Drive Me Crazy (6 page)

“Four. Bought another one.”

“No property. Renting. Living a Spartan lifestyle.”

“Nothing wrong with traveling light.”

“I offered you a chance to come up. Handed you fifteen large. You spat in my face.”

I said, “Let’s be real, Lisa. It wouldn‘t’ve worked.”

“Bullshit.”

I reminded her of other failures, said, “Scott Peterson.”

“Peterson was an idiot. We could’ve flown the Cessna cross country and been in Florida playing golf with O.J. by now.”

Silence revisited us.

She frowned at my belongings. “I offered you a brand-new world. We could’ve retired young, become snowbirds, closing up the home in Hancock Park each winter and heading to a tropical island. I gave you my heart and you spat in my face. You deceived me.”

I didn’t argue.

She shook her head. “You have the nerve to come to work every day. To my business. To torture me with your presence. You know how that makes me feel?”

I didn’t answer.

She looked away from me, stared at nothing. “You’re my
sancho,
Driver. ”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s Spanish. Means we have unfinished business.” She sucked her lip in, folded her arms, looked sad and vulnerable. “You’re my
sancho,
and I’m your
jeva.
Just your
jeva.”

I didn’t know what
jeva
meant. The way she curled her lip told me it was vulgar.

She was off the bed, feet away from me, still naked, her eyes filled with anger, but her body telling me she wanted me to do other things to her that would make that anger go away.

I looked at her anger and beauty, shook my head, softened my tone, said, “Go home.”

“Tell me you don’t love me, Driver. You used to tell me you loved me.”

She eased her breasts on me. Resurrected an old lust. Memories came back strong.

Love you, Driver.
Those words echoed in my head. Couldn’t re
member the number of times she held onto me and moaned that
like she was losing her mind.
So much I love you.

I repeated what I said before, told her to get dressed and go home.

She whispered, “Sure you want me to leave?”

I put my hand up to her face, held her in a gentle way, heard her sigh, felt her weakening and melting under my touch. Her tongue eased out of her mouth, reached for mine.

She said, “Love you, Driver. Love you so much it hurts.”

I thought about putting my mouth on hers, kissing her the same way I had kissed Arizona. Maybe I could close my eyes and pretend she was Arizona. Do all the things to Lisa that I had planned to do to the exotic sin that had teased me back at Back Biters.

I put my mouth close to her ear, whispered, “Go home, Lisa.”

I stepped away from her. It wasn’t easy. She was emotional, needed me to blanket myself around her, give her what I’d taken away, but I couldn’t do that for her, not anymore.

She said, “The tight-eyed bitch you were all over at Back Biters, she was pretty.”

I ran my hand over my head, rubbed my aggravation, gave her jealousy no response.

She went into the living room, put her clothes back on. I stood by my bedroom window. What I hated the most was that despite all of the hard talk, I had a diamond-hard erection.

When she dressed she folded her arms, looked away. “Walk me out.”

I shook my head. “You have a gun. Walk yourself.”

Her arrogant disposition had been softened by her true emotions. “Please?”

I grabbed my suit coat. She went to my fridge and helped herself to a 7-Up. She didn’t open it. She never drank 7-Up straight from the can. She said there were too many germs on the lip of that metal, no matter how good you wiped it down. Lisa led the way and we headed back out into the night. I passed her, was walking fast, trying not to get too close to her, trying to get her out of my life as soon as I could. The faster I moved the more she dragged her feet.

She tied her scarf on her head and laughed. “You’re Wolf’s bitch. He pays you enough for rent and eats, keeps you under his thumb. You think he gives a shit about you? If you were in prison he’d get the top bunk. Be a man, or did you lose your manhood in prison?”

My lips tightened, jaw clenched. I faced her. “Fuck you.”

“Your sorry ass. Content living in a damn one-bedroom apartment, across the street from Piss Alley and Hoodrat Row. You ain’t shit. Fucking Uncle Tom-ass loser swindling convict.”

I grabbed her arm. She jerked away, kept talking down to me. I grabbed her arm again, growled for her to shut up. She tried to pull away, but that was like a housefly trying to tow a freight train. She scratched my arm. Kept scratching. I ended up pushing her away from me. Pushed her glitz and glamour hard and she stumbled into a parked car. She got her balance.

“See, this is the real you, Driver. A suit can’t hide the real you.”

Traffic was passing. People were in the windows. I raised my palms and stepped away from her. “Walk yourself. And hell no, I don’t love your crazy ass. Never did.”

I’d made it about ten steps when there was a
whoosh
followed by pain in the back of my head, on the right side, behind my ear. The sharp and sudden agony sent me down on one knee. Defenses kicked in. I stumbled to my feet swinging at everything and hitting nothing but cold air. Thought I had been shot. Or hit by a brick. Then I saw a 7-Up can rolling away from me, dented from impact. I held onto my ear like I was trying to muffle the pain. Eyes watered. Couldn’t hear for a moment. And my balance was off. I pulled my hand away from my head and saw a deep redness staining my fingers.

Heard some dude in a passing car yell, “Damn! She fucked him up!”

I rampaged after Lisa like a raging bull. My balance was still off. For a moment I had double vision. I saw two Lisas running away from me instead of just one. Both of them got in her Hummer, slammed the door hard, locked it, four breasts rising and falling with every breath.

“I hate you,” Lisa kept screaming. “I fucking hate you.”

We stood there, engulfed in anger, separated by glass like wild animals at the zoo, breathing like dragons, frowning and cursing each other down while cars zoomed by. Both sides of La Cienega were nothing but rows crammed with overpriced apartments, a thousand windows and twice as many eyes facing the streets. But this was L.A. Nobody gave a shit.

“Yeah, open the door, Miss Badass. I’ll show you who hates who.”

She pointed her Glock at me, her scowl exponentiated by rejection and betrayal.

My chest stuck out like my flesh was covered in Tenifer, the same indestructible material that coated her burner. I didn’t back down. Anger brought out the stupidity in most men.

She tried to run over my feet, then backed up and tried to side-swipe me. I threw a hook, tried to knock off her side-view mirror. Damn thing folded in, was collapsible. She revved up her gas-guzzler and bullied me out into the street. A thousand headlights sped toward me going seventy miles an hour. I jumped out of the way, horns blared and I took to the curb.

Lisa bogarted her way into traffic, accelerated, screeched away.

My heart pounded. Fear was in my chest begging me to let it out. Sweat rolled down my face, stung my eyes. Head was glazed with a thin sheen of piss-tivity and perspiration.

I yanked my suit coat off, but it was too late to keep it from being soiled with my blood. My suit pants were ruined, a hole in the fabric from when I had gone down hard on my knee.

I headed back home, cursing, limping, trembling.

Blood drained down my back as I sped up Genesee. Not the Genesee in Hollywood, but the narrow street that had been carved and curved into the urban hills in Baldwin Vista, the homes resting high over La Cienega and Rodeo. I rode Genesee until it changed to Carmone.

My head throbbed with every heartbeat, pain level a six moving toward seven.

The house I was looking for might’ve been sitting on the largest lot in the area. Up here, with real estate priced out of control, the better part of a million dollars bought you a thirty-five-hundred-square-foot crib and a two-car garage. But that’s what you paid for three bedrooms and three baths in this part of town. L.A. was an expensive and greedy bitch. Years ago houses up this way weren’t worth half of that. Fuck stocks. Property was the best investment in the West.

Blood was running down my neck. I needed medical help, but I didn’t have insurance. The only person that I knew who had some bootleg medical skills was waiting for me.

I found the house that I was looking for. The wrought-iron gates opened up before I could blow my horn. He must’ve been alerted when my headlights flashed across the bay windows. The plantation shutters were open and I saw his lean silhouette. He looked like a prisoner.

I parked next to a convertible sports car, a BMW Z4. Rufus was at the front door before I made it up the stairs. He was a tall man with a broad nose, white skin, and gray eyes. Contact lenses made his red eyes look gray. His thick locks hung down to the middle of his back, honey blond with red streaks here and there. Colorless goatee. At least four silver earrings in each ear. I’d seen the eyebrow ring before. The nose ring and the one in his lip were new to me.

Always trying to draw attention to himself.

He had on faded jeans and a light-blue T-shirt with the picture of the new ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN dead center. A novel was in his left hand. Comic or novel, I couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t seen him with some kind of a book in his hand.

He frowned and shook his head. “Lights didn’t come on.”

“What?”

“Motion sensor’s not working. Lights didn’t come on.”

I didn’t care. “Rufus, need you to look at a cut behind my ear.”

Rufus was fidgety, too nervous for me to play it off. Whenever he saw me his eyes turned into dull stones, then misted up with bad memories. My eyes became harder, darker.

Sirens. Drug-sniffing dogs. Handcuffs. The memory of being driven away by the police. Talking to Momma on the phone from behind bars. Writing my ex-wife and praying to hear from her. The fights. Being in The Hole. All of that came back in a rush for me too.

Luggage was by the front door. Four suitcases.

I asked, “Going on vacation or something?”

“Made reservations. Was going to San Francisco for a few days.” He moved his stray locks away from his face. Anger peppered his tone. “Flight left without us on it.”

“Another one of your friends ... what, another funeral?”

“Not this time.”

“What’s up?”

“Domestic issues. Relationship more down than up. Want the details?”

I shook my head.

He said, “Didn’t think so.”

“Rufus, I’m bleeding to death.”

I followed Rufus from the foyer into the living room. Off-white marble floors led us to burgundy leather furniture and cream-colored carpet. The carpet was top of the line and so was the padding. Made me want to take my shoes off and run around the place barefoot.

Sensual paintings with expensive framing and exotic sculptures decorated the place.

I motioned at a couple of pieces on the wall, said, “The art is bangin‘.”

“Those three are all David Lawrence. All of them are originals.”

My body was tight with anger. “Never heard of ‘im.”

“He died, actually killed himself over a woman. That’s her in the pictures.”

I wiped sweat from my nose, glanced at the art. “The woman he killed himself over?”

“Yeah. He painted her naked. Some freaky shit to paint your wife naked over and over.”

I looked over her dark skin, sexy eyes. “She’s bangin‘.”

“More like banging her head against a wall. Heard she went crazy. Straight Bellevue.”

I shrugged, wiped away more sweat, wished he would stop chitchatting and hurry up.

“The prices on his works have quadrupled, shot through the roof. Great investment.”

“Rufus, I’m bleeding to death over here.”

He tossed his novel on the leather coffee table. Rufus turned on several lights with a remote. He came back and looked at my wound. “This is ugly. What happened this time?”

“Bar fight.”

“Awful, awful, awful. Who whooped your ass?”

“Ain’t nobody whooped nothing.” I winced with the pain. “I need stitches?”

“Let me clean it up and I can tell you better. Don’t bleed on anything. ”

Rufus hurried away from me. His hips had more sway than a Vegas showgirl.

I snapped, “Rufus.”

He straightened his back, firmed his shoulders, and did his best to walk like a man should. A contrived impersonation of masculinity took him up the spiral staircase.

He called back. “This is a surprise. Haven’t heard from you in a minute.”

“Been ... been busy since Momma’s funeral.”

I looked out the bay windows, saw the lights all over the city.

Two minutes passed with my head throbbing while I took in the marble floors, abstract art, and soft music that came out of the speakers in the ceiling. The kitchen was high-tech, stainless steel Viking refrigerator and reddish marble counters. Not a speck of dirt or a thing out of place.

Outside the window I had an unobstructed view of downtown L.A., mid-Wilshire, traffic on the 10 freeway, Century City, parts of Beverly Hills. It was like being in a castle staring down at the poor folks in the Bottoms. Up here there was no huddling of the common man.

I clasped my hands. Wished this million-dollar world were my life. I missed my chance.

I called out, “What’s this book you reading?”

“Dawning of Ignorance.
That writer is getting a million dollars to write a book.”

“Good for him.”

“I have all of his books on the table.”

“Does it look like I give a shit?”