Wake Up and Dream (11 page)

He took off the glasses and washed in the rickety sink, and risked checking his face again in the mirror, which was now nothing more than a grubby sheet of silvered glass held to the wall by rusty screws in three of its four corners showing a face something like his own. He searched briefly for a razor, then remembered Daniel Lamotte’s straggly beard.

He shifted the keys, billfold and identity papers from the old suit coat to the new, hooked the Ray-Bans into the top breast pocket, and pocketed the remaining Lucky Strikes, and matches as well. He stared at the Colt for a long moment. Then he checked the safety, and slid it into his outside suit coat pocket.

He could hear the click of a typewriter coming from one of the other rooms as he headed out through the old house. He thought of that girl Barbara Eshel in room 3A and her talk of friendly ghosts. On the front stoop he checked the Longines watch. Just past ten o-clock. Then he felt in his top pocket for the tortoiseshell glasses, only to discover he’d already put them on.

It wouldn’t be true to say that Blixden Avenue had exactly come to life this morning, but it wasn’t entirely dead. An ice-vendor’s old carthorse nosed its feedbag. A guy had his head buried under the hood of a rusty old car up on bricks. And some kids were around kicking a can. They looked about as feral as the cats he’d seen earlier.

There was a phone booth beneath the shade of some overgrown willows about halfway along the street. He walked down to it, worked the door open. The way the air smelled inside, he left it open. Miracle of miracles, this year’s city telephone directory still hung from its chain. He hefted it up, flicked through to the Gs. It was no great surprise to find that there was no listing for a company called Gladmont Securities.

He fumbled in his pockets for change, lifted the receiver, fed the slot, asked to be put through to the Venice exchange, then gave the number for the communal phone at the Doge’s Apartments. He waited several rings. Then several more. He pictured Glory scowling in her cubbyhole. Finally, on about the twentieth ring, there was a breathy clatter as the receiver was lifted.

“’Lo?”

“It’s Clark here.”

“What
you
want?”

“Just to let you know I’m okay.”

“’S’if I care.”

“Anyone been around? Any visitors? Messages?”

The pause seemed to last almost as long as the ringing tone. “Come on, Glory.”

“That woman. She call again. Say she don’t trust her husband.”

“Any number?”

“I think maybe.”

“Have you got it?”

“I’m no answering service.”

“Glory…”

He waited as she tromped off, and had to feed the phone some more nickels before she came back again. He ripped a page out of the directory, scrawled down the number she gave him, balled it into his pocket and promised that, sure, yes, absolutely, he’d call.

“And nothing else? No callers, no one asking questions?”

“Only question I ask is why you think I do this for you.”

He thanked Glory and hung up. A can thwanged off the Delahaye’s front wing as he headed back up the street.

“Hey, hey!” He shouted. “What the hell d’you think you’re doing?”

The kids just eyed him. Then one of them—not the largest, but obviously the leader—swaggered over with the manner of someone who wouldn’t normally cross a street for anyone or anything, but was prepared to make a rare exception this morning. Squinting through crusted eyes, the kid gave Clark the up and down. He was in short pants and a holed gray jumper which showed even grayer bits of bare rib beneath. He wore pumps with flapping soles, without socks. He was roughly five feet tall. Clark guessed him to be about twelve years old.

“That’s an expensive car, you know.”

The kid, making the same kind of effort he had to cross the road, just about managed a shrug. “Pity about that broken window. All it takes is one person to take a piss inside it and all them fancy carpets are ruined.”

“You got any idea,” Clark asked, “who I am?”

“If you don’t know that yourself, pal, you got problems.” The kid had a quick, crackly voice. “Alls I know is you’re just come out of that termite hotel.” The kid gestured. “My da says there’s nothing in there but fags and queens.”

”You got a name, kid?” “You got one?”

Clark hesitated only fractionally. “I’m Daniel Lamotte. Used to have a beard before I shaved it off. Maybe you’ve seen me around… ?”

“You mean the guy who goes out late evenings in a grubby ice cream suit, then comes back with a whole load of bottles? Ain’t been around for a few days… Although you don’t
look
much the same.”

Clark fingered his jaw. “Like I say, it’s the beard. Say, shouldn’t you be at school?”

“Shouldn’t
you
be at work?”

He had to smile. “You know my name, kid, but I still don’t know yours.”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Why not?”

The kid considered. His mates were still watching. “Name’s Roger Preston,” he eventually drawled. “Next time you have ze questions, you vill know vhere to go.” He was putting on one of those crappy German accents Clark had heard in radio trailers for the latest feelies.

“Sounds like a deal. Here, Roger…” Reaching into his jacket, he produced a dime. “Maybe this’ll help, now we both know who we are?”

“Won’t do any harm.” All in one swift motion, the kid had pocketed the coin.

“Oh. One last question.”

“Fire away.”

“You say I haven’t been around for a few days. D’you know exactly what day it was that I left?”

“Like I say, if you can’t—”

“Okay, okay. But did you happen to see anything unusual around that time?”

Roger scratched at his belly through a hole in his jumper. “What kind of unusual?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Cars. People. Maybe an ambulance. Perhaps the police. Any kind of thing.”

“Oh, I get it! You were so soused you can’t remember—like my da?”

“Well, maybe.”

“Can’t say as I did. Like I say, you’re around getting boozed in that faggot hole, and then you’re not.”

“Well thanks, Roger. See you around.”

“Not if I see you first.”

Working open the Delahaye’s door, Clark started up the engine. The kids stood and stared. Even the old carthorse seemed to be watching as he reversed out of the dead end and drove off down the street.

A
NOTHER BLUE SKY.
Another clear, sharp morning, with the smog blown clear to the Pacific’s glinting rim. Every angle of every rooftop and the glinting hubcap of every car were so uncannily sharp it was like some special effect in a big-budget feelie. But none of it felt real. He remembered the lit radio’s hissing, and Wallis Beekins’ voice. For all that his throat was still raw, his elbow throbbed, glass fragments sparkled in the Delahaye’s carpeted footwell and the car still stank of burnt gasoline, whatever had happened yesterday felt like it belonged to some distant age. Those near-last moments on the overlook especially.

Suicide was, he supposed, what men often did, especially in this city. Drive up to some scenic spot and put a hose from the exhaust in through the window. Just let the dark carry you away. Better than a gun; more modern, and far less messy. For women, it was still generally pills, booze, maybe a hot, scented bath and a few deep cuts with a razor. Or you could hook a noose around your neck and jump off a bridge the way Betty Bechmeir had done.

He took Sunset past Barnsdall Park and whatever the builders were putting up in place of the burnt-out lot that had once been Grauman’s Chinese Theater—more shops, probably. Life everywhere. Pretty women. Streetcars, cars, horsedrawn carts and buses and streetsweepers and outdoor cafés all bustled in the sunlight. But, as the land rose and he took the valley road north on this clear smogless day and the whole city began to spread below him, it all looked like some complex checkerboard, and the surrounding mountains were purple-headed Gods, hunched in debate over what game they would next play with all those tiny creatures which scurried beneath.

No other automobiles hovered in his rearview as he drove on toward Stone Canyon, but after what he’d seen last night, he had no intention of driving straight up through Woodsville’s front entrance to Erewhon. He did instead what he should have done the first time around, not to mention the second, and slowed as he got closer to the estate until he saw a wide but unassuming dirt track heading up and off. Places like this always had another way in for tradesmen and garbage collectors. Passing along a tall metal-posted chainlink fence, he pulled off and stopped the Delahaye in scrub. He waited. The sun was already hot. Dust settled and ticked on the car’s panels. Gripping the gun in his pocket, he climbed out, eased the door shut and walked through an open gate into the back of the Woodsville estate.

Nothing more than he’d have expected. Hedges, heaps of grass cuttings and looping power and telephone lines. Then he saw a stooped figure pushing a wheelbarrow down a laurel avenue. Clark barely had to increase his pace to catch up. As he did so, he realized that this was the same guy he’d noticed the first time he’d driven up to Erewhon, pushing what was probably the same wheelbarrow. The way he moved, the whole look of him, was pretty distinctive.

“Hi there.”

The man, little more than a huge boy really, stopped and put down his wheelbarrow and turned. He had the egg-shaped face, loose lower lip, and pudding-bowl haircut of the sort of person Jenny would have described as being
blessed by simplicity
.

“Was just coming in the back way. Looking for a place called Erewhon.”

“Who are you?” Pudding-bowl didn’t exactly look hostile. But it was hard to tell.

“I, ah, live there. Name’s Daniel Lamotte. Perhaps you know me? Or April Lamotte?”

His bottom lip pushed itself out. “You mean Mrs Lamotte from Erewhon?”

“That’s right. She’s my wife. You know her?”

“Sometimes gets me to do stuff,” he mumbled as he rooted in his ear, then studied his fingertip.

“You, ah, work on keeping all the grounds of Woodsville nice and tidy, right?”

He nodded.

“Sorry—I guess I don’t know your name?”

“Evan.”

“Well, Evan, I’m Mrs Lamotte’s husband. I guess you haven’t seen me much… ?”

Evan just gazed back at him with a look which suggested he really just wanted to get on with pushing his wheelbarrow.

“Tell you what, Evan.” He pointed up between the hedges. “Is Erewhon this way? I’ll just follow you…”

They reached a sort of inner crossroads, where all the back pathways through which this estate was serviced intersected. There were trashcans, lawnmowers, shacks, an old flatbed truck, moldering piles of compost, a lazy drone of flies.

“Don’t happen to have seen my wife around much lately?”

“Like I say. She sometimes gets me to do stuff.”

“You mean in her garden at Erewhon? I guess she gets her own gardeners in usually, though?”

He shrugged.

“Like what kind of thing?”

“Bonfire a couple of days ago. Just help her burn stuff.”

“A… You mean,
she
was burning things?”

“Just papers.” Another shrug. “She came an’ asked if I’d got some stuff needed burning to help it along. ’Course, I always have…”

“Papers. Right. You, ah, wouldn’t happen to know if she or anyone else is around in Erewhon right now?”

“Don’t think so. Been quiet lately. Saw her car go out, though.”

“You mean—”

“Red Cadillac. Saw it go by out down the road ’bout an hour ago.”

“And she was in it? Alone?”

Evan nodded. He glanced longingly toward the waiting manure heap, and then his wheelbarrow. His eyes were starting to glaze.

“Well, thanks, Evan. You’ve been a big help. Which of these tracks leads to Erewhon by the way? Sorry, but I don’t know this way much…”

“Right up there.” Evan gave Clark a just-must-be-stupid look. “There’s a sign right over the top spells it out.”

Clark was about to turn. Then he stopped. “Say, Evan. Just one last question. You don’t happen to know who does the security around Woodsville—I mean, working here, you must see them about… ?”

“That’d be Mr Hugens.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Mr Hugens? Oh, he’s…” Evan puffed out his cheeks and made a circling movement around his waist with his arms.

“Sure—big old Mr Hugens. Of course. You ain’t seen anybody else around, have you? Guy in a black Mercury sedan with a badge on the side says Gladmont Securities?”

“Only person I seen lately round here ’part from you is the telephone man.”

“Sure, the telephone…” Once more, Clark was about to turn, but, squinting up in the warm sun, he saw that this was also the place where Woodsville’s many phone lines intersected. After bunching against a final, fatter telephone pole, they then traveled down and into a small, concrete-sided shack less agricultural-looking than the others. “So there was some problem or other with the telephones needed fixing?”

Evan nodded. His look had settled to bored.

“He work the wires up on a ladder?”

“… No.”

“He came and worked on the problem right in there, in that little exchange?”

“I guess.”

“What was he like, this telephone guy? Thin? Good looking? Tall?”

Evan just about managed a nod.

Another modern touch in Woodsville’s oh-so-modern world: a new automatic exchange. Pick up a phone, dial out a number and hey presto, you were right through without having to speak to another human being. Clark tried peering in through the window of wired glass. The heavy door had a sign with a Ma Bell logo on it, a warning against trespass, and a bolted hasp with a very thick padlock. He felt a surprising amount of give when he gave it a gentle tug. A harder pull, and the thing simply dropped apart in his hands. Glancing back to see that Evan was busy tipping his wheelbarrow over into a steaming pile of compost, he pulled open the door and slipped inside.

The space was narrow, dimly lit, filled with an electric buzz. A sudden flurry of clicking made him reach into his pocket for his gun. But these were just relays—this was how this place worked. Not that Clark knew about anything electrical unless it ran something inside a car, but he’d had a salesman come and see him only a few months back, tried to tell him about this new way forward for private investigators: forget about those grubby hotel sheets and dinner receipts and photos, all the modern dick needed was a wire tap. The Feds had been at it for ages—Clark had a dim recollection that it was how they’d done for Al Capone—but now, thanks in no small part to the burgeoning popularity of the feelies, the technology of wire-recording was available to anyone with the need of it, just as long as they weren’t too worried about legalities and could step up a fifteen dollar deposit followed by twelve equal monthly payments of ten.