by James Ellroy
Rice did timing checks, battery checks, transmission checks and complete engine scrutinies on five domestics before he found what he wanted: a black ’76 Trans Am with a four-speed and lots of muscle—good under the hood and even better looking—a car that would impress any crowd he and Vandy sought to crash.
The sales manager wanted four thou. Rice countered with twenty-five hundred cash. The sales manager said, “Feed me,” and Rice handed it over, knowing the joker made him for a non-Boy Scout. After signing the purchase papers and pocketing the pink slip, Rice walked over to the street and saw an old wino sucking on a jug in the shade of his ’69 Pontiac. He tossed him the keys to his former clunker and said, “Ride, daddy, ride,” then strolled back to his sleek muscle car. When he got in and gunned the engine, the wino was peeling rubber down Western in the Pontiac, the bottle held to his lips.
Now Vandy.
Rice drove north to the Sunset Strip, savoring the feel of his Trans Am. He avoided putting the car through speed shifts and other hot-rod pyrotechnics; he was now technically a parole and probation absconder, and traffic tickets would mean a warrant check and instant disaster.
Street traffic on the Strip was light, sidewalk traffic lighter—schoolgirl hookers from Fairfax High turning a few extra bucks on their lunch hour, bouncers sweeping up in front of the massage parlors and outcall offices. Rice turned off Sunset at Gardner and parked. The lavender four-flat that housed Silver Foxes looked bland in the daylight, like just another Hollywood Spanish style. He walked over and rang the bell beneath the sexy fox emblem.
A young man in white dungarees and a Michael Jackson ’84 Tour tank top opened the door and blocked the entranceway in a hands-on-hips pose. Rice sized up his muscles and figured him for a bodybuilder who couldn’t lick a chicken; strictly adornment and a little jazz for the fag trade. “May I help you?” he asked.
Rice said, “Some friends in the Industry said this was the place to go for female companionship. I’m in town for a week or so, and I haven’t got a lot of time to hit the party circuit. Indently paying for it isn’t my style, but you were very highly recommended.” He sighed, pleased with his performance—not a trace of Hawaiian Gardens and Soledad in his speech.
The youth flexed his biceps and imitated Rice’s sigh. It came out a pout. “Everybody pays for it somehow, this is the herpes generation. Who were these people who recommended us?”
Rice pointed to the office he could glimpse past the youth’s broad shoulders. “Jeffrey Jason Rifkin, the agent, and some buddies of his. I can’t remember their names. Can we go inside?”
Nodding, the youth stepped aside just enough to let Rice squeeze through the door sideways. Their arms brushed, and Rice felt his stomach turn over when the kid let out a little grunt of pleasure.
The room was all white, furnished in Danish modern/High Tech—white walls and carpeting, metal tubular desk, bent-wood chairs with white fabric backing. Scenes from rock videos were hung on the walls: Elvis Costello in fifties garb superimposed against an A-bomb mushroom cloud; Bruce Springsteen hopping a freight train; Diana Ross drenched to the bone at her Central Park concert. Rice sat down without being asked and watched the kid flip through a white Rolodex on the desk, moving his lips as he read. Thinking of him coupled obscenely with Bobby Garcia kept his revulsion down and gave him an edge of frost.
With a sighing pout, the kid looked up and said, “Yes, we’ve done business with Mr. Rifkin. In fact, we’ve sent over lots of foxes for his theme parties.”
“Theme parties?” It was a reflex blurt, and Rice knew immediately that it was the wrong thing to say.
The youth hooded his eyes. “Yes, theme parties. Many of our foxes are aspiring actresses, and they enjoy theme parties because they get to act out more than they would on a straight assignment. You know, playing slave queens or topless cowgirls, that kind of thing. What do you do in the Industry?”
Rice said, “I’m a talent scout,” and knew from the young man’s puzzled expression that it was an outdated term. “I’ve been out of the Industry for a while,” he added, “and Jeffrey Jason is helping me get rolling again. It’s a tough racket to get back into.”
“Yes,” the young man said, “it is. What kind of fox were you looking for?”
Rice stretched his legs and smoothed his shirt front, then said, “Listen, I’m very choosy about my women. If I describe exactly what I want, can you check out your files or whatever and take it from there?”
The young man said, “We can do better than that. We’ve got au naturel photographs of all our foxes.” He dug into the top desk drawer, and pulled out a white plastic binder and handed it to Rice. “Take your time, sweetie; it’s a fox hunter’s candy store, and nobody’s rushing you.”
Rice opened the binder, feeling a crazo sensation of being ripped upward from the crotch. The first page was a spiel about rare breeds of foxes and fulfillment of fantasies, scripted on lavender paper; on the second page the women began. Posed nude in identical reclining postures, they were all outright beautiful or outright gutter sensual, superbly built in the skinny model and curvy wench modes. White, black, Oriental, and latina, they all fire-breathed sex.
Rice turned the pages slowly, noticing blank spots where other photos had once been pasted; he read the hype printed below each girl’s first name and physical stats. “Aspiring actress” and “aspiring singer” were the usual subheadings, and next to them were lurid sex fantasies, supposedly written by the “foxes” themselves. The ridiculous accounts of three ways and four ways made him want to retch, and he flipped through to the end of the binder, looking only for the body he knew by heart. Not finding it, he glanced up at the young man and said, “Is this all your women?”
The youth nodded and flexed his biceps. “You’re really hard to please. Those foxes are the crème de la crème.”
Rice thought about mentioning former “foxes,” then got an idea. “Listen, do you know most of the girls who work out of here?”
“Some. I’ve only been dispatching for a little over a week. Why?”
Rice said, “I was looking for a chick I saw walk out of here the last time I was in L.A. About five-six, one hundred ten, blond, skinny, classy features. Preppy clothes. Ring a bell?”
The young man shook his head. “No … I’m new on the job, and besides, the owners wouldn’t let the foxes dress preppy—no sex appeal.”
Another idea clicked into Rice’s head. “Too bad. Listen, since I didn’t see that particular girl, I’d like you to give me a recommendation. Brains turn me on. I want a smart chick—one I can talk to.”
The young man smiled, picked up the binder and leafed through it, then handed it to Rice. “There,” he said. “Rhonda. She’s got a master’s degree in economics, and she’s really groovy. A real brain fox.”
Rice studied the photograph. Rhonda was a tall buxom woman with a dark brown Afro; deeply tanned except for bikini white across her breasts and pelvis. She was described as an “aspiring stockbroker,” and her fantasy was listed as “orgies with rich, intelligent, beautiful men on my own private island in the Adriatic.” Rice thought she looked shrewd and probably didn’t write the retarded fantasy blurb. Snapping the binder shut, he said, “Great. Can you send her over to the Holiday Inn on Sunset and La Brea, in an hour?”
The youth gave his sigh-pout. “I’ll call her. Rhonda is three hundred dollars an hour, one hour minimum. All our foxes gratefully accept tips over that amount. Rhonda carries her own Visa, Mastercard and American Express receipts and imprinter for the basic fee, but please tip her with cash. What room number?”
“814.”
“We require a friendship fee of one hundred dollars for first-time fox hunters.”
“Like a hunting license?”
The youth giggled; Rice thought he sounded just like Bobby “Boogaloo” Garcia. “That’s cute. Yes, call it your deed to the happy hunting grounds. Cash, please, and your name.”
Rice slipped a c-note from his shirt pocket an
d stuck it inside the binder. “Harry ‘The Fox Hunter’ Hungerford.” The youth giggled as he wrote down the name, and Rice walked out wondering if the world was nothing but wimps, pimps, psychos and sex fiends.
Back at the Holiday Inn, he killed time by watching TV for word of the robbery. There was no mention of the heist or of a bank manager zoned on dust, let alone the hostage angle—the bank bigshots had probably stonewalled the media to save face. So far, so good—but his money was running out.
Just as the news brief ended, the door chimes rang. Rice grabbed a wad of twenties from the briefcase and stuck them under the mattress, then walked to the door and opened it.
The woman who stood on the other side in a green knit dress and fur coat was her photograph gone subtle. Expecting sleazy attire and makeup, Rice saw class that rivaled Vandy at her healthiest. No makeup on a face of classic beauty; large tortoiseshell glasses that set off that face and made it even more beautiful; a Rolex watch on her left wrist, an attaché case in her right hand. Rice’s eyes prowled her body until he snapped to what he was doing and brought them back up to her face. Pissed at his lack of control, he said, “Hi, come in.”
The woman entered, then did a slow model’s turn as the door was shut, setting her attaché case on the floor, tossing her coat onto a chair. Rice sized up her moves. There was something non-whorish about her act.
Her voice was cool, almost mocking: “In olden times, fox hunting was the private sport of the landed gentry. Today, all natural-born aristocrats, busy men with taste and no time to waste, can enjoy that pleasure with Silver Foxes—the ultimate sensual therapy service for today’s take-charge man.”
Rice said, “Holy shit,” and stepped backward, his heels bumping the attaché case and knocking it over. On impulse, he bent down and opened it up. Inside were three metal credit card imprinters, a stack of charge slips and a copy of Wealth and Poverty by George Gilder. The woman laughed as he snapped the case shut, then said, “I’m Rhonda. Most clients either love the intro or get embarrassed by it. You were incredulous. It was cute.”
Rice flushed. The last time he’d been called “cute” was the sixth grade, when he nicknamed Hawaiian Gardens “Hawaiian Garbage.” Carol Douglas shouted, “You’re so cute, Duaney,” and chased his ass the rest of the semester. “Cute, huh? Come to any conclusions?”
Rhonda took off her glasses and hooked them into her cleavage by a temple piece. “They’re plate glass. I only wore them to look brainy. Yes, I’ve come to one conclusion—you don’t want sex.”
Rice sat down on the couch and motioned for Rhonda to join him. When she sat down an arm’s length away, he said, “You’re a smart lady. Is that a bogus Rolex?”
Rhonda flushed. “Yes. How did you know that?”
“I used to hang out in a Hollywood crowd. Everyone had fake Rolexes, and they used to talk about how their Rolex was real, but everyone else’s was phony.”
“Are you calling me a phony?”
“No, just seeing if you can level.”
“Can you level? You don’t look like any Hollywood type I’ve ever seen. What were you into?”
Rice laughed. “I was selling stolen cars. Want me to get to it?”
“If you want to. It’s your money.”
Rice said, “I’m looking for a woman. My girlfriend. A friend of a friend saw her up on the Strip near all the outcall joints. I was in jail for six months, and she was having a tough time, and I—”
Rhonda put a hand on his arm. “And you thought if she needed money badly, she’d turn tricks?”
Pulling his arm away, Rice said, “Yeah. She visited me in jail, and I could tell she was strung out on coke.” He thought of Vandy and Gordon Meyers—“It’s real pharmaceutical blow, baby”—“Duane wouldn’t want me to.” The words and a backup flash of Vandy’s prep clothes hanging loose on her gaunt frame forced his words out in a tumble: “And I know she’d only do it if she was desperate, and not really like it, and she’s a singer, and a lot of girls at Silver Foxes are aspiring singers, and maybe she thought she could help herself while I—”
Something strange and soft in Rhonda’s eyes stopped him. He moved to the bed and dug under the mattress until his hands were full of money, then walked back and dumped the stash of twenties in her lap. “That’s for starters,” he said. “Find her and there’s lots more.”
Rhonda counted the money and folded it into a tight roll. “Six hundred. What’s her name? Have you got a picture?”
Rice took the snapshot from his wallet and handed it to her. “Anne Vanderlinden. She also goes by ‘Vandy.’”
Rhonda looked at the photo and said, “Foxy. Does she—”
Rice screamed, “Don’t say that!” Catching himself, he lowered his voice. “She’s not a fucking animal, she’s my woman.” Catching Rhonda’s strange look again, he said, “Don’t stare at me like that.”
Rhonda said, “Sorry,” then patted the couch. Rice sat down beside her. She put a tentative hand on his knee and asked, “What’s your name?”
Rice brushed the hand away. “Duane Rice. Are you in?”
“Yes. Put some things together for me about you and Anne. Who she is, what she likes to do, that kind of thing. Was she in the Hollywood crowd with you?”
Rice stared at the wall and straightened out the story in his head, then said, “First off, I know she isn’t working outcall on the Strip; I’ve already checked those places out. Second, she doesn’t really have any friends in L.A. except me. The last time I saw her was in jail close to three weeks ago. She cleaned out the pad we had together. She—”
Rhonda squeezed his arm. “Tell me about the Hollywood crowd.”
“I was getting to it. Vandy’s a singer. Used to be lead singer with a Vegas lounge group, Vandy and the Vandals. I was sort of her manager. I did some favors for an agent named Jeffrey Jason Rifkin, and he fixed us up with that Hollywood crowd. It took me a while, but I finally figured out that those people were all parasites who couldn’t do Vandy a bit of good. But I was unloading cars on them and making a lot of money. I had plenty banked toward making Vandy’s rock videos—”
“What?”
“Rock videos. That was my plan: get a stake together to produce rock videos featuring Vandy. It was moving, but then I got busted.”
Rhonda said softly, “Look, Duane, I’ve been with Silver Foxes for over a year, and I’ve never seen Vandy or heard of her. But lots of outcall girls branch out into other scenes, particularly around here, where there’s all this movie and music industry money. Especially girls like Vandy, budding singers looking to get ahead, looking to meet people who can help their careers. Do you follow me?”
Rice imitated Rhonda’s soft voice. “I follow that you’re bracing me for something. Spit it out; I didn’t give you that money for bullshit.”
Rhonda tucked the cash roll into her cleavage; Rice saw it as her first whorish move. She said coldly, “Some girls quit outcall because they get heavy into coke or they get offers to live with men in the Industry. Most of these men expect their girls to sexually service their friends, men who can do them favors. The girls get room and board and coke, and if they’re very lucky, bit parts in movies and rock videos. There’s an Industry name for them: Coke Whores.”
Coke Whores.
Rice forced the name on himself: tasting it, testing it. He looked at Rhonda and thought about hitting her with “stockbroker groupie” and “moneyfucker,” but couldn’t do it. The big question jumped into his mind and stuck like glue: Did it happen with Meyers?
Rhonda was staring at him, giving out big sad doe eyes like Carol Douglas back in Hawaiian Garbage. Rice kneaded his tattooed biceps and said, “What do I get for that six hundred?”
“Three hundred,” Rhonda said. “Silver Foxes gets three. I didn’t want to tell you that, Duane.”
“Anyone afraid of the truth is a chickenshit. You’re into these ‘scenes,’ right?”
“On the edges of them, but I’m nobody’s kept woman.”
“I know. You’re just working your way through college.”
“Don’t be ugly, I want to help you. Was this an A, B, C or D crowd you and Vandy hung out in?”
“What?”
Rhonda’s voice revealed exasperation. “In the movie and music biz there are four crowds: A, B, C and D. The A’s are the heavy, heavy hitters, B’s below them, and so forth. D’s are the nerds who are lucky to get work. I was just wondering if Vandy could have hooked up with someone she met in your crowd.”
Rice shook his head. “No way. I kept her away from the men, and she doesn’t trust women. What crowd are you in?”
Rhonda lowered her eyes at the jibe, then said, “Any crowd with money. If Vandy’s in L.A. and into any Industry scenes, I’ll find her. Can I call you here?”
Rice looked around his new home, wondering if his talk with the stockbroker/whore had skunked the place past crashing in. “No,” he said. “I might split.” He took a pad and pencil off the phone stand and wrote down Louie Calderon’s bootleg number. “You can call me here and leave a message twenty-four hours a day. You locate Vandy, and you’ll see lots of money.”
Rhonda took the slip of paper, stood up and collected her attaché case and fur coat. Rice watched her walk toward the door. When her hand was on the knob, she turned around and said, “I’ll be in touch.”
Rice said, “Find her for me.”
Rhonda traced a dollar sign in the air and closed the door behind her.
At dusk, Rice felt the skunk stench close in on the new pad. He knew it didn’t come from Rhonda, or Psycho Bobby Garcia, or Hawley or anybody else. It came from being wrapped too tight in his own skull for too long, with no one to talk to except people he wanted to use. It was what it was like all the time before he met Vandy and started to make things happen.
He made the black ’76 Trans Am happen.
First he fishtailed out of the Holiday Inn parking lot; then he cruised the Boulevard, idling the engine at stoplights, staying in second gear until he hit Western Avenue. On Western northbound he speed-shifted into third, sized up traffic and vowed not to touch the brake until he hit the Griffith Park Observatory.