The Hollywood Trilogy

by Don Carpenter

  “Fresh out,” Jody said. “But I don’t want to take your last . . .”

  “Aw hell,” Jan said. “I need somebody to smoke with anyway. I been in this hotel for three weeks and this is only the third time I’ve even been out by the pool. God, it’s expensive, isn’t it? Fourteen dollars a day and I have to pull my bed down out of the fucking wall. Come on, let’s take another dip and go up to my room.”

  Jan lived on the second floor, in a room with a tiny kitchenette. “One rusty knife, fork and spoon,” she said with a laugh. “Three plates, in case I have some company, a couple glasses. Furnished. What a laugh!”

  The ten cents’ worth of street dope turned out to be at least half an ounce of AAA Colombian Red, and while Jan rolled up a couple of tight little joints she explained to Jody that this man had given it to her, she didn’t even know him that well, he worked as a casting director at one of the studios and she had met him in an elevator at 9200 Sunset, where she was trying to get herself an agent. He (the casting man) had been very nice to her, took her to dinner and then back to his apartment to smoke some of this really fantastic dope, and then he didn’t even try to make a pass at her, but spent a couple of hours telling her how to get established in Hollywood. “Actually, he’s a fantastic connection. I mean, he gets hired to do the actual casting of these movies. The director says something like, ‘We need this blonde to play a hockey player,’ or something, and then this guy Stan has all these lists and pictures of actresses, and he picks out a few and the director talks to them.” She lit one of the joints, took a couple of deep puffs and handed it to Jody. After holding her breath for a while, Jan smiled impishly and said, “Gee, he was such a perfect guy about everything, I mean picking me up and dinner and all with no grabbing, I just leaned over and unzipped his pants and gave him some head.” She giggled, and Jody would have laughed except that she was holding her breath. “I made him feel pretty good,” Jan said. “It never hurts, you know.”

  “As long as he didn’t grab at you,” Jody said, and now she laughed. It was going to be great having Jan in the hotel.

  “How come you’re staying here?” Jody asked her. “Can you afford it?”

  “My Dad sends me money from Detroit,” she said. “The old guilt, you know? He’s gonna give me a year to make it.”

  Jody was good and ripped. “Shall we go back down to the pool?” she asked. “Shall we flash our bodies?”

  “Won’t do much good,” Jan said. “I think most of the guys in this place are queers anyway. At least the ones I’ve hit on. Either that or they’re awful shy.”

  The women went back to the pool and swam lazily high until lunchtime. Jody found out that Jan’s real name was Ingred Jankovski, “But they already have an Ingred, you know; Ingrid Bergman, only spelled with an ‘i’ instead of an ‘e.’” She had been in Detroit little theater, had done some local commercials and modeling, and had come to Los Angeles only a month ago. “Oh well, I was married there for a couple years,” she said with a shrug. “My old man, my husband I mean, he works for a glass company. When we split up he made an ass of himself wanting custody of the kid. Well, I let him have it. You should of seen the look on his face!”

  “What are you girls laughing about?” Phil said from across the pool. He was sitting in the shade, with white ointment on his nose. “You sound positively evil!”

  TWENTY-SIX

  HARRY HAD left some money for Jody, and so that evening after a nap she telephoned down to Jan Kosky and invited her to dinner. “Come on up for a drink,” she said, knowing how impressed Jan would be by the size and luxury of Harry’s apartment. You had to live there a few days to see past the glamour to the cheap dishware, nappy carpets and somewhat lumpy hotel furniture. But it was worlds better than Jan’s little room, and when she arrived Jan said, “Holy Christ, you live in a palace! Who did you say your old man is?”

  “He’s a producer,” Jody said, and told Jan all about the movie Harry was working on while they had vodka over ice with a twist, one of Jody’s favorite drinks.

  “Are you going to get a part—oh, I shouldn’t ask,” Jan said.

  “I’m up for one, but the director makes the final decision,” Jody said, suddenly protective of Harry.

  “I know,” Jan said. “Stan Bird the casting man told me some really funny stories about casting. The old casting couch is really a reality, you know? Some of the chicks don’t even wait to give their name, they just drop their knickers and wave their legs around in the air. I’ve never been up for a part, but I know better’n to do that.”

  Full of vodka and Jan’s marijuana they drove in Jan’s little red Fiat down to Tana’s and had a gigantic Italian dinner. Two men across the narrow aisle started a conversation with them, obviously businessmen, and Jody saw with amusement that Jan became quite refined and delicate.

  When one of the men told her she was very beautiful, Jan simply dropped her eyes and let a very small smile touch the corners of her mouth. Jody was quite demure too, although she did not know why she bothered. These men were not interesting, and even if they had been, Jody was not making any scenes with any men. Harry had been gone only one night.

  After dinner they had dishes of spumoni, and the men across the way asked if they could donate a bottle of champagne and perhaps join them. Well that was a generous thing to do, and they weren’t going to get anywhere anyway. The men came and sat by them, the one next to Jody the real talker of the two, florid and handsome, with dark curly hair and fine dark eyes. But he also had a roll of fat that bulged over his collar and soft moist pudgy hands, and he talked too loud. It hadn’t been so bad when he had been over at the other table, but now he continued to shout into Jody’s ear as they drank their champagne, and so when he suggested, at high volume, that they all go on to Dino’s on the Strip, Jody said, “I can’t.”

  “Aw, come on,” the man said. “Be a sport. You don’t want to be a party pooper, do you?”

  “No,” Jody said. “And we do appreciate the champagne. But my husband’s union meeting will be over soon, and he’s going to meet us.”

  “Your husband,” the man said. “I didn’t know you were married. Hell, you aren’t married, you aren’t wearing a wedding band. See?” He waved his own wedding band in front of Jody. “Besides, what the heck. You can meet him later. Union meeting? What does your husband do for a living, if I might ask? I thought you girls were in show business . . .”

  “I am,” Jody said. “But my husband’s a Teamster organizer. We really have to go.”

  Jan said from across the table, “Yes, her husband beat her half to death last time she was late.”

  The two men found their way out of Tana’s, and Jody and Jan finished the champagne.

  “I hate to go home,” Jan said. “This is the first good time I’ve had in California. Honest.”

  But it was late and virtuously they went home, smoked some more dope and said goodnight. The next day was not so good. Jody spent the morning by the pool, but got a little too much sun and developed a headache which aspirin could not cure. It was a hot muggy day and there was no breeze. Even the apartment was hot and stuffy. Only the bedroom had a window air conditioner, and it didn’t work very well, making a clanging racket all the time it was on and breathing out only the mildest of cool breezes. Jody lay naked on the bed and sweated and hurt and wished she had something to knock her out. Jan was not around. She had said something the night before about some kind of appointment, but Jody could not remember what it was about. Jody did not want to do it, but all there was in the apartment was liquor. She hated to drink alone. She thought it would be better to eat first, but there was almost nothing in the refrigerator. She did not want to walk in this heat down to the Hughes Market, and so she telephoned for some Chinese food to be delivered and got right into the icy vodka. She was drunk when the food arrived and it reminded her of Harry, who had not telephoned, and so she sat watching television, drinking and eating Chinese food, sad and lonely.

 
Jan called and woke her up at seven in the evening. Jody asked her to hold the line. She sat up from the couch and rubbed her eyes. She was still naked. It occurred to her that she must have answered the door for the Chinese delivery man naked. She must have. She could not remember having put on any clothes. But on the other hand, the delivery man hadn’t said anything to her.

  “Hello,” she said. “I was asleep, but thanks for waking me up. What time is it?”

  “Dinner time. You want to go out, or am I making a pest of myself?”

  “Come on up,” Jody said. While she was on the way, Harry called. He was in Atlanta, hot, angry, tired and drunk. It had been a bitching two days. They had been out in the countryside and some of the natives had been openly hostile. “We could shoot the whole fucking picture ten minutes out of Atlanta,” he said. “This is one swinging town.” Nevertheless, the survey would continue southward, and Harry was not looking forward to the rednecks. “How about you, baby?” he finally asked. He sounded as if he wanted to go. Jody could hear music and people talking behind him.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Don’t worry about me. I found a friend.” She described Jan, told Harry she loved him, and they hung up. Jan arrived a couple of minutes later and they went to dinner and a movie on the Boulevard, getting home around twelve. Jody said goodnight and went to bed without asking Jan for any of her dope, and of course she could not sleep.

  She lay restlessly listening to the air conditioner, a sheet loosely pulled over most of her body, when the telephone rang. It was Alonzo.

  “I’ve been calling for hours,” he said in a calm intimate voice. “I thought you might like to come down for a drink or something.”

  “I was asleep in bed,” Jody said.

  “I could come up there,” he said. “You could throw on a robe or something.”

  “No, really,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow or something.”

  There was a pause, then Alonzo said, “Aren’t you a little lonely?”

  “Listen,” Jody said, “do you happen to have anything to help me get to sleep? Any reds or anything?”

  “I have some fiorinal,” he said. “It’s supposed to be some kind of hangover cure, but it’s got phenobarbital in it. Do you want me to bring some up for you?”

  “I could come down,” she said. “I’m just having a little trouble getting to sleep.”

  “No, I’ll bring them up,” he said.

  She opened the door wearing her bathrobe. Alonzo stood grinning slyly out in the hallway, dressed in Levi’s and a black tee shirt, no shoes. He had a little plastic vial of two-tone green capsules in his extended palm. “Can’t I come in for a second?” he asked her.

  She took the vial and said, “No baby, please. I really have to get to sleep . . .” She smiled tiredly.

  “Okay,” he said. “Rain check, right?”

  She smiled again and shut the door. On the label it said to take two of the pills, so she took four, and after a while she drifted off.

  The next morning it was just too damned hot to walk down to the Boulevard so Jody made breakfast for herself in the apartment, and then when she finished her shower and was about to get into her bathing suit she remembered about Alonzo’s middle-of-the-night call and visit. He would be at the pool waiting for her. He would be attentive, and there would be that look in his eye, saying that they were soon going to go to bed together but that there was no hurry. She did not think she could put up with it. He had a fine body and she liked hairy men and she needed somebody to make love to, but not Alonzo. For some reason, just not Alonzo.

  “Damn it all!” she said aloud. The maid was due, and she wanted to have someplace to go. She telephoned down to Jan and there was no answer. Looking out the window she could see a few people out by the pool, but the big avocado tree was partially in her way and she could not tell if Jan was there or not. She called the pool extension and saw Alonzo trot over to the phone.

  “Central casting,” Alonzo said.

  “Is Jan Kosky out there?” Jody said. She would be goddamned if she would disguise her voice, but apparently he did not recognize her. She watched him turn away from the telephone, and then turn back. “Nope,” he said.

  It got hotter. When the maid came Jody threw on her bathing suit and went out by the pool. Maids embarrassed her.

  Alonzo took her to a place just off Sunset where they had hamburgers and beer, and then down to Santa Monica to a bar crowded with unemployed actors and the kinds of people who liked to hang around with actors. They joined a group near the door, and when Alonzo went to the toilet two of the men propositioned her, one whispering in her ear and the other squeezing her hand and trying to get her to look into his eyes. She got drunk early and paid no attention to anybody, and when they got back to the Chateau Bercy Alonzo followed her into the apartment. She could not have cared less.

  “I’m not going to fuck you, Alonzo,” she said tiredly without looking at him. She went into the kitchen and got a bottle of whiskey, ice and two glasses. In the living room Alonzo was sitting in the middle of the couch. Jody sat next to him because it was convenient to put the things down on the coffee table. Alonzo took over at once, making the drinks.

  “Do you have bottled water up here?” he asked her. “I used to order it but after a while it got too damned expensive. Besides, I think they just fill those special bottles from the tap. Don’t you?”

  “The water thing’s in the dining room,” she said. She decided to have her nightcap straight over ice. The bourbon tasted very good. Alonzo, seeing her already drinking, raised his glass in a salute.

  “To us,” he said.

  “Jesus Christ,” Jody muttered. She was drunk, but not that drunk. “I’m just not going to fuck you. Do you get the message? I thank you for the dinner and the drinks, but that’s it.”

  “What makes you think I want to go to bed with you?” Alonzo asked in a light voice. He was smiling at her as if she had made some terrible social error and he, her only friend, was correcting her. Jody knew the look.

  “Good, then you don’t,” she said.

  “What makes you think I don’t?”

  She knew a good way to get rid of him: act aggressive. He was probably unmanned by aggressive women. She could lean over, give him a big wet tonguey kiss and then grope him. He’d probably jump a foot. Then she could murmur about needing a real man, the kind of man who could make love to her endlessly. She could tell him that her old man only gave it to her a couple, three times a night, and she was hot, endlessly hot, and needed the kind of loving Alonzo seemed to be promising. That would send him running. She laughed.

  “What’s funny?” he asked.

  “Good night, Alonzo,” she said. She drained her glass, got up and went down the long corridor to the bedroom. As she was undressing she heard her front door open and shut. Either he left, or he wanted her to think he had left. She giggled. He’s probably behind the drapes, waiting for me to go to sleep. All right. Into bed and to sleep.

  For the rest of the week she heard nothing from Alonzo. She and Jan went each morning to the beach just below Venice, near the Marina del Rey breakwater, spread their towels and things, including Jan’s portable AM-FM radio. It was just too hot to stay in LA, and as long as they had the freedom, the beach was only an hour away. They were hit on regularly by men ranging in age from seventeen to sixty, singly and in pairs or threes, but after a while everyone who hung around this particular beach got to know them, and the hitting-on slowed down.

  But Jan had a date Friday night with her casting friend Stan Bird. She promised to ask him where they could get some more marijuana. “See if he can score some coke too,” Jody said.

  “God, it’s so expensive,” Jan said on the telephone.

  “Don’t worry,” Jody said. “Daddy will pay.”

  Jan loved it and promised to ask. Jody and Jan were getting along just fine and would sit ripped or drinking, watching television together and making nasty cracks about the actors and stories
. But tonight Jody was alone. It was a Friday night, and she did not like to be home alone while everybody else was out boogie-ing.

  By ten o’clock she was wound up tight, wired, ready to do anything but stay alone or sleep. Sleep was impossible. She was not hungry. The smell of booze would have been enough to make her sick and she had no dope. All the capsules Alonzo had given her were long gone. Jody paced up and down the apartment, trying to get her mind together enough to watch television. But the thought of it made her sick. She threw on some clothes and combed her hair and went down to the lobby. There wasn’t anybody in the elevator, and nobody in the lobby except the clerk, a dried-up old person who could have been a man or a woman, Jody did not know or care. She leaned on the cigarette machine and folded her arms. No one came through the lobby while she was there. Eventually she got back into the elevator and went back up. She thought about getting off at four, where Alonzo lived, but pressed eight instead. When she got out of the elevators she heard the sirens outside, faintly, and when she got into the apartment, whose windows were open against the heavy warmth of the night, she could hear the fire equipment in the street right outside the hotel, on the opposite side from the swimming pool. She went to her window and looked down at a burning palm tree.

  The palm was a tall one, with a cluster of dried and weary-looking fronds. Apparently somebody had thrown a cigarette out of a window and it had ignited the tree. As Jody watched, a fireman climbed a ladder and put out the blaze with a fire extinguisher. Jody could see a lot of people drifting out of the hotel and looking up at the fireman, so she went back downstairs and outside. At least it was something to do.

  There must have been fifty people out on the sidewalk and leaning against parked cars, watching the firemen dismantle their equipment and prepare to leave. It was a very warm night, and the firemen looked hot in their helmets and protective coats, but the watchers from the hotel were dressed casually, some of them even in pajamas, and a couple of the men, including Alonzo, wearing only pants. Jody recognized most of their faces; they were the actors and actresses who filled the roles not taken by the stars. Jody even saw a couple of men who had had their own television series, way back in time. Now here they were, spending their exciting Hollywood Friday night watching the fire department put out a blaze in a palm tree. Some of them even looked as if they were hoping the television newsreel cameramen would come around. She was certain that Alonzo had taken his shirt off before coming outside. On the other hand, maybe she was being too cruel; maybe Alonzo was just loafing around his room naked, nothing to do. She thought about making her way over to him. If he had seen her he hadn’t made any sign.