Sex and Violence in Hollywood (25 page)

“No, that was his parents’ house. He still lived with them back then. His dad’s a hack musician. Scores low-budget, straight-to-video action movies. His mom works in kiddie cartoon shows at Fox.” He knocked again, a little harder.

“Why does he live in this place?”

The curtain pulled aside and a young man in his late twenties looked out. His eyes and mouth turned downward sadly on the outsides. He held a cordless phone to his left ear. Half his mouth smiled when he saw Carter, and he opened the door.

“C’mon in,” Billy said, his hand over the phone’s mouthpiece. “Just give me a sec, okay?” He turned, disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door.

The apartment was dark and thick with the smells of stale cigarette butts and marijuana. For a change, the air was worse inside than outside. Carter left the glass door open to air the place out a little.

The apartment was too cluttered and cramped for furniture. Adam noticed what the room was cluttered with and gasped. Wall shelves held every kind of face imaginable. Bloody human body parts were lined up on the floor. Prosthetics covered the tabletops, even in the tiny kitchenette. Adam turned around slowly, marveling at Billy’s work.

“This is incredible,” he said. “No offense. Carter, but he’s even better than you. That’s saying a lot, too.”

“‘Course he’s better than me. He’s a genius.”

“And he’s not working professionally?”

“No,” Carter whispered. “That’s a long story. He got his first job on some monster movie, but something happened. Nobody’s sure what, but it really hurt him, I guess, changed him. I don’t know if it’s true, but I heard his parents pulled some strings to get him dropped from the job. They don’t like what he does. They think it’s too ugly. Beneath them, or something. But it’s what Billy lives for. He moved out, disappeared for almost a year. By the time anybody saw him again, he’d found this place, and he...wasn’t the same.”

“You didn’t perform an immediate intervention? This place is not a place to live. Won’t his parents help him out?”

“They do. He takes their money, but I heard he hasn’t spoken to them since he left their house. He saves money by living here, so he can afford to make those.” He nodded at the faces on the shelves.

“Does he sell them?” Adam whispered.

“Once in a while, to fans. But always for a lot less than they’re worth.” Carter shook his head, frustrated. “If he won’t work in the movies, he should at least make a living off these things. They’d sell at sci-fi conventions like crack in Inglewood. He could take orders, do custom work.” Carter shrugged. “Nobody knows why he doesn’t. But we all think it’s because of whatever happened on his first job.”

“Hell, I may buy a couple myself, just to have on the shelf. We’ve got to get this guy out of here, Carter. Get him some work.”

“Don’t say anything to him about...anything, okay? He won’t talk about it, and it’ll just upset him. I’m serious, maybe you should just let me do the talking, okay?”

Adam nodded as Billy came out of the bathroom.

“Sorry, Carter,” Billy said. “How ya doin’, man?”

“Good, Billy. You remember my friend, Adam, don’t you?”

Billy swept back some of his long, thin, brown hair, which fell past his shoulders. His scalp was visible on top, where the hair was thinning fast. “Uh...sorry, ’fraid I don’t. But nice to meetcha, Adam. Any frienda Carter’s. You guys want somethin’ t’drink?” He was about six feet tall, but his shoulders hunched and his head drooped. He was so thin, his chest appeared to be collapsing.

“I don’t think we’ll be sticking around, Billy,” Adam said, glancing at Carter.

“Yeah, Billy, we need you to help us find somebody. Remember a party you threw at your parents’ house about two years ago?

Billy frowned as he reached behind him to scratch his back. His body stiffened suddenly. Mouth dropped open, eyes squeezed tightly shut.

“Billy?” Carter said.

Billy dropped to the floor on his back and began to convulse.

“Oh, Jesus!” Adam said.

The convulsions stopped. Something moved under the tank top. Under Billy’s skin. In his belly.

“Oh, Jesus!” Adam shouted.

Billy’s flat belly exploded. Viscous blood and globs of organs were thrown up through the holes in the tank top, and splattered all over Billy.

Adam’s jaw hurt because his mouth was open so far, but he did not feel it. He was too preoccupied with the tears in the fabric of his sanity. His horror became panic, and he ran from the apartment crying, “Oh, Jesus! Oh, God! Oh, Jesus! Oh, God!” Halfway down the stairs, he heard laughter coming from Billy’s apartment.

“Fanfuckingtastic, man!” Carter shouted.

Below, Floyd eyed Adam on the stairs. Leaning on the rail, trying to catch his breath and slow down his heart, Adam stared back. Floyd lowered his glasses and shouted something that sounded like a spitball hitting a chalkboard. Adam ignored him and went back up the stairs.

“Hey, you okay?” Carter asked, stepping out of the apartment.

Adam was angry. Embarrassed, too, but mostly angry.

“That was something new!” Carter said with enthusiasm. “His exploding stomach!”

Adam’s voice was low and even, but unpleasant. “You know what’s going to explode, Carter? Me, that’s what, I’m going to explode if we don’t just do what we came here to do and leave. Okay?”

“He does that kinda thing all the time,” Carter said apologetically. “Tries new stuff on his friends, you know? I’m sorry if you—”

“Let’s just do it, okay?” Adam said, and went back into the apartment.

TWENTY-THREE

"Don’t piss off
any truck drivers,” Carter said as Adam drove them into the desert outside of Los Angeles.

“Why?”
Adam asked.

“Didn’t you see Duel, man? You wanna end up like Dennis Weaver?”

“Carter, nobody wants to end up like Dennis Weaver.”

Laughter in the backseat. Billy said, “You guys’re funny.”

Back in his apartment. Billy had told them it would be a very bad idea to go see his friend, Diz, on their own. “For one thing,” he had said, “it’s almost impossible t’find the place. And they don’t like, um, strangers showin’ up, y’know, unannounced.” Adam had suggested they call ahead, but Billy said they would get only a voicemail system.

Quietly, sheepishly, Billy had refused to give them directions to Diz’s place unless they agreed to take him along. “S’really for your own good,” he had said.

Adam looked in the rearview and said, “Hey, Billy, why would Diz be upset if we showed up without you?”

“Come on, Adam,” Carter said, rolling his eyes. “The guy sells drugs and guns and explosives and God knows what else. I think I’d be a little tense, too, in his position.”

“Oh, no, it’s not just Diz,” Billy said. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the backs of the seats. “It’s his parents, too.”

“What do they do?” Adam said.

“Uh, well...” He chuckled. “They just do, like...stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” Carter asked.

“The, um...well, the illegal kind.”

“Sounds like a wonderful family,” Adam said.

“They’re all real nice folks,” Billy said. “Well, um...Diz is kinda moody these days. But his parents’re real nice. His mom, anyways.”

“Why is Diz moody these days?” Adam asked.

“Oh, that, well...he got hurt. ’Bout a year and a half ago, he was workin’ with explosives, y’know? I mean, um, it’s what he does, right? Anyways, somethin’ went wrong an’ the thing went off. Right in Diz’s face. He lost some of his fingers and, um...some of his face. He’s pretty self-conscious about it. Been kinda moody ever since. For a long time, he wouldn’t leave the compound, not even on a job, or nothin’. He’s gettin’ better, though.”

Adam’s eyebrows popped up. “Compound? What are they, a militia?”

Billy grinned. “Thass what they call it. To be funny, I think. Just jokin’. Alls that’s out there is a buncha trailers.”

“They live in a trailer park?” Carter asked.

“Oh, no, just a buncha trailers. All theirs.”

Adam asked, “Why all the trailers?”

“Uh, well...” He got that sheepish look on his face again, ducked his head. “They got some businesses they run out there.”

“Businesses?” Carter asked.

“What kind of businesses?” Adam said.

“Oh, I...I’m not supposed to talk about it. I promised.”

Adam and Carter exchanged a worried look. Adam said, “Billy, if you don’t want to tell us, that’s fine, but...I really need to know if we’re going to get in some kind of trouble by going out to Diz’s house.”

“Not as long as you’re with me.” He smiled into the rearview. “Mostly it’s just, like, Internet stuff. Y’know, websites with illegal porn, an’ stuff. Except for Mrs. C.’s. She’s a...um, whaddaya call it? A doma...dominatrix. That’s legal. But, um, just don’t tell ’em I told ya ’bout it.”

That was not the reassurance Adam was looking for. He was tired of walking into the unknown—the party at Monty’s, those awful trips to the liquor store and the hospital—and wanted to know what he was getting into for a change. He did not like the sound of what Billy had said. But where else would he get explosives? Rain probably knew people who could build a bomb blindfolded, but he wanted nothing more to do with any of her friends. Or Rain, if he could help it. It was Diz or nothing.

“Is ‘Diz’ short for something?” Adam asked.

“Short for Dizzy. I don’t know if anybody knows his real name.”

“Why Dizzy?” Carter asked. “Because of the accident?”

“Oh, um, ’cause he’s...well, he’s dizzy. He choked on a vodka bottle cap when he was a little kid. They said he died, then, um, they were able to bring him back. But, well, he got a little brain damage. Not enough oxygen, y’know? Hasn’t been right ever since. He’s always just a little...dizzy. Sometimes it’s worse than others, but mosta th’time he’s just a little dizzy.”

“Oh, my God,” Adam muttered, slumping in his seat. “This is Hell, we’re in Hell.”

“What’s the matter?” Carter asked.

“Did you hear that? They sound like the mutant family from The Hills Have Eyes!”

Billy cleared his throat. “Oh, um, y’know...y’might not wanna say that in, um...in front of ’em. Y’know?”

“I’m sorry, Billy,” Adam said. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t do that.”

“No prob.” Billy smiled and leaned back into the seat. Carter turned to Adam and asked quietly, “You changing your mind?”

“No, I’m losing it.”

“Why? What’s the matter all of a sudden?”

“All of a sudden? Where the hell have you been all week?”

Billy leaned forward again. “So what’re you guys gonna blow up?”

Carter turned to him uncomfortably. “Well, Billy, we really didn’t want to talk about that, you know? That’s why we asked you not to ask us that question.”

Billy’s droopy eyes slowly widened. “Oh, yeah, y’did, dincha? Okay, sorry ’bout that.” Again he smiled and settled into the seat.

Adam sighed, spoke quietly to Carter. “This Diz guy will want to know that, too.”

“Maybe not,” Carter said. “He probably deals with lots of people who don’t want anybody to know what they’re up to.”

“You think?” Adam said. “A one-eyed maimed guy with chronic dizziness who handles explosives, you think he gets a lot of business?”

Carter rolled his eyes. “Okay, so maybe to make up for the dizziness, he sells his explosives at a discount.”

Billy leaned forward again. “Well, um, Diz doesn’t exactly sell explosives. He just, um, y’know, works with ’em. I...I thought you guys knew that.”

“Works with them?” Adam said, his voice getting louder. “I’m driving a hundred and fifty miles into the desert to buy explosives, and he doesn’t sell them?”

“He was selling them at that party,” Carter said. “Wasn’t he?”

“He only did that back then ’cause he needed some fast money. He don’t do it anymore. If you got somethin’ you need t’blow up, he’ll do it for ya. Y’know, for a fee. That’s what he’s best at.”

“Charging a fee?” Adam asked.

“No, blowin’ things up.”

Adam sighed and said no more. Mentally threw up his arms and hoped everything went at least as well as could be expected under the circumstances.

* * *

Like a deadly cancer steadily consuming healthy cells in a human body, Los Angeles continued to spread over the earth, eating up the desert along the way. It pushed the edge of the wilderness farther and farther from the city’s glimmering center. Soon, Adam feared, there would be no desert, and all of California would be Los Angeles. Then all of the west coast. The city would continue to spread until it reached the east coast and had swallowed the entire country, then the continent, and beyond. It had long been Adam’s opinion that Los Angeles should be surgically excised from the earth, like a giant infected cyst filled with pus and hair before it rendered the rest of the planet septic.

“Okay, um, you’re gonna wanna take your next right,” Billy said.