Hollywood Boulevard

by Janyce Stefan-Cole

  She finally snapped out of it, seemed to decide what to do. Of course I was gambling she didn't have any monthly gear lying around anymore, also that she wouldn't just let me bleed all over the closet. "Sylvia, if you don't get me some sort of sanitary aid I'll have to use your clothing. I think the white blouses and gowns would go first, and of course there's the nice white carpeting. C'mon, Sylvia!"

  She agreed. She'd be gone twenty minutes, she said. She closed me in and turned the TV on, blaring again. I waited what I thought was ten minutes, then started banging and yelling with all I had. I stopped to listen. No Sylvia running back in to stop me. And nobody else either. The only gambit I had failed. Nobody heard me pounding for my life.

  Detective Collins finished with Zaneda and Alma and headed back to see Andre. He nodded to Officers Berry and Bedford, waiting in their squad car, on his way up to the suite. A few minutes later he was talking on his cell phone out on the balcony when he saw Sylvia Vernon walk out to her car. She waved girlishly to the uniform cops. The Detective went inside and asked Carola— who had just returned with Andre from Century City— to follow her. "Just follow, Carola. Call me immediately as soon as she stops anywhere. Don't go after her. No heroics, got it?" Carola nodded. She looked nervous but game. "Good."

  He walked Carola to the stairs, then called Berry and Bedford to tell them to follow her, telling them Sylvia Vernon was their objective. "The subject's car is a light blue, two- door Toyota. Follow at a distance." He read out the license number. "Go easy, like you're on a break, not looking for anything particular."

  Carola called fifteen minutes later. Sylvia had parked in the garage, taken a ticket and gone up in the elevator to Long's Pharmacy, on Hollywood. "You were supposed to call me, not stop." the Detective said.

  "I know, but I didn't want to lose her. I'm going into the store. I'll say hello if she sees me, and I'll see what she is doing." She hung up.

  Detective Collins stepped into the hallway and called Officer Berry to tell him to stay close to the parking garage exit. " Watch for the subject. When she exits follow her, again at a distance. Got it?" He called Carola to tell her to come back to the hotel immediately.

  "I don't like this," Andre said when the Detective came back into the suite. "Carola should not be doing this."

  " Doing what?"

  "Police work!"

  The Detective didn't like it any more than Andre. He knew his captain would hang him out to dry if he found out he'd used Carola. "I don't like it either."

  "I assume you know what you are doing?"

  "Don't you have some paperwork, an actress to hire?"

  Ten minutes later Carola burst into the suite, out of breath and excited. "I sped like wild! She didn't see me. Can you believe she was buying tampons? Isn't she a little old?"

  The Detective smiled and told her she'd disobeyed orders.

  Andre put his arm around her shoulder. "That was foolish," he said, but lightly.

  "I know. I was so scared!"

  Detective Collins didn't let her know he'd told Officers Berry and Bedford to stay with Sylvia once Carola was out of the way. He did his best to confuse everyone. Officer Bedford called to say Sylvia was on her way up to the hotel. "Good," the Detective said into his phone. "Were you seen?" Officer Bedford said he didn't think so, and they'd continued straight on the avenue when she turned up to the hotel. The Detective told him they could head back to the pre cinct, where he would have been already if Sylvia hadn't sidetracked him. He hung up, looked at his watch and swore. "I have to go back to Beverly Hills. Don't talk to Ms. Vernon, either of you," he told Andre and Carola. "That's an order, Ms. Santosa. I have a hunch she may have seen something and is afraid; that's why I wanted to know where she went. It looks like that turned out to be nothing, but we don't want to spook her and lose a possible lead." He was manufacturing and thought it had to be obvious.

  Andre looked skeptical. He said he was confused. "What would the lady next door have to do with Ardennes?"

  " Quite probably nothing," Detective Collins said. "So everybody sit tight."

  Andre and Carola promised not to do anything. "We have no wish to do your police work for you, Detective." Andre said, sounding irritated.

  The Detective looked at his watch again. Rush hour had begun. He made a showy exit, hoping Sylvia Vernon would see him leave the hotel. He felt certain now she was up to no good, had maybe been paid to make Ardennes available to someone with foul intent. Even he did not think to conclude— yet— that Ardennes was being held by a seventy- year- old former stripper.

  Municipal offices were closed by the time the Detective made it back to the precinct to ask his boss to clear a search warrant affidavit. He knew the request would not go over well.

  "On what grounds?" Captain Cortez bellowed. "I gave you the actress when the talent agent's housekeeper yelled foul, a simple open and shut; you turned it complicated. I let you go ahead with this, Collins, to my eternal regret. We don't even know the woman is missing." He tugged at his sort- of- off- white, too- tight collar.

  "The husband filed a missing- persons; there's been no contact

  for three days. The car's been turned in— not by the actress. I could go on, sir." The sir sounded as sincere as a mattress salesman.

  Captain Cortez bristled. "Yeah, the man filed in Hollywood. Go ask them for a warrant. You got yourself bumped outta homicide, Collins, all by yourself. Even I thought you can't louse up the usual Beverly Hills break- ins, but look what you've gone and done. You want to be a hero, join the armed forces. Beverly Hills is one of the safest cities in the U.S.; we don't do violence here, see?" He looked at his watch. "It's late already; you wouldn't get a warrant until for tomorrow morning anyway. You're lucky I'm still here. I am not bothering any judge after hours on what you're giving me. Where you wanna look, anyhow?"

  "Lady next door."

  "You astonish me. Since you came over from downtown you been more or less a bum around here, filling your shift like I fill my shoes. Now you're all jacked up some used- ta be actress wanders off and you think the dame next door secretly has her under lock and key?"

  "Something like that."

  The captain reached for a pack of cigarettes on his desk, shook one loose, looked at the cigarette, and dropped it into the wastebasket. "I hear your uniform cop brother Roy over in Reno got himself into some hot water. Dumb must run in the family." He paused to see how the L.A. Detective Collins would respond. He didn't. "I probably shouldn't discourage you, finally doing something besides clocking in until early retirement. But this is bullshit; you're up to something more than a missing person. I can smell it."

  Detective Collins scratched the back of his neck, sniffled once, and looked at the door then at the captain.

  "I'm gonna regret this. Go the fuck ahead and search next door. I'll set up the warrant for first thing tomorrow." The Detective turned to go. "Make it neat; I don't want to hear from the hotel or Hollywood about knifed mattresses: Look under the bed and close the door carefully behind you when you find nothing. Got that?" Detective Collins was already out the door. Captain Cortez called after him, "You get two uniforms; take Berry and Bedford. I'm gonna regret this," he added to himself. "I can feel it." He fished the cigarette out of the trash basket and put it back in the pack.

  Detective Collins ran into Officer Berry in the parking lot. Berry was in his civvies, headed for home. The Detective let him know he and Bedford would be needed early next morning.

  "Back to Hollywood?" Officer Berry asked.

  "Yup." He wished the officer good- night, then stopped, called to him from his car, "What other use you think a tampon could be put to, Mike?"

  Berry grinned. "Besides the usual?"

  Officer Bedford, coming down toward his car, heard this. "My aunt used to use them to stop up mouse holes. Dipped the suckers in poison and shoved them in."

  Officer Berry asked, "It work?"

  "I don't know. My moms made her stop in case one of us kids visiting g
ot snoopy and pulled one out, got at the poison."

  "I've pulled a couple out," Officer Berry said.

  "But did you do it with your teeth?" Officer Bedford asked.

  All three policemen laughed.

  "Bright and early tomorrow, boys," Detective Collins said, getting into his car. He'd laughed with the others but felt anything but merry. In the morning it would be four days since Ardennes Thrush had gone missing.

  2

  R e l e a s e

  Sylvia returned with the tampons. She was quick about it and I'd had to shove the heavy pump I

  was using to bang on the walls under my clothing- heap bed. If she heard me making a racket she didn't let on, and I'm guessing she didn't. She tossed the box toward me and stayed where she was. I made a big show of opening the package. "You're not going to stand there and watch, are you?"

  "I'll get dinner, and then you better sleep for a while." When she left I tossed the box into the corner.

  She returned with a big bowl of stew. I didn't mention I don't eat red meat if I can help it, I was too hungry to care about the cows. I devoured the meal in big sloppy mouthfuls, including a homemade biscuit. She ate from a tray balanced on her lap, watching me eat like a greedy child. I think she enjoyed that.

  She told me to eat up and pack my stuff nice and tidy. "All of it. Any traces will be burned, so no tricks."

  "You still haven't told me where we're going, Sylvia." I was hoping she'd change her mind.

  "You'll find out soon enough."

  After I finished, I asked for more. She brought me another bowlful, a second biscuit, and a sliced, perfectly ripe juicy pear for dessert. I thought of that scene in The Godfather where De Niro, as Corleone, brings his wife a pear after he's been fired from his job, how she appreciates the fruit as if it were a piece of gold jewelry. I told Sylvia she was a first- class cook, and only one thing was missing: How about a glass of wine? She accommodated, bringing me a glass of red and one for herself. We sat like pair of doves, her on the other side of the doorway, gun in hand, me in the closet, seated cross- legged. The door was wide open. She didn't have a tight grip on the weapon, and she was drinking. It almost seemed as if she was tempting me; that we were just enjoying a glass together and maybe she was flirting. I more or less immediately nixed the idea of going for her as likely to get me shot in a tussle.

  "You're not deciding," she said as she tossed off her wine.

  "If you mean what I think you mean, I may have and I may not have already decided. I may even have decided days ago. But so what; if you're going to kill me, why bother?"

  "If you are going to die, all the more reason to know; no point to your last minutes on earth if you don't tell yourself the truth."

  "So philosophical, Sylvia; I didn't know you had it in you. I wonder, did Lucy tell the truth— in the end?" I didn't say this with any particular venom.

  "I wouldn't know," Sylvia answered.

  I wanted to keep her talking, maybe convince her to stay where we were. "Did you cook for her?"

  Sylvia was quiet a minute. "She had the tiniest waist. She looked like a ballerina. I had a jewelry box once; that stinker Uncle Jack gave me. It had a little ballerina inside, wearing a pink tutu."

  "Did it have a music box; did little ballerina spin? What happened to it?"

  "What?"

  "To the jewelry box?"

  She shook her head. "Gone, like everything else." She twisted the ring on her finger. "Lucille had long, thick shiny brown hair. I brushed it. . . . But then, see, this guy wanted to be with her. He was a rotter; anybody could see that. I tried to explain to her. She didn't want to hear it. I said he was a pimp—"

  "Was he?"

  "I just said it!" she almost shouted. She was waving the gun around, from side to side.

  I edged toward the back of the closet. "Sylvia? It's okay . . . Sylvia?"

  Her voice came out raspy, "She told me to get out, to take my sick jealousy and get out. She was drinking. . . ."

  "Are you saying—"

  "I'm not saying anything, hear!"

  At least the gun was down at her side. We sat a minute, me bound up, Sylvia on the other side of the closet door. "Sylvia?" I said almost in a whisper.

  "Push the tray to the door."

  She sounded so tired.

  She cleared away the dishes and shut me in again, slamming the door.

  When she left with the dishes I thought of hiding a credit card or some ID under the pile of clothes or in a shoe box, somewhere it could be found as proof I was kept here. I didn't do that, though, and I can't say why. I could see myself I wasn't making much sense. Maybe it was the steady dosing of Valium— or whatever it was. I could see Sylvia lived in her own solitary weather patterns, was unpredictable, but did that mean she was deadly dangerous? Just before she came back I hid the box of tampons under some clothes on a high shelf.

  She told me to pack while she watched. I pushed the packed bag and my purse to the doorway, and she dragged them out, closing the closet again. Only the chamber pot, the fl ashlight and half a roll of toilet paper were left. She hadn't said a word as I packed. I didn't like the grim set of her mouth.

  "Can you at least leave the door open, Sylvia?" I called into the dark. She'd turned the light off when she locked the door. I was panicked again because I was going to be taken from the hotel, and that meant I might never be found; the darkness only accelerated my fears. I thought, if I do die, at least I held Detective Devin Collins inside me. The act may have been meaningless, but I'd rather die as a woman who'd known a man before her end, as if that carnal fact would make me less dead. "Sylvia!" I yelled. I pictured her driving me into the mountains or out to the desert, being left to die, vultures circling like in an old Western. I pounded on the door.

  " Knock it off !"

  I continued to pound until she relented. That was better, and with the light on I saw she'd missed Fits's copy of Franny and Zooey. I'd missed it too, half hidden under the pile of clothes. Should I leave it or take it to my next prison? If there was going to be a next prison. Fits's daughter had penned her name inside the jacket in girlish pink ink: "This book belongs to missy fitzgerald." Fits once told me her real name was Littlemiss Fitzgerald, and it was legal. She'd been a C- section preemie, and her mom was out of it when he had the birth certificate filled in. She was too tiny for a name, he said. I decided I'd better keep the book with me.

  "Sylvia? What's going on?" I heard light scraping sounds on the closet door. "Mucho?" No, the sound was too high up. Then I heard something metallic drop to the carpeted fl oor. Only later, when she let me out, did I see that Sylvia had unscrewed the chain from the door. She'd applied quick- drying filler and a layer of white paint, an attempt to hide the evidence.

  I lay pressed up against the door, Missy's book next to me. I'd fall into an uneasy sleep, start awake, and drift back again. As usual it was impossible to tell the time. There was no noise outside the closet door. Sylvia must be asleep. I looked around my cell. I'd be leaving . . . so what? Let's not go dripping sentimental. For the moment I wasn't afraid, but something was chewing at me and finally made it to the top of my head: How come Sylvia never came in here to get her clothing or shoes?

  In the bedroom was the bureau with Sylvia's blown up photo in pasties and G- string, I think a night table, and some sort of armoire, white and cheap like an IKEA low- end item. What else? Wait a minute! That IKEA piece must be for her clothes. I jumped up. The shoe I'd used to bang on the wall was an old- fashioned pump. I opened several shoe boxes: all old- fashioned. I sucked in my breath when I found a pair of small ballet slippers, scuffed white satin with long ribbons and hard toes, a girl's size; Lucy's? I studied the dresses more closely: all old. A wool coat with a fur collar in a style Judy Garland might have worn in one of her ingenue roles. There were waist shirts and filmy, fl ared dresses and cocktail gowns in '50s glamour style. They had to be Lucille's. Saved since she died? Jeepers creepers, I'm stuck in a clothing tomb. The things on t
he fl oor were newer and smaller. I think they were Sylvia's. Here I was, an actress stuffed into a dead B actress's closet. There must be some symbolism there.

  Poor, doomed Lucy. Was I next? I fl opped down again by the door, staring at nothing. I wondered if Lucy's dresses would fit me, but I think I'm a little taller than she was. I decided I'd better snap out of it. I'd better jump Sylvia when she came to get me. This time I meant it. She deserved to die for shoving me into her private mausoleum. She'd slip up and I'd overpower her. Okay, she didn't deserve to die, but she was going to get a fight. I tried to stay alert, to be ready, but it wasn't much use. How could I stay awake shut in a closet sedated with who knew what? Reading would only put me to sleep faster; thinking was no help. I decided to spend the night leaning up against the door, to be ready when she came to get me.