“Duck,” the woman said.
“Now I love a good duck,” I said.
“You live around here?”
“No. I’m friends with the family of the guy who died.”
“Then it’s true?” the man in glasses said. “Was it the big guy?”
“You knew him?”
“Well yeah, to look at. Say hi to. That’s all.”
“Nice guy, was he?”
“I guess,” he said. “What happened?”
“Maybe suicide.”
“Oh man.” He shook his head.
The woman looked stunned. “Bummer,” she said. “I was afraid something like this might happen.”
“Oh yeah?” I said.
She nodded. “There’s a whole Stephen King vibe going on around here. You can feel it.”
“You can,” Glasses said.
“Stephen King?” I said.
“Like in that movie with John Cusack,” the woman said.
“1408,” said Glasses. “The haunted-room one.”
“No, it wasn’t haunted,” the woman said. “It was evil. The room itself was evil. I almost felt like telling him—was his name Carl?—not to go back in the room.”
I looked at her. “When did you feel like telling him that?”
“Tonight, in the garage. He was going in. I was going out.”
“What time was that?”
“I don’t know, maybe seven or so.”
“Think about it,” I said.
She looked up at the sky and blinked a couple of times. “I got to Pearl’s a little before seven. I remember that because she always watches Jeopardy and it wasn’t on yet.”
“He doesn’t know who Pearl is,” Glasses said.
“Oh yeah,” the woman said. “She’s a friend, lives about fifteen minutes away. So I probably saw him about six-thirty or so. That help?”
I said, “Did he look upset to you, anything like that?”
“No. He was coming back from the store, I guess.”
“How could you tell?”
“He had a bag with him. I think it was BevMo. Everybody knows he’s a boozer.”
“How do they know that?” I said.
“More than a few nights, out by the pool, he stumbled around and made a lot of noise.”
“Thanks,” I said. It looked like the typical, sad scenario. There are a million variations but it’s all the same theme. A descent into loneliness, as his brother Eric had suggested. A slide greased by liquor or drugs or both. You look at your life and it’s not what you ever thought it would be. You look at the future and you only see fog or darkness, but not another person to share it with.
Enough of that and you figure, why stick around?
I knew the feeling. It had poured over me after Jacqueline died. No man is an island, the poet said, but there are lots of stray rocks on barren hillsides.
Somebody tapped me on the shoulder.
31
HE WAS WELL dressed, professional looking. Mitt Romney hair. Blue dress shirt with creases that could cut lunch meat. Red tie, loosened.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Are you working on this matter?”
I said, “And you are?”
“I knew Carl. I’m Morgan Barstler. You?”
“Family lawyer,” I said. “Ty Buchanan.”
“Oh, you were representing him, right?”
“Did he tell you that?”
He nodded. “Carl told me what a great guy you are, great lawyer.”
“Great may be pushing it,” I said. “How well did you know Carl?”
“Very well.”
“Can you tell me about it?”
He looked down and put his hands in his pockets. “Why? What good?”
“I’m looking out for his mom. I’d like to find out why this happened.”
“And how exactly did it happen?”
“The police say he shot himself.”
Barstler’s eyes started to tear up. He was going to say something, then stopped himself.
“Not here,” he said.
32
WE WENT TO a bar on Melrose. Cool, contemporary interior with a palm-tree-and-teak motif. Barstler was shaky and ordered scotch rocks. I had an amber ale called Goliath, a local brew.
“Carl and I were together about a year,” Barstler said. “It didn’t last, but we stayed friends.”
“How long ago was it you were together?” I said.
“It’s been about three years now.”
“And you’ve stayed pretty much in contact since?”
“Oh yeah. We spoke all the time. On the phone. Met for movies, dinner sometimes. Saw each other at parties. E-mailed each other.”
“What is it you do, Morgan?”
“Real exciting. Accountant.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“Wish I’d gone into law. I think it’d be a lot more fun.” He looked into his glass. “I can’t believe he’s dead.”
“Any reason you can think of why he’d want to commit suicide?”
Barstler shook his head.
“He was an alcoholic,” I said.
“Yeah. Why we broke up. He couldn’t handle it, and I couldn’t handle that.”
“He have a long-term relationship after you?”
“Nothing that lasted. One was pretty bad.”
“In what way?”
“He was with an actor named Tim for a while, but Tim was hooking up with this other guy, a real jerk who hangs on the boulevard pretending to be somebody. But he’s just mean. Carl had some nasty fights with him.”
“With Tim?”
“And this other guy.”
“You know Tim’s last name?”
“I think it was Larchmont.”
“And he’s an actor?”
Barstler nodded. “He was studying at the Stella Adler school, as I recall.”
“And this other guy’s name?”
“Oh, he’s ripe. He calls himself the Reverend Son Young Moon, if you can believe it.”
I blinked a couple of times. “Hasn’t that name been taken?”
“It’s not the same as that other guy. It’s Son, as in Son of God. And Young, as in young. Takes some stones to call yourself the Son of God, doesn’t it?”
“Where do I find this guy?”
“He’s hard to miss. Retro punk Mohawk up to here.” Barstler held his hand about twelve inches over his head. “He hangs out across from the big brick Scientology center, right near the Stella Adler Theatre. He runs his own street scene on the sidewalk. Talking to people, handing stuff out.”
“What kind of stuff?”
Barstler shrugged.
“Is this guy capable of killing somebody?” I said.
“What are you saying? That Carl didn’t kill himself?”
“I’m not saying anything. Just trying to get all the information.”
“Well, I think anybody’s capable of anything, under the right circumstances. Or wrong circumstances. Whatever.”
His face drifted to a sad place again.
I said, “The night Carl was arrested for DUI, he said he’d gotten crazy at a party. Were you at that party?”
“Matter of fact, I was.”
“Anything you can tell me about it?”
Barstler sighed. “Christmas party. A mixed bag. An actor friend gave it. About twenty, twenty-five people.”
“Was Tim or this Sonny Moon there?”
“Tim was there early, but he left. I don’t know if he had a fight with Carl or not. All I know is Carl was out of it and just drinking like crazy. I tried to stop him but he told me to… well, he told me off. I got mad and avoided him. At some point he was parading around in a Santa hat and not much else. I went outside after that, spent some time talking to other friends. When I went back in the house he was gone.”
“Did Carl get into it with anybody else?”
“I didn’t see it. People were pretty ripped and laughing.”
I gave him my card.
“If something comes to you and you want to tell me about it, give me a call, huh?”
“How’s Kate doing?” he said.
“Shook up, of course.”
“Tell her I said hi. I always liked her.”
33
THE NEXT DAY I drove down to Hollywood and parked in front of the Scientology building, just east of Highland. I looked across the street but didn’t see anybody who matched the description Barstler gave me. I put in a Duke Ellington CD and watched the passersby.
It was like being in a pod in some space movie. I was observing another planet.
Hollywood has changed a little since that day in 1887 when a land speculator named Dixon decided this spot would be a good place to build homes. It was mostly Chinese fruit growers back then, leasing the land. Life was slow and productive.
Now it was fast and pointed in no particular direction. Years ago the city planners thought a glitzy new center at the corner of Hollywood and Highland would spread renewal up and down. The street is cleaner, but the stretch from the Pantages to the El Capitan Theatre still seems to be rife with smoke shops, tattoo parlors, clothing stores, tourist traps, eateries, and tagger practice. On weekends the club scene springs to life, but that’s largely hidden in the day.
Yet Hollywood represents nothing if not hope. And huge industrial cranes in the skyline signaled major projects ahead. An influx of business, some that might even stay, despite the tax burden.
The one constant is the street scene, the crazy mix of those who hang out on the brass stars of the Walk of Fame. Many of them runaways. They say maybe four hundred kids live on the streets of Hollywood at any given time. They scour the alleys at night, trading sex for a fix, or paying with what they make panhandling.
If they’re lucky, somebody at one of the teen drop-in centers gives them just the right break, the right word, maybe the right kick in the pants. And they get out of the life.
Most aren’t so lucky.
The con has always been a big part of the Hollywood scene. And phony religionists run some of the biggest. Any nimrod can set himself up as providing the way, the truth, and the life, and start collecting donations.
Just spout some high-sounding claptrap in L.A. and it’s a sure bet more than one person will start handing you the green.
Ellington was taking the A Train and I was wondering what sort of religion I’d set up if I were a conman, when I saw a Mohawk across the street.
34
THE HAIR WAS only part of the giveaway. The acolytes around him were another. Five or six young women stood around in a traveling ad hoc circle, flyers in their hands. A guy in a large-brimmed hat worked a guitar behind them.
The circus came to a stop in front of the white brick building next to the Hollywood Wax Museum. Here they set up shop.
I got out of my car and crossed the street at Highland. Then I walked down toward the new breed of moonies.
One of the girls handed me a flyer. It was full color, double sided. On the front was a headline: The CIA’s Plan to Brainwash All American Citizens. There was a drawing of man’s head in the middle of the page, with half his skull removed so you could see his brain.
Several little men in suits were standing on the brain with mops, scrubbing. Text wrapped around the picture. I didn’t read it.
“Thanks,” I said, putting the paper in my back pocket.
“We take donations,” she said. She was maybe eighteen and had that runaway look.
“I want to talk to the reverend,” I said.
“Are you a cop? Because we—”
“No, just another pilgrim.”
“Pilgrim?”
“You know, like Thanksgiving.”
She didn’t know. Her face was a blank. I walked past her and came up behind the Mohawk, who was talking to another girl. She looked at me and Mohawk turned around.
“Reverend Son Young Moon?” I said.
“That’s me, brother.” He smiled.
“Crazy name,” I said.
“Not if you’re the second coming.”
“Of Jesus?”
“What do you mean by Jesus?” he said. “Do you think Jesus is some person dropping out of the sky, or is he a universal spirit?”
“You tell me,” I said.
“We are the Universal Worldwide Church.”
“Sort of redundant, isn’t it?” I said.
“What is?”
“If it’s the universal church, that includes the world already.”
He just looked at me.
“So do you have any celebrity clients,” I said, “like your competitors across the street?”
“Sure. But I can’t tell you.”
“Uh-huh. Confidential, right?”
He nodded. He looked like a peacock nipping at water.
“So I guess you’re not all that credible with the tourists yet. You need a celebrity.”
His ragtag acolytes were crowding in. Like this was going to be a show.
“Are you familiar with the Demiurge?” Sonny Moon asked with a smirk, as if I wouldn’t have a clue.
“Sure,” I said. “It’s a term I believe first used by Plato. Later, by Plotinus. Right?”
That set him back a little. “Very good, but that’s not the only place. The Gnostics identified the Demiurge as the Yaweh of the Old Testament. They thought he was evil, because the world he created was evil. Now, if you were to make a movie about the Demiurge, who would you have play him? Christopher Walken, of course. No question about it. Chris Walken looks evil, but in fact he is good.”
I said, “People actually pay you for this?”
One of his disciples, a girl with a railroad spike through her lower lip, said something in what sounded like a clicking African dialect. Then I realized it was a tongue stud clacking on her teeth. Anyway, what she said sounded like an insult. I think she was suggesting I try rectal-cranial inversion.
“Far be it from me to criticize the free exercise of religion,” I said. “But maybe a little truth in advertising would help.”
“What do you mean by that?” a woman with a hawkish nose said.
I said, “Why do you think gas stations are advertised in the Yellow Pages under service stations?”
They all looked at me like I had issued a Zen koan. Maybe I had.
“Because,” I said, “our commerce depends on the benign lie. If you drink the right beer, you’ll get the right chicks. If you take our pill, all your problems will be solved. And the idea is to get the money to flow to the top. And the Rev here is the top of this particular chain.”
“Man,” he said, “did you come down here just to take me on? You don’t look the part.”
“I’m always interested in what people think,” I said. “Especially if they’ve set up a business.”
“Not business. Religion.”
“Oh right. So it’s tax free.”
He smiled. His little friends laughed. Like he was the cleverest thing on earth.
“I’m also interested in where you were on the night of January thirtieth,” I said.
“Why would you be interested in that?”
“Because somebody died.”
“That’s news? People die all the time.”
“Carl Richess only died once.”
The Rev didn’t change expression. “Is that someone you know?” he said.
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
He shook his head.
“He’s somebody you’d remember,” I said, “because you had some fights with him, when he was with Tim.”
The Rev’s eyebrows twitched. His plume shuddered a little. “Who are you?”
“Somebody who is in search of all truth. Now, why don’t you tell me where you were on January thirtieth?”
“I don’t got to tell you nothin’.”
“Suddenly you’re talking street?”
Railroad Spike Girl said, “He don’t got to tell you nothin’.”
“World without end, amen,”
I said. “Only maybe the cops would like a word with you.”
“Look, man, what do you want from me? So I knew Carl, why should I tell you about it? You come to my house and practice deception. That’s the evil in you. I can get it out if you want me to.”
“I can get it out all on my own,” I said.
“I haven’t seen Carl in months, okay? I have no idea why he’d want to kill himself.”
“Did I mention he killed himself?”
He didn’t so much as blink. “I can’t waste any more of my time,” he said.
“You know what I think, Reverend? I think you’re a hack. I think making up a religion and taking people’s money from them is what small-minded hacks like you do because you can’t do anything else.”
This time there was a little twitch around his cheekbone.
Then a very large dude in a T-shirt without sleeves shouldered his way to me. He was my height but beefier. He had one arm that was tat sleeved, and a face like a can of knuckles. He looked older than the rest, maybe mid-thirties. And it was like he came out of nowhere, or some doorway, because I hadn’t seen him before.
“You better get outta here,” he said. He smelled funny. His hair was black and slick and gave off some sort of perfume. A sweet smell. Sick sweet over knuckles. A stomach turner.
I waited for Moon to call him off, the way a homeowner directs Fido back into the house. But he didn’t say anything.
“You hear me?” Knuckle Face said.
“Is this a religion of peace?” I said.
The guy started to reach for me with his right hand. So I gave him the oay ubi shime. The jujitsu thumb grip. Old but reliable. I caught his thumb in the webbing of my right hand and bent it back, and down he went. He was on his knees in half a second. And screaming out.
The Rev said, “Let him go!”
“Call him off,” I said.
Instead the Rev, the man of enlightenment, the punk preacher, kicked me in the shin.
I let the big guy go and grabbed a handful of the punk’s hair. That made it easy to manipulate his head. Like riding a horse with a handful of mane.
I jerked his head down. He retaliated by hitting my knee with his nose.
Blood spurted from the holy proboscis. He dropped to the sidewalk.
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