Everything but the Squeal (12 page)

“Skip Willie.”

“You said to tell you everything.”

“Everything about Aimee.”

“Okay, okay. So Willie parked her in the Oki-Burger and I picked her up.” He grinned at me, one male to another.

“You picked her up.”

“Well, she needed somebody. She didn't know enough not to cross on the red.”

“What did she tell you?”

“A whole bunch of shit at first, about how rich her father was and what a porker he was. Told me her name was Dorothy Gale. Well, come on, you know? I've seen
The
Wizard
of
Oz
. We always watched it at Christmas when I was . . . when I was . . .“He faltered.

“When you were home,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, glad to get past it. “Christmas TV dinner. Eat your crappy turkey and watch little Judy sing her heart out. What a dope. All she wanted to do was get away from home, and then all she wanted to do was get back. The only thing I liked—you know?—is when she opens the door of the house and it all turns to color. That's it.”

“Merry Christmas,” Jessica said.

“And a Happy Easter to you, too, sweetie,” Donnie said. “I like the monkeys too. So anyways, Aimee didn't know anything. I had to show her which way was west.”

“And you taught her how to hook,” I said.

“Oh, skip it. What do you think she's going to do, be a chemist? She didn't want to, at first. Thought she was going to be a movie star. So I bought her a couple of burgers and then, the third time, I told her that it was on her. Well, she didn't have any money. Tough, I said. How do you think I get it? So I put her on the curb and took her wrist and stuck her thumb out, and a car stopped just like that. The guy wanted us both, so that made it easier for her. She had company, right?”

“Right,” I said. “Company.” Jessica shifted uneasily on her blanket but didn't say anything.

“So after that we were tight. Asshole only gave us twenty each. She cried for half an hour before I got her calmed down. Still, she never wanted to do it. Only when we didn't have anything, not a nickel. You can't even buy gum with a nickel.” He took a drag from his cigarette.

“This is how long after she arrived?” I asked.

“Week, maybe ten days. But it was obvious that she wasn't sitting on no golden ass. Acted like she invented her tail and it was a military secret from the rest of the world. Nobody could buy a piece of it unless she was actually starving. And she could never learn to get the money first.”

“That's important,” I said.

“Bet your buns. Half the time some citizen in a Mercedes will pull in behind some supermarket or somewhere and let you do your job on him, and then when it's time to pay he pushes you out of the car and drives off, and there you are, on your ass on the asphalt. She had this problem asking for money. Very genteel chick. So after a while I gave up and taught her how to live in the mall.”

“The mall?” I wasn't sure I'd heard him right.

“You know, the Centrum, over on Beverly.”

“I know it.”

“Well, it's perfect.” He stubbed out his cigarette on the floor and looked at Jessica. “How about you give me one of the hundreds now?” he asked. “Since we been speaking of money, I mean.”

“Give it to him,” I said. She did, and he folded it into one-sixteenth squares and tucked it into his black leather rock-star jeans.

“The mall,” he continued. “You know, it's heated and it's dry. And you move around from one store to another, hoping nobody looks at you too long. When they do, you move on. When it's time for everything to close, you roll under one of the rest benches and hope no guard finds you. If one does, you hope you can blow him and he'll leave you alone.”

“And you usually can?”

“Sure. I mean, what are they? Bunch of rent-a-cops. For them, a blow-job is a passport to paradise.”

“Tell me about the mall,” I said.

“Well, for Queen Aimee it was the only place, what with her figuring her ass cost more per square inch than real estate at Malibu. They've got movies there, right? So that means it's open until midnight or later, and it means that the lower floors are pretty much empty after ten o'clock. So, like I said, you sleep under a bench until a guard finds you, and if you can't blow him you try to get into an elevator.”

“An elevator,” Jessica said.

“Sure. You can jam it between floors. So you bring an umbrella into a mall elevator and push the button for the top floor. Then, halfway between three and four or whatever, Aimee or somebody would shove the point of the umbrella in between the doors. Period. End of ride. The elevator sticks wherever you are, and we all go to sleep. Nice, clean, heated. Sometimes we'd spray something on the walls to make it ours.”

“And this is what Aimee did?” I asked.

“Until she got her cop,” he said.

I felt something that was doing a good imitation of fear roll over me. “Her cop?”

“Not a real cop, dummy. A rent-a-cop. Worked at the mall, at Robinson's. Little skinny guy with about as much life in him as a ham sandwich, but he was real horny. Guy would have fucked the crack of dawn if he could've reached it in time. Little guys are like that, you know?”

“Did he have a name?” I asked.

Donnie squinted. “Warner. Looked like a rope with clothes on. Like I said, though, horny.”

“So Aimee met him,” I prompted.

“Yeah, he wanted to throw us out. He found her and me under the bench outside Robinson's, I mean we figured we had it made for the night. Movies were out and everything. Usually, if you can stay put until the movies are out, no problem. We'd even started to cuddle. Her and me loved to cuddle.” He put up a hand. “Hey, you know,” he said, “I'm no fag. I go with guys because it's usually guys who want me, but I loved Aimee. She was even more than family. I mean, even when she wouldn't trick, I helped her out.”

“I'm sure you did,” I said as gently as possible.

“Well, let's just keep things straight,” he said with a little of his old bravado. “I ain't no faggot.”

“Anyway,” I said, “Warner didn't want you. He wanted her.”

“Warner
loves
little girls. He just couldn't believe that Aimee was willing to do him. He looked so surprised while it was going on. I kept expecting him to pinch himself.”

“You know Warner's last name?”

“That is his last name. He's the kind of guy always gets called by their last name. Probably his mother called him Warner. His first name,” Donnie said, anticipating my question, “is Wayne. Wayne Warner. Is that lame or what?”

“Is he still working at Robinson's?”

”Naw.” Donnie loosed a short, ugly laugh. “He got canned.”

“Why?”

“Because of Aimee.”

“What happened?”

“I'm getting to it. So that night, he wants to throw us out, but Aimee does him instead. She didn't want to, but she did. Right in the middle of Robinson's, in the Spanish Mediterranean living room. Big asshole couch with wooden feet. Real nice room. Better than the Sleep-Eze motel. That's where we stayed when we had the bread. They don't hassle you, or at least not much. Lot of coke dealers too. You know, they move in for a couple of nights, set up shop, and then move to another motel. Not the best neighbors, though.”

“Why not?” That was Jessica.

“They got guns, and once in a while they like to shoot them off. They got to shoot something off. Most of the time, they can't get it up.”

Jessica sniffed in an offended fashion, defending Blister.

“All that blow,” he continued, heedless. ‘Takes the life out of the old snake.”

“Warner,” I said.

“Sure. So he keeps her. Well, this is heaven for Aimee, you know? I mean, he's not Mr. Universe, but he's only one guy, and Aimee just doesn't like to do a lot of guys. And by then anyway she's not feeling so good. She's got stomachaches and her hair is falling out a little bit. Maybe she's got the clap too, which would be pretty funny for old Warner, who's got a wife and eight or ten kids somewhere.”

“She was sick?” I said.

“Sure. You can only live on catsup for so long, no matter what McDonald's says. She's got, like, you know, scurvy or something. All she wants is a bed and some oranges.”

“What happened?” I said. “Did you split up?”

“What else could I do?” Donnie sat upright, spooked by something I hadn't heard, ready to run, and I started toward him. Then the garage door suddenly squealed open behind me, and I turned to see the little girl standing there, staring at me with frightened eyes. Before I could move, she backed away into the darkness.

“It's okay,” Donnie called. “It's okay. They just want to know about Aimee. Look,” he said, waving the hundred in the air. “They're even paying.”

There was a long moment, and then she stepped back into the light. Her long matted hair hung in ropes over her oversize sweater. “Are you sure?” she said in a tiny voice.

Jessica got up. “Come in,” she said. “I think I'm sitting on your bed, but there's room for both of us.”

The two girls looked at each other and then Donnie's girl came slowly into the garage and shut the door behind her. Keeping her eyes fixed on me, she went to Donnie, fishing in the pockets of her sweater. “Look,” she said, “fifty. We can go to the Sleep-Eze.”

“We can go to the fucking Executive Suite,” Donnie said. “You can take a two-hour bath and wash your hair. Hell, we can have room service. These guys are going to pay me two hundred.”

“I don't have any shampoo.” She lifted a tress of hair and sniffed at it.

“They got shampoo at the Executive Suite, stupid.”

“Did you know Aimee?” I asked.

She turned the scared, luminous eyes to me. “No,” she said, “but Donnie always talks about her.”

“Apple knows all about Aimee,” Donnie said proudly. “I told you I loved her.”

“Apple?” Jessica said.

“It's Nora, really,” Apple said. “But Donnie says I should never use my real name.”

“Which you just did,” Donnie said with some exasperation.

“But they're your friends,” Apple said, bewildered. “Aren't they?”

“Yes,” Jessica said, sitting down and plumping the sleeping bag with one hand. “Sit down.”

“I didn't do anything wrong?” Apple asked Donnie.

“Forget it,” Donnie said magnanimously. “Executive Suite, here we come.”

Apple sat next to Jessica, giving her a microscopic smile. “The man was very nice,” she said to Donnie.

“Listen,” I said. “I know you two are anxious to get to the motel, so let's finish up. Tell me what happened with Warner.”

“He got fired,” Donnie said. “For about a week they slept every night in Robinson's. They chose a different room every night. They were all over the furniture department. Finally they had a party. He bought some red wine, and Aimee got drunk and spilled it all over this Santa Fe couch. It was white, naturally. It couldn't have been red, could it? That would have been too much to hope for. So he went to find something to clean it with, only it didn't work. He got real scared and threw her out. Next day he got fired. Aimee showed up at about four the next afternoon and slept here, and told me the whole thing. The day after that she packed up her stuff and left. And that was the last time I saw her.”

I sat silent for a moment, trying to figure out the calendar.

“Can we go now?” Apple asked. “I'm all itchy.” Jessica moved a fraction of an inch away from her.

“In a second,” I said. “I don't suppose,” I asked Donnie with no hope at all, “that you've got Warner's phone number?”

“Sure,” Donnie said instantly. “When you meet a jerk that big, you get everything you can.” He gazed at me, weighing his chances. “For another hundred,” he said, “I'll send him to you.”

11 - The Sleep-Eze

T 
he Sleep-Eze was a two-story stucco excrescence, air conditioners protruding from the windows of the rooms like technological tumors. Most of them were off, in deference to the wintry Easter climate, but a few pumped valiantly away. The motel was arranged in a U around the parking lot, and as we pulled Alice into a spot I looked up. Three of the twelve doors were open. In each of them, a very large man sat. Two of them were black and one was white. Dealers, waiting for business.

Jessica and I got out of the car and headed for the front office. You couldn't get into the front office. From behind a window made of about three inches of bulletproof Lucite, the old dame behind the counter accepted my credit card, took one look at Jessica, and demanded her I.D. I produced a twenty and handed it to her.

“Twenty,” the old dame said, studying the bill. “She doesn't look that old.”

“I've led a sheltered life,” Jessica piped up.

The lady looked from her to me and back to her again, then made a clucking sound with her mouth. “Suit yourself, dearie,” she said, “but I've had guys, they showed I.D.'s that said their girlfriend was a hundred. Name your price and get the cash first, if you know what's good for you, which I doubt.”

“He's my godfather,” Jessica said. “I trust him. Golly, he's friends with my daddy.”

I summoned up a grin from some dim subterranean depth.

“And you,” she said to me with a fearsome squint, “you oughta be ashamed of yourself.” She was wearing what had to be the world's last muumuu.

“I'm going into therapy tomorrow. In the meantime, can I have a key?”

She shoved it through the little hole and snatched her hand back as though mine were Germ Warfare Central. “One-oh-five,” she snarled, “all the way to the left.” To Jessica she said, “If anyone knocks in the middle of the night, it'll be the cops.”

Jessica wrapped both arms around herself. “Oh, good,” she trilled. “I feel so safe.”

I grabbed her by the sleeve of her blouse and yanked. “That's what I like,” she said. “Forceful. Young guys are such wimps.” She rolled her eyes. Lillian Gish couldn't have done it better.

“Someone's going to ask for her,” I said to the old dame. “Her name is Aimee.”

“Better and better,” the gorgon said nastily.

“Just make sure he gets the right room,” I said. I held up another twenty, and she started to reach under the plastic for it. I slapped her hand. “Ah-ah,” I said. “Make sure the man finds her.”

“That's what I mean,” Jessica said to her, “he's so forceful.”

When I had her outside, I pinched her arm. “You're overacting,” I said.

“Yummy, yummy,” she said, jerking her arm away, “another bruise.” She lowered her voice. “How do you know no one's listening? Jeez-o-crips, look at all these windows.”

“Just behave,” I said in a whisper. “There are limits on how scummy I'm willing to feel.”

“That's your problem. It wouldn't bother old Blister.” I shut up.

The room was small, dirty, and painted that peculiar shade of pale green that's usually reserved for veterans' hospitals. Fluorescent tubes hummed, and a single queen-size bed offered shade for the cockroaches. Other than that, there was nothing but a chipped desk with a blotter, a ball-point pen, and a couple of dog-eared postcards advertising the glories of Hollywood.

“God,” Jessica said, “it looks like they painted it with Linda Blair's leftover vomit.” She surveyed the room critically. ‘That's got to be the John,” she said, nodding at the far door, “and I get it first. Girls, you know. It has something to do with the relative length of the urethra. What do you think about the relative length of the urethra?”

“I think it means you go first,” I said.

“I'm not real fast.” She started to pull the door closed and then turned back to me. “I don't think this locks,” she said.

“I’d be surprised If it did.”

Fast she wasn't. Eight minutes later, when the knock sounded on the door, she was still inside. I went to the bathroom and rapped twice.

“Don't you
dare
,” she said.

“Oh, for Christ's sake. He's here. You stay inside until he's gone.”

“Okay,” she said. “But if you get into trouble, I'm coming out.”

“I can't tell you how much better that makes me feel.” I tugged at the door once to make sure it was closed, and wiped my hands on my pants. They were wetter than I would have liked them to be. I hadn't counted on Jessica being around when I talked to someone who might have kidnapped Aimee Sorrell. On the way to the front door I stopped at the desk, picked up the ball-point pen in my left hand, and put it behind me.

He rapped at the door again, more urgently this time. A husky voice whispered, “Aimee?” I positioned myself on the hinged side, counted to three, and then pulled it open very fast.

“Yow,” Wayne Warner said, stepping away. I reached out, grabbed his shoulder, and manhandled him into the room. Before he could say anything else, I slammed him around, facefirst, into the wall—he didn't weigh very much— and pushed the sharp end of the pen into his back, hard.

“
Hey
, ” he said. “Don't. Don't, please? I thought you wanted to talk.”

I pushed the pen a little harder into a spot just above his left kidney and wiggled it. “I'm not a surgeon,” I said, “but I think I could get that kidney out if I had to. Can you get along on one?”

“Holy Christ,” he said. “I didn't do nothing. Holy Christ, I can't stand knives.”

“You didn't do nothing,” I said. “You didn't do nothing to Aimee Sorrell?”

“I gave her a hand.”

“You gave her more than a hand, from what I've heard.”

He was twitching. He was jiggling around like a bag of tics held together by a belt, some buttons, and a zipper. I wiggled the pen around some more.

“Hey, man,” he said plaintively. “Don't do that. I'm jumpier than a flea circus. I'm a nice guy, honest I am. She was just too cute. There wasn't nothing I could do about it.”

“Wayne,” I said, “shut up. Now, put your arms above your head, palms flat against the wall. Spread your fingers, spread your legs. Not a word, now, you hear?”

He did as he was told, but his knees were shaking so badly that I wasn't sure he could remain standing. He had a breast pocket stuffed full of pens and, hanging from a loop fastened through his belt, a pocketknife and a bunch of keys. Other than that, the search told me nothing that I didn't already know except that he wore knee-length white socks, none too clean.

“Use your left hand,” I said. “Reach down slowly and unfasten the knife and give it to me.”

“No problem,” he said shakily. “No problem. Look, watch, I'm doing it. You want cooperation? You got it.”

“Good boy,” I said as I heard the ring unsnap. “Now hand it to me.”

“You got it,” he said breathlessly, extending his hand behind him. I opened the knife and tossed the ball-point to the floor.

“Turn around,” I said, “but slowly.”

He did, trying to keep his hands up on the wall behind him. I heard one of his shoulder joints pop. “Relax,” I said, waving the open knife under his nose. “No point in dislocating your shoulder.”

“Thanks,” he said, staring cross-eyed at the knife. “I do that from time to time. Hurts like a son of a bitch, too.” He lowered his arms to his side and looked penitently up at me. I felt more like his confessor than his interrogator. He couldn't have weighed more than one hundred twenty pounds and he wore a wispy white little Ho Chi Minh goatee. An aging hipster: probably went home in the morning after work, smoked a little grass, played the Modern Jazz Quartet, and leafed through back issues of the
Evergreen
Review
, looking for the juicy parts.

“Aren't you a sorry sight,” I said.

“I used to be okay,” he said.

“I'm sure you were,” I said mercilessly. “I'm sure you used to be six-four, too.”

“Aw, come on,” he said, heartened by the fact that I hadn't killed him yet. “What kind of thing is that to say?”

“Sit on the bed,” I said.

“Sure,” he said. “I'll sit anywhere you like.” He looked around the room. “Are we alone?”

“As alone as we're going to be.” I pulled out the chair next to the desk and straddled it, facing him. I tapped for attention on the back of the chair with the knife blade. “Tell me about Aimee.”

He swallowed, and his Adam's apple did a swan dive. “Why?”

“Wayne,” I said, flourishing the knife. It was an improvement on the pen. “I can take out your kidney from the front too, you know.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Aimee,” he said. He was all jitters. His eyes shifted left to right and his knees bounced up and down. He seemed incapable of controlling the fluttering of his hands. They flew around him like demented butterflies. First they smoothed his hair, then they laid flat the wings of his collar, then they checked his buttons, and then they brushed the cloth of his trousers.

“The hands,” I said. “Sit on them.” I'd checked his hip pockets, but his hands were making me nervous.

“Sure,” he said, following orders. “Look, I'm sitting on them.”

With his hands imprisoned, the kinetic energy in his body jolted willfully through his other systems. His shoulders twitched as though they had an agenda of their own. He crossed his legs and then uncrossed them. His feet tapped on the floor.

“You're a very jumpy man,” I said.

“Well, who wouldn't be?” he said with a pale attempt at defiance. “I get a call from some kid saying Aimee's here and then you stab me in the back, and all I was doing was having a good time.”

“Wayne,” I said. “You absolutely can't imagine what an asshole I think you are. Let's talk about your wife.”

He retreated into himself, growing physically smaller, if possible, as he did so. “No,” he said, “you win.”

“Aimee,” I prompted.

He sagged on the bed. With his hands under him he couldn't straighten himself. “She wanted it.”

“She wanted someplace to sleep.”

“Aaaah,” he said, blinking. His eyelids were as thick as a lizard's. “She knew what she was doing.”

“No, Wayne,” I said. “You taught her what she was doing. You and some other respectable citizens. You know why she came to Hollywood? To become a star, that's why.” I tested the edge of the knife against my thumb. “She really believed she could become a star. Isn't that a joke? To become a star.”

“Well,” he said, eyeing the knife, “maybe she will.”

“What?” I said. “What does that mean?”

The bathroom door creaked.

“Hey,” he said wildly. “I thought you said we were alone.”

“I said we were as alone as we were going to be.”

“Cops,” he said, standing upright. “I don't have to be afraid of cops.”

“Sit,” I said.

“We're not cops,” Jessica said.

He turned toward her and then to me. I was between him and the door, the knife in my hand. He gave her a long look, tried to make sense of it, and then gave up. “Who's she?” he said, pointing at Jessica.

“The Ghost of Christmas Past,” I said. “Are you going to sit, or not?” He sat, doing a jitterbug of conflicting emotions. He pulled at the crease in his pants and he tugged at the wispy little beard. It stayed on.

“What do you mean, Aimee will be a star?” I asked.

“She got an agent,” he said. He sat back down on the bed.

I didn't believe my ears. “An agent? What was his name?”

“I don't know,” he said.

“What kind of an agent?”

“A kids' agent, what do you think?”

“How’d she find the agent?”

“Got the name from some kid, I guess. Jesus, I don't know.”

“The name, Wayne.”

“I told you. I don't remember.” He brightened. “Some kind of vegetable.”

“A vegetable?” I said, slicing through the air with the knife.

“A vegetable,” Warner said. “Even if you cut me, I don't remember nothing more.”

“That's good enough,” Simeon,” Jessica said.

“It's good enough when I say it's good enough. This little bedbug has a way to go yet.” I got up from the chair. “This is going to hurt me more than it does you,” I said, “although that's probably not true.”

He squirmed back and finally fell full-length on the bed, his hands still trapped obediently behind him.

“Holy Jesus,” he gasped. “I told you, I told you, I don't remember. God, don't you think I'd tell you? I
hate
knives. What do you want from me?”

“Everything,” I said.

“She was going to have her picture taken,” he said with a burst of inspiration. “She told me she was going to have her picture taken.”

“Did she tell you the photographer's name?”

“Yes. I mean, no. I mean, yes, but I'm no fucking good with names. Holy Jesus, I told you this much, why wouldn't I tell you the name?”

It was a good point. “I sure hope you keep this knife sharp, Wayne,” I said. “Where was the photographer?”

“Somewhere on Melrose. She said Melrose. Near here, probably.”

“And the agent?”

“I don't remember. Please, can I go home now?” He was wringing wet.

“The agent's name, Wayne.”

“I told you. Holy Jesus, I told you. Some kind of vegetable.”

I looked at Jessica, who was watching openmouthed, and closed the knife.

“Some kind of vegetable,” I said.