"I'm sorry," he said. "I mean that, Sally. I'm very sorry."
She pulled away from him and unlocked the door of her sports car. Having swung the door open, she climbed in. As she started the engine, he saw tears on her cheeks. She slammed the car into gear and raced out of the lot onto the highway.
Carr rubbed his temples for a moment, then returned to the table. Della Trane had finished her rusty nail. She stared out the window as she fiddled with a swizzle stick. "She may never forgive you," she said to the window. "I know I wouldn't."
Carr gestured to a cocktail waitress, who took his order for a round of double scotches. The waitress made frequent trips to the table until closing time. Della Trane told and retold her marriage stories.
On the trip back to her apartment she fell asleep on Carr's shoulder. When they arrived, he nudged her awake and helped her up some steps to her front door. He helped her find keys and unlock the door. Pulling him inside, she threw her arms around him. They kissed until Carr pulled his lips away from hers. "You drink too much," he said.
She pushed him away. "You cops should talk. If it hadn't been for cops I would never have started drinking in the first place." She covered her face with her hands and cried. Carr put his arms around her again. "I really like you," she said, crying. "Now you'll probably never ask me out again."
"I will."
"Promise?" She looked up at him, tears welled in her eyes.
"Promise." He touched her cheek with the back of his hand and walked out the door. Carr drove the speed limit along a deserted Pacific Coast Highway toward Santa Monica, keeping on the alert for Highway Patrol vehicles. He knew a drunk-driving incident would give No Waves enough ammo to have him transferred again. Finally, he reached Santa Monica. On the way to his apartment, he passed by the street Sally Malone lived on. Her car was parked in front of her apartment complex. He made a couple of turns around the block as he considered her possible reaction if he stopped. "The hell with it," he said out loud, and continued the flew blocks to his apartment. He parked the sedan in a carport, locked it and made his way up the steps to his apartment.
After fumbling with the key, he unlocked the front door and went in, flicking on the light. The place looked as it always did: neither messy, spotless nor particularly lived in. The brown leather sofa and recliner chair (Sally hated both) showed few signs of wear. On a bookcase the stacks of outdated criminology and police journals, as well as the James Jones and Graham Greene novels, needed dusting. The Miró prints on the wall were a Christmas gift from Sally. She always said the place looked like a motel room. Carr flopped down on the sofa. Hell, he thought, he might as well live in a motel room.
After staring at the blank screen for a while, he stood up and staggered to the television. He flicked it on and switched channels; cowboys shooting from horses, cops shooting from behind the doors of police cars, used-car commercials.
He turned off the set.
In the kitchen, he checked the refrigerator. There was nothing on the shelves but eggs and wilted lettuce. He slammed the door shut. He yanked a bottle of scotch from the cupboard and a glass from the dish drainer, poured a stiff drink. He sipped and felt acidy booze-warmth roll slowly down his throat and into his empty stomach. For some reason, he thought of Jack Kelly's home, where he had Sunday dinner once a month or so: there were always catcher's mitts and bicycles scattered about ... and a kitchen that always smelled delicious.
He poured the scotch into the sink.
In the bedroom, he picked up the telephone receiver and dialed Sally Malone's number except for the last digit. Hesitating, he dropped the receiver back in the cradle. On his way out the front door, he lit a cigarette. Having staggered down the steps to his sedan, he realized that he had left his car keys in the apartment. Without hesitation, he headed toward Sally's place on foot. As he trudged along the dark, narrow streets crowded with apartments and double-parked cars, a foggy mist dampened his face and hair. Chilled, he picked up his pace.
By the time he reached the door of her apartment he was slightly out of breath. He knocked softly. There was no answer. He knocked louder. There were footsteps inside.
"Who's there?" Sally said.
"I want to talk for a minute."
"There's nothing to talk about." Her tone was angry. He heard her walk away from the door.
Carr knocked again. He waited, knocked again. Finally, he slammed his fist against the door a few times. Sally's footsteps. "Please go away," she said, pleading.
"Open the goddamn door or I'll kick it in."
He heard her fasten the chain latch and a dead-bolt lock.
Carr leaned close to the door.
"I'm sick and tired of being alone," he said. "I've never cared about anyone except you, and the last thing in the world I ever wanted to do was to hurt your feelings, or to embarrass you. I love you and I..." he swallowed "...want to marry you."
"Are you drunk?"
"Yes," he said.
The chain latch was unfastened. The dead bolt snapped. Sally opened the door. She wore a robe over her nightgown. "Did you mean that?"
Carr nodded.
She came into his arms. "I've waited for years to hear you say that," Sally whispered. They kissed. "Please tell me you really mean it."
"I mean it."
"Let's leave right now," she said. "We can go to Las Vegas."
"Right now?"
"Why not?" she said, kissing him again. "I think I've waited long enough."
****
NINE
DURING THE five-hour trip through the desert, Carr and Sally discussed particular matters diplomatically. Gingerly they came to agreement on the following issues: One, that he would break his lease and move into her apartment (her rent was cheaper and the place was larger); two, that Carr's furniture, which Sally hated, would be donated to the Salvation Army; three, that they would keep both cars. Carr was surprised that he found himself discussing such topics with relative ease.
By the time they reached the outskirts of Las Vegas, it was sunrise, the only quiet period in its entire twenty-four-hour day. Nevertheless, the bank of casino neon that lined both sides of the highway still flashed, glimmered and burst intermittently into inanimate forms: silver slippers, gold nuggets, jacks and queens. Because of the early hour, the usually congested Vegas strip was void of traffic jams and, except for a few tired-looking tourists still wandering in and out of casinos, was generally deserted.
A pink neon sign planted close to the roadway read Cupid's Heart Marriage Chapel--Open 24 Hours. A neon cupid fired an arrow to the right. Carr turned into a parking lot between casinos. Ahead of them, almost directly underneath an enormous silver dollar balanced on a forty-foot pole, was a diminutive wood-frame cottage. A picket fence surrounding the structure was built with a flat base, so it could balance on the parking lot asphalt. In the bay window of the cottage, accented by pink lights, was a large, heart-shaped bouquet of artificial roses. Like Friday-afternoon customers at a bank, couples waited in line at the door.
Carr steered the sedan behind the building and parked. Sally squeezed his arm affectionately. He climbed out and approached a service window at the rear of the chapel. A fat woman wearing a white, frilly dress handed him some printed forms and a pen attached to a string. He filled in the forms and handed them back. He paid a fee and the woman rang up the transaction on a cash register. She handed him a receipt. Without explanation, she pointed around the side of the building. He returned to the sedan.
Having completed a fresh application of makeup, Sally stepped out of the car. They joined the line waiting at the front door of the chapel. The sound of a recorded wedding march came from inside. A young couple standing in front of them in line introduced themselves. They were dressed in matching shorts and T-shirts bearing the slogan I Found It. Without encouragement, the young woman shared the fact that they had been living together for six months. Carr forced a smile. He noticed a well-dressed, elderly couple directly in front of the chapel
door. They were obviously drunk, holding one another up. The wedding march ended. A minute later the door opened and a man wearing a cowboy hat and polyester suit walked out holding hands with a Mexican woman who looked older than he. The drunk couple stepped inside the chapel and closed the door behind them. The wedding march began again.
Carr noticed that Sally's head was down.
"Is everything okay?" he said.
She nodded without looking up.
"Sally?" Gently he touched her chin. She looked up. There were tears in her eyes.
"Please tell me what's wrong."
"I don't want to get married here," she whispered. "Not like this. It's so ... impersonal ... and that dumb wedding march record. I love you and I want to be your wife but I just don't want to remember this as the place I got married."
"Of course not." Carr put an arm around her shoulder and walked her back to the sedan.
Sliding in next to Carr, she hugged him. "You'll lose the marriage fee," she said.
"Better than losing it at the crap table, I guess." He started the engine.
After stopping for gas, Carr headed onto the highway toward Los Angeles. Oddly, though he hadn't slept all night, he wasn't sleepy. During the trip back, Sally spoke eagerly of trips they could take together, using their combined incomes to purchase a condominium, and how well he would get along with her sister and brother-in-law who lived in Nebraska.
By the time they reached Santa Monica Carr's eyelids were heavy, and though he wasn't sure if it was just the result of fatigue, he had second doubts about the whole thing.
As Amanda Kennedy, wearing a denim prison smock, stepped into the visitor's room from a door marked Inmates Only, Travis Bailey realized that he had never seen her before. An hour earlier, she had called his office from a pay phone at the Women's jail and told him she wanted to speak with him about a confidential matter. On the way to the jail he wondered whether she was the wife or girl friend of someone whom he had arrested. Why would she ask for him by name? He certainly hadn't recognized her voice.
There was no one else in the visitor's room except a young priest quietly counseling a woman with a large purple birthmark on her forehead; Amanda Kennedy walked directly to him.
"Mr. Bailey?" she said.
He nodded and she sat down. "Have we met before?"
"I'm a friend ... or perhaps I should say I was a friend of Lee Sheboygan."
Travis Bailey felt his stomach tighten. He had the urge to curl his toes. "I see."
"Well?"
"Well what?" he said after pausing for a moment.
"Do you know who I'm talking about?"
"Yes," he said. "Now what do you want?"
"I want out of here."
"I'm sure there are lots of ladies in here who'd like to get out. So what else is new?"
"I shouldn't have to explain anything to you. You know very well what I'm talking about. You know very well." She crossed her arms across her chest.
Travis Bailey shrugged, stood up to leave. What is this woman up to?
"I think you'd better sit down again," she said matter-of-factly. "Lee told me about everything. Everything about you and him and Bones."
Suddenly, Bailey's knees felt weak. He sat down again. Without any attempt at subtlety, he stared at Amanda Kennedy's chest for signs of a hidden microphone.
Having lowered her voice to a whisper, she said, "I know about the burglaries you set up for Lee. He told me about everything one night when he was high. We were just sitting around my apartment horning a few spoons of coke and he just came out with it. At first I didn't believe it. But I do now."
Bailey glanced around the room. The priest and the birth-marked woman were praying. He knew that if he was being set up, Kennedy would have to be wearing a listening device. Since he had picked the spot to sit, he knew there was little chance the table was bugged. He stared at the woman and said nothing.
Amanda Kennedy rested her elbows on the table. She leaned forward. "The Feds have already been here to talk with me. They wanted to know who Lee's friends were. I gave them just enough to make it look like I was cooperating. Nothing they couldn't find out on their own ... but I'll spill the beans if I have to in order to get out of here. I mean that. I'll do whatever I have to to get out of this place. I'm not staying in jail for anyone. I mean that. I'm not staying in this fucking place for anyone."
Without making it obvious, Travis Bailey took a deep breath. "What are you in for?" he said.
Amanda Kennedy removed a package of chewing gum from the one and only pocket on her denim smock. She unwrapped a stick as if it were something valuable. "I'm in here because I was just sitting in my apartment just sort of kicking back the other day, and this Fed knocks on my door. He asked me some questions about Lee, so I just shined him on. I mean, like why should I answer any questions? I didn't do anything wrong. So the Fed leaves. The next thing I know these two burglary detectives are pushing their way in my door with a search warrant. They turned my apartment inside out and arrested me for possession of a necklace with a pendant that Lee had given me. They put handcuffs on me and booked me in here ... and you'll never guess who comes to visit me after I'm booked in. The same Fed who came to my apartment asking about Lee Sheboygan." She shoved the gum in her mouth and chewed.
"What was his name?"
"Carr."
"What did you tell him?"
"Don't worry," she said. "I didn't tell him anything he couldn't have found out on his own." She folded her arms and chewed gum rapidly for a moment. "I'm not like the other people in here. I used to be married to one of the biggest scriptwriters in town. He wrote the original script for The Volkswagen That Could Fly. So don't think I'm going to sit in here and vegetate waiting to go to trial. My bond is five thousand dollars and if you know what's good for you and for Bones, you'll get me out of here. If you don't, I'm going to blow the lid off your little game. I'll tell the Feds everything I know. It's as simple as that." She held the unfolded gum wrapper to her mouth and pushed the chewing gum into it with her tongue. Having packaged the moist gum carefully, she shoved it back in her pocket. "If you don't chew the gum too long, you don't get the calories," she explained.
"How do I know you aren't trying to frame me?" Bailey said. "Sometimes people have been known to wear hidden microphones. They try to get policemen to say things in order to frame them."
"Look, dammit," she said angrily, "I'm the one who's been framed. I'm the one who's sitting in a stinking cell. If you don't get me out of there, and I mean quick, then you will be in trouble. I mean that."
Travis Bailey reached into a coat pocket. He pulled out a pad and pen. He printed, "I'll have you out by tomorrow morning. Be careful of what you say in this room-bugs?" on the pad. As he held a finger to his lips he showed Amanda Kennedy what he had written.
Amanda Kennedy stood up. "Don't forget." She turned and walked toward the steel door.
Travis Bailey drove down a winding road from the Women's jail past rows of pink and green stucco dwellings whose walls and fences were covered with spray-can graffiti. Though he had the car's air conditioner on at maximum, his hands were so wet with perspiration he could hardly hold on to the steering wheel. At a stoplight at the bottom of a hill, he wiped his palms on his trousers. Doing this, he remembered stealing cash from the wallet of a businessman whom he had arrested for drunk driving. His fear of getting caught had reached the point of nausea. It had been easier the second time.
He turned right on Eastern Avenue and drove a block to a taco stand. He pulled over, parked and walked deliberately to a telephone booth. He stepped into the booth and closed the door. He stared at the receiver for what must have been a long time as his mind wandered to unrelated incidents in his life: the death of an aunt who had always offered him refuge from his stepfather's unreasonable punishments, the childhood experience of being lost in a department store, the visit to an alcoholic doctor who falsely diagnosed ulcers to keep him out of the military draft, his teenag
e ex-wife pushing him off her as he was in the act of orgasm, the recurring nightmare of lying on a beach on which the sand becomes increasingly hot until finally his back and legs burst into flames.
As he dropped a dime in the coin slot he became aware that the booth was sweltering. He dialed Bones Chagra's home number. The freeway sounds, the sound of metal whizzing through air, seemed to get louder.
Chagra answered.
"We need to get together," Bailey said.
"Can it wait? I have two studio bitches coming over to do a tag team on me before I go to work. It's taken me two nights of bullshit to talk 'em into it."
"I need to see you right now."
"You wanna come over?"
"No," Bailey said. "I'll meet you at the pastry shop."
"I hope it's important enough to give up two pieces of ass."
Travis Bailey hung up the phone.
The pastry shop sandwiched between exclusive shops on Rodeo Drive was crowded as usual. In a dining room adjoining a spotless bakery with glass display counters filled with tortes, cream pies and other ultra rich baked goods, groups of women wearing the latest styles sat at bistro tables in groups of two and three. They buzzed amiably (but loudly enough to be heard by others) about clothing, the chefs at Ma Maison and L'Orangerie and European vacations. The walls were decorated with nostalgia prints of old bakeries and bakery trucks.
Travis Bailey sat alone at a table in the corner, glancing impatiently at his wristwatch. Finally Bones Chagra hurried in the front door. He wore an Italian-cut sport coat and white loafers. Spotting Bailey, he made his way through the bakery to his table. As he sat down, he gave the crowd a glance of disdain. "I hate this place," Chagra said. "Why do you always want to meet here?"
"Because no one I know comes in here," He lifted a cup and sipped café au lait. "Who is Amanda Kennedy?"
"The bitch who managed the apartment house where Lee lived; fair jugs, good ass. Lee had her over all the time. He thought she had class. He loved anything with class. We did a ménage with her a few times. She likes to take it both ways at once. She would blow Lee while I fucked her up the-"
To Die in Beverly Hills Page 11