L.A. Success (3 page)

“Hello!” he said, but he didn't say the “H.” It sounded like “L.O.,” the way he said it.

I was still taking all that in when he held up a big pile of my mail.

“What are you doing with my mail?” I asked. I was going to snatch it angrily out of his hand, but being all lit up, I missed the envelopes completely with my first swipe. The second time I tried to grab them, he moved them into the path of my hand to be nice. I didn't manage to close my fingers around the envelopes when I made contact, so I sent the mail flying all over the place. He bent over and started picking everything up and at the same time showed me way too much hairy ass crack. I had to look away from that. When he stood up and handed the letters to me again, I took them slowly because I didn't want to have to go through all that a second time.

“Thanks,” I said.

His lips started puckering and quivering. They reminded me of an old truck motor trying to turn over. Then he said, “Yes,” and smiled weird.

“Yes what?” I said. He moved his eyes to the right, then up a little, then over to the left, like he was looking for something.

“No! No! Welcome! I forget, yes, I want to say 'welcome',” he said all happy with himself.

“You're welcome?” I asked.

“Yes!” he said. Then he pointed to my mailbox and said, “It falled on ground.”

I was thinking I had me another gifted neighbor. I waited a couple of seconds to see if he had something else to say. He shifted from one foot to the other and was still looking smiley.

“I guess that'll do it,” I said and started to close the door.

“Ah! Buh...I am coming for ze room. Ze room eez still 'ere?”

“What?” I asked. I had no idea what this dude was talking about.

“Ze room, for renting,” he said.

“I don't got no room for rent, pal.”

“Ah, I am doing a meestake?” He took out a piece of paper from his back pocket and unfolded it. “It eez not 'ere?” He handed me the piece of paper.

I read it over. It was from a posting on an internet apartment site. Here's what it said: “Bedroom for rent. My woman ran out on me, so I want to rent my spare room so I can sponge off you. I live north of Wilshire. I don't want no weirdos living with me. You do the housework. Maybe you cook stuff for me, too. Don't even think about going in the living room, because I like to let it all hang out in there. No doing anywhere.”

“That doesn't sound like me at all! Get out of here, mulleted schmoo!” I yelled. He didn't understand what I was saying. He reached down into his pocket, pulled out a wad of bills and handed it to me.

“Take good quantity. I move in today?”

He did have a way with words, this guy. And how bad could it be to have a roommate? I was running out of money and this would help a lot. I counted out what would have been twice my mortgage, if I had actually had one, and handed the rest back.

“You, uh, aren't from someplace weird, are you?” I asked.

“I yam from French.”

“Hmm...If I decide that's weird later, I'll kick you out without any notice. Okay?”

“Yes!” he said.

“Come have a look at the room.”

We made our way along the trail I'd just cut through the carpet trash, but at about half way, I had to veer off to the right and start shuffling my feet again to get to the spare room. I opened the door and we went in. Everything was still perfect and clean.

“My woman cleaned the place up...before she left me,” I said, and I must have been all teary when it came out, because this big frog looked at me like he wanted to hold my hand or something.

“She give love a bad name?” he said, but without hesitating or fishing around for words like before. That was exactly how I felt, and I was thinking this guy was a lot smarter than I had thought. Maybe he couldn't say shit unless it was really important, and then he knew exactly what to say.

“Yeah, yeah man! That's right!” I said, feeling better. “So what do you think of the room?”

“Room...eez beautifool.”

“All right then. You can go get your things and move in. But hey, what's your name?”

“My name eez Tommy,” he said. “Like Tommy Lee from Motley Crue.”

“Okay, Tommy. I'm Lonnie. Remember this: don't ever give your money to anyone in L.A. before you get the goods. Most people here aren't as nice as me. They'll steal from you, okay?”

“Yes,” he answered, but I didn't think any of that had reached the mother ship. “Oh! A minute!” he said. “I can take the boos 'ere? I am computair student. I go to university.”

“Yeah, hell, I 'take the booze' all the time.” He looked really happy with that, and I was thinking I might get along with this guy after all. He took off to go get his stuff, and I returned to the TV.

I had forgotten to give Tommy a key, so I had to sit around waiting for him to get back. Not that I would have gone anywhere anyway. I mean, I hadn't left the house in forever. But now I didn't have a choice, and that pissed me off. I pulled out the wad of bills and counted them again to calm me down. This was going to be just as good as dog walking. And then it hit me: if I could find another dog-walking gig, plus keep Tommy paying rent, I'd have real money, like people with real jobs, and maybe I could shape up a little and give Helen something to miss.

Tommy came back an hour or two later with a suitcase and an electric guitar. I didn't like where this was going at all.

“Hey, you should've told me you had one of those,” I said, pointing to the guitar. “If you're going to play all the time and make noise—”

“I am playing,” he said, and took the guitar out of the case. It was a flying V. He sat down with it on the couch and wiggled his fingers like he was getting them loose. Then he took a long time to put his fingers in the right places and strummed the guitar once.

“Do majeur,” he said. I realized I had nothing to worry about. At that rate, he wouldn't know a song for at least a couple of years.

“That's great Tommy. Hey look, I'm heading out for a while. You can have a beer if you want.”

“Eet don't get bettair zan zees,” he said.

8

I left the house and headed over to the Third Street Promenade. I went in the Barnes & Noble, which was normally a place I hated because I got the feeling that everyone there knew I didn't read stuff, so they were all suspicious of my presence, as if I was only there to walk by girls who were sitting on the floor reading so I could look down their shirts, or to stand near the escalators so I could watch girls go up to the yoga section on the next level. This time, though, I had money, so I went over to the Starbucks part of the bookstore. I’d never understood why people were so crazy to pay a ton of money for stupid coffee, so I’d never ordered from Starbucks in my life. I had no intention of actually drinking anything, but I ordered a big latte so that I could carry it around and blend in like reading people. I took my coffee and wandered up and down the nutrition, diet and exercise aisles, and then went over to check out the clearance books by the escalator.

Then I went back to the Starbucks, because that's why I'd come in the first place. There was a cork board with ads on the wall by the john. Most of the time it was just full of stupid ads for student films. That didn't pay a dime. They actually wanted you to work for free, and in L.A., there was always someone willing. I gave the whole board a once-over. Lots of nanny jobs, lots of apartments to sublet, a few cars for sale, let me see...then, whack, I found it: “house sitter/dog walker wanted”. None of the little tabs with the phone number written on them had been pulled off. I looked around to see if anyone was watching. Then I ripped the whole ad down and took off.

On the way back, I dialed the number on my shit phone. I got a machine.

“You've reached the office of D. Bates, private investigator. I'm in the field, so don't expect me to get back with you anytime soon. Leave a message,” said the dark, gravelly voice. Then the beep. I hate talking to these machines. I always freeze up.

“Hello. This is the guy...well, a guy, who took down your ad and then called the number. I was wanting to know more about the ad, which I called about just now. If you could give me a call back, I would be much condolenced. Thank you,” I said, and left the digits. That was a pretty polite message, I thought. I'd let a guy like that into my house.

I called my home number hoping Tommy would pick up. I wanted to bring him back some burgers to celebrate his first night at my place. The phone rang a million times before he answered.

“Allo,” he said.

“Hey, it's me. You want some burgers?” I asked.

“Uh...sorry. Zis eez not my 'ouse,” he said.

“I know this ain't your 'ouse', dork—it's my house. I'll be back in a little while. Look, listen to this: Don't eat anything 'cause I'm bringing burgers back tonight, on me.” Then I heard my kitchen drawers opening and shutting and a bunch of words I didn't understand. “Hey, you got that?”

“Okay, yes,” he said, so I hung up and swung by In 'n Out.

When I walked in with the burgers, Tommy got up and came over. He handed me a piece of paper. It was a phone message.

“L.O.,” he said.

I looked at the note. It said:
Donate anything. Cousin ringing burglars, pack tonight, ennui
. After that, he'd written the date and the time. I couldn't read either one of them because his ones and sevens looked all weird.

“Thanks Tommy.”

I showed him the sack—I mean the burger sack—and gestured for him to come eat on the couch with me. “Let's chow down,” I said. He seemed to like the food a lot, but I couldn't understand anything he said because when he had food in his mouth he was even harder to understand than normal. I finished everything and was about to throw the wrappers on the floor when I noticed that the carpet trash was gone. This guy had picked up everything while I was out. I couldn't believe it.

“That was really nice of you, picking that trash up,” I said and pointed at the floor so he'd know what I meant.

“You are welcome.”

9

The next day I was getting blitzed by the dinosaur fountain on the Promenade when my phone rang. It about gave me a heart attack because I hadn't gotten a phone call for a long time.

“Lonnie here.”

“Ah, yes. Are you the individual who called me yesterday?” said the voice. At first I thought it was a deep-voiced woman, but no woman speaks that low.

“Are you that private dick's wife?” I asked.

“Oh nooooo!
I
am the investigator. I
was
the investigator, anyway. I'm giving all that up now.” I noticed that sometimes when he spoke he sounded like his answering machine, as if his voice lost that womanish quality and went back to being steroidy once every five words.

“So you're mister Bates?”

“Call me Dennis,” he said.

“All right. So are you still looking for a house sitter, Dennis?”

“Absolutely! And you're the only one who has called. Why don't you come over and I'll explain my situation?”

He gave me his address. He lived on Second Street, not far at all from my place. I started in that direction, but then I thought I'd better trash my Gatorbooze first and get something respectable to carry around so that I'd make a good first impression. I hit the Starbucks inside the Barnes & Noble again and then took off north toward Dennis' place with a steamy latte. Even though I didn't take as much as one sip of it, I enjoyed how warm my hands felt carrying it around.

His house was amazing. It was a white, Spanish-style house that had a courtyard surrounded by a wall of shrubbery. When I see those kinds of houses, I always imagine stomping around on the roof breaking all those fancy red clay tiles. There were three cars in the driveway. One looked like mine—a real piece of shit. But the two others were byoots: a green Mercedes convertible and a black Dodge Charger. Underneath the doorbell was written Dennis Bates. I rang it.

He opened the gate to the courtyard. He looked like a bruiser, a real tough guy, except that he was wearing thin, white linen pants. I could see his neon-purple unit sling through them. He had a white tank top on and around his neck he had a tiny purple scarf, I guess to go along with the underwear. He was one of those guys who can shave in the morning and have a five o'clock shadow by lunch. He had black hair and was furry like a gorilla. His skin was tan and looked oily. I guessed that was because of tanning lotion, because he had a lawn chair with a beach towel on it there in the courtyard. Some kind of enormous black poodle was at his feet having a sniff at me.

“Hello to you,” he said. He looked at my Arnold and then followed the treasure trail with his eyes. That’s what I call the strip of hair leading from my belly button down south. Helen used to make fun of me and say it was more like a treasure hunt.

“Hi. I'm the gay that called you. Guy. Guy, I mean, who called about the house sitting.” I felt pretty stupid right about then, but he was a good sport about it.

“You think I went too far?” He pointed up and down at his outfit. “I'm trying out some new looks, but I don't know if I pulled this one off right.”

I didn't really know what he wanted me to say here.

“Well, I can see your package, pretty much,” I said.

“Of course you can. But what I mean is do I look too 'nouveau gay'?”

I was thinking right then that my cup of Starbucks wasn't going to be the skeleton key I had hoped it would. I was going to have to say stuff.

“I don't know too much about this sort of thing, but when you opened the gate, I was thinking you were trying too hard,” I said, worried that I'd piss him off and not get the job.

“Hmm...Why don’t you come in and sit down. It's so refreshing talking to someone who will tell me his honest opinion.”

I walked into the courtyard. As he was shutting the gate, the big poodle made a run for it.

“Stay! You're going to get yourself run over!” he yelled, sounding like the voice on his answering machine. “I just got this dog. He's almost full grown, but I don't think anyone has ever trained him,” he said, switching back to the deep chick voice.

We walked over to the front door and went in. His house wasn't very well decorated. I liked it a lot, but I thought that a guy who was like this guy would decorate different. He had some black-and-white photos of far-west landscapes on the walls. He didn't have a lot of furniture, but what he did have looked like it came out of a bachelor pad: black leather sofa and love seat, wood coffee table, kick-ass entertainment center, a collection of nature magazines—that kind of stuff. He invited me to sit down on the couch.