Hot Shot (10 page)

“It doesn't have the charm of my old place in Venice,” I said. “Crickets instead of crack dealers. But it's okay.”

He cuffed me with my duffel. “You're a smartass, O'Connor.”

*   *   *

Karen was at the kitchen island, mixing a salad of bitter greens. She turned around and gave me the smile that all of Los Angeles knew from TV.

Around L.A., Karen Trujillo was a celebrity of sorts. She was a seismologist at Cal Tech, but everyone knew her as the Earthquake Lady. Whenever we had a jolt, Karen would drive out to Pasadena to read the jiggles on the graph, go on camera, and reassure the populace that Palm Springs wasn't about to become beachfront property.

“Hey, Kieran,” she said. “We haven't seen you in weeks.”

I'm not the one who got married,
was my first thought, but I squelched it. “So what went on under the earth's crust today?”

“A couple of little tremors,” Karen said. “Nothing anyone could feel, but they were on the Wilshire Fault, so we're watching it.”

“The Wilshire? Yikes.” We Angelenos are on a first-name basis with our fault lines, the way Floridians are with hurricanes.

“The Wilshire,” she said cheerfully. “We're all doomed. Honey, where'd you put the olives?”

We had dinner on a redwood table in the backyard, which was ringed with rosebushes and a stand of evergreens. I ate two pieces of mesquite-grilled shark and half the salad. After dessert, Karen disappeared into the bedroom with a stack of seismology journals while Jeff and I took the rest of the wine down to the creek.

“Brenner, you've done it again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Seriously. Ever since I've known you, it's been like this. The magazine gig. Writing for
Becky.
This house, that car. Hell, even
Jeopardy!
”

Five years ago, we both pitched story ideas about becoming
Jeopardy!
contestants—me to the paper and him to a London magazine. I passed the test and never got called back. Jeff made it on the show, where he won a yogurt maker, a case of floor wax, and $47,000 after taxes.

“What's got you so down? This book could be your big break.”

“It's not a book. It's a tabloid article in hardcover. It's … journalistic necrophilia.”

“So it gives you leverage on your next project.”

“Sure. Bigger celebrity deaths, juicier scandals. Come on. Don't yank my frank.”

“It's not a criminal enterprise, Kieran.”

“I know. But I always had contempt for tabloid writers. Now I'm one of them.” I stared out at the creek. It was only a small rivulet, clogged with pine needles and dead leaves, but the hills had been denuded in last year's fires. One good storm and Jeff and Karen would have whitewater foaming at the property line. In L.A., you never knew what fresh disaster was just around the corner.

“Brenner—they're not putting me up at the Hillshire because they like me. They put me there because they think it's safe.”

I told him about my trip to Mexico, about Felina's murder, everything, ending with the phone call at the Wind & Sea. He whistled.

“Kieran, you don't really think this murder could be related to the book?”

“No. That's just the way they're playing it on TV. You'd have to see this town where she lived. Two separate societies, right on top of each other. Like building Beverly Hills on top of a homeless village. I'm surprised they don't have break-ins all the time; I'm surprised they don't have riots. But that raised another question.”

“What?”

“I was under the impression that Felina was writing this book because she needed money. But that house was as nice as this one. Bigger, too. What's that about?”

“Did she own it or was she renting?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, what if she got some relocation money from the D.A. or the feds? She could have bought the house back then and just run out of cash.”

“I hadn't thought of that.” There were a lot of old-money families in Hancock Park and San Marino who had run through their inheritances. From the outside, their houses looked like something out of
Architectural Digest,
but what no one ever saw was the people sitting in unheated rooms, eating Top Ramen. In Southern California, facades are all. “It wouldn't hurt to do a title search, I guess. But none of this explains the call I got, or…” I chunked a rock at a pine tree. It landed in a blanket of needles. “Ehh. Enough about this project.”

“Okay. Let's talk about you and Claudia.”

“Huh?”

“You've been moping around all night, the same way you always do when the two of you are having a fight.”

“We're not fighting, Jeff. We're just … I don't know.” I poured the rest of the wine into my glass. “I just don't know.”

“Kieran … what
do
you want out of a relationship?”

“This,”
I said. “I want this. A nice house. A backyard. A girlfriend who can manage to keep up a career and a relationship. Shark steaks and friends over for dinner.” I killed the chardonnay. “Wineglasses from a crystal shop, not a gas station. Jeez, Brenner. You move through life like Fred Astaire.”

He laughed. “Kieran, it's not that easy.”

“It wasn't that easy for Fred Astaire either. That's the point.” I stood up and brushed damp earth from the seat of my jeans. “He just made it
look
easy.”

*   *   *

People think of glamour when they think of the Sunset Strip, but to me it's all about surfaces. Hard surfaces, shiny surfaces. Hot red taillights and the slick sheen of neon and limo glass. That, and death—Sunset is a sinuous avenue where cars skid off embankments in a flash of glass and chrome, where rock stars and runaways OD, where each new generation reinvents the sex/drugs/rock-and-roll lifestyle. The whole passé enchilada that seems so seductive when you're seventeen and invincible.

I stopped at a light. The billboards grew tall and strong on both sides of the street. New ones pimping the latest sound, the latest movie, the latest craze. Old ones, shredded into tatters by the Santa Ana winds. Another twist, another turn, and the music clubs appeared. House of Blues, a zillion-dollar recreation of a Mississippi roadhouse, complete with valet parking and gift shop. The Viper Room. Whisky à Go Go. The Rainbow. The Roxy. And, just before the Strip petered out into Beverly Hills, Bar Sinister—a low-slung black building with no sign. Outside was a line of the usual Sunset suspects: fashion models, guys in Eurotrash suits, and a few haute-couture punks with hundred-dollar spiked haircuts.

I found a semi-legal parking space a few blocks away and walked back. Would-be rock stars were posing on the hoods of cars, air-drumming. Clumps of bored teenagers leaned against buildings, trying to look cool. I smelled clove cigarettes and pot smoke.

The trendoids on the sidewalk glared at me when I walked up to the entrance. When the bouncer found my name on the list and unclipped the velvet rope, they hissed like a pack of geese.

Bar Sinister had been around since the Sixties. The Seeds, the Doors, the Germs, and X had all played there. In the Eighties, it had gone out of business, but recently some Saudi investors had sunk some serious cash into the joint. Now the place was a round space with banquettes and Art Nouveau accents on the walls, like some Forties RKO movie nightclub, down to the old-fashioned candlestick phones on the tables and cigarette girls circling the room. Rumor had it that Bar Sinister was the place to score. If it was uncut and expensive, you could buy it there. I wondered just how reformed a drug dealer Vernon Ash was.

Ash wasn't hard to find. He not only sounded like one of those motivational-speaker slickies from late-night TV, he looked like one, too. A set of large, whiter-than-white teeth was set off by a pink polo shirt and a cream-colored Panama. His skin was tanning-bed bronze. Not a bad-looking package, except for a certain ferret look around his eyes.

I slid into the banquette and we made all the right nice-to-meet-you noises. “Thanks for meeting with me. Really,” he said, covering my hand with his. “Tell me about it.”

“About what?” Up close, the ferretness was unmistakable. A handsome blond weasel.

“About Felina. All I heard was what I read in the papers. What happened down there?”

I rehashed Via del Paraiso, the beach house, the fax from the Ensenada police. Ash's head was tilted to one side. This was a man who was used to gathering information, assimilating, assessing, processing. Some trendoids walked past the table and gave Ash cool hellos—a tilt of the head, a flick of the palm—but he managed to acknowledge them without breaking focus.

“So it was just a break-in. Nothing to do with the book after all,” he concluded.

“Seems that way.”

“It sure got you a lot of attention. A publicist couldn't have done a better job. I wish you lots of luck with it, Kieran, I really do.”

“Thanks,” I said, a little uneasily. Was he really thinking of Felina's death as some kind of cosmic publicity stunt?

“Do the cops have any leads?”

“I don't know. I don't really have any sources on the other side of the border.”

“Well, I hope they catch the son of a bitch. Felina was a good person.” He caught me looking at him cockeyed. “Hey, I liked Felina. I did, hand to God.”

Ash was about to add something, but just then a passerby yelled, “Darling!” and swooped down to smack him on the cheek. “Vern! It's great to have you back! Just the other day I was talking about you to Dylan! You remember Dylan—”

“Good to see you again, Dianne,” Ash said, sincere as a politician.

Everything about Dianne was big: big dyed blond hair, big collagen lips, big cartoony, balloony implants that looked about as soft and appealing as granite. Her glance flicked over at me for a moment, and I was about to introduce myself until I realized she was looking over my shoulder. At Bar Sinister, I was just a member of Ash's ever-changing entourage.

“So Dylan and I have started a networking group on Wednesdays at Couchon. The Big Schmooze. Thirty dollars, you get a glass of wine and a chance to meet some really interesting people. Some yutzes, I keep most of 'em out, we have a good time. Can we count on you?”

“Sure.”

“Fabulous. Wednesday, Couchon, seven-pee. Love you, mean it.” Dianne trundled away, almost mowing down a waitress/waif who was approaching our table like a sleepwalker. She had a gray complexion and ribs that protruded through her blouse. Anorectic junkie waitresses. What an appetizing concept.

Ash got freshwater mozzarella, shiitake ravioli with basil aioli, and a slab of grilled ahi. I ordered a salad, no sprouts, and some tricked-out pasta thing with portobellos.

“You know a lot of people,” I said mildly, when the waitress had left.

“Yeah. I can't believe it.”

“What?”

“I thought when I got out of jail that people would keep their distance. It's been the opposite, if anything. Guys giving me high fives. Women giving me their phone numbers.”

“Richard Ramirez and Ted Bundy had groupies, too.”

“Good one. Hey, you're funny.”

I shrugged.

Ash checked his watch. “I've got to make a quick call. Can you hold down the fort?” And he was gone behind a thatch of topiary palms, stopping to slap hands at a table of basketball players.

*   *   *

Ash and the food arrived back at the same time, twenty minutes later. There was a hairball of sprouts on my salad.

“She helped send you to jail,” I said, picking off the sprouts.

“Hm?”

“Felina.”

“Ahh, it wasn't her fault. I never held it against her. Some shitheel from the D.A.'s office got hold of Felina and told her that unless she testified against me she'd be going away, too.” He balanced basil leaves and a chunk of mozzarella on his fork. “Felina didn't have enough money to hire a decent lawyer—what's she supposed to do? She shouldn't have to pay for my sins.”

“She was pretty vituperative on the stand.”

“Vi— What?” A whiter-than-white flash of teeth. “I should hang around you more. Build up my vocabulary.”

“Vituperative. Bitter, accusatory. I pulled the old clips. All the D.A. wanted to hear was the drug stuff. She ended up doing a full-on character assassination.”

He shrugged, dunked a moon of mozzarella into a pool of olive oil. “She was just a kid. She hadn't even been out of East L.A. until she was fifteen. Went to Knott's Berry Farm for her
quincinera.
Really, I don't blame her.”

“How does someone with a background like that end up as a Hollywood hooker?”

“Those are the only kind that end up being hookers. Young, naive. Her dad was an immigrant. He'd been raising her alone. Hey, these ravioli are fantastic.
Mange.
” He slid a piece onto my plate. “So your deadline's in another month?”

“More or less.”

“You got another project firmed up yet?”

“Not exactly.”

“Good. I've got a business proposition for you.” He flashed that motivational-speaker grin at me again. “How'd you like to write a best-seller?”

“What best-seller?”

Ash passed me a thin folder. “Take a look at this. It's all in there, man. I name names and places. Felina. Dick Mann and a bunch of other people. All it needs is a ghostwriter.”

I opened it to the title page.
Shooting Stars: My Life as a Celebrity Drug Dealer.

“Well,” I said. “Well.”

“I started it in prison, man. It's all in there. Names and places. Dick Mann and everybody else you could imagine. But I'm not a writer. So whaddaya think?” He beamed. “Let's be real. Nobody gives two shits about Felina's book. What I'm offering here is a chance to get your name on a real best-seller. I'm gonna start the bidding at a hundred K. Get the suckers and the chumps out of the way at the start.”