Fade to Black (7 page)

“I forgot,” she stammered. “Is it famous?”

Eric smiled. “It’s a horror movie.”

Stacey struggled to keep her mouth shut as she glared at Eric. Marilyn, bit daintily at a knuckle.

“Hmmmm. Let me think.”

“Don’t encourage him,” Stacey said.

“I’ll give you a clue,” Eric offered. “He was green, and he was slimy.”

“Oh my God,” Stacey said, disgusted.

“Frankenstein,”
Marilyn guessed.

To provide another clue, Eric slowly raised his arms, holding them close to his side, the fingers splayed downward like webbed claws. He made a gurgling noise in the back of his throat.

“Jesus,” Stacey complained.

Marilyn was amused.
“The Werewolf,”
she said, laughing.

Deflated, Eric let his arms drop. A hurt expression came over his face.

“Now you’re just guessing,” he grumbled sullenly.

“Who the hell cares!” Stacey said.

“It was
The Creature from the Black Lagoon!”
Eric cried out bitterly, adding to Stacey, “Stupid!”

“Now you’ve hurt his feelings,” Marilyn told Stacey. She looked back at Eric and smiled. “Hey. Hey, how did you know that? That’s great!”

Eric was still pouting, but her encouragement pacified him some. He slowly let a prideful smile work its way across his face.

“I go to a lot of movies,” he bragged shyly. “It’s my thing.”

“Thrilling,” Stacey said.

Eric conjured up in his mind the Creature from the Black Lagoon again, staring at Stacey and wishing the scaly beast were in the neighborhood so that it could dispatch her to the murky depths. Stacey caught the glance and looked away from it, disturbed.

“I love movies,” Marilyn said. She dabbed her lips, aware that Eric was watching her. “Uh, could you give me a lift back to work?”

“Are you serious?” Stacey asked, incredulous.

Marilyn smiled coyly. “Just watch me,” she whispered.

She looked back up at Eric as she turned in her seat, swinging her legs out into the aisle. Bare, pale, and well-curved, they were exposed past her knees by her hiked-up skirt.

“How about it?” she asked Eric again.

Faced with the opportunity of a lifetime, Eric choked with fear, shrinking back from her advance.

“I have two wheels, not four,” he blurted, gesturing with his head out the window in the direction of the Vespa.

Marilyn stood on her tiptoes and looked at the motorbike.

“Fabulous,” she said, undaunted.

The decision made, Eric waded through his panic to act on it. He grabbed his coat and hopped down from his stool, following Marilyn toward the front door as Stacey remained behind, shaking her head with resignation.

Seeing V.Z. approach the counter with his tray of food, Eric had to think fast. He had no appetite any longer, but he didn’t want Marilyn to think he was a cheapskate. He took the two dollars Mr. Berger had given him and passed it to V.Z., telling him to keep the change.

“Ah, where do you work?” Eric asked Marilyn nervously as he held the door open for her.

“Down on Windward, near the pavilion.”

“Great!” Eric exclaimed. That was only a few blocks from his house. He figured he had just enough gas to take Marilyn to work and stop off at home for some money to fill the Vespa up before returning to the plant.

Outside, Marilyn flashed another glimpse of thigh as she mounted the Vespa, edging her way to the back of the seat so that there would be room for Eric. He slipped his coat back on and sat down in front of Marilyn. When she put her arms around him and he felt her hair brushing against him, he came close to losing control of the bike on his way out to the street. He recovered and drove on happily, perched precariously on the front lip of his seat, in heaven.

They headed south on Main Street. The sky was fully blue out now, and the air was warm with the noon sun.

“You know, I once went to three movies every day for a year, and I never missed once,” Eric boasted, shouting over his shoulder above the whine of the bike. He didn’t elaborate about that being his year as a theatre usher. After being fired from the Fox Venice, he had learned his lesson and lasted a year and a half at the Santa Monica Twin. He’d been fired eventually from that job for continually taking down one-sheets and posters to take home without asking permission. The manager had put up with it until Eric had made the mistake of taking the poster for
Jaws
before it had even been put up.

“You’re lucky,” Marilyn cried out. “In my town in the Australian outback, this man would come around in a truck, and he had the same two movies over and over again.”

“What were they?” Eric asked.

“Mary Poppins
and
The Sound of Music,”
Marilyn laughed.

Eric joined in, “You’re a big Julie Andrews fan, huh?”

“You can only overdose on Julie.”

“Well,” Eric told her next, “someday I’m going to own my own theatre, and I’m going to show whatever films I want, whenever I want. And you can come.”

“Good,” Marilyn said.

Eric wasn’t sure, but he thought she was holding him closer now. He couldn’t remember a time when he had been happier than he was now. This was as good as, if not better than, the movies. Don’t let it stop, he pleaded silently to himself.

“Where do you live?” she asked.

“Here in Venice.”

“With your parents?”

“Uh . . . well . . . sort of . . . not really. Do you stay in touch with your folks much?”

“I never knew mine,” she said offhandedly. “My father was a drover, I’m told.”

“That’s a sheepherder, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” she confirmed. “How did you know that?”

“I saw it in
The Sundowners,”
Eric said, remembering Robert Mitchum’s performance.

Eric turned down Windward Avenue, once the gateway to California’s largest amusement park, an honor long since passed on to Disneyland. A few buildings lining the street still hinted at the inspiration of St. Mark’s Square in the original Venice, but much had been lost in the translation. Instead of fine food or cultural enrichment, the shops housed beneath the multicolored colonnades offered the newest lifeblood for the street scene. Roller skates. Marilyn’s shop was just one of dozens spaced along the miles of beachfront cashing in on the latest fad.

Overcome with an impending sadness, Eric stopped in front of the skate shop, bracing the Vespa with his feet on the ground as Marilyn climbed off.

Over, so soon, he thought glumly.

“Oh, thanks,” she said, stepping away from the bike. “You’re a darling. Bye.”

Dejected, Eric backed the bike up and turned it around.

“See ya in the movies,” he said, downhearted.

Marilyn stopped several feet from the door to her shop.

“Okay,” she called back to him. “When?”

Eric looked at her. Had she said that? Or was it just his imagination? It was too much to expect.

She was smiling at him inquiringly.

“How about tonight?” he said hopefully.

“Sure,” she said, “Where?”

Eric lit up with joy. “Ship’s Westwood at eight o’clock.”

“Fab,” Marilyn said. “What movie will we see?”

“That’s a surprise,” Eric promised joyfully. He didn’t have the vaguest idea yet.

“Ohhhh,” Marilyn purred playfully, raising her eyebrows. “Bye.”

“Bye,” Eric said, almost shouting it to the world.

He revved the throttle on the Vespa and drove off, back toward Market Street. He remembered the returnable bottles in the garage. He could take them down to Brandell’s Brig and get enough money to gas up the Vespa. He’d have to save begging with Aunt Stella for tonight. Priorities.

CHAPTER •
9

He’d had to rent out a truck and spend all his earmarked funds allotted for furnishings, but by the end of the day, Moriarty had finished transforming the drunk tank into an office he felt he could work in. He figured it would take the rest of the week, though, if he hoped to touch up the rest of the basement to his liking.

Cleaning several years of dust and grime off the windows had let in more light, and the newly painted white walls also helped to brighten up the place. He covered some of the walls with a few prints he’d bought at the Venice galleries, his favorite being a mother-and-child portrayed by dressed chimpanzees. To downplay the presence of prison bars as the other two walls, he had set up a bank of filing cabinets and a water cooler topped with house-plants, as well as a chalkboard. Scrawled across the green-streaked slate he had issued his first philosophical proclamation on the new job: “Life is just one damn thing after another.”

To celebrate his day’s accomplishment, Moriarty sat back behind his desk, rubbing an admiring finger over the waxed top, then reached in a side door and pulled out his harmonica. After blowing a few tentative chords, he slammed the Hohner in his palm and helped himself to two more lines of cocaine. He figured that since he couldn’t hear anything going on upstairs, the converse was true as well. One had to find one’s contentment in exile.

Warmed up, he launched into a rousing blues solo, accompanying himself with a scat chorus while he stopped to catch his breath. For as little as he’d played the past ten years, he still knew how to bend his chords. There was only one passage he had trouble with, and he stopped short when he missed it again, discouraged.

He checked his vial and tapped out another line, deciding that, starting tomorrow, he was going to have to taper off. At this rate, his ounce would be gone before he realized it.

Revitalized, he was about to play another song when he looked up and noticed someone standing in front of the cell door opening into his office.

“Hi, Anne,” he said meekly.

“Is this a closed party or can I crash?” she asked, grinning seductively. Out of uniform, she looked even more enticing.

“You can crash, but don’t bust,” Moriarty said, discreetly palming his vial.

Anne let herself in and walked over to his desk, looking at his clasped hand.

“I thought it was Sherlock Holmes that played with that stuff,” she said, “not Dr. Moriarty.”

Moriarty smiled with embarrassment, showing Anne the vial and offering her some, explaining, “It was a going away present from one of my clients upstate. He was behind on his bill. Poor shit had been dealing for seven years and wondered why he was so paranoid.”

Anne waved the vial away, laughing, “And since he gave it to you, you feel obliged to conduct some research on its side effects, right?”

Moriarty brightened. “Precisely. The Freudian phase of my training.”

Anne sat against the edge of the desk and looked down at him. “I came by to see if you’d be interested in a ride home,” she offered. “After all, I am a native, privy to scenic routes unknown to the common tourist.”

“Privy, eh?” Moriarty said, tapping his harmonica against his palm again before sliding it into a case and putting it into his back pocket. “I appreciate the offer, but I made this promise to myself that I’d bike to work and back every day to stay in shape.”

“Is that so? Well, according to your file, you know a few other extracurricular activities that provide as much exercise as biking.” Anne paused a beat to test Moriarty’s imagination, then added, “Even more if you really work at it”

Moriarty grinned.

“I’ve never been seduced before,” he said humbly. “Am I supposed to play hard to get?”

Anne shook her head. “You’re supposed to play to get hard.”

Moriarty lived on the beach in Pacific Palisades, renting out a summer home from one of his former San Francisco clients. Anne’s police cruiser was parked in the driveway. Next door, an elderly couple sitting on a terrace overlooking Pacific Coast Highway stared down at the empty car, speculating in what matter their new neighbor had gone afoul of the law.

In his bedroom, Moriarty and Anne emerged from beneath the covers, both drunk and sated, but still playful and ready to save up their strength for another round. They had been snacking when the first bout had begun, and Moriarty pulled out from the sheets a bottle of wine and a box of Ritz crackers.

“Boy, that wore me out,” Moriarty moaned contentedly. Anne seconded him. He downed a long swallow of the Chablis and stared at the television they’d left on, snapping the remote control until they were tuned into the news, already in progress.

The smoking carcass of an airplane fuselage filled the screen as an unseen reporter attempted to restrain his enthusiasm in divulging the gory details.

“. . . the damage of buildings and human life is estimated in the millions . . .”

The footage cut to a startled citizen trying hard not to stare at the camera as he recounted his eyewitnessing of the event. His narrative was stumbling, and he still seemed somewhat dazed from the experience.

“Kind of reminds me of Gallagher,” Moriarty said from the bed.

“Gallagher is an okay guy,” Anne said. “He just doesn’t agree with your methods is all.”

“Yeah, that’s easy for you to say, Anne, you know,” Moriarty grumbled, suddenly troubled. “You’re a cop. I’m not a cop. He won’t listen to me. To him I’m some throwback to the hippie wars.”

“But people hate anything that’s different,” Anne argued. “Listen, I had a partner and he refused to get into the patrol car with me because I’m a woman. You know what he said?” She started talking sarcastically through her nose, “He said he didn’t join the ‘snatch squad’ . . .”

Moriarty laughed. “Snatch squad, eh?”

“Yeah,” she laughed along. “It’s real cute, isn’t it? Has a real ring to it.”

“Why did you join the force?” Moriarty asked, genuinely curious. He’d been trying all afternoon to get a finger on her, but there were gaps, things that needed explanations.

“For the money,” Anne offered, chuckling.

Moriarty smiled, but still looked at her, waiting for a better answer.

“I joined because . . .” she said, thinking aloud, “listen, it’s like you said . . . take last week. A girl in San Diego picked a rifle up, she killed her neighbors, and claimed she saw it on TV.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Moriarty said, getting back to the discussion they’d hashed over on the way to his house from the station. “How about the teenager who stabbed his friend twenty-two times and said it wasn’t like on television, the knife only went in a little ways?” He was close to telling her the real story, but stopped short. It was probably in the file anyway, he figured.