Hollywood Moon (27 page)

She looked alarmed when he said, “Ma’am, I think you dropped this.”

He was holding a $10 bill in his hand. His broad, dimpled smile belied the rage and the exhilaration sweeping over him.

“I didn’t drop that,” she said.

“You must have,” he said. “It was right there by your car.”

“No,” she said. “It’s not mine.”

“Finders, keepers, I guess,” Malcolm said. “Can I help you with your groceries?”

“No, thank you,” the woman said. “My husband is right behind me. In fact, here he comes.”

Malcolm saw a man walking through the next row of cars and said, “Oh, okay. Have a nice evening.” But when he was walking
away, the man who she said was her husband got in a car and started the engine.

Malcolm spun around, but the woman was in her station wagon with the engine racing and the headlights on. The Volvo backed
out of the parking space and sped away while Malcolm stood and screamed after her, “You bitch! You lying bitch!”

Then he looked around to see if anyone had heard him. He looked for the security officer who patrolled in a golf cart. He
was trembling and felt weak and light-headed. The rage lit his face on fire. He knew he had to go straight home to his bedroom
and masturbate right away and try to sleep. If his mother tried to stroke his head, he feared he might kill her.

At 11:15
P.M
., Flotsam and Jetsam in 6-X-32 got a message that said, “Go to the station.” Ten minutes later, they entered the sergeants’
room, where Sergeant Lee Murillo sat at his desk. In a chair beside him sat Bootsie Brown, who’d tried to cash a dead man’s
check while the deceased sat in his wheelchair outside.

“That’s the one, Sergeant!” the old black man said, still in the layered secondhand clothes he’d been wearing when last they’d
seen him. He pointed at Flotsam and said, “The tall one with the funny-lookin’ hair.” Then he saw Jetsam and said, “They both
got sissy-lookin’ hair, don’t they? Looks like they bleach it out, jist like the workin’ ladies on the boulevard.”

Flotsam was stunned, but before he could speak, Sergeant Murillo said, “Excuse me, Mr. Brown, let me take a few minutes with
the officer to hear his side of this. While you’re waiting, would you like a cup of coffee?”

“I certainly would, Sergeant,” Bootsie Brown said. “And how ’bout a donut or somethin’? That food in jail ain’t fit for a
cock-a-roach.”

Sergeant Murillo gave Flotsam a meaningful don’t-ask-questions look and said to Jetsam, “Officer, would you please get Mr.
Brown a coffee and a snack from the machine?”

“What?” Jetsam said, flabbergasted.

“Just do it,” Sergeant Murillo said. “I’ll explain later.”

While Jetsam grumbled and bought Bootsie Brown his refreshments, Sergeant Murillo took Flotsam out in the hall and said, “He
wants to make a one-twenty-eight on you. Says you called him a name when you arrested him.”

“What’s that grave robber doing here, Sarge?” Flotsam said. “Him and another homeless guy tried to cash a dead man’s check.”

“Yeah, I know all about that,” Sergeant Murillo said. “I’ve read the reports and I’m doing my best to talk him out of the
personnel complaint. We’ve got enough paperwork to do around here.”

“But what’s he doing outta jail?”

“The DA refused to issue a complaint. Two old bums trying to get drunk and give their dead buddy an Irish wake? Nobody wanted
to take that one before a jury.”

“Well, I never insulted the old bastard, not even once,” Flotsam said. “And now we gotta buy him coffee and a Twinkie? This
is bullshit, Sarge!”

“I’ll reimburse you for the snack. Let’s just get through this, shall we? He says you called him ‘frogative,’ whatever that
is.”

“What’s ‘frogative’?”

“I don’t know, but he thinks it’s a ten-dollar word that means he looks like a frog.”

“Sarge, I appreciate what you’re doing here, but I feel like I gotta call the Protective League and get lawyered-up! I never
called that old bastard anything!”

“Okay, stay real,” Sergeant Murillo said. “Do you remember him saying he was going to sue you?”

“I guess so. Hell, half the people we pop say that.”

“And what did you say to him after that? Try to remember your exact words.”

The tall cop’s brow furrowed and he looked up at the ceiling while his supervisor waited, and then he broke into a huge grin.
“Holy shit, Sarge!” Flotsam said. “Frogative!”

Three minutes later, while Bootsie Brown was contentedly munching on a Toll House cookie and sipping coffee, Sergeant Murillo
and Flotsam reentered the sergeants’ room.

“Mr. Brown,” Sergeant Murillo said, “how’s the coffee?”

“Not bad, but the cookie’s stale. How ’bout a Ding Dong?”

“Let’s talk first, Mr. Brown,” Sergeant Murillo said. “Do you remember telling these officers you were going to sue them for
false arrest?”

Bootsie Brown paused with the cookie halfway to his lips and said, “I mighta. It was a humbug arrest. That’s why they let
me and Axel outta jail in forty-eight hours. We was jist tryin’ to have a Irish wake for good old Coleman.”

“And what did this officer say to you when you threatened to sue him?”

“He called me that name.”

“What name is that?”

“He said I was frogative.”

“Officer,” Sergeant Murillo said to Flotsam. “Please tell Mr. Brown what you said to him when he threatened to sue you and
your partner for false arrest.”

“I said, ‘Your prerogative.’ ”

“Frogative, progative, it’s all uppity bullshit!” Bootsie Brown said to Sergeant Murillo. “He wants to insult somebody, he
oughtta have the guts to use normal words and call me a asshole or somethin’.”

“You can go back to work,” Sergeant Murillo said to the surfer cops. Then to the transient, he said, “Mr. Brown, I’m going
to explain to you how things work around here.”

“Does this mean I ain’t gettin’ a Ding Dong?” asked Bootsie Brown.

T
RISTAN HAWKINS HADN’T SLEPT
well and had experienced strange and troubling dreams for most of the night. He’d smoked a blunt before going to bed in his
east Hollywood hotel-apartment, where he’d lived alone since the first of the year. The smoke hadn’t really mellowed him,
and it came back on him later, resulting in sleeplessness and nightmares. Somehow the tropical colors that the landlord favored,
along with the rank, humid cooking smells from the Cubans next door, reminded him of a whorehouse in Haiti, an unpleasant
memory from his short stint as a steward on a cruise liner when he was eighteen years old. It was a good job, but he’d gotten
fired for stealing $20 from one of the cabins being tended by another steward.

Tristan had been wide awake since daybreak and lay there staring at the mildew stains on the plasterboard walls. After their
surveillance of Kessler the night before, he’d completely lost control of Jerzy, and he was peeved every time he thought of
how the dumb peckerwood threatened to throw him out of his own car unless Tristan let him go “back home to his woman.” And
what was his home anyway? Just a shitty little two-bedroom house in Frogtown that Jerzy shared with a woman who was uglier
than Shrek, and her four miserable brats.

If he had someone else he could use to help execute the vague plan he was formulating, he’d drop Jerzy in the time it took
to make the call to tell him that his bitch looked like she belonged on
WrestleMania,
and that he’d take a bath in a tub of bleach if he had to sleep with that old hose bag. But he couldn’t do that, and they
were scheduled to meet Kessler at 5
P.M
. back at the pest-infested duplex/office, where Tristan was supposed to tell him about the interesting new idea he had. The
fact that he had no ideas at all wasn’t of concern; it was how to handle Kessler after they informed the man that they were
his new partners. The fact was, a little muscle might be needed to quiet Kessler down, and that was the main reason he needed
the big Polack.

Kessler had been a letdown in any case. Tristan hadn’t made $1,000 total in the weeks he’d been a runner, so even if the plan
didn’t work, he had very little to lose. His scheme was going to involve fast-talking and finesse, and that required his talents.
Still, he wished he had one more ace to play. That’s why he decided to return to Kessler’s apartment today when he was certain
the man would be away from it.

At 10
A.M
., Tristan Hawkins was at a T-shirt shop on Hollywood Boulevard, where a non-English-speaking Guatemalan embroidered “Department
of Water and Power” across a baseball cap that Tristan bought at the shop. For another $25 the Guatemalan stitched the same
lettering across the pocket of the gray work shirt that Tristan had brought with him.

Just before noon, Dewey Gleason as Ambrose Willis was sitting in his car in the parking lot of an electronics supply house
in the San Fernando Valley, working a pair of runners who were purchasing three wireless $1,799 Dell computers with bogus
checks that Eunice had printed, along with altered ID that Tristan had stolen on one of his forays to the Gym-and-Swim.

His Jakob Kessler cell chimed, and he picked up and said in his German accent, “Jakob Kessler speaking.”

“It’s Creole, Mr. Kessler,” Tristan said.

“Yes, Creole, what is it?”

“I just wanted you to know we might be a couple minutes late for our five-o’clock meet.”

Sounding annoyed, Dewey asked, “What is the problem, Creole?”

“I’m workin’ a deal this afternoon for you, Mr. Kessler,” Tristan said. “If it goes like I think it will, I’ll have some good
stuff for you.”

What time, then?”

“Five thirty?”

“All right, five thirty sharp.”

“We’ll be there,” Tristan said. “By the way, where are you now?”

Suspiciously, Dewey said, “Why do you want to know?”

“We could meet you in the next hour if you’re anywheres near Hollywood.”

“No, I am not near Hollywood. I shall see you at five thirty.”

When he snapped shut his cell phone, Tristan smiled. He thought he could hear traffic in the background and was certain that
the man was not at his apartment on Franklin Avenue. But twenty minutes later, Tristan was.

He was wearing the Water and Power baseball cap with his dreads tucked under, as well as the newly embroidered work shirt.
And he had a clipboard in his hand with official-looking documents attached to it. He rang the gate phone of the old woman
he’d conned last time.

He recognized the same raspy voice when she said, “Hello, who is it?”

“Department of Water and Power,” Tristan said. “We’re replacin’ meters and need access, please.”

The old woman said, “Call the manager. She’s in number one-three-two.”

“I know that,” Tristan said, “but there’s no answer. I’m just goin’ down the list, and you’re the first one to answer.”

“Oh, all right,” the old woman said. “Are you going to have to come into my apartment?”

“No, ma’am,” Tristan said. “We’ll only need access to the meters.”

The gate buzzer sounded, and the lock clicked open. Tristan entered, climbed the familiar stairway, and was standing at the
door of the last apartment on the left, number 313.

He rang and waited twenty seconds before ringing again, and he felt sure that someone was looking at him through the brass
peephole.

The door opened a few inches, and Eunice said, “Yes?”

He saw bloodshot blue eyes and gray-blonde tangles of hair, and she reeked of tobacco smoke.

“Department of Water and Power, ma’am,” Tristan said with his most winning smile and taking great care with his diction and
grammar. “Have you experienced a power surge today?”

“No,” Eunice said. “Why?”

“We’re havin’ trouble with the load on this street,” Tristan said. “People have reported computers crashin’ for no apparent
reason, and we’re checkin’ with every resident we can. Do you have a computer?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Would you please turn it on and see if it’s okay?”

“My computers are working fine,” she said.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m positive,” she said.

“Okay, then, sorry to have bothered you.”

When he walked away, he was excited. She had more than one computer. His hunch had been correct. She worked out of Kessler’s
crib. This woman was either a hired hand or his bitch, but for sure she was also his geek. Yes!

Dewey Gleason as Ambrose Willis was angry at himself after he paid off his shopping runner, a young aspiring actor, full-time
parking valet, and part-time thief. The kid had talked Dewey into waiting for him outside Chateau Marmont by claiming that
within one hour, he could enter the hotel and talk a wealthy female vacationer into buying him a drink in the bar, where he
would collect all the information from her credit card without her knowledge. He claimed that he’d even obtain her driver’s
license information and checkbook account number. Dewey, who felt sleep-deprived, remained in his car, eventually snoozing.
After an hour, he awoke and entered the hotel bar but found no sign of his runner. He figured the bragging little sociopath
had probably hooked up with a rich vacationer of either gender and was up in the room fulfilling their Hollywood fantasies.

Thinking of that handsome, young aspiring actor made him remember that he was to meet the other good-looking kid at the office.
However, it would be difficult, now that he had to be Jakob Kessler with Tristan and Jerzy, and he would have little time
to turn into Bernie Graham. It was at moments like these that he wondered if the elaborate disguises were worth it. But if
not, it would mean that Eunice was right again, and that was too hard for Dewey to accept. He decided to leave the hotel and
go straight home, become Jakob Kessler, and gather the things he’d need to turn Kessler into Bernie Graham. Then he got on
the cell and rang the kid he knew as Clark.

Malcolm was on his lunch break when the cell rang.

“Clark,” Dewey said, “this is Bernie Graham.”

“I hope you’re not gonna change our appointment again, Mr. Graham. I need the work now. I can’t wait any longer.”