Angel’s Gate

by p. g. sturges

  “I want to know.”

  “Hale. It’s none of your business. Take me at my word and leave it at that. I’m sending someone over right now to pick that thing up. We’re being blackmailed, Hale. Let me rephrase that. I’m being blackmailed—through you. Someone sent that to you knowing you’d make the phone call you just made.”

  Hogue wiped his forehead. He needed to think.

  “Straighten up and fly right. It sounds like someone kicked you in the cunt.” Jesus Christ. “But you don’t have a cunt. This is just hardball. Get your cup on and stand tall. I’m sending someone over there right now.”

  Montgomery looked at his phone. Hogue had clicked off. He tossed the phone on the bed. Where, that afternoon, Hilary Bangwell, porn star, was to pay a discreet visit. He felt his cock.

  Flaccid, shrunken, without confidence, tired, old, useless. Every single man on Earth eventually had his last screw. Unknowingly, of course. Montgomery looked at the old man in the mirror.

  • • •

  At the kitchen table, Nessie was reading Essence magazine. For some reason, the editors had assumed she’d be interested in an article about Rihanna and her vacant thug. The horror! The bite marks! The repercussions!

  What did fascinate her was the blank unawareness of the participants. Did they not realize stardom was perishable? A beautiful fruit that eventually sank into rot?

  So don’t fuck up, children, what won’t be yours long anyway. Shit. These people weren’t stars. They were pimples.

  Whitney. Poor Whitney. Now, honey, Whitney was a star. Nessie heard laughter from upstairs. It sounded wrong. She shut her magazine. The laughter went on and on.

  And on.

  FIFTY-TWO

  An Olfactory Event

  Henderson and Son was not a criminal enterprise but they had taken a particularly hard edge on a certain business matter. The Hendersons were in retail jewelry and had agreed to reproduce, in gold, a family ring with crest and motto for a thousand dollars. To be given her son on his eighteenth birthday, my client had also provided to the Hendersons her late husband’s ring to be used as a model. Summoned to the establishment with the good news that her item was complete, she arrived to the less good news that the ring’s cost had risen to $1,817.69.

  But that’s not what you said.

  I’m sorry, we underestimated our costs.

  But you guaranteed it.

  I’m sorry, ma’am. Our costs went up.

  I want the ring at the price you promised me.

  I’m sorry, ma’am.

  I want my husband’s ring.

  I’m sorry, ma’am, we’ll be holding that against our costs.

  You’re holding my ring hostage?

  That’s not how we see it, ma’am.

  At this point Annie Black called me, the Shortcut Man. I’d known Annie a long time, she’d been a friend of Georgette’s. I could feel her embarrassment over the phone.

  “I can’t pay eighteen hundred dollars for that thing. I don’t have that kind of money. A thousand was stretching it. But I wanted to give it to Carl. Remind him who he is.”

  Now I remembered. She’d been having a little trouble with Carl. Nothing too serious, yet.

  Henderson and Son occupied a choice location on the first floor of the Westside Pavilion. Their display cases were a feast of scintillating eye candy. I called them from across the concourse, explained my concern. They remained intransigent in the face of logic and goodwill.

  Fine. I inquired about the half-yearly sales extravaganza I had seen advertised in their window. This they were happy and gratified to explain. It was Saturday coming. From ten till closing. Please stop in for some real bargains. Bargains they wouldn’t even pass on to their mothers. But to me? Come on down! In conclusion, they were sorry they could do nothing for Miss Black. Costs had risen. We parted cordially.

  Fine. I had given them every opportunity to see reason. My next call was to Rutland Atwater.

  That Saturday, two hours after the sales extravaganza had begun, a large man entered and sat down on the couch. The couch where patient men waited for their wives and girlfriends to make their choices.

  Horace Henderson Jr. was walking toward the potential client when a horrible odor attacked him. Young Henderson had studied a little physics in junior college. Unlike the eye and ear, and their modest apprehension of wave phenomena, an olfactory event meant particles were in your nose. In his nose. Young Henderson went down on one knee and violently off-loaded the Persian food he had obtained in the Food Court.

  Darla, the curvesome blond sales assistant, had gone to assist her boss’s son when she too was afflicted. Up dyno-burbled her breakfast burrito.

  From the back room, sensing something was wrong, Henderson Sr. motated into the fray just in time to see a brace of potential customers turn from his establishment and run away.

  The odor was so vast it took the entire shop in its grasp. From across the room the fat man on the client couch was smiling and waving. Could he not smell?

  Of course he couldn’t smell. Rutland Atwater’s olfactory glands were inoperative. Hence his vocation. He rose and walked toward the shop’s proprietor, extending a hand. “I’m Rutland Atwater,” he boomed. “Nice place you got here.”

  Henderson Sr.’s eyes had begun to water copiously. He removed his spectacles and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. Woozily he realized the odor was affecting his powers of ratiocination. What did this big stink bomb want? “What do you want? What do you want, sir?”

  • • •

  From a downwind bench in Plummer Park, Rutland laid out the lines of his victory. I smiled at him. He had indeed proved to be a man of value. He had transformed his life. He was dressed in a fine suit, he drove a fine European sedan, cheerfully confessed to cultivating the pleasant company of fine European whores. Maarika was from Talinn. He was thinking of writing a book.

  Me, I was grateful he now bathed twice a day. Whether he needed it or not. I paid him his fee, the difference between Annie Black’s thousand dollars and the more modest sum the gracious Mr. Henderson had agreed to accept for his services. Along with his heartfelt apology.

  “So, Rutland, tell me. Is there any other talent in your family?”

  “I guess you don’t know my brother.”

  “Didn’t know you had a brother.”

  “Two of them. Each unusual men.”

  “No doubt.”

  “Evan is a philographer.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He deals in rare documents.”

  “You mean forgery?”

  Rutland smiled. “Not quite. In his business it’s called enhancement.”

  “Here in L.A.?”

  “You bet.”

  Another document man. Besides Carl F. Hodgekiss. That was good to know. “And the last brother?”

  “That would be Perry. He’s a lock and key savant.”

  “A savant?”

  “The best lock and key man in L.A. Hands down.”

  “How come I never heard of him before?”

  “Because he’s been working out of Chicago.”

  A lock and key savant. I thought of Lew and the odd brass key from Davis Algren’s neck. And the wounded Mrs. Algren.

  Rutland continued. “But Evan says Perry’s got a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “With cologne.”

  “How is cologne a problem?” How was cologne a problem?

  Rutland shrugged, smiled. “I wouldn’t know, Dick. I just wouldn’t know.”

  • • •

  Had smiling cucaracha Tavo Gonzales not been a card-carrying gang member, capable of cutting him into small pieces, Herman Mantillo would not have felt compelled to purchase the diablo ficus in the yellow pot for forty dollars. Luckily, Velma, his wife, would not be home for four days. He had time.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Lesbians and Communists

  Devi had not paid much attention to Dick Henry’s various cautions
and remonstrances. Felonius Monk, the cat, had to be fed. All twelve, lovable, orange-striped pounds of him. So, every day since the day after Rhonda-day, she’d paid a quick visit.

  She was in the same jam everyone was at Ivanhoe. The sweet stickiness of being very, very well paid eventually was revealed as something she couldn’t seem to get her feet out of. What line wouldn’t she cross to keep the game going?

  Dick had said something she really hadn’t wanted to hear. The myth of moral neutrality. If you parsed your bullshit far enough, you got down to right or wrong. No in between.

  And, if there were no in between, shit, well her job was—it was wrong. She couldn’t put the truth on an application form. Previous job: whore-mistress.

  But wasn’t Dick’s job wrong, too? Beside the point.

  But someone had to do her job, didn’t they? No. But someone would do it.

  She had her house. She had her Lexus. She had a closet full of shoes. Imelda’s dream.

  What would she do now? If she were a free woman. Her old dream of being an actress. Too late now.

  And her long-ago desire to be an actress wasn’t pure to begin with. Because she didn’t love acting. She hadn’t shed blood doing little theater in North Hollywood for audiences of three drunks and a child molester. Statisically, one of them would not speak English.

  You couldn’t pay people to go to the theater in Los Angeles. And no wonder. All the theater companies subsisted on grants, gifts, and guilty ransoms. In return, the companies put on leaden, meaningful plays about lesbians and communists. And dutifully hired parolees to mop a floor here and there and smoke cigarettes in the parking lot. Subscription theater guaranteed an audience of sullen, disinterested seat-fillers.

  No, she was no actress. She had just seen the beautiful women on screen and thought I’m smart enough to do that. And she was. But fate hadn’t singled her out.

  What did she love? Animals. Painting. Music. Shoes. Helping people.

  People did come to her, lay their problems at her feet. Go home with the burden a little lighter. Maybe she’d be a nurse. She had enough money put away for tuition.

  Nurses made good money, good enough. Not like she was making now, but good. And they could find work anywhere in the world. Even on those big ships. Cruise ships. Like the Queen Mary II. A yearlong QM cruise around the world cost $250,000. But a nurse would be paid to cruise.

  • • •

  But today, in the meantime, she would talk to Hogue’s latest recruit. Heather Hill.

  She’d finally talked with Melvin. Over the phone. He was pissed, but not steaming like he had been. She explained what had taken place. She’d thought Nazarian was dead, had called for help. Then he, Melvin, had intruded. Then had gone on to threaten the cleanup man. She didn’t know the clean-up man would clean Melvin’s clock, but the cleanup man wasn’t the type of a guy you fucked with.

  “What’s his name?”

  “I’m not going to tell you that, Melvin.”

  “Your relationship to him is worth more than your relationship to me?”

  “Just let it go, Melvin. You’re okay and you probably would’ve done just what he did.”

  “Where’s the golden gun?”

  Shit. “What golden gun?”

  “You know what the fuck I’m talking about.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Wolf saw it. So you saw it. Where is it?”

  “I didn’t see it.” She should have anticipated his question and formulated a strategic reply. Now she was committed to a lie.

  “Fuck you, Dev. We’ll talk about it later.” She was lying. He’d find the gun. When he made her tell the truth. Then Nazarian would pay through the nose. “You ready for Heather Hill?”

  “Yes. She talk to Little Melvin?”

  “She was too stupid to realize where advantage lay.”

  “In the backseat. In your Levi’s.”

  “I don’t wear Levi’s. I wear Brioni. And she didn’t get it.”

  “She’ll get something else.”

  Melvin had to laugh. “She certainly will.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Brown-Skinned Woman

  In the bathroom, Paulita looked in the mirror. Usually she was pleased with what she saw. But not today. How many times had she been told, warned?

  No married man leaves his wife for his mistress. They’ll talk about love, they’ll give you things, but in the end they’ll betray you. Even if they didn’t set out to do that. But they will. They’ll betray you. Lastly, you dolt, said Lupe, who bore the scars to prove her point, the doctor is a European white man—and you are a brown-skinned woman.

  So what? He loves me.

  He may, dear. But when push comes to shove down, you’ll go. You need a man of your own kind. Who’ll understand you. And you’ll understand him.

  You’re talking about your nephew.

  Tavo would be perfect for you.

  Except I don’t like him.

  That’s beside the point.

  • • •

  Paulita studied the lump on her forehead. She looked like a moron. The two lumps. A lump on top of a lump. From those two assholes. White assholes.

  In the first case, with the scrawny little man, the doctor had done nothing to defend her honor. He had actually sat down and talked with the man! Tylenol with codeine did nothing for her soul. How dare Ulli talk about love after that insult! A man with Latin blood would have set things right. Quickly. Then talked. If necessary. If Scrawny was capable of speech.

  Then the second man. The beast. She had bounded to her feet just in time to see what happened in the kitchen. Where Mrs. Wolf had left a yellow puddle under her chair. Where the doctor had been slapped three times across the face. And had just sat there!

  In that moment, Paulita had realized she did not know Dr. Ulli Wolf. She had perceived his wealth: his home, his cars, his practice, his boat down at Cabrillo. She had perceived his wealth and interpreted that perception as power. Obviously, personally, he had none. In truth, demonstrated truth, the doctor was a coward. Well dressed, educated, sophisticated. And cowardly.

  The scales fell from her eyes. He would never get rid of his dull cow. He would never marry her. And even if he was in the position to propose, how could she respect such a man? In fact, she felt pity for him. And pity ruled out love.

  So she had not told him about the second time the front door had whacked her in the brains. She already had Tylenol with codeine.

  She adjusted her uniform, pushed a dark tress of hair over her ear, walked back into the kitchen.

  • • •

  Dr. Wolf sat in the dark and dim of his library. In every way he had been bruised and abraded. He basted in a hot broth of humiliation. His wife, his mistress, and his nurse had all seen him cowed and abject, his buttocks presented high in the air, ready for alpha cock.

  The scene played out in his mind over and over, on heavy rewind. From experience, he knew it was the vibrant color of emotion that made the scene so painful to contemplate. With time, the incident would fade to black-and-white and he would be able to file it away and forget about it.

  But for now, put what twist he might on the affair, he looked and felt like the personification of soft, runny weakness. He had tried out his I only did it for you defense, but only after a halfhearted run at the strategic restraint explanation.

  Gretchen looked at him with hard eyes.

  As bad as Gretchen’s stare made him feel, Paulita’s downcast eyes, never looking into his own, made him feel absolutely wretched. She was embarrassed to look at him. Who knows what she might have seen? But she had to have seen something.

  And, as far as an involved explanation went, she would be a potted plant. His English was good, if accented. Hers was accented and poor. Her German and his Spanish were nonexistent. Their communication, heretofore, had relied on emotion rather than precise understanding. Which meant it was beyond his power to precisely communicate strategic restraint. What about admitting fear,
fear for Paulita’s welfare? It hadn’t worked with Gretchen, but that was because she knew him. It was his only chance with Paulita.

  There was a knock at the door. He searched for a cheerful, confident smile but couldn’t find one. He settled for extremely busy. “Come in.”

  Paulita poked her head in, eyes flitting across his face. “Mr. Shea calling, sir.” She shut the door behind her. Not the slightest sign of the profound feelings that had existed so recently between them. What had she seen? He was going to lose her. Forever. Fuck Melvin Shea.

  He leapt up, hurried around his desk, opened the library door. “Paulita.”

  Down the hallway, she turned around.

  “Paulita, I need to see you. Right now.” Fuck Gretchen. Wherever she was. Gretchen suspected nothing. Probably cared less. But even if she were in the kitchen, so be it.

  The phone was blinking. Melvin. He picked it up. “Melvin, I’ll have to call you right back. Five minutes.” He hung up. Paulita walked back to the door of the library, hung back. “Come in, Paulita.”

  She entered, he shut the door behind her. She looked at him, alarmed. He closed their distance, grabbed her head, kissed her on the lips until she responded. Then he pushed her away, holding her arms.

  “You’ve seen me at my worst, Paulita. But you don’t know why I had to do what I did. I had to eat shit for you. For you. So you wouldn’t be hurt. And now you won’t look at me. Look at me.” He looked into the utter mystery of her brown eyes.

  “The truth is, I love you more than anyone or anything in this world. Do you understand me?”

  She nodded.

  From the front of the house the doorbell rang. They both jumped.

  “I answer the door,” she said.

  “Okay.” The police. The woman had floated to surface. Lipless, eyeless, nippleless.

  Paulita returned a minute later, a basket in her hand. “Delivery,” she said. She handed to him. In the basket, a manila envelope and bottle of champagne. What was this?

  Paulita backed toward the door, he reached for her wrist. “I’ll talk to you later. We’ll do something.” Maybe they’d go down to Cabrillo. Unwind.