Land of Dreams

by Eugene Lester

  She pushed her shoes off and tucked one foot under her leg. Clendon gave her the joint back and tugged on the Corona.

  "What's she arrested for?"

  "She didn't tell you anything about what's going on?"

  "All I know is that Brooks was a gambler and needed money all the time. He was coked out, too. Taking coke is like having an itch on your foot. I know." She laughed again. "And Brooks could never scratch it enough."

  Mad took another hit. Her hand brushed Clendon's as she gave him the joint.

  "Shelley spent most of her time ducking," she said.

  Mad moved closer to him. Her thigh touched his. He took another hit, but couldn't hold it. His lungs were on fire and he coughed.

  "Are you a lightweight?"

  "No, just out of practice."

  Clendon took another drink, then caught a good faint smell of Madeline's perfume. He thought about putting his hand on the inside of her thigh. He was starting to get hard.

  She took the joint and put to her lips.

  "Watch."

  She inhaled deeply, sucking air noisily.

  "Give me the joint," Clendon said.

  "Let me help you."

  She held it to his lips. He inhaled and kept the smoke this time, feeling the first pop in his ears.

  "I was asking about Shelley," he said, then drank half the beer down.

  "She's been arrested. By the FBI."

  Mad took another hit.

  "Arrested," he said.

  "That's what I just said."

  Mad held the joint for him again and this time he caught a good hit.

  "Does the FBI know about me?" Mad asked.

  Clendon blew the smoke out.

  "I don't think so. Unless Shelley says something or they've gotten real ambitious and started interviewing people at your grad school. . . But you're not involved in this shit, are you?"

  Clendon looked at her. She slowly shook her head no.

  "You know, I think half of the high comes from hyperventilation," he said.

  "Can we talk about this in the morning? Your eyes are red. You look kind of tired."

  "I am."

  Clendon felt very tired, but the electric edge of a pot high was creeping into his head.

  "You look tired, too," he said.

  "I am," she said. "But let's finish the joint."

  Clendon gave it back to her and put his hand on her thigh. She put her hand over his. He glanced at De Beauvoir's face. It danced.

  "My clothes stink. These are all I have. I've worn them for two days."

  "They just smell like a man."

  She squeezed his hand. They finished the joint. His mouth was dry and his ears buzzed and his fingertips smelled of pot resin. Mad stubbed the roach and put it in her canister. He finished off the Corona. She turned back to him and he put one arm around her and his mouth on hers and his other hand up her dress. He felt her smooth muscular leg and thrust his hips against her. She moaned and thrust back. He moved his hand up between her legs. She was hot there. She started fumbling with his zipper and pressing her hand on him.

  "Let's go to my boudoir," she said.

  * * *

  Clendon woke up with his head on Madeline's breasts and his hand between her legs. She moved her hips as if she wanted him to play with her, but when he became fully awake, he pulled away and sat up. His head throbbed and his eyes hurt from the morning light.

  "What's wrong?" Mad asked.

  The beige plaster walls of her bedroom stared back at him.

  "You're in love with Shelley."

  Clendon turned back to her.

  "How'd you guess?"

  Madeline smiled. "You're still in town, aren't you? I saw the way you looked at her."

  "Do you know Diedecek?" he asked.

  "I've heard Shelley talking about him."

  "Did she ever. . . "

  "Clendon, you're jealous."

  "Are you hungry? I'll take you out for breakfast."

  * * *

  Madeline showered and dressed in her spray-on tights and tank top. The late Saturday morning loafers at Denny's sat around sipping coffee, reading the paper and smoking cigarettes. After Clendon drank a cup of coffee, he felt more like talking. When the food came Madeline dug in to her pancakes, eggs, and sausage.

  "I work out a lot," she said. "I can afford to eat this way."

  She poured on the maple syrup.

  "How long have you known Shelley?"

  "Three years."

  "Shelley said you met in graduate school."

  "Look, Clendon, I'll save you the interrogation. You know I say what I think. I know a lot of things about Shelley. Let me finish eating first."

  He watched Madeline eat for ten minutes until she pushed her clean plate away, satisfied. After she got more coffee, she started.

  "Clendon, most men are assholes. This is true from sad experience. I also know most of them can't help it, so I pity them-- a little. Anyway, after I broke up with my last so-called boyfriend, I found myself starting to look at women-- in supermarkets, at the beach, at the gym, on the street. I started hanging out in topless bars playing pool. I started to look at women and I would get hard. Do you know what I mean? I met Shelley and ooh, I wanted her. She was the first. And I still love her, even if she won't let me touch her now."

  "What was that little seduction last night for?"

  "Shelley decided she wasn't bi, so if I couldn't have her, I could have the man who had her. I guess you know I have a teeny crush on you, Clendon. And I hardly know you!" She laughed. "Hell, I'm just horny and I do what I want."

  "You're AC/DC."

  "I'm fighting it."

  "Then you must not think I'm an asshole."

  "Shelley wouldn't fall for another asshole."

  "I'm not so sure she's fallen."

  Clendon took the Valium bottle out of his pocket and placed it on the table.

  "You sell this to her?"

  "What do you know about Valium addiction?" Madeline asked.

  "That it's stupid."

  "Shelley goes into seizures, convulsions. It's rare, but she does it. She tried to quit cold about six months ago after she kicked Brooks out and then she had a seizure in front of me. I give her the Valium so she won't have another one. I'm worried if she's in custody they won't give her any and she might have a seizure. The next seizure might vege her out for good or even kill her."

  Clendon ran his hands through his hair. His fingers still smelled like pot.

  "That's it," Madeline said. "It's so obvious. They're withholding her Valium."

  "What she said to me-- "

  "Whatever she said, she wasn't responsible, even if it was fuck off and drop dead."

  "She makes herself vomit."

  "Off and on for eight, ten years."

  "She told me the night of Brooks's funeral that she was fucked up and I didn't want to believe her."

  "Clendon, we're all fucked up. I like to look at a woman's tits and do things to her body. Tell me how you're fucked up."

  * * *

  "Let me call her," Madeline said. "Maybe she's been released and she's home."

  "If she is, her phone's probably tapped. Maybe they have someone there. In the least they'd be watching her."

  "Just let me call. See if she's there."

  Madeline push buttoned her phone. Clendon put his ear to the receiver to listen to the ring. She let it ring twenty times before she hung up.

  "Did she ever give you Diedecek's phone number?"

  "No," Madeline said. "Maybe he's listed."

  She called information, but it didn't have it.

  "If Shelley starts to crack, she might mention you," Clendon said. "That means I can't stay here."

  "Where are you going? Are you leaving town?"

  "I can't do that until I see Shelley."

  * * *

  At 1:30 in the morning, Clendon was digging at the Bo
yd headstone with his bare hands down through the grass and dirt. At first he didn't feel it. Then he touched something small and cold and hard. He wiped it off, held it up under the moonlight, and gave it a kiss.

  The apartment looked untouched since he'd been there six nights before. The toiletries were still in the bathroom, the bed was still unmade, the clothes and drawers were the same, and the kitchen was spotless. He locked the dead bolt, shut off the lights, got undressed and slipped into the unmade bed, dirty sheets and all. He could wash them tomorrow, in the daylight.

  * * *

  Shelley was wearing the shopping center hat and waving to him from the billboard. Clendon started climbing the stairs towards her from the ground floor of a glassy office building. He passed a telephone and it rang. Shelley was calling and told him to take the elevator. He got in an elevator and pushed a button marked "Top." A woman's hands reached from behind him and began caressing his chest. The elevator began to accelerate so fast it pulled on his stomach. The woman's hands reached down and unzipped him. It was Madeline, wearing her spray on tights. The elevator slowed and stopped and the door opened. He wrestled himself away from her, but he pointed out through his opened zipper. He ran up another set of stairs. Shelley's voice called his name. He reached the top and stepped onto the roof. Shelley waved from the billboard and laughed at his exposed erection and called out his name again. When she opened her mouth, $100 bills burst out of it and floated away.

  * * *

  The Santa Ana winds started blowing in from the desert, strong and steady. Clendon felt like his eyes were being held over a hot toaster. The sky cleared to a deep blue and mountains that were miles away looked close enough to throw a baseball over.

  Many nights in the apartment Clendon lay awaiting sleep, his nose and mouth dry. One night after midnight he crossed Veteran and went into the cemetery. The billboard of the shopping hat woman was lit up. The lights of the Federal Building glowed to the south. It looked like a giant air conditioner. He figured Asp was probably there in his office every night, trying to find him.

  Away from traffic noise the quiet was eerie. Clendon lay on the cut grass surrounded by white tombstones and stared at the twinkling stars. It made his eyes hurt. Sunglasses didn't help. Neither did a pint of Jack Daniels or mixing in a tab of Valium.

  * * *

  Clendon called Shelley's house twice a day and let it ring and ring. He read the papers for any news. He found a receipt in a kitchen drawer for six months rent paid in full through the first of the year. He made a duplicate key to the apartment and buried it in the cemetery again. He checked the apartment's mailbox which only received junk mail addressed to Occupant. He called the Santa Monica post office. The clerk said general delivery mail was held for thirty days. He bought some new clothes, began to grow a beard, bleached his hair blond, and took bus trips to the beach during the hot weather and started to tan. After a week, he called Madeline, but she hadn't heard from anyone.

  "I'll send you a postcard soon."

  "I might join you."

  After two weeks, Clendon remembered the shoe salesman he'd met on the plane into L. A. He decided to take a job selling shoes at a ladies' shop in Westwood. He figured it was best to hide out in plain sight and keep busy. Growing the beard helped. UCLA coeds and bored Bel Air housewives browsed and fussed in the store for hours. He learned that the main thing selling shoes to women was to let them try on everything, flatter them, and be patient. Agreeing with every word they said helped too, except for their self put-downs, which he didn't allow. They loved that. A woman with a pair of legs that could squeeze a lemon dry bought $500 worth of shoes one afternoon. She wore a miniskirt and no underwear. She kept opening her legs and leering while Clendon slipped shoes on and off her feet. He declined her invitation to dinner.

  One day during his lunch hour, while he was strolling down Westwood Boulevard, Asp and a woman with her black hair pulled back into a ponytail came out of the Old World Restaurant arm in arm. They were tipsy, talking and giggling. They walked ahead and away from Clendon. He followed them, and got close enough to have one good, long look at the woman's face. She looked familiar, but at first he could not place her. They went into a women's boutique and Clendon kept on walking. On his way back to the shoe store, he realized he had seen the dark-eyed woman without her platinum blonde wig.

  * * *

  After sighting Asp with the Eskimo shoes woman, Clendon decided it would be good to find out some things about Asp and Shelley and Adolfo. He called information but got no listing for Kenneth Asp or anyone named Asp within one hundred miles of Los Angeles. Of course such an FBI agent would keep an unlisted telephone number. Clendon figured that either Asp didn't think he would bother to look or that Asp didn't know that he knew how to find out where the agent lived.

  Clendon got a weekday off and took a bus downtown to check the county's real property records. The bleached blonde clerk at the county tax collector's office checked her computer and told him that Kenneth Asp paid taxes on one address in Los Angeles County, a house in Manhattan Beach. He memorized the address. The clerk also gave him the legal description. With that he checked the grantor indexes for the history of the property and found that Kenneth and Shari Lou Asp received a warranty deed to the property eight years ago and in return gave a deed of trust for it to the United Mortgage Association of Delaware. Three years ago, Shari Lou signed a quit claim deed.

  Clendon smelled a divorce and wrote down the date. The original deed of trust had not been rolled over and a second one had not been issued. He checked the miscellaneous books to study copies of all the deeds and saw Asp's signature, a large, pompous scrawl. He went over to the civil court clerk's office and checked to see if the Asps had filed for divorce. They had. The file was retrieved from storage, and Clendon saw that it was a do-it-yourself case. They had no minor children. The decree had been issued a few weeks after Shari Lou had signed the deed on the house. There was nothing in the decree stating the amount that Asp had paid Shari Lou for her half of the house. Either Shari Lou was dumb, or desperate, or Asp was hiding a large pay off he'd made to her.

  Next he went to the marriage license bureau to see if Asp or Shari Lou had remarried in the county. They hadn't.

  He returned to the tax collector's office and asked for the legal description of the addresses at Shelley's house and Adolfo's house, then checked the grantor indexes and miscellaneous books again. Brooks and Shelley had indeed bought that house three years ago, but only Brooks's name was on the deed of trust. This was peculiar, although not impossible. Clendon smiled to himself. Shelley was protecting herself then, also.

  Adolfo's last name was Velazquez. He and his wife Fiona were given a warranty deed one year ago. Clendon could find no deed of trust. The Velazquezes had bought their miniature Gothic cathedral high up in Beverly Glen free and clear.

  * * *

  Tricia was sitting on the baby shit green couch, smoking a cigarette, and watching The Love Connection when Clendon returned from the shoe store late on a Friday evening. Her dark roots were showing half an inch and her hands shook. Her miniskirt was hip-tight. She had on too much eyeliner.

  "How'd you get in?"

  She held up a key.

  "I stay here sometimes."

  "Want a Heineken?"

  She dropped her cigarette into one of the three empty Heineken bottles lined up on the coffee table.

  "I'll have another."

  Clendon got two cold Heinekens and gave her one.

  "I need money," she said. "I know Brooks had a lot of money and I know he hid it here."

  "Why didn't you get the money already and leave?"

  She slowly took out another cigarette, lit it, inhaled, and blew smoke. It made her stop shaking, a little. Clendon turned off the TV.

  "Did you know I was here?"

  "It looked lived in when I got here."

  "Did you get a last p
aycheck?"

  "Get real."

  "You hung out over here with Brooks."

  "Brooks was into a scene. We were addicted to renting porno movies. We used to sit on this couch and snort some coke and watch them all day long. Then he liked me to handcuff him. It excited him."

  "Where was his wife?"

  "His wife is a lying bitch."

  "About what?"

  "About everything."

  "What do you want, coke money?" Clendon asked.

  "I need money money. Money to pay rent. Money to live. Like everybody."

  "Brooks didn't leave any money here. I looked. If I'd found a sack of money in this apartment do you think I'd be staying here?"

  "I don't know you well enough to say."

  When she lifted the Heineken bottle to her lips, Clendon grabbed her purse.

  "Hey-- "

  She started and spilled some beer. Clendon dumped the contents of her purse out on the floor. There was a lot of woman's stuff, but no gun or drugs or hidden mic or money.

  "Sorry, I'm a paranoid," Clendon said. "I'll pick it up."

  "That's mine, asshole. Get away."

  She got on the floor and put her things back in her purse.

  "I have a key, goddamn it," she yelled. "I worked for goddamn Boyd-Tek."

  "There's no money here. You can look."

  "I did. Look, you must have some money-- I'll do something for you-- a run or something. . . A blow job. . . I'll tie you up, or you can tie me up, if you want."

  "Did you talk to anybody?"

  "Like who."

  "Like the cops or the Feds."

  "They haven't found me," she said. "I don't want them too, either."

  "I don't want them to find you, either." Clendon tried to calm down. "Let's sit down."

  They sat on the couch.

  "Where are you from, Tricia?"

  "Indiana."

  "Do you have any relatives?"

  "I'm not going there."

  "Friends?"

  "They're all stupid. Why can't I stay here?"

  "You said you'd do something."

  "Yes. . . "

  "I know somebody. He can give you a job for a few months."

  "Maybe. . . "

  "I'll write you a letter of recommendation to give to him. He'll hire you."

  "Well. . . "

  "I'll give you $200 travelling money. You have a car?"

  "Everybody in L. A. has a car. Where am I going?"

  "To Oklahoma and work for a man named Wylie Cobb."