Dawson's Web (12 page)

Charlene and Randy made it to John Larson’s small apartment on Hermosa Avenue after a thirty-minute drive down Sepulveda from LAX. John R. Larson, or JR for short, was 38 years old, a redhead, six feet one inches tall, medium build with freckles but aside from that, an attractive man. He was never wanting for dates and had recently met someone that he was more than interested in.

JR met them at the door of the brown stucco nondescript apartment building, one of many that lined the little stretch of beach known as Hermosa Beach, or beautiful beach in Spanish. In the sixties, this part of the South Bay was a biker’s paradise. Now it boasted a new downtown area and several upscale restaurants that were making money hands-over-fist catering to the tourists and locals alike. It also had million dollar apartments next to multi-million dollar beach shacks.

JR lived in one of the older but still-expensive fourplexes. When he greeted them at the door, he helped Charlene with her luggage. Because Charlene had exceeded the fifty-pound limit for the airlines, he almost strained his back but finally got them settled in on his couch and they started to catch up.

Randy told JR the same lie he told Charlene about him owing money to Giovanni, but JR, suspecting his friend wasn’t telling the truth, called him on it after Charlene went to the bathroom.

“Look, buddy, you can’t fool me. We’ve known each other for a couple years and I can tell when you are lying. What is the scoop with this Giovanni?”

Randy walked towards the kitchen and motioned for JR to follow. He didn’t want Charlene to hear. “I was into some pretty radical stuff back in New York.”

“Radical?”

“I mean like blackmail. I thought you knew. I told you once at Charlies’. Don’t you remember? It was after St. Patty’s Day, right before you left to come out here for your sister.”

“That night is a blur. It’s the same night I found out about her drug problem. I was drunk. I don’t remember a thing.”

“Well, trust me, I told you.”

“Sorry, I don’t remember. I wondered how you made money. I honestly don’t remember anything from that night.”

JR and Randy stepped farther into the kitchen and Randy began to whisper. “Anyway, Charlene and I pulled a scam on a businessman Giovanni works for. We took some pictures of the guy in compromising positions with her.”

“No!!! You didn’t set up your girlfriend. Did you?”  JR couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“We were going to blackmail him like I’ve done before with other guys I hooked my previous girlfriends up with. Anyway, to cut to the chase, Giovanni is one bad dude. Some friends of mine told me he killed a guy a while ago, and I believe them.” Randy told him about the incident in Palm Springs. Then he added, “Is this going to be a problem with us staying here? I mean in case Giovanni is able to track us down?”

At that moment, Charlene entered the room.

“I heard the word “problem.”  What problem are you talking about Randy? She could tell he was whispering and didn’t catch everything, only the word “problem.” It bothered her he was evasive. He had been so straightforward until now. She began to wonder if her faith in him was misplaced.

There was a pregnant pause. Randy, caught off guard, didn’t know what to say. JR came to the rescue and interrupted knowing he was sending a lifeline to his friend. “Randy was asking if it was going to inconvenience me while you both camped out here. I told him it wasn’t.”

JR then took out his cell phone and brought up a picture of his girlfriend in Palos Verdes to distract her.

“Here’s why. Take a look at Patricia. I’m going to be spending time with her while you are here in Hermosa. Your being here will be an excellent excuse for me to be there with her. We are only beginning to get to know each other. I can tell her you and Randy needed a place for an indeterminate amount of time and she’ll understand. She’ll have no choice but to let me stay there.  I’ve been looking for an excuse to move in with her anyway. This will work out fine for all of us.

Besides, she knows how small my place is. It’s okay for me, but three people staying here would be pushing it.

I love this girl, but I’m not sure the feeling is mutual. The more time I can spend with her, the sooner I can sort out what, if any, future we might have together. She’s a widow and our relationship is still in its early stages. Trust me. This will work out well.”

Charlene was easily distracted and took the phone. The MILF blonde was stunning, except for her collagen-filled lips and fake boobs. Charlene didn’t want to offend JR. To her, his girlfriend looked like an ex-stripper, or worse yet, an over-the-hill one. She paused momentarily and then summoned the right word. “Interesting.”

JR knew the drill all too well. His girlfriend was somewhat plastic--at least parts of her were anyway. He had gotten this same reaction before when he showed the pictures to his friends at the bar.

“I know what you’re thinking. She looks like she would be high maintenance. Trust me, she’s not. Her husband was very wealthy, older than she was, and liked his trophy wife to look young. That’s why he paid for the boob job and lip work. Once you get to know her, which you will, you’ll see she’s sweet. Not only is she nice, but she’s also loaded! And she loves me. I like my sugar mama!”

He beamed, took the phone back, glanced at his girlfriend’s picture one last time and put it back on the counter.

Charlene was perplexed. This girl was an ex-stripper as far as she was concerned, Even if she weren’t, she looked phony. But apparently, JR felt about her much as she felt about Randy. They had something in common.

That first night they were there ended with JR, Charlene and Randy drinking far too much wine, but during that time, the three bonded. Still, in Charlene’s eyes, JR was in way over his head with his “Plastic Patty” as she mentally referred to his friend. She tried to caution him, but he was having none of it.

For the next two weeks, Charlene and Randy scoured the want ads and Craig’s list trying to find jobs.

They found nothing.

Randy’s bank account was draining like a dinghy with a hole in it. It was slowly deflating and, if he didn’t do anything about it soon, he and Charlene would be sunk--up to their proverbial eyes and on skid row. Because neither of them had marketable skills, they spent most of their days making phone calls and getting rejections. After a couple of weeks of this, Randy was reaching his limit and considering pimping out Charlene again. At least he knew he was good at blackmail. He thought about it all afternoon while pounding down a six-pack of Bud. He fell asleep on the couch with Charlene. Finally, at 2:30 AM when JR finished a shift at HBYC, Randy came to his senses and quartered his friend to ask for a favor. Charlene had moved into JR’s bedroom when Randy’s snoring got too loud.

“JR, I didn’t know the job market in LA was so terrible. I’ve only been here a couple of weeks and I’ve already spent $3000. At this rate, without any income, I’m going to be broke in less than six months.”  He reached into his cigar box where he stored his cash rolled up in thousand dollar wads, each with a rubber band around the ten one hundred dollar bills. There were only twenty-seven wads left.  He counted them out for his friend.

“If I had to pay you rent, I’d be in even deeper shit.”

“Hold on, bro. I’m not charging you rent. I haven’t and I won’t. I can help you.”

“How?” Randy perked up, went to the fridge, got two beers, and handed one to JR.

“Look, I’m going to give notice in four months and between now and then I’m going to move into Patricia’s house. The fact that you’ve been here for a couple of weeks and I’ve spent time up there has worked wonders for our relationship, which is getting better by the day. We actually do like each other. Hell, we more than like each other. She loves me and I love her. She told me I don’t have to work if I don’t want to. She has enough money for both of us. My lease runs out in four months. By then, you’ll have something going and you can take over the lease. I know my landlord would rather have someone in here I can vouch for than rent to some stranger. He’s been great these past couple of years and hasn’t raised my rent a dime. When I tell him you’re my friend, he will have no problem renting to you.”

Patty is 48 years old, a yoga instructor, and recently a widow. Her husband died in a car accident while skiing in Vail. She has a $3 million house Palos Verdes. She also got the $5 million life insurance settlement when her husband died. And, best of all she loves me.”  JR pointed his thumb to his chest to emphasize the point.

Randy could tell JR was smitten.

To Randy, it was obvious. JR had fallen into high cotton. He could quit his job as a bartender now that he had found his sugar mama.

He swigged his beer. “You dog. Are you kidding me?” Randy asked. He was jealous.

JR smiled. What else could he do?

“Listen, I’ve dated a lot since I moved to California, but I’ve never met anybody like Patty. The California girls I’ve met over the past two years, especially the ones on the beach, are so phony. Carrying on a conversation with them is like talking to a wall. With Patty, it’s different. She has her bachelor’s degree in psychology. She likes sports. She drinks, but not too much. She knows how to have fun, and we have never had an argument since we’ve been dating. She’s the most easy-going person I’ve ever met. She also can’t have kids, which is fine by me. She and her husband were doing well. He was an architect with some firm in downtown LA. They had it all: the house in PV, the condominium in Vail. Then he died.”

“How long ago was that?”

“It was only six months ago, buddy, right before I met her. But since then we’ve become very close. I love this girl. I honestly do”.

Randy wanted to believe him, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He wanted to test him.

“You always played the field! What’s so different about Patty?”

“I know I did. But that’s over now. I don’t know what’s so different. The heart wants what the heart wants.”

“Is it about the money? Or do you really love her?” Randy was not convinced but was jealous nonetheless.

“At first, it was about the money. I’ll admit that. But after I got to know her, I understood there was a lot more to her.  We clicked on so many levels. The sex is great. I can talk to her. We don’t argue. We like the same music. We click. I don’t know what else to say. We have fun being together. It’s been a long time since I could say that about a girl. Before, it was all about the conquest. It was about the sex or a hundred other things that don’t matter now since I met her. With all the other girls, I’d find something about them I didn’t like and focus on that and, after a while, it would end because of my knit picking. It’s not that way with Patty. I can go with the flow with her. She’s taught me how to have fun.”

“But you always had two or three girls on the line.” Randy continued probing.

“Those times are over, buddy.  Look, you and Charlene can stay here as long as you want. It’s settled. I’m moving out to Patty’s place. I told her I didn’t care if she only made me her pool boy.”

“Now that’s lame.”  Randy punched JR in his shoulder. Maybe he really did love her. Now he was jealous for real.

“So you guys have $3 million, a house that’s paid for up in Palos Verdes. You love each other. You can’t have any kids. Are you’re flipping kidding me? How did that happen?”

“I don’t know, buddy. It just did.”

“No, it can’t be that easy.”

“It was. I have to admit that I was thinking about what would be the best situation for me in my life, and one night I had this dream. It was so real I thought I was awake.”

“Yeah go on. I know I dream all the time. I dream I’m naked standing in front of my high school class giving a speech. We’ve all had that dream. So what was the dream about?”

“I dreamt that I met a woman that loves me unconditionally. And she couldn’t have kids – because God knows I hate kids. And the best part of the dream is she put up with my bullshit.”

“And there’s a lot of that.”  Randy swigged his beer again. JR did the same.

“Yeah, you don’t need to remind me.”

They both gave each other a high five.

JR continued. “And within two weeks of having the dream, Patty showed up at the Hermosa Beach Yacht Club, with a bunch of her friends, all women in their forties. But they were all MILF’s.  I was the only one there at the time. Mid-afternoons during the week are slow, so I was constantly going back and forth to their table refreshing their wines. They were flirting with me. I was flirting back, but I had my eye on the blonde.

“You mean Patty?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know her name at the time. She kept staring at me but wasn’t saying anything. She appeared to be depressed. After bartending so many years, I can tell when someone isn’t feeling well. She was frowning a lot, but every time I smiled at her trying to lift her spirits, she smiled back. I felt there was this mutual attraction even through her sadness.”

“Why were they there?”

“I told you, her husband died in a car wreck in Vail.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, he wanted to be buried at sea, so they did a memorial service out on a boat in Santa Monica Bay.  After the service, they showed up at the HBYC to reminisce.”