Land of Dreams

by Eugene Lester

  "You can see the ocean through the window upstairs," she said.

  Clendon eased in the driveway. Shelley got out and pressed some buttons on the wall. The electric garage door opened and Clendon pulled the BMW in.

  "I have a headache," he said. "Major."

  Inside, plants grew up walls, hung from the ceiling, and trailed out over new thick carpet. It was cool and dim and quiet, and was smaller than it looked from the outside. In a pine-scented bathroom Shelley took some pill bottles out of the medicine cabinet.

  "Ten milligrams of Valium and 25 milligrams of codeine," she said and handed him the tabs. "They’ll soothe a raging tiger as long as you’re not already an addict."

  The hot poker pain in his forehead persisted. Clendon washed his face with cold water.

  "Make it twenty and fifty."

  Shelley poured them iced tea and sat on a velour couch. Clendon sank into a soft black recliner. There was a glass coffee table between them. The furniture and drapes were new, straight out of Metropolitan Home. They sipped their iced tea. She stared across the room at the ivy creeping up the wall. Clendon thought that she barely looked older than when he had last seen her. He tried not to stare at her.

  Shelley squinted, then chewed on her lip, then twitched her pursed lips back and forth, twisted her mouth sideways and chewed on the inside of her cheek. Then she sniffed, wrinkled her forehead, ran her fingertips over and over her eyebrows, sighed, and finally closed her eyes and breathed slowly and deeply.

  "Did you shoot Brooks?" Clendon asked.

  She blushed, sighed again, looked at him and gulped her tea.

  "Did you?" she asked, then placed her fingers across her mouth and patted her lips. "Do you feel the Valium yet?"

  "Goddamn it, Brooks has just been murdered."

  "You must’ve been working for him. He didn’t tell me. Did he give you that BMW?"

  "He rented it for me. I was supposed to meet him in the park this afternoon because I have been working for him, and while I was looking for a place to park, I saw him talking to a tall, blond-headed guy with huge ears, and then ten minutes later I pull up behind Brooks who is sitting in his parked car and first I wait and then I go up and see that he’s been shot dead and then I start walking toward the ocean, and I see you and you say you already know." The first wave of Valium washed over him. "How did you know Brooks was shot?"

  Shelley shrugged her shoulders and stared at the wall. "I had just jogged by. I jog in that park and down those streets some afternoons."

  "I don’t want to, but I’m calling the police, because if we don’t, they’ll think we did it, for Christ sakes."

  "No. Clendon, you have too much respect for authority. We have to go to his office first.”

  "Why?"

  "We just do. After we go to his office, and check something, then we can call the police."

  "Great. By then, somebody will have found him and then the police will be coming over here and asking all sorts of questions—"

  "There’s no way the police could know we were there. No way. But we have to beat them to his office."

  "Why? Do you know the combination of his wall safe?"

  Shelley rubbed his arm. "Let the Valium in."

  She went to change into a flowing skirt and tight blouse with no bra.

  "I have a Volvo parked on a side street about three blocks from the Mercedes. We can pick it up later.”

  * * *

  Two black and white police cars were parked along the Avenue of the Stars, their lights flashing. In front of the cops, two black Ford LTD’s held men in business suits and aviator shades. Clendon didn’t slow down for the entrance to the parking garage.

  "What do you want to do now?" he asked.

  Shelley cursed.

  "Don’t turn around," he said.

  "Oh, you’re paranoid. I guess the Valium didn’t help. Turn right. I know where we can park."

  In his rear view mirror, Clendon saw the two Fords pull away from the curb.

  "Shelley, they’re following us."

  She turned around again.

  "Don’t do that!” Clendon shouted.

  "Relax!” she shouted back. “How do you know they’re following us?”

  "Don’t act stupid."

  "You might talk to your wife and to your little redneck girl friends like that, but don’t you talk to me like that."

  "Then don’t act so stupid."

  "Turn at the light."

  Clendon turned and headed east on Santa Monica Boulevard.

  "They’re still behind us."

  "Take the second right. Then we’ll know."

  "I know now."

  They entered Beverly Hills. Clendon took the second right into a mixed neighborhood of houses and apartments.

  "They’re turning to follow," he said.

  Shelley cursed again.

  "Why in the hell did you want to come down here?"

  "You need to take another Valium, Clendon."

  "I don’t have another one or I would. Why didn’t you bring the whole damn bottle?"

  "It was against my professional judgment."

  Clendon looked in the rear view mirror and saw both cars accelerate. He took the next hard left. The cars behind him came faster. He hung the next right. Roadblock. A third black Ford LTD blocked the street broadside. The street was narrow and had so many cars parallel parked along it that Clendon had nowhere to go, not even up onto a sidewalk or lawn. He stopped a few feet from the blocking car and placed his hands on the dash. The two chasing cars drove up behind.

  "Trapped like cockroaches in Roach Hotel. Whose idea was it to go to the office?”

  "Lock your door.” Shelley reached over and flipped the lock switch. “I know the law. They can’t do shit unless they put you under arrest.”

  "I’m sure they have grounds. Maybe they’re not even the law.”

  Eight large men in dark suits and sunglasses got out of the three cars. The oldest man, sunburned and about fifty with a crew cut, stepped out of the car in front of them, adjusted his sunglasses and his suit coat, nodded, and strode over to Clendon’s door. The man tapped on the window. His face had deep crinkles from too many years in the sun.

  "Step out of the car please."

  "No way!" Shelley shouted, and shook her head back and forth "no."

  Clendon rolled down his window one inch.

  "Let’s see some ID," he said.

  The man peered in with dark brown eyes, then pressed his mouth to the open crack of the window.

  "Knot head, you have five seconds to get your ass out of that goddamn German motor works on your own volition, or we’re going to yank it out of there with a pair of red hot pliers."

  Clendon recognized the man’s Texas accent. Shelley shot them the finger with both hands.

  "If you show us some ID so I know who you are,” Clendon said, “we’ll cooperate."

  Shelley leaned over to his window.

  "I know the law, you candy asses!" she shouted.

  The Texan jerked his head in command. One of his men produced a tire iron, then stepped swiftly to the back seat window on Clendon’s side, and swung. Clendon pulled Shelley’s head down. The iron smashed through the glass and sent a shower of chunks and splinters into the back seat and onto Shelley and Clendon. A hand reached through the broken window to unlock the door. The men swarmed as they opened the doors and dragged Clendon and Shelley out of the BMW and onto the pavement.

  "Don’t hurt her!"

  "Shut up."

  They kicked Clendon in the balls. Shelley screamed. Three of them lifted her and carried her over to one of their cars and forced her in. They grabbed between her legs and at her breasts, ripping her blouse. They dragged Clendon along the pavement, burning his leg until he could rise to his knees and stumble along. They wrenched his arms behind his back and slapped handcuffs on his wrists, then took his wallet. His bad hand began to throb. His sung
lasses fell off and they stepped on them. Clendon caught a smell of rotten eggs. They threw him in another car. Two cars, Shelley in one, Clendon in the other, drove off in different directions.

  Clendon sat up in the back seat, one man next to him as another drove. The Texan rode shotgun.

  "Don’t act funny," the Texan said.

  They drove several blocks through a residential neighborhood until the driver turned east on Olympic. The car’s air conditioning was cranked high but Clendon was still sweating through his shirt. They crawled down Olympic and turned north on La Cienaga.

  The Texan took out a stack of a dozen 8 ½ x 11 glossy black and white photographs and held them in front of Clendon’s face. He let Clendon look at each photo for about five seconds, then showed him the next one.

  Clendon was in every photo. They were taken outside of Adolfo’s house the afternoon of the briefcase exchange. They showed Clendon as he got out of the BMW, opened the trunk, carried the briefcase to the house, and stood at the door ringing the buzzer. One photo showed the door open and Clendon stepping in. Adolfo’s daughter was unseen inside the house. Another photograph showed Clendon coming out with the other briefcase, the next showed him putting that briefcase in the trunk, and the final one had him driving away. The focus and lighting were both good. They were taken with a telephoto lens, shot through the living room window of the gabled Queen Anne house down the street

  "Am I supposed to choose one for the yearbook?” Clendon asked.

  The Texan put his fist next to Clendon’s right eyeball and flipped his finger at Clendon’s eye as if he were shooting a marble. Clendon jerked his head back as the Texan’s finger grazed his brow bone. It stung like a wasp, and Clendon’s eyes teared up.

  "Do you know what was in those briefcases?"

  "Why do you want to know? And who are you?"

  The Texan took the Oklahoma driver’s license from Clendon’s wallet and looked at it.

  "Clendon Thomas Lindsey."

  "That’s what it says."

  "Don’t worry, we’ll check it."

  "Who are you?"

  "Mr. Lindsey, my name is Mr. Asp, and you are in some very serious sewage here. You might go to prison for many, many years—maybe life. The only possible alternative that you have is to agree to cooperate."

  "Just who am I supposed to be cooperating with? I thought legitimate cops identified themselves immediately."

  "We could show you badges, Mr. Lindsey, but then again, they might be phonies, like your driver’s license."

  Traffic was clotted, almost a standstill. One block ahead stood a large, square brown building shaped like a pill box hat. Clendon thought it looked familiar.

  "Turn off this damn street first chance you get," Asp said.

  "What am I supposed to be cooperating about?"

  The driver swung a right. They went past boxy apartments and dying palm trees and were getting close to Mr. Winston’s bungalow.

  "Don’t act so stupid, Mr. Lindsey."

  "I ain’t dealing drugs."

  "Mr. Lindsey, no one accused you of dealing drugs."

  "Arrest me and read me my rights, or let me go, or I’ll sue."

  At Fairfax the driver turned south. Asp gave Clendon another fast marble-shooting flick, this one in the middle of his forehead.

  "Did you know Brooks Boyd?"

  "Yes."

  "Did you work for him?"

  "Yes."

  "Did you know he was dead?"

  "Yes."

  "Mr. Lindsey, you are so damn smart. How did you get to be so damn smart for such a white trash Okie?"

  "I don’t know."

  "See. You’re not that smart if you don’t know that. What was in those briefcases?"

  "I don’t know."

  "And why don’t you know that?"

  "I don’t know because I didn’t look."

  "I see you’re just not that smart."

  "I guess not."

  "If you were so damn smart you wouldn’t have to guess."

  "No, you’re right. I’m just not too smart."

  "If you were so damn smart, you wouldn’t be sitting in this car right now talking to me, would you?"

  "No, you’re right."

  "That girl you were with, who’s she?"

  "Brooks Boyd’s wife."

  Asp smiled. “His wife! Maybe you’re a little smarter than I thought. What’s her name?"

  "Shelley. I thought you claimed you were so damn smart. You know who she is. Your other boys drove off with her. Did you forget?"

  "She’s a nice piece of ass, nice piece of ass. You been fucking her?"

  "No. I just met her."

  "You wouldn’t know what to do with a piece of ass if you had it in your hands. You’re not smart enough. Hang a right."

  They were back to Olympic.

  "You’re pretty smart," Clendon said. "You took those pictures and you know who I am and who Brooks Boyd is and Shelley too and you caught us. You’re so smart you probably got a piece of ass last night."

  "Sure did."

  The man next to Clendon cracked up a little. Asp whipped out a .38 from his shoulder holster. The man stopped laughing.

  "It’s not loaded,” Asp said. He popped the cylinder out and showed Clendon. "See. I wouldn’t lie about something as serious as a loaded gun, but then, I could load it." He pointed the .38 at Clendon. "I could load it, but then something might happen, and Mr. Lindsey might not be in a position to cooperate with us any more."

  "Why don’t you tell me what you want. I’m very easy to get along with."

  "You’re getting smarter by the second, Okie." Asp reholstered his .38. “Where did Brooks Boyd get the material in the briefcase he had you deliver?"

  "I don’t know."

  "I thought you were becoming smarter. I thought you were easy to get along with. I thought you wanted to cooperate."

  "I want to cooperate. I want to cooperate very badly, but I can’t tell you the answer to a question I don’t know the answer to."

  "I could still load it."

  "Well, load up and shoot me, because I don’t know what was in that goddamn briefcase."

  Asp acted as if he was going to pull his .38 back out, but he hesitated.

  "What was that you said about not being able to answer a question you don’t know the answer to?"

  "That’s what I said. I don’t know what was in that briefcase. It was locked and I didn’t have the key."

  Asp relaxed.

  "Do you ever watch game shows?"

  "They suck."

  "Don’t ever get any ideas about going on one because you couldn’t answer any of the questions, and then the whole world would know how stupid you are."

  "I’ll say no to drugs and game shows both."

  Asp took a toothpick from his shirt pocket and stuck it in his mouth.

  "We’re going to be watching you, Mr. Lindsey, you and the widow Boyd. We’re going to watch you for however long it takes."

  They drove Clendon back to the BMW. The man in the back seat took Clendon’s handcuffs off, gave him his wallet, and nudged him out the door. They peeled out and were gone.

  The BMW was parallel parked along the street like any other BMW with a smashed window getting a tan in Beverly Hills. Shelley was sitting in the front passenger’s seat. The rotten egg smell still thickened the air. Clendon got in. Shelley wasn’t bruised or bloodied, just pale. Her ripped blouse was buttoned, and her arms were folded across her stomach. Most of her left breast was exposed. The keys were in the ignition. Clendon started it up. His right eyeball and both of his testicles ached.

  "Are you okay?" Clendon asked and tried not to look at her breast.

  "Only simple humiliation. Clendon, I want to go home, and I want to stay home, and maybe never leave."

  "What is that stench?"

  "It’s natural gas escaping from underground."

  "I thought in Beverly Hills the
y imported their air."

  * * *

  They arrived in the Palisades by dark. Shelley took another Valium and put on a different blouse. While she changed clothes, Clendon checked the house number and street he had memorized from Brooks’s driver’s license. It was Shelley’s address. After she changed clothes, Clendon made her check every door and window lock in the house. As they went through the house, he looked around. He was surrounded by plants climbing the walls, soft colors, and framed prints of Baryshnikov and Impressionist artists. What was missing was a man. Only Shelley lived there.

  They drank more iced tea. Shelley sat on the same velour couch and Clendon sat in the same black recliner. He needed something dark colored to drink, but it wasn’t iced tea.

  "I said some stupid things to those guys,” he said. “Must have been the medication."

  Shelley smiled. She turned a table lamp on low and drank a full glass of iced tea in silence, making the same faces as before. She put her feet up on the glass coffee table. When she began talking, her voice was soft.

  "Brooks and I haven’t lived together for about six months. In that time, I’ve only seen him maybe three times. Brooks was an out of control compulsive gambler, and after he would gamble away his money, he’d get devious and figure out ways to get his hands on my money, and then lose my money, too. This went on for three, four years. He’d bet on anything—even the weather, the temperature. That crazy dickhead. He juggled five bookies at once, went to the race track, weekends to Vegas, sometimes even Tahoe. Poker parlors in Gardena. We—I, really—tried everything. Ignored it, denied it, screamed about it, threatened, begged for him to get into treatment, tried to manipulate him, tried to be understanding, tried to be his therapist—obviously dumb and stupid, here I was trying to finish a doctorate in clinical psychology and my husband was a classic self-destructive obsessive-compulsive psychopathic deviant who was dragging me with him into the sewer, and nothing could I do, nothing. Helpless. Both of us. Here’s a man that I put on a pedestal ten years ago, and he crushed me with it." She sang in a soft, twangy voice, "We got married in a fever/Hotter than a pepper sprout." She giggled self-consciously, then said, "The big prick—I mean, the little prick.

  "When I finished my degree and passed my licensing exam and could get into practice, I kicked him out. Told him he had six months to straighten out, or I’d file for divorce. I’m so stupid. I should’ve filed then. It’s so easy to see other people’s problems and how to fix them. He didn’t want to leave. He cried. Pathetic, isn’t it? When I told him he had to leave or else, he didn’t even argue, or get violent with me—he did smash this glass coffee table—he just got up and walked out. Oh, such a gentleman, such a noble, noble prince. Bawling like a baby before he hit the door. I liked the coffee table, so I had a new glass made. A few weeks later, I began to get mysterious phone calls, voices mumbling, asking for Brooks. Finally, they stopped. Maybe they did believe me when I said he didn’t live here, and I didn’t know how to reach him. Maybe they checked it out, maybe they found him. I don’t know.