This Wicked World (2 page)

Los Angeles was not its haughty self in the rain. It was like a wet cat: humiliated, confused. People stepped gingerly on suddenly slippery sidewalks, looking like they’d been lied to. The gutters, clogged with garbage, overflowed, and water puddled in busy intersections.

Oscar waited for the bus with a mumbling loco and a couple of old ladies who shared an umbrella. The rain came down harder, the drops slamming into the pavement like suicides. Oscar zipped his jacket and pulled the hood over his head.

The bus arrived, a great hissing, snorting beast throwing up silver sheets of spray. Oscar climbed aboard and pushed his way to the back. It was too hot; there were too many people. He winced every time he brushed against someone, and his whole body was slick with rancid sweat. A few stops later a seat opened up, and he fell into it.

Raindrops chased one another across the window. Though it was only noon, it had grown so dark outside, all the cars had their lights on. Oscar began to have trouble breathing. It felt like someone was standing on his chest. For the first time he was frightened.

When he closed his eyes he saw heaven; when he opened them, the rain. The bus stopped, and the devil came through the doors. It walked down the aisle toward Oscar, pointed a bony finger at him. Oscar thought of Maribel and Alex, heaven and the rain.

“The Lord is with me,” he shouted.

Lightning flashed, turning everyone into ghosts. The devil swung its fiery sword, and Oscar fell backward into a black pit, fell down and down and — oh, God, the thunder in his head.

J
IMMY
. H
EY
, J
IMMY.”

Jimmy Boone raises a hand to signal Robo to hold off, he’s in the middle of taking an order, but Robo either doesn’t see or doesn’t care.

“You hear about that kid they found dead on the bus?” he says.

“Later, buddy, okay?” Boone replies. “I’m busy.”

The big redhead he’s serving can’t decide what she wants, a cosmo or an appletini. “Which do you recommend?” she asks, sexing up her southern drawl. Another tourist cutting loose, getting crazy in Hollywood.

“Hard to say,” Boone replies. “They’re both popular.”

Red slides her sunglasses down to the end of her nose, rests her elbows on the bar to give Boone a nice shot of her freckled cleavage, and says, “Let’s put it this way: which’ll get me fucked up fastest?”

“I’d go with the appletini.”

The Tick Tock restaurant is on Hollywood Boulevard, a few blocks east of the Chinese Theater, and most of the patrons are out-of-towners looking for a little old-time glitz and glamour. The guidebooks tell how the place opened in 1910, was a hot spot throughout the thirties and forties, closed in 1972, becoming a notorious squat for runaway teens, then reopened in 2004, when the boulevard began to come back.

The new owner, an Israeli businessman named Weinberg, spent a fortune getting the place into shape. The bar, all the woodwork, is original, and they even replaced the dozens of clocks jammed into every nook and cranny that gave the restaurant its name.

The bar runs along one wall, separated from the dining room by a chest-high partition. Boone can see over it to the tables, where Joe Blow from Iowa and his brood eat their fifteen-dollar burgers. It’s the perfect tourist trap: cheaper than Musso’s, more authentic than Hooters, and every once in a while a C-list celebrity stops in, someone from
Survivor
or an eighties sitcom.

Red sips her drink and says, “This’ll do just fine, sweet cheeks.”

Sweet cheeks. Jesus.

Boone isn’t looking to hook up with a customer. Nine times out of ten, it’s nothing but trouble. Apparently, though, the customers haven’t heard this statistic. It’s gotten so bad lately that Boone has been thinking about taking the advice of an old pro who told him that a simple way to keep things professional is to pick up a cheap wedding band at a pawn shop and wear it when you’re behind the bar. He wonders if Red would take that kind of hint.

“You an actor?” she asks.

“Nah. I’m a bartender,” Boone replies. “Do you want to run a tab?”

“Sure,” Red says and hands over a Gold Card. “I thought everyone in Hollywood was an actor.”

“A lot of the girls working here take acting classes. Does that count?”

“I’m staying up the street, at the Renaissance, here for a medical supplies conference.”

“Great hotel,” Boone says, trying to figure out some way to be polite about moving on. Delia didn’t show for her shift again, and thirsty customers are lined up all the way to the waitress station.

“Be nice to have a friendly tour guide,” Red says.

“Talk to Robo, our doorman,” Boone replies. “I bet he can help you out.” He turns quickly to the guy standing next to Red and asks what he wants, and it’s go-go time after that. Gonzalo, the bar back, handles the drinks for the dining room while Boone moves up and down the stick, pouring beers and blending margaritas, completely focused on keeping his orders straight and making sure tabs are settled.

He falls into a groove sometimes when he’s slammed, and an hour will pass like nothing. It makes him think back to Corcoran, when a day could last a month, no matter how many god-damn games of dominoes or chess you played, trying to burn off your time.

Right when things are busiest, Simon, the owner’s son, appears at the end of the bar. A little schmuck with curly black hair and a prominent mole on his cheek, he runs the place for his father. This entitles him to hit on all the waitresses when he isn’t holed up in the office watching online porn and entertaining his “boys,” the greasy pack of rich shitheads he rolls with. He’s twenty-three, drives a Lexus, and recently boasted to Boone that he’s popped eight cherries so far. The mere sight of the guy is enough to put Boone in a foul mood.

“See that dude?” Simon asks, pointing with his nose at a wigger in a baby blue warm-up suit who’s been nursing a Southern Comfort and Coke and chatting up the other customers.

“Eminem?” Boone asks. The kid looks fourteen, but Boone checked his ID when he ordered, a Florida license that put him at twenty-two.

“Watch him,” Simon says. “I think he’s up to no good.”

“You want Robo to walk him out?”

“What did I just say? I want you to watch him. Find out what his game is and call me.”

Boone grits his teeth, being talked to like that by such a punk, but there’s not much he can do about it. Employment opportunities are limited for ex-cons, and he needs the job.

“You got it, boss,” he says, the words stinging his tongue like acid.

I
T ISN’T LONG
before Boone hears the kid offer to sell ecstasy to a young couple who look ready to party. Money changes hands, the deal is done, and the wigger moves on to work another section of the bar.

Boone calls Simon in the office.

“The kid’s selling X,” he says.

“Okay. Now what I want you to do is take him out back, to the alley, and I’ll meet you there.”

“I’m a bartender, Simon, not security. You’ve got Robo for this kind of shit.”

“Robo has enough to do. Get Gonzalo to watch the bar for a minute while you handle this.”

Boone hangs up. Deep breaths from the stomach. He needs to get past the initial red-hot, “I want to kill every fucking thing” spasm and shove his anger into a cage, where he can gawk at it like it’s a poor, dumb zoo animal. It’s a trick a shrink taught him in the joint, but it’s tough today. The tiger fights back with all its strength.

*   *   *

B
OONE HAS EVERYTHING
under control by the time he steps out from behind the bar. He’s focused yet alert, his antennae extended. He feels like he used to when guarding a client at a crowded premiere, like a cocked and loaded pistol. It’s good to be back in action, even if he is just rousting some goofball.

He swoops down on the wigger, who’s bobbing his shaved head and mouthing the words to the old Beastie Boys song blasting out of the sound system. Putting his hand in the middle of the kid’s back, Boone exerts just enough pressure to get him moving, all the while talking in a low, friendly voice, a big smile on his face.

“Hey, bro, how’s it goin’? Having a good time? Buddy of mine wants to invite you to join our VIP club. Have you tried any of our drink specials?”

The idea is to fill his pea brain with so much noise that by the time he realizes what’s up, he’ll be out of the restaurant.

“We got three-buck Jager shots, kamikazes.”

“Do I know you?” the kid asks as they pass the bathrooms. He stiffens and slows, starts to turn around. Too late. Boone grabs his wrist and twists his arm up between his shoulder blades as he shoves him through the back door and across the alley that runs behind the restaurant, pinning him face-first against a brick wall and kicking his ankles until he spreads his legs wide.

“What the fuck?” the wigger yells. “You best get offa me, motherfucker.”

The stench of rotting garbage from a nearby Dumpster has Boone breathing through his mouth. Simon steps into the alley with a mean smile.

“Let me see him,” he says.

Boone wraps an arm around the kid’s throat and turns him to face Simon, who is careful to keep his distance. Spillover from a neon sign on the boulevard gives everything a spooky green glow and makes them all look like monsters.

“So you’re a real pimp, huh? Big-time dope dealer,” Simon says to the kid, getting all South Central via Beverly Hills.

“The fuck you talking about, dope dealer?” the kid replies.

“I got you on camera, dog, selling to my customers. The cops are on their way.”

The wigger struggles a bit, and Boone tightens up on his windpipe to calm him. The kid’s pulse taps frantically against the thin skin on the underside of Boone’s forearm.

“What’s your name, playa?” Simon asks.

“Virgil,” the kid replies. “Folks call me V for Vendetta.”

“What do you think this is, Virgil, the fucking ghetto? The fucking trailer park where you grew up? This is Hollywood, son, and I own this town.”

“I didn’t know,” Virgil says, his voice rising into a whine. “Come on and let me go and you’ll never see me again.”

“Let you go. Right. How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Bullshit. That mustache of yours looks like a motherfucking eyelash.”

“Okay, eighteen.”

“Eighteen? Oh, man, the booty bandits down at County are gonna be scrapping over you.”

“Come on, dog.”

Simon rubs his mole and pretends to think while Virgil trembles in Boone’s choke hold, close to crying. Boone frowns at Simon and shakes his head to say, “That’s enough,” but Simon ignores him.

“Show me everything you got,” Simon says.

“What?”

“The drugs, fool.”

Virgil reaches into his pocket and brings out a plastic bag. Simon grabs it and empties it on top of a Dumpster.

“Shit, doc, you make house calls?” he says as he sorts through the contents. “We got some rock, some powder — what is it?”

“Crank.”

“These pills?”

“Vicodin.”

“Nice!”

Simon sweeps everything back into the bag and says, “You know what I have to do, right? I’m confiscating all this garbage and taking it off the street. We have to think about the children.”

“Come on, dog,” Virgil wails. “Why you want to rip me off?”

“Why you want to peddle drugs in my house? You’re lucky I don’t have my man here tear you a new asshole.”

“Seriously, bro, somebody fronted me that stuff. I come back with nothing, I’m in deep shit.”

“You’re in deep shit right now, you idiot. What are you? Retarded? Let him go, Jimmy.”

Finally,
Boone thinks as he releases his grip and Virgil scurries out of reach. A couple of real criminal masterminds going head-to-head. Boone wants to smack them both. Virgil runs halfway down the alley, then stoops to pick up an empty beer bottle and turns back to face Boone and Simon.

“You stupid bitch,” Simon says. “I’m giving you a pass. Take it and get the fuck out of here.”

“I’m not kidding,” Virgil says around a sob. “Give me my shit.” Green tears crawl down his cheeks.

Simon takes a few steps toward him, and Virgil throws the bottle, which shatters harmlessly in the shadows. He then runs to where the alley opens onto Cherokee, turns left, and disappears.

Simon is bent at the waist, laughing. “Now that was fucking funny,” he says.

Boone snorts disgustedly and walks inside the restaurant. Danny Berkson, his lawyer, lined up this bartending gig for him when Boone was released from prison six months ago; worked out some kind of deal with Simon’s dad, an old friend of his. Boone is grateful, but he isn’t sure how much longer he’ll be able to tolerate Simon. And this kind of crap, jacking dope dealers — if his parole officer got wind of it, she’d violate him for sure.

Simon catches up to him and pats him on the shoulder.

“You must have been an excellent bodyguard,” he says with a nasty grin.

Boone doesn’t respond.

“Too bad you fucked up, huh?”

“Too bad,” Boone says. He thought the story of how he ended up here was going to stay between him, Berkson, and Weinberg, but now Simon knows too. Boone hopes that whatever shit Simon helps himself to from Virgil’s stash is cut with rat poison.

C
USTOMERS ARE THREE
deep at the bar when Boone returns. Gonzalo is getting it from all sides. Boone steps behind the stick and dives right in. After a few orders he finds his rhythm, and his troubles slide to the back of his mind. Work can be a blessing sometimes, when everything else lists toward rotten.

The crowd thins out at about eleven, when the restaurant stops serving and everyone moves on to one of the clubs in the neighborhood. Wait an hour in line, pay twenty bucks to some jerk-off with too much gel in his hair, and maybe you’ll catch a glimpse of a drunk starlet’s snatch.

This is Boone’s favorite part of the night, the sudden quiet after all the hustle. It feels like a party has just ended, kind of mellow, kind of melancholy. He listens to the waitresses gossiping at the end of the bar as he polishes wineglasses. They’re all ten years younger than him. How the hell does that happen?