The Prince of Venice Beach

by Nelson, Blake

  After an hour of getting humiliated on the basketball court, I went over to the outdoor showers to wash off. In general, I tried to take care of my personal hygiene before I went back to Hope’s house, since she only had one bathroom and there were often other people staying there too, women passing through, people protesting something, or once this lady who had, like, thirteen cats and was living in her car in the driveway. I wasn’t the only person Hope helped out.

  So I waited my turn and got under the outdoor shower, with my shorts and my T-shirt still on. I found some soap someone had left, which I used to clean my shirt. Then I rubbed it around inside my pants. The tourists stared at me like they do, but that’s the fun of living at the beach. You’ve always got an audience. There’s was always some dude from Denmark or some lady from Canada taking your picture and saying to her husband, “Look how the beach people live!” Sometimes they want to talk to you and hear what goes on. “Do you really not go to school?” this girl asked me once. She was from Portugal. I walked her out to the pier to watch the fishermen. She said it reminded her of home. I was like, what? She said Portugal was right on the ocean, it was just like California. I was pretty sure Portugal was closer to Russia. But I didn’t know for sure. That was another example of ways I needed to educate myself. In my mind I started a list:

  Learn about classical music.

  Read great works of literature.

  Memorize where the major countries are.

  Learn about guns.

  On Tuesday, I woke up and I immediately started worrying about Ailis and Battle for Santa Cruz. Under no circumstances could I let this become a date. I had to make sure the “just friends” part was absolutely clear. I rehearsed a little speech I would give her. How it was great that we were going to the movies and that it was nice to have a friend who was a girl, but who was not a “girlfriend,” because there was a big difference.

  After breakfast though, I forgot about Ailis and started thinking about my private-investigator business again. I skateboarded to the Venice library and asked the guy who worked there if they had any books on starting a business. He asked what kind of business, and I said “private investigator” and he looked at me like that was the dumbest thing he’d heard in his life. But he helped me anyway. We found a book that had a couple good tips in it. Like get a separate bank account. And get business cards. But that didn’t really explain about being a private investigator. Then he found me a book by a guy who was a bodyguard and personal trainer to the stars. But I would never do that. I was more about finding people. Maybe that would be my catchphrase:

  ROBERT CALLAHAN

  PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

  “I FIND PEOPLE.”

  So then I had to get a library card, so I could check out Starting a Small Business. But I couldn’t, because I had no proof that I lived at Hope’s. Plus I had no personal ID. I pretended I’d left my wallet at home. The guy could tell I was lying, but then he said “whatever” and made me a card anyway.

  On my way out, I saw a rack of classical-music CDs and stopped to look at that.. But I didn’t really think the classical-music thing was going to work for me. Then, on a different rack of CDs, I saw Mötley Crüe’s Shout at the Devil, which I hadn’t heard since sixth grade. Talk about classical music! So I grabbed that. I wandered around some more and found a whole section of books about aliens and UFOs, which I stayed to look at. So I ended up at the library pretty much all morning.

  When I got home, I still had three hours until Battle For Santa Cruz. Since Hope wasn’t home, I washed some of my clothes in her washing machine. Not that it was a real date, but somehow I felt like that was the right thing to do. Clean myself up. Act normal. So Ailis wouldn’t feel like the only guy who would hang out with her was a dirty street kid.

  So then I had clean clothes and I took a shower and even washed my hair and tried to brush it a little bit with one of Hope’s brushes. I found a new zit in the mirror and popped it, which turned out to be the wrong call. These British girls I met once told me that in England they call them “spots,” and that’s pretty much what this one turned into.

  When it was time, I skateboarded down the boardwalk toward Santa Monica and the Nuart Theatre. I cruised along, watching the sky turn purple and the ocean become smooth and the tourists take pictures of the setting sun. People never get tired of taking that picture: the sun disappearing into the ocean, the end of the day, the end of their vacation… and then back on the plane to Ohio or Wisconsin or wherever they came from, someplace where they don’t have seagulls or palm trees or the sounds of waves crashing in their dreams at night.

  FIVE

  There was a pretty good crowd at the Nuart, since everyone with half a brain loves a good alien-invasion movie. I kicked up my board and found Ailis waiting in line for tickets. As I walked up, though, I saw two other people I recognized. Right in front of Ailis were the guys who beat the crap out of Chad Mitchell. One of them was wearing Chad’s gold watch.

  That bugged me.

  But I didn’t let it affect my non-date with Ailis. “Hey,” I said to her.

  “Hey,” she said, smiling brightly. She was dressed nice, hair clean, cute T-shirt. She even smelled good. Which was bad because it meant she thought this was a date.

  I checked the two guys in front of us. They were cleaned up too: new Nikes, new jeans, probably all of it freshly stolen. Up close, they looked older, in their mid-twenties, probably. They were tall and lanky and had a certain menacing look about them. But they also looked smart and kind of devious, and like they didn’t miss much of what happened around them. They looked evil, I guess, is the best way to put it. The words Evil Twins came into my mind, though they didn’t really look alike or appear to be related.

  I turned back toward Ailis. She had her big plastic glasses on. “So what’s up?” I said. “What did you do today?”

  “I go to school, remember?” she answered.

  “Of course I remember. What did you do at school?”

  She pushed her glasses up her nose. “Well, actually, we had a pretty interesting discussion today in psychology class. About narcissism and how some people are so self-absorbed it affects their entire view of the world.”

  The Evil Twins, hearing a female voice, turned toward Ailis. “Narcissism?” said the closer one. He had dyed-blond hair. “I’ve heard of that.”

  Ailis accepted them into our conversation without thinking. “Lots of people have heard of it. But they don’t know what it means. It’s not just about looking at yourself in the mirror.”

  “Which I, personally, never do,” said the blond Evil Twin, joking around.

  “He’s lying,” said the darker-haired twin. “That’s all he does.”

  “A real narcissist,” continued Ailis, “in psychological terms, is a person who can’t relate to other people, except as an audience.”

  “Wow, you’re good,” the blond twin said. “Where’d you learn that?”

  “Santa Monica Community College,” said Ailis proudly

  “A college girl,” said the dark-haired twin in a flirty way. “I thought you looked smart.”

  “Smart and cute,” said the blond twin.

  “Maybe lose the glasses,” said the dark-haired twin.

  “I kinda like the glasses,” said the blond twin.

  They both laughed. Ailis even laughed. She was charmed. I couldn’t believe it. These criminals, these thugs, were charming Ailis.

  I couldn’t allow this. When the line moved forward, I grabbed Ailis’s elbow and pointed her toward a poster on the wall beside us.

  “Look,” I said. “I’ve been waiting for that movie.”

  Unfortunately, the poster was for a movie I’d never heard of called Love Cats.

  “You have?” said Ailis, staring at me strangely. “Why? It’s about a woman and her cats.”

  I noticed the Evil Twins had turned back around. Mission accomplished.

  “Perfect,” I said. “I like women. And I like cats.”r />
  “But it’s a romantic comedy.”

  “I like romantic comedies,” I said.

  “I don’t believe you,” said Ailis. “Tell me one romantic comedy you’ve seen. Ever. In your life.”

  “I haven’t seen that many. But I’m going to start. I need to learn how women think.”

  “Oh really? And why do you need to do that?”

  “Because,” I said. “I’m thinking of starting a business.”

  “What sort of business?”

  I didn’t want to say. Ailis would probably just laugh. And the Evil Twins were still in hearing distance.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” I said.

  We got inside the theater and I steered us far away from the twins. We found seats.

  “By the way, I made you a classical CD,” Ailis told me. “It’s got parts from the most famous symphonies. And I wrote down the names and composers.”

  “I think I gave up on that,” I said, slouching back. “I got a Mötley Crüe CD instead.”

  “Well, I already finished making it. You can listen to it if you want.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

  The movie finally started. Thank God. It was about alien spaceships that come to Earth and start blasting away. There’d been a lot of movies like that lately. Personally, this is one of my favorite themes in movies. Aliens attacking. Humans fighting back. I mean, it may not be War and Peace, but it’s still a classic story, in its own way.

  After the movie, the Evil Twins were standing against the wall outside the theater. I glanced over at them as we left. I couldn’t help myself. The dark-haired twin was still wearing Chad Mitchell’s thick gold watch.

  They caught me watching them. “Hey,” the blond twin said.

  I averted my eyes and kept walking. I tried to speed Ailis along.

  “Hey!” he said again, more loudly. Ailis, unfortunately, stopped and turned toward them.

  “What?” she said.

  The blond twin smiled at Ailis. “I was wondering if you want to hang out sometime. Maybe talk some psychology…”

  Ailis wasn’t sure how to respond.

  “That your boyfriend?” said the other twin.

  “No,” she said. “I mean, we’re just—”

  “Yes,” I said, gently tugging her away. “I’m her boyfriend.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” said the blond twin quickly. He took a few steps toward us.

  Confused, Ailis turned to me.

  “C’mon, let’s go,” I whispered to her.

  “What’s the rush?” said the blond twin, coming closer still. “Maybe we need to figure out who the girl wants to be with. Doesn’t appear to be you, dude.”

  I pulled hard on Ailis’s arm. This time she came with me.

  The twins watched us go.

  “That’s right, run away!” said the dark-haired twin.

  “Dorks in love!” shouted the blond twin as we escaped down the street.

  Ailis and I ended up eating fish tacos at a food truck. We sat on the curb in the parking lot and tried not to get fish juice on our clean clothes.

  Ailis didn’t say anything, and I began to worry about what was said, back at the movie theater.

  “Uh,” I said. “You know back there… with those guys… when I said I was your…”

  “I know you’re not my boyfriend,” she said. “Duh.”

  Then I felt worse.

  “I mean, it’s not that I couldn’t be your boyfriend. It’s just that…”

  “I know,” said Ailis. “You were just trying to protect me.”

  “Right. Exactly.”

  “Are you really bored right now?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Are you having at least a little bit of fun?”

  “Yes, of course,” I said.

  “Then why are you so worried?”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “You seem very worried that I might like you.”

  “I don’t think that,” I said, which was not quite true.

  “We can just be friends, you know,” said Ailis. “We don’t even have to decide what we are, if we don’t want to.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” I said, holding my fish taco. “But you’re a better talker than I am.”

  “I’m not a better talker. I just know what I’m trying to say.”

  After that, Ailis and I drove around in her mother’s car. We listened to the radio. We talked about the movie more, which was a much easier topic of conversation. We talked about invading alien armies and what sort of resources they might need from our planet. Maybe they would need something simple and obvious, like water or oil. Or maybe they needed something you wouldn’t think of, like Styrofoam.

  It actually turned into a pretty fun night. When Ailis pulled up at Hope’s house, I didn’t want to get out. I tried to think of somewhere else we could go, so we could drive around some more.

  She saw me hesitating. “Now what’s that matter?” said Ailis.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  She stared at me. “I’m not that nerdy, you know,” she said. “I’m pretty normal if you get to know me.”

  “I never said you were nerdy,” I said.

  “You act like it.”

  “I don’t mean to,” I said.

  “Thanks for going to the movies.”

  “Sure. Anytime,” I said. I got out of the car.

  And then I did something I was totally not planning to do. I turned back toward her. “You wanna go see that Love Cats movie?” I said.

  She looked at me. “Do you?”

  “Yeah,” I heard myself say.

  “I don’t know if I have time,” she said. “But maybe.”

  I unlocked Hope’s front door and went inside. I crept through the living room, trying not to wake up the six animal-rights activists who had come from San Francisco for a big demonstration. One very large woman was snoring loudly on the couch. I let myself out the back door.

  In the backyard, the Christmas lights were still on, so I unplugged them, and the backyard went dark and quiet. I liked that, the sudden absence of everything. And then eventually, once your eyes adjusted, you could see the stars.

  I climbed into my tree house and got into my sleeping bag and lay there thinking about my private-investigator business. What would it be like? Where would my office be? What kind of car would I drive? It seemed like a pickup truck would be good. That way you could move stuff around and be a laid-back, workingman’s private investigator. Or maybe glamour was the thing. Maybe you needed a Porsche or a Mercedes to impress people. Like if you had to pull up at a casino and adjust your tuxedo or whatever. You couldn’t do that in a pickup.

  Then I thought about getting off work some night and locking up my private-investigator office and driving home. I’d pull up into my driveway and open my front door and say, “Honey, I’m home!” My wife would come out of the kitchen and kiss me on the cheek, and I’d ask her what was for dinner.

  That was weird, though. Because as I lay there and pictured this, I saw who that woman was. Who my brain had randomly picked out as my someday-in-the-future wife.

  It was Ailis.

  SIX

  A couple days later, another unusual-looking man showed up at the basketball courts. I got an instant feeling about this guy. He was wearing a red track jacket, not like the coat and tie Bruce Edwards had worn. This guy looked like an ex-jock, tanned and leathery.

  He stood around and watched our game. When it was over, I sat on the bleachers. He waited until the next game started and made his way over. “You Cali?” he asked.

  “Yup,” I said, drinking from a water bottle.

  “My name is Buckalter,” he said. He had a gruff, throaty voice.

  “Okay,” I said.

  He put one foot up on the bottom row of the bleachers. He crossed his arms over his knee. “I need some help,” he said. “I need to find someone.”

  I took a long drink of my water.
I glanced at his face for a minute. Though he looked like a serious person, he also seemed low-key. Like this situation was nothing. It was just a small thing he had to take care of, while he dealt with bigger things.

  “Who sent you?” I asked.

  “A friend of Bruce Edwards.”

  “Okay.”

  “The man I’m looking for. His name is Mugs. He hangs around down here. You know him?”

  “Not personally,” I said. I’d never spoken to Mugs, but I knew who he was. Everyone did. He was a local bum, a real “character.” I hadn’t seen him around in a while.

  “You think you could look around for me?”

  “Sure,” I said casually.

  “Here’s some info on him,” said Buckalter, handing me a large manila envelope. “And a little advance money.”

  I laid the envelope down without opening it.

  “There’s a cell phone in there. Prepaid. My number’s in it. Give me a call if you come up with anything.”

  I nodded.

  “I hear you’re a smart kid,” said Buckalter, standing up straight again. For some reason, this rubbed me the wrong way. There was no need for the extra flattery. Extra flattery put you in a funny position.

  Buckalter watched Diego miss a shot.

  “Why are you looking for him?” I said.

  “Don’t know,” he said. “But a guy like that”—he nodded toward the envelope—“could be anything… family… long-lost relatives… Maybe he inherited some money.”

  “It might help if I knew which it was,” I said.

  Buckalter frowned. “You’re looking for him because I’m looking for him,” he said, watching the basketball game. “And I’m looking for him because I’m getting paid. Is that gonna be a problem?”

  Our eyes met for a moment. “No,” I said, thinking that was the professional thing to say.