This Wicked World (17 page)

“I’m not sad,” Mr. King says. “I’m telling stories that need to be told. Every day a little more of my past disappears, and, by God, I’m going to do something about it. Jimmy, my boy” — he reaches across the bar and grabs Boone’s forearm — “I want you to remember what I’m saying tonight. Remember it for me and for Ben.”

“You got it,” Boone replies.

“He used to do this other trick too,” Mr. King says. “You’d leave the room to answer the phone or step out of the editing bay for a cigarette, and when you came back, he’d be sitting right where you left him, doing exactly what he was doing before, only buck naked, starkers, not a stitch on him. I’d laugh till I thought I was going to pass out.”

“A real wild man, huh?” Boone says.

“Oh, he was, he was,” Mr. King says. “He was
wild
. Best editor I ever worked with. We wouldn’t see each other for years at a stretch, but I’d think of him now and then, and all of a sudden I’d be happy just knowing he was somewhere out there in the world.”

He finishes his drink in a gulp, then slides off his stool and steadies himself against the bar. “Is the music always so god-damn loud in here?” he asks before heading off to the men’s room.

Delia announces last call, and the Germans order a round. One of them asks Boone where he and his buddies can meet women. Boone suggests they talk to Robo out front but doubts their stonewashed denim shorts and “Venice Beach Lifeguard” muscle shirts will pass muster at any of the clubs in Hollywood.

He’s helping Gonzalo unclog the ice machine when his phone rings.

“Jimmy Boone?”

“This is he.”

“My name is Loretta Marshall. I do pit bull rescues.”

Boone had called the number the vet gave him and left a message before coming to work.

“Sorry to get back to you so late, but I couldn’t sleep thinking about that dog you found,” Loretta continues. “I want to start trying to find it a permanent home as soon as possible.”

Boone glances at his watch. Almost midnight. So she’s a little kooky. Lots of that going around.

“When can I come over and see — what’s the dog’s name?” Loretta asks. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

“Male,” Boone says. “The people I got him from called him Joto.”

“Joto. That’s kinda sweet.”

“It’s Spanish for
fag
.”

“Oh,” she says. There’s a long pause. “Well, when can I come see him?”

Simon crosses from the restaurant to the bar and frowns when he notices Boone on the phone, motions for him to hang up. Boone raises a finger. One second.

“How about tomorrow afternoon, around noon?” he says to Loretta.

“Lovely. I can meet you and the dog and fill you in on what I do.”

Boone gives Loretta his address and hustles the good-byes. Simon is leaning on the stick, waiting for him to finish. “You know the rules,” he says, holding out his hand, palm up. If he catches an employee making a personal call while on the clock, that employee has to pay him a five-dollar fine.

Boone reaches into his pocket, throws a crumpled bill onto the bar.

“Don’t be mad at me,” Simon says as he picks up the money. “It’s your own fault.”

Yes, it is. This and every goddamn thing that’s brought him to this point. No arguing with that. Simon stands there grinning his mean little grin, and before he puts his fist in the middle of it, Boone calls to Delia, “I missed my last break, so I’m taking it now.”

He ducks under the bar and walks out the front door.

Robo is standing on the sidewalk, talking to the valets. He’s wearing a suit tonight, per Simon’s order. It’s black, looks almost like wool, and fits pretty well, considering the acreage it has to cover. He’s also got on a white shirt, which has come untucked, and a red tie.

“Check you out,” Boone says.

Robo opens the jacket and slides his thumbs under the suspenders that hold his pants up. “
El rey de los reyes,
” he says.

“Where’d you score it?”

“Over in Santee Alley. Homeboy’s friends with my dad and hooked me up on short notice. Now fucking Simon can kiss my big brown ass.”

Hollywood Boulevard is bumper to bumper with kids in from the Valley, East L.A., the Westside, all looking to get crazy on Saturday night, get wasted, get laid. Music thumps out of open windows, and neon reflections whirl over hoods and windshields like out-of-control carnival rides. Boone watches the traffic stream past and wonders what Amy’s up to, if she’s having fun.

“How’s that dog?” Robo asks.

“Had to take him to the vet this morning,” Boone replies. “Cost me two hundred dollars to find out he had a stomachache.”

“If you need extra cash, come with me tomorrow. I’m gonna repo a forty-two-inch plasma from some
pendejo
who quit making payments to the dude who sold it to him. I’ll toss thirty bucks your way.”

“I don’t think so, bro,” Boone says. “No more rough stuff for me.”

Robo makes a pair of pistols with his fingers and points them at Boone. “Come on,” he says. “We’re a good team. Fatman and Robin.”

A stretch Hummer rolls past with bellowing frat boys hanging out of every window. They disappear like frightened chipmunks into their holes when an LAPD cruiser chirps its siren and a cop using the car’s loudspeaker orders the driver to pull over. One of the valets says something in Spanish that Boone doesn’t catch. Robo clucks his tongue and shakes his head.

“Did you talk to Rosales, tell him what you found out about Oscar from Maribel and the roommates?” Boone asks Robo.

“All that nothin’?” Robo says. “Yeah, I told him. I also refunded him sixty bucks, meaning I made shit on that job.”

“Well, check this out,” Boone says. “The vet I took the dog to said he was used for fighting and that he has a tattoo in his ear that identifies his breeder. I was thinking if you found this breeder, he might know something about what happened to the kid.”

“Yeah? So?”

“So, maybe you can get more money out of the old man to look into it.”

Robo waves his hand dismissively. “Shit,
ese,
that
borracho
don’t have no more money, and I sure as hell ain’t working for free.”

Boone pushes a bottle cap into the gutter with the toe of his shoe. “It’s your thing,” he says. “Just letting you know.” He’s disappointed. He’s been thinking about Oscar all day and had hoped to ease his mind by getting Robo to follow up on the lead.

“You want to do something for me,” Robo says, “find me some jobs that pay.”

Mr. King and Gina walk out of the Tick Tock, Mr. King leaning heavily on Gina. He looks old and frail, almost trips over a buckle in the sidewalk.

Robo turns to the couple and spreads his arms wide. “Hey, hey, hey, the beautiful people,” he says with a big smile. “Where you off to now? One of them Beverly Hills parties? Some dancing maybe?”

Mr. King hands the valet his ticket. “Straight to bed, Robert,” he says. “The sooner this one ends, the better.”

“It do go like that sometimes, don’t it?”

Boone heads into the restaurant. “Ben Crosson,” Mr. King calls after him. “Remember, Jimmy.”

“I will,” Boone says.

The Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979” is playing on the sound system when he gets back inside, a song he’s always liked. One of the waitresses is into oldies, she told him earlier, and this is her CD. So the Smashing Pumpkins are oldies now. What a kick in the ass.

B
OONE IS WIRED
after closing, so he walks down Hollywood to Skooby’s for a chili dog, stepping on the sidewalk stars of all kinds of people he’s never heard of, probably more of Mr. King’s friends. A flock of homeless punks are hanging out at the stand, along with a couple of girls dressed for the clubs in short skirts and high heels. The girls pick at their fries with long, painted fingernails and crane their necks awkwardly as they bite into their dogs to avoid dripping mustard on their outfits.

Boone eats at the outdoor counter, spinning around on his stool to watch the late show on the boulevard. Two bums come to blows over a Starbucks cup filled with vodka, and a skeev dressed like Superman limps past, yelling into a phone.

A guy who looks like Charlie Brown, if Charlie Brown were black and homeless, approaches Boone and holds out a battered video copy of
Grease
.

“You want to buy this?” he asks.

“Nope,” Boone replies.

“One dollar.”

“Nope.”

Charlie looks like he’s about to cry as he waddles away.

Boone finishes his food and ducks into the Internet café across the street, Cyberplace, a long, narrow room lined with computers and lit by the kind of fluorescent tubes that always put him back in prison. He hasn’t sprung for a computer of his own yet — other things keep coming up, like two-hundred-dollar vet bills — so this is where he checks his e-mail.

There’s only one new message, from his old partner at Iron-man, Carl Perry. He wants Boone to come to his place Friday to watch a pay-per-view boxing match. “The wife will be there, so bring a date, if you got one,” he adds. Boone has turned down a number of invitations from Carl since being released from Corcoran. They’ve talked on the phone a couple times, exchanged e-mails, but Boone’s been putting off a face-to-face. He’s told himself it’s because he’s been busy getting back on his feet in the outside world, but that’s only part of it.

The truth is, Ironman took a hit when Boone attacked Anderson. As word of the incident spread — crazed bodyguard beats client — business suffered, and the company is still struggling almost five years later. Boone feels guilty about this, and that’s why he’s been avoiding his old friend. But he also knows that it’s high time he look Carl in the eye and apologize for ruining the good thing he had going, so he e-mails back that he’ll be there for sure on Friday.

Then, just for kicks, he pulls out the card the vet gave him and types in the address of her animal activist buddies’ Web site, the ones who went after Morrison, Joto’s breeder. The group is called TMW, which stands for This Means War. A headline on the page reads “Stop the Slaughter Now!” and there are lots of gory pictures of fighting dogs with their ears torn off, their eyes gouged out, their intestines exposed.

These animals are tortured for the sick pleasure of those who wager on them,
an essay on the site explains.
They live short, horrible, brutal lives and are expected to kill other dogs in order to earn their keep. Win or lose, however, they die slow, cruel deaths and are often kept in appalling conditions. We at TMW are committed to stamping out this sickening “sport” BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.

At the bottom of the page is a link to contact the site’s owners. Boone clicks it and types,
I’m a filmmaker putting together an antidogfight documentary, and I’ve been trying to track down Bob Morrison, a notorious breeder and trainer of fighting dogs. My plan is to interview him with a hidden camera to gather footage that can be used to put him behind bars once and for all.

My vet, Dr. Sanchez, mentioned that you were trying to take Morrison down but were unable to do so due to legal complications. We have the funds, we have the lawyers, and, if you’ll provide us with contact information for Morrison (an address?), we’d be honored to finish what you started. Sincerely, Ben Crosson.

Boone chuckles to himself as he hits
SEND
. He doesn’t really expect his ruse to work. The people at TMW will surely want proof that he is who he says he is, or they’ll demand to be involved in the film in some way or will ask for payment for any information they give him. It’s L.A., after all. Everyone has his hand out, even the do-gooders. Everyone wants a screen credit.

B
OONE DIDN’T SET
the alarm when he went to bed, planning to sleep in for once, but Joto barks him awake at seven thirty, excited about taking a piss and licking the dew off the grass. He’s already looking less sickly and certainly has more energy. Boone clips the leash to his collar, and the dog practically drags him into the courtyard.

Amy’s place was dark when Boone got home last night, and there’s no sign of her now. Mrs. Hu is up, though, on her knees in front of her bungalow, planting bright red flowers.

“Morning,” Boone says.

“Pets are against the rules,” she replies, without looking up.

“I know. I’m trying to find him a home.”

“I’ll shoot him if he comes near me,” Mrs. Hu says, patting the bulge, that .38, in the pocket of her housecoat.

Boone pulls tight on the leash and says, “I’ll keep a good eye on him, don’t worry.”

“And you better clean up after him too, the shit.”

“I will, Mrs. Hu. Anything else?”

The old woman doesn’t reply, just stabs at the dirt with her trowel.

Boone and Joto walk over to Bronson and head up into the hills, where multimillion-dollar homes line the streets. Boone used to live not far from here when he worked for Ironman. He had a view of Catalina on clear days, a pool, a maid, and a gardener. He’d always felt that it was too good to last, though, always known he’d blow it somehow. An ex-jarhead from Oil-dale living next to movie stars? It didn’t compute.

A pretty woman walking a pair of whippets gives Boone a friendly smile, but all hell breaks loose when Joto lunges for her dogs, growling and snapping his toothless jaws. Boone has to yank him onto his hind legs to make him break off the attack, and the woman lectures him over her shoulder as she hurries away, something about how vicious dogs shouldn’t be out in public.

A
FTER DROPPING
J
OTO
at the bungalow, Boone goes for a run, then hits the gym for an hour, banging the heavy bag until he can’t hold his arms up. By the time the dog-rescue woman arrives at noon, he’s showered, eaten lunch, and picked up the place a bit.

Loretta Marshall is a very big girl in very tight clothes — jeans and a pink T-shirt with the slogan
LOVE ALL LIVING THINGS
. Her blond hair has been teased and sprayed into a nest of stiff curls, and diamond rings glitter on every finger.

“Let me see this sweet boy of yours,” she says, and Boone invites her inside. Joto licks her face when she drops to one knee and baby talks him.