Hollywood Moon (28 page)

“I just need to push it back an hour,” Dewey said. “Meet me at the address I gave you at six o’clock instead of at five. I’ll
put you to work tonight, and you can start earning some spending money right away.”

“Six o’clock,” Malcolm said. “At the office.”

“Right, but like I told you, it’s not really an office. It’s an apartment that we use for meetings and other things.”

“See you at six, Mr. Graham,” Malcolm said. “For sure, right?”

“For sure, Clark,” Dewey said.

Dewey drove straight home and found Eunice in a fouler mood than usual. He’d been hoping to lie down for another one-hour
nap, but now he knew it would be impossible. She wasn’t even happy when he told her that in the trunk of his car he had three
laptops that he was going to deliver next Tuesday for $1,100 cash.

Eunice was wearing her favorite pink bathrobe and pajamas but no makeup, and it was 2:30 in the afternoon. “Nothing’s going
right today,” she grumbled, moving the cigarette from one side of her mouth to the other with her tongue and teeth while her
fingers flew over the keyboard of computer number three.

“What’s wrong?”

“ ‘What’s wrong?’ the man asks,” Eunice said to the ceiling. “I’m stuck in this room working myself into an early grave while
you’re out all day doing God knows what and bringing home chump change. That’s what’s wrong.”

“Jesus, Eunice!” Dewey said. “It’s getting harder and harder to do business. There’s stuff all over the papers and TV these
days about identity theft, and everyone’s being more cautious. And please don’t tell me how Hugo woulda had no trouble, because
I’m telling you that Hugo never had to run up against the shit I’m facing.”

She looked at him and said, “Go in your bedroom and kill Ambrose Willis. You look even sillier than when you’re doing the
old Jew, Jakob whatsisname.”

“Jakob Kessler. He’s an Austrian. I don’t know if he’s a Jew. I never asked him.”

“He sounds like a Jew to me every time I hear the phony accent.”

“Aw, shit!” Dewey said. “Just one little break sometime, Eunice. If you ever give me one fucking break, I’ll probably have
a stroke and die on the spot.”

“I should be so lucky,” she said.

He went into his bedroom, slammed the door, and fell down on the bed, a bit alarmed by how his heart was thudding irregularly.
Something had to be done. He was nearing the end of the line with her one way or the other. He desperately needed a nap, but
he groaned to his feet and laid out his Jakob Kessler wardrobe and wig, along with the casual clothing of Bernie Graham that
he’d take with him in an overnight bag. He knew that a quick change in the duplex/office would be tricky, but he didn’t think
that a kid like Clark would pay a lot of attention to details.

The door to his bedroom was opened abruptly by Eunice, who didn’t know how to knock and had no intention of learning.

“Dewey,” she said. “We should maybe think about moving to another place.”

“Oh, Christ!” he said. “We haven’t been living here that long, Eunice. It’s such a hassle to move everything.”

“A guy from Water and Power was here today. They been having problems around here with power surges.”

“So? You have surge protectors.”

“And I try hard to have everything properly stored and backed up, but you never know. He said some computers had crashed,
and it’s got me worried.”

Trying to sound as blasé as possible, he said, “Just so our bank account information is always accessible. You never know
when people in our business might have to make a very fast withdrawal or transfer of funds.”

Her watery blue eyes narrowed, and she said, “Don’t worry about the bank account, Dewey. It’s safe.”

As expected, she said
the
bank account, not
our
bank account. And she didn’t use the plural this time. With as much sincerity as he could muster, he said, “Eunice, we’re
not getting any younger. In case a serious illness or accident happened to you, how would I access the funds? Let’s say if
they were needed for your medical care. Do you realize I have no idea where the funds are or what I could do to help you?”

“Nothing’s gonna happen to me, Dewey,” she said, expressionless. “Worry about your own health and well-being.”

He was tired and under such strain that he said impetuously, “You act as though it’s your money and not mine too. I’ve worked
my ass off for you for nine long years, Eunice.”

“Correction,” she said. “We’ve been married for nine very long years. But for the first two and a half years, I supported
you completely while you haunted the offices of second-rate casting agents. Back when you spent more time at Dan Tana’s and
the Formosa Café than the goddamn waiters and bartenders because you think screenwriters and moguls still hang out there.
You live in the past, Dewey. You’re about as up-to-the-minute as a spinning wheel. Old Hollywood is dead. But I spoiled you
and let you have your way, hoping you’d outgrow it. Does this sound familiar? Am I opening the gate to Memory Lane?”

“I was working every minute in those days, Eunice,” he said, feeling his resolve leaking away. “I filled legal pads full of
script notes every moment I spent at Dan Tana’s. I met some important people there and at the Formosa, and I got a few acting
gigs out of it. I could’ve gotten more if you’d stood by me with patience and encouragement.”

“You never needed encouragement, Dewey, you needed a mommy,” she said. “Well, sonny boy, I got real tired of being your mommy.
And now, six and a half years later, you still haven’t learned the business like you should have. You still got your movie
star dreams, and if I wasn’t completely in charge of our affairs, we’d be broke. There are certain things for which you have
a minor talent, but money management isn’t one of them. It’s much better this way, and that’s how it’s gonna stay, Dewey.”

“And I have no say at all in the matter, is that it?” he said. “I’ll never have money of my own except what you dole out to
me, right? Everything in the bank account is yours to control forever, right?”

She lit another cigarette from the pack she kept in her bathrobe pocket and said, “As you well know, Dewey, before I ever
laid eyes on you, Hugo and me had built up a tidy nest egg. And as you also know, the money you’ve brought in—because of
my
talents, I might add—is commingled with that other money. So I think you should be grateful for all of that instead of being
whiny and petty and childish.”

Her “talents”? He wanted to tell her she was nothing but a hacker and a forger and a thief. He wanted to tell her it was his
innovative ideas in finding and working runners that brought in the money she craved and hoarded. He wanted to tell her that
her “talents” were a dime a dozen and if he put his mind to it, he could find fifty hackers at the cyber café who would be
more productive partners. Most of all, he wanted to tell her that he hated her guts like he’d never hated anyone in his life.
But he didn’t tell her any of it.

Dewey heaved an enormous sigh and said, “I don’t even know how much we have in our account, Eunice. I don’t know how many
accounts the money is in. I don’t know where the account or accounts are. And I’m your husband. How do you think all of that
makes me feel? As a human being.”

“It’s just another concern that you don’t have to deal with,” Eunice said. “You should feel relieved that
this
human being takes care of important matters. That’s how you should feel, Dewey.”

Suddenly he cried, “You’ve taken my balls, Eunice! I have to live week after week, day after day, as a man without balls!”

She took a big puff on her cigarette, inhaled, and said, “Stop by Hollywood Prop Supply. You might find some you could rent.”
Then she blew the smoke into the room, turned, and closed the door.

Dewey Gleason knew then that he could bring himself to kill her if he could first discover a way to access the account or
accounts. And he believed he’d never have a single conscience attack afterward. He was so emotionally drained that he did
fall asleep for an hour despite her. When he woke up, he had to become Jakob Kessler for his meeting with Creole and Jerzy.

At roll call late that afternoon, Sergeant Lee Murillo and Sergeant Miriam Hermann were both sitting at the table in front
of the room. After she read the crimes, Sergeant Hermann said, “The detectives on the sex desk at West Bureau got a call from
an alert officer at North Hollywood desk about a mall incident last night. A young, curly-haired Latino who fits the description
of the guy that attacked the two women here in Hollywood made a try for a woman putting groceries in her car. He attempted
to give her a ten-dollar bill that he claimed he found near her car. She didn’t buy into it, and he really freaked and started
screaming as she drove off. If he’s our guy, he seems to be getting more out of control with each encounter. Be supercareful
with any young Latinos who fit the description we gave you. A fifty-one-fifty with a box cutter should be taken very seriously,
and this one’s out there stalking.”

Dana Vaughn said, “Was the woman middle-aged, blonde, and a bit overweight?”

Sergeant Hermann said, “I don’t know. It doesn’t say in the note I got.”

“Both of ours were,” Dana said. “I checked with the officer who took the report on the woman who got beat up.”

“That’s a good question. I’ll call North Hollywood and get back to you with the woman’s description,” Sergeant Hermann said.
“There might be a specific MO being established here.”

R.T. Dibney guffawed and said loudly, “If the woman’s middle-aged, you can bet she’s overweight, and she’s probably blonde.
All the middle-aged women I date or been married to are overweight, and all of them become bottle blondes sooner or later.
It’s the easiest way to hide the gray.”

Dana Vaughn saw Mindy Ling cast a withering look at her partner for shooting off his mouth, and Mindy said, “From the looks
of your sideburns and stash, R.T., you learned a few coloring tricks from your multitude of lady friends.”

Everyone had a chuckle, until Sergeant Murillo said, “Okay, if we’re all through with beauty tips by R.T. Dibney, let’s go
to work.”

Of course, each of them touched the Oracle’s picture before filing out the door.

Jerzy was even more unhappy than usual when he showed up in the parking lot by the cyber café and entered the donut shop,
where Tristan was sitting at a table in the back.

“Get your sugar fix,” Tristan said, nibbling on a chocolate donut covered with multicolored sprinkles. “Go ahead and load
up. I’m buyin’.”

Jerzy sat down without ordering and said, “I let you talk me into some crazy shit, but this takes the cake.”

“Forget the cake. Have a donut,” Tristan said, pointing to the plate in front of him piled with five assorted donuts. “This
is gonna take a high energy level from both of us.”

“I wish I had some smoke to sprinkle on the donuts,” Jerzy muttered.

“Did you get the equipment?”

Jerzy automatically lowered his voice when he said, “Yeah, we’re tooled up, and I ain’t real happy about it.”

Tristan lowered his own voice and said, “Where are they?”

“In the trunk of my car at the bottom of a box of birdseed and dog food that my old lady wants for the fuckin’ zoo she keeps
in her house.”

“You can rent her a bigger house if this gag goes like I think it will. What’d you get?”

“An old snub-nosed revolver,” Jerzy said. “Couldn’t get my hands on a semiautomatic.”

“Don’t matter, dawg, it’s only a prop,” Tristan said. “It ain’t loaded, is it?”

“Of course it’s fuckin’ loaded. It ain’t that much of a prop.”

“I think you should leave it in the trunk. Maybe it was a bad idea anyways. We don’t need no gun.”

“You said you wanna scare the guy.”

“Not that much,” Tristan said. “Did you get the other… tool?”

Impatiently Jerzy said, “Yeah, the buck knife was no problem. Every biker I know carries one in his saddlebag. I think I know
why it had to be a buck knife.”

“Readin’ my mind again?” Tristan said.

“You figure that O.J. Simpson diced the white bitch and her boyfriend with a buck knife, right? And O.J.’s a national hero
to you and all your tribe, am I right?”

“Fuck you, peckerwood,” Tristan said. “It’s a scary-lookin’ knife, that’s why. We ain’t into force. Fear is our weapon. And
the element of surprise. We’re only gonna scare him, not shoot him, and not cut him.”

“Element of surprise,” Jerzy snorted. “Okay, break it down, mastermind. You got me breathin’ hard.”

“When Kessler shows up, I start talkin’ shit for a minute and you jist make sure you’re between him and the door. You understand
how important that is, right?”

With his mouth full of donut, Jerzy rolled his eyes and said, “No I’m a fuckin’ idiot.”

Tristan thought, For once we agree, you fuckin’ redneck. But he said, “Anyways, you gotta be the immovable object that the
man can feel breathin’ on him every second I’m talkin’ to him. I’m gonna tell him what we know and what we want and what we’re
gonna do if he don’t cooperate.”

“And you’re one hundred percent convinced he ain’t gonna call our bluff and tell us to go ahead and rat him out?”

“Look at us,” Tristan said. “We ain’t got a Ben Franklin between us. He knows we got nothin’ to lose. But Kessler and his
geek got a whole lot to lose. You jist stand there like a statue and let me work it. He’s gonna get so scared of my story
that if you give him a peek at the buck knife, he’ll mess his drawers.”

“Okay, but if I get tired of listenin’ to your shit, and if it ain’t havin’ the desired effect, I reserve the right to do
it my way.”

“And what might that be, wood?”

“You’ll see.”

“Puttin’ your hands on the man is a last resort,” Tristan said quickly. “And then only to make him sit down. We don’t need
no violence. He’s jist a pussy playin’ dress-up. He’ll take it if you piss on his shoes. No need to tune him up.”

“Maybe,” Jerzy said, shoving a whole donut in his mouth, the powdered sugar turning his lips white.