And he’d hated all of those foods. But now, Christ.
He looked at the carton. Resource 2.0 Medical Food Complete Liquid Nutrition Vanilla 27-Pack. He sucked a mouthful through a fat straw. He wanted to scream, but screaming vibrated his teeth and that was—it was unspeakable.
How would he direct? Well, quietly. All those crew assholes would love it. Mimicking him behind his back.
He crushed up a pain pill with the end of a table knife into a spoon. It had to be very finely ground. Then he filled the spoon with vanilla shit and sucked the mixture out of the spoon.
Something was wrong. He was forgetting something. At the periphery of his mind. Then he remembered.
The gun.
Where was it?
In fact, he didn’t remember much about the previous evening at all. Drinking with the celebrants, talking to Melvin the Pimp about the raspy-voiced, Wells-Fargo bimbo.
He looked out the kitchen window, down at the million lights of the San Fernando Valley. Seven million half-wits. Waiting for the right TV show. So they wouldn’t have to think.
The gun. He barely remembered getting to the woman’s apartment. High up. The woman disappointed him. How many times had he forgotten an actress is only as smart as her lines? She was as dumb as a geranium. Or was it a perineum? Wanted to talk about motion pictures. Thought he might hire her for Gumshoe. Fat chance.
His memories after that point . . . were gone. But no golden glint from the gun.
Then it had to be here, at the house.
He started in the living room. The drawers in his desk. Nothing. The drawers in the various built-ins. Nothing. On the Steinway. Nothing. In the Steinway. Nothing. He visualized it again. Lying in that velvet case. Where had he put it? With the separate silencer attachment.
Then he knew where it was. He remembered it—at the bar at the Grill. He remembered its weight of the case as he waited for the valet to bring the Bentley around. He’d put it in the trunk. It was in the trunk.
He rushed out, through the kitchen, to the garage.
The Bentley was not there.
• • •
Nazarian’s assistant, Marco Calvi, answered on the third ring. “What can I do for you, Mr. Nazarian?”
Marco was Nazarian’s fifth personal assistant in the last two years. Marco had known that going in. Nazarian was a total asshole, and cheap, to boot. But work was work.
“I need you to track down the Bentley. I may have left it Hollywood last night.”
Marco located the Azure in the impound yard on Fuller. $212.70. Wait a minute. There was a large dent in the driver’s door. Mr. Nazarian wasn’t going to like that. What to do? Fuck it. He drove his heel hard into the rear door. Twins. Perfect.
• • •
Nazarian heard Marco drive in an hour and a half later. Occupationally, Marco wasn’t going to last all that long. Next time he would hire a gay man. A gay man could do flowers, food, funerals, and could purchase stylish clothes when needed.
Marco approached Nazarian with trouble across his face.
“What?” Talking through your teeth required lots of lip action.
“Your car, Mr. Nazarian.”
“What about it?” The boss was talking funny.
“Two dents. Driver’s door and rear door.”
Nazarian examined the damage. Some do-nothing, have-nothing jealous toilet serpent had kicked in the panels. But he was too tired to explode. He’d peel someone’s skin later. He looked at Marco. “You can go.”
Marco walked back down the driveway, to Mulholland, called a cab for himself. Not even the offer of a ride. Asshole’s mouth was wired shut. Too bad.
• • •
Nazarian drove the Bentley into its customary place in the garage, then pulled the little handle that opened the trunk. This would be the perfect time for the cable to break. It didn’t.
He raised the lid, peered in. Some legal accordion folders, some shitty scripts he’d promised to read but wouldn’t, golf clubs, a leather coat. Under the coat? Yes!
He grabbed the box, relief flowing through him, cool water.
Back in the kitchen he laid it on the table. The box was a beautiful mahogany. Classy. Hogue always got the best. Pimp Melvin. Shying away when he’d pointed it at him.
He carefully pushed the two brass hooks out of the eyes, snapped open the clasp.
He opened the box.
It was empty.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Rhonda Redux
Melvin didn’t recognize the Filipina at the reception desk. He’d been here before, but it had been a while, with . . . Tricia. Tricia Hornsby. Fell off the roof of her garage. Drunk. After a visit from Hogue. Where did they ship her? Idaho. Idaho, somewhere.
“Can I help you?”
Boy Wonder. “I’m Dr. Franchetti. Dr. Wolf sent me. To look in on Rhonda Carling?”
Josie Liman checked her list. There it was. Carling. “Room 156, doctor, to your right, toward the end.”
“Thank you, miss,” said Boy Wonder.
He passed twenty rooms of misery as he approached the end of the hall. There was no good way to die, but fast was better than slow.
He entered 156 quietly. Rhonda was the only occupant. He looked down on her. Christ. Nazarian had really done a job. She looked like meat. Grotesque, swollen. Yellow, black, and green. Deneuve was gone.
“Rhonda. It’s Melvin.”
The unrecognizable creature opened one eye. A lurid red one. “I knew you’d show up.”
“Well, here I am.”
“Did she tell you?”
“Did who tell me what?”
“You assholes.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Rhonda.”
“Of course, you don’t.”
What had he expected? A tick of anger tightened his gut. Anger at Rhonda, at Nazarian, at Devi, at Mystery Man. At Hogue.
“Look. I’m sorry all this went down.”
“He’s hurt people before.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Liar.”
“I didn’t do this to you.”
“Fuck you. Did she tell you my number?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Rhonda. I’m trying to help you.”
“I want a million dollars.”
“A million dollars.”
“That’s right. That’s what I told her.”
“Told who?”
“Told Devi.”
“Devi was here?”
“Like you don’t know.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Liar.”
“When was she here?”
“Fuck you, Melvin. Devi doesn’t talk to Little Melvin? On her knees? I did.”
“I’m not here to talk about Little Melvin.”
“I want a million fucking dollars. Look at my face. Look! It’s ruined. Ruined!”
“You’ll get better. I’ll take care of everything.”
“Fuck that. I want the money. Or I go to the police, to the L.A. Times, to CNN, to everybody. I go every-fucking-where people will listen to me. ’Cause I got a really good story to tell.”
Now there was an iron band around his gut and he felt his face tightening and hurting. He tried to breathe deeply. That hurt, too. He walked toward the door.
“You leaving, asshole?”
“No.” He shut the door. “I don’t want the world sharing our business.”
“I do. Unless I get what I want.”
“Let’s discuss what you really want.”
“I told you what I really want. I want a million fucking dollars. Howard’s got it. You get it for me. Or I bring the house down.”
The iron band grew cold. “You’ll bring the house down.”
“That’s right, Melvin. The whole evil fucking house. Down.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? Okay, what?”
“Okay, Rhonda. I get it.”
“Look at my face, Melvin.”
&nbs
p; Melvin nodded. “I see it.”
• • •
He looked around.
“What are you looking for, Melvin?”
“I’m looking for my camera.”
“Camera? You’re going to take pictures?”
“So everything will be documented.” On the other bed was the camera. It looked just like a pillow. He walked over, picked it up, came back. “You know”—he paused—“you may be right, Rhonda.”
“Right about what?”
He looked down at her. “That there’s no fixing that face of yours.”
“What?”
“Say cheese.” He brought the pillow over the railing and down on Rhonda’s face.
She struggled. He pressed hard, with both hands. The planes of her face visible through the pillow. The forehead. The nose. The chin. Then, after a while, she stopped moving. He pushed down harder, counted to twenty. He needn’t’ve. The struggle was over, the spirit loosed.
He looked down at her face. Out of her misery, dead as Elvis Presley. Long live the king.
All in all, it had been a quiet way to go. He removed the slipcase from the pillow, tossed the pillow back on to the other bed. He felt calm, yet energized. He could feel his heart beating in his chest. In his own face, he felt no pain. He had not come to dispatch Rhonda, but like a good golfer, faced with an unpromising lie, he had relied on instinct and boldness. So, he had carried the day.
He looked around the room. He had brought nothing, he would leave with nothing. Except the pillowcase. He folded it five times. Now it would slip into his pocket.
An odd factoid filtered into his mind. Any plane of real matter could only be folded seven times. Hmmm. Sounded like bullshit. He opened the door with the pillowcase. Wiped the exterior handle with it.
No one was in the hall. The fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered, reflected off the linoleum. A TV laugh track was audible down the hall, toward the front desk.
But he would not go out the way he had come in. There had to be an emergency door.
At his end of the hall, thirty feet away, a perpendicular corridor went left. He turned the corner. The emergency door was twenty feet away. Right next to the fire alarm. Perfect. He pulled the fire alarm on the way by.
The red bell clamored its ear-grinding rhythmic cacophony, and then, after a charging, low roar, the sprinklers gave forth in a sibilant rush.
Melvin pushed the bar on the exit door and stepped into the night.
• • •
Except he had done none of those things. But, looking into her stupid, swollen face, the face of a woman who could ruin him, ruin him, Melvin had found himself calmly capable of killing. He was amazed at how clearly he could see himself putting her out of her misery.
In the abstract, sitting at your grade-school desk, killing seemed utterly impossible, an inconceivable set of circumstances. But now it was a tool that lay on the table, casual, askance, available. Necessary?
How many lines had he crossed such that this line meant so little? That was the thing about crossing lines. Seldom were there real consequences. Usually a negligible expense of energy; lifting the metaphysical foot and crossing over. But the crossing invited the next transit.
It was him. It was that simple. His success was her failure. Her success was his ruin.
That’s what made a good screenplay. The opposition of ideas.
So he had agreed with her. Yes, Rhonda, you’ll get your million dollars. Yes, I see your point of view. Absolutely justified. Relax, Rhonda. Heal, Rhonda. Be back tomorrow,
Rhonda, with concrete steps toward your goal.
• • •
The Beemer started right up. An automobile he couldn’t afford if his circumstances changed and his life fell to pieces. If Hogue got wind. He had never considered his life fragile. But it was.
All life was fragile. Everything depended on a million hidden factors, most of which never came into play. It was all a house of cards. In a game that everyone bought into, fought viciously to win. And then you croaked anyway.
He should call the fucking Nazi doctor. But a wave of fatigue and pain rolled over him, pushed him into his seat. He desperately needed sleep. Had he just contemplated murder? He wasn’t thinking straight.
Sleep.
He’d call Mengele tomorrow.
TWENTY-NINE
Meet Me in St. Louis
Meet Me in St. Louis. That would be it. Best of the best. Musicals. The highest and most sublime expression of American culture. Wolf had studied. He saw and appreciated the unbroken line from Greek plays to Italian opera to West Side Story. Tonight he would again savor Esther’s dilemma.
What a day it had been. You never knew when a gift, a celestial gift, was sailing down the line. He had digested his day slowly and now smiled at his prospects. Life was a game of applied pressures. He now had Melvin Shea and Eli Nazarian directly under his thumb. The facts had sorted themselves out.
Melvin had trafficked one of Hogue’s girls, and Nazarian, that wildly indulged psychopath, had beaten the crap out of her. The golden gun had proved his presence at her apartment. And where he put that gun!
Guilt, seeking silence, equaled money. Simple, sound, historical. His concerns were now mathematical. How much should each man pay for his silence? A lump sum, or money over time? Didn’t matter. Acquiescence to his request was the thing. And regardless of term, knowledge never died. Did it?
Bring on Judy Garland. Wait. Maybe he would go modern. Moulin Rouge with Nicole Kidman. Or Chicago. Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Nicole. Yes. Sweet Nicole.
THIRTY
A Call from On High
Razor in hand, I contemplated my imperfect face.
My life as a shortcut man had not been a considered career choice. One thing had lead to another, to another, to another. What I had was momentum. But I’d put nothing away for a rainy day. Sometimes I was flush, sometimes I ran on empty.
But what does any man do? You go on, day by day, playing your version of the game, until the day comes that you can’t. I’d realized a few things. When my number came up, like it certainly would, I wanted to go quick rather than slow.
As long as I could enjoy a sunny day, under my own steam, I’d call that living. I could be that old screw, sitting on the bench in park, watching the delinquents. But I knew, as I reached the end of the line, my beliefs might change. What was unthinkable today might be palatable tomorrow. Would I persevere as I carried around an oxygen cylinder? Dialysis three times a week? Would I be so scared of dying I would tolerate a colostomy bag hanging out of my side?
My greatest fear was Alzheimer’s. I’d seen Georgette’s aunt Nan. She terrified me, horrified me. If I received such a diagnosis, what would I do?
At some point previous to the diagnosis you’d know something was wrong. How would it feel to forget? Or would the capacity to realize your incapacity recede before and with the disease? Once the disease had real substance did you know you were ill? Was it too late to commit suicide? While you still had the means of free will in your grasp?
I had no religious convictions on the subject. If my life was my own, if free will was the essence of soul, my choice to die could be no sin. No god, if there was one, could judge me. In fact, God might commend me. Certainly, if I had created the human race, I could take no joy in ordered sycophancy.
I looked in the mirror, continued shaving.
The temptation to trade the golden gun had resurfaced. And there was a beautiful stranger in my bed. I wanted to go someplace I’d never been before. Amsterdam, maybe.
The phone rang. “Hello?”
“Hi. Is this Mr. Henry?”
“Maybe. Can I help you?”
“This is Helena Richards . . .” The smooth contralto paused. “From Howard Hogue’s office. Is this Dick Henry?”
• • •
“What did you say that was, again?” asked Estella. Tavo, sweating profusely, stood just inside the door with a big tree in a very yellow p
ot.
Tavo extended his hand toward the tree. It had kind of a randy odor that he hadn’t noticed when it had been parked out with the Dumpsters. Too late now. He should’ve just bought some ten-minute carnations from Rite Aid. They lasted for ten minutes after purchase and didn’t weigh eighty pounds. “This is a special tree,” Tavo lied. “It’s an El Dorado ficus. I thought you deserved this.”
“Why do I deserve this?” inquired Estella. Her nose twitched. “To honor your beauty,” returned Tavo, smoothly, “today, and everyday.”
Some smells were so good they turned the corner and were bad, thought Estella. And vice versa. But Poky seemed excited.
Poky was her Chihuahua.
THIRTY-ONE
Acquisition Error
Huntington Derian got in early next morning to see Hogue. Though he was familiar with many aspects of Hogue’s life, the man was still, fundamentally, a mystery to him. If you had a billion dollars in your checking account, what would you do?
Because you didn’t have to do anything. With mortal concerns reduced to the abstract, might you be pushed closer to the realm of spirit? What was the point of the ultimate game?
He read a book by somebody. The Significance of Putty. In that book, an angel had explained the purpose of all sentient, self-aware life: to take part eventually in the formation of a multidimensional tapestry of soul that would warm the feet of God.
To warm the feet of God. Well, that was one answer.
“Have a seat, Hunt,” said Hogue. “What do you have for me?”
“I met with Chuck Hames yesterday. He got the surveillance tapes from Dunkin’ Donuts.”
“Hames is a good man.”
“Yes, he is.”
“People of interest?”
“I think so. What I’m thinking is that we have a case of kidnapping on our hands.”
“Kidnapping? Interesting.”
“There are two forms. Transportation and asportation.”
“What’s asportation?”
“Holding someone where you find them.”
“I see. So this isn’t that.”
“No, it’s not. But they were held. Somewhere.”
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