L.A. Success (14 page)

I took my dad over to the picnic
table where he used to play chess. There was a homeless dude with his chess
pieces set up waiting to play. The pieces were all dirty, and they clearly had
been put together from several incomplete sets. The guy himself looked like he
had been put together from several incomplete humans. He grinned at us as we
arrived. He looked like what Einstein would have looked like if he had gone
nuts and tried his luck at professional boxing. My dad looked at me as if he
was waiting for me to do something.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Put shampoo on him, too,” he said.

“I don't think he'll let me. Hey
buddy. You like shampoo?” I asked, shaking my head no sneaky-like so my dad
couldn't see it. He smiled and shook his head no. “Sorry Dad. No deal. You
wanna play Stinky here or not?”

“I play for money, after shampoo.”

I led him over to where he used to
do his sculptures. He didn't want to do that either. I had a real homeless
prima donna on my hands now.

We walked down to muscle beach and
watched the steroid dudes sweat everywhere. Then I bought a few new Arnolds
since I was, after all, at the place he used to hang out. I told my dad to pick
out some T-shirts too, but he kept choosing tie-dyed Obama shirts with pot
leaves all over them. I had no idea the president smoked so much weed. I didn't
let my dad buy them because he would have really stuck out in Dennis'
neighborhood walking around like that. He settled for a shirt that had a
beer-drinking mule in overalls on it.

7

When we got home he wanted to go
straight to the internet chess, but I told him he had to get shampooed up
first. I didn't think he'd do it alone, but after a little hesitation he took a
shower by himself.

I went out to the Mercedes and got
the parabolic microphone out of the trunk. I took it inside and replaced the
batteries. The sound crackled a little more than it used to, and I got an
occasional shock on the hand, but at least it worked.

That afternoon I was flipping
through the channels when Spieldburt's shark movie came on. I was thinking I
had underestimated this Hollywood bozo. Maybe he wasn't all cute alien after
all. Here was a guy who had made a movie about a monster swimming around
tearing people's limbs off, and I was starting to think that I was like one of
those swimmers who had no idea where the shark was or when they'd see it again.
Actually, some of those guys in the movie at least had boats and radar to find
their shark. My Sharkburt was protected by guards and an uppity New-England
prick. And what if he never even decided to come up for a bite? How was I going
to get my money?

That night back at my place I
decided to hit Tommy up for the next month's rent. It was a little early, but I
had given him unlimited use of my car, so I was sure he wouldn't mind. I
knocked on his door. I didn't wait for him to answer because it would have
taken him too long to find the words.

Tommy was sitting at a little desk
he had recently bought, typing away on his computer.

“Hi Tommy,” I said.

“L.O.,” he answered. I looked over his
shoulder at what he was typing. It was a lot of math stuff that looked pretty
complicated.

“What are you working on?”

“Computair program,” he said, with
all the stress on the wrong syllables.

“What kind?” His eyes started
wandering around, so I knew he was looking for words. He looked around longer
than usual, so I figured I'd throw him a bone and change the subject. “Do you
have the rent? It's early, so if you don't, that's cool.”

“Rent? Oh yes. Rent, I 'ave rent.”
He began rifling through the drawers of his desk. While he was doing that, I
got a tickle in my nose, and I knew I was going to have to sneeze. I looked
around, but there were no tissues in his room. I reached into my pocket and
felt something soft. I took it out just in time, sneezed all over it, and was
getting ready to put it back in my pocket when I saw that it was Gertie's sexy
underwear. I kind of freaked out because I had just jammed my nose into an old
lady's thong, so I tossed it like a hot potato. It landed on Tommy's unmade
bed. He finally found his checkbook, so he turned around and rolled closer to
me in his office chair.

“'Ow do I, uh, fill up ze check?” he
asked. He didn't look over toward his bed, and even if he had, he probably
wouldn't have noticed anything. His sheets were the same color as the
underwear—fire-truck red.

I showed Tommy how to fill out the
check, all the while waiting for the moment I could step over to his bed and
grab the thong. He needed help with almost everything, so I couldn't step away.
When he got done writing, he tore off the check and handed it to me. Then he
just sat there looking at me, waiting to see if I needed anything else.

“Well, thanks Tommy. Oh, by the way,
a woman is coming tomorrow. Let her in the house. Tomorrow, let the woman in
the house, okay?”

“Okay.”

I backed out of the room, eyeing
that little thong, and shut the door.

I was tired and wanted to go to bed,
but I hung out in the living room with the big poodle, hoping that Tommy would
step out long enough for me to run in and grab the goods. He never came out,
and I ended up dozing off. When I woke up on the couch it was 3am, and the
light in Tommy's room was still on. I could hear him typing away, so I gave up
and went to bed.

8

I woke up late the next morning. The
first thing I did was go over to Tommy's door. I opened it and peeked in,
hoping he'd be at his morning classes, but he was sleeping away. I couldn't see
the thong anymore because he had rolled around in the sheets. Maybe he hadn't
seen anything, but I was seriously worried because if he found it, he might
think I had been doing in his bed, and then he'd move out and I'd never find a
tenant willing to do all the housework.

I walked over to Dennis' and got
ready for my lunch with Helen. I put on the best clothes Dennis had, combed my
hair, and made some final adjustments in the mirror. I had to admit that I was
looking better than ever. I wasn't expecting any miracles, but I figured that
Helen would be curious enough to talk to me for a while.

I got to Culver City early and
parked in the Westside Pavilion Mall's underground parking lot. I took the
escalator up to the three-story Barnes & Noble and ordered a big coffee. I
sat next to the windows that overlooked Pico and Westwood and watched the
traffic roll by.

I was surrounded by students from
UCLA. They were taking up almost all of the tables, sitting around with piles
of books and their laptops. I was pretty impressed by all the effort they were
making until I realized what was really going on. Most of the girls were all
dolled up and the guys were checking them out every time they looked up from
their work. This was like some sort of modern bar, a club where people flashed
the goods—“look at me with my biology book. I could be a doctor someday.
Shallst we get with the doing?” As I continued to watch these people, I could
tell that they were used to seeing each other there all the time. When one of
the guys would give up studying for the day, he'd usually walk over to a table
of chicks and say something like “oh man, I think I need a break. You wanna get
some air?” which I thought was weird. Where were they going to get air in L.A.?
But there was always some chick who wanted to go. I realized I had been way
wrong all my life, thinking that alcohol needed to be in the mix somewhere. These
kids had replaced the booze with books and the results were just as good.

One kid near me was reading a book
about writing screenplays. The author on the cover looked like a tough guy. His
name was Syd. I was tempted to tell this kid that he was hanging out in the
wrong coffee place, that he needed to go over to my usual hang out. But maybe
over there was like the big leagues and this place was the pee-wee leagues.
He'd have to hone his skills and find a good-luck charm before he could fit in
over there.

At noon I went down the street to La
Serenata. It didn't look like much from the outside, but inside it was nice and
cozy. It was Helen's favorite restaurant. I got a table by the window so we'd
be able to people watch, and I sat around waiting for her.

She arrived twenty minutes later. I
knew she'd be late because there's never parking on Pico Boulevard at noon. She
probably had to drive to the very bottom level of the Pavilion parking lot
before she could find a spot. She walked through the doorway and looked over
the whole room until she found me. She looked wonderfully simple, the kind of
simple that only a woman making a lot of effort can come up with. She had on
jeans and a sort of hippy-looking white shirt with a square collar and long
sleeves. The material was so light that you could almost make out the color of
her skin. When she stepped over I stood up, and she gave me a little hug and
smiled.

“Hi Lon. Wow, you look nice!” she
said.

“You too.” She had put on just
enough perfume so that you could only smell it if you were very close. This was
something I always appreciated about Helen. Most women have this all wrong.
They put on four or five squirts of strong perfume, and it wafts all around the
room, attacking the nostrils of people who they'll never even talk to. Helen
put on only a light mist, so as you drew nearer for whatever reason, you got a
little whiff of it, and that made you want to continue getting closer. It was
like she was rewarding you for moving in the right direction.

Helen never needed to look at the
menu at this place. She always wanted chicken sopes, which was cool because I
got to pretend to be a classy guy who always knew what his date wanted and
could order for her. But me, I never knew what I wanted, so I took the menu in my
hands and looked over everything. I could tell that she was people watching,
but after a while she looked over at me and examined my new look. When I
finally chose what I wanted—empanadas—I set the menu down and saw her smiling.

“That must have really hurt, taking
all that hair off,” she said and laughed.

“When I went to the place, I thought
they were going to use scissors. Then they ambushed me with the wax before I
knew what was going on.”

“It really looks good, though. It
makes you look a lot thinner.”

“Actually, I've been losing weight.
I haven't been meaning to, it's just that I've been really busy running around
all over the place. But the worst thing, damn...I figured there's no one else I
could tell but you. It was when they got me down there,” I said, pointing down.

“No!”

“Oh yeah. But you know, I love it. I
got lots of room, and it's like I'm—” I started to say it was like I was
several inches longer, but she cut me off.

“Lonnie, I think it's funny that you
did that, but I'm not ready for that yet. It was really sweet that you made
that much effort for today, but I want this to stay a lunch thing. We need to
take it slow.”

“No, it's not like that—I
understand. I didn't do this for you. I did this because I'm trying to get some
photos of an old pervy chick in action. That's why I drive around the nice cars
now. She's a complete freak. I found a gun under all the condoms in her glove
compartment yesterday. I don't—”

Suddenly there was no one sitting in
front of me. As the pain from the slap I had just received spread over my
cheek, the memory of the event came back. With one lightning-fast twist, she
had slapped me hard, got out of her chair, and run out the door. Everyone in
the restaurant was looking at me like I was a slime bag. I left the restaurant
and looked up and down Pico, but with all the people I couldn't tell what
direction she had taken. I decided to search the Pavilion parking lot, starting
from the bottom level. I took the escalators three floors down, looked
everywhere, and then checked the other levels. I had missed her, if she had
been there at all.

9

I got in the charger and drove over
to Dennis' place. I was feeling horrible, and what I really wanted to do was
drink myself unconscious. But I was going to have to talk to Gertie at some
point, and if I got all sloshed and said something stupid, she'd probably stop
taking me seriously.

When I entered the courtyard, I saw
the big poodle chewing on an envelope. I was going to let him eat Dennis' mail
when I saw that it was marked “Mr. Bates,” with no address written below.
Someone had hand delivered it. I snatched it out of Ballsack's mouth, wiped the
saliva on the grass and opened it up. It was a letter from “Mr. Stevens.”

Dear Mr. Bates, I would like to meet
with you to discuss the case. I hope you have made progress. Meet me at the
Apple Store on the Third Street Promenade tonight at 8 o'clock. Do not look for
me. Wait in front of the most expensive laptop in the store. I'll find you and
stand at the neighboring laptop. I will be wearing a disguise. Wait for me to
talk to you. I'll arrive sometime before the store closes.

I was finally going to be able to
hit Sharkburt up for some money. At the same time, I was going to warn him
about that gun and make him give me a way to get in touch with him. I'd had
enough of all this waiting.