by Ed Kurtz
“Coochie, coochie,” he belched.
“Auntie!”
Eustace barked, “Mr. Francis, you’d better stop that.”
In lieu of reply, he pressed his rummy mouth against Grace’s, pulling her tight to his enormous abdomen. The room seemed to darken around her. All she could do was fight to keep her mouth closed against the probing tongue that worked to part her lips. She didn’t know what to make of it when his tongue withdrew and his mouth went slack with a startled shout. Billy’s hands flew away from her waist and ribs, went up to the back of his neck as he twirled around, black-red blood spilling down the back of his coat.
“You bitch,” he cried, his hands slick with blood. Eustace stood crouched before him, a five-inch blade jutting from her hand. She’d slashed his neck. “For chrissakes, you crazy bitch.”
Billy swayed, moaning, and fell into a stumble toward Eustace. The older woman did not hesitate. As soon as he was within reach, she met him halfway and drove the blade deep into his prodigious belly, all the way to the handle.
“You killed me,” he croaked. “Holy Jesus, you fucking killed me.”
By then Gracie was sobbing, sunk down to the floor and hugging her knees. Eustace appeared frozen, a photograph, one hand supported on Billy’s shoulder while the other remained against his gut. When she finally let go, the wooden handle stuck out of him like a branch on a fat tree, sticky and red. He grabbed at it, howling when the blade moved inside him, and whirled toward the bed. The tiny trundle collapsed beneath his weight. He landed with a floor-shaking thud on his stomach and lay still.
Eustace trembled, her eyes fixed to where the body lay. Her lips moved rapidly, but she made no sound. Gracie wiped her eyes and, with no little effort, rose to her feet.
“Is he dead?” she whispered.
Eustace rasped, “We have to get rid of him. Hurry—you’re on stage in a couple hours, Gracie.”
Joe Sommer erupted in a peal of laughter, snapping Grace back to the present with a small intake of breath.
“Isn’t he a card?” her aunt said.
Grace agreed, quietly, that he was. Eustace patted her knee and smiled, a genuine smile as broad as it could go, that seemed to say we’re doing all right now, Gracie. Just follow my lead.
She always did.
17
Los Angeles, 2013
Two things I didn’t have were Graham’s cell phone and his wallet. The phone was in an evidence locker somewhere and the wallet was probably still in his hospital room. Neither was any use to me in my quest to find Helen. I couldn’t even remember her last name, though I knew Graham must have told me a few times. I’d met her in Boston once or twice and she hadn’t made much of an impression on me. Whenever Graham brought her up, I just tuned him out. I wished I hadn’t.
One thing I did remember was the number of his hotel room. He’d been staying in room 325, which I happened to notice because it was the same number of the Holiday Inn room I’d lost my virginity in when I was fifteen. I didn’t mention it to Graham because I knew he wouldn’t find it half as amusing as I did. But hey, it stuck.
It was a long shot, but I hoofed it to the hotel on the off chance that they’d kept his room. I wasn’t sure if the police would have notified them as to what happened yet, but I walked up to the front desk like I owned the place and said, “Hi, I’m Graham Woodard, I’m in room 325? I’m afraid I’ve misplaced my room key.”
A young woman with cornrows smiled and set to clacking her fingernails across her keyboard. After a few seconds she glanced up at me and said, “Date of birth?”
“July fifth,” I said. I couldn’t recall the year so I left it out. She screwed her mouth up to one side for a moment.
“All right, Mr. Woodard, just one moment.”
She vanished into the back for a minute, and when she came back, she handed me a credit-card-sized envelope with a key inside. A real key.
“Here you go,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ll have to charge your account ten dollars for the loss of the previous key, though.”
“My fault entirely,” I said.
The room was exactly as we’d left it on our way to Franco’s theater to watch those reels. Neither of us had been back since. I hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the knob and shut the door.
Graham’s suitcase lay open on the unmade bed, his clothes half folded and half hanging out like multicolored tongues. I saw that he’d brought a tie and sports jacket, and wondered what for. He was a casual kind of a cat; I’d never even seen him wear a tie. Just being prepared, I thought. Behind the suitcase on the side of the bed nearest the window was his laptop bag. I unzipped it, brought out the computer, and booted it up. First thing up it asked me for the login password. I tried half a dozen guesses from the title of that dumb movie he wrote to his own name, but I was denied entry every time. I shut it off and returned it to the bag, 0 for 1.
On a more desperate note, I went through the pockets of his extra pair of jeans. There was a receipt for a pack of cigarettes and two squares of nicotine gum in one and a book of matches from the hotel bar in the other. The back pockets were empty. Then I thought of the sports jacket again, and I wondered when was the last time Graham wore the thing. I got an idea about that and hoped to Christ my luck might hold up. It did.
In the inside pocket of the jacket was a single sheet of paper, folded into a small square. I unfolded it and started to read what amounted to the final decree of divorce between Graham Wallace Woodard (Wallace—I had to laugh) and Helen Morgan Bryan. I’d guessed he hadn’t worn the jacket since he celebrated the finalization of his severance from Helen, and I was right. Hell, I’d been with him that night. Go, Jake, go.
Stuffing the decree in my wallet on the off chance I managed to forget this hard-earned evidence, I picked up the room phone and had the hotel operator connect me with information. An appropriately nasal voice snapped at me to give her the name and city. I told her I wasn’t sure about the city, but I needed the number for a Helen Morgan Bryan in Los Angeles County. There were, of course, nine of them. I thanked her anyway and hung up.
1 for 3.
I whispered to myself, “Where are you, Helen?”
My mind clicked. I went back to the laptop, booted it up again, and tried a few iterations of Graham’s ex-wife’s name. “HelenMorganWoodard” ended up being the golden ticket. That sad bastard.
Now that I was online, I got to searching. I’d done my fair share of ex-stalking in my time so my Google-Fu in that regard wasn’t too shabby. It took me about ten minutes to discover that the former Mrs. Woodard had an outstanding warrant for three unpaid traffic tickets, and another five minutes to find not only her name but also her picture on a skeezy-looking site called modelwarehouse.com. Her page contained six photos, semi-professional, featuring my friend’s ex-wife in various stages of undress. She wasn’t completely nude in any of them except the last, where she was strategically covering the offending parts while looking dumbly at the camera. Behind her was a dilapidated shed with a pair of rusty rakes leaned up against the side. White-trash chic. Most of the other models seemed to use obvious stage names, but not Helen. Misplaced pride, I suspected. I wrote down the email address and phone number for the company on a sheet of hotel stationery and continued my search, hoping in vain for an address. I didn’t get one.
With my two new documents in tow, I wandered back down to the lobby and found myself back in the hotel bar, where the bartender was thankfully a stranger to me so I could charge my drinks to Graham’s room. I sipped Dewar’s and worked out a plan of attack. All I had to go on was this dubious modeling agency, so halfway through my second drink I decided it was time to go looking for a model.
18
Hollywood, 1926
She dreamed of shootings and stabbings, of white, bloated bodies and staircases flowing with rivers of blood. In between sleep and wakefulness, the occasional automobile engine or barking dog alerted her to the real world outside of her violent imaginings, which was s
omehow even worse. Out there, fearsome memories abounded, dancing perilously close to the ominous portents of her immediate future.
Of art and death, buried bodies and those left to bleed out on the street. She rose hours before dawn, a ghost, resurrected but only halfway—the better parts of her left behind, in the cold ground.
19
L.A., 2013
The guy behind the desk was jacked in the arms but with a stomach that wasn’t necessarily winning its battle against the buttons of his Oxford shirt. The sleeves were rolled up, revealing “tribal” tattoos and barbed wire armbands, the type of tats every frat guy in Boston seemed to have these days, with a greasy black faux-hawk to match. He was pounding an energy drink, his overly caffeinated eyes flitting from me to his computer screen to the framed pictures of half-naked girls that covered his office’s walls. This was Ray Warren, CEO of Model Warehouse, and I was sitting across from him in the form of a potential client.
“Tell me about your project,” he said, his voice a raspy East Coast drawl. “But listen—no sex stuff, you un’nerstand? Simulated’s fine, depending, but I don’t do porn.”
“No porn,” I assured him, playing this by ear. The cat made me a little nervous; those tree trunk arms of his could make quick work of a skinny little puke like me. “What I want is like extras, for an indie film shoot.”
Ray chortled and leaned back in his squeaky office chair.
“My girls aren’t exactly thespians,” he said. “Sure, a few of them have ambitions, but their sizzle reels are only good for the T and A quotient, you know?”
“That’s all I’d really need them for. It’s sort of a crazy party scene,” I improvised. “Eye candy, that sort of thing.”
“A movie, huh?” He mulled it over, scratching at the back of his massive neck. “What’s it called?”
“Angel of the Abyss,” I said, almost immediately regretting it.
“Sounds artsy fartsy,” Ray said.
“A little bit arsty, a little bit fartsy. I only really need one girl, to be honest. I’m looking for a type.”
“I got all types,” he boasted, going for the keyboard. “I even got an amputee, if that’s your flavor.”
“I’ve been over your website,” I said, watching the sweat gleaming on his forehead. He killed off his energy drink and I hoped to get what I needed before his heart exploded in his chest. “The one I’d really like to hire is Helen Bryan.”
Ray’s hands retracted from the keyboard and his eyebrows raised, crinkling his forehead.
“Kind of a strange first choice, ain’t she?”
“I don’t think so. She’s perfect for what I need.”
“Plain girl,” he said. “Nice bust, but not that pretty in the face. I got much better than that.”
“I appreciate the suggestion, but if she’s available, she’s the one I want.”
“She’s not,” he said quickly. “I don’t even know why she’s still on the site. I need to have her taken off. Helen isn’t really with the agency anymore. Sorry, bro.”
He shrugged and waved his hands, half-apologetically and half-this-conversation-is-done. I wondered.
“That’s a shame,” I said. “She’s really got the look I’m going for. If she’s still in town, I’d sure like to get in touch with her. It’s a paying gig, of course. I’d make it worth her while.”
“Like I said, she’s not one of mine anymore,” Ray said, forcefully. “I got models I can hire out to you, anybody else isn’t my problem. That one isn’t my problem, and I can’t help with that. Now, you want to look at another girl, we can talk turkey. Otherwise, I’d say we’re done here, wouldn’t you?”
I told him I’d think it over and check out some of the profiles on the site, and I thanked him for his time. He watched me cagily as I left the office.
* * *
I came back just after seven that evening, hoping to find the place vacant but the light was still on in Ray’s office. The sky was darkening to a dull purple and the parking lot was mostly empty. I parked behind a green Dumpster, killed the lights and engine, and listened to a classic rock station at low volume while I watched the window in the office and wished I’d bought something to snack on. It was my first stakeout and I hoped my last. It took a little over an hour for the window to go dark, at which point I switched off the radio and slid down in my seat. I felt like a perfect fool, playing at Junior Detective like I was in some movie, but what else could I do? My only lead to help Graham out was Helen, and Ray was my only way to her.
He came out of the shadows that draped the three covered spots at the other end of the lot and walked over to a late-model Taurus, apparently the ride of choice for bottom-feeder agents that preyed on would-be ingénues with stars in their eyes. I waited for another fifteen minutes after he drove away, watching the lot, the street, and the dark second-story window all at the same time. Satisfied that nobody was going to come around wanting to know what the hell I was doing, I got out of Graham’s rental and crossed over to where Ray had come out. I found the back door there, a dented steel rectangle with no handle. Exit only.
“Great,” I whispered to myself.
Of the three spots under the concrete awning, only the one closest to the door was vacant. The spot on the far right contained a late-model sedan and in the middle sat a tan Impala from around the time I was born. I took one look at the relic and decided the thing I loved most about cars from the seventies was their length—the monster was sticking out three feet, forming a perfect stairway to the top of the awning, which stopped right beside Ray Warren’s office window.
So I climbed. Maitland-Man, does whatever a Maitland can.
I was completely prepared to bash the window in, but I found it unlatched. All I had to do was push it up and sweep the blinds aside to crawl right in. I didn’t know if it was still considered a B & E if no actual B was involved, but I was counting on it. In my head I told Graham he’d damn well better appreciate the lengths I was going to here when he woke up. Maybe he could even bring me a cake with a file in it when they locked me up for this shit.
Instead of the overhead lights he had on when I was legally visiting, I switched on a little lamp on the desk for minimum illumination. I then sat down behind the desk and gave the monitor a glance when something even better caught my eye: Ray’s little black book.
“You marvelous Luddite,” I said.
If I was at all surprised by how gross his marginal notes in the book were, I was only barely surprised. There was no rhyme or reason to how the names were ordered, just pages and pages of them paired with pseudonyms, phone numbers, addresses, and emails; and every so often, a note to remind himself that he’d already bedded this one or that one. The old casting couch routine, a trick older than Hollywood itself. I cursed the scumbag and got to flipping pages, searching for Helen’s name. I was relieved when I found it and there was no corresponding note, though I don’t know why I cared. She’d already cheated on Graham twice that I knew of, so what difference would it make? I let it go and tore the page out.
And while I was folding it to stuff in my pocket, a key crunched into the lock in the door.
Shit.
I dropped into a crouch behind the desk, chiefly because I panicked and got stupid in a hurry. There was a perfectly good open window directly behind me, but it was too late to worry about it when the door opened and the ceiling lights flickered on. Through the slats on the other side of the desk I could see a pair of legs in black stockings pass by, the heels at the end of the pins click-clacking across the tiles. I wouldn’t have held it against Ray if that was his thing, but the legs were much too slender to belong to him. A tattoo of a rose encased in barbed wire peeked out through the nylon on her ankle. I watched it like it was an astronomical event and tried not to breathe.
Of course I had to suck in some air anyway, which I did as slowly and quietly as I could, and when I did, I was assaulted by the unmistakable odor of gasoline.
Double shit.
“Son of a bitch—fuck you, Ray. Fuck you and fuck your fucking office.”
I decided then and there that I didn’t much want to be burned alive, so I leapt up to my feet and made for the window. The clatter of the blinds brought the woman out of her hateful reverie and she growled, “Hold it!”
I stopped and looked over my shoulder. She had a red gas can dangling from one hand and a pistol in the other. It was pointed at me.
She was a peroxide blonde with rockabilly curls, a gleaming stud in her lip, and drawn-on eyebrows. Her lips were a deep twilight purple and there were sleeves of tattoos on both of her arms. She was beautiful, in a crazy kind of way. She was also crying.
“Who the fuck are you?” she asked.
I said, “I was just leaving.”
“Stick around,” she said. “Watch the fucking fireworks.”
She sure had a mouth on her. I held on to the blinds, let the smoggy evening air from outside wash the gas smell out of my nostrils.
“Would you mind pointing that thing somewhere else?” I asked her. “I got no beef with you and guns make me nervous.”
I wasn’t lying. I hated the damn things.
She lowered the pistol and narrowed her eyes at me, obscuring the steel gray irises.
“I’m going to burn this place to the ground,” she said matter-of-factly. “You can do whatever the hell you want.”
With that, she returned the gun to her small handbag and resumed soaking the walls and furniture with gas. I started back out the window, but paused again. We were in an office building that housed a number of other suites in addition to Ray’s. There was no telling what—or who—this lady was going to destroy with her little revenge mission. I didn’t want to get involved, not after breaking and entering to steal information in the first place, but my conscience was nagging at me. Go figure.