by Beauman, Ned
Probably Wilbur Gorge was just as confident, thought Loeser, and meanwhile Rackenham was ploughing his wife. If life up to this point had taught him anything, it was that everyone else was having sex with anyone they wanted, all the time, and it was naive ever to hope otherwise. ‘If you’d heard what I heard—’
‘I don’t care what you think you heard. Please get off my property. I’m perfectly serious, too.’
Loeser hesitated.
‘What now?’ said Mutton.
‘It’s just that I don’t have a car and your wife said your butler could drive me back to the Chateau Marmont.’
‘Goodbye!’ Mutton growled. Then he turned and went back to his party.
It was nearly ten. Loeser knew he couldn’t walk back to Hollywood, unless he wanted to spend the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair, so he decided to go up to the corner of Sunset Boulevard and hail a cab. He’d left all his cash in his wet trousers, which were still hanging over the towel rail in the Muttons’ bathroom, but he could pick up some more at the Chateau Marmont. However, after a long wait, he still hadn’t seen a single vacant taxi, and anyway the traffic here was probably going too fast for anyone to see him and pull over. He would just have to cross the road to the diner he could see on the east side of Sunset Boulevard and ask them to telephone a cab company for him.
Loeser made several attempts at this, and each time he got less than halfway across the moat of tarmac before he saw some diesel-powered megalodon bearing hungrily down on him and he had to hurl himself back to safety on the shore. And of course there was no crossing visible in either direction. But what else was he supposed to do? Sleep under a bush? He was standing there on the grass, feeling a rising crepitation of despair, when he saw an unthreatening green car coming east up the perpendicular road. He stuck out his thumb and tried to look respectable.
The car stopped beside him, and the driver rolled down his window. ‘Need a lift?’
‘I’m trying to get to Hollywood.’
‘I’m going all the way to Los Feliz.’
The driver leaned over to unlock the door on the passenger’s side.
Loeser cleared his throat. ‘Actually, I need to sit in the back.’
‘What?’
‘I can’t ride in a private car unless I pretend it’s a taxi.’
‘Are you going to pay me?’
‘No.’
The driver shrugged. He had the cleftest chin that Loeser had ever seen. ‘Suit yourself, pal.’
So Loeser got in the back of the car. Even with this indulgence, he felt too uncomfortable to make conversation, so he just looked out of the window. They were soon passing the same roadside totems that Loeser had seen on the way here, great papier-mâché lemons and sausages and rabbits and candy canes and cowboy hats advertising various drive-in amenities for the easily pleased. In the afternoon sunlight they’d seemed flat, primitive, ridiculous, but now, at night, illuminated from below by bright bulbs, looming into view at forty miles an hour, they achieved a sort of fuzzy megalithic grandeur. Perhaps Achleitner had been right, Loeser thought with disgust. Kempinski’s Haus Vaterland really was the future. California itself was nothing but a Kempinski colony, an amusement complex propagated into a republic. But then it occurred to him that if all your potential customers were whizzing by in their automobiles, then of course you had to make sure that your function could be apprehended from a distance in an instant. Hence this childishness. He remembered what Wagner had written to his wife on a visit to Venice a hundred and fifty years after Lavicini’s death: ‘Everything strikes one as a marvellous piece of stage-scenery. The chief charm consists in its all remaining as detached from me as if I were in an actual theatre; I avoid making any acquaintances, and therefore still retain that sense of it.’
Cut-Rate Books
Loeser shut the door quickly behind him to avoid contaminating the shop with sunlight or fresh air.
‘You make it to Nickel’s yesterday?’ said Blimk.
‘No. I met Stent Mutton, however.’ Last night, by the time he got into bed, he’d been so tired that just closing his eyes had produced a plunging sensation, like the leg of a stool snapping beneath him. This morning he’d woken up late. He’d wanted to read for a while, but the only novel he’d brought with him to America was Berlin Alexanderplatz, and although after three hundred and nine pages it really felt like it might be about to get going, he thought he might need something more potent to distract him from the women around the swimming pool, so he’d come back to the shop.
‘What’s the guy like?’
Loeser was about to tell Blimk the awful truth about Stent Mutton when he noticed a pocket book on a pile near by and found himself drawn almost involuntarily to pick it up. It was called Dames! And how to Lay them by Clark Snable, and the cover had a childlike drawing of a woman lying naked in a bed, rumpled sheets exposing one enormous breast with a nipple that pointed upward and outward as if it were tracking the position of the moon. ‘Tired of feeling like a cast-iron chump?’ enquired the back cover. Loeser was definitely tired of feeling like a cast-iron chump. ‘Want to learn all the famous secrets of sexually romancing huge quantities of toasty eager dames with real class any night of the week even Monday like it was easy?’ Loeser definitely wanted to learn all the famous secrets of sexually romancing huge quantities of toasty eager dames with real class any night of the week even Monday like it was easy. He started to read. The paper stock was so cheap it felt almost moist, in the same way that dollar bills could feel moist, as if the book itself were gently sweating. After a while Blimk said, ‘You want to sit down with that?’
‘I promise I’ll pay for it,’ said Loeser.
‘Don’t mean to hassle you. Honestly, buddy, it’s just nice to have somebody in here who isn’t trying to jerk off all surreptitious.’
So Loeser sat down next to Blimk in his nest behind the counter. ‘Have you read this?’ Loeser said.
‘No,’ said Blimk.
‘It’s amazing. Apparently you can seduce any woman in under five minutes if you tell her a story about eating a peach on a rollercoaster, which makes her unconsciously think of sex, and then imply she’s fat while touching her knee.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘No, it’s proven. This man Clark Snable says he’s done it four hundred times.’
Blimk grunted. He sat with his elbows on the counter and his head resting so heavily in his palms that his whole face was smeared into a melty grimace of total engrossment, so Loeser asked what he was reading. Blimk held up a magazine. It was called Astounding Stories, and on the cover was a lurid painting of a big green blob with lots of eyes and tentacles chasing two explorers through an icy cave, above a banner advertising a serial called ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ by H.P. Lovecraft.
‘Who’s H.P. Lovecraft?’
‘Fella from Rhode Island. Writes stories about monsters from other dimensions. Cults. Human sacrifice. Alien gods. They’re pretty good.’
‘Really?’
‘Sure. And some people think it ain’t just fiction.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Some people think it’s all true.’
‘But he writes for a magazine called Astounding Stories.’
‘Yeah, but they think that’s ’cause what he says is so shocking no newspaper will publish it in case it causes a panic. So the only way to get the truth out is to dress it up in a cheap Hallowe’en costume.’
‘Who could possibly think that?’
‘People in high places, I heard. Cordell Hull, the Secretary of State. He trusts Lovecraft more than he trusts his best military intelligence. He really thinks America is being menaced by ancient beings from beyond Euclidean space. That’s the scuttlebutt.’
‘That is absurd.’
‘Yeah, maybe, but you can’t blame a fella for wondering if there ain’t more things in heaven and earth, et cetera et cetera. And I don’t mean what you read in a Bible. Other things. Worse things.’
/> Loeser thought of Lavicini and all the mysteries of the Teleportation Accident. ‘I suppose not.’
Blimk took out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Loeser. ‘Smoke so much these days I need a chimney in here.’ He nodded up at a brown discoloured patch on the ceiling above his nest. ‘Think I’m growing a stalactite.’ They both lit up. ‘Where you from, don’t mind me asking?’
‘Germany,’ said Loeser.
‘Oh yeah? What took you to Hollywood? Nazis kick you out?’
Loeser decided if he could be honest with anyone, he could be honest with a pornographer. ‘Nothing to do with that. I’m looking for a girl.’
‘She run off with somebody?’
‘We were never actually attached.’
‘You just like her a lot?’
‘Yes.’
‘You came all the way to America ’cause you had a crush on a girl? My mother’d call that sweet.’
‘I’d never thought of it like that before. Yes, I suppose it is sweet. In a manner of speaking.’
‘Romantic.’
‘Genau.’
‘Find her yet?’
‘No. They have a whole shelf of California telephone directories at my hotel, and I went through all of them this morning. She’s not listed. But she might have changed her name. Especially if she’s going into the movies.’
‘Think that’s likely?’
‘She’s certainly pretty enough. And she’s ambitious. I may have to ask around at the studios. I don’t know what else to try.’
‘You should hire a private dick. I know a fella down the block, you give him a week, he can find anybody in LA.’
Blimk wrote the address on another business card and Loeser paid him for Dames! And how to Lay them. ‘Do you have anything by that Lovecraft fellow?’
Blimk went into the back room, looked through a filing cabinet, and returned with a magazine. ‘This one’s my favourite. “The Call of Cthulhu”. You can borrow it but I need it back after.’ It was a tattered copy of Weird Tales from 1928. This time, Lovecraft’s name was only listed in small type on the cover, the editors apparently having been more excited about an opus called ‘The Ghost Table’ by Elliot O’Donnell, which was illustrated with a picture of a man with a pistol protecting a woman in a blue dress from a malevolent clawed heirloom. They would never have stood for that sort of thing at the Bauhaus, thought Loeser.
The Bevilacqua Detective Agency
The detective, whose office was above a cigar shop, had a smile that looked as if his mouth were being pulled back at the corners by fishing hooks. ‘Take a seat,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Wallace Blimk recommended you,’ said Loeser. ‘I’m trying to track down a girl. She only arrived in Los Angeles a few months ago.’
As Loeser spoke, Bevilacqua had unwrapped a cherry lollipop and put it in his mouth. When he wasn’t sucking it he rested it carefully in an ashtray. ‘She making any special effort not to be found?’ he said.
‘I doubt it.’
‘Should be straightforward, then. Cost you twenty dollars a day plus expenses.’
‘Is this mostly what you do? Missing persons?’
‘About half that. And about half adultery. Someone thinks their spouse is having an affair and I find out for them.’
‘You do a lot of that?’
‘Plenty,’ said Bevilacqua, in a tone suggesting there was barely a marriage west of the Rockies he hadn’t helped to snuff out.
‘Tell me: when you tell a man that his wife is sleeping with someone else, what’s his reaction?’
‘Furious,’ said Bevilacqua, making an emphatic gesture with his lollipop. ‘But only until they see the proof. After that, they’re just grateful. Real grateful. It’s pathetic, sometimes. Embarrassing. The women, they just go quiet, in my own personal experience. Now, let’s get down to business. What can you tell me about this girl?’
‘Her birth name is Adele Hitler. She’s twenty-two. Black hair, blue-green eyes. Speaks good English with a heavy German accent.’
Bevilacqua looked up from his notebook. ‘Cute?’
‘Pardon me?’
‘Is she good-looking?’
Loeser was silent for a moment, then he got up. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve changed my mind. I hope I haven’t wasted too much of your time.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Goodbye, Mr Bevilacqua.’
Loeser hurried out of the office. There had been something in the expression on Bevilacqua’s face just then that had made Loeser certain that if he found Adele he would fuck her. After all, in Stent Mutton books, private detectives always fucked every single woman involved in the case, from the client’s daughter down to the nearest hat-check girl. After what had happened with Rackenham, he wasn’t going to hand Adele over to another blithe predatory male if he could possibly avoid it. Unless he could enlist a private detective who was certified by three reliable doctors as impotent, he was just going to have to find her without help. He looked around at the bustle of Sunset Boulevard. Just as a past drought would show for ever in the rings of a tree, the Depression was still there in Berlin under the new bark if you knew where to look, but Los Angeles did not feel as if it had ever gone thirsty.
The Mutton House
Carrying his new camera on a leather strap around his neck, Loeser cut diagonally across the prosperous scrubland at the side of the road so that he would be at least partially occluded by bushes as he approached the patio of the house. At first, there was no sign of Dolores Mutton, but when he got closer he saw her through the glass, in the kitchen, eating an orange; all of a sudden the Gugelhupf design seemed as if it were specifically intended for easy surveillance. Drabsfarben evidently hadn’t arrived yet, so Loeser sat down in the shade of a tree, brushed the dust from his trousers, and waited. Dozing emeraldine on a rock a few feet away was a lizard not unlike Mordechai. The smell of the ocean came in on the breeze, such a mild musk for such a huge animal.
Just before noon, a car drew up outside the house and the composer got out and went into the house. Crouching very low, Loeser moved towards the patio. Drabsfarben and Dolores Mutton stood in the sitting room, both already in postures of anger as if they had never interrupted their argument from the party two nights ago. Loeser took a few photos, but he needed them at least to kiss if he was going to force Stent Mutton to admit he was wrong and then luxuriate in the gratitude that Bevilacqua had insisted would follow.
‘What the heck are you doing?’
Loeser’s heart bounced like a tennis ball. He turned. A stocky boy in a denim shirt stood there with a big brown paper bag under one arm.
‘I’m a friend of the Muttons,’ said Loeser.
‘Sure you are,’ said the boy. Then he grabbed Loeser by the collar with his free hand and led him roughly down the slope towards the house, shouting ‘Mrs Mutton! Mrs Mutton!’
Dolores Mutton came out on to the patio. ‘What is it?’
‘I was on my way here with your groceries and I saw this creep hiding up there taking pictures. He’s a prowler or something. He sounds foreign.’
‘Thank you very much, Greg. I know this man. He’s bothered us before. You did just the right thing.’
‘Want me to wait here while you call the cops?’
‘No, there’s no need. I’ll deal with him. Just leave the groceries.’
Greg put down the bag and she took five dollars out of her purse and gave it to him. When he was gone, Loeser whimpered, ‘I just came for my shirt and trousers.’
‘Why were you taking photos of us?’
‘The house. It’s such an architectural—’
‘Like hell.’ She snatched the camera from him, then hurled it against the barbecue grill. It hit with a clang and then dropped to the tiles. The sunlight writhed in her blonde hair like a trapped thing. ‘Let me tell you something, Herr Loeser. I have watched Jascha end a man’s life. Have you ever cut a pomegranate in half and turned the halves inside out to get at the s
eeds? Do you remember the sound that it makes? Jascha can end a man’s life with a sound not too different from that, and certainly no louder. I was there once and I heard it. If you ever try anything like this again – if you speak one more word out of turn to my husband – Jascha will kill you and make it look like an accident. I wouldn’t be able to stop him even if I wanted to. That camera is going in the trash with your clothes, and I don’t want to see you within a mile of this house as long as you live. Got that?’ Loeser was too shocked to reply, so she repeated, louder, ‘Have you got that?’
‘Yes. I see. Fine. Thank you. Goodbye.’
Loeser turned and ran.
He was terrified, but he knew he shouldn’t be, because what he’d just heard from Dolores Mutton was only a figurative threat. Surely. A vivid, detailed, persuasive, and chilling but still one hundred per cent figurative threat. Drabsfarben wasn’t a murderer. Loeser was certain of that. Then again, he’d been certain that Drabsfarben wasn’t a fornicator. He didn’t know anything. Still, what kind of lunatic would risk the electric chair to cover up a transgression as minor as infidelity? Maybe a Stent Mutton character. But no one in the real world. If only he could ignore the piano wire he’d heard tightening in her voice. ‘For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure, awed because it serenely disdains to destroy us. Every angel is terrifying.’ That was Rilke. Obviously at some point old Rainer had crossed Dolores Mutton.
The Gorge House
By now Loeser was all too familiar with California architecture and its vacuous hybrids of Gothic, Tudor, Mission, and so on, but the enormous red-roofed Gorge mansion was such an arbitrary and oxymoronic pidgin of styles that it might have been assembled as part of a game of Exquisite Corpse. Everywhere there were columns, turrets, arches, trellises, balconies, arabesques, and gargoyles, none of which seemed to have any reason for existence beyond making you thirsty for a tall glass of iced Gugelhupf. Still, it did have a strange charm, and the garden at the front of the house was elated with flowers. Waiting on the verandah after he rang the bell, Loeser thought for a moment that he saw someone watching him from the driver’s seat of a black Chevrolet parked at the end of the street, but before he could be sure the front door swung open and he was shown into the house by Gorge’s personal secretary, an epicene fellow called Woodkin.
