Fridays at Enrico's

by Don Carpenter

  Finished with a day’s work, he’d take another swim, make lunch for himself, or head out. He liked to drive all afternoon. It was creepy, in a way. There were lots of hitchhikers, and Stan had to admit to himself that he picked up girls and drove them places in the hope of getting laid. He was still too shy to hit on the girls, but if one of them should hit on him, that would be fine. None did. Some tried to con him by acting sexy and pretending they were interested, to get him to take them where they wanted, but then jumped out of the car. A lot of them were very young, and Stan was sort of ashamed of himself, and went out of his way to give the young ones lifts so that some other rotten pervert wouldn’t pick them up. It was generous of him, but it didn’t get him laid. A lot of them called him Pops or Dad or Old Man, and he was thirty.

  Every two weeks he drove downtown to visit his parole officer. This one was named Bob Gomez, a man of about fifty who was enthusiastic about Stan’s chances in the movie business. He seemed impressed by Stan’s book sales and told Stan that if he ever did need a real job, Gomez would do his level best. “Lots of folks try the movie business,” he said. He showed his gold tooth. “I’d try it myself if I didn’t already have a good job.”

  Evenings were difficult. This was temptation time. Time to hit the bars. Stan wasn’t specifically prohibited from drinking, only from drinking with thieves. But this thing about women was starting to get to him, and he could see himself getting nice and tight and hitting on the wrong lady, ending up back in the joint. He’d heard rumors about Hollywood all his life, so why didn’t his Hollywood friends fix him up? They didn’t even call. He wondered at their easy friendliness, their apparent honesty and openness. Why weren’t they getting him dates with actresses? He laughed. He was turning into Red. Well, Red wasn’t such a bad guy. Just a fuck-up. Red would have been hitting the bars, trying to get his pimply ass laid. Stan was smarter. He stayed home reading. When he did go out, he went to movies. Generally he was sleepy by around ten or so.

  He finished Heat Wave in six weeks, two full drafts. He let it sit for a day, read it over, and liked it. He took the manuscript down to a typing service on Highland near Franklin, where it was typed and a copy sent to Knox Burger. He’d still not heard a word from either Bud Fishkin or Evarts Ziegler, so he took a copy to Ziegler’s office on Sunset, and left it without asking to speak to his agent. He’d never been up there before. It seemed a lot like a doctor’s waiting room. Or a dentist’s. More like a dentist’s, and he was glad to just leave the thing and go.

  Ziggie called two days later. “I think I can sell this,” he said. Stan hung up after a few minutes of pleasant conversation about his book, and wondered what to do with the rest of his day. He hadn’t thought to ask about Fishkin, and Ziggie hadn’t said anything. He had plenty of time and money. And freedom. He had to laugh. If he didn’t find a girl to at least talk to, he was going to go crazy. It was really all his fault. It took some guts to pick up a girl. His problem was that he lacked guts. He had to go into a bar, yes a bar, and sit down, drink some drinks, size up the single women in the place, single women were everywhere, then go up to one of them and saying something inviting. “Hi!” Or, “Oh my goodness, you are certainly attractive!” Or, “Say, baby, how’s about it?”

  The trouble with getting manners out of pulp novels is that they don’t really supply you with any good pickup lines. Stan was sure he needed a good pickup line. The truth in this case wouldn’t work. “Ahem, I’m a fairly well-to-do young writer, here in Hollywood to work in movies.” Sure you are, Bozo. Like the last ten guys who tried that line.

  With a sigh and rap on his kitchen table, Stan decided to just go ahead and try it. If his voice broke in the middle of his pitch, so what? What could they do? Stick him in the hole?

  60.

  Driving around L.A. he’d seen plenty of bars, but they were nothing like the friendly taverns of Portland. Most were really restaurants, the others full of men in suits and women dressed for office work. Just walking in made him walk out red-faced for no reason. He tried some of the bars on the Sunset Strip, but there was too much action, and on the weekends you couldn’t even drive, there were so many hippies walking around. He tried mingling with some of these weekend crowds on Sunset, but had felt the presence among the hippies of a large number of both cops and criminals. Too much heat, again. And everybody so young. Guys his age were predators. He walked Sunset only a couple of nights and then gave it up.

  Ziggie called one morning when he was going crazy trying to start a new book, and told him that Fawcett loved Heat Wave. But now that Ziggie was in the game, things would be different. Instead of paying a flat thirty-four hundred dollars and publishing as a Gold Medal Original, Fawcett was being asked, by Ziggie, to pay Stan fifty thousand for the paperback rights alone, farm the book out to a hardcover publisher for the initial publication, half that price going to Stan, and of course Stan would own his own film rights, TV rights, foreign rights, and so forth. “It’s time to get you out of the slave pen,” Ziggie said in his dry voice.

  “Do you think they’ll go for it?” Stan asked.

  “If they don’t, they’re crazy.”

  “What’s going on with Bud Fishkin?” Stan remembered to ask. He was amazed at how calmly he was taking all this.

  “They still haven’t heard from Andrei.” So the long silence had been from the director. It occurred to Stan that his entire Hollywood career was based on one guy liking one of his books. If that one guy changed his mind, Stan was out in the cold. Why didn’t this bother him? Maybe he was developing a little self-confidence. Meanwhile, there was the problem of starting a new book. He’d graduated from the Gold Medal Original type of story to the hardcover novel type, Ziggie’s call proved that. But it was like draw poker, he had four to a straight flush, with one card to draw. Don’t bet too hard until that last card, he told himself. He’d just let his mind wander, try to find something to write about that didn’t have to be just one slam-bang action scene after another, something that didn’t require that heavy suspense aspect.

  What writers usually did at this point, he theorized, was write about their lives. Was it time for a long autobiographical novel? He sighed. His life. His poor little stupid life. Who’d give a shit? He wanted to write another book only because he was bored, but he didn’t want to write another speedy little action story. Maybe he’d developed an ego.

  Ziggie called him a little after six. “Do you know why I love this business?” He sounded tired. “Because I get to make calls like this one.”

  “Good news?” Stan was in his pool, up to his neck.

  “We have a deal,” Ziggie said. Fawcett’s check for half the fifty thousand advance would be delivered to Ziggie’s New York agency contact by close of business Friday. Stan hung up, a rich man in his pool. He lit a cigarette and blew a smoke ring at the sky. He celebrated by driving to an Italian restaurant he liked on Ventura, having a couple of beers before dinner, a nice bottle of wine with his lasagna, and then a leisurely drive over to Hollywood, where he walked on the Boulevard for a while, hands in pockets. Hollywood Boulevard was a tough street, with a lot of action. He liked it. He looked at stuff in the windows for a while, then on impulse went into the Warner Theater.

  The movie was Easy Rider and the theater was full, only one place for Stan to sit. A woman sat alone in the aisle seat, a vacant seat next to her. Stan sat down, conscious of the woman, but not looking at her. The movie started, and Stan was immediately drawn into it. So was the rest of the audience, and Stan forgot about the girl next to him until one scene was so funny and exciting that he turned toward her to share the moment, and found himself looking into her eyes. A feeling passed through him like electricity through a wire. He turned back to the screen, three guys roaring down the road on two motorcycles. At the next big moment he looked over again and found her looking at him. He laughed and she laughed, and they went back to watching the movie. He knew to a moral certainty that when the picture was over, they would talk.
He knew he wouldn’t be shy. When the lights came up she was sniffling into her handkerchief.

  “Those sons of bitches,” Stan said to her.

  “Yes,” she said. She blew her nose. She was about his age, nice-looking, dark hair. “Excuse me,” she said to Stan, and stood to let him by. The aisles were crowded.

  “Let’s wait,” Stan said. “Or would you like to get a cup of coffee?”

  “Sure,” she said, after taking a second, harder look at him. They walked out of the theater onto Hollywood Boulevard. Normally Stan would have been full of the movie, but this was more interesting. She was as tall as he was, a nice figure, dressed in a flowered dress but not a hippie.

  “My name is Stan.” He held out his hand.

  “I’m Carrie Gruber,” she said, and shook his hand.

  Stan had never felt so bold. “We already like each other,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Where’s a good place to go?” he asked her. “I’m kinda new to Los Angeles.”

  “We could go to my place,” she said. She looked at him openly. “It’s over in the Valley.”

  Stan followed her to her apartment building on Lankershim, a big dark building. She signaled for him to follow into the underground garage, then pointed with her arm where he could park. He tried not to think, and not to feel triumphant. After all, he didn’t know what was coming. It could just be a cup of coffee and a nice conversation about movies. He was prepared for that, but in his heart he expected more.

  She had a quiet apartment, bigger than she needed, very neat, no sign of a man. Stan relaxed even more. Instead of coffee they had bottles of beer, all very polite. They did talk about movies, and when Stan told her he was trying to write for them, he was unsurprised that she was unsurprised. “So many movie people in Los Angeles,” she said nicely. She worked for a chain of Laundromats. The girl Friday, she did everything in the office. Her boss had been in television. Not a good actor, but he’d made enough to buy the Laundromat chain, and now he spent most of his time in Gardena playing poker. If she didn’t keep the place running, her boss would go broke in a month. She didn’t plan to be in the laundry business forever, however. She was saving her money to open a business of her own, what kind she didn’t yet know. She’d been married and divorced, no children, and born and raised right here in the San Fernando Valley. “Some day I hope to live in the South Seas,” she said.

  When they’d come in, Stan chose a single overstuffed chair to sit in, rather than going right to the couch, which might have seemed forward. She sat on the couch, and when he finished his beer he wondered whether to move over to the couch and put his arm around her. A bad move. In fact, any move would be a bad move. He just sat and let her make all the moves. Which she did.

  “Would you like another beer?”

  “I guess I’d better leave,” Stan said, without moving.

  “Please stay,” she said. She looked right at him. No urgency in her voice, no sign of mental illness. A perfectly decent, honest human being, asking him to stay.

  “I’m pretty clumsy,” he said.

  “If you don’t want to,” she said, looking embarrassed. He saw that she thought he was rejecting her, so he got up and went over and kissed her on top of her head. She took hold of him and pulled him down into a real kiss, a very hungry kiss, on both sides.

  61.

  They couldn’t get over the luck. He’d walked into the movie on impulse. Carrie had almost given up finding a parking place but had lucked into one at the last minute, then got her seat when a couple moved, leaving the empty seat for Stan. And they both admitted they were shy, but by some lucky accident they weren’t shy with each other.

  They made love that night twice in her perfumed bedroom. She was hesitant at first, her skin prickly with goosebumps, but Stan must have done something right because soon she relaxed, and in a few minutes was panting passionately. Stan couldn’t get over how wonderful she smelled, or the incredible softness of her skin. It was like falling down a well of love. Only, they weren’t exactly in love. Stan was careful not to tell her he loved her, but he did tell her how much he liked her, and how good she smelled and tasted and felt. Stan had never before done much talking while making love. Whores didn’t encourage it. But with Carrie he talked. And moaned. Even yelled a little. So did she, yelping with surprise, it sounded to Stan, when they had their first long sweet orgasm together. After it was over Stan lay in her sweet-smelling bed in a self-congratulatory mood. He wanted to boast, but didn’t. He did say, turning to her in the dim light, “You really make me feel wonderful.”

  “You too,” she said shyly. They smoked the traditional cigarettes, and when Carrie got up to go to the bathroom, Stan was thrilled at the sight of her padding naked across the room. All the right things in the right places. No, more than that. It wasn’t just getting laid. There was something more here.

  They talked a while, then made love again, but afterward Stan couldn’t get to sleep, and Carrie seemed restless.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” She sat up. “I think maybe you should go home now.” She rubbed his shoulder. It felt good. But she was right.

  “We’ll all sleep better in our own little beds,” he said lightly, and threw back the covers.

  She loved his house, especially his swimming pool. They had a pool where she lived, but you couldn’t swim naked and there were always people around. Carrie had a hard time relaxing around her own pool, but at Stan’s house she could just sit there naked except for her white plastic sunglasses, oiling her body with Bain de Soleil, or reading magazines, just taking in the sun. She had a dark tan, like Stan’s, and on weekends they spent most of their time in Stan’s backyard or Stan’s bed. It turned out they were both sex maniacs and sun freaks. She even liked to spend a little time pumping iron with Stan’s equipment, which he kept in the backyard. He felt as if he’d finally, after all this time, become a normal person. It had taken a lot of doing, but he was glad to be free.

  His work life was another story. Nothing had come to him by way of a next book. Not that his three pulp novels were all that original, but they’d come to him easily. The new one wasn’t coming at all. As for the movies, Stan began to learn the ropes. He had to swallow his impatience. Ziggie was being strategic. He wasn’t trying to market Stan’s novels until he heard from Andrei. “Your price jumps if he hires you as a screenwriter,” Stan was told, although he couldn’t quite see the connection between his becoming a screenwriter and selling The Run or Heat Wave. Of course with Heat Wave Stan had already made an obscene amount of money, figures so dizzying and remote from reality that Stan had no real problem believing them. It just wasn’t real. His huge savings account at the Bank of America? That wasn’t real either. He told Carrie he felt like every time he walked into the bank he was going to rob the joint.

  He told Carrie all about himself and gave her a copy of his novel. He left out the sexual part of being a burglar, but told the rest, and she seemed able to absorb it without a fainting spell. “My cousin was in prison,” she said.

  “Really? What for?”

  She smiled. They were out by the pool, naked and oiled up. “All he ever wanted was to be a surfer,” she said. It turned out her cousin robbed liquor stores all over the Valley to support his board, and ended up doing six years at Soledad. “He’s out now, going to graduate school.”

  “You mean he’s robbing banks?” Stan joked.

  “He’s studying criminology.”

  “Ah,” said Stan. “Revenge.” He was very hot now, his sweat mingling with the Bain de Soleil Carrie had lovingly rubbed all over him. It was time to cannonball.

  Carrie took his novel home, but if she read it she said nothing. He decided she wasn’t much of a reader. There were no books in her apartment, just magazines. At Stan’s she read only magazines and the newspaper. Maybe a good thing. In fact, he was sure it was a good thing.

  Then came the call he’d been waiti
ng for.

  “Andrei’s coming to town,” Ziggie said tiredly. “I’ll try to arrange a meeting.”

  “Do I have to meet him?” Stan asked humorously. Ziggie didn’t laugh.

  “It would help.”

  Two days later Ziggie called to say that Stan had been invited to a party at Andrei’s house in Bel Air. “Can I bring my girlfriend?” Stan asked.

  “I wouldn’t,” Ziggie said.

  “But I want to.”

  “All right, no problem. It’s just that we’ll be working.”

  “We’ve been invited to a Hollywood party,” Stan said to Carrie on the telephone. He told her the details, then had to wait while she answered another line. When she came back she said, “I don’t really want to go. Do you mind?”

  “Why not?”

  “I’d feel out of place. I have nothing to wear.”

  “I’ll buy you something,” he said. He was getting hot under the collar. Nobody wanted her to go except him, it seemed. She wouldn’t accept his offer of a dress. Stan hung up mad, but Carrie called back an hour later and said she’d changed her mind.