John Belushi Is Dead (8 page)

“Here,” Benji said, pointing to a concealed driveway. “This looks like it.”

We made a tight turn onto a dirt road with a sharp and steady incline. After a few houses, we came across a wooden sign that read
PRIVATE DRIVEWAY
and listed five house numbers, each one carved on a quaint piece of oak and hung one above the other. The house
number we were looking for changed every six months, moving up or down a digit, and Benji had been careful to check the latest incarnation on the Internet before our trip. We came to the end of the road and stopped at a set of gates higher than the others, the walls flanked by security cameras. Benji shut off the engine and picked up his camera. I sat back in my seat, overwhelmed.

“Are you coming?” Benji asked impatiently. I opened my door, hoisted myself out into the gray day, and shivered.

On a hot August evening in 1969, actress Sharon Tate and four other people were murdered in her home by the Manson Family. Sharon was pregnant, and her baby did not survive. All that remained of the house where she lived and died was the original telephone pole; everything else had been leveled. I touched the stone of the gate with an outstretched hand. It was still warm from the morning's sunlight, had not yet cooled under the rain clouds that had started to gather. I placed my face against it, felt the thick texture, and ran my hand along its surface. Sharon Tate was only twenty-six when she died. A millionaire had bought the property a few years ago and destroyed the old house, erecting a modern structure in its place. I had seen photographs of Sharon Tate and her friends dead in the front yard and the living room. Now the places where their bodies had lain had been smoothed over, purged of demons.

I listened. The canyons loomed around us, silent and patient. I was sad that so little remained in the spot where it actually happened. Since my parents died, I had come to believe that life was made up of energy. When someone committed a violent act, that energy would become even stronger, fueled by anger and hatred, fear and desperation. That energy wouldn't dissipate. It could hang
in the air, even years later. The canyons were the perfect place for that kind of energy. The hills trapped the impulses inside, where they fermented, growing stronger every day. I could feel it in the ground. It ran through my hands like bolts of electricity. It reminded me of the day my parents died, the static that hung in the air that night, the darkness that had followed me ever since, and for one brief moment I felt closer to them. I was back there.

I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. I heard the whir of a surveillance camera as it zeroed in on me.

“Better go,” Benji said, putting the lens cap back on his camera. We got back in the car and drove away. My head didn't clear until we were back amid the noise and traffic on Sunset Boulevard.

L
ATER THAT NIGHT
I sat in my bedroom browsing through websites about the Manson Family. Leslie Van Houten was up for parole again. There was no way she would be released, even after thirty-seven years in prison. All the Manson Family murderers who were put on death row had their sentences commuted when California abolished the death penalty, but there was no way any of them would ever get paroled. Murderers like that became part of the public consciousness, part of our collective nightmare. Kill an unarmed grocer in a robbery gone wrong and you might get twenty years. But if you kill John Lennon, you can be pretty sure you're never seeing the light of day again.

Lynette was working late as usual, and the house was quiet. All the lights were off except for a small desk lamp above my computer. I was looking at a photo of Leslie Van Houten in her jail manacles when the phone rang.

“Hello?” I said.

A voice filled with gravel snapped back. “HUH?”

I waited. “Uh… hello?”

“Is this Hilda?”

“Yes it is. Who's this?”

“This is Hank.”

My mind was blank. “I'm sorry, who?”

“HANK!” the voice boomed back. “From Echo Park.”

“Echo Park?”

“You came to my place, you and your friend with the camera. You took photos of my bathroom.”

My mouth went dry. I sat there for a moment, stunned, the receiver frozen in my hand. “How did you get this number?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“I called that wiseass friend of yours,” Hank said. “He left his card with me. I called and he gave me your number.”

“I'm sure he did,” I said under my breath.

“So I was thinking I'd call,” Hank continued, now sounding a little unsure of himself. “I figured I had something you'd like to see.”

Great. Now I was getting obscene phone calls from senior citizens. “Not interested,” I said. “I mean, really, I'm flattered, but you're not quite my type, get what I'm saying?”

“No! Not like that, for Christ's sake,” Hank yelled, and I jerked the phone away from my ear.

“All right, all right,” I said. “Calm down.”

“I meant like the sink,” he said, sounding frustrated. “The sink in the bathroom you wanted to see. I got something like that for you.”

“Then why don't you give it to Benji, you know, the guy who
was with me?” I suggested, not really relishing the idea of going over to the apartment in Echo Park on my own. “He said he was interested if you ever wanted to sell anything.”

“'Cause it's not for him! It's for you!”

“You know what? This is very nice of you, mister—”

“HANK! MY NAME'S HANK!”

“—Hank, but I can't come over. I don't have a car.”

He sighed. “Well, uh, why can't you get a cab?” he said, looking for alternatives. “There's plenty of cabs in this town.”

I scrambled for excuses. “It's more complicated than that,” I said, hoping my vagueness would make him give up. I was wrong.

“It's as complicated as you wanna make it. What I got, I think you'll like. I think you'll like it a hell of a lot.”

I don't know what came over me, whether it was the darkness of the house, the silence, or merely curiosity about what was on offer. Maybe it had something to do with the feeling that after the accident I had no control over what happened to me in this life, so I might as well throw myself over to fate. Hank waited on the other end of the line, his breathing raspy. Jesus, I thought. He'll probably kill me. Chop me up over all those old newspapers in his apartment.

“Well, all right,” I said, against my better judgement. “Just don't try anything. I'll be telling people where I'm going.”

“I said it ain't like that. You will get a kick out of this. Trust me.”

“When?”

“I'm an old man. I ain't got all the time in the world.”

I rifled through an imaginary diary in my head, every page blank. Benji had mentioned a dentist appointment he had the next day. “I suppose I could squeeze in some time tomorrow.”

“Done!” Hank cried, and slammed down the phone.

Done. I looked around my room, the sound of the dial tone still echoing in my ear. I looked again at the photograph of Leslie Van Houten. When she was first convicted, she was just another gangly hippie teenager with scraggy brown hair, a glint of mischief in her eye. Now she was an old lady, her face gaunt, gray hair pulled back in a tight, old-fashioned bun. She had put a pillowcase over dress-shop owner Rosemary LaBianca's head, tied it with electrical cord, and held her down while another Family member stabbed her in the stomach with a knife.

I wondered if she thought it was all worth it now. Fate or no fate, I wondered if in agreeing to meet with Hank I was getting myself into something I was going to regret.

T
HE NEXT DAY
I took a cab to Echo Park. It was going to cost a fortune, but I couldn't bring myself to take the bus. There was something unsavory about riding public transportation in Los Angeles. All I could think of was the song by Billy Idol about the killer traveling on the bus, reading books about murder and thinking about his next victim. It was the Night Stalker's favorite song. He'd play it on his Walkman as he skulked through people's yards, looking for an unlocked window or open pet door. Anyway, I didn't really have to worry about money. Lynette made enough as an assistant DA to give me a healthy allowance that kept me quiet and out of her hair.

The driver turned on the radio and the Ramones were playing. I couldn't believe that three of the band members were dead already. It sucked.

“Can you turn it up?” I asked. The cabbie turned a knob, and the Ramones and their special brand of frenetic punk rock blasted throughout every corner of the cab.

“Pretty rockin', huh?” the cabbie yelled over the music.

“Hell yeah.”

“Most girls your age, they like the pop music, you know? Britney Spears. Christina Aguilera. They don't like the good stuff. They think Maroon Five is rock and roll. I got more if you like.”

The cabbie put in a CD of hard rock hits—AC/DC, Nine Inch Nails, Metallica. We drove down the freeway, the music battling against the sounds of traffic. Fifteen minutes later we pulled up outside the drab apartment building in Echo Park. The same mail catalogs were still on the lawn, dry and brittle like fossils. As I paid the driver and handed him his tip, he looked at me with concern.

“You okay?” he asked, looking up at the apartment building. “You need me to wait?”

I considered it for a moment. “No, I'm fine. Thanks for the tunes.”

The cabbie shook his head and drove off, which didn't make me feel any better about this little expedition. I looked up at Hank's apartment. Unlike the day before, the curtains were wide open, which made me feel a little better about being there. At least if I screamed it would be carried on the wind.

“YOU!”

I jumped. Hank was hanging out the window, waving.

“Hello,” I called, waving back.

“Come up! Come up!” he said, motioning with his arms. “For Christ's sake, don't just stand there!”

“Uh, okay.”

I walked up the stairs. The front door was already open when I got to the top; Hank was standing there in a pair of white shorts and a blue Hawaiian shirt. He looked better than the first day I met him. His hair was wet, like he'd just jumped out of the shower,
and he smelled of aftershave. He waved me in. “Hurry. Come one, get inside. Quickly.”

“I'm Hilda,” I said as I stepped inside, knowing it was a dumb thing to say as soon as it slipped out of my mouth, but I couldn't help it. I was nervous.

“I know who you are,” he barked. “What the hell you think I've been standing up here waving my arms for? Get inside, quick!”

Hank threw the door closed behind me, but not before giving one last look outside as if he suspected I'd been followed. The apartment, much like Hank, was cleaner than it had been the day before. The bottles had been cleared away and the ashtrays emptied, but for all the effort that had been made, the smell of alcohol still hung in the air. I had to admit, though, that with the curtains open and the breeze coming in, the place seemed much nicer, more inviting. I stood in the doorway as Hank dashed to the kitchen and scooped the kettle off the stove. On the counter were two matching cups and saucers, and I noticed the dishes had been washed and were sitting in a rack by the kitchen window, drying in the sun. Hank poured us tea and brought the cups carefully into the living room.

“Don't just stand there like a freakin' hat rack,” he growled as he balanced the two cups in his hands. “Sit down.”

I took a seat on the edge of the dusty old couch, not wanting to get too close. I was still unsure of Hank's intentions, and decided it was best to play it safe. Again I looked around the room. No easy exits. The door was locked, but if I needed to I could jump out the window, and the worst that could happen is that I'd break a few bones. As death became an everyday part of my life, I began to be curious about people who put themselves in situations where their
demise seemed almost inevitable. The wife who gives her violent husband a second chance. The girlfriend who lets her ex-boyfriend visit late at night to return a paperback, a knife concealed in his jacket. I always thought I was much smarter than that, but here I was in a strange man's apartment with the door locked and only an open window for escape. Maybe this had something to do with my death obsession. Maybe I was deciding to tempt fate.

“Tea?” he said, handing me a cup of hot, milky liquid.

“No thanks. I can't stay long.”

“Sure you can. Take the goddamn tea.”

I took the cup.

“Everyone's always in a rush,” Hank said, settling back down into the couch. “Rushing here and rushing there. No one takes the time to sit anymore.”

“I really can't stay long,” I repeated. “I'm due back—”

“To what?”

“Well, I have stuff to do.”

“What have you got to do that's so important?”

I swallowed. “Excuse me?”

Hank's lip curled. “You heard. A girl who spends her time going into strangers' houses to take photographs of bathroom sinks ain't got a lot going on in her life, if you get my meaning.”

I nodded. “Kinda hard to miss it,” I said wryly.

“You know that friend of yours?”

“Benji?”

“Yeah. That kid, he's some kinda asshole,” Hank said, starting to get agitated. “He ain't as smart as he thinks, I can tell ya that.”

I frowned. As far as I was concerned I hadn't come to chat, especially about how much of an asshole he thought my best friend
was. I wanted this transaction over with as quickly as possible. “You said you have something for me?” I asked, my voice stern.

Hank's eyes, so black and tiny the first day we met, now seemed gray and dull. The skin on his legs was dry and scaly and had flecked off only to get stuck in the spindly hair that grew there. His voice softened. “What are you doing with someone like that?” he asked sadly.