The Outcast Hours

by Mahvesh Murad

  But from where it stands, rising up above a gentle curve on the north side of Sunset Boulevard, you can see almost all the way to the ocean. LA sprawls out beneath it, the endless grid of surface streets and the thick, twisting ribbons of freeway, and the thing that always strikes me is how green the city actually is. Not green like New York or London, where huge parks sit in the middle of the city, but just street by street, block by block. Trees loom over cottages and spring up between apartment buildings, and gardens squeeze into whatever space they can find.

  Way over to the south you can see the cluster of skyscrapers that make up downtown, where every second building is a hotel and every fourth or fifth is a soft-serve ice cream store. People actually live down there now, in lofts with newly exposed brick walls that have been made to look old and full of character, because so much money has been thrown at making the case that it’s a cool neighbourhood that some people have actually started to believe it. It’s a pretty awesome deception, even by the standards of a city that’s built on them.

  At night, the city is a million dots of light of every conceivable colour. The endless parallel lines of red and white on the interstates, the grids of yellow in the apartment buildings, the orange glow of the streetlights. On a really clear night you can see the red and blue and green of the Santa Monica pier in the distance, all the way down by the beach. Right below the hotel there is the pink neon of strip bars and the white neon of hotels and restaurants and the red neon of the clubs where the paparazzi wait outside on their scooters, ready to give chase to some minor celebrity who just wants to get home and take their makeup off without ending up on TMZ.

  The hotel itself used to be down and dirty, the kind of place where rock bands rode motorbikes along its corridors and threw TVs out of its windows, and every couple of days some grungy-looking couple with long hair will ask someone to take their photo in front of it, because this is that place where that thing happened thirty years ago. Then they’ll walk along to the Strip and take the same photos outside Whiskey A Go Go and the Rainbow and they’ll talk loudly about how Guns N’ Roses used to play there, and how Lemmy used to live in the building across the road, and literally nobody will give a fuck.

  I come up to the pool once an hour when I’m on the night shift, even though they close it at midnight. People sneak up here sometimes, and if they’re just hanging out on the beds and drinking a nightcap or two, I usually leave them to it. It’s sort of a grey area, in that the pool is officially closed but the hotel is the kind of place that prides itself on getting its guests whatever they want, so if they’re quiet and they’re not actually in the water, I’m probably going to let it slide. As much as anything, because it really isn’t worth the shit that usually gets thrown your way if you try to get them to leave. The kind of people who stay here aren’t used to being told what to do, and to say they don’t much like it would be a really fucking massive understatement.

  Sometimes I don’t have a choice, though. I came up once at about five in the morning and found two people fucking in the pool, which actually doesn’t happen as often as you probably think. Their clothes were on one of the beds and there was about five hundred dollars’ worth of coke piled on the screen of an iPad next to the water and the dude kept ducking his head under the water for a really long time, coming up red faced and gasping for air, then just absolutely going to town on the girl while she yelled in his face, calling him a pussy and a little fucking bitch. There was water flying everywhere and I’m not going to lie to you: I watched for about five minutes before I finally went over and told them to get their shit together and go downstairs.

  It was just too funny not to.

  I get out of the elevator and walk past the little bar trolley that gets wheeled poolside during the day and step outside.

  It’s never all that dark on the deck—the pool lights get dimmed at night, rather than actually turned off—and I can see that the beds are all neat and the marble table where people collect their towels is empty and sparkling clean. I look around, and my heart sinks.

  There’s nobody fucking in the pool. Not this time. But there is someone sat on the side, dangling their feet in the water.

  It’s an old guy, with grey hair and the kind of tan that looks like it’s going to need chemotherapy one day. He’s wearing a dark blue suit and he’s rolled his pant legs up so they don’t get wet. His shoes and socks are lined up neatly next to him and he’s staring into the water. He doesn’t look up as I walk out onto the deck.

  My first thought is that he doesn’t look like he’s going to be trouble, but I’m still pissed that I have to deal with him. Even if he turns out to be the nicest man in the world, who genuinely didn’t realise the pool is closed and apologises over and over when I tell him, I’m still going to have to stand there and make small talk—he’s a small talker, I know it just by looking at him—while he dries his feet and puts his socks back on and laces up his shoes and then I’m going to have to walk him back to the elevator because I’m not allowed to just trust him to leave and carry on with my rounds.

  I once asked Philippe why they don’t just lock the door that leads out to the pool at night, and he told me that locked doors aren’t compatible with the hotel’s core values. I didn’t reply because, seriously, what the fuck was I supposed to say in response to that?

  My sneakers squeak on the wooden deck as I walk towards him. He finally looks up when I’m almost by his side, and his face looks vaguely familiar, which is pretty standard for this place. The really big stars don’t stay here—the ones who don’t live in town rent houses in the hills or stay in the super-luxury hotels in the Valley that look like shitty warehouses or office buildings from the outside, the places where you have to arrive in a car that doesn’t attract attention—but it’s still an industry place. Actors on their way up, writers and directors, producers. They fill the bar in the evening and take breakfast meetings in the restaurant, talking as loudly as they can get away with about all the projects they’re juggling right now. This guy could be one of them. Or wants me to think he is, maybe.

  “Hey,” I say. “Pool’s closed.”

  The old guy smiles at me. His face wrinkles up into a mass of deep ridges and furrows, and I see that he’s older than I first thought. In his seventies, at least. Maybe older than that.

  “I know,” he says. “I saw the sign. It’s quiet out here, though.”

  I shrug. “I guess so,” I say, because I really don’t want to encourage conversation. I want to get this old guy into the elevator then I want to walk the corridor on the twelfth floor, like I should already be doing.

  “Have you worked here long?” the old guy asks.

  Small talker. I fucking knew it.

  “A while,” I say. “Almost a year.”

  “It’s a nice place.”

  “Sure.”

  He nods, and kicks his feet gently back and forth. Little waves roll away towards the sides of the pool.

  “We’ve got a problem, you and me,” he says. “I was hoping not to be interrupted. But here you are.”

  I shake my head. “There’s no problem,” I say. “I just need you to get your stuff together and go inside. It’s not a big deal.”

  “I disagree,” says the old guy. Then he brings his hand up from his side, and he shows me the gun.

  The things that happen in movies don’t happen. I don’t freeze, my heart doesn’t stop beating in my chest, and I don’t forget to breathe. I just look at the gun. It’s a black pistol, and I sort of distantly wonder how I didn’t see it until now but it was hidden at the side of his leg and—to be perfectly honest—it never occurred to me that I should be looking out for a fucking gun when I approached this old guy with his feet in the water.

  He doesn’t point it at me. It’s just resting on his thigh. But he smiles. “Yeah,” he says. “Didn’t see that coming did you?”

  “No,” I say.

  “Sit down,” he says, and waves the gun towards one of the orang
e beds. “Go on now.”

  I don’t move right away because I’m still just staring at the gun and part of me is wondering what the fuck I did in a past life to deserve this shit. I must have been a real fucking dick to somebody.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” he asks, and now he does point the gun at me. The barrel is pitch black. “Sit down.”

  I make myself move, and slowly lower myself onto the edge of the bed.

  “All right,” says the old guy. His feet are still dangling in the pool, like he doesn’t have a care in the world. “Now we can have a civilised conversation.”

  I take a deep breath. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Death,” he says, and his smile widens into a grin. “Mine was the plan when I came up here. But now I’m not so sure. Maybe we’ll do two for the price of one. What do you say?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. I’m trying to keep my voice calm, keep it nice and level. The old guy doesn’t look like the kind of person who is about to commit a murder-suicide next to a fucking hotel pool, but I guess if people looked like what they’re capable of then avoiding the assholes and psychos in the world would be a lot easier than it is.

  “Sure you do,” he says. “You recognise me?”

  I shake my head.

  He rolls his eyes. “Fucking Millennials,” he spits. “They did a retrospective on me at LACMA last year. Five of my pictures are in the Criterion Collection, for fuck’s sake. Take a good look.”

  I stare at the guy for what seems like an appropriate amount of time, then shake my head again. “Sorry.”

  He sighs. “Fuck it,” he says. “John Barker. That ring any bells?”

  It actually does. I don’t watch that many movies—which is a thing that most people in this town just straight up refuse to believe is possible—but I feel like I’ve seen the old guy’s name, maybe on the credits of something, or on a billboard. I have this vague memory of a movie about a killer dolphin.

  “Maybe,” I say. “I’m not a big movie fan.”

  “Wash your mouth out,” he says, but his smile returns as he speaks and it’s really weird because it looks like a genuine smile but he’s still pointing the gun in my direction. He kicks his feet again, sending new ripples out across the water. “What’s your name?”

  “Alex,” I say.

  “Good name,” he says. “That’s a real name. Alexander, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Proper name,” he says. “Not like the names they give kids now. Do you like basketball?”

  “Not especially.”

  “About one in ten of them has a proper name,” he says. “The rest of them are just made up. They’re just noise. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “You’re saying you don’t like black people’s names.”

  His face darkens. “Who said anything about black people?”

  I shrug.

  “Did you hear me say anything about black people?” he asks. “That’s where your mind went, son. Not mine. Are you prejudiced?”

  I fight back the urge to laugh. “No,” I say. “I’m not prejudiced.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  He narrows his eyes. “Do you think I am?”

  “I don’t have the slightest idea.”

  “That’s right,” he says. “You don’t know shit about me. Don’t assume I’m some kind of fucking racist just because I’m old. That’s prejudice right there.”

  “You just said—”

  “I just said what?” he asks. “That basketball players have made-up names? You said you’re not a fan, so you don’t know shit about what I’m talking about. I didn’t say shit about black people. I’m fucking furious you went there on me.”

  My eyes drift back to the gun. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I guess I misunderstood.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “You got that right.”

  He kicks the water again, harder than before.

  “What are we going to do about this situation, Alex?” he asks.

  “What situation?”

  “This one,” he says. “Where you interrupted a man who was about to kill himself and then called him a racist. How do we move on from that?”

  I stare at him. A single thought has appeared in my mind, as loud and bright as a police siren.

  Don’t ask him why he was going to kill himself.

  “Why were you going to kill yourself?” I ask.

  I couldn’t help it.

  I just couldn’t.

  “You think that’s any of your business?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  “You’re right,” he says. “It isn’t. But I’m here and you’re here and we’re both in this thing now. So I’ll tell you. If you really want me to?”

  “I do,” I say. And it’s the truth. I don’t know why, but it suddenly feels like something I have to know.

  “I killed someone,” he says. “What do you make of that?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Who did you kill?”

  “My assistant. Little fucking prick.”

  “Why did you kill him?”

  “He turned on me.”

  “What?”

  The old guy—Barker, he said his name was John Barker—grimaces. “Some people have been saying shit about me,” he says. “Things they say I did, from years back. Actresses. A different assistant. A producer I used to work with.”

  “Female assistant?” I ask. “Female producer?”

  “Don’t be a fucking smartass,” he says. “I’ve been letting my assistant deal with it. I mean, I don’t even remember half the things they’re saying I did. And some of them are lies, just outright fucking lies. But that’s the world now. So I wrote a couple of checks, spread a little cash around. As far as I knew it was over.”

  “And?”

  “My fucking cocksucker of an assistant has given the whole thing to the press,” he says. “To the fucking trades. It’ll be all over them tomorrow. And then that’s it. All over.”

  “Why did he do that?”

  “Because he hates me,” says Barker. “The feeling is absolutely fucking mutual, believe me, but still. I never thought he’d fuck me like this.”

  “He must have had a reason.”

  Barker rolls his eyes. “He tried to shake me down,” he says. “A few months back. He said I harassed him, and he wanted a raise or he was going to go public with all the shit he knew. I told him to get fucked, that he could quit if he wanted to. He didn’t, so I thought that was the end of it.”

  “What did you do?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “What did you do that made him accuse you of harassing him?”

  “Nothing,” he says. “Called him a fag a couple of times. Maybe half a dozen.”

  “OK.”

  “I didn’t mean anything by it,” he says. “I don’t have anything against him, against any of them. But seriously. I can’t say the word fag in my own fucking house?”

  “You pretty much can’t say it anywhere.”

  “Why the fuck not?” he asks. “It’s just a word.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t have the slightest idea how to explain that to you.”

  “Right,” he says. “Because I’m some fucking old dinosaur and all you fucking smart kids know everything about everything.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You were thinking it, though. Don’t deny it.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “He told me what he’d done,” he says. “After he’d sent all that shit to the magazines. He came and told me. What else was I supposed to do?”

  “Hire a lawyer?” I suggest.

  “Fucking bloodsuckers.”

  “Or a PR firm?”

  “You got a hundred grand you want to lend me?”

  “No.”

  “Well then.”

  “So what did you do?”

  Barker smiles. “I hit him,” he say
s. “With this statue they gave me once. Twice, or maybe three times. He wasn’t breathing.”

  Jesus.

  I feel sick. And I look at the pistol and it looks more threatening than it did when I first saw it. A lot more. And just like that, I realise I’m scared. I’m scared of this old man and the gun in his hand and the horrible things that won’t stop coming out of his mouth.

  “Where did this happen?” I ask.

  “In my office. At my house.”

  “You just left him there?”

  He grunts with laughter. “What was I supposed to do? Call fucking animal control?”

  I shake my head.

  “It wouldn’t have mattered if you hadn’t come out here and interrupted me,” he says. “Because he’d be dead and I’d be dead and I wouldn’t have to read all the shit people are going to say about me tomorrow. Wouldn’t have to watch people who did worse shit than me line up to call me a monster. But you came and now I don’t know if I feel like going through with it anymore, which means you’re responsible for all this shit. This is all on you now.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You know what you did,” he says.

  Barker shuffles backward and lifts his feet out of the pool. He keeps the pistol pointed at me while he dries them off and pulls his socks and shoes on. It takes a long time because he’s only using one hand and he looks about as flexible as steel girders but eventually he’s fully dressed and he gets unsteadily to his feet.

  “All right,” he says. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “Go where?” I ask.

  He motions with the pistol. “Over there. Grab yourself that chair in the corner.”

  I look across the deck. There’s a little glass table in the corner with two armchairs set around it. The last six feet of the walls leading to the corner are glass, so you can look out across the city from where you’re sitting. It’s always the most popular table.

  I walk towards it, trying not to let my legs shake as I go. At least not badly enough that he can see. He follows behind me, and I sort of half-wonder what would happen if I spun around and made a grab for the gun. The guy is old, and I’ve got to assume his reflexes aren’t what they used to be. But if the gun is pointing right at me, he only needs to pull the trigger before I reach him. So it doesn’t seem like a smart play. Not yet, anyway.