Hollywood Moon

by Joseph Wambaugh

  Dewey opened the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of tomato juice while Eunice read silently. Then he opened a box of wheat bran and poured it into a bowl with some skim milk. He took it into the computer room just to get a short distance away from her cigarette, and he sat staring at computer number one. There was a page of indecipherable numbers on the screen and a list of names that meant something only to the woman in the other room.

  He ate the wheat bran and fantasized about how, with a few movements and clicks of the mouse, someone with the right information could pull up the name of her bank and maybe transfer the funds to another bank anywhere in the world. If he could do that, his entire miserable life would be changed. Just like that.

  Eunice interrupted his thoughts with her chronic morning cough and said, “Where you going today, Dewey?”

  “I haven’t seen the Mexicans in almost a week. They should be onto something by now. I was gonna track them down and then I thought I’d go to the second list of foreclosed homes and do the rental gag again.” Lying, he added, “I got a new guy who can change the locks and make me some keys. This one’s not a tweaker.”

  When he finished his cereal, he entered the kitchen and started to put the bowl and glass in the sink but then realized it would just give her something else to bitch about, so he put them in the dishwasher, and then went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. By the time he came out, Eunice was sitting in front of computer number three, tapping away with uninterrupted clicks.

  “See you later,” he said and opened the door.

  “Dewey,” she said, taking the cigarette out of her mouth.

  He stopped in the doorway, expecting some more shit from her, and said, “Yeah?”

  In an amicable voice the likes of which he hadn’t heard in months, she said, “Did you say you were gonna see that kid today?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure everything’s okay. I might give him some busywork and a couple hundred bucks to keep him happy.”

  “I was thinking,” Eunice said. “Since he knows something now that nobody else does, we’re gonna have to handle Clark with extra-special care.”

  “Yeah?” Dewey said. “You got a suggestion?”

  “I was thinking that you better keep him close for a while.”

  “I don’t think I’ll have to adopt him,” Dewey said.

  “I’m just saying, maybe we should… get to know him,” Eunice said.

  “Like how?”

  “Oh, how about we invite him to a nice restaurant tonight or tomorrow night? You know, talk to the boy? See where his head is? I sure wouldn’t wanna pack up and move to another location real quick just because of him.”

  A look, a silence, and she returned to the computer keyboard, tapping the keys as though it had been a thought in passing.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Dewey finally said. “I’ll call and see if he’s good to go for something like that. Maybe we could take him to Musso’s. I can’t remember the last time we went to dinner together.”

  “Okay,” she said too casually. “Gimme a call and let me know if it’s gonna happen.”

  By the time Dewey got down the steps to the parking garage, he actually laughed aloud, then looked around to make sure nobody was down there who could hear him. Dewey Gleason’s pain was forgotten. This was an unbelievable stroke of good fortune. He only had to figure out how to make it work. Dewey was giddy with excitement. Eunice was falling in love!

  It was payday, and Malcolm’s boss did not look particularly happy when the young man asked to leave work two hours early for a dental appointment. He asked why Malcolm hadn’t told him this before the day he was due at the dentist so that a suitable personnel adjustment could have been made. Malcolm apologized and said it would not happen again.

  The moment he left work, he speed-dialed Naomi Teller and was overjoyed when she answered.

  “It’s Clark,” he said. “Today’s the day!”

  “The day for what?” Naomi said.

  “Where you at?”

  “I’m at my girlfriend’s house. We’re gonna go swimming in her pool.”

  “Forget swimming,” Malcolm said. “Lemme pick you up and we’ll go to Mel’s Drive-In on the Strip.”

  Naomi hesitated and then said, “Can I bring my girlfriend?”

  “No way, Naomi,” Malcolm said. “This is our special time, like I been promising. You’re gonna like Mel’s. It’s not McDonald’s, that’s for sure.”

  “On the Sunset Strip?” she said. “I guess not.”

  “I can afford it,” Malcolm said.

  Again there was silence on the line, and then the girl said, “Okay, you wanna pick me up here?”

  “Where is it?”

  “On Hayworth, right near Fountain. Let me run and get the exact address. I’ll have to think of some excuse.”

  “Tell her your cousin arrived from Boston and your mom wants you home right away.”

  “Who should I say is picking me up?”

  “Your cousin from Boston.”

  “I think I can come up with a better story,” she said. “Gimme a minute to get the house number for you.”

  “Goody!” Clark cried.

  That made her giggle. “You’re so silly,” she said.

  After Naomi came back on the line with the address, Malcolm said, “I’ll see you in twenty-five minutes.”

  He clicked off and drove to a check-cashing service near the home improvement center to cash his paycheck. He wasn’t worried about money anymore. He’d soon have plenty of it, now that he was in tight with Bernie Graham and his secretary, Ethel. He wouldn’t really mind if his boss at the warehouse fired him.

  Thinking of his warehouse job made him think of the box cutter in the pocket of his jeans. These days he was carrying it with him at all times. He took it out, opened the glove box, and tossed it inside.

  Late that afternoon, Dewey Gleason as Bernie Graham rented the tiny upstairs apartment in Frogtown after receiving the call from Jerzy Szarpowicz. Within an hour of closing the deal and signing the check—using one of the small-business accounts that was nearly depleted—Dewey met with his co-conspirators at the property.

  “It’s a dump,” Tristan said when he and Jerzy walked inside.

  “You need fuckin’ luxury to do a kidnap?” Jerzy said.

  “It’s got two rooms and a bathroom, and that’s enough,” Dewey said. “And it’s not close to a residence. Good job, Jerzy.”

  Jerzy smiled slightly, at last feeling appreciated.

  “Use duct tape and tape those blinds to the wall,” Dewey said. “We don’t want her seeing daylight, and we damn sure don’t want her knowing where she is. This gag’s gotta last two days.”

  Dewey assumed that after two days, when they wouldn’t be able to reach him and figured out that he was gone for good, they’d simply release Eunice and go back to being the street scum they’d always been. What could Eunice do about any of it? Complain that her criminal employees had kidnapped her? Complain that her husband had stolen the money that she’d stolen from hundreds of people, much of it even before she’d met her husband?

  He wondered if it was his imagination or if there was something suspicious in the way that Creole glanced around the apartment and said casually, “Yeah, this gag’s gotta last two days. That’s how long it’ll take your banker pal to release funds, huh? That’s a long time from our end.”

  “It can’t be helped,” Dewey said. “It’s gotta be that way if this is gonna work.”

  “It’s gonna work, Bernie,” Jerzy said. “You got my guarantee that she’ll give it up.”

  Those sinister words made Dewey Gleason feel more than a little uneasy. The big talk was over. Now it was going to happen and the Polack meant business.

  “I don’t think you’ll have to get rough with her,” Dewey said.

  “We’ll do what we gotta do,” Jerzy said.

  This time it was Tristan feeling it. “I told you two I ain’t tortur
in’ no woman,” he said to Jerzy.

  Jerzy pulled up the T-shirt hanging over his gut and showed them the two-inch Colt revolver. “You two are gonna do whatever has to be done to get that fuckin’ money. Once this thing starts, it goes all the way and we ain’t turnin’ back.”

  Tristan glanced at Dewey, who averted his eyes. Jerzy’s own eyes were glassy and slightly dilated. Tristan figured he’d been smoking ice for courage, and he didn’t like that. The Polack was trouble enough when he wasn’t high.

  “One thing sure,” Tristan said, looking at Jerzy. “We gotta stay clean and sober for this job or it ain’t gonna work. We gotta main-tain at all times. I hope we agree about that.”

  Jerzy gave one of his scoffing snorts that Tristan had come to hate and said, “You two do your jobs. I’m sure as fuck gonna do mine.”

  “I’d suggest you rent the van at the same place under the same name,” Dewey said to Tristan, eager to get the conversation away from Jerzy and the menace in his close-set little eyes.

  “We’ll need five Franklins to hold us till this goes down,” Tristan said. “Then we might need more. Sleepin’ bags for Jerzy and me. A metal bed that we can chain her to. Food for two days, and lots of little stuff, like toilet paper, bottled water, whatever.”

  “And room deodorizer,” Jerzy said. “She’s gonna smell like a cesspool when we put the fear on her.”

  Dewey opened his wallet and took out $600 and handed it to Tristan, saying, “This is to get started.” Jerzy reached over and snatched three of the $100 bills from Tristan’s hand.

  “We’ll need all of that and maybe more, wood,” Tristan said to his partner.

  “Why should you hold it all?” Jerzy retorted.

  “Okay, you wanna rent the van? Here,” Tristan said, and he handed the remaining bills to Jerzy. “You wanna buy the bed and other shit?”

  “Let’s not start off squabbling!” Dewey said as Jerzy stared down at his smaller partner, whose eyes were directed at “Foo Fighters” in red across the chest of Jerzy’s black T-shirt. “How about letting Creole handle the money, Jerzy? He’s the one that’s already set up with ID to rent the van.”

  Jerzy grunted and handed the money back to Tristan without further comment.

  “Okay, then,” Dewey said. “Unless you got a better plan, I say this goes down at the storage locker in Reseda.”

  “Like how?” Tristan said.

  “You two are in there when I arrive with Ethel. You’ll ambush us.”

  “How do you plan to get your old lady to the storage room?” Jerzy asked.

  Dewey said, “I think I have a way. It’s possible that we could be ready as soon as tomorrow night. Are you two good to go?”

  “Holy shit!” Tristan said. Then he thought about it and said, “Why not? But how do we get in the storage room to ambush you?”

  “If I’m able to set it up for tomorrow night, I’ll meet you at our office in the afternoon at about two o’clock. We’ll drive to the storage facility, where you will enter behind me just like you did last time. We’ll park the van at the next row of storage buildings so there’s no vehicle parked by our storage room when I arrive with my wife. You’ll be hiding behind the merchandise boxes, and when we arrive, you’ll jump us, tape her up, blindfold her, and one of you will run and get the van from the neighboring parking area.”

  Jerzy said, “How the fuck do we drag this taped-up woman from the storage room to the van without somebody seein’ us? As I remember, there were other people comin’ and goin’ around there.”

  “There won’t be at eight thirty at night,” Dewey said. “There’s twenty-four-hour self-storage access for customers, but I’ve seldom seen anybody there after dark, except for the security guard in the front office. After you get us in the van, you lock up the storeroom, take my keys, and leave my car where it’s parked. I’ve seen customers’ cars left there for two or three days after they took away their stored belongings in a rental truck. Just wave to the guard when you drive out. It’ll be a minimum-wage employee who’ll probably be too busy watching TV to even wave back.”

  “You’re sayin’ we gotta sit in that hot storage room for more than five hours?” Jerzy said.

  “Yes,” Dewey said. “I need time to get back to Hollywood and set up the gag for her to go with me to the storage room. I’m gonna get a phone call and say that our runners Creole and Jerzy called and need four laptops and a plasma from there to deliver for a very good price, and that I gotta do the pickup ASAP. It’s not gonna be comfortable for you in that room, but you’re gonna get a hell of an hourly wage for those five hours and for the following two days after it’s all over.”

  Tristan, who was listening intently, said, “Okay, as long as you seem to be writer and director of this here show, have you worked out how the woman thinks we got in that room to pull off the ambush without you bein’ involved?”

  “Yes,” Dewey said. “I’ve worked out the dialogue. She’ll know that you’re Creole and Jerzy, our runners. She’s heard of you. She’ll also know that you, Creole, were the guy from Water and Power, so she’ll know you staked us out for this kidnap. When you throw us in this apartment, I’ll tell her that you musta made a duplicate key when we transferred the merchandise from Los Feliz to the storage facility, and that I also shared the gate code with you on that job. She’s never been to the facility before. She’ll buy it.”

  “And did you write the dialogue for when we get your hysterical old lady up here?” Jerzy asked.

  It took several seconds for Dewey to say, “That part will be mostly improv.”

  “And what the fuck’s that mean?” said Jerzy.

  “I want this to go down without her getting hurt,” Dewey said.

  “Yeah, well, I wanna fuck every waitress at Hooters,” Jerzy said. “But I might jist end up in jail, fuckin’ a package of lunch meat if this don’t get done right.”

  “She talks tough, but she’s not a brave woman,” Dewey said. “Maybe if you let her know about that very impressive knife of yours, she’ll fold. But first you’ll have to beat me up.”

  “I’m gonna love that part!” Jerzy said.

  “No, not really beat me up,” Dewey said quickly. “But she’s gonna have to believe that you did it. Remember, she’ll be blindfolded and think I am too. You’ll have to punch your fist into your palm several times, and I’ll have to yell out and beg you to stop. I’ll throw myself on the floor. That kind of thing.”

  “I’d rather make it more real with you,” Jerzy said with that worrisome grin of his.

  “Get your mind in the game, dawg,” Tristan said.

  Dewey ignored Jerzy and said, “After you pretend to beat me up, you’ll take me outta the apartment for about twenty minutes. Then you’ll take me back in, and since she’ll have a blindfold on, I’ll be able to convince her that I’m hurting, and I’ll tell her that you asked for half a million to let us live. The important thing is that you never remove her blindfold. In fact, duct-tape it to her face.”

  “This is all good,” Tristan said, “but I still don’t see how you get the money outta her bank account and into your hands.”

  “I’ve already laid the groundwork,” Dewey said. “If you can scare her enough and then leave us alone, it’ll be a done deal.”

  “Like, how do you actually do it, Bernie?” Tristan said. “Tell me the steps involved.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” Dewey said. “It’s a wire transfer.”

  Suddenly Jerzy stepped close to Dewey and said, “There ain’t no secrets between us here, Bernie. You ain’t Mr. Kessler no more. Now tell my little partner what he wants to know.”

  Dewey looked up at Jerzy Szarpowicz, then at Tristan, and said, “She’ll give me the password and the account number and routing number if I need it. And whatever else she used to identify herself, like her mother’s maiden name of the name of her first doggy, or whatever the fuck I need to order her bank to wire the funds to my bank. Satisfied?”
/>   “Back off, Bernie,” Tristan said. “We got a right to know all the details. Like, why is she gonna be content to be the one who stays with us, while you leave her for two days to do the deal?”

  “Because you’re gonna tell her that one of us stays and the other goes and gets the money, and I’m your pick to go.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Tristan said. “Lemme guess. You’re gonna offer to stay, because no manly man would leave his wife to die with a couple of insane kidnappers, but we’re gonna say, no, Momma stays. And you’re gonna go and bring the money back to save her life.”

  “That’s what we have to sell,” Dewey said.

  “I keep goin’ back to the possibility that she won’t buy it,” Tristan said. “What if she’s braver and smarter than you think? What if she’s layin’ there blindfolded and starts to think this might all be a gag that her rat-fucker husband arranged?”

  Dewey turned then and walked to the window, looking at the blinds. Finally, he said, “Be sure to tape these to the wall.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Jerzy said. “We’ll do the details. Now answer Creole’s question.”

  “I’m a good actor,” Dewey said. “I’ll sell it.”

  “Yeah, but what if you ain’t quite as good as you think you are, and she just smells somethin’ that ain’t right?” Tristan said, pressing the man.

  Dewey paused for an even longer time. Then he said, “There’s one thing that’ll keep her from even considering the possibility that this is all a charade. It’s something that’ll keep her mind totally focused on her own survival.”

  “What’s that?” Tristan asked.

  “Pain,” Dewey said, turning around and looking at Jerzy. “But it’s a last resort. And I mean last.”

  “Okay, Bernie,” Jerzy said with that grin again that gave Tristan chills. “I do believe we are finally arrivin’ at the same page on this here script of yours.”

  “I don’t like this,” Tristan said. “I don’t fuckin’ like this. I said from the git that I don’t do violence to no woman.”

  “Nobody’s askin’ you to do it,” Jerzy said.

  “I don’t fuckin’ like this!” Tristan repeated.