by Dan Taylor
“I ASSURE YOU, ma’am, I’m very much a detective with the LAPD and I have no interest in sleeping with your twelve-year-old daughter,” Detective Dukes says.
There’s silence a second. “I find it really convenient that you’re not able to show me your badge,” Mrs. Toothridge replies.
“We’re talking on the telephone. What do you mean convenient?”
“Exactly what I said, convenient.”
Detective Dukes and Mrs. Toothridge’s conversation has been going around in circles like this for the last two minutes, starting at the point Mrs. Toothridge asked to see said badge.
He decides to take control of the situation. “Look, if it makes you feel any better, and if it gains your trust, you can head on over to the LAPD website, go to the section for the Hollywood Community Police Station and find the name of my boss, Captain Horse, along with a photograph of him.”
“What does that prove? And did you say Captain Horse?”
“I did. And it goes someway to validating my story that I’m a respected police officer simply making enquiries. Feel free to phone him and ask about my employment with the force.”
“I’m nowhere near a computer, and the only thing your referring to a Captain Horse has validated is my suspicion that you’re a chatroom predator high on drugs.”
Detective Dukes sighs. “Look, Mrs. Toothridge, if I’m unable to make my enquiries over the telephone, then I’ll have to visit your residence in person. And my visit won’t be in an unmarked car, and who knows, as I pull up to your driveway in your gated community…it is a gated community, right?”
“Yes.”
“As I pull up, I may have a little accident and turn on the siren with my elbow. It happens sometimes.”
“I don’t like your tone, Detective.”
“Good.”
“What do you mean good?”
“You believe that I’m a detective now.”
“I do, and I’ll be phoning this Captain Horse the first opportunity I get.”
“As I said, feel free. I’m sure he’ll drop coordinating murder cases and drug busts so that he can take your complaint very seriously.”
“Just ask your questions, Detective Dukes.”
“Is there a Hayley Toothridge in your residence?”
“No. I already told you that.”
He sighs. “No, you didn’t.”
“Come to think of it, that wasn’t you. It was the other officer.”
“What other officer?”
“What was his name now? Jack something?”
“An officer from the LAPD phoned you today about a Hayley Toothridge?”
There’s silence a second. “Jack Fancock, that was his name.”
“Wait a minute, are you sure it wasn’t Jake Hancock?”
“That’s it.”
“What did he ask you?”
“Same things you’re asking me. He wanted to know about a Hayley Toothridge, told me some crackpot story about him not remembering what he’s done for the last week, and that he thought a Hayley Toothridge had something to do with it.”
Detective Dukes takes his cell phone away from his ear for a second, mulling things over. Then he returns the phone and says, “You’ve been a great help, Mrs. Toothridge.”
“Don’t get sarcastic with me, Detective Dukes.”
He wasn’t.
“Now you have a nice day, Mrs. Toothridge,” he says, then hangs up.
He sits in silence a minute, thinking about what he’s learned. Hancock comes into a diner, assaults a wife beater, and runs off. Later on in the day, he phones a Mrs. Toothridge, asking if there’s a Hayley Toothridge in the residence or family. There isn’t. And there are two accounts of Hancock complaining of—what?—amnesia. He also suspects she might be behind it, his having amnesia.
Later on in the day, someone calling herself Hayley Toothridge shows up at the crime scene, tells him some Captain Horseshit story about her being Hancock’s sister-in-law.
Something stinks here. Stinks more than a hobo’s ass crack.
Time to call bullshit on one last part of Hayley Toothridge’s story.
He walks over to the front door, to Officer Peoples. “Officer Peoples, can you check with the DMV if there’s a car registered to Jake Hancock.”
“DMV?”
“Department of Motor Vehicles. How can you not know that by now?”
Officer Peoples looks embarrassed for a second before Detective Dukes shakes his head and dismisses him. Officer Peoples runs off to the car radio.
Detective Dukes guards the crime scene the couple minutes Officer Dipshit makes the enquiries.
When he comes back, he tells Detective Dukes exactly what he expected to hear: “No vehicle at this time is registered to a Mr. Jake Hancock of Hollywood Boulevard. But there was one, couple months ago. He totaled it, when, in his words, ‘He was swerving to miss a drunk hobo who’d wandered into the middle of the street.’”
Okay, maybe he wasn’t expecting that last part.
Detective Dukes says, “I think our work at the diner is done, Officer Peoples. Close down the crime scene and you can make your way back to the station.”
Officer Peoples starts to make his way to where the cruisers are parked, but Detective Dukes remembers something, stops him. “Oh, and Officer Peoples, you take the cruiser with the dodgy siren, the one that I tend to turn on with my elbow from time to time.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Just tying up a few loose ends.”
“Do you need backup?”
Detective Dukes notices the crumbs in Officer Peoples’s mustache. Then says, “Not from you, Officer. Not from you.”
25.
WE DECIDED TO not leave the Winnebago. It’s only a forty-minute drive back to the apartment building, and what harm could it do? We’ll be practically handing ourselves in when we go to the hospital anyway. May as well get arrested sooner rather than later. There’s the whole finding-yourself-locked-in-a-jail-cell-with-a-potentially-fatal-heart-condition-and-with-cynical-jailers thing, but I couldn’t deny Grace this one last pleasure before she hands herself in. Grace is most happy: She kissed me on the cheek.
“Now I know that wasn’t CPR,” I say as Grace steers off the curb and back onto the road. Driving 101: don’t kiss a handsome man on the cheek while driving a vehicle large enough and fast enough to mow down a herd of elephants. Hey, that could be my next gig. Jake Hancock, writer of avant-garde driving instructional books. Avant-garde because I don’t own a car myself. Sounds like they could be a hit.
“Don’t let that go to your head, silly dummy.”
“Really, you’re sticking with ‘silly dummy’?”
“It suits you. And it makes me sound cute, in a Marilyn Monroe-kinda-sexy way.”
“I was just thinking the same thing. But more Jessica Rabbit.”
It’s hard to keep Grace focused on important subjects like flirtatious cartoon characters. “Do you think they’ll serve me a meal when I’m in the holding cell?”
“What makes you think you’ll be put in one?”
“They’ll probably want to make me sweat a little before questioning me about the whole walk-in refrigerator incident.”
“If they do, do you imagine a three-course meal being part of that sweating?”
“Good point. We should stop for food before we go to the hospital.”
“Are you hungry? It’s only been a couple hours since breakfast.”
“Famished. You?”
Weird. Grace put away breakfast like a wildebeest with a tapeworm that’s training for a bodybuilding contest. Wow, I really need to shorten my similes. Anyway, something definitely doesn’t add up now. I figured after the rhinoceros-size breakfast that she binged and then skipped meals, maybe just ate one large meal a day. Now I don’t know what to think.
“I’m still good after breakfast. But if you feel like eating again, I suppose it wouldn’t do too much damage if we stopped for something to eat
.”
“Goody.”
Grace’s last meal—her words, she’s acting like she’s on death row—is a Wendy’s. With concerned interest, I watch her eat.
Concerned about what?
Things become fishier when we’ve paid up and go back out to the Winnebago. Grace wanted to visit the bathroom, but the lady’s was out of order. So after refusing to use the disability-access bathroom, because she didn’t feel right about it, despite there being no disabled people in the restaurant, she decided she’d use the Winnie Pooh’s bathroom.
I’m sitting in the shotgun seat, waiting patiently, when I hear a siren in the distance. At this point there’s only two people who are wanted by the LAPD in the whole of L.A. Me and Grace, the walk-in refrigerator killers. Well, not killers, but walk-in refrigerator assaulters, but that doesn’t have the same ring to it. I panic a little, not just because I don’t want to get arrested while wearing a pants color Prince would deem too camp, but because the siren makes me realize that I really don’t want to be arrested before a doctor can diagnose this problem with my chest. I get up from the shotgun seat and rush over to the bathroom.
I knock on the door and say, “Grace, Grace, the cavalry has arrived.”
No response.
The siren’s getting closer, and I swear the orange of these pants is getting brighter, as though I’m waiting for mushrooms to fully hit. And those police officers in my imagination are becoming more cynical:
Officer One says, “Come and look at this. The prisoner is on the floor, unconscious. And he’s foaming at the mouth. Should we open up the cell and call a medical professional?”
Officer Two replies, “Nah, he’s just faking.”
I knock again, more forcefully. “Grace, you really need to come out.”
Then I hear the strangest sound. Kinda like a hippopotamus’s death rattle, though I’m no zoologist. This sounds like a medical emergency. I knew Wendy’s was a bad idea.
I take a few steps back and then rush at the door, putting my shoulder into it at the point of contact.
I break the door open, making it swing forcefully open.
And what I see blows my mind.
26.
“JESUS, GRACE. ARE you okay?”
Grace is kneeling next to the can, holding her hair back like a pro, and power-vomiting. Okay, my mind’s not blown. This is one of the three things ladies do in the bathroom, discounting farting. But alarm bells are ringing nonetheless. Grace didn’t complain of feeling unwell. This whole thing stinks.
She looks up at me. “Why the hell did you break the door in?”
“I heard a siren and panicked. Then I heard you vomiting. Why are you, vomiting, I mean?”
“Oh, this is what I always do after I eat.”
She gets up and wipes her mouth with a Wendy’s napkin she must’ve pocketed. I’m lost for words.
I snap out of it. “This is what you always do, as in regularly?” Always with the straight-to-the-point questions.
“Yeah.”
She flushes the can and walks past me and goes and sits in the driver’s seat.
She tries to start Winnie Pooh’s engine, but I rush over and stop her by taking the keys.
She looks at me, confused. “What are you doing? Those pants of yours aren’t going to change themselves.”
“I’m not really thinking about my pants at the moment, Grace.”
“Why’ve you got that silly look on your face, silly dummy? Like you just walked in on your mom naked?”
I take a seat, thinking about what to say. “I’m concerned about what I just witnessed.”
“What?”
“The vomiting. I know Wendy’s isn’t the best, but still…”
“Like I said, I always do that. It’s no big deal.”
“No big deal?”
“Yeah, if you wanna stay thin and enjoy a good meal, vomiting is the way to go.”
“The way to go?” I shake my head, trying to make sense of what she’s saying. “Grace, I think you might have a problem. Bulimia or anorexia, I forget which one is which.”
“Nah, it’s a killer diet I’m on. Gotta stay thin to keep the hubby happy.” She laughs a pathetic laugh. “All my friends do it. Well, the one friend that I have. Rebel doesn’t like me seeing girlfriends.”
I take her by her shoulders, which are not much more than bone. How could I have been so stupid? Her visit to the bathroom at Vine and Dine after the crazy-large breakfast. Her bone-thin physique. And her husband, Rebel, not only does he beat her most days, but it looks he might be a contributing factor to her developing an eating disorder. Keep shooting for that ‘World’s Best Husband’ mug, pal.
I say, “Grace, listen to me. This isn’t normal. You’re ill. I don’t know who your friend is, but she’s ill too. This is a serious problem.”
“Let go of me, Jake. You’re scaring me.”
“Good. You should be scared.”
She pushes me off her. Not keeping the food down hasn’t hurt strength any, I can tell you, but now’s not the time to be flippant.
“Give me back the keys,” Grace says.
“No. New plan. We go back to my apartment and I change my pants, then we both go to the hospital. Me for my silly heart thing and you for your eating disorder. We don’t talk to the cops until we’ve got you on some sort of treatment plan.”
“You’re overreacting.”
I put the keys in my pants pocket. “We’re not going anywhere until you agree to the new plan.”
“Give me back the keys.”
“No!”
“Give me them!”
We go back and forth like this for at least a full minute until we both burst into tears. Well, Grace starts crying first, and then I do. This is like Aunt Nora’s funeral all over again. I was doing well until Uncle Frank turned on the water works.
We hug it out. Then I pull the move on her that my dad always pulled on me when we had something really serious to say: I take her face in my hands and make sure she makes eye contact with me as I say, “People die from this all the time, Grace. And maybe I’m going soft or something, but I think you’re a little too cool to be put in a box before you’ve reached middle age.”
She becomes pensive, weighing what I said. Her eyes glaze over. “Do people really die from it?”
“They do.”
“Humph. Then I guess I do have a problem.”
Grace tells a heartbreaking story about how it all started. Gaining weight when she was sixteen. Getting married at a young age and then feeling rejected when Rebel stopped making love to her. She figured that it was her weight that did it. I’d get angry at the guy again if it wasn’t for how sad this story’s making me. At this point, I’m kicking Uncle Frank’s ass. Son of a bitch would probably make some wisecrack about his shares in Kleenex suddenly rising. He always was a trite bastard when it came to his wisecracks.
Then she discovered that she could eat whatever she wants and just “spit it back up again, and stay thin enough to fit into my highschool prom dress, which is hideous, but still.”
I make a promise to get her help. The best help. And hopefully she can beat this thing. But I’m not naïve, nor can I or the best medical professionals money can buy guarantee success. This thing’s an addiction, and she may or not beat it, just like when I give in to Cheez Doodles on a Friday night, despite my slight gluten intolerance and the little bit of weight around my abdomen I can’t shift. Damn their cheesy goodness.
Being her shoulder to cry on is as far as I can take her. Not that I’ll stop holding her hand. I’ll support her. But she needs to speak to someone who can address the issues that are at the center of this problem.
The world’s a funny place, and people are funny creatures. As far as I can see Grace is a confident, sexy, intelligent woman. How can she think so little of herself, and how could she ever love a piece of shit like her husband, Rebel, and let him ruin her self-esteem and get all her shit twisted? And does she still love tha
t piece of shit?
“A little, I guess. I was married to the guy for a long time,” Grace says.
“Then you need help fixing that too, Grace. Loving a guy like that, even a little, is a problem itself.”
That gets a little smile from Grace.
I pass her back the keys. She starts Winnie Pooh’s engine.
Before we head off to my apartment, I have one last thing to say. “And Grace, you have a little vomit on your chin.”
“I do not.”
“Do to.”
She doesn’t, but she does have a little in her hair. But I’m too good a friend to mention it.
27.
WE SIT IN SILENCE during the drive to Boulevard. How can you talk about usual dumb shit after a heavy conversation like that? Answer is you can’t. I sit with the wind blowing in my face through the window I rolled down—literally rolled, with a handle, like during highschool days—and Grace concentrates on her driving. She doesn’t swerve onto the curb, not even once. I’m real proud of her. I glance at her every so often, managing not to look at that little bit of vomit in her hair. She has a funny little smile on her face, like she’s discovered happiness for the first time.
We park the Winnie Pooh in the underground parking lot and make our way up to the apartment. That silence has followed us into the elevator. And during the small walk through the corridor. And into my apartment. And into my living room. And into, well, you see where I’m going with this.
Grace leads me into my bedroom. Without saying a word, she starts getting undressed. Her disease has wasted away her arms and her legs, but she still looks very much like a woman. She has full breasts and hips, and she moves slowly and gracefully, not one sign of nerves, like this is the most natural thing in the world.
When she notices that I’m not getting undressed, she asks, “What’s the matter? Don’t tell me Mr. Save the World is shy.”
“No, it’s not that.”
She’s completely naked now apart from one sock. I can’t stop glancing at it.
“Then what is it?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying this.”
I look at her nipples, which are pointing accusatorily at me. All puckered and angry. Despite my description, it’s very sexy. “Neither can I. I don’t know how I feel about this.”