What the couple was eating was another matter. Wycliff could feel his stomach talking to him. He did not like raw fish. The one time he had tried it, he had thrown up later. If he had known this was where Charlotte was taking him he would have told her to save her money.
‘I’ve had it,’ he said, answering her question. ‘But I don’t care much for it.’ He tried to make a joke. ‘Where I come from, civilized people cook their food.’ They had to have some cooked food here, even if it was plain rice.
‘Where you come from they eat road kill, so I wouldn’t be judgmental if I were you.’
She was laying it on extra thick, but he knew what she meant – another dig at his past life. ‘I try not to judge,’ he said. ‘My pot’s blacker than just about anyone else’s kettle.’
‘That’s a good quality to have. You do have some redeeming features.’
The waitress brought their sake and poured two tiny cups. Charlotte raised hers in toast. ‘To acceptance,’ she offered.
‘I’ll drink to that.’ He clinked his cup to hers and downed the liquid in one gulp. The taste surprised him, it was good.
‘You order for me, I wouldn’t know one dish from the other,’ he told her. ‘But cooked, okay?’ He didn’t want to barf in front of whoever this unknown celebrity was.
Charlotte shook her head. ‘You don’t pick and choose here. Chef gives you what he wants you to eat. You might not think it from the looks of this place, but people make pilgrimages from all over to eat here. It’s a harder reservation than Mozza.’
Another fancy restaurant, Wycliff assumed, from the way she said the name. He looked at the surroundings. Pretty drab. A Denny’s had more personality.
This was not the first time she had pointed out to him that she had the necessary clout to get into the hotshot places. He wondered if she knew Jack Nicholson. He had always wanted to meet Jack, just to shake hands, maybe converse for a minute about the Lakers. The Joker seemed like a real person, not some plastic Hollywood creation.
‘So it’s going to be all that raw stuff?’ He could feel bile rising in his mouth.
Charlotte put her sake cup down. She didn’t slam it, she would not make a scene here, but the gesture was emphatic. ‘Yes, the fish will be raw. That’s what sushi is.’
‘I don’t know …’ He felt like such a wimp.
She turned to the waitress. ‘Excuse us to chef for a moment.’ She snatched her purse from the counter and marched out. Wycliff followed, bestowing an excuse-her smile on the famous celebrity, who wasn’t paying them any attention.
Outside on the sidewalk Charlotte had taken on the grim face of a third-grade nun about to lay down the law with a ruler. ‘Are you trying to make me look like a fool?’
He was startled. ‘No.’
‘Then what is with your antisocial attitude?’ She was fuming, but still under control.
He threw up his hands defensively. ‘Back off. Take a chill pill.’
She glared up at him. ‘A chill pill. How original. After all I’ve done for you, a little appreciation should not be too much to ask. Not embarrassing me in public should not be too much to ask.’
Wycliff had had as much as he was going to take for tonight. ‘Stop right there,’ he said, putting up his hand like a traffic cop. ‘I appreciate what you’ve done for me, Charlotte, the clothes and fancy haircut and all that. You’re great in the hay, too, I certainly appreciate that. But what I do not appreciate is being mocked. I’ve had enough of that to last me a lifetime. And I do not appreciate being used as a dupe in whatever scams you’re running, or planning to run.’
His assertiveness threw her off-stride. ‘Keep your voice down,’ she hissed, looking around to make sure they weren’t being overheard.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll talk low. But you need to listen up carefully. I am not going to let you set me up for a fall. Not you, not anyone.’
‘I’m not setting you up.’
‘Then what gives? Something stinks, and it ain’t that fish back in there.’
She took his hand in hers. ‘I don’t want to upset you.’ Her voice was soft now, soothing. ‘I want it to be good between us. Like it has been.’
Her hands felt like velvet, like all of her felt. God, how he wanted that velvet. ‘So now what?’ he asked her. Don’t make me go back in there, he pleaded silently.
She turned on a dime, now all sweetness and light. ‘We blow this joint,’ she said. ‘I want you to be happy, darling. Because if you’re happy, so am I.’
The New York strip ran bloody on the plate, exactly the way he liked it. The crispy-skinned baked potato was smothered in butter and sour cream. The shrimp cocktail appetizer, the crusty sourdough bread, the full-bodied Napa cabernet: this was his kind of eating, the meal he would order if it was his last dinner on death row.
The Pacific Dining Car, Charlotte informed him as the maitre d’ led them to a booth, was the oldest and best steak joint in town. What passes for royalty in Los Angeles – the mayor, the governor, rich developers, sports and music stars – came here to eat and greet. It was everything Wycliff liked in a restaurant: thick leather booths, old-hand waiters gliding around the room, the smell of luxury.
She wasn’t having a steak, too much cholesterol. For her, grilled sand dabs with sautéed spinach on the side. She stared at him over the rim of her wine glass. ‘How’s your steak?’ she asked solicitously.
‘Perfect.’
‘Even better than sushi?’
He could smile about that fiasco now. ‘Even better.’
He had cheesecake for dessert. He was full after the heavy meal, but she pressed it on him after he told her cheesecake was his favorite dessert. ‘You don’t have to finish it. Eat a few bites, for the pleasure. It’s a house specialty.’
Another lesson to learn from her: you don’t have to eat everything on your plate. Leave a bite, so you don’t look desperate.
The coffee was good and strong. They took their time over it. He passed on a brandy. Learn restraint, like Charlotte. No time like the present to start. Tonight was turning out to be full of lessons.
She put her coffee cup down and dabbed at her lips with the napkin. Her lipstick left a pale blood-red impression on the bleached cloth.
‘Do you know why we’re here?’ she asked.
Because I don’t like raw fish and you were savvy enough not to cram it down my throat. But that wasn’t what she meant. She didn’t mean here, here. She was coming from some deeper place.
He didn’t know the answer, so he threw the question back at her. ‘Why are we?’
‘Don’t laugh at me when I tell you,’ she said. ‘Promise.’
That sounded heavy. Vulnerability was not an aspect of this woman’s personality that she had revealed, at least up to now.
He held up two fingers in the Boy Scout salute. ‘Promise.’
‘That first night we met, back at the Marmont bar. Do you remember?’
That night was chiseled on his brain for eternity. ‘Of course I remember.’
‘I was feeling sorry for myself that night. I’d had a string of bad luck, personally and professionally. I’m not going to bore you with ancient history, let’s just say I was down in the dumps. And then, there you were.’
Now she was going confessional on him? From the very beginning she had been the alpha dog, he the underdog. Keeping him off-balance was one of the ways she controlled him. Letting her hair down didn’t feel right. Out of character.
He should have ordered that brandy.
‘I looked at you and thought, that’s an attractive man, although rough around the edges, which I’m usually not attracted to. I prefer sophistication to brute energy, Cary Grant rather than Bruce Willis, but the aura you were sending out wasn’t threatening. Masculine, but not frightening. I instinctively knew you weren’t someone who would hurt me. Female intuition, whatever. Even so, approaching a strange man in a bar is not something I would normally do.’
She was flattering him. It
felt good. He still wished he’d ordered that brandy.
‘But then I made the connection about you and your brother and it all clicked. Billy is sweet and good and masculine, but he’s gay. He’s not available for a woman.’ She coughed nervously, deep in her throat. ‘I don’t know how many women fell for that man, knowing it was a hopeless cause, but I’m sure the number is legion. Even women old enough to be his mother, like me.’
Wycliff believed her. His brother had been beautiful. Why shouldn’t women get turned on by him, even if he would not, could not, reciprocate?
‘I never made a play for him. Not only because we worked together as designer and client, but because it would have been disrespectful. The age difference was an obstacle, too. But I loved him. I know other people who knew him, worked with him, and they all loved him. He was transcendent, a modern-day Billy Budd, if you know who I’m talking about.’
He didn’t, but he kept his mouth shut. She was rolling. He didn’t want to stop the train.
‘Anyway, that night at the Marmont bar. I see this man who turns me on, which is unusual for me, I’m the opposite of impulsive, as you know by now, and then it hit me who you were related to. I wasn’t positive, but I had this strong feeling about you, and like I said I was feeling punky, and I thought Billy is a good man, so you must be, too.’
She reached across the table and touched his hand. ‘Is it all right for me to tell you these things? If it isn’t, say so. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.’
‘No,’ he told her. ‘It’s okay.’
That was a lie. It was uncomfortable, her opening up like this. Scary, too, like she was inside his head. But it was also an ego boost, being the object of a woman’s desire. Especially this woman. True, she was older, but bottom line, she was ageless. Some women, he was beginning to realize, will be sexy forever. Charlotte was one of them.
She fiddled with her napkin some more. ‘I could use a nightcap. You’ll join me, of course.’ She signaled the waiter. ‘Two Remy’s, please.’
After the waiter left, she continued. ‘I was nervous. Would this attractive man want to get together with a woman my age? It was dark in there.’ She laughed. ‘But not that dark.’
She had been nervous? He thought he had the corner on that market.
Their cognacs arrived in heavy snifters. The waiter refreshed their coffee cups and glided away. Charlotte raised her goblet in toast. ‘To right now.’ She clinked her glass to his and took a sip. He drank, also. The cognac went down smooth.
‘But you did,’ she said. ‘You were willing to get to know me.’
‘Yes, I was.’
Her smile seemed to be genuine. ‘So that’s your answer.’
He had lost the original train of thought. ‘Answer to what?’
‘Why we’re here. Because we’re attracted to each other.’
He thought about what that meant. If it meant they liked to sleep with each other, then yes, they were attracted to each other. He understood how an older woman, no matter how sexy she was, dug getting it on with a younger man. Not only for the performance, but for the ego-boost as well.
But there was more to them than a good roll in the hay. Charlotte had a plan for him. He didn’t know what it was, but for sure it was more than she was copping to. The jewelry heist was a prime example. He had given her a pass on that, but not again. If he so much as caught the faintest whiff of another set-up it was adios, the party’s over. This was a dangerous woman. That was part of the attraction, the combination of sex, age, uncertainty. He was alive around her, more than he had ever been with a woman. But he couldn’t let his cock overrule his brain. That could be fatal.
He knew he could be manipulated, but he was not a complete fool. He had survived life up until now – not always well, but he was still standing on his own two feet – and he was planning to keep on surviving. He could be slow in figuring shit out, but he was no dummy. He was not going to play the fool for her.
They went back to her apartment and made love. They couldn’t linger, because he had to be back at the house by midnight to relieve the caretaker, which was good, because he needed to put some distance between them to give him time to sort out what he was thinking and feeling.
Billy was asleep. The caretaker was watching television, with the sound muted. ‘Everything is in order,’ he whispered as he gathered his stuff. ‘I changed his diaper, so you won’t need to until morning.’
Wycliff had not performed that function yet. He knew how – when he’d told Billy he had done it before, he hadn’t been lying – but changing your own brother’s diaper was different from changing an anonymous hospital patient’s. He had never seen his brother naked, as an adult. He would not only have to change the messy diaper, he would have to wash and wipe Billy, powder him, smooth on lotion so he wouldn’t chafe. The thought creeped him out, but there was no alternative. He had signed on to be his brother’s keeper. For everything, not just the parts you want to cherry-pick.
He sat on the back porch, lights out, smoking and drinking beer. A cool breeze came from the direction of the reservoir. Sounds of crickets and bullfrogs came out of the darkness, and up in Griffith Park, a pack of coyotes howled call and response. It must be nice to have a place of your own to come home to, he thought. An anchor, some certainty. He’d never had that. He had lived a transient life since he had bailed from the family homestead as a teenager. That had been okay when he was young, but he wasn’t that young anymore, he was slowing down, he could feel it in his blood, his bones.
He had nothing. You have to face the facts, no matter how harsh a light they shine on you. No home, no savings in the bank, no future, no vision of one. A few grand that would burn a hole in his pocket fast enough, a semi-legitimate car, a sexual partner with an agenda that was as much a mystery to him as the day he had met her.
And a dying brother who despised him. What a parlay.
That tearjerker story Charlotte laid on him tonight in the steak joint sounded good when she was weaving it but it didn’t hold up, now that he could think about it objectively. It was a fantasy, smoke and mirrors. The question was, why him? Because she needed a dupe and knew he was a patsy from the minute she had laid eyes on him? He could be his own worst critic, but in this instance, coming down on himself didn’t feel right. There had to be a better reason for her to have made a move on him. Something about who he was, specifically.
What was that? The answer was crucial. It tied into Billy somehow, he felt that in his gut. The other imperative was finding out who she was, for real. Not some movie star look-alike or however else she was camouflaging herself.
He needed information. To stop his brain from itching, and to survive.
SEVEN
The bathwater was warm, but not too hot. You had to be as careful controlling the temperature as if you were bathing an infant. Ever so carefully, Wycliff lowered Billy into the tub, cradling the back of his brother’s head in his hand. Billy moaned. Any movement was painful, because his muscles were atrophying. They were like rubber bands that had lost their elasticity and would snap if stretched too much.
Billy’s body sank into the water like a bag of pebbles. Wycliff made sure his head was above water. He propped a washcloth behind his neck to cushion his fragile skull from the porcelain rim.
Earlier, he had fed Billy his breakfast – oatmeal and tea – and undressed him. It was the first time he had seen his brother naked since they were little boys. He had to swallow hard to keep from gagging. Bones protruding everywhere. Skin the color of burnt candle, dry and clammy to the touch. Black and blue marks turning yellow from where he had bumped into anything.
The queasiest moment had been undoing the diaper. He placed a towel underneath first, in case there was leakage. His brother stared at him, unblinking, as he peeled back the adhesive straps and slid the cloth away from Billy’s abdomen and ass. The shit-stain was minimal, more liquid than solid, like baby poop. He dropped the messy diaper in the covered trashcan which w
ould be emptied several times a day. Then he washed his brother’s cock, ass, scrotum, and the parts in between with a warm washcloth. Billy’s shriveled pecker looked like a blind, newborn bird’s head.
Billy managed to smile (more a grimace) while Wycliff cleaned his nether regions. ‘So you’re a closet queer after all. You’ve been repressing the urge for years, haven’t you? How does it feel? Does it turn you on?’
‘Extremely,’ Wycliff replied, dead-pan. Billy’s penis felt like a dead worm. ‘I never realized what I was missing.’
Billy couldn’t counter-banter; he was too exhausted from even this miniscule effort. He closed his eyes and drifted into semi-consciousness.
‘You look as spiffy as the King of Spain,’ Wycliff said, as he finished dressing his brother in his daytime outfit of T-shirt, boxers, and cotton booties. ‘Or in your case, the Queen.’ He propped Billy up on the bed. Later, when the relief man came, they would change the sheets.
‘Har de har har.’ Billy ran his hand along his jaw, which Wycliff had carefully shaved. ‘Do you cut hair, too?’ he jested. ‘I’m looking ragged. Can’t have my fans seeing me at anything but my best.’
‘You wouldn’t like the results. Give me your barber’s name, I’ll bring him over.’
Billy’s face twisted. ‘She won’t come. She doesn’t want to see me looking like I do now, instead of how I used to. I get a lot of that.’
That stung Wycliff. It must sting Billy more, he thought. ‘Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke. I’ll get somebody good to buff you up, don’t worry.’
Turn Left at Doheny--A tough-edged crime novel set in Los Angeles Page 6
