“Which is about when I met Burke Stodger. We were neighbors and used to walk our dogs at around the same time every morning, and I sort of knew who he was but hadn’t seen any of his pictures till one night I couldn’t sleep, went switching around the channels and came across .45-Caliber Kissoff. Normally I don’t watch that type of movie, but something about this one . . .”
“I can relate!” cried Doc. “That picture made me who I am today. That PI that Burke Stodger played, man, I always wanted to be him.”
“I thought you wanted to be John Garfield.”
“Well, and that all came true, but guess what, John Garfield also happens to show up uncredited in that same movie—remember there’s a funeral scene, where Burke is sort of discreetly fondling the widow at graveside, usin a umbrella for cover, well if you look closely, just past her left tit, that’s screen left, a little out of focus, next to a tree, there’s John Garfield in a pinstriped mobster suit and a homburg hat. He was pretty much blacklisted by that point and must have figured a gig’s a gig.”
“Burke ran into that same problem but said he found another solution.”
“One that didn’t get him hassled into a fatal heart attack. . . . Ups, but there I go, being bitter again.”
To the dismay of many in the business, Burke had let himself be gathered into the embrace of the same Red-hunting zealots who’d once forced him to split the country. He testified before subcommittees, and donated his boat to the countersubversive cause, and was soon working again in modestly budgeted FBI dramas like I Was a Red Dope Fiend and Squeal, Pinko, Squeal! a run of luck which lasted as long as anti-Communist themes kept putting asses in seats. By the time Shasta met Burke, he was pretty much semiretired, content to go eighteen low-stakes holes at the Wilshire Country Club (even nine, if he could find a member who was half Jewish), or hang out at Musso & Frank’s spinning showbiz yarns with other old-timers, at least the percentage in the industry who didn’t cross the street and sometimes the freeway with a nauseous look on their face to avoid him.
Burke knew a back way onto the golf course, and he and Shasta had fallen into the habit of making it part of their morning stroll. For Shasta this was often the best part of the day, busy with early deliveries, yard and pool work, hosed pavement—still, cool, smelling like the desert after rain, garden exotics, shadows everywhere to shelter in for a bit before the day’s empty sky asserted itself.
“I saw you on that Brady Bunch episode,” she said one morning.
“I just read for another one, waiting now to hear, something about Jan gets a wig.” Burke found an almost-unplayed ball in the grass, retrieved it, and slipped it in his pocket.
“What kind of a wig?”
“Brunette, I think. She gets tired of being a blonde?”
“Tell me about that. Still not the same as changing your politics, I guess.”
She was afraid she’d been too blunt, but he scratched his head elaborately and pretended to think. “Well sure, I have second thoughts, third and fourth, up in the middle of the night, all that old-guy stuff. But they’ve treated me well. I still get out on the boat, sometimes there’s even work.” Despite the ease and promise of the morning, the jaunty straw hat, pastel-striped shirt, and pale linen shorts, some sorrowful veteran-actor note had crept into his voice. “Thanks for not bringing up Vietnam, by the way. We get started on that, you really might begin to think less of me.”
“Right now that’s all, like, kind of remote?”
“No boyfriends out in the street screaming ‘Death to the pig,’ rolling bombs, whatever it is they do?”
She shook her head, smiling. “Forget about political guys, in this business how many datable guys do I ever run into?”
“Catch as catch can, and ever thus, kid. Only big difference I see today is the drugs. Pretty much everyplace I look, so many of these wonderful, promising young folks either ending up in stir or else dead.”
By then of course she was thinking about Coy. He was not, could never be, the love of her life, but she had enough of an ear for music to respect what he did for a living, if you could call it a living. He was a good friend, free so far of assholery, and even strung out most of the time on smack had never looked at her in that creepy Mansonoid way. He sure needed a break in his life.
“There is this sax player I’ve been sort of worried about?” Going on to tell Burke more than she meant to about Coy’s history with heroin. “He can’t afford to be on a program, but that’s what he needs. It’s the only thing that’ll save him.”
Burke walked quietly awhile in the sun. The dogs came over, and Burke’s dog Addison looked up at him and raised one eyebrow. “See that? too much sitting in front of the TV, watching George Sanders movies. No, no—‘You’re too short for that gesture.’ . . . But now I think of it, there is a recovery program, one they tell me really works. Of course I have no idea if it’s anywhere up your friend’s street.”
Next time she talked to Coy, she passed along Burke’s phone number. “And then Coy just disappeared. Nothing unusual, he was always disappearing, one minute he’s there, maybe even in the middle of a solo, next minute, like, whoa, where’d he go? But this time the silence was like something you could almost hear?”
“That must’ve been the first time he went inside that joint up at Ojai,” Doc said.
“The first? How many times has he been in?”
“Don’t know, but I got the feeling he’s a regular up there.”
“So maybe he’s still using.” With an unhappy look on her face.
“Maybe not, Shasta. Maybe something else.”
“What else could it be?”
“Whatever those people are really into, it ain’t helping junkies back on the straight and narrow.”
“I should be saying, ‘Well, Coy’s a grown person, able to take care of himself. . . .’ Only, Doc, he really can’t, and that’s why I’m worried. Not just for him but for his wife and baby, too.”
The first time she saw Coy, he was out hitchhiking on Sunset with Hope and Amethyst. Shasta was driving the Eldorado, couldn’t recall how many times up and down this street she could have used a ride herself, so she gave them a lift. They had some car trouble, Coy said, and were looking for a garage. Hope and Amethyst got in the front, and Coy sat in back. The baby, poor little thing, was so flushed and listless. Shasta recognized the soiled hand of smack. It occurred to her that the baby’s parents might only be in Hollywood to score, but she held off from lecturing. Even by then she had learned enough being Mickey Wolfmann’s g.f. to know she didn’t qualify for any grand-lady parts—it was luck, dumb luck, that had put them each where they were, and the best way to pay for any luck, however temporary, was just to be helpful when you could.
“And you and Mickey were already, like, into it by then?” Doc couldn’t help asking.
“Nosy fuck, ain’t you?”
“Put it another way—how’d you and Coy’s wife get along?”
“That was the only time I ever saw her. They were staying down in Torrance someplace, Coy was hardly ever home. Did I give him my phone number, no, couple days later I was on La Brea, Coy was in the line at Pink’s, saw the Eldorado, came running into traffic, the rest is history. Were we an item? Was I running around on Mickey? What a thing to ask.”
“When did I—”
“Listen, in case you haven’t figured it out, I was never the sweetest girl in the business, there was no reason for me to waste half a minute on a sick junkie like Coy, who was clearly headed for a bad end. He was not my charity project, and we didn’t shoot up together, and anyway, if you stop to think about some of the chicks you’ve hung out with—”
“Okay. Whatever you meant to do, you ended up saving his life. And then he went on to be a snitch for the LAPD and a undercover agent for the Viggies and maybe the Golden Fang—the outfit, not the boa
t—and there’s three stiffs so far that may or may not be on his karmic ticket.”
“Wait. You think Coy—” She got up on an elbow and peered at him red-eyed. “You think I’m in on this, Doc?”
Doc stroked his chin and gazed off into space for a while. “You know how some people say they have a ‘gut feeling’? Well, Shasta Fay, what I have is dick feelings, and my dick feeling sez—”
“So glad I asked. I’m making coffee, you want some?”
“You bet . . . but now, I was sort of wondering . . .”
“Uh-oh.”
“When I said I saw Coy in Hermosa? You didn’t seem too surprised.”
There was a long silence from the kitchen, except for coffeemaking sounds. She came back in and paused in the doorway, one hip out, one knee bent, beautiful naked Shasta. “I saw him once in Laurel Canyon, and he made me swear never to mention it to anybody. He said it would be his ass if anybody found out. But he didn’t get into details.”
“Sounds like even then somebody was desperate to keep that cover story from falling apart. Which it did anyway, right from the first time Coy ever tried to use it. What the hell did he think was going to happen?”
“I don’t know. What did you think, back when you got into your PI trip?”
“Different situation.”
“Oh? far as I can see, you and Coy, you’re peas in a pod.”
“Thanks. How’s that.”
“Both of you, cops who never wanted to be cops. Rather be surfing or smoking or fucking or anything but what you’re doing. You guys must’ve thought you’d be chasing criminals, and instead here you’re both working for them.”
“Ouch, man.” Could that be true? All this time Doc assumed he’d been out busting his balls for folks who if they paid him anything it’d be half a lid or a small favor down the line or maybe only just a quick smile, long as it was real. He began to run through the cash customers he could remember, starting with Crocker Fenway and going on through studio executives, stock-market heroes of the go-go years, remittance men from far away who needed new pussy or dope connections, rich old guys with cute young wives and vice versa. . . . It sure was a piss-poor record, not too different after all, he guessed, from the interests Coy had been working for.
“Bummer!” Could Shasta be right? Doc must have looked depressed enough. Shasta came over and put her arms around him. “Sorry, being actressy. Love those zingers, can’t resist ’em.”
“You think this is why I’m going crazy trying to figure a way to help Coy cut loose of these people? even if I can’t do it for myself? Because I can’t—”
“Courage, Camille—you’re still a long way from LAPD material.” Nice try. But now it had him wondering.
Later they went outside, where a light rain was blowing in, mixed with salt spray feathering off the surf. Shasta wandered slowly down to the beach and through the wet sand, her nape in a curve she had learned, from times when back-turning came into it, the charm of. Doc followed the prints of her bare feet already collapsing into rain and shadow, as if in a fool’s attempt to find his way back into a past that despite them both had gone on into the future it did. The surf, only now and then visible, was hammering at his spirit, knocking things loose, some to fall into the dark and be lost forever, some to edge into the fitful light of his attention whether he wanted to see them or not. Shasta had nailed it. Forget who—what was he working for anymore?
EIGHTEEN
AS DOC APPROACHED DOWNTOWN L.A., THE SMOG GREW THICKER till he couldn’t see to the end of the block. Everybody had their headlights on, and he recalled that somewhere behind him, back at the beach, it was still another classic day of California sunshine. Being on the way to visit Adrian Prussia, he’d decided not to smoke much, so he was at a loss to account for the sudden appearance, rising ahead, of a dark metallic gray promontory about the size of the Rock of Gibraltar. Traffic crept along, nobody else seemed to see it. He thought about Sortilège’s sunken continent, returning, surfacing this way in the lost heart of L.A., and wondered who’d notice it if it did. People in this town saw only what they’d all agreed to see, they believed what was on the tube or in the morning papers half of them read while they were driving to work on the freeway, and it was all their dream about being wised up, about the truth setting them free. What good would Lemuria do them? Especially when it turned out to be a place they’d been exiled from too long ago to remember.
AP Finance was tucked somewhere between South Central and the vestigial river, hometown of Indians and bindlestiffs and miscellaneous drinkers of Midnight Special, up a wasted set of what looked like empty streets, among pieces of old railroad track brickwalled from view, curving away through the weeds. Out in front and across the street, Doc noted half a dozen or so young men, not loitering or doing substances but poised and tonic, as if waiting for some standing order to take effect. As if there was this one thing they were there to do, one specialized act, and nothing else mattered, because the rest would be taken care of by God, fate, karma, others.
Inside, the woman at the front counter gave Doc the impression of having been badly treated in some divorce settlement. Too much makeup, hair styled by somebody who was trying to give up smoking, a minidress she had no more idea of how to carry than a starlet did a Victorian gown. He wanted to say, “Are you okay?” but asked to see Adrian instead.
On Adrian’s office wall was a framed picture of a bride and groom, taken long ago somewhere in Europe. On top of the desk was a half-eaten glazed doughnut and a paper container of coffee, and behind it was Adrian, silent and staring. Heated downtown smoglight filtered in from the window behind him, light that could not have sprung from any steady or pure scheme of daybreak, more appropriate to ends or conditions settled for, too often after only token negotiation. It would be hard to read anybody, let alone Adrian Prussia, in light like this. Doc tried to anyway.
Adrian had short white hair parted at the side to reveal a streak of pink scalp. Ignoring the hair and focusing on his face, Doc saw that it was really more of a young man’s face, not too distant from the amusements of youth, not yet, perhaps not ever, fated to grow into the austere competence the hair seemed to be advertising. He wore a sky blue suit of some knit synthetic with a slovenly drape to it and a Rolex Cellini which didn’t seem to be working, though that didn’t keep him from consulting it now and then to let visitors know how much of his time they were wasting.
“So you’re here about Puck? Wait a minute, this is bullshit—I remember you, the kid from Fritz’s shop out in Santa Monica, right? I lent you my special edition Carl Yastrzemski bat once, to collect from that child-support deadbeat you chased down the Greyhound and pulled him off of, and then you wouldn’t use it.”
“I tried to explain at the time, it had to do with how much I’ve always admired Yaz?”
“No place for that shit in this business. So what you up to these days, still skip tracing or ’d you go into the priesthood?”
“PI,” Doc saw no point in denying.
“They gave you a license?” Doc nodded, Adrian laughed. “So who sent you here? Who you working for today?”
“All on spec,” Doc said. “All on my own time.”
“Wrong answer. How much of your own time you think you got left, kid?” He checked the dead wristwatch again.
“I was just about to ask.”
“Let me buzz my associate in here a minute.” In through the door in a way that suggested indifference about whether it was open, closed, or locked, came Puck Beaverton.
This was not going to end well. “Howdy, Puck.”
“I know you? I don’t think I do.”
“You look like somebody I ran across once. My mistake.”
“Your mistake,” said Puck. To Adrian Prussia, “What do I do with . . . uh,” angling his head at Doc.
“Busy day ahea
d,” said Adrian, going out the door, “I know nothing about any of this.”
“Alone at last,” Doc said.
“Helps to have a bad memory sometimes,” Puck advised, sitting in Adrian’s executive chair and producing a joint a bit longer than the usual, to Doc’s eye likely rolled with an E-Z Wider paper. Puck lit up, had a long hit, and handed it over to Doc, who unthinkingly took it and inhaled. Little knowing till too late that Puck after years of faithful attendance at a ninja school in Boyle Heights had become a master in the technique known as False Inhaling, which allowed him to seem to be smoking the same joint as his intended victim, thus lulling Doc into thinking this number was okay when in fact it was full of enough PCP to knock over an elephant, which had no doubt been Parke-Davis’s original idea when inventing it.
“Acid invites you through the door,” as Denis liked to say—“PCP opens the door, shoves you through, slams it behind you, and locks it.”
After a while Doc finds himself walking along beside himself in the street, or maybe a long corridor. “Hi!” sez Doc.
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