High Life (31 page)
Life goes on. Short of suicide there isn’t much you can do about stopping it. Knowing Ryan was watching and waiting and counting the minutes until he could take Bella out of the game kept me in a state of permanent anxiety. But not everything that happened around then was bad.
On
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my share of screen time took a small hike as market research indicated acceptance of my face and personality by the target audience. The mid-twenties son of a snack-food magnate caught one of my slots and suggested me to his father. As a result I got ten grand for a couple of rushed fifteen-second commercials that screened on the cheaper local stations—the first money I’d earned in a visual medium without someone else’s help. The ads were good for exposure, but I worried about being trivialized.
Meanwhile, Ryan and Bella played their respective games. He for Karen’s revenge and a lifestyle he never thought he’d have, she for god knows what reason. They fucked, they talked, and, despite his mission to destroy her, I could see his infatuation grow. But she sat a long way back behind her eyes when she was with him, calculating things I couldn’t fathom.
I carried my photos with me now most places I went. Wanking over them gave me a kind of relief from worrying about the end of money and TV-time that Ryan’s plotting against Bella seemed destined to bring about. But the relief was only temporary, and as time passed my anxiety built to a point where I knew I had to either act or perish.
I formed a plan that required a confession to Bella and the sacrifice of another human being. Neither were things I would have involved myself in voluntarily, but I no longer had the freedom to choose. The taste of the high life I’d had made it impossible for me to give up the chance at becoming someone special without a fight.
Out in the workplace Ryan was busy closing cases in preparation for a move to retirement. Some nights he worked late. On one of them I took advantage of his absence.
A small exclusive restaurant by the sea, a table by the window, just Bella and me in the early twilight. There were reasons for doing it like this. Her breeding would prevent a screaming match in public, Lorn and I had interviewed Laura Leighton there about her days as a waitress and I figured the manager might recognize me and dish out a little preferential treatment, and if everything did have to end I wanted this memory of California to take with me—an expensive place, beautiful people, soft light, gentle music from the trio in the corner, a view of the ocean, my reflection in the glass, beautifully dressed.
I was clear-headed. No pills or powder, just a Wallbanger—vodka, orange juice, Galliano—a taste that made me think of summer nights for some reason. The cuff of my shirt looked crisp as I raised the glass to my lips, my nails were manicured. Bella glittered. Men at other tables glanced at her. She smiled at me.
“This is nice, darling. But I sense something.”
“Do I look that nervous?”
“You’re not going to ask me to marry you, are you?”
She laughed in a way that made me think the subject might be open to discussion if I wanted to pursue it. But small talk was only going to make things worse, so I jumped straight in.
“You’re in danger. Ryan thinks you killed someone and he’s trying to frame you for it.”
She gave me a blank look for a couple of seconds, then a puzzled smile like I was joking.
“I’m not sure I heard you properly.”
“Karen. The girl in your video. She was killed about four months ago. They found her in a park in Santa Monica and Ryan thinks it was you.”
She knew I was serious now. She pressed her lips hard together. She didn’t start crying, but most of the blood left her face.
“That can’t be right. How can you be certain it was the same girl? I don’t understand.”
“It’s very hard for me to tell you this …”
I took a swallow of my drink, it didn’t taste like summer anymore. It didn’t taste like anything.
“There are things about the way she was killed that Ryan thinks point to you.”
“I asked you how you know it was the same girl.”
Her voice was cold and there was an anger in her eyes that wasn’t going to let me skate.
“Jesus Christ, Bella, I’m sorry … I used to go out with her.”
She froze.
“You mean you had an affair with her? You were lovers?”
“It didn’t last long. It finished months before she was found. But she’d used my address once when she got busted for hooking and they traced me through it. They suspected me for a while.”
“They
meaning Ryan, I assume. He really is a policeman, then?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when you saw her on the tape?”
“I thought you’d think it was all too much of a coincidence. You know, me and her being together, then her being your lover and dying, then me turning up … I thought you might think there was something planned in it and I didn’t want to risk losing you. Then, when I realized you thought she was still alive, it just seemed easier to forget the whole thing and keep my mouth shut. Until Ryan turned up, of course.”
“I thought the episode at the motel was a little too pat.”
“Yeah, he’d been keeping tabs on me since the murder. I should have told you when he started the blackmail thing, I know, but I never thought it’d go this far. I had no idea he’d try and connect you to the murder.”
“So you lied to me.”
“There was no way I could explain Ryan without telling you about Karen. Christ, Bella, I didn’t want any of this to happen, it all just kind of snowballed around me. I wanted it to stop, but it kept getting worse and worse and there was nothing I could do about it. If I could change things I would, but I can’t.”
Bella studied me. I must have laid it on thick enough because after a few seconds she reached across the table and put her hand on mine.
“But what made him think I had anything to do with killing her? Is it because you and I are together?”
“It’s more than that. He knows you took her kidney out, so he’s got the two of you linked in something illegal. On top of that, her body was cut open and eviscerated. Professionally, like a surgeon would do it. He figures she came to you and sold her kidney, then sometime later you killed her.”
“He’s insane. I removed her kidney, but she left in perfect health. I didn’t see her again. Are you sure you’re telling me everything?”
“What do you mean?”
“He knows about my operations and he knows you had a relationship with Karen, but how could he possibly know she was one of my donors?”
“After she died he checked around and found out that before it happened she’d been boasting about making all this money from selling her kidney. He checked further and found his ‘witness,’ and that led to your tattoo. And, unfortunately, Ryan was apparently a client of Karen’s, so he knew she had the same design. That’s all it took for him to figure you two had history.”
Bella looked genuinely shaken. She ran her hands along the edge of the table, smoothing the tablecloth over and over. Then, as though suddenly drained of all energy, she dropped them into her lap.
“What am I going to do? I didn’t kill her, but I won’t survive an investigation. The operations alone would ruin me. Will he take more money?”
“He’ll take it, but it won’t fix things. Karen’s death is personal to him for some reason and he won’t let it go. But if you listen to me and try not to freak at what I say, I think there’s a way out.”
“A way to make him see it wasn’t me?”
“Not exactly. Jesus, I don’t know what you’re going to say to this … I swear I wouldn’t suggest it if I could think of anything else at all.”
“Go on.”
I took a deep breath.
“I’ve been looking at things and thinking about things and it seems to me there could actually be a connection between the kidney operations and Karen’s murder. Not you, like Ryan thinks, but Powell.”
“You think Powell killed Karen?”
“If you were having an affair with her, he had to know about it, right?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, and I know from experience how much he hates you to be with anyone else. Isn’t it possible your affair pushed him over the edge? That he got so twisted about it, the only thing he could do was kill her?”
Bella was straight in her chair and her eyes were narrow. I took it as a good sign.
“He’s obsessed with you, and more than that he used to be a surgeon, easily capable of inflicting Karen’s wounds. I think he killed her in a jealous fit, then removed her insides to hide the fact that she’d recently had her kidney removed. For Christsake, he cuts up dogs exactly the same way.”
I stopped and sipped some of my drink. It tasted better.
“What do you think?”
Bella spoke slowly.
“It’s possible … That bastard … All this time I thought she’d left me.”
She drifted for a while. The waiter brought me another drink and took away our untouched food. Then Bella snapped back.
“Your solution is to give Powell to Ryan.”
“If he killed her he deserves to pay for it. Assuming you’re willing to take that step.”
“Have you talked to Ryan about it?”
“I told him about the dogs and the jealousy. He knows Powell’s background—the drugs, his medical training.”
“Was he receptive?”
“He didn’t think it was enough.”
“I’d hardly call it a solution, then.”
“It will be if we can find some proof. Shit, you’ve seen the way Ryan looks at you. Sweet-talk him. He says he wants to take you down, but I think secretly what he really wants is to find a way around it. Explain about Karen, who she was, what she meant to you. Lay it on about Powell’s jealousy. It won’t take much. Meantime, I’ll try and find a tie between Powell and Karen. There has to be something. All we need is one piece of evidence.”
“I hope you’re right, Jack. If you’re not, both of us could lose everything.”
On the strength of my TV exposure over the last few months I got an agent. They had offices high up in Century City, nice and flashy and reassuringly successful—you could see the Fox studios from them. I didn’t tell Bella anything about it. With the unstable state of things at Malibu it seemed smart to lay the foundation for an alternative future. Also, after the earlier increase, my share of air time on
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had hit a plateau. The channel allowed Bella only so much for her money, and from the planner on the wall of the production office it was plain I’d reached that limit already. A few more people recognized me on the street, but I didn’t think many of them wanted to be me yet. I hadn’t had the steamroller exposure necessary to become part of their desires.
So, fronting for a major product—something expensive and fashionable—looked like the best remedy. You didn’t have to put in the legwork you would for a part in a movie and you didn’t have to establish the kind of marketable personality the TV shows demanded. All that had to happen was some casting guy liked your face and away you went. Not as heavy-duty as movies or a show, but a real quick way of getting seen. And with Bella balancing on a knife edge, speed seemed most definitely to be of the essence.
Right at that moment, though, the agent didn’t have anything for me and I had to content myself with whatever slots I was tossed on
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and the occasional photo that appeared when the gossips had a slack week and had to cull visuals from the minor league. And even then I was usually riding Lorn’s coat-tails, accompanying her to some function and standing too close to crop out when the bulbs went off.
The fuck we’d had at her place had repeated itself several times during the intervening weeks. Our connections occurred in those hidden times when the two of us being alone together wouldn’t raise eyebrows—in our trailer while everyone else was setting up outside, on the backseat of a limo when we splashed out and hired one to attend some career-furthering do. I would have liked to have done it more often but the fear of Bella finding out put a serious dent in my motivation. And besides, the opportunities were becoming limited as I couldn’t stop myself scurrying back to Malibu immediately after each taping session like some hack reporter waiting for a disaster story to break. Even when we did manage a bit of action, it wasn’t what you’d call emotionally satisfying. I thought of my humping at those times as an act of evacuation, like I’d stored up pus from the anxiety pervading Malibu and the only way to get rid of it was to spurt it into Lorn.
I don’t know if she noticed, maybe she thought it was just the way I fucked. When we’d finish she’d stare out the window with a look on her face that made me think what she saw out there and the fucking we’d just completed bored her equally. At these times it wasn’t hard to imagine some essential part of her was missing.
Nevertheless, one day while we were waiting to interview Willem Dafoe as part of a piece on Hollywood guys with good hair, she asked me if she could crash the night at my place. We’d never gone further with each other’s life histories than that first conversation on the steps of the porn star’s house, and she didn’t know anything about Bella or the role she’d played in getting me the
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gig. Explaining it all and outlining how dangerous it would be to allow her so close to home right then would have taken more energy than I was prepared to expend. So I refused and made up some bullshit about being a very private person. She listened to me with less attention than she’d give a weather report.
The pool at Malibu had a spa built into one end. Bella, Ryan, and I sat in the bubbling water one afternoon, naked and wearing sunglasses. Ryan and I poured drinks from a bottle of Southern. I tried a cigarette, but the water kept splashing up and getting it wet.
Bella sat opposite Ryan with her legs apart. He had the start of a hard-on.
“Jack tells me you suspect me of murder.”
Ryan wasn’t fazed. We hadn’t spoken about it, but he must have known I’d tell her. The fat on his chest jiggled in the swirling water. I wanted to leave it all up to Bella, but I had to cover my ass, I couldn’t have him blowing the lies I’d told her. I talked fast.
“She didn’t do it, I thought she should know. I told her about the short affair I had with the girl. I told her how you used to suspect me.”
“Oh, yeah, that short affair you had …”
He hid his smirk behind his glass. I leaned back and rested my head on the tiles. Blue sky, the occasional cloud, inland the tiny black speck of a hawk circling. I closed my eyes and wished I was a thousand miles away. Bella took over again.
“I didn’t have anything to do with her death, Ryan. In fact, I didn’t know she’d been killed until Jack told me.”
“It’s a nice afternoon. The water feels good, nice company, good booze—if you want to tell me something, I couldn’t think of a better time to do it.”
“What do you want to know?”
“How did you meet?”
“Not in the usual way. I mean, it wasn’t because she wanted to sell her kidney, she didn’t know anything about that. She was a prostitute. I picked her up on Santa Monica Boulevard one night. We had sex. I was attracted to her and I asked her to see me again. Over time we developed a relationship. We fell in love.”
“Musta had some pretty hot nights.”
I heard Bella sigh with annoyance and I opened my eyes. She was sitting higher in the water and her breasts showed above it. “She visited regularly, she’d stay for several days at a time.
She said she lived with some awful man in Venice but I never found out where, she wouldn’t talk about herself. I think coming here was an escape for her.”
“She said he was awful, huh?”
I avoided the glance Ryan threw at me.
“That was the impression I got.”
“Go on.”
“She wasn’t high-class. She worked the streets, she had a drug problem—but perhaps I’m telling you something you already know.”
“I could listen to you forever.”
“She always needed money. I gave her some, but it never made any difference, she always needed more the next time I saw her. One day she told me she had to buy a car. I suggested she sell her kidney.”
“Why didn’t you just give it to her? You got enough.”
“I was afraid if I gave her that much she’d either overdose or end up getting killed for it. I thought if she had to go through an operation and give up a kidney she might value the money enough to be more careful.”
“Gee, it’s nice how you rich people look after us poor folks.”
“I cared about her. I didn’t want to see her ruin herself.”
“I’m touched. Go on with the kidneys”
“She jumped at the chance. I paid her well. Thirty thousand dollars.”
“And?”
“And nothing. After the operation she stayed here for two weeks, then she said she had to visit home. I didn’t want to let her go, but she promised she’d come back. There was nothing I could do to make her stay. I never saw her again.”
“Didn’t she have stitches or something? Wouldn’t they need to be removed?”
“They dissolve by themselves. She should have been monitored, of course, but …”
“And you didn’t see her again? Not even once?”
“No. I remember the day she went. She’d hocked all her jewelry sometime before—for drugs, I suppose—and I gave her an antique gold bracelet. She liked it very much. Do you remember if she was wearing it when she was found?”
“What I remember is the hole where her guts should have been.”
“I only took a kidney.”
“Then who took the rest?”
“My father.”
“Now there’s a surprise. Jackie’s been trying to sell me the same deal. Where is this Powell guy, anyhow? He’s got rooms here, but he’s never around.”
“He’s unhappy about my relationship with Jack. He has an apartment downtown.”
“You mean he doesn’t drop around for the odd fuck when I’m not here?”
Bella looked sharply at me, but Ryan carried on before I had to say anything.
“Jackie showed me your video collection. Don’t blame him, though, he thought it’d help you.”
“Then you’ll understand why Powell might have an objection to me taking a lover. You know about his mutilation of dogs, you know he used to be a surgeon. Can’t you make the connection? My relationship with Karen was significant. Doesn’t it seem at least plausible to you that a man who has an erotic fixation with me might snap and commit murder to remove someone he sees as a rival?”
“Yeah, but it could just as easily have been you had a lover’s spat with Karen and butchered her yourself. I’m not saying it was one way or the other, but if you want me to believe it was your father, you’re going to have to show me more than your spread pussy in a Jacuzzi. Speaking of which, you got any more videos of Karen getting all sexy?”
“You’ve seen everything in my video suite?”
“Everything in that cute hidden cupboard.”
“That’s all I have. Karen felt uncomfortable being filmed. The only segment I ever took of her is the one you’ve already seen.”
After that nobody said anything for a while, the water bubbled, and Ryan and I had another drink. Then Bella spoke again.
“I have a question for you, Ryan.”
“You only gotta ask.”
“Why did you never mention you knew Jack?”
A question like that could only mean she wasn’t entirely certain I’d been telling her the truth about my connection with Ryan, maybe even about my connection with Karen. And asking it in front of me meant she wanted me to know it. Ryan stayed silent for a moment like he was considering his answer, doing it to make me sweat, no doubt.
“We’re dealing with a murder. To anyone who knew anything about it, Jackie plus me equals Karen. I would have been stupid to give that away so early in the game.”
Bella looked unconvinced. But under the circumstances it was the best I could hope for.
She kissed me on the cheek, got out of the spa, and walked nude into the house.
“Saved your butt there Jackie boy.”
We stayed in the water while the afternoon decayed. There wasn’t much else to do, so I drank enough Southern Comfort to get mildly drunk.
That night, for the first time, Ryan got to sleep with Bella. Not just a fuck, but the whole eight hours, dusk to dawn, lover style. I looked in on them once, but the sight of that fat animal nuzzling into her armpit like a gigantic baby was just too obscene. I took some pills and passed out in another room.
Ryan slept late the next morning so Bella and I got to have breakfast alone together. She was waspish and impatient.
“He doesn’t seem particularly interested in Powell.”
“Is that why you let him sleep with you?”
“It was a logical step.”
“Really?”
“I don’t want to go to jail. And you don’t want to lose your TV-time. We’ve got to take care of this thing, Jack. You’ve got to see the big picture.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Good. He needs something concrete to persuade him, talk isn’t working.”
“Like what? We’ve been through Powell’s rooms.”
“Here.”
Bella handed me a key ring. There were three keys on it.
“Building, elevator, apartment door. Powell phoned earlier—he’s found another donor. We’ll be operating this evening, his apartment downtown will be empty. Take Ryan and search it.”
Around midday Ryan surfaced in fine spirits, in fact he was almost bouncing. I figured he was so unused to love that the pseudo emotion Bella had dished out through the night must have made him think someone cared about him. He wanted to go shopping and he wanted me for company.
Only it wasn’t your usual department-store shopping. It took a couple of hours trekking from showroom to showroom, but at the end of it Ryan was the owner of a late-model, slightly used convertible Bentley turbo coupe. I didn’t see what he paid for it, but it must have been a significant chunk of the million he got from Bella. It made me wonder how soon he’d be asking for another installment.
We went cruising and the car turned heads. It felt good to know people were thinking I was someone important.
A little after three we parked outside a high school on Fairfax Avenue. The sidewalk was busy with kids heading home. Ryan was in predator mode.
“Always wanted to do this, how about you? Sure you have. What guy hasn’t, huh? What we gotta look for is two together so they feel safe. Slutty types, you know? The class bitches. Nothing over fifteen, though.”
Kids were checking the car. Young males whistled, the older ones wanted to trash it. Two girls passed by wearing tight T-shirts and lycra shorts. They looked like maybe they just got out of gym class. Both of them were smoking and wearing makeup. Best friends for sure, the kind that shared adventures. Definitely not virgins.
They saw the car, our clothes, our wrist watches, and there was a subtle change in attitude, in the way they held themselves, the way their walk became exaggerated and their tits stuck out. Ryan slipped into drive and kept pace with them.
“You girls wanna lift?”
