Boulevard

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Boulevard Page 4

by Bill Guttentag


  She looked back at Dennis.

  “As long as we’re here, he’s here,” Christina said. “And as long as dates know he’s there, they don’t do shit.”

  Casey kept going over in her mind how she would do this. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t. But what choice did she have? A BMW pulled to the curb in front of her. Casey glanced towards Dennis. He lifted up his bottle and tilted it towards her, like he was saluting her with it. She turned back to the car. Inside was a guy in his thirties in a suit. He looked like the kind of person who worked at a bank or something. He could be a junior high principal, or the guy in charge of the movie theaters in the mall. It was too weird. Too sick.

  “How much?”

  He could be a doctor. A lawyer.

  “How much?” he asked again.

  “Forty,” she managed to get out.

  “How much?” He sounded kinda mad. But Casey realized she had spoken so softly, that it really wasn’t his fault. Nobody could’ve heard her.

  “Forty.”

  “Okay.”

  She slid into his car. He didn’t even look at her. Good … But how could he not even look at her?

  “I’m going to go over to Genessee. That’s okay with you?”

  The guy reached his hand over and touched her thigh. She pulled back. Get away!, she thought. He was surprised. She caught herself, and moved back over. Let him put his hand on my thigh. She saw a garage clicker attached to the visor. Then she looked in the back seat. There was a child’s car seat. An open box of Animal Crackers and a Barbie was lying beside it.

  The car turned the corner and drove half a block down Genessee. He parked in front of a nice house; the street was quiet with no other traffic. He turned off his engine. Without looking at her, he unzipped his pants and pulled his dick out. Casey looked at the gross dick, then up at him, waiting for her to start—and she threw the car door open. She jumped out and raced down the street. The guy was probably pissed, but fuck him! She kept moving on the dark street. The further away she got, the faster she ran, gasping for air, but never slowing. Her right heel broke off, so she kicked off the shoe, plus the other one. She didn’t look back. In her stockings, she ran—and she knew she’d run as fast and far as she’d have to. Past De Longpre, past Fountain, past Lexington. Out of breath and her lungs burning with exhaustion, she reached Santa Monica Boulevard—and entered a world she never knew existed.

  Lining both sides of Santa Monica Boulevard were boys—all kinds of boys—white boys, black boys, Asian and Latino boys. Tall muscular boys in jeans and cowboy boots, others who wore tiny shorts and were almost delicate looking. Some were punked-out in studded leather jackets, but a lot more looked like they stashed their surfboards before hitting the street. Some looked like they were in their late teens or early twenties, but most were younger and some, much younger. Half were shirtless, not caring about the cold, and all were eyeing the street, as cars slowed to a crawl and the drivers looked over the boys, like they were in a drive-through sex supermarket. Casey walked slowly down the block, taking it in—when shooting over the curb, and heading straight for her, were three surfer-looking boys on mountain bikes, laughing as they raced down the sidewalk. Casey scrambled to get out of their way, and as they flew by, she realized they were triplets. Two of them jumped into the open door of a Land Rover and the third stayed behind and held his brothers’ bikes. He threw Casey a smile, and when she looked back, she saw Dennis’ jeep behind him. He was stuck in traffic, but moving down Santa Monica towards her. She didn’t know what to do, where to go. Do something. She looked all around. Do something. Do Something. Then she saw it—a 7-11, with a narrow passageway separating the store from the next building.

  The passage was dark and grimy, smelled of piss, and there was shattered glass all over. As she ran, she prayed it wouldn’t cut up her feet. But piss—no piss, glass—no glass—if it got her away from Dennis, it was the most beautiful street in the world. It led to an alley which as soon as she reached, Casey heard something slamming hard against metal. Just ahead, she saw a shirtless boy, sixteen or so, throwing a guy twice his age into a garage door screaming, “Fucker!”

  The guy hit the garage door and dropped to the ground. He landed beside a two-by-four board, which he picked up and swung right back at the kid, hitting him across his shoulders. The kid didn’t scream like Casey knew she would have. Instead, he leapt up and shook off the pain. The old guy saw his chance, and started running away. He was heading in her direction, while the kid, running like a track star, followed just behind, and was catching up fast. Casey hurried behind a dumpster—the kid was wacko. The last thing she needed was him to see her. She ran a few feet further and found a tiny alcove in the brick wall of a building where she silently slipped down to the asphalt and pulled her knees up to her chest. Through a thin opening between the dumpster and a telephone pole, Casey could see the kid catch up to the guy and tackle him. The kid’s bare back was covered with sweat, dirt, and cuts. He scrambled on top of the old guy, his knees pinned the guy’s arms to the ground and he smashed his fist into his face.

  Casey crouched lower still, trying to become invisible. Blood was all over the guy’s face. The kid reached into the old guy’s jacket and pulled out his wallet. He took out all the money, threw the wallet on the ground and walked away. Grabbing onto a rusty chain link fence for support, the old guy pulled himself up, and ran off down the alley.

  Casey pushed her head between her knees. She felt like she was going to explode—her life was shit—there was no place to escape, not one tiny pocket where she could see normal people doing normal things—everything was fucked up. A shadow fell over her. She screamed. She was found. It was all over. She looked up. It wasn’t Dennis—it was the kid. He had a flannel shirt tied around his waist and the old guy’s money was proudly tucked into the front of his jeans.

  “Get away from me!”

  She could feel her body shaking. Stupid! Why was she yelling at him? He beat the shit out of people. The kid took a step towards her.

  “I got no money. I got nothing!”

  She had to get out of there. He was in front of her, but if she sprang up and moved fast enough, maybe she could make it past his left side … but then what? She didn’t even have shoes, and he was way fast—she just saw it. She froze. The kid untied his shirt and tossed it to her. She caught it—but threw it right back.

  “Take it,” he said, “it’ll help hide you from whoever you’re hiding from.”

  He held the shirt out to her.

  “Take it.”

  She dropped her head to her knees and again wrapped her arms tight around them, pulling her legs so close it hurt.

  “C’mon—” he said.

  “Why are you helping me?”

  “’Cause you need it. No one hides behind a dumpster in Hollywood ’cause they like it. If you want, I can set you up for the night.”

  For what? He wanted to be her pimp, too? “You’ll set me up? How do you know I need to be set up?”

  “You just got here, right?”

  Casey didn’t say anything. She looked up at him as he brushed the dirt off his bare shoulders.

  “It’s that easy to tell?”

  He took a step back. “C’mon—”

  “A minute ago, I see you beating the shit outta someone, and now you’re saying ‘follow me’?”

  “The john didn’t pay. John don’t pay—john gets taxed. I gotta eat.”

  He looked straight at her. She couldn’t look in his eyes. She thought about her father, her mother, the shithead boyfriend, the jerk with the Barbie. And then, it seemed like the wave that held her under had washed over. She could finally lift her head an inch above the water.

  “And he hit you,” Casey said.

  “Fucking right, he hit me. You saw that? He hit me hard. For an old guy, he was tough.”

  “Hurt?”

  “Nah … Yeah … A little. Probably’ll hurt more tomorrow.”

  Casey looked at him
and their eyes met. This was it—if she guessed wrong on him, she knew she’d never make it—he could do what he wanted with her and no one would ever know—she had no money, no strength. She knew no one. She had no place to go.

  11

  Jimmy

  “What do you have?”

  What do I have?—Jimmy couldn’t stand the question, or, closer to the truth, he couldn’t stand the guy doing the asking. It was, after all, a reasonable request. The guy talking, John Miller, looked like he just popped out of Brooks Brothers. This was LA—Captain Charles Claxton’s office in the Hollywood police station, and Miller, in a gray suit and yellow tie, was dressed like he traded bonds on Wall Street. Jimmy knew the look too well from all his years in New York—half the joy of leaving the city was saying sayonara to guys like that. Miller was also wearing a college ring, and Jimmy clocked him as being one of those guys whose four years of college were the highlight of their lives and they never shut up about it. Probably still jogged in the college sweatshirt. “What do I have?” Jimmy said. “What should I have? The body’s still warm.”

  “You should have something,” Miller said. “Evidence, maybe. Witnesses. You want me to write out a list for you?”

  “Thanks. That would be a big help. Can’t believe I didn’t think of that myself.”

  “Jimmy, hold on.” Charles shot him a look. Jimmy knew it was time to shut up.

  Miller continued, “No progress, but awfully defensive. That’s a winning combination.”

  “I’m defensive?”

  “He’s right,” Charles said.

  “What, I’m defensive?”

  “No, not that—I mean, yeah, that is right too, but so’s Jimmy.”

  Charles leaned back at his desk and looked towards Miller. He was sitting in the office’s only nice chair, which the guys chipped in to buy after the last one shattered into half a dozen pieces while some sleazebag lawyer was pontificating in it. The lawyer got a nail jammed in his back and a huge rip in his Armani suit. But as a result, his scumbag client probably chopped five years off what he deserved.

  “Look, it’s still early,” Charles said. “Give us some time, huh?”

  “No. You look. Mark Lodge was the mayor’s former chief of staff, and an extremely close friend of his. You understand what that means?”

  I’m starting to, Jimmy thought.

  “So detective, I’m asking you one more time—what do you have?”

  “The same as thirty seconds ago. But can I ask you a question?

  “Shoot.”

  “Lodge, and don’t take this the wrong way—was he having a fling?

  “What?”

  “A fling. Maybe even with a kid?”

  “You’re joking. What kind of question is that?”

  “I’m just asking. You want me to do my job?—That’s part of my job.”

  “Mark had a wife and a small child. He was in the public eye. You really think he would do something that stupid?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”

  “He was a devoted family man. There was no fling. I have to tell you something—both of you. This mayor has increased the police budget nine percent a year for the past three years. And you know who sold him on that proposal, fought the do-nothing, cop-hating city council to get it implemented?—Mark Lodge. The same Mark Lodge you’re now pointing a finger at.”

  “I’m not pointing a finger at anyone—if he was fighting for us, then I was his number one fan. No one likes a pay raise more than a cop. You say he was on the level, that’s good enough for me. It’s just business.”

  “The business of the police is making arrests.”

  “Then help me out. What was he doing at the Chateau?”

  “Christ, between the restaurant and the Bar Marmont, there’s hundreds of meetings a day at the Chateau.”

  “So he had a meeting there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re his law partner, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t know what he was doing there?”

  “I’m his partner, not his secretary.”

  “Fair enough. Say he did have a meeting there. Would it be the sort of meeting he might not want people knowing about?”

  “I don’t believe this. Instead of solving the crime, you’re looking to blame the victim, not the scum who did it.”

  “Scum is exactly what we’re looking for. Your friend was stabbed twenty-nine times. That defines scum. I promise you we’re gonna nail the guy who did it.”

  “I didn’t give this case to you because of your stroking skills,” Charles said when they were finally alone, “I gave it to you because I think you can deliver. You can deliver, right?”

  Jimmy wanted to deliver. If for nothing else, he wanted to for Charles. Wherever Jimmy went, people hated their bosses. But he liked his. Charles was in his mid-forties, had chestnut-colored skin and a shaved, almost polished head. He grew up in Culver City, and when the Vietnam war came along he was the sort of poor black kid that went in without bitching and had their lives changed forever. He was nineteen, and walking just behind point, when the kid ahead of him hit a mine, and in a flash had his insides ripped out. Charles held the kid until the medic chopper came—thirty-five horrendous minutes. The guy died, of course. In all the years he had known him, Charles only spoke about it once, but Jimmy figured it was always there in him. After he came back, and joined the force, Charles and his partner, who by some weird coincidence was also named Charles, were bringing in some punk kid. His partner patted the perp down and threw him in the back seat. But the perp had a gun concealed in his boot which the partner hadn’t found. The perp pulled the gun and squeezed off three shots. The partner fell onto the steering wheel, and before Charles knew what was happening, he felt blood trickling down the back of his neck. His partner was dead before the paramedics got there, and the surgeons worked all night on Charles at Cedars-Sinai. They pulled out one bullet, but the other one was too far in to reach without doing more damage, and they left it in. Most of the time Charles had no idea the bullet was in there, but sometimes he got these headaches that made him crazy. On nights like that he knew if he went out on the street and saw all the usual shit that always pissed him off—a baby abandoned by her mother to whore for crack, a nurse raped in the hospital parking lot—he knew he would go off on someone. On those nights he asked to stay in the stationhouse and do paperwork. The other cops called him “bullet-head”, like “Hey bullet-head, what shift you pulling, man?” But Charles kept getting promoted and by the time he made captain, you never heard ‘bullet-head’ again.

  “I think I can deliver, “Jimmy said.

  “Better. For both of us. This case’s a monster. You nail it, I go to commander and you, man, make captain—which you deserve. So don’t fuck it up.”

  Jimmy smiled. It didn’t sound so bad. He hadn’t spent his cop life grubbing for the next spot on the totem pole, but he’d been around enough clueless brass to think he could run a precinct and fix a ton of the bullshit that he was forced to slog through.

  “Hey, we’re not dealing with some unsolvable Russian mob hit,” Jimmy said. “We’ll get it. What do you think about the vic?”

  “He may not have been an asshole,” Charles said. “We had nothing on him. There’s ten thousand nutty kids in Hollywood. Not to mention the adults. He could’ve been legit like his prick buddy said. Wrong place, wrong time.”

  Jimmy took a nibble on his thumbnail.

  “I don’t think so,” Jimmy said.

  “Yeah? …” Charles said, “neither do I. The hotel room.”

  “Absolutely. Miller’s right—every day hundreds of people go to the Bar Marmont or eat in the restaurant there. But how many of them end up in a room upstairs afterward?”

  “You see the paper today?” Charles asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Lodge was the mayor’s roommate at UCLA. And Miller was a couple of years behind them. Same frat house. B
e nice to him. Or at least try.”

  Jimmy looked up, to see something hurling right at him. He snapped up his arm and snagged some kind of ball out of the air. It was blue, about the size of a large egg, and had a Chinese dragon painted on it.

  “What’s this?”

  “Chinese stress reliever. Next time you feel like the shit’s gettin’ to you, shake this thing instead.”

  Jimmy shook it. There was something springy inside that vibrated wildly. It gave him a smile.

  “I got a message from Erin Sullivan,” Jimmy said. “You know what it’s about?”

  “I told her to call. You know her?”

  “I played ball a couple of times with her husband—best third base in the league. I thought she was out.”

  “She’s back. She’d just made detective and the Chateau used to be on her beat. I asked her to help you out on this one.”

  “Charles—”

  “Stop right there …”

  Jimmy hadn’t worked with a partner since Manhattan South. Better that way.

  “Done deal,” Charles said.

  “I don’t get a say?”

  “Yeah. You say ‘yes’. Shake the ball, man.”

  He did. It worked. For three seconds.

  12

  It was pushing ten when Jimmy was cutting through West Hollywood heading for the Chateau. He had Erin with him. She was in her late twenties, with dark blonde hair that fell just past her shoulders, and had what Jimmy always thought was a sweet smile. Most cops seem angry—a lot angry, or a little angry—but angry all the same. Not Erin. He thought she was cute, but so did every guy in the precinct, and they all knew she had the husband, Rick, who was not only a tough, in-your-face cop, but a good guy, too. She had been through a rough time.

 

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