As they reached the lighted doorway, a woman holding a toddler’s hand came out, making them stop momentarily. Then they pushed in. Just one customer was inside, a man already paying for something and ready to leave. Alex turned to a magazine stand and acted as if he was looking for something. He would cover Wedo’s back and capture anyone who entered at the wrong moment. Wedo went toward the pharmacist but waited until the customer had gone out the door. Then he opened his coat to show the revolver tucked in his waistband.
The bespectacled druggist flinched and nearly fainted as the word “holdup” wafted through the air. Wedo glanced back, got a signal from Alex, and vaulted the counter, pushing the man out of sight to the rear. Alex hadn’t planned it before, but now he closed the door and locked it. The moment the robbery commenced the fear dissolved completely.
The danger, however, did a weird thing to his senses. He saw things with greater clarity, and shapes and colors leaped hard into his eyes. He heard with special acuteness—the metal cabinet door of the drug box being opened, the voices with occasional clear words. He could hear traffic outside that he hadn’t heard moments before.
After what seemed an hour but was really two minutes, Wedo appeared with a heavily laden shopping bag. At his appearance, Alex ducked outside and went down the building to the alley, stopping just inside the darkness until Wedo’s footsteps crunched nearby. They both ran for the car, Alex arriving first and crawling awkwardly past the steering wheel to the passenger side. He was laughing as Wedo flew in and started the car.
* * *
Two hours later they were in the bedroom of Itchy’s Hollywood apartment. Dozens of bottles, in various sizes and colors, were in three piles on the bed—and a wastebasket held the discards, medicines of no illegal value. The three piles were opiates, amphetamines, and barbiturates.
“Three hundred for the uppers and downers,” Itchy offered.
“Man, they’re worth three or four times that,” protested Wedo.
“Right, ese, if you wanna get out on the corner and sell ’em one at a time. I’m not doing that. I know somebody’ll give me four bills, maybe four fifty … and they’ll sell ’em to the pillheads.”
“What about the morphine, dilaudid, and etcetera?” Alex asked.
“We just wanna sell a little,” Wedo said.
“Whatever you guys wanna sell, I’ll cough up two bucks for each sixth grain, three bucks for each quarter grain—”
“Don’t even mention the dilaudid,” Wedo said. “It’s too good to sell any of that.”
“Yeah,” Alex inserted, consciously and deliberately showing off. “That Persian tentmaker Omar Khayyam said he didn’t know what wine merchants bought that was half so precious as what they sold.” He watched his friends’ faces; they were blank. “No dilaudid,” he added.
“Then get it off the bed,” Itchy said.
When it was over, Alex was nearly four hundred dollars richer; it was by far the most money he’d ever had at one time. Wedo had a little less in cash, but he had enough narcotics for a week, and therefore got a much bigger cut than Alex. It was also Wedo’s best score, temporarily removing from his shoulders the awesome burden of pulling a robbery every other day.
As the elevator took them down to street level, Alex draped an arm around Wedo. “Let’s go celebrate.”
“And do what?”
“Fuck, I dunno. I’ve been busted since I was eleven.… What about the amusement pier in Venice?”
“Yeah, that’s cool. But remember I gotta get back in three or four hours to fix.”
“How could I forget that? Say, Wedo, doesn’t it fuck with you … I mean your thoughts … knowing you gotta fix three, four, five times a day … day after fuckin’ day. It’s like bein’ a Moslem in a way; they gotta pray to the east four or five times a day.”
“Sure it fucks with me … but when I pull that needle out I feel so fuckin’ good I can’t tell you … so good there ain’t no words. And if it takes all my time … fuck it! I’m a dope fiend. That’s me from here on out, I guess.”
Alex was silenced, stunned by the apparent nihilism. He remembered the other junkies he knew, mainly Red Barzo and First Choice Floyd. They knew what it was to “kick cold turkey” in a dirty city jail, stretched on concrete floors, vomiting for days after everything was up and there was only a sour, green bile. They experienced diarrhea beyond control, dirtying themselves and their underwear without access to a shower more than once a week. Mucus drained constantly from their noses, hot flashes alternated with cold sweats. Everything that touched their skin made their nerves cry and whimper in pain. Nor could they rest; they thrashed about, kicking their legs because some agony in the joints commanded it. Worst of all, these symptoms continued night after long night without respite, for sleep would not come for days—until they sometimes actually hallucinated—or until the body shut off the circuits and they had a few minutes of half-sleep several times a night, snapping from the sleep-stupor wringing wet, perhaps with a spontaneous orgasm. While they were hooked, the craving for sex was diminished, and sometimes eradicated. The torments had been described to Alex more than once, and he couldn’t understand why they would immediately start “fixing” again at the first chance—even when they had been clean for months or years. “Nothing could be that good,” he said. “Nothing is worth what’s inevitably gonna happen. You know it’s inevitable when you start. Nothin’—”
“Nothin’ but heroin,” Waldo interrupted. “That’s God’s medicine.”
“Tonight, when we get back, I’m gonna try a fix. I really gotta know what’s so good about it. I can’t believe it’s worth all the pain.”
“You’ll like it. I just hope you don’t dig it too much.”
“I gotta see why so many people make it their God. You guys give your lives to it.”
“Oh man,” Wedo said, laughing, “it ain’t that bad.”
“No? What is it, then?”
“You’ll see, motherfucker, you’ll see,” he said fondly.
* * *
During the drive to Venice by the sea, Alex held an open bottle of Chablis between his legs. He was careful to swig when no headlights were close behind. He certainly didn’t want them stopped for a trivial misdemeanor, especially when he lacked identification and a parole-violation warrant was out for him. Still, he consumed enough alcohol during the forty-minute drive to feel a pleasurable, warm glow in his belly, and the glow of intoxication in his brain, too.
Wedo parked in a lot a long block from the pier. The scent of the sea struck them the moment they got out. The glow of the pier’s lights and the sound of its carnival music could be seen and heard over the intervening buildings. The music, in particular, aroused in Alex memories of the eight days he’d spent hidden out around here. The garage he’d lived in was a single block away. It was just two years ago, not long to an adult, but it was a large percentage of the life of a fourteen-year-old striding through pubescence to adulthood. So much had happened to Alex in the interim, so many changes. He wondered about Rusty and B.B. They had hidden and fed him. Now, had he been alone, Alex would have probably looked for them. But Wedo was with him, and to Wedo they would be “kids,” too young to merit his attention.
For an hour, Alex and Wedo wandered aimlessly amid the crowds. They ate hot dogs and cotton candy, stood in the throng listening to the pitch of barkers at various shows—one showed the bullet-riddled car of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, or claimed it to be, and Wedo wanted to go inside, so Alex shrugged and went along, seeing nothing but an old Ford with numerous holes and a cracked windshield. Wedo got angry when Alex said, “Man, I could’ve seen this in a junkyard.” It wasn’t fighting anger, however, so Alex mollified it with humor and lighthearted ridicule.
Down the pier they stopped at the roller coaster, hearing the screech of joyfully terrified passengers getting their money’s worth. They had paid to be scared—and they were—while still being safe. Alex would have taken a ride, and so would Wedo, but th
e latter was worried that the excitement would diminish the heroin in his system, necessitating that he fix out of his regular schedule. Thus they went on a little way, stopping at a penny arcade (it was already ten cents and would inevitably be three times that) to push coins into slots and play games. Mainly, however, they walked around and looked at things and people. The idea of having fun at the amusement pier lost its force once they arrived. Emotions necessary for enjoyment had been debilitated by the tension and adrenaline generated earlier to pull the robbery. It would take rest, perhaps sleep, for their systems to clear and for emotional capacity to be rejuvenated.
When they came off the brightly lighted pier itself, they decided to walk the boardwalk along the beach. It, too, was garish: hot-dog stands, fortune-tellers, movie theaters, the panoply one would anticipate under the circumstances—all of it bathed in colored globes and neon. Normally, Alex thoroughly enjoyed amusement parks, the rides, the games and the sideshows—and especially the shooting galleries. Now, however, he didn’t enjoy it, but he didn’t want to dampen Wedo’s pleasure. Wedo, however, felt the same way: “Ese, Alex, let’s hang this place up … go back to our turf and find a motel and fix. Then go eat something?”
“You’re reading my mind.”
The motel was on Sunset Boulevard near the invisible line that creates Hollywood in the center of Los Angeles. Wedo had stayed here before. Although the office was at the entrance, there was a rear driveway into an alley, so they could come and go without being seen. It was a nice motel that survived on persons who didn’t want to be monitored or questioned.
The moment the door was locked, Wedo had a glass of water on the nightstand and was beginning to lay out the paraphernalia. Jesus, Alex thought, a junkie can’t think about anything else … fix … fix … fix … fuck that.
“So you want a taste?” Wedo said.
“On second thought—I pass.”
“Okay, more for me, ese.” He grinned and winked.
As is common among crime partners in the underworld, especially with junkies, the two youths were virtually inseparable. They were together nearly all the time. On the morning following the first armed robbery, Alex bought some clothes, including his first suit—powder-blue sharkskin. He even bought a couple of neckties, which he didn’t know how to knot. That evening they picked Teresa up a block from her home and went to a movie. Afterward they cruised around, winding up on Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills. Other cars were parked nearby, the occupants overlooking the endless flat sprawl of Los Angeles. The wide boulevards seemed to be twin streams—one of diamonds, the other of rubies, depending on which way the cars were moving. Wedo and Teresa in the back seat began necking so hotly that the sounds played on Alex’s mind, arousing him. He got out and stood on the brink of the precipice, smoking and looking down at the city and at the lights of the few houses that dotted the closer hillsides and canyons. He wondered if he would ever have a house on a hillside with the city at his feet. He didn’t know if he wanted one, or even what else he wanted, but he knew he wanted something. Maybe he could find better robberies for himself and Wedo. If he were three years older he could legitimately be on his own. Could he last that long? All he could do was exactly what he was doing—trying to steal or rob for the money he needed to live, trying to avoid arrest as a parole violator, trying to see life and experience as much of it as possible. Circumstances foreclosed him even thinking of long-range plans. His was a primal world of action and reaction, of continual tension and fear. It wasn’t how most boys turning fifteen years old lived their lives.
His reverie was broken by the single headlight flashing on and off, summoning him to the car. Teresa had to get home.
After they dropped her off, Wedo fixed in a gas station. Then they cruised around looking for a score. They didn’t look too hard. They still had some money, and everything they saw had some flaw.
The next night they stuck up another drugstore, this one in North Hollywood. It went without trouble, except that a customer came in, saw Wedo behind the counter with the pistol, and started to back out—until Alex prodded him from the rear with the shotgun. Customer and manager were left in a washroom. The young robbers got nearly four hundred dollars apiece from the combination of the cash register and what Itchy gave them for the excess drugs. Wedo now had enough dope to last for two weeks, an eternity of freedom of choice to a street junkie. They even abandoned the battered junkheap of a car when it wouldn’t start, and each put up a hundred and fifty to buy a ’41 Buick convertible in pretty good shape.
Wedo preferred to do nothing until they again ran short of money or dope. He preferred to spend his time fixing and nodding in the hotel or motel, going out to eat once or twice a day, usually quick-fried foods at some dingy café. Although much of Alex’s young life had been spent lying around cells, which should have prepared him for sedentary living, he fretted about it. Even books failed to provide an escape from the forces grumbling around inside—a chafing irritant, an unfocused yearning, a rage for something. Sometimes he left Wedo dozing and went out to walk the neighborhood or go to a movie, although movies, like books, failed to provide a refuge for the nebulous dissatisfaction. In Preston, his thoughts were that everything would be good, even wonderful, once he resurrected. It hadn’t proven true. The reality was dreary and lonely. When he smoked marijuana it failed to elate him, only increasing his sadness and fretfulness. Because in action and danger he could forget his depression, or anxiety, or whatever it was, he prodded Wedo to pull more robberies. Wedo would take the risk only when the wolf was at the door, so to speak, only when he lacked money for a roof and for heroin. Alex, in addition to being goaded by inner tangles, was dissatisfied by hand-to-mouth thievery. He wanted an automobile of his own and whatever else struck his fancy. The feeling of money in his pocket was good; it gave him options that alleviated some of the swirling bad feelings. He did not merely want to go out more often; he now felt ready to go after bigger scores than liquor stores, gas stations, and drugstores. Wedo, on the other hand, thought the smaller places were easier and safer.
In two weeks they lived in one downtown hotel and two Sunset Boulevard motels. Alex had two suitcases of clothes and was proud of how sharp he dressed. Wedo, who had always chased girls, was uninterested in that, too. He even pretty much ignored Teresa, which caused mixed feelings in Alex. He had eyes for Teresa, and if Wedo and she really broke up, maybe Alex could move in—but he disliked the expression and worried about being disloyal, whatever the expression. The three of them went out in the newly purchased convertible. Wedo was too full of drugs and kept nodding out and mumbling incoherently. That alone created tension in the car. Teresa finally showed anger when he didn’t notice dropping a cigarette on her skirt until the smell of something burning made them look around. They found the smoldering hole, the size of a half-dollar, and put it out—but they didn’t put out her fire. She wanted to go home, and she didn’t want to see Wedo or talk to him again if he was blotto on dope. When she gave the ultimatum he felt almost nothing. The heroin in him eradicated the capacity for painful feelings. As soon as she was out of the car, Wedo muttered “fuck it” and let his head fall to his chest in the classic “nod,” occasionally scratching his nose somnolently while Alex drove across the city at night toward the motel.
The next day, however, Wedo felt some pain. It showed itself in anger. “We’ll show her, carnal. No bullshit … show her what she lost, que no? We’ll cruise up in a long Coupe de Ville, know what I mean? And be sharp, sharp in a bad motherfuckin’ Hickey-Freeman mohair and some alligator shoes.”
Alex listened, nodded, and grinned warmly as his partner “talked shit.” Alex hoped it wasn’t a momentary attitude. He had happened to walk down a nearby alley while a panel truck was being unloaded behind a wholesale drug company outlet. The truck had a burglar alarm and heavy mesh separating the driver’s area from the rear compartment. The rear also had special locks with dual keys. Like some safes, the one way to open it was for two
keys to be used in sequence. The driver had one key, the outlet manager another. Alex walked out of the alley and around to the front. Horton and Converse was the company name. Prescriptions could be filled over the counter, but the main business was supplying pharmacies and medical clinics. The front window listed outlets in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Pasadena, and Long Beach. Retail drugstores had been their best scores so far, and the easiest. Legal narcotics were dirt-cheap in comparison to diamonds and other things, and therefore wouldn’t be so rigorously guarded. Their value was only in the underworld. Moreover, he couldn’t sell diamonds, but he surely had an outlet for morphine and such. A place like this would have several times the quantity of a drugstore. He’d even mentioned it to Wedo several days ago, but Wedo hadn’t been interested, especially when Alex added that they would have to look it over for a couple of days, and watch to see what was what. Wedo preferred to just drive around until they saw something, and then go take it. Now, however, Alex painted a picture of enough narcotics to maintain Wedo’s habit for several months, plus enough for them to sell for several thousand. This time, Wedo listened, thinking that Teresa would eat her words if he showed up in a really classy car, maybe a three-year-old Caddy convertible, and him wearing a sapphire pinky ring and Italian silk suit.
24
Alex took the job of casing the Horton and Converse branch because he distrusted Wedo’s capacity to stay alert. After two days of watching the opening and closing, Alex knew there were three employees: two were middle-aged men and the third a nondescript woman. One of the men was the manager with the keys. He arrived first and opened the door; he departed last and locked up. He drove a bronze Chevrolet that he parked at the farthest limits of the lot, the car’s nose nudging the shrubbery next to the wall that divided the property from the back yard of a house.
On the third evening, as the gray light of an unusual autumn rainy day darkened toward a black night without stars, Wedo was crouched in the dripping bushes with his pistol. He had insisted on that part of the job after Alex had done the preparations. The bushes had room to hide just one boy. Alex was directly across the street, standing beside a bus stop bench, facing both the front door and the parking lot. The plan was simple. When the manager reached his car, Wedo would appear and capture him at gunpoint. Alex would see what was happening and meet them at the door. Inside, they would force the man to open the narcotics locker. They would fill the shopping bags each of them carried, lock the manager in the washroom or tape him up, and then depart. A getaway car was unnecessary; the motel was too close. They would go down an alley behind the building, cross a small street into the same alley on the next block. Halfway down was a rear passage into the motel area. They’d go up the side stairs and around a corner to the first room.
Little Boy Blue Page 37
