High Life (28 page)
For
28 FPS
I did more segment intros in front of the blue screen and spent a day hanging around in front of Chateau Marmont trying to get footage of Johnny Depp and Kate Moss. All I wanted were a couple of kissy shots as they climbed into a car or something, perhaps a quick question about marriage plans. I didn’t get anything. I’d been tipped they’d be there, but by the end of the day and no show it was obvious I’d been bullshitted. Still, I got to do the promo for next week’s show. James shot it with me talking to camera in front of a wall covered with gang graffiti a couple of streets south of the Marmont. He said it’d help hook in a particular demographic.
Lorn was out of town in Palm Springs trying for nude foot-age of movie stars taking mud baths. When she’d told me she was going I’d had a sudden image of black mud sliding between the lips of her cunt. The more time I spent with her the more I wanted to fuck her. She was good-looking and she was on TV. Plus, getting cozy with her might make it easier to con a few extra minutes out of her share of screen time. As a permanent replacement for Bella, though, she didn’t cut it. Not enough money and not enough power to bring about significant change.
I hung out at Malibu, swam in the pool, made pornographic home videos with Bella, and learned how to edit them on the machinery in her suite. Between taping my segments for
28 FPS
and her occasional visits to her clinic in Brentwood, we did restaurants and shopped. I hardly thought about my photos of dead people.
It could have been a good time. It could have been real good. Except that it wasn’t. Ryan shit right into it and turned it all septic. It wasn’t another demand for Rudy money that brought him back into our world, though. It was something much worse. Even Bella seemed a little fazed.
She arrived at her clinic one afternoon to find that a guy who could only have been Ryan had been there earlier that day asking questions. He’d had a photo with him and he’d wanted to know from the staff if any of them had ever seen the blonde in the picture. And if Bella was qualified to perform surgery.
“They said he told them he was a policeman. Do you think that could be true?”
Bella stood next to a window that overlooked the grounds and the early evening light made a silhouette of her profile.
“Making a little extra on the side? It wouldn’t surprise me.
But what does it matter if he is? There’s nothing wrong with you knowing Karen, is there?”
“Of course not, but I’m in a vulnerable position, my work with the homeless might be misinterpreted.”
“Did something happen with her that would involve the police?”
“What do you mean?” Bella’s tone was sharp and for a moment her eyes narrowed.
“Nothing. I’m just wondering how he connected you.”
“I don’t know. And I don’t know what reason he has to ask about her. She left after her operation and I never saw her again. Is that clear enough?”
“I was only asking … What about the other thing? Why would he want to know about your qualifications?”
Bella moved away from the window and sat down.
“I can only think he knows something about my operations. The question is whether this is going to evolve into another blackmail demand, or whether, if he is a policeman, it’s part of a genuine investigation.”
“It’ll be him on his own.”
“You seem very certain.”
“I don’t think you realize the effect you have on him. He wants you, I can see it in his face. He wants to fuck you and he wants your money. You were crazy to bring sex into it.”
“If he’s acting alone it’s the best thing I could have done.”
“Jesus Christ—”
Bella cut me off impatiently.
“You say he wants to get his hooks into me. Well, all right, let him think that’s what he’s doing. I may not know everything about him, but I know what kind of man he is, and sex with me will make him a slave. Given time, whatever he thinks he has on me will be useless to him, because he won’t have the will to use it.”
PCH at sixty miles an hour. Top down, wind in my hair, sun scattered across the ocean in drifts of golden petals. Fine fabric, perfectly cut, against my skin, the crystal of my watch catching the light, turning to a disc of mirror that somehow took all my Californian dreams from the air about me and held them there on my wrist so I could see them. The money in my English calf-skin wallet, the spending potential behind my credit cards—a financial virility translating into feelings of physical well-being as I headed north for no other reason than to delight in these things.
That morning it felt necessary, like it might be the last chance I’d get to indulge myself before the shit came down, the last chance to be willfully blind for a few hours.
A fast car along the edge of the ocean. If I’d had a blonde beside me I could have been in a movie. I wished I had a camera set up on the hood. That way I’d be able to watch myself and see if I matched my possessions. It was an important thing to know. I had a small amount of recognition and a reasonable level of disposable income, but
28 FPS
ran too late at night and in too limited an area to attract an audience large enough to generate fame on a
Friends
or
Melrose Place
level. As a result I hadn’t yet reached a point where I could define myself by other people’s perceptions of me. Next to Bruce Willis or Brad Pitt I was nothing. Even guys like Judd Nelson were a million miles ahead of me, safe with their lives already hacked into the fabric of Hollywood, their fans, their agents, the waiters and producers who told them endlessly they were better than anyone else in the world.
I started to toy with the idea of stopping somewhere to get a handi-cam to balance on the dash, but then a gray Plymouth closed in behind me and flashed its lights and I forgot all about recording myself.
No point trying to run, he could find me any time he wanted. I drove for another half mile just to piss him off, then pulled into an overlook that had been built on a short spur of cliff about fifty feet above the sea. I got out, stood against the guardrail, and waited for what was coming with an unlit cigarette in my mouth.
Ryan heaved himself out of his car like a fat woman, twisting sideways first to swing his feet out. I didn’t bother trying to read his expression, whatever it was it wouldn’t mean anything good.
“Oh, I love the sea, don’t you?”
He leaned on his elbows next to me and gazed off across the ocean. His stomach hung under him like a sack of grain.
“Bet you been thinking about me, haven’t you? Bet you been replaying that scene at Beauty’s place, me blasting all over your ass. I say it myself, I carry quite a wad.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Don’t be embarrassed, it ain’t much compared to what you’re into, right? Speaking of which, I set you up a little treat down at the morgue.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the real thing. Cold and laid out.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. The thought of getting close to a dead body changed the whole world around me. It dragged me out of the sunshine dream I’d wrapped myself with on the highway, back into a dark place of murder and desires I didn’t understand. Ryan put on a cheesy grin.
“Yeah, I thought it was the least I could do considering you got such shitty friends.”
“Huh?”
“Old Rexy.”
My guts went cold. I lit my cigarette.
“You know what’s coming, don’t you, Jackie boy?”
“You want another payment for the motel thing.”
Ryan snorted. “I guess you had to try. No, this ain’t about that poor bastard. Don’t you know you can’t trust a junkie?”
“Get on with it.”
“You’re not enjoying this? Gee, I am. Okay, Rex had my number. A couple of days ago he used it. He had something to sell, and after I saw it I was happy to buy. I bet you could take a real good guess what it was.”
I didn’t answer.
“No? A tape of our two favorite girlfriends pleasuring each other. Only about ten minutes long but, boy, does it sizzle. Don’t bother looking vacant, Rex told me where he got it. You know what it means, don’t you?”
“So they knew each other, big deal. Karen was a whore and Bella likes sex. It’s not impossible they met.”
“But you and I know it ain’t as simple as that. That tape proves a sexual connection between a murder victim and a woman whose behavior is suspect, to say the least. A connection you didn’t want me to know about. Why was that, Jackie?”
“Just because Bella was fucking her doesn’t mean she killed her.”
“Surgical-type wounds, professional evisceration, a sexual link. It isn’t what I’d call tenuous. And then there’s you—another connection between them. You know, Jackie, you oughta be more helpful. It don’t take much of a leap to put you and this doctor cunt together in a plan. Maybe that’s why you didn’t let on about the tape.”
“The first time I met Bella was when some faggot trick took me to a party in Bel Air. Two months after Karen was killed. And the reason I didn’t tell you about the tape was because I knew you’d jump to some bullshit like this.”
“You say she didn’t do it?”
“Of course she didn’t. She was in love with Karen.”
Ryan looked measuringly at me. “I know about the operations.”
“Operations?”
“Don’t act dumb, I wouldn’t want to get pissed off on such a nice day. When I saw the tape I thought it might be worthwhile checking out your movements after Karen died a little more thoroughly. Remember that bar on Pico, the Egyptian place? The night you thought it’d be so much fun to try and lose me? I went back there and spoke to a guy called Joey. Man, you think you know L.A.” Ryan laughed and shook his head. “So, we got this Joey in a secret clinic somewhere selling off one of his kidneys. It’s a bummer the doctor was antsy about being identified and wore a mask and a gown all the time or we could be a whole lot more certain about things. But we got a couple of pointers. On account of him having sex with her, Joey was pretty sure it was a woman. Ain’t that a kick? Just like Bella. Plus, those gowns do up down the back and Joey couldn’t be completely sure, because there wasn’t much of a gap, but he thought maybe she had a tattoo there, something all black.”
“Bullshit. You’re making it up.”
“Now why would you say that, Jackie?”
“He didn’t know anything about a tattoo.”
“Just ’cause he didn’t tell you, don’t mean he didn’t know. You gotta learn to be more forceful, boy. ’Course I can understand you getting upset because, correct me if I’m wrong, didn’t I catch a flash of something on Bella’s back when you fucked her the other day? What was that, exactly?”
“You got me.”
“You telling me you’ve been fucking her all this time and you haven’t seen anything there? I’m going to find out sooner or later. You might as well spare yourself some grief.”
“Okay, she’s got a tattoo, so what?”
“I didn’t get much of a look, describe it for me.”
“I don’t know, some kind of beetle or something.”
“Wouldn’t be an Egyptian kind of beetle, would it? Like Karen had?”
Ryan started to laugh, deep belly chuckles like he was immensely pleased with himself. It took him a while to quiet down.
“Okay, Jackie … Here’s how it looks to me. You ready? Okay, you tell me that first off Karen went away for a coupla weeks, long enough to have her kidney cut out, I’d say. Then she turns up flashing way more cash than she could have got hooking—shit, she even bought you a car. Add that little scene with her and Bella on the tape and the picture draws itself. Bella’s a doctor, she’s fucking Karen. Karen wants some extra cash. Bella knows a way—how am I doing?”
“You’re fucking insane.”
“You better hope I’m not, ’cause the stuff Joey told me you asked him is the only indication I got that maybe you weren’t involved in the murder. See, those kinda questions, one way to figure it is you were out looking for the killer. Now, are you going to level with me about Beauty, or not?”
“All right, all right … Karen did sell her kidney, it’s true. When she came back to my place she’d already had it done—that’s what we argued about the last time I saw her. And Bella did the operation, yes. But that doesn’t mean she killed her.”
“That’s better.”
“It doesn’t mean she killed her, Ryan.”
“Could point to it, though. Karen’s sexing up to Bella and Bella with all that money—maybe after you and her had your tiff she went back to the honey pot once too often. Shit, when it came to money she wasn’t what you’d call shy. Could be she decided her kidney was worth more than she got. Maybe Bella didn’t see it that way and did something about it.”
“She’s trying to help people. She pays for the kidneys herself and donates them to welfare hospitals. Is that the sort of person who kills someone?”
“Whatever she’s into, it ain’t helping people. I checked her out, Jackie. She ain’t a surgeon. She’s a doctor, okay, but that’s all. She’s got no more right to do those kind of operations than you or me. What does that say to you?”
“That she’s really clever?”
“She’s a fucking psycho. She enjoys cutting people open. Could easily be she just went a teensy bit too far one day.”