L.A. Success (9 page)

“Lonnie Herisson,” I said. Some secret-agent guy I was. That was the second-to-the-last name I shouldn't have said.

“Oh right—you called the other day. I gave your number to Ms. Elliot. Has she got in touch with you yet?”

“Not yet.” I looked over at Ellen's desk and saw that she had been putting together packets of information for an open house.

“Are you looking for a new place?”

“I'm currently a home owner. I rent out a room in my house, and I was wondering if I should keep doing that or if I'd make more money by selling the place.” I was amazed at how fast my brain could come up with stuff now that it wasn't blitzed on the booze.

“Well, the market is down now, so you're probably right to rent it out, but Ms. Elliot will have to come by and look at your property to be sure. I'll let her know about your situation and she'll get in touch with you soon.”  

“How soon? Has she got a lot going on this week?”

“Ms. Elliot is one of the west side's most successful realtors, but she'll make time for you.”

“Can I have one of these open-house flyers? That way I'll have her contact info.”

“Sure. Here you go.”

I took the flyer and got out of there. I walked back over to my table. All the guys had stopped writing and were watching me.

“What was going on over there, Lonnie?” asked USC-Shirt Jake.

I guessed it had looked pretty weird, me running back and forth in front of the window and making a trail in the pollution with my nose. But these were guys, and with them, and in almost every other situation in life, all you need is the right excuse.

“I want to do that real-estate chick,” I said, and everybody nodded and went back to work.

Gertie's flyer said that the open house was in two days on Saturday. That meant that I knew at least three things about her schedule. First, she'd have to pick up the flyers from the office soon. Second, she'd probably be stopping by that house tomorrow to make sure everything was ready. And third, I knew where she'd be all day Saturday.

The best thing that could happen would be for her to sell the house and feel like celebrating. Then I could be sure she'd call her friends and, maybe, her lover. Then I'd snap a few pictures and that would be the end of it. But if she didn't sell it...No, I couldn't let that happen. I wanted that E.T. money fast. I'd have to pose as an interested buyer, using my wicked powers of imitation. I had a lot of experience at this now, so I was sure I could pull it off.

Ballsack was getting antsy, so I took him for a walk around the block. On the way back, I picked up some food from an Asian fast food place, The Giant Angry Panda, bought a bottle of water for the big poodle, and went back to my table.

For the rest of the day, I made up details about the person I was going to pretend to be at the open house. I wrote all this stuff down so I could study it and be sure not to trip up. I decided to call myself something embarrassing so that when I told her my name I could pretend to be ashamed of it, and that way she'd never suspect I was lying because she'd be too busy feeling sorry for me. After much thought, I decided on Dick Hedley, owner of an up-and-coming chain of all-natural fertilizer stores whose headquarters had just relocated to the L.A. area. Here's what I was thinking: if someone tells you his name is Dick Hedley and he sells shit for a living, you're pretty much going to give the guy a break.

24

I was about to call it quits for the day when I saw the yellow '78 Eldorado Biarritz narrowly miss flattening an old man who was coming out of the pharmacy. Gertie parked in one of the 15-minute spots and opened her car door, releasing a cloud of cigarette smoke. When she swung her feet out of the car and stood up, she pushed her door even farther open and dinged the neighboring car, a hybrid. She looked around to see if anyone had noticed, and, when no one had, she continued over to her office.

I quickly gathered up my stuff and said goodbye to the writers. Ballsack and I went over to the Mercedes and got in. I pulled around closer. I could see Gertie in her office talking on the phone, looking out the window. As soon as she saw the meter maid pull into the lot, she hung up, grabbed her stuff, and headed out to her car.

This time she headed north on Overland Avenue. I had no problems following her because there was so much traffic that she couldn't randomly hit the accelerator like she normally did. My only worry was that she'd side swipe another car and have to spend the evening dealing with her insurance company, but no matter how close she came to getting into an accident, she always managed to pull out of it safely and then to free up a hand long enough to give the bird to whatever innocent person she'd almost run into.

She continued up to Century City, turned west on Pico Boulevard, and then north on Westwood. There was so much traffic on Westwood that it took us thirty minutes to get up to Wilshire Boulevard, where she turned east after throwing her glowing cigarette butt into someone's convertible.

While zigzagging east on Wilshire, she lit up another cigarette and then dialed a number on her cell phone. The traffic crawled to a halt, and she found herself next to a noisy semi truck that was headed in the other direction. She reached down and cranked up the window, probably so she could hear whoever she was talking to, and her car started filling up with smoke. I could barely make out her silhouette after a few minutes. When the traffic broke, she must have still been able to see the road because she pulled forward and kept going. When she opened her window I almost lost her in the clouds of smoke pouring out of her car.

Right before the L.A. Country club, she turned north on Comstock Avenue and continued into a swanky neighborhood. About a half a mile up, she turned into the driveway of a huge house with marble columns and then walked up to the front door. I pulled over and watched for a minute. A sexy, twenty-something woman opened the door and let her in. I was a little disappointed because I was hoping she would be greeted by some old dude she was doing.

I pulled on down the road a ways and parked the Mercedes. I grabbed some of Dennis' spy equipment that I had put on the floorboard behind the front seat. When the big poodle came bouncing out of the car, I dropped the parabolic microphone. It was made out of plastic, so nothing looked broken. The real problem was that the dish part was about eighteen inches wide, and it looked kind of weird, me carrying it around.

I strolled back toward the rich house, just a normal guy walking a big poodle. When I got a little past the house, I could see that there was something going on in the backyard. I took out a little monocular scope and focused it, putting it back in my pocket every time a car came by. It looked like a group of women were there, standing around drinking wine. I looked around to see if anyone was watching me, put on the earpiece of the microphone and aimed the little satellite dish at the women.

“Oh my God! This cream is soooo decadent. It smells so good I could eat it,” said one chirpy broad.

“The idea is for someone to eat it off you!” said someone else, followed by a bunch of chick laughter.

“I definitely want a tube of this stuff,” said a gravelly, dehydrated voice that I recognized as Gertie's.

“I have a gift box that includes this cream and five other Bow-tay products,” said a different woman.

“I think I'll just take—”

“Hey, what are you doing?” asked some guy in a jogging suit who had come out of nowhere. He was looking at me all hostile. I didn't have much time to think.

“Bob! Hey Bob,” I said, as if I were talking into my earpiece. “I'll have to let you go now. I'm headed over to the country club. See you later tonight.” Then I knelt down in front of Ballsack and took out his bottle of water.

“Hell of a day we're having, ain't it?” I asked. I turned the parabolic microphone straight up and poured water into the satellite dish. The big poodle came up and started lapping away, and I could hear every splash perfectly through the ear piece.

“What kind of dog dish is that?” asked the guy. I could see he was skeptical.

“The rod in the middle prevents this dumb bastard from sticking his nose down too deep and drowning. I've had to give him mouth-to-mouth before.” He watched Ballsack lap the water up. I could hear the dog breathing, and every time his tongue hit the microphone it gave me goose bumps. Some of the water in the satellite dish was leaking down the center, and I knew it'd only be a little while longer before the thing was fried.

“Wow. I didn't realize that was such a problem. Did you buy that at Petco?” He looked like he was imagining having to give mouth-to-mouth to his dog.

“No. I special ordered this from Europe.” Whenever I wanted to make people, especially rich people, believe something stupid, that's the magic word I used. They never doubted it. “The Europeans are way ahead of us in anti-dog-drowning technology.”

“I'll have to look into that. My wife would be crushed if our dog died like that.”

“Oh yeah. And imagine how sad you'd be knowing you could have prevented it.”

Ballsack jumped a little, as if he had just received an electric shock. The sound in my earpiece went out at the same time. I dumped the water out and stood up.

“Well, water break is over. Have a good jog,” I said and started walking up the street.

When I got back to the Mercedes, I put the microphone in the trunk. I was hoping that it would work again after it had dried out, but even if it didn't, Dennis would never be able to figure out how it had got broken. Since I would soon be in close range at the open house, I figured I could do my job without it.

The big poodle and I strolled slowly around the neighborhood waiting for signs of anything. When the cosmetics party finally ended, all the women came out together onto the driveway. They were all young and doable—all of them except Gertie, of course. While they were kissing each other goodbye on the cheek, a black Porsche pulled in. An old dude, about Gertie's age, all gray hair and man boobs, got out of the car and walked over to one of the hot chicks. I was thinking that she was probably his daughter, but then he gave her a big kiss on the mouth and placed his hand right on the top of her sweet ass. I could tell this stakeout was a waste of time. There was no way that guy would prefer to sleep with Gertie.

I got in the Mercedes and waited for her to leave. Some of the young guests walked past me toward their cars, and I overheard them talking about Gertie.

“I don't know why she comes here. She hardly ever actually buys anything, you know?” said the chick I wanted to do.

“I know!” said the other chick I also wanted to do. “I don't even know who she's friends with. How did she get invited?”

“No idea, but if she thinks any cream is going to help her smooth out that hide...” and then they had moved too far away for me to do them.

I almost felt sorry for the old broad. Or at least I would have if I hadn't been so turned on by all those hot young chicks.

25

Gertie tore out of there a minute later. I had to make a dangerous U-turn and hit the accelerator to keep up with her. She must have been dying for a smoke during that party because she was again leaving a white fluffy trail behind her car.

The sun was going down. Gertie drove south to the 10 and turned west. When I made it onto the highway, the lowering sun's rays coming directly at me turned all the cars ahead into silhouettes, and I couldn't see shit. For a while I followed the trail of exploding cigarette butts, but finally I lost her.

Since she was headed west, I figured she was on her way home. I drove to Venice, parked on Pacific and walked with Ballsack to the canals. I knew that with the big poodle I'd stand out, so I tried to stay as far away from her house as possible while still being able to see if a light came on. I got bolder after the sun went entirely down, but there was still no sign of Gertie.

I had decided to give up on her for the night when I heard a lot of honking on a neighboring street. Sure enough, a minute or two later I saw the '78 Eldorado Biarritz pull into the garage. As the garage door was closing, I saw Gertie get out of the car with a couple of shopping bags from Victoria's Secret. I hung around the neighborhood long enough to see that no one else was joining her that evening, and then I went home.

26

Tommy was still up when I got back. He did that thing again where he stares right at me while his lips start to quiver. I knew that meant he had something he wanted to tell me, so I made an effort not to look bored while I waited for him to get it out.

“L.O.,” he said.

“Hello Tommy,” I said.

“Err, uh...I yam taking message earlier,” he said.

“All right. Lay it on me.”

“What?” he asked.

“The message. Tell me.”

“Oh. Okay. L.N. called. She saying that nice to talk at you.” I knew that was all he had to say, because his lips were smiling.

“Thanks.”

I didn't remember giving my home number to Ellen. Those real-estate people were real leeches, tracking me down like that. Gertie would get to talk to my alter ego Dick Hedley soon enough.

I decided to spend a little time with Tommy. Maybe he missed me now that I wasn't around in the day. It had crossed my mind that he would want to listen to me speak and that if he didn't get to, he'd feel ripped off at having to pay a ridiculous rent to live with me. But mainly I still needed to resolve the lint enigma, and I figured that since the day was almost over, he had probably had enough time to accumulate a bunch of it in that belly button of his.

He went back to watching some realty show about a bunch of has-beens who had been forced to live with each other on a farm in Africa. The current debate was over which has-been had to pick up the giraffe poo. Different continent, always the same problem.

I sat down on the couch and watched with him. I didn't know if he understood, but he moved his lips like he was trying to repeat things they'd said. Then after a while I noticed that he always laughed right after I did. Most people don't find all the same things funny, so I was thinking that he was covering for the fact that he didn't understand jack. I waited until one of those losers said something about how this show had made him understand how important it was to protect endangered species, and then I started laughing my ass off. Tommy aped me, the big fraud.