Land of Dreams

by Eugene Lester

"People are like electricity, Clendon. They follow the path of least resistance."

  * * *

  Near one a.m., Shelley made coffee and Clendon drank three cups while he studied his map. Then he went outside and walked up and down the block. The night fog was thick. He looked inside the two parked cars on the street. They were both were empty. He checked all the cars in driveways and looked over all the houses in case they were across the street taking pictures.

  Shelley took off in her Volvo to drive around the Palisades and draw out any possible tails. She’d return home in half an hour. Ten minutes later, Clendon left in the BMW, with the key to Brooks’s apartment in his pocket. He hit Sunset and headed east. The cold night air rifled through the broken window. He jacked up the heater. Near UCLA he drove around for another half an hour. It was almost three a.m. when he came out on Veteran Avenue and turned south. Traffic was nil.

  Brooks’s apartment building along Veteran was among a long row of apartments built in the sixties. Across the street stood a high cyclone fence with scraggly vines. Eucalyptus trees ran along the fence. Their scent crackled in the still night air. The large veteran’s cemetery lay on the other side of the fence, where the white headstones faded into the fog like dead gray charcoal embers. While cruising for parking, he glimpsed the billboard of the woman and her shopping center hat.

  Brooks’s building was well lit and landscaped. Redwood planks were nailed over the stucco. His apartment was on the second floor. Clendon slipped on some thin gloves he got from Shelley's house. A door slammed somewhere. Once in the apartment, Clendon groped for a light switch and flipped it. It was full of furniture and smelled like new carpet. He went straight to the bathroom. It was clean and the floor and bathtub were dry. Some new toiletries were on the counter, including tampons and diaphragm jelly. He turned off the bathroom light and crept towards the bedroom.

  The bed was unmade, and had four posters, but nobody was sleeping in it. He turned on the bedroom light and poked through the closet. There were a couple of men’s denims and shirts, a summer dress, a short skirt, and a blouse. There were men’s loafers and women’s flats. In the dresser was men’s and women’s underwear, a Polaroid camera but no photographs, a black garter belt and black hose, bottles of massage oil, two old Penthouse magazines, and another porn magazine of faggy looking guys doing women with shaved pussies. There was also a smooth vibrating dildo, a huge lifelike black rubber cock, and a small roll of $100 bills. Clendon counted six bills, then stuffed them all in his wallet. Was the seventh bill the one plugged to Brooks’s forehead? Under the bed lay a sheer red lacy bra, red lacy crotchless panties, and several lengths of thin red climbing rope. One piece of rope was tied to a foot poster. There were yellow come stains on the patterned designer sheets.

  In the kitchen cabinets there was a lot of canned food, instant coffee hardening in the jar, some moldy bread, old flour, and a few dishes. He checked the refrigerator. It had a case of Heineken in it and nothing else. The counters were antiseptic. There was no garbage anywhere. The kitchen floor was shiny and waxy. He thought about moving in and hiding for six months.

  In one of the kitchen drawers Clendon found a scrap of paper. Brooks’s hand had written “OO lines” in blue ink on the scrap. It was torn along the left edge by the “OO.” Clendon put it in his wallet.

  He tried out the new baby shit green sofa in the living room. There was a 27-inch Sony television and a VCR, but no stereo, and no phone. The living room looked unlived in except for a month-old Los Angeles Times sports page on the coffee table. The paper was opened to the gambling odds on football games and the horse racing results from Fairplex.

  While Clendon paced the living room, he spotted the briefcase between the sofa and an end table. He slid it out. It was a dark gray Samsonite like the one he had exchanged at Adolfo’s. It was locked. He lifted it. It wasn’t too heavy. He shook it and it clumped. Money? Clendon carried the briefcase into the bathroom, took a piss, flushed the toilet, waited for it to stop running, then turned off all the lights in the apartment and headed out the front door, locking it behind him. The briefcase felt heavier with each step down the stairs.

  Back at the BMW, Clendon took off the gloves and checked his wristwatch under the street lights. Three-thirty. He hoped to be snuggling next to Shelley in half an hour. He put the car key in the trunk lock when a loud footstep scraped the concrete.

  His heart slam danced against his ribs. He ran three strides before he jammed his knee into a fire hydrant, nicked his balls, and fell. The briefcase sounded like a shot when it hit the concrete sidewalk. He grabbed for it. Pain clamped down on his knee as he rolled onto wet grass.

  "Clendon, I’ll buy you some breakfast. Are you hungry?"

  Fred stood beside the BMW, wearing a trench coat in the swirling fog.

  "I just ruined my knee for life," Clendon said, gasping.

  "I didn’t mean to scare you."

  "Sure. Dracula never meant to scare any virgins."

  "I just want to talk. I see you have a briefcase with you."

  Clendon’s clothes felt damp from the dew. His sore hand squeezed the car key. He sat up.

  "If you want the briefcase, you should pull out your silencer and shoot me and take it away."

  "Why would I shoot you? I don’t even carry a gun."

  "You’re right. You don’t need to. You just scare people to death."

  "You ought to get your window fixed. Someone could break in and steal your car."

  "It’s not my car."

  Clendon stood. The pain in his knee was finally easing, so he limped over to the BMW, unlocked the trunk, put the briefcase in it, and closed the trunk lid. Fred stood beside the car and watched.

  "I just want to talk," he said.

  "Why didn’t you call me for an appointment?"

  "I know an all night diner on Santa Monica Boulevard. I’ll buy if you’ll drive us there."

  * * *

  The place was crowded. They sat in an orange vinyl booth. A cockroach was crawling on the wall beside them when the waitress brought their plates of ham and eggs. Fred made small talk while he ate. Clendon ate fast, Fred ate slowly.

  When Fred finished eating, he said, "My name is Frederic Deedacheck."

  "Spell it."

  "D-I-E-D-E-C-E-K."

  "So, Mr. Diedecek, what were you doing at the funeral?"

  "Paying my respects."

  "And watching D. C. Lyman. Anybody else?"

  "And what were you doing carrying a briefcase on a side street in Westwood by a cemetery in the middle of the night?"

  "Scalping World Series tickets."

  "Mr. Lindsey, I happen to know you are desperate for money."

  "Yeah, who isn’t it? That’s why I’m scalping tickets."

  "I like that expression— 'scalping tickets.' Do you use a tomahawk like the Indians? I love the American expressions. Mind if I smoke?"

  He lit a European cigarette. It stunk.

  "If you like scalping tickets so much, I have a proposal for you about scalping a briefcase."

  "Why? Are you buying up briefcases?"

  "I’m not, but D. C. Lyman is."

  "Does he pay good money?"

  "The best in L.A."

  "You must get a percentage."

  "In a very around way, yes."

  "Why didn’t you tell me your name before?"

  "Brooks was my colleague, and he was in very deep trouble as you see the result. Now I am trying to help you because that would help me, too."

  "Finally. Self-interest. Now let me give this back to you so we understand each other. If I sell this briefcase to D. C. Lyman for what you imply could be a large sum of money that I would get to keep, your ass would be saved."

  "Yes."

  "Why don’t you sell it to him?"

  "Because he would think if I sold it to him, it would be altered, but if you sold it to him, he would be
convinced that it was in perfect shape."

  "How do I know Lyman won’t shoot me in the head like he did Brooks?"

  "He didn’t kill Brooks."

  "Who did?"

  "I don’t know."

  "What’s in the briefcase?"

  "I can’t tell you."

  "I could pry it open and find out."

  "Then Mr. Lyman wouldn’t touch it."

  "Why does Lyman need this briefcase so bad?"

  "If he doesn’t get it back, there’ll be a scandal at Positron, Positron will lose its government contracts, and Lyman will be on the street as a peddler of neckties."

  "How do I know you’re not a liar?"

  "Call Lyman at Positron and talk to him. Make a deal that you like. He needs that briefcase. When you have the money and you’re out of the country send me a postcard, general delivery, Santa Monica, and tell me the good news."

  "I’ll sleep on it."

  "Sleep on it, but not more than one night, because sleeping on that briefcase is dangerous."

  "What if I don’t even want it?"

  Diedecek shrugged.

  "Take a cruise and throw it in the ocean, but invite me to come along so I know where it went. I want to watch you throw away $100,000 in cash."

  "In cash?"

  "Yes, and no tax."

  "Where could Lyman get that kind of money?"

  "He keeps it in his safe."

  "You can look for a postcard in about a week."

  Clendon limped out fast and got in the BMW and drove off before Diedecek could get the bill paid.

  * * *

  The sky was becoming lighter when Clendon hit the Palisades, but below, the ocean was still dark. "00 lines." A code? Clendon was codeless. Lines—gambling lines. "What’s today’s line?" "Take the Texans and give the points— " Cocaine lines. Phone lines. "Install 1,000 lines of new phones." Disconnected. Clendon felt like he had been carrying drilling pipe across an oil field all night. Straight lines, crooked lines, broken lines. One line. A line of lines. Zero lines. Double zero lines. No lines.

  The morning doves were cooing when Clendon pulled in Shelley’s driveway. What morning was it? Monday. The newspaper lay at the front door. Before Clendon opened the trunk, he looked around, but the street was vacant. His knee was stiff and his hand hurt. He took out the briefcase, picked up the paper, and opened the front door with the key Shelley had given him. Her house was cool and so quiet Clendon could hear his ears ringing. He went upstairs. Shelley was asleep in her bed, sprawled open-armed on her back, covers to her chin, her face relaxed.

  A wave of tired ache went through him. He shoved the briefcase under the bed, then undressed as he watched Shelley sleep. Naked, he crawled into the warm bed. She was sleeping naked, too, and he held her breast. She never moved and he fell asleep.

  * * *

  Clendon was carrying heavy briefcases up the stairs, his arms springy and extended. When he reached the top, D. C. Lyman was sitting there in his brown Jaguar and puffing on a huge cigar made out of $100 bills. Lyman told him to open the briefcases. Inside the first one was a huge black rubber dildo that Lyman grabbed away from him. Inside the other briefcase was a magazine with pictures of Brooks tied up naked on a bed with a fat Mexican woman in a red dress. Clendon flipped through another magazine that had pictures of Shelley and him. He stared at a picture of his kissing and sucking her breast. The picture came alive. They started moving and Clendon moaned. He woke up as his hips moved his hard cock against Shelley’s thigh. His mouth covered her hardened nipple, sucking on it.

  "Clendon!"

  He pulled away.

  "Clendon, you’ve been dreaming."

  His eyes opened.

  "Clendon, as a professional I’m ordering you to relate your dream to me."

  "I found a briefcase."

  * * *

  It was past eleven in the morning, but Clendon was cranked after only four hours sleep. Shelley prepared breakfast while he called his parents. They sent their condolences, and told him they would forward a copy of some divorce papers Melody had filed in Houston. He told them to wait a few days. After he hung up, he began to pace.

  "Jenkins called this morning," Shelley said.

  "About your car?"

  "Yes. He wanted to know when I was going to report it stolen. I said I didn’t need to because I got it back."

  "And he said?"

  "He wanted to know how I got it back and I said you and I went for a drive the next morning and we happened to see it parked on a street in Santa Monica."

  "You’re the master of the half-truth."

  "Eat some breakfast," Shelley said.

  "I can’t. Is it too early for whiskey?"

  "You can stop stalling, Clendon. Why put off the inevitable?"

  "What’s the inevitable?"

  "Telling me about your dream."

  * * *

  Clendon lay on the velour couch, but once he started on those upward steps, it began to feel good to tell her about it: the climbing, the buckets, the top, the fall, the landing, the restart.

  "Clendon, have you had anything happen in real life like that?"

  "When I was in college one summer I worked in construction, building a high rise hospital, and most of my job was to carry five gallon buckets of water by hand up long flights of stairs to the top where they were pouring concrete. I got ten cents an hour over minimum wage."

  "They didn’t have some kind of pump or pipe for the water?"

  "No."

  "They didn’t have an elevator?"

  "We couldn’t ride it."

  "What did you think about all day?"

  "You."

  "Don’t lie."

  "I’m not. What’s my dream about?"

  "Sex."

  "You get paid to tell people that?"

  "All dreams are about sex. Specifically, you’re alienated from your body."

  "Why am I alienated from my body?"

  "Everyone is. Jogging, anorexia, cocaine, work, sex dreams. It’s all the same."

  "Why is my dream about sex?"

  "Dreaming about climbing stairs indicates a desire for sexual intercourse."

  "Why isn’t it about a desire to get to the top of some stairs?"

  "Climbing the stairs is like the rhythmic movements of love making. Freud said that."

  "Maybe he just had a thing for stairs. Like me."

  "Your endless, repetitive stair-climbing indicates an unlimited sexual desire."

  "Maybe it just means my alienated body would like to have sex on some stairs."

  "You’re not supposed to speculate with a therapist about questions like that."

  "Is it okay if I want to try out a certain therapist’s stairs?"

  * * *

  From a gas station in the Palisades village, Clendon called D. C. Lyman at Positron and talked to his personal secretary. She wouldn’t put him through.

  "Are you from Texas?"

  "I am not from Texas. I want you to take down a message and give it to Mr. Lyman. Ready?" Clendon gave her a phone number. "Mr. Lyman should call that number in exactly one hour regarding Brooks Boyd’s Samsonite briefcase. Bye."

  * * *

  Lyman called on time. Clendon was waiting at another pay phone a block from the gas station.

  "I understand you can help me out," Lyman said. "With whom am I speaking?"

  "Call me Jesus."

  "Why should I call you Jesus?"

  "Because I’m your personal savior."

  "You have the product."

  "Yes. It’s for sale."

  "Is it damaged?"

  "It’s in perfect condition."

  "Is $10,000 a fair price?"

  "That would be fine for my agent, but I don’t have an agent. The price is $100,000 cash."

  "Your price is very high."

  "I know you have the money and I also know some people who would pay me even more for it, but I’m told
they’re the bad guys."

  "You talk like Brooks Boyd used to talk," D. C. Lyman said.

  "You talk like a man who could save himself for only $100,000."

  Lyman paused. The phone connection hissed in Clendon’s ear.

  "All right."

  "How about if I come to your office?"

  "Forget it."

  "Then put $100,000 in an overnight bag and place it in a baggage locker by the American Airlines baggage claim at the airport."

  "LAX?"

  "Right. Tape the key from the baggage locker under the lunch counter that faces the window in the coffee shop by the United Airlines boarding gates. Tape the key as far to the right as you can. That key better be there at 3:30 today. If I see anybody watching or following me, the deal’s off. I have an assistant. If my assistant doesn’t hear from me by four p.m. and hear that I have the cash, and I’m safe, my assistant will sell the briefcase elsewhere."

  "What about my briefcase?"

  "When I’m secure with my cash, I’ll tell you where to find your briefcase. I’ll call you at Positron."

  "How can I-- "

  Clendon hung up. The sky was bright blue and a stiff breeze blew up the canyons from the ocean. He tried not to think about having his money all spent before he had it in his hands.

  * * *

  Clendon walked into the coffee shop at 3:35. He assumed that half the people in there were working for Lyman, or maybe Asp, but the place was nearly empty and nobody seemed to look at him. He bought a cup of coffee and strolled over to the bay window, where he could see the jetliners taking on baggage and taxiing toward the runways. An old woman also sat at the window counter, several seats way, munching pie.

  Clendon took the end stool on the right. He kept his left hand around his coffee cup and groped under the counter with his right. His hand rubbed dried gum wads and grease, but then he felt the tape and the thick head of a baggage locker key.

  Businessmen trying to get their bags from late afternoon flights packed the American baggage claim area. At 3:45 Clendon found the locker number and opened it. A leather bag sat in there. Clendon glanced around, held his breath, then took the bag and walked out. He looked back after ten seconds, but nobody was following him.

  Shelley was to wait until 4:15 before giving up on him. When he hit the San Diego freeway north bound, traffic was a crawl. He shot off at Venice Boulevard and at 4:12 he phoned her from a gas station.

  They met half an hour later in a parking garage in downtown Santa Monica. Inside her Volvo, Clendon opened the bag. It was crammed with cash, all fifties and hundreds, and looked non-sequential. They locked the bag in the Volvo’s trunk, then drove both cars to Westwood and waited until dark to drop the briefcase and call.