City of War (5 page)

“It saves time.”

I had to agree. If people would spend a little more time talking in bed and a little less pretending it’s the Olympics, there’d be a lot more smiling faces and a lot fewer women masturbating after the guy falls asleep. I never quite figured it out. You’re not wearing any clothes, and you’re headed into the most intimate act a man and woman can perform, but somehow you can’t bring yourself to say, “Here, do this.”

She was a lot of girl, and she fit against me perfectly. I kissed her and caressed her and rolled her nipples between my fingers until she was groaning for me to get inside her. I must have done my job, because she had her first orgasm on my way in. Her second came a few moments before my own, and if it was half as intense as the sounds she made, we had done well together.

Afterward, as we lay in each other’s arms, she said, “I’ve never been made love to by this much man before.”

To which I naturally replied, “Shucks, ma’am, it’s not
that
big.”

4

Benny Joe and the Dobermans

When I awakened, sun was streaming through the windows. I glanced at the clock. 8:46. Kim was still dead to the world, so I eased out of bed, slipped into a pair of swim trunks and went out to the pool.

I start every morning swimming a mile—fast. For me it’s the best workout and the greatest high you can get. Every time I see a jogger struggling up a hill, I’m happy he’s exercising, but I’ll put my endorphins up against his any day. In college, I swam butterfly and the IM, and there was a moment in time when I was almost world-class. But there was that tenth of a percent of talent that wasn’t in my chromosomes, and no matter how hard you work, you can’t train into it.

For years, I did my morning swims in the ocean because it’s a harder workout, but I got tired of plowing through things I didn’t recognize—or worse, did. Put an ordinary person on a body of water, and he can’t wait to start heaving shit over the rail. So when I bought this house, I had a lap pool added to one end of the main pool, creating a fat blue T that never fails to elicit comments from my houseguests.

When I climbed out, Mallory asked me if he should get
breakfast started, but I told him to wait a while. I went into the pool house, which doubles as my office, took a long hot shower, shaved and dressed in some cutoffs and a Polo shirt. Then I sat down at my desk.

I’m not a genius with a computer, but I can make it do what it’s supposed to. More importantly, I’ve got friends around town who seem to like me enough to take my calls and answer a question or two. After some cruising around the Internet and working the phone, I went back to the main house. Mallory met me on the patio with the Sunday
L.A. Times
and a strong cup of coffee. I told him I was starving, and he headed for the kitchen while I sat down at the big outdoor table under the bougainvillea-draped trellis and started through the paper.

It didn’t take long to find the account of the accident. A picture of the now-deceased driver of the red Lamborghini—a semi-famous music producer—was on the front page under the headline

I supposed the earthquake part was technically correct, but it would seem that reckless driving and the cocaine dust they found on his upper lip might have been contributing factors. As for being a legend…well, I’m not sure one Top 40 hit is enough for me, but in a town where Pee-wee Herman has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and Harvey Keitel, the second-best actor of the twentieth century, doesn’t, the legend label probably now applies to my dry cleaner. Ten years, and he’s never lost a pair of pants.

Inside, on page twelve, there was a shot of the Lamborghini lying on its top like a dead turtle. Whoever had taken it had been standing on the opposite side of the freeway, and sure enough, there were the blue van, the white Caddie and the hood and windshield of my Rolls. The rest was obscured by the center divider and the back of the van.

I went into the kitchen, rummaged around in a drawer until I found a magnifying glass and went back outside. I was studying the picture when Kim came up behind me.

“Happy birthday.”

As I turned, she put her arms around me and gave me a kiss. I noticed she was still wearing the strand of lace around her neck. “So where’s my present?” I asked.

“You got it last night.”

“I hate it when they come unwrapped.”

She wriggled tight against me, and I felt myself respond.

She fingered the lace. “I happen to have a little time right now.” Her breathing was shallow, and her eyes had a faraway look.

I held her at arm’s length. “I have a rule. Never when there’s bacon on the wind.”

She sniffed the air. “I’ve got to admit, that does smell wonderful. Okay, you’ve got a rain check. By the way, was I as good as Rhonda?”

In the big book of life, these are the kinds of questions where the answer is so obvious that you wonder why any guy ever gets it wrong. But the cemeteries and alimony lines are full of guys who do. “Rhonda? Who’s Rhonda?”

Kim gave me a mock punch, but she liked it. “You know, when I woke up, it took me five minutes to figure out you weren’t there. That’s the biggest goddamn bed I’ve ever seen—
or
been laid in. Who knew sheets even came in that size.”

“The Martha Stewart Big and Tall Collection.”

“And I didn’t even have to shave you.”

“That one of your hidden talents?”

Suddenly, she seemed flustered, as if she’d said something she hadn’t intended to. “Just a figure of speech,” she stammered, then looked at the newspaper on the table. “What have you got there?”

I handed her the magnifying glass. “You tell me.”

While she bent over the newspaper and adjusted her eyes,
I admired the fit of the familiar jeans, the white sleeveless blouse and sandals. And once again, it took a couple of deep breaths to get my emotions back in their cage.

After a long moment, Kim stood up. “My God, that’s me,” she said.

“And your best side too.” Under magnification, you could make out Kim’s bare back climbing over the center divider. I made a mental note of the name of the guy who was credited for the picture—Walter Kempthorn.

While Mallory served us cheese omelets and thick slices of slab bacon, Kim and I made light conversation. Finally, I said, “You want me to run you home later?”

She looked away, seemed to gather herself. “Hey, it’s Sunday anyway. Why don’t we just lie around this little ol’ place of yours and soak up some sun. Maybe catch a nap this afternoon.” The last line was delivered with a seductive lowering of her voice that I read as genuine, but it could have just been wistful thinking.

“Sounds fine. Especially the nap part. But I’ve got to run an errand first.”

“Need company?”

“Why don’t you stay here and get started on that sun. I won’t be long.”

“Okay, but if you want to win my heart, stop and pick up a pack of smokes. I promise to pay you back.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

I took the Rolls down the hill and turned east on Sunset. Drove through West Hollywood and on the far side hung a left on one of the winding streets up into the hills. Almost at the top, there was a narrow drive marked by a couple of reflectors on a metal pole over a KEEP OUT sign. I turned in and immediately heard Benny Joe’s dogs barking.

I like dogs, but there’s nothing warm and cuddly about four aggressive Dobermans that don’t obey their owner all that well. Having been chased back to my car more than once after they’d slipped through an unlatched gate, I sat in
the Rolls and leaned on the horn. That set the dogs off even more.

A minute or two later, Benny Joe Willis came out wearing a pair of old sweatpants and a wife-beater. As usual, he was shoeless and unshaven. Also as usual, he was carrying a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon in one hand and a .357 Magnum in the other.

I opened the door. “You can put the peashooter away, Benny Joe. I shook the FBI tail coming through town.”

“You’re a fuckin’ riot, Rail. It ain’t the cops I’m worried about. It’s that fuckin’ ex-wife of mine. She’s got a fuckin’ hit out on me. Says I implanted a listening device in her. That I get my rocks off sittin’ up here listenin’ to her fuck other guys. Jesus Christ, I couldn’t stand hearin’ that when we were married.”

Benny Joe uses “fuck” at least once every time he opens his mouth, and I’ve had entire conversations with him where that was the only word he uttered.

“Sorry, I didn’t get the newsletter. Last I knew, it was some UFO guy on the radio you were obsessed with. Heard you had a picture of the Roswell crash and ratted you out to the Men in Black.”

“Fuckin’ cocksucker. I’m never gonna call that Commie fuck’s show again. Let’s get the fuck inside in case the bitch hired a sniper.”

In contrast to Benny Joe’s appearance and mouth, his house is extremely well-decorated in excellent taste. Lots of rich leather furniture, black stone tables and an entertainment center he says cost him a hundred grand, which I believe. He’s also compulsively neat. Not even a book out of place. The only thing that isn’t super-clean is the outside glass because the Dobermans put their faces right up against the windows and snarl and slobber the whole time there’s a stranger inside. Makes you feel welcome.

But it’s the walls that make the place unique. There isn’t the standard framed Normandie poster or Guernica print
anywhere. Instead, the entire house is covered with 48 x 36 blowups of the Kennedy assassination, tacked up with red pushpins—the only color Benny Joe uses. Says the other colors don’t hold.

Benny Joe’s quirky, but he’s a photographic genius. A fuckin’ genius, if I can be excused for plagiarizing. He doesn’t have much of an eye as a picture-taker, but he’s the best restorer of film and video on the planet, and he can coax things out of an image no one has seen before. He makes a handsome living analyzing security camera tape for business and law enforcement. But he makes more money than God doing exactly the same thing for news organizations—who never met a consultant they couldn’t overpay.

Benny Joe made his reputation as an analyst at the National Reconnaissance Office, the people who operate our spy satellites. He was something of a legend there, but it all came to a screeching halt one day in the Oval Office. Benny Joe’s boss had been summoned to brief the president about Middle East satellite imagery after some mindless act of terrorism had killed half a dozen Americans. But the boss was a bureaucrat, not an analyst, so to avoid looking like a schmuck in case there were questions, he decided to take along the guy who had actually done the work.

Knowing that Benny Joe had a proclivity for offering his opinion on just about everything and a compulsion to do it X-rated, the boss warned him that if anybody asked a question, he was to stick to the technical stuff and not go into some rant about Jerry Jones or the ozone layer or the high cover charge at strip clubs or whatever it was that he was exercised about that week.

But as fate would have it, after the Q&A, the president complimented Benny Joe on his work, then asked him what he thought about the current crisis. Benny Joe looked at his boss, who gave him a reluctant nod, and Benny Joe went with it.

“Well, shit, Mr. President, if you really want my advice, when you get your hands on the motherfuckers who drew
this up, you should fuck them in the ass until their goats die.” Word is the prez laughed like hell, but nobody else did. Two weeks later, Benny Joe got his ticket punched to early retirement.

Apparently they’ve had a little trouble replacing him, though, because they keep sending guys around trying to lure him back. He says that’s one of the reasons for the .357. The other reasons come and go.

“You get that new enlarger you’ve been waiting for?” I asked.

Benny Joe’s second floor is filled with lenses, snoots, vacuum chambers, strobes and a lot of things he invented himself. He’s even designed software that does things I didn’t think were possible. Like being able to distinguish temperature gradations on the skin of aircraft from regular photographs.

“Fuck no. The manufacturer’s got some real attitude. Says I cost him a fuckin’ million-dollar sale on some bullshit machine I wrote an online review about. Wait’ll I crack the fuckin’ JFK case. He’ll chase me down to kiss my fuckin’ ass.”

As anyone who’s been in his house or talked to him for five minutes has discovered, Benny Joe is obsessed with the Kennedy assassination. He’s convinced that the bullets fired in Dealey Plaza that day are actually captured on the Zapruder film, and that it’s just a matter of time before he comes up with the technology to tease them out.

He reminds skeptics that twenty-five years ago, they’d have sent you into therapy if you’d suggested DNA would eventually put criminals in prison. That it’s the same with photography. Everything’s there, you just have to have the right equipment to see it.

I’m not smart enough to know one way or another, but Benny Joe’s got his supporters, one of whom from his former government life sneaked him a first-generation copy of Abraham Zapruder’s 8mm contribution to history.

I do know I’ve seen him work magic. Like the pictures I bought a couple of months ago. I like estate sales. I don’t buy much, but it’s fascinating to look at what people accumulate over a lifetime and a lot more interesting than walking around a mall.

I was in Pittsburgh when I saw an ad for a sale in Point Breeze, one of the city’s ritzy old neighborhoods. The home had belonged to a member of the Thaw steel family, who’d lived there in grandeur for over a century before they’d finally died out.

When I showed up, the place was jammed, and the auctioneer was hawking in orgiastic delight as dealers and speculators tried to outbid each other for Tiffany lamps and Chippendale furniture. Nobody, however, was interested in four boxes of old photographs evidently taken by a succession of family members.

I don’t know why I bought them either. Maybe it was intuition, or more likely, I was just bored. Either way, the whole thing only set me back seventy-five bucks, which was less than I’d paid for dinner the night before.