, a few two-door exotics. The people getting out of them glowed with wealth. The women wore pearls and diamonds around their throats, their bodies were toned and supple, they moved with an erect grace, aware of their own importance. The men strode with these women on their arms like sated beasts of prey, sleek with the knowledge that they could have anything in the world they desired. They were a tailored and massaged and personally exercised golden race who had reduced amounts of money that would make an ordinary man choke to nothing more than points in a game they played among themselves.

An auto horn blipped discreetly. I turned to see Bella climbing from a stretch, a chauffeur holding the door for her. She was wearing a short dark skirt and as she scissored her legs out onto the sidewalk I caught a flash of white briefs fringed, between her thighs, with black cunt hair.

“Hello, Jack. I’ve missed you.”

She kissed me. I felt the heat of her breasts through my suit coat.

The Bradbury Building is one of the most beautiful in L.A. Five or six stories high, it was built a hundred and fifty years ago out of some kind of brown stone and it looks pretty much Art Nouveau. Inside, things are laid out around a central atrium that rises clear to the top of the building. At each floor there is an exposed walkway and off these doors lead to the offices of lawyers and accountants. Dark wood, wrought iron, and a set of cage elevators you can watch going up and down. Ridley Scott shot the end sequence of
Blade Runner
there.

Tonight the offices were closed, but the ground floor and the first two walkways were open and decorated in an
Alice in Wonderland
theme. Polystyrene grandfather clocks had been wedged into odd corners, a four-foot automated caterpillar puffed smoke from a water pipe on top of a mushroom, bottles labeled “Drink Me” were scattered around on small tables. Behind the buffet, the catering staff were dressed in character. I thought it looked cool, but Bella didn’t seem impressed.

“Do you drink? I don’t. Get one if you like, this isn’t a sit-down thing.”

I scored a couple of vodkas from a waiter dressed like a fat English schoolboy, tipped them into one glass, and followed Bella up some stairs to the second of the walkways. Up that high, we were almost alone.

“We don’t mingle?”

“With those people?”

On the ground floor men and women chatted in groups, helped themselves to food, drank drinks, laughed, and had a good time.

“They look okay to me. What’s it for?”

“Profile raising for a cable station. Don’t you think they look like pigs at a trough?”

“You really think they’re that bad?”

“You don’t know them. With all their money not one of them has the courage to look at themselves. They take cocaine, perhaps have sex with more than one person, and they think they know what it is to test the limits of their morality.”

We looked down on the people for a while, then Bella asked me if I wanted another drink. I wasn’t too bothered about more alcohol, the vodka had burned my stomach and I didn’t want to start puking again, but I said yes because it meant we’d be back in the action.

We made the ground floor and headed for the bar. I ordered coke.

“If you don’t like these people, why did we come?”

“For you. Do you know what these people do? The ones that do anything?”

“I recognize a couple of actors.”

“Mostly management and major stockholders. You said you wanted to present a movie show, I thought it might be useful for you to have some contact with the people involved.”

“Jesus, I was only dreaming.”

“How difficult can it be, talking to a camera?”

Bella scanned.

“You see that girl there? In the white skirt? They found her in a pie store. Now she does what you want to do.”

The girl Bella pointed out was Lorn from
28 FPS.
White mini, white crop top, punky hair. In the flesh she still looked good, but real life removed some of the definition from her features. Where Bella had a sharp dark radiance, Lorn’s attractiveness veered more toward the kind of Californian tomboyishness Heather Locklear had in
Dynasty,
before she bitched up for
Melrose.

“Hey, I watch her all the time. Do you know her?”

“Vaguely. I have money in the channel.”

Bella looked at her watch.

“It’s getting late. There’s someone we need to talk to.”

“It’s only ten o’clock.”

“I have to get back to Malibu.”

“Not Beverly Hills?”

“The only people who live in Beverly Hills are those who can’t afford to leave, and those who don’t have the taste to know any better.”

Bella beckoned to a thickset man with curly gray hair who was talking to what looked like a group of subordinates. He immediately slapped a few upper arms, worked his way out of the huddle, and came over to us.

“Bella, this is a surprise.”

He had a fleshy voice that made me think of cigars. He didn’t do the usual cheek-kissing thing.

“Hello, Howard.”

“What do you think of the decoration? We went all out.”

“I couldn’t imagine anything less original. How’s the channel?”

“Going from strength to strength, baby. Increasing audience points weekly.”

“Good. Howard, this is Jack. He’s interested in working on a movie news show.”

Howard shook my hand and glanced at the cuffs of my trousers.

“Good to meet ya, Jack. It’s a hard racket to crack. Lot of young people want in on it. Had any experience?”

“Well, I’ve done a tele—“

Bella cut in and nodded across the room toward Lorn.

“That girl does a show.”

“Sure.
28 FPS.
Great ratings, lot of interest. We might syndicate next year.”

“She’s attractive, but do you really think she’s right for it? She doesn’t look particularly … cerebral.”

“This is TV, who wants cerebral? She’s young, she’s got great tits, she can talk. It’s enough already.”

“I wonder what she really brings to the table, though.”

“Hey, indulge me.” And here Howard winked at me. “I’ve been doing this all my life. I think I can pick people. Gorgeous, lovely people like you provide the bankroll, for which I’m eternally grateful. But running the channel, well, that’s what I know best. That’s, what do you call it? My forte.”

Bella went on as if she hadn’t heard him.

“It’s my feeling, Howard, that she would benefit from a little assistance. Perhaps a partner on the show.”

“You mean Jack here?”

“You should consider it.”

“Bella. Bella, darling, the girl’s doing fine as she is. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. You know what I’m saying?”

“Letting you know my thoughts, Howard. I hope you’ll take them on board.”

A reasonable tone, but the threat was there. I could see its impact in the tightening of his smile, and it made me wonder exactly how rich Bella was that she could use such thinly disguised blackmail against someone who obviously played a large part in channel control.

“Bella, your thoughts are pearls to me. Give me some time with them, I’ll bounce them around. We’ll talk again soon, baby, huh? Real soon.”

And with that he was off, weaving his way through groups of people, escaping.

“Wow. I don’t think he liked that. Who was he?”

“Howard Welks, top man at the channel. I have to leave. Walk me to the car, will you?”

“We’re not leaving together?”

“I’m sorry, Jack. Not tonight, my father’s at home.”

“What? He’s visiting or something?”

“Some nights he spends at the house, some at his apartment downtown. Tonight he’s at the house.”

“And you can’t bring anyone home? We could go to my place.”

“It’s complicated, Jack.”

At the entrance to the building Bella took a slim mobile from her handbag and told the limo to come around. It looked very much like I wasn’t going to lay pipe that night. My disappointment must have shown because she kissed me and squeezed my arm.

“Are you terribly annoyed?”

“Well, I just thought …”

The limo arrived, The driver stood patiently holding the door open. Bella glanced at the interior, then at me.