He heard the woman before he saw her. She was behind him, at the other end. ‘Tanqueray on the rocks.’ Her voice was low and silky, with a touch of tobacco in the throat, like an old-fashioned movie star’s. ‘With a squeeze of lime, please,’ she instructed the bartender. The way she said please it was like a queen talking to a servant.
Wycliff rotated slowly on his stool so he could see what she looked like without seeming to be too obvious, although with hardly anyone else in here, any move was obvious. So what, he thought. It’s a bar. That’s what people do in a bar, besides drink. Check each other out.
The woman was alone. She was sitting at the end of the bar, where it was darkest. Glancing at her sideways, he could see that she was older than him, by more than a few years. Five or ten, maybe even fifteen. In this light, it was hard to tell. Good bars keep the lights low.
It took Wycliff a moment to realize she was looking at him. Not just looking, but openly staring. For a man who was normally the epitome of cool around women, it was strangely disconcerting. He wasn’t sure, but he might have flinched, just for a second.
‘I wouldn’t mind some company,’ the woman said, her voice carrying just far enough to reach his ears, but no deeper into the room. If the bartender had heard her, he didn’t acknowledge it. He placed her drink in front of her, took some damp bills off the bar, and moved off.
Well, she wasn’t hustling him, at least not for this round, Wycliff thought, still looking her over. Although she was an older woman, she was very good looking. More sexy than pretty, which was even better. Wycliff picked up his drink, left a dollar for a tip, walked down to the end of the bar, and sat on the stool next to hers.
Up close, he recognized her, or thought he did. She definitely looked familiar. Movie-star familiar, although he didn’t know which one. Damn, he thought, his first night in LaLa land and here he was, about to have a drink with a genuine Hollywood actress. Maybe she was a real star, or at least a well-known celebrity. Wycliff’s viewing habits were more television than movies, so although he could have easily recognized Jennifer Anniston (too young) or Marg Helgenberger (closer, but still too young) on sight, even a well-known film actress probably wouldn’t register on him, unless it was Julia Roberts or what’s-her-name, the perky little chick from Legally Blonde. Too bad, he thought; if he could have said ‘Hello, fill in the blank,’ it would have meant points. On the other hand, he didn’t think Jennifer or Marg or any actress of their stature would invite him to have a drink with her. Still, he was a good-looking guy, and everyone knew these actress chicks were weird.
‘Don’t say it,’ she warned him, before he could open his mouth. She stirred her fresh drink with the tip of her pinkie and licked it.
‘Say what?’ he asked. God damn it, who was she?
‘That I look familiar. It’s the oldest line in the book. A man of your caliber can do better than that.’
Saved by the bell. ‘I wasn’t going to,’ Wycliff responded. He flashed a smile. ‘Give me some credit.’ He hesitated a moment; now what should he say that wouldn’t peg him as a rube from the sticks? Thank God he’d copped his brother’s cool linen jacket. Otherwise, he’d look like he’d just dropped in from a truck stop in Clovis, New Mexico. He should have left the cowboy boots back in Arizona.
‘Good.’ She smiled. One of her front teeth was chipped a little. On her, it looked sexy.
Lauren Hutton. That was it. Except it wasn’t. The tooth had thrown him off.
‘So what were you going to say?’
Well, now he had to answer. Whatever came out of his mouth wouldn’t be right, he knew that for sure. He took a mental breath. What the hell – sometimes you’ve got to dive in without knowing how deep the water is under the surface.
‘Not that you look familiar, but that you look like …’ Wycliff hesitated again. Somehow he knew that the next two words out of his mouth were going to make or break this evening, and maybe, by extension, his entire West Coast sojourn. He took a wild guess. ‘The woman from The Forty-Year-Old Virgin.’ A funny damn movie. A forty-year-old male virgin in the United States who wasn’t a priest or gay. How weird could that be?
‘Catherine Keener,’ the woman tossed off with a shake of her head. Her hair was medium length, just touching her shoulders. It was the color of mink, streaked with thin silver lines, like subtle pinstripes on a three-thousand-dollar suit. ‘I get her once in a while,’ the woman continued. ‘But no. Not her. Not Annette Bening, either. I don’t know why they get grouped together, except they’re about the same age.’ She leaned in towards him, an unmistakably intimate gesture. ‘Charlotte Rampling.’
Wycliff stared at her. His expression telegraphed who?
‘Before your time,’ she said, ‘unless you’re a movie buff. She’s sixty-plus now, but she’s still stunning. Like Catherine Deneuve. Timeless.’ She took a sip of her drink. ‘I’m not quite that old yet, but I hope I look that good when I am. Half that good.’
An opening. ‘You look damn good now, however old you are,’ Wycliff told her, hoping it came off as a compliment. He’d been sitting here for less than a minute, and this woman had him off-balance already. He was going to have to bone up on actresses fast.
The woman touched two fingertips to Wycliff’s wrist. Her fingertips fluttered against his skin, like a butterfly on the wing. Her touch was velvet. He started tingling, all over. ‘That’s nice of you to say, since you are younger than me.’ She took a tiny sip from her drink, put the glass down, and made a quick tongue-flick across her lips. Her lipstick was dark crimson. ‘You look familiar to me as well,’ she told him.
Since he didn’t know anyone in LA except his brother and the sad sack house-sitter, that was pretty much impossible. Was she flirting with him? He couldn’t see any harm in playing along, if it floated her boat.
She ran her fingers along his coat-sleeve. ‘Maybe it’s this jacket. Linen, isn’t it?’
He had no idea. ‘I guess,’ he answered. ‘Check the label if it matters to you.’
‘Darn, I hate it when this happens,’ she said. ‘It’s right on the tip of my tongue …’ She stopped talking and stared at him, her eyes widening. ‘No, it couldn’t be. It must be the jacket.’ She took another sip of her drink. ‘This is probably a ridiculous shot in the dark.’ And then she said his brother’s name.
Wycliff’s jaw hit the bar.
The woman thought she had confused him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologized. ‘We’re talking actor look-alikes, not real people. I should have said Christian Bale.’
Batman. He knew that one. He didn’t think he looked much like Batman.
‘He’s my brother.’
Now it was her turn to be confused. ‘Christian Bale is your brother?’
He shook his head no.
Her eyes widened in the darkness like a cat’s. ‘Billy is your brother? I was right.’ She leaned in and scrutinized him more closely. ‘You do look like him!’ she said with a delighted squeal. ‘I’m not hallucinating, after all.’
Wycliff’s hand shook as he lifted his drink to his mouth. He and Billy did look alike, true enough; although where Billy was almost delicate, like Bambi, he was more on the rough-edged side, the raging-bull type. Their looks matched their personalities, always had, right from the cradle. But yes: put them side by side, you’d know instantly they were brothers.
Which was a testament to the power of their father’s genes, because he and Billy weren’t full brothers, only half. Same asshole of a father, but different mothers. Their father was one of those charming, handsome bastards who made a good first impression, good enough to get plenty of attractive women into his bed. That was his only claim to fame, his prowess as a swordsman. He had passed that feature down to his sons; the only positive legacy he gave them.
Wycliff didn’t remember his own mother at all. She flew the coop while he was still in the cradle, practically, having had it up to here with the constant abuse, both physical and mental. (Wycliff didn’t remember that, eith
er, of course, but the stories were family legend, recounted not only by aunts and uncles and cousins, but by the old man himself, as if being a bully was something to brag about.)
Shortly after his own mother’s departure, the woman who would bear Billy came into the picture. She, too, was a shadowy figure, and like her predecessor, she didn’t stick around long. Wycliff had been old enough by then to have vague memories of her. She was pretty and smelled good, he remembered that. Smoked cigarettes, could match the old man whiskey shot for shot. Had men over when the old man wasn’t around. She was tough, tougher than him. She stood her ground when he tried to beat her down, even bested him at times. One memory Wycliff had of those days was waking up in the morning and finding his father snoring like a drunken bear on the living room couch, having been banished from the connubial bed.
And then one day she was gone, too, never to return. She was no dummy: she cleared the bank account out first, leaving father and sons high and dry. And years later, to add insult to injury, the brothers discovered that neither of their mothers had been married to their father, which made them not only brothers, but bastards.
So they’d had shitty childhoods, but not overwhelmingly terrible. They lived with relatives most of the time, who were decent enough people. The boys were kept together, and never had to go to foster homes. Not so bad a childhood. Wycliff knew kids who had it worse. They had survived. Except one of them, fortunately not him, wasn’t going to much longer.
Wycliff didn’t dwell on the past. It had no allure for him. The present, particularly right now, was much more promising.
So this woman knew Billy, and he’d happened to stumble in here, and she saw him and made the connection. There was a logic to this mystery after all. Wycliff’s breathing slowed down and became less shallow. For about five seconds. Then he thought, hold your horses! You didn’t fall out of the tree last night, you dumb shit. Of all the gin mills in the world, this woman happens to be in this one, where he, a stranger from out of town, drops in for a drink, in a strange city full of bars? What if he’d gone to the Argyle, or the Roosevelt, the Dresden Room, or any of the hundreds of places he’d seen on E Television? This chance meeting seemed awfully convenient. Way too convenient.
‘Are you following me?’ he asked her. ‘You’re following me, aren’t you?’
She laughed. ‘I was here first. You just didn’t notice me.’ She touched his arm again. ‘How is your brother? I haven’t seen him for some time.’ She paused. ‘I heard he wasn’t well.’
‘He’s dying.’
She gasped. ‘Is it …?’
‘AIDS,’ he confirmed. ‘Full-blown.’
She looked stricken. ‘That’s what I heard. I’m so sorry.’
‘Me, too.’
The woman knocked her drink back in one long swallow. ‘Let’s go where we can have some privacy. If you feel up to it.’
Private time with this woman, that wouldn’t be a hardship, as long as she didn’t slip some drugs in his drink, or whatever they did out here. Was this some kind of setup, despite her disclaimer? If it was, the joke was going to be on her, because most of the money he’d nicked from the woman in Tucson was hidden in his rolled-up underwear back at the house. If this mystery woman was looking for an easy score, she had picked the wrong pigeon.
What the hell, Wycliff thought. Going for it was his style. Always had been, always would be. He drained his Scotch (it hadn’t been that generous a pour, anyway). ‘Lead the way,’ he told her.
She rested her hand on his arm for support as she got off her stool. Wycliff felt the heat from her hand to his arm. She wasn’t scalding, but she was definitely a warm-blooded creature.
‘I’m Wycliff,’ he said, introducing himself.
‘Call me Charlotte.’
‘Nice car,’ she remarked, when the valet brought the Lexus around and opened the passenger door for her. She was wearing a slit skirt, so a nice bit of leg showed when she slid onto the creamy leather seat. Her legs were excellent, Wycliff noticed. He wondered if the rest of her body would measure up. The question was, would he find out? And if he did, then what?
He got into the car, palmed a tip to the valet, and pulled out into traffic, heading west on Sunset. ‘Where to?’ he asked her.
‘Straight ahead,’ she answered, adjusting her seatbelt. ‘You’ll turn left at Doheny. It isn’t far.’ She turned on the radio and found a soft jazz station. Not Wycliff’s kind of music, but this was her party, until he figured out what she really wanted. As he drove down the congested Strip he looked around at the occupants of the other cars and the people who were walking, talking, and hanging out on the sidewalks. They all looked like they belonged. In this car, with this woman beside him, he looked like he belonged, too.
Her condo was a compact two-bedroom in a six-story building a block south of the Strip. She gave Wycliff the numbers for the security code and directed him to a spot in guest parking, and they rode the elevator up to her floor, one below the top. She led him down the corridor to her door. He followed her inside.
Right off, Wycliff could see that the place had been decorated by a woman who had taste and money. Modern, but not sterile. It fit the woman the way her dress did – it showed her off to her advantage while still holding something back.
‘Nice place,’ he complimented her.
‘Your brother was my decorator.’
So she was a client of Billy’s. It made sense she would recognize him. Her connecting the two of them was legit. ‘Billy has good taste,’ he said, looking at the room more carefully. Everything fitted perfectly.
‘The best.’
For a moment, Wycliff was startled. Had this woman and his brother been lovers? Another piece to be fitted into the puzzle? Whatever the deal was with her, he needed to play it cool and slow.
There was a narrow balcony off the living room that was framed with floor-to-ceiling smoked-glass doors. The woman walked across the room, slid open a door, and stepped outside. The sounds of the city hummed up.
‘On a clear day you can see to the ocean.’ She was in silhouette from the moonlight, her back to him. ‘That’s why you live in a place like this,’ she said, still looking out. She turned to him. ‘Do you want a smoke? A drink?’
Wycliff wasn’t going to make any decisions like that. Her place, her game. ‘Either,’ he answered. ‘Or both. Whatever you’re having.’ He threw her one of his good boyish grins. ‘I’m easy.’
She smiled back. ‘I doubt that. But I’ll take what you tell me at face value, until you show me otherwise.’
The Scotch she poured him was single malt. It tasted peaty, like he was drinking liquid bog. Wycliff liked that kind of Scotch, but it was expensive, so he didn’t drink it very often. There was one ice-cube in it, like he’d requested. She was drinking gin and tonic, mostly tonic. She was pacing herself. He needed to be careful not to drink too much, too fast.
They sat outside on deck chairs. The night was warm and there was almost no breeze. She had American Spirits, so that’s what they were smoking. Not a brand he favored, there wasn’t enough flavor, but he wasn’t complaining. This was going better than he could have expected or anticipated in his wildest imagination. And this was his first night in town.
The silence lay on them comfortably for a few minutes. She had kicked her heels off and was resting her stockinged feet on the railing. She rattled the ice cubes in her glass. ‘I’d offer you some grass, but I don’t know you well enough yet,’ she said. ‘I have to be careful.’ She laughed, deep in her throat. ‘I pick up a strange man in a bar, bring him home, and sit alone with him drinking. Not too careful, I’d say.’
‘I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ he told her. He was sincere; he wanted her to believe him. ‘That’s the last thing on my mind.’
She smiled at him. ‘I know. You’re Billy’s brother.’
She was a force of nature in bed. Her firm, lush body had been sculpted by a great plastic surgeon,
but so what? It’s the results that count, and these results were stellar.
They sat up in her bed, smoking and drinking, white wine now. Another thing to like about her: she smoked in bed. He couldn’t remember the last woman he’d done that with.
‘Where are you staying?’ she asked him.
‘At my brother’s.’
She nodded, as if that’s what she’d expected. ‘Is anyone else there?’
‘A caretaker.’ Wycliff made a snap decision. ‘But he’s moving out, now that I’m here.’ His fingers brushed her thigh. It felt like silk-covered ivory. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Good,’ she said.
Meaning? he thought. But she didn’t elaborate, or question him further on the subject. Instead, she produced a tightly rolled joint and they smoked half of it, washing it down with the wine. Wycliff was in a groove like none he’d ever been in before. And why not? He was in bed with a beautiful, sexy, and yes, mysterious woman, smoking killer weed, drinking excellent wine, driving a fine set of foreign wheels (which he figured he could hang on to for a few more days before he had to dump it), had cash in his pocket, and to top it off, all this was happening in Los Angeles, home to the stars. The only comparison he could think of was Vegas, but Vegas was deliberately artificial, where you went to hide your naughty stuff – what happens here, stays here. This was the real deal, he was sure of it. The warm, musky, sensual body lying next to him was proof of that.
Turn Left at Doheny--A tough-edged crime novel set in Los Angeles Page 2
