Destination (21 page)

We walked back out to our F-car. The radio blared. I picked up. West Traffic found Chickie's car in Griffith Park.

THERE IT WAS: a '79 Toyota cum '56 NASH.

Parked on a bluff. Cityside view. Egregiously exhibitionistic.

Choppers chugged overhead. Russ and two bluesuits blockaded the car.

Tom and I got out. Dig the infernal interior:

Demonic dashboard: duct-taped Stephen Nash news pix and clips. Nash gnashing his nublike teeth. Nash ghoulishly giggling. “ ‘I'm King of Killers,' Boy Slasher Sez.” Nash braggingly brandishing lead pipe and knife. Nash blinking back flashbulb flare. Nash knife-wielding and pipe-posing. “King of Killers stabs boy 28 times under pier. Brags ‘I'd never killed a kid before. I wanted to see how it felt.' ”

A canvass crew crawled into the hills. I checked the backseat. Foto Fiend Farhood created a cruel-ass collage.

Stephen Nash with flared fly. John Holmes's jumbo Johnson jumping out. Political paste-up: Devil Dick Nixon gobbling his gonads.

Russ said, “He left it here for us to spot. SID got his latents off the dashboard. The car got clouted two days ago at Ted's Ranch Market. He won't come back. He's too hip. We've got six canvassing crews tracking stolen cars within a four-mile radius. He had to steal some fresh wheels.”

Tom banged his phone book against his leg. Dried blood dropped off the pages.

I said, “Tips?”

Russ said, “Percy's Perch. It's a fruit bar on Ventura. The barman said he's got information. You and Tom go over and brace him.”

I saw an 8-track tape secured in a sound system. I hit the ignition. Tom tapped some dashboard dials. HIS voice, fogged by '56 fuzz:

“I'm the King of the Killers! I'll go to my death like any malevolent monarch! I'm the monster of mass-production killing!”

PERCY'S PERCH:

A poof palace in palate-popping purple and pink. Nancy boys in niggered-out Naugahyde booths.

The barman was a sweaty swish in spangled spandex. He saw us and steered us to a back room.

No introductions. Spandex Spanky spit it out.

“Chickie has AIDS. He's slipping guys that date-rape drug and deliberately giving them the virus.”

He popped a cassette in a console TV. Spliced footage screed the screen. There's Harrison “the Hunk” Ford in
Star Wars.
There's Sylvester “Steroid” Stallone in
Rocky.
There's Chickie Farhood made up as Stephen Nash. It's a fantastic faux cluster fuck.

The swish said, “Chickie shoots the stuff off regular movie screens and splices himself in. God forgive us, but there's a market for such blasphemy.”

We walked back to the bar proper. I saw a cadre of cadaverous Calvins downing daiquiris and massive martinis. Spanky said, “Chickie's victims. They've got four months between them to live.”

I said, “Let's kill him.”

Tom fanned his phone book. “I got no problem with that.”

I DUMPED TOM at the fuck pad. I rhino-rolled to Roxbury Drive.

There's Rosie. There's Donna. There's Miguel bombed on Belvedere.

Donna took me aside. “Rosie got tanked and explained Miguel's visions. Stephen Nash tried to attack him. Rosie chased him and beat him with a stack of 78 records. She shattered sixteen copies of ‘You Belong to Me.' ”

“Did you go through the old film cans?”

Stephen Nash starts his last ride.
(Los Angeles Times Collection,
Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA)

Donna nodded. “I found it and cued it up.
Brace yourself.
”

We walked to the next room. A screen covered one wall. I doused the lights. Donna ran the projector. Stephen Nash gnawed at the camera.

“I snatched the three snotty-pants from the polio joint and beat their heads against the wall of this rooming house where I was staying. I cornholed them postmortem and buried them out back. It was April. I figured the fuzz would get me sooner or later. I found me the ugliest bitch I could find and fucked her blind. I put a big banana on her stomach and made like she was a boy. She had pimples all over. I heard she popped twins right when they sent me to death row.”

Offscreen: Luis Figueroa's voice. “I find this hard to believe.”

Nash: gap-toothed/floppy-mouthed/curly-haired/beady-eyed/
baaaaaaad.

I believed every word.

The room lights flicked on. I saw Miguel walk in. He said, “I remember him now. I haven't had a migraine since Donna showed me the film.”

I said, “Rosie saved your life.”

Miguel nodded. “I'm going to buy her all the Häagen-Dazs in Beverly Hills and a case of Wild Turkey.”

I kissed tears off Donna's cheeks. She said, “Can we make love now?”

WE FOUND aroom. The bed belonged to two baying beagles. We booted them. They chose two chaise lounges and watched.

Percy's Perch. Pimple-piled killers. Camera-eyed K-9's. Brave new fucking world.

We dusted dog dander off the covers and climbed on. Donna wore static-stark cashmere now. She peeled off a pink turtleneck shift. Shiver-sparks sparked spangled light.

I shucked my shirt and pants—threadbare third-world threads. Donna hauled off my “Home of the Whopper” shorts. Naked in a nanosecond—heaven in a hound dog's hutch.

I remember the one long kiss. I remember blue veins synced to her heartbeat. Her breasts tasted like
essence de Donna
and sharp shower soap. Her mouth meandered and made me moan. Lip locks and licks made me pitch to her pivot-spot.

We fitted finally. Her call—I was orphaned in her orbit and didn't know where I was. Beagles bayed. It lasted ten years or ten seconds. Our climax was a climb up the pyramids and a ten-planet pirouette down.

DONNA STIRRED FIRST. “Miguel and I have missed six shooting schedules. We might get fired.”

I said, “Chickie's all over the media. We'll get him soon.”

“I don't want it to end. How do you go back to guest shots and dates with actors after something like this?”

I kissed her neck. “You don't. You stay with me.”

Donna shook her head. “I'm a move-on-but-always-live-in-L.A. kind of girl.”

I shook my head. “It's not a life sentence. You've been through too much to be who you were.”

Donna smiled. “I feel like an adventuress. I came to Hollywood, I was Andover and Wesleyan, it was grins and giggles, and now I'll see Stephen Nash the moment I wake up for the rest of my life.”

“You're right. And I'll pick up the phone and call you when I'm scared or bored, and we'll meet for coffee and talk around the wild shit of fall '83 and how it changed us.”

I cupped her breasts. I felt a
ka-tick
murmur under the right.

“You're saying you can't be subordinate to any man.”

Donna squeezed my hand on her heart. “And I imagine it'll last until I'm 47 or -8 and I'm afraid of being alone.”

I shook my head. “You'll have a grave and terrible beauty then. You'll get the face you earn, and Stephen Nash and me and Chuckie and Mama Cass will be part of it.”

Donna burrowed into my chest. It hit me then—the cop part.
Chickie clouted a Rite Aid. He stole Seconal, Amytal, Tuinal. He
did not steal demonic date-rape Rohypnol.

Donna said, “I love you. I'll never just walk from all of this.”

I said, “I love you, and I don't think I'll ever love anyone more.”

Donna touched my lips. “Rick, don't say that. You're 31 years old.”

“I'll rephrase it, then. I've got a kick-ass will and volition, and I'll never let myself love anyone more.”

LUIS'S HIP HACIENDA. A kooky kasa in Coldwater Canyon. Wild warped wood whipped out at raucous right angles.

We pulled up and parked. Miguel said, “Typical actor's pad. Build as you go, between residual checks. The cocksucker starts out with
Hamlet
and ends up with
Count Borga, Vampire
for scale.”

Donna mock-swatted him. “It's the world we chose, and we'll be lucky to do as well as he did.”

“The cocksucker cheated on my mom during their honeymoon, then bird-dogged half of my bitches.”

Donna mock-swatted him—harder. “Women are not‘bitches.' ”

Miguel said, “Excuse me. ‘Chicks.' ”

Donna nudged me. “Can I kill him?”

I laffed. “If you'll marry me as part of the cover-up, yeah.”

Donna said, “I'll consider it.”

Miguel flipped off the kasa. “Hey, Luis, eat shit and die, you old cocksucker.”

The old cocksucker cold-cocked my headlights. I braked and missed him. He was Miguel fifty years hence. Balder, Disneyesque Dumbo ears, blackhead-blotted beak. Garb: madcap madras golf shorts and an “I Choked Linda Lovelace” T-shirt.

We got out of the car. Father and son embraced. Papa pulled a pint of Padrone from his waistband. Miguel took two gulps. Donna declined. I took two—aaaaah!

They saltily soliloquized in Spanish. Luis talked fast. Miguel talked slow. I heard “
mujer magnifica
” “
chinga su madre,
” “
Count
Borga—dinero grande.
”

Miguel turned the talk
a ingles.
“Stephen Nash?
Hoto sicótico.
TV news, that killer. Come on, Daddy, speak English.”

Luis whipped it out. Luis pissed in the driveway. His dick was divertingly donkeyesque.

Luis said, “It pays to advertise.”

Donna said, “For those in the market.”

Luis stumbled up his steps. The living room was a dump. We followed. Dave Slatkin lamented from a wall TV.

“We dug up the remains of the three children at the backyard location today, utilizing dogs from the LAPD's animal shelter. The boys had been missing from the polio ward since April 1956. Their broken pelvises denote a posterior-based sexual attack.”

Ronald Reagan replaced Dave. Luis pounded Padrone. I badged him. “LAPD. Here or downtown.”

Luis slipped on a crown and robe. Dig the nametags attached: “Property of the
Count Borga, Vampire
set.”

Miguel grabbed a phone book. Miguel patted it. Miguel cracked the crown off Luis's head.

Dig the joltingly Jack Webb-like
Dragnet
drawl:

“Give us the straight dope, Pancho. You worm-eating wetbacks get no truck with my partners and me.”

Donna grabbed the phone book. Donna hit Luis in the head.

“That's for whipping it out and hitting on me on
Hawaii
Five-O.
”

Hollywood—man-o-Manischewitz!!!!

Luis humbly hurled Latin. I'm priapically Protestant—it was gravel Greek to me. Miguel said, “Sssh. It's the prelude to confession.”

We all stood stock-still. The count chugged Padrone and chanted “nam-myoho-renge-kyo.” We waited. He tossed the jug at the TV. The TV shattered. He corrosively confessed.

“It was '54. I'd lost it. I had no more self to transmit to the screen. I met Steve Nash. We got in a fender bender. He recognized me. We talked. He'd just robbed a liquor store. He was a heist man. He carried a knife and a pipe. He proudly stated that he was a butt banger, but I'd be safe because I wasn't his type. I fell into his sway. We smoked reefer and ate Benzedrex Inhaler wads together. I drove while he robbed stores. He never spent money. I held his stash, and I've still got it. He ate dog food exclusively. He drank Thunderbird wine. I thought he was real,
and
false and reinvented, and I believed roughly half of what he said. He fucked filthy winos in our poolhouse. It drove Rosie crazy. He used to joke with you, Miguelito. It drove Rosie crazy. Once she broke a stack of records over his head. He meant you no harm,
mi
hijo,
I swear it.”

The count picked his nose. The count took a deep stage breath.

Donna patted her phone book. “Wrap it up, Chico.
Rapidamente,
or I'll yank your green card.”

The count went contemplative.

“I thought he was schizophrenic or the world's greatest actor. His all-dog-food diet netted me $108,995, all of which is in that top cupboard. He told me he killed three polio-afflicted children, and I never believed him. Then they found that boy under the Santa Monica pier. I wept when he went to the gas chamber. He was evil, but his genius meshed with mine, and together we will reach our zenith as I portray
Count Borga, Vampire.
”

I said, “You're a fucked-up cat, Luis.”

Donna hammered his head with the phone book, two-handed.

Miguel grabbed the drawer gross with greenbacks. He said, “
Yo
te amo,
Papa, you cocksucker.”

IT WAS LATE. We were tired and hungry. Loose lettuce lolled in my trunk. I called Kuster on my 2-way. Chickie Farhood—still at large. Massive manhunt. Habitual haunts held down. Homicide men at known homo huts. Camouflaged cops trawling the Swish Alps.