Hollywood Boulevard (41 page)

    "Put this on." She was holding her Carol Channing hair, a wig.

    I stayed put, turned my back on her, sullenly nursing my wound. "No."

    She stuck the cold muzzle into my neck. Mucho growled next to me, his breath coming in hot little puffs on my leg. I grabbed the wig and put it over my big hair. She told me to move to a chair in the bedroom and sit. She adjusted the wig from behind while her other hand held the gun pressed into my back. Mucho watched ev ery move. He looked happy as a clam, ready to strike my jugular at Sylvia's command. The puncture wound looked blue; I pictured lockjaw setting in. Sylvia walked me back into the closet, locked me in again, returning a minute later with peroxide and a cotton ball. First she's all set to shoot me; next she's cleaning my hurt. After that I was back in the chair, where she wrapped my brown barn jacket over my shoulders and, reaching over me, buttoned me up with one hand.

    "Get up." I stood, nearly losing my balance. I was pretty tightly wound in the jacket, an ambulatory mummy. She stuck my weekend bag into my two hands, then placed my purse over my right shoulder, crosswise over my chest so it hung along my left arm. She took one quick look in the closet, turning over my nest of clothes. She found the book near the door. "Nice try," she said, shoving it into my bag. She shut off the light and locked the door, putting the key into her pocket. No point mentioning I hadn't meant to leave the book.

    I stood waiting, feeling as foolish as a department store dummy.

    "Muchie, in!" The dog jumped into an oversized purse Sylvia held open. She tucked the gun into her coat pocket, aiming it at me, and said, "Let's go. Try anything cute and one of us gets hurt, and it won't be me." She had the noir dialogue down.

    I walked clumsily to the door. We took the back way from Sylvia's apartment, where the reported coyote sighting had taken place. I saw the clock on her stove as we left: almost four a.m. I was hoping the security guard would drive by, but Sylvia would have thought of that and timed his passes. Her car was parked next to the back stairs, already unlocked. "Drop the bag," she whispered. I did as I was told. "Get in." She guided my head the way cops in movies do, closing the door soundlessly. There was nothing I could do, bound as I was, other than scream, and I didn't.

    She tossed the bag into the trunk and slipped into the driver's seat, where there was a cushion all set up so she could see over the dash. She let Mucho out of her purse. "Stay," she told him, and he sat between us, letting me know where I stood with a warning growl. I was pinned by ten inches of dog fl esh and a stripper. This would be amusing, seen from the outside or via a camera lens, a real slapstick comedy.

    We drove out through the gate and past the lobby area, took a right, and then the next right higher up into the hills. That was bad. We drove winding, dark streets past big houses like sleeping fortresses, up and up, heading for Mulholland Drive and Runyon Canyon. Perfect. Was the plan to take me out there and shoot me? It was a cold predawn; I was close to shivering in a dirty t- shirt and lightweight jacket. She could leave me to die of exposure. Or a rattlesnake or coyotes— maybe a mountain lion would chew me to shreds. My stomach sank. I thought of Joe. Hey, Joe, how about this: a dead serious wilderness right in the heart of Hollywood, and they call it a park. See what you missed? Shame on you. He came out exactly once and didn't even walk Runyon Canyon with me.

    Sylvia slowed down at the upper parking area but then kept going. She threaded through the hills until she came down onto Sunset and from there dropped onto Santa Monica Boulevard.

    "Are we going to the beach? Why not take the 10?" I said, both to break the silence and to express relief that I hadn't been dumped in the canyon. Bodies of water have always reassured me. Any horizon will do. Unless she planned to toss me off the pier, things were looking up. There were nearly no cars on the road. Sylvia's wheels barely touched macadam; she missed every stoplight for several miles.

    Mucho began to growl. Sylvia said, "I don't drive and talk too well, so just pipe down." But I hadn't said anything for ten minutes. I looked out the window at the waning darkness, black fading to gray. My wrists ached from the fishnets and my legs felt jumpy. I closed my eyes to try to rest. No luck. I noted Sylvia wore leather driving gloves and a beret. With her trench coat and tufts of hair poking out, she made quite a statement, like an out of commission spy who'd forgotten to make the wardrobe change.
Mind if I call you
Marlowe?
Fits had said what seemed like eons ago. Is Fits aware I'm missing? Of course he is. Not Joe, though. Joe's not aware of anything about me. There's an uneasy border between people, and I wonder if we ever really cross it, ever really reach each other for more than day trips or skirmishes.

    Joe was wrong about me. He couldn't see past the few crappy jobs I took, or Harry guiding my career. I took the shit work because I wanted to practice my instrument. It's that simple. Joe was such a purist. It's not like I made the Hollywood drug scene, only briefl y hit the party circuit, dipped a toe into the serial sex; was I supposed to sit in bed each night reading the autobiography of John Stuart Mill? Joe missed my struggle and condemned me like I was enemy territory. I think that was what made me ache so badly, that and no longer folding his t- shirts as a wife— when I was at home to fold them.

    " Good- bye, Joe," I said aloud.

    Mucho growled. "What's that?" Sylvia said, briefl y turning her eyes on me.

    "I'm done with my first husband."

    "That's progress."

    "It took too long and hurt like hell reinvented."

    She shot another quick look over my way. "One down, one to go."

    That was almost funny, and funny was far preferable to sitting

next to her with a case of the scared, sorry ass blues. "What do you have against this husband?"

    "I think he's a snake."

    "Why would you think that?" She didn't say anything further. "My arms are killing me, Sylvia," I complained, mostly by way of something to say and to keep things neutral.

    "Nothing I can do about that now," she said, keeping her eyes on the road. Her grip on the steering wheel was tense, her head bent forward as if she was driving through fog, though we were still moving bullet fast.

    "Okay, so what do you think matters more, Sylvia: love or work?"

    "What's this, sticky question hour? Who says you have to choose?"

    I didn't say because I think that's the setup. It certainly is the setup in the arts. Anyone who tries to live normally and answer to the muse is either lousy at normal or cheating the muse. "How do you know so much about me, Sylvia?" I asked instead.

    "What? Oh, besides that you're a public icon? That little notebook you keep."

    " Really? There's nothing in that notebook; jottings, gibberish to make Andre think I'm writing a book." She glanced at me. I couldn't read the look. Old Sylvia knew how to hold a poker face. I doubt she'd read a single word of the notebook. "So what'd you think of what you read?"

    "When did I agree to a Q and A?" she snarled.

    We were almost at the beach. Light tinged the sky, blue gray filling in with faint backlighting. "Almost home," she said not looking at me.

    What did she mean by that? My grandmother used to refer to death as going home; home sweet home, she'd say. "Why home?" I asked. Mucho suddenly barked with that extra piercing small dog sound that cuts right through the eardrum. Sylvia was as startled as I was. We both said, "Shut up, Mucho!" He lay down, and we were quiet again. My brain was racing. The endgame was near; what should I do?

    There was the pier and the Ferris wheel, still lit up. And there was the sea, the Pacific, nearly colorless, rippling to shore just as gently as a lake. Sylvia turned right onto the Pacific Coast Highway, heading north. We drove until she suddenly pulled over on the ocean side, against traffic. We were at one of the empty stretches between Malibu and Santa Monica. The car lurched to a stop on the pebbled shoulder. Sylvia told Mucho to stay. She left the keys in the ignition. "Let's go," she told me.

    I didn't move. "The Muse is your purgatory isn't it, Sylvia: living in the very rooms where your lover died. Right, Sylvia? You have me all mixed up with Lucy. Am I getting warm? Lucy had to decide too: Let go of the ballet dream, take the second chance she'd been thrown, right? Did you lock her in to try and force her to decide? Did Lucy kill herself in the hotel fire? Or did you accidentally kill her? It was so long ago; let it go, Sylvia. Don't make things worse. . . . Listen, I can offer you a pile of cash. Let's turn around and go back, Sylvia, before it's too late. What do you say?"

    "Why do you actors have to talk so much?"

    She got out of the car, took the bag out of the trunk and yanked open the passenger door. "C'mon." A car was coming down the road, headlights bright in the early light. She lowered the gun. "Move it!" She walked me to the cliff, over the narrow beach, boulders and rocks down a steep decline. She held the weekend bag; the purse was still around my neck. I stumbled all over the place and fell. My chin hit a rock. I swore loudly. Sylvia helped me to my feet. She was pretty spry for an old girl, all those years of dancing, I supposed, and why was I thinking that . . . and why was she carrying the bag? To throw into the sea? Was that the plan?

    "Sylvia?"

    "Okay, stop." I tried to turn to face her. Now what? "Face the water!"

    "Can I sit?"

    "Yes."

    I sat hard on a boulder, hurting my rear. She tossed the bag past me; it tumbled down to the beach. We were almost at the bottom. The sound of the surf was loud, though the waves were fairly easy. There was a breeze. Sylvia suddenly yanked the wig off my head and when I turned she was already scrambling up the hill. Halfway to the top, she turned. I looked up at her. She had the blond wig in place. "You're free," she called down. "I hope you decided."

    I stood up, facing her. "That's it? That's all you have?" I called to her. "
That
was the plan?" I looked at her face, anger boiling inside me coupled with one word:
stupid
. Stupid, stupid, stupid— I yelled up at her:
"That was the plan, Sylvia? Why?"

    That was when she pulled the trigger.

    She shot me—
she shot me
. . . sheshotmesheshotmeshotmeshotmeshot echoed; the shot was stunningly loud, but I didn't feel a thing. I dove down, the sand cushioning my fall. It was not like in the movies at all except for the cop dialogue suddenly playing in my head:
Shots fired, officer down; repeat, officer down
. Stillness followed, as if the universe, offended, held its breath; the stillness of a Sergio Leone Western, only instead of the blades of a windmill squeaking the waves resumed licking the shore in lacy folds, bringing back the sound and rhythm of life. The universe exhaled.
Move!
I yelled to myself. I rolled under a rocky overhang; if she planned to fire again, she'd have to come back down. I expected the beach to be running red, but there was no blood. I reached under the jacket— my fingertips came back tinged red. I wiped them hard on my jeans as if the blood were someone else's and had AIDS or cooties or even a common cold. I'm alive, I told myself, not hemorrhaging. Okay. Stay calm. I am calm, I told myself back. Did she mean to kill me but missed? My heart was beating too fast.

    Less than a minute had passed.

    I waited. The thing about quitting is how good it feels. At first. So what now, Ardennes? Lie here and see the naked truth before the lights go out? Or just think stupid thoughts until Sylvia fires again? I looked up to see a sharp ledge of rock above me; I lay back and started rubbing the fishnets along the edge. It took forever to wiggle my hands to the point where they were loose. I was close to bursting with frustration. "Oh, please, let me get untied! Please . . ." I grit my teeth till they felt like breaking in half.

    No sign of Sylvia. I stood up very slowly to a crouch, ready to dive for cover again if I had to, but still no sign of her. I grabbed a stone and tossed it up, hitting a boulder higher up. I waited. Nothing. I went to work unknotting the fishnets at my waist and let the stockings go to the waves. The sea could eat them. They were evidence, but I didn't care. I'd ripped all the buttons but one off my jacket, freeing myself. My t- shirt was bloody from my chin cut. The jacket sleeve had a hole in it, scorched and dark. I touched my chin and shivered. I stood a minute to look at the sea, now almost blue. Behind me the sky over the Santa Monica Mountains was lavender. Two dolphins suddenly leaped out of the water, two black forms jumping for joy. "Hello, fishies," I said, my heart warm and deep; I knew then that Sylvia was gone and I was truly free of her.

    I waited, but the dolphins didn't show again. I walked to the

water's edge and cupped my hands, tossed foam and water onto my chin; the salt stung. I held my breath and cupped water onto my upper left arm, just below the muscle.
Ah!
I bit my lip hard; the salt was like acid on my fl esh. I lowered the jacket and chanced a look. The bullet wound looked like a zigzag of raw meat. No hole. I'd only been grazed. Sylvia, what did you do? Did you wait to see that I wasn't dead? More freezing saltwater stopped the bleeding, which was more welling than fl owing. I took the smaller of two scarves from my bag and dunked it into the ocean, then wrapped the wound tightly, sucking in my breath as I did. I carefully placed my arm back into the jacket and tossed more water onto the left sleeve as a kind of ice pack. In the bag I found a sweater, a burgundy cashmere Andre had bought me, and wrapped it around my neck. I was very cold but did not want wool near my open fl esh.