High Life (35 page)
Back at Malibu. It was a relief to be close to Bella and her money again. We fucked a lot and generally did the reunited thing. Ryan had terminated his live-in stint, but a couple of times a week he swooped in from Westwood like a corpulent specter to exercise his humping rights and be taken out to places where the wealthy gathered—an additional payment for doing Powell that hadn’t really been made clear to me before. He’d quit the police force and had some half-ass idea that mixing with the right people might lead to a technical adviser’s spot on a cop show.
He gave me another set of photos; he said they were the last I’d get—without cop-access things of that nature weren’t quite as easy to come by. These were lifted from the evidence folder of a recent bust—a couple of paramedics making extra bucks catering to a more extreme taste. When they got a dead body in the back of their truck they’d hang up a sheet so you couldn’t tell where it was and bring out the camera. I scored three glossies—a blond girl in her twenties with her legs held open, the electrical flex with which she’d hanged herself still embedded in the flesh of her neck; the same girl flipped over with a paramedic’s fist inside her pussy; a head-and-tits shot of a dark-haired woman, unmarked but unmistakably dead, her eyes open and her lips slightly parted.
Work with Lorn on
28 FPS
carried on much the same as before. She was a little cold sometimes, but other than that we maintained a serviceable relationship, we even still snatched a fuck now and then. The only professional gripe I had was the continued nonexpansion of my screen time. I figured getting Bella to do something about it would be easier while the flush of our reunion was still running hot. So one night, shortly after my return to Malibu, I acted pissed off long enough for her to notice.
“Aren’t you happy, Jack?”
“Oh, sure …”
“But?”
“Ryan still being around frightens me.”
“It won’t be forever.”
“You sound pretty certain.”
“Would you expect me to be anything else? But we’ve talked about him before, what is it?”
“Just hassles on the show.”
“You don’t enjoy it anymore?”
“Of course I enjoy it. It’s a dream come true. But I’m not getting anywhere. I hardly have any more screen time now than when I started.”
Bella was silent for a while, like she was considering granting me an enormous favor.
“Perhaps I could ask Howard to have a word with Burns. It might be a little tricky, they’d have to take time away from the girl and it was originally her show. But I don’t see why a few extra minutes should be a problem. I’ll have to ask you for something in return, though.”
“Hey, anything.”
“As wonderful as it is to have him gone, Powell’s absence creates a difficulty.”
“I thought everything with the police was cool.”
“I’m talking about my operations.”
“You’re going to carry on with that?”
“Of course.”
“Isn’t it a bit dangerous? They’ve only just finished investigating.”
“No more than it ever was. But that’s beside the point, it isn’t something I can give up.”
“Don’t tell me, you want me to get the donors.”
“Yes.”
“Jesus, I just helped kill your father. I thought that was going to be the end of it. Ask Ryan to do it.”
“Don’t be absurd. All you have to do is drive around, find the right sort of person, and offer them money. They jump at the chance, believe me.”
“Unless I pick the wrong one and get busted. Can’t you get therapy instead?”
“The risk is minimal. And I don’t think it’s much to ask from someone who loves you.”
“I do love you.”
“Good. I need one soon, Jack. It’s been two months.”
Next day, after I finished some studio work on the lot, Burns called me into the production office and told me they were going to increase my participation in the show. I was to take over the new-release review slot, a high-profile segment which had been exclusively Lorn’s until then. The air of resignation with which he relayed the news didn’t spoil the elation I felt at the prospect of pumping up my public visibility, and for a while, as I walked past the soundstages to the parking area, I kidded myself that I was no longer a faker in this place of genuine movie stars. But the buzz didn’t last long. By the time I’d pulled off the Hollywood Freeway onto Highland, the consequences of my promotion had thudded home. Lorn was going to be well and truly pissed off at the theft of her screen time, especially following so close on the downscaling of our affair. And worse than that, I was now so indebted to Bella it made it impossible for me to drag my feet on the issue of grabbing kidney people for her.
Night. Bella was in her basement clinic at Apricot Lane. Waiting. I’d agreed to find a victim, but at least for this first one I had a softer option than trawling the drag.
Over to Benedict Canyon with the top up on the Mustang. I turned the radio up loud and tried not to think about what I was doing. It worked for a while but when I parked outside Rex’s place there wasn’t much chance of escaping the kind of person I’d become. Or maybe always had been. But, shit, if it was easy to get to the top everybody would be there.
It had been a long time since my last visit and his place looked deserted. The small patch of grass between the house and the sidewalk needed cutting and was littered with newspapers and empty cans. Tendrils of jacaranda hung down over the top of the front door. I’d tried to call him earlier, but his phone was still down and I wasn’t sure if he even lived there anymore.
But he did. And things had gotten worse since my last visit. Only the TV for light, carpet sticky underfoot, wallpaper hanging in coiled sheets where it had been partly ripped from the walls, a pile of turds in one corner, the stink of shit and vomit. And in the middle of it all, Rex, sprawled on the floor, back propped against the remains of the couch, looking like something out of Belsen. He’d lost a lot of weight and sometime in the last week or two he’d shaved his head. Under the stubble his scalp looked gray and too tight. The needle sites at the crook of each arm were over-used and seeping clear pus.
“Come to save me?”
His voice was nasal and when he leered up at me his teeth didn’t look good.
“In a way. Do you want to earn some money?”
“How much?”
“Thirty thousand.”
He didn’t scoff. From the way we’d left things last time he must have known I wouldn’t come around for an idle bullshitting session. I watched him translate that amount of money into smack. Enough to last him to the end of his life. More than enough from the look of him.
“Wasting that cop friend of yours might be a little beyond me right now. Anything else, fire away.”
I laid out the kidney thing and it was cool by him. I made a call to Bella, then we got in the car.
On the way to Apricot Lane he stared out the window like L.A. was a new city to him, some vast tract of urban boredom he simply couldn’t recognize anymore. I took Benedict Canyon Drive up to Mulholland to give him a better view. I told myself that it might rekindle some feeling of friendship on his part—we’d driven the same stretch the night he’d taken me to my first paid sex gig. But maybe all I was doing was trying to connect again with a time when I wasn’t responsible for murder, when I didn’t get hard over pictures of dead people, and when I didn’t have to serve up a onetime friend as fodder for a mad millionairess so I could stay on TV.
He hardly spoke during the drive. Once, though, he turned away from the window and looked at me so tenderly I thought I’d start crying.
“I’m sorry.”
But when I smiled at his words, about to tell him everything was okay, he threw up the screens again and went back to the meaningless lights.
Bella met us at the bottom of the steps down from the garage, already in surgical green. Her eyes were dark and bright. She didn’t try to make conversation with Rex or put him at ease. He was there for the money, she was there to get off. That’s all there was to it.
She had him strip and take a shower. His scrawny ass, as he walked into the bathroom that adjoined the pre-op area, made her frown.
“Is he a close friend?”
“Why?”
“Will you miss him?”
“You’re only taking his kidney out.”
“He’s in very poor condition. Without Powell I’m going to have to use intravenous anesthetic. I’ll try to minimize the time he’s under, but there is a risk of respiratory failure with that type of drug for someone so debilitated. And if he does make it through the operation his remaining kidney may not be strong enough to cope.”
“He might die?”
“It’s possible he’ll suffer renal failure some days after the operation. The combination of the anesthetic and the heroin in his system may also prove dangerous.”
“But he could be okay?”
“I can’t promise anything one way or the other.”
“Jesus, what do you want me to do?”
“I don’t care what you do as long as I have a donor. If you want to go out again and find me someone else, fine. If you want to warn him of the dangers and he chooses to pull out, well, that’s up to you …”
She left the sentence hanging and it was obvious that delaying the night’s proceedings was not going to win me any points. Even so, I could have gone and found someone else—there wouldn’t have been any shortage of trash down on the drag just waiting to jump at thirty thousand dollars. But it was a risk and a hassle and besides, Rex would have been pissed off if I took away his chance at the money. What swung it in the end, though, was that I realized the outcome of the operation didn’t matter. He was going to die soon anyhow and I figured his death might as well do someone some good as not.
I helped her get him ready—shaved off a patch of fine hair on his left side and painted on some sticky brown antiseptic liquid. His eyes met mine as Bella fitted a lance into the back of his hand and fed in the pre-op. I didn’t see much there, just abandonment to circumstance, a flicker of uncertainty, and maybe a little relief. I could have said something reassuring, but that kind of thing is meaningless when the person you’re saying it to is chasing death. So I kept my mouth closed and watched him black out.
Bella wanted me to gown up and stay with her while she worked. But enticing Rex into a situation where he might sustain terminal physical damage was one thing, being there to see it happen was another altogether. So after I’d helped her wheel him through the swing doors into the green brilliance of the operating room and position him under the light cluster I went upstairs and watched TV. I fell asleep during some documentary about whales and didn’t wake up until Bella shook me.
She had a lazy smile on her face and her eyes had gone soft, she looked like a sated vampire.
“How’s Rex?”
“It went well. He’s stable, but I don’t know how long that will last.”
“I want to see him.”
He looked bad, his skin was gray and didn’t have much life behind it. He was still groggy from the anesthetic but awake enough to ask when he’d get his money. He wanted to go home straight away but Bella refused. We left him with a drip in his arm and a machine on a stand that gave him a dose of morphine every five minutes if he pressed a button. Bella locked the door behind us.
That night we slept in one of the bedrooms upstairs from the basement clinic. Bella didn’t make a move on me once, which suited me fine because right then I didn’t feel like being close to her at all.
Early evening sun, palms against the sky, a gritty wind that felt soft all the same. L.A. As good as the life you lead in it. Blacks killing each other over in Watts, movie stars fucking each other in B.H. Being one place or the other is just a matter of luck. But if luck happens to you here, it happens big—beach bum to screen hero, cocksucker to supermodel, crack dealer to rap star … one extreme to another. And I was in there somewhere, riding the tides of the city, playing a small part in what the place was famous for—journeys out of obscurity.
Bella had been strange toward me the last few days. When I spoke to her she answered in a tone of poorly disguised anger. She wouldn’t allow me into her bedroom and she wouldn’t fuck me. Such an abrupt reversal of attitude was frightening. All I could think was that she regretted allowing me to see the part of her that found it necessary to squander other people’s kidneys. Maybe she was angry at making herself vulnerable.
Despite this fresh source of insecurity, though, I was feeling pretty good. I’d spent the afternoon with my Century City agent being styled and made up, photographed and videoed. There was a men’s grooming gig doing the rounds and they’d wanted test material to sell me for it. If it happened it would be unbelievable—nationwide TV, billboard and press coverage, rollovers into next year and beyond. The face of a glossy product, a kind of male equivalent to Isabella Rossellini or Elizabeth Hurley.
I hadn’t bothered to wash off the makeup and when I stopped at lights I looked slyly at the other cars to see if the people in them were staring at me. I caught a few faces turned my way and I figured they must have been scrolling through lists of famous names, trying to see where I fit in.
Santa Monica Boulevard straight through Beverly Hills, Doheny up to Sunset then Laurel Canyon Drive when it came up on my left. I mobiled Bella, not to tell her what I’d done with the day—I figured it was smarter to keep quiet about any potential future success that didn’t involve her—but to check on Rex. The news wasn’t great. After a week and a half he’d had his fill of recuperation and had insisted on going home that afternoon. Bella, freed of having to monitor him, was already back at Malibu. Ryan had just arrived and she wanted me there to share the burden. I didn’t want to fuck up my mood any sooner than I had to, so I told her yeah but it would be a while because I had to swing by Willow Glen and pick up some clothes. Of course I had more than I needed at Malibu, but my agent had rush-printed a few stills for me and I wanted to spend some time alone with them.
At my place the machine had messages from Lorn. Different schedules had kept us from connecting. She’d heard about the expansion of my screen time and I could tell she wasn’t at all happy. I couldn’t blame her, losing exposure is the same as losing part of your worth as a human being. I knew I should call her, but I didn’t. Maybe if I had had some coke I could have mustered the energy, but I’d decided not to do so many drugs, it was important I keep my skin clear.
Instead I looked at the prints I’d brought home. I put them next to shots of various male stars to see how I compared. I wasn’t discouraged. Then I got my collection of sexy dead people out, mixed all the pics up together, and spread them out on the polished wooden floor. I ran the tape of the woman getting slaughtered in the jewelry store. I tried to take in everything at once—Hollywood faces, myself, dead bodies getting fucked, the expensive house around me … I wanked and spurted over the TV screen. Then I had a shower and when I came out the stuff on the floor seemed dangerous—incriminating evidence screaming out to be discovered. Bad enough if I was a nobody, but if I got the grooming contract the pictures could spell disaster. It would have been safer to burn the lot, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I put everything away in a drawer for another time.
Ryan pumped two loads of seed, one over Bella’s tits and face, the other, half an hour later, between the spread cheeks of her ass. I guess he’d been saving it up because she was drenched. It came out of him like a fountain and, watching from a chair in the corner of the room, I was surprised his heart could take it.
Later the three of us did dinner in Monica and a postscreening party in the hills. Bella ignored me the entire time. We stood in a corner of a room that looked like a temple and Ryan made his usual obscene conversation until Bella had had enough and wandered off to take a piss.
“How are the nightmares, Jackie?”
“What nightmares?”
“You don’t see that old bastard kicking about on the front seat when you close your eyes?”
“I don’t dream.”
He grunted and glanced about the room, then pulled me around with him so our backs were toward the way Bella went. When he spoke again his voice was low.
“I got something here that’ll fuck your sleep for sure. You ever do those things when you were a kid, where you have to find what’s wrong with a drawing?”
“What’s your point?”
“The cunt’s lying.”
He took a video cassette out of his jacket like we were in some kind of a spy movie and handed it to me. It was one of the small ones you use in a camcorder.
“Copy of the tape we got at Powell’s. I figured out why it bugged me. Take it home, see if you can pick it.”
“Don’t play games, Ryan, just tell me.”
“Where’s the fun in that? I’ll give you till the day after tomorrow. Come around to my place then, we’ll have a little chat.”
I put the tape in my pocket and looked over my shoulder to see where Bella had gone. She was six feet away. She made it look like she’d only just come back from the toilet, but I got the feeling she’d been close enough to hear for longer than that.
We hung out for a while, then Ryan said he wanted to take us to a fuck club he knew from his days on vice. Even though I wasn’t really interested it still shook me when Bella said she’d only go if it was just him and her. I tried to say something about it, but it wasn’t open to question.
After they split I went back to Willow Glen and found Lorn sitting in her car out front. Inside the house she tried to stay calm, but she was too angry to maintain her self-control for very long and switched to loud almost immediately.
“Why did you do it, Jack?”
“What did you expect, I was going to turn it down?”
“You don’t just get offered something like that. It’s one of the most important parts of the show. You know someone.”
“I don’t know anyone.”
“You’re lying.”
“You’ve got nearly all the rest, don’t you think you’re over-reacting?”
I tried to make it sound like I was talking sense and she was being irrational, but it didn’t come off. We both knew how important those extra minutes were.
“You know what kind of message something like this sends to the industry. It’ll read like I’m being phased out.”
“Bullshit. Nobody’ll even notice.”
“Do you think I’m stupid? You’re fucked in the head if you think I’m not going to get that slot back. You aren’t the only one with a friend at the channel, you know.”
She slammed out into the night, leaving me wondering what the fuck was going on—Bella wouldn’t let me touch her, and now, quite obviously, neither would Lorn. I couldn’t help feeling somewhat rejected.
To distract myself I watched the tape Ryan had given me. Same as before—Karen lying, back to camera, in front of a mirror, doing herself with a dildo. What’s wrong with this picture? I ran through it again and again, it didn’t say anything to me. The bracelet glinted on her wrist, but Ryan and I had both seen that the first time. What else could there be?
Outside the sky paled. My eyes got tired and I gave up. Ryan would have to explain it to me when I saw him.
The cunt’s lying …