Sex and Violence in Hollywood (36 page)

“Those names,” Adam said. “They all belong to just two people?”

Wyndham put his hands together in front, held the notebook with both of them, elbows locked. Nodded once. “That is correct. Two people.” His eyes kept bouncing between their faces.

What the hell is taking Devin so long? Adam wondered.

The silence in the living room was oppressive, smothering.

“What have you fellas been doing with your summer?” Wyndham asked.

Adam shrugged. “We’re into movies,” Adam said flatly. It sounded stupid even as it came out of his mouth. They were in Los Angeles. Every waitress and busboy was an actor, and even the homeless were shopping scripts around town. Everybody was into movies. “I mean, we like to go to them. Collect them. Old ones, new ones.”

Wyndham nodded once. Said nothing for a long while.

Adam could see the fear just behind Carter’s face, verging on breaking through. But only because he knew him so well. It was not visible to the detective. He hoped.

“Personally,” Wyndham said, “I like the outdoors. I’m especially fond of the desert.”

Adam’s colon convulsed.

“I find the wildlife fascinating. Particularly the reptiles.” He chuckled. “I’m a bit of an amateur herpetologist. The desert is filled with fascinating reptiles. I’m never happier than when I’m out there. Patiently waiting to see what comes out from under the rocks. Maybe a lizard. Maybe a snake.” Mouth closed, he smiled.

Adam wondered if the detective could hear the shrieks of panic inside him. Devin must be making that fucking bread!

Wyndham tipped his head back. “Do you fellas ever spend any time out in the desert?”

Carter’s eyes shot toward Adam.

“We’re pretty much city boys,” Adam said, smiling a little. But not much.

Again, Wyndham smiled and nodded a single time.

Devin returned with a loaf of banana-nut bread wrapped in rose-colored cellophane and tied with a silver ribbon. “Here you go, Detective Wyndham. Enjoy.”

“I can’t thank you enough, it is absolutely delicious,” Wyndham said as he took the loaf. “I may have to come back for the recipe, if you’re willing to part with it.”

Adam thought, For God’s sake, give it to him later!

Wyndham turned to Adam and Carter. “I’m sure I’ll see you again soon. As the investigation progresses and more information is gathered, it is likely I will need to ask you more questions.”

“Sure,” Adam said.

“You don’t have any plans to leave town in the near future, do you?” He glanced at Carter. “Either of you?”

Carter turned his head from side to side stiffly as Adam said, “No. We don’t.”

“Good. Sorry to have bothered you. And I am truly sorry for your loss, Adam.” He reached beneath his coat and produced his card, handed it over to Adam. “If there is anything I can do, if you need anything at all, please call me.”

Before he left, Detective Wyndham gave them another smile. And a wink.

THIRTY-FIVE

It was a hot day,
capped by a layer of carcinogenic filth that obliterated the blue sky, masked the mountains in the distance, and turned the sun’s burning shine into a dull, cloying glow. Everything was corpse-gray, even the clammy air.

“We haven’t been watching the news,” Carter said. “If we had, I bet we would’ve known there was trouble.”

“I have been watching the news.” Adam said. “And listening to it, and reading it. But not all the time. It gets depressing after a while.”

They were in the Mercedes, on their way to see Billy Rivers. Adam had called Alyssa, told her he would not be able to pick her up when she got off at two. She had not asked for an explanation, so Adam had not provided one.

After Wyndham left, Adam had wanted to turn on the television, tune in to some local news. Carter insisted they go see Billy and find out if anything had happened out in the desert that they should know about.

A chilling thought materialized in Adam’s mind and came out of his mouth before he had a chance to examine it. “What if we’re being watched?”

“What?”

“What if we’re under surveillance?”

Carter searched the rearview mirror as he turned onto Ventura. “You think we shouldn’t go see Billy?”

“I don’t know. How would that look? I mean, if they’re following us, and we go to Billy’s...do you think they’d connect him to the desert?”

“Maybe. I didn’t know how close he was to Diz and his family until we went out there. He’s like their Renfield, or something, it’s creepy. If the cops know anything about Diz, then they probably know Billy, too.”

“Then what should we do?”

“I could call him,” Carter said. “But he screens his calls, and if I left a message on his machine—nah. Bad idea.”

“Do you think we’re being followed?”

“How the hell should I know if we’re being followed? It was your idea. Usually, the whole point of following someone is to stay out of sight so they don’t know they’re being followed, so if they know what they’re doing—”

“Just drive around for a while,” Adam said. “Keep an eye in the mirror, see if there’s one particular car that stays with us.”

“What kind of car?”

“Something...cop-like.”

Carter turned and glared at him for a few seconds.

“I don’t know, something that looks dull and drab, you know what I mean? Don’t plainclothes cops like Wyndham drive the kind of cars spinster aunts drive?”

“Maybe in the movies. In real life? I dunno. Did you see Enemy of the State? They could be following us with satellites, for all we know.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Okay, forget I said anything. It was probably a stupid idea, I’m just being paranoid. Let’s go over to Billy’s.”

“Hey, I’m not being a smartass. I’m serious about the satellites.” Carter slowed and parked at the curb outside Gravy Train’s, a small hobby shop where he bought many of the ingredients needed for his gory hobby. “I’m gonna pick up a couple things while I’m here. You stay outside and see if anybody hangs around, okay?”

They got out of the car. Adam leaned against the wall beside the shop’s entrance while Carter when inside.

Ventura Boulevard was one of the Valley’s main arteries, its traffic constant. It ran seamlessly through one town after another, towns set apart only by their names: Studio City, Sherman Oaks, Encino, Tarzana, on and on. The vehicles traveling the boulevard ranged from the most battered and abused to the most shimmering, most expensive.

No one slowed or stopped any distance behind them. Traffic raced by in both directions. Adam looked up and down the sidewalk. A blue-and-white patrol car slowed to a stop at the corner. The uniformed officer at the wheel waited for an opening in traffic. Pulled out, turned right. Adam realized he was staring baldly at the patrol car and turned away, pulse quickening. Looked at the intricate miniatures displayed in the hobby shop’s window. The patrol car’s reflection slithered over the glass and disappeared.

Back in the car, Carter drove in silence for a while. Went around a few blocks.

“Nobody’s following us,” Adam said.

“Any helicopters?”

“No helicopters. Let’s go to Billy’s.”

There seemed to be no surveillance on Waving Palms Estates. At least, no one was staring from inside a parked car. That was how Adam imagined someone who was watching the apartment complex would look. A dark shape sitting in a parked car.

That’s just in the movies, Adam thought, disturbed by how detached from reality he found himself to be. It seemed everything he knew, or thought he knew, had come from movies or television. Suddenly, he felt uncertain about what he knew and did not know. Of how things worked in the real world.

“Oh, great,” Adam muttered as they stepped into the courtyard and started up the stairs. “It’s Jabba the Manager.”

Floyd watched them from his lawn chair, naked but for Bermuda shorts and flip-flops on his feet. Another ballgame played on the radio. He leaned forward as if to speak, but said nothing. Just watched them.

“Ignore him,” Carter whispered.

They stopped outside Billy’s apartment. Carter rapped his knuckles on the glass door.

There was a shuffling sound below. Wet breathing. “He ain’t there,” Floyd said.

Adam and Carter turned around slowly, looked down.

Floyd’s loose, rubbery lips pulled back over his gums into something that approximated a smug grin. He offered no further information.

“Is he coming back?” Carter asked.

“Oh, no. He ain’t comin’ back. The po-leeth came and took away all hith thtuff.”

They did not move or look at each other.

“The...police?” Carter asked. “You’re sure?”

Floyd nodded enthusiastically, still grinning. “Oh, yeah, they wath the po-leeth, awright. Uniformth and everything. Two of ’em, not countin’ the two guyth from the FBI. Cleaned out hith apartment. Carried everything out in bockthes wearin’ rubber gloveth.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Adam breathed. “Let’s go.”

Carter was already moving along the rail, watching Floyd. “What did he do?”

Floyd shrugged as his tongue squirmed in its cave. “Dunno. I figgered you guyth’d know better’n me.”

“No,” Carter said as they went down the stairs. “We don’t know.”

Floyd waddled toward the foot of the stairs to meet them. “I thaw ’em haul off a couple computers, figgered maybe he wath lookin’ at that kiddie porn. Y’thee that on the newth all the time. But hell, I dunno what he did. Figgered you’d know better’n me, ’cauthe I never—”

“We don’t know,” Carter snapped as he brushed by Floyd.

They crossed the street, got into the Mercedes.

Floyd stood and watched them, elbows jutting at his sides.

Carter turned on the radio, already tuned to a news station. “Maybe we should go over to Billy’s parents’ house.”

“If the cops cleaned out his apartment, what makes you think his parents’ house would be safe? Maybe they’re just waiting for him to show up there.”

“But what do they want him for?”

“How the hell do I know?”

“If the police and the FBI—can you believe that? The fucking FBI?—if they know about Diz’s place in the desert—”

“That’s not necessarily the case,” Adam said.

“But if they do, why haven’t we heard about it on the news?”

“You sound like Floyd.”

“Compare me to that toothless manatee one more time and I’m gonna kick your ass out of the car.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. Just because it’s not on the news doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. But there might be something in the newspaper. Let’s get one.”

Carter drove around a block, headed back the way they’d come on Ventura. They went to DuPar’s, a coffee shop in Studio City, and bought a paper from the vending machine outside on the way in.

They had left two perfectly good sandwiches to go stale in Carter’s studio and were still hungry, so they ordered lunch with their coffee. Waiting for their orders to arrive, they combed the newspaper for some clue as to what had happened to Billy. The lunch crowd was gone and the dinner crowd would not start showing up for a few hours.

The Los Angeles Times provided them with nothing.

“But Bizarro was funny,” Carter said.

The waitress brought Adam’s Denver omelette and Carter’s Reuben.

Relief settled in as Adam took a bite of the omelette and chewed slowly. If there was no story, there was no danger. Not yet. He asked, “What do you think happened to Billy?”

Carter shrugged. “Maybe drugs. Isn’t that why they take all your stuff? If you get caught selling drugs?”

“I guess so. I’m not sure. Did he sell drugs?”

“He always had plenty of wacky weed around. He always gave it to me, but maybe he sold it, too. Maybe that’s how he financed his habit.”

Adam remembered the beautifully crafted masks and body parts in Billy’s apartment. They were more than a hobby to Billy, as with Carter. He thought the word “habit” was appropriate.

“I’m gonna call his parents,” Carter said.

“You think that’s a good idea?”

“What could it hurt? Billy and I are friends. There’s nothing unusual about me trying to track him down.”

“At his parents’ place?”

“Well...I haven’t done it since he moved out. But so what? So fucking what?”

Adam could see Carter stirring up his courage, working himself up to make the call in spite of his fears.

“Yeah, I’ll call, and if I get the answering machine, I just won’t leave a message, and if somebody picks up, I’ll just ask if Billy’s there, that’s all.” He wiped his hands on a paper napkin and slid out of the booth. Went to the pay phone at the front of the diner. Made the call. A couple minutes later, he hung up and returned to the booth, looking frustrated. “He’s not there.”

“Who answered?”

“I’m not sure. Some woman.”

“Did you ask her if she—”