“Hey, close the fuckin’ door, okay?” Richard sounded like he was out of practice talking, as if some serious effort were required just to summon and assemble words. A sparse fringe of hair was matted to his head, wet with a perspiration that covered his face and chest with a sheen. He nodded to Tony as Lilah introduced them, his mouth still hanging open.
Tony pulled the Wild Turkey from the bag on the counter and was about to ask Lilah for a glass, but thought better of it and, removing the cap, took a good hard pull from the bottle. Lilah opened the Courvoisier and half-filled two large snifters, which she then placed on the counter. As she put away the other contents from the grocery bag, Richard scooped the white rock from the coffee filter and said, “How about your room?”
Lilah said, “Fine,” and put the ice cream in the freezer. “Hey, you can’t keep leaving the flame burning on the stove.”
Richard didn’t appear to have heard; he was already out of the kitchen, moving toward the end of the hallway—toward, Tony presumed, Lilah’s bedroom—holding the rock out in front of him as he walked. He held it between his thumb and index finger at about chin level, his head tilted back, seeming to appraise it as he disappeared from view.
Lilah carried the drinks and some of the items she had bought at the market. Tony followed her, carrying the two bottles. The evening had looked so promising; it still had potential, but he had always hated freebasers. Every time he had seen people smoke cocaine, it seemed that they did it obsessively and to the exclusion of all other activity: sex, eating, bathing, conversation.
Richard was sitting on the edge of a king-size bed in Lilah’s room, an elaborate glass pipe in his hands. A blue flame hissed out of a butane torch directly onto a white chip that was already melting into a tangle of copper strands—a piece of the scouring pad that Lilah had bought. Suddenly the bulb of the pipe, which was about the size of a tennis ball, filled with a thick white smoke. He watched as the smoke streamed up the glass stem, Richard staring intently at the tip of the flame as he inhaled.
Holding his breath, Richard handed the pipe and the torch to Lilah, who had put the drinks on a bedside stand and pulled Tony to the center of the bed. She took a new chip from a silver dish on the bed, placed it on the wire mesh, and fired it up. When she was through, she offered the pipe to Tony.
“No, thanks. If you’re offering, though, I wouldn’t mind having some for my nose.” On the dresser against the wall opposite the end of the bed, a shining white slab of coke the size of a telephone book sat on a large sheet of blue plastic wrapping.
Lilah passed the glass pipe back to Richard, grinning while she held the smoke in. Then, putting her hand behind Tony’s neck, she drew him to her, brought their mouths together, opened soft lips, ran her fingers up through his hair, let her other hand drop to his thigh and slide upward, and filled his lungs with the harsh, sweet smoke.
The next time the pipe came his way, he accepted it.
CHAPTER 56
⍫
Would you please talk to me? What’s going on?” Holly was speaking through one of the holes Jeff had gouged in the wall. Startled, he brought the flashlight up and saw her pull away.
“Go pack. We have to get out of here.” Suddenly he wanted to be far from this place. Crouching low, he swept the flashlight beam across the entire underside of the building, imagining a deranged Doctor Jack Stanley crawling toward him in the dirt.
When he emerged from the hole in the closet floor, Holly was standing in the hallway, hugging herself as though she were cold.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, then realized it was a ridiculous question.
“I was hoping . . .” She faltered.
“What?” He was impatient. It was time to get out of here.
“I think that I really wanted you to prove that I was crazy, delusional. That none of this was really happening.” A tear streaked down her cheek; she wiped it away with the back of her hand. “I mean, I don’t want to be crazy, but this”—she gestured toward the closet floor—“is a pretty crummy reality.”
“One thing . . .” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Can you leave the pills behind?”
She hesitated, eyes wide and moist, then nodded.
Ten minutes later they emerged from the apartment, Jeff carrying a suitcase that Holly had packed in a dazed silence. She stepped into the carport and looked apprehensively at the door to the laundry room; to its left, the windows were ominously dark.
He placed the suitcase in the trunk of the BMW and said, “Look, are you okay to drive? Maybe we should go in one car . . .”
Holly faced him in the darkness, put a hand out and touched his arm, left it there. “Thank you for helping me. I’ll be all right.”
Driving up Fairfax, watching his rear-view mirror to make sure that he didn’t lose her, he wondered if, by taking Holly from her apartment, he had blown a good chance at catching Jack Stanley. Maybe they should have turned out the lights and waited for him to return, to burrow under the goddamned building and set up camp on the other side of Holly’s living room. He thought of his sister Marilyn and imagined firing the Walther into the wall, firing into the closet door, emptying the clip and then doing it again. He started to play it over again in his mind but something stopped him. It was useless, he realized. Old thinking, part of the world he had left behind. This was the best course, to move away from insanity and toward the sanctuary he had been given, and to bring Holly along.
The canyon air was cool and clean when they left their cars on the gravel drive in front of Ron’s home. The porch was lit, but the house inside was entirely dark. The Land Rover was gone.
He carried the suitcase into his room, which he had offered to let Holly use. He would sleep on the sofa in the living room. When he put the suitcase down, he asked Holly how she felt.
“I think I’m ready to fall asleep.” She smiled for the first time that night. “In a New York minute.”
“Is there anything you need?”
“Yes.” She looked at him, pretty now in the soft light from the bedside lamp. She put her hand out and touched his arm like she had done earlier. “Would you stay here and just hold me?”
CHAPTER 57
⍫
It was Wednesday afternoon, and Doctor Jack Stanley’s rage simmered like sauce in a pot. Every now and then a new bubble of anger rose to the surface. It was infuriating to have to give up a perfectly good name. He had had a good run as Art Bradley, MFCC, and co-founder of SOL. Now that was irretrievably gone. And now the girl was gone.
“Hey, man, you want a hit?” It was the idiot with the glass pipe, exhaling a huge plume of chemical smoke in Lilah’s kitchen as he spoke.
“No, Richard, I don’t, thank you.” Almost time to stop being nice. “When do you suppose Lilah and Tony will come out?” They had been in the back room—Lilah’s bedroom—for hours now. Occasionally, noises from Lilah punctuated the interminable rhythmic hammering of the headboard against the wall.
Richard coughed and fell back against the refrigerator, then shuffled out of the kitchen and disappeared through the hallway without replying.
He had tolerated this zoo, as he thought of it, since early Sunday morning, shortly after the debacle at the Malibu pier. He had gone home, glad that Bobbi was in Portland lecturing, and packed a suitcase. When he appeared at the Brentwood apartment, Lilah had opened the door and thrown her arms around him, crying out, “Dahling,” and inviting him in. Nobody, himself included, had slept during the next three days, and the moronic behavior of Lilah and her two friends was wearing thin.
He went to the stereo and inserted the Miles Davis CD into the deck, turning it on loud. Time to clean house. The Art Bradley charade was crumbling beyond repair. He had been seen on the pier, the girl was alive, and Joanie, the fool, could put him in line for lethal injection. Worse, Jeff Fenner and Lilah l
inked him with his past.
He finished his drink and came to a decision. He went out of the apartment and down the hallway. The elevator took him to the underground parking, where the Jag was safely hidden from general view. He took the tire iron from the Jag’s trunk and wrapped it in an old red towel he kept over the spare wheel.
When he got back to the apartment, the music had been turned off. He saw Richard sitting on the sofa at the end of the living room, the one area that Jack had staked out as his own. He said, “I’m sure I’ve asked you to sit somewhere else . . .” for the hundredth time. The mindlessness of it.
“Hey Doc, no reason to get uncivilized.” The man sat there in his jockey shorts, lighting a butane torch and adjusting the flame. “I’ll get up in a minute.” He picked up the glass pipe from the coffee table and, putting it to his lips, aimed the hissing blue flame into the blackened bowl. The cocaine rock ignited with a sizzling sound. “By the way, man—” Richard wheezed—he was holding his breath and puffs of smoke escaped with each word “—your music sucks.”
He walked across the living room, flicking the music back on and turning it up as he passed the console. The tire iron had a nice heft to it—he held it at his side by the end that curved back in a U shape. He had never killed a male before. Not directly, anyway, he thought, reflecting that he had always relished the image of his stepfather with a prison shank sticking out of the side of his neck.
Richard sucked mightily at the pipe, his chest heaving as he suppressed the urge to cough, holding it in, eyes intent on the flame vaporizing the bubbling white rock. Jack lifted the metal bar and brought it down on the shiny bald top of the man’s head. There. That was easy. The torch and the hot pipe fell into Richard’s lap, the flame still hissing as it bit into flesh. He let the towel fall to the ground and struck again, methodically, until it was clear that the job was completed.
The torch, its flame extinguished, lay on the sofa next to the glass pipe. He picked both items up, flipped over the sofa cushion so that the bloody side couldn’t be seen, then walked to the kitchen and threw the drug paraphernalia in the trash.
There were two bottles of Bushmills left in the refrigerator, plus a beer and a fifth of Jack Daniel’s, purchased special for tonight’s occasion. He popped the top off the beer and placed the other bottles in a shopping bag, which he left on the counter at the end closest to the front door.
He pulled the body into the spare bedroom, stuffed it into the closet, and closed the sliding door. Next to a scale on the dresser was Richard’s massive block of cocaine: he broke off a corner and placed it in a small zip-lock baggy.
Time to get the show on the road.
CHAPTER 58
⍫
At three-thirty on a hot summer Wednesday afternoon, lying on her back with her feet in the air and Tony inside her, Lilah O’Hare had a moment of clarity. She realized that Tony didn’t care about her, that he couldn’t care about her, or anyone else for that matter. In that instant, as she perceived the full extent of his obtuse selfishness, she saw with equal clarity the extent of the madness that was her life: she had flirted with insanity, prison, and death for too long, and now one or more were imminent.
Tony must have sensed something, for he suddenly ceased his mad, sweaty thrusting and looked down at her. “What’s with you?” His voice accusing, as though she had taken something belonging to him.
She didn’t have an answer ready, so she said, “I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Jesus Christ,” Tony said. “You can’t stop, just like that,” and withdrew from her, shaking his head.
She got up and walked toward the bathroom, looking back once to see Tony on the bed, staring sullenly at the wall. Music blared abruptly from the living room—Doctor Jack’s weird old jazz.
She closed the door and sat on the toilet, putting her elbows on her knees and resting her forehead against the heels of her hands. If she had one more drug her head would explode; one more drink and she would surely be sick. And yet she felt oddly clearheaded, sober in spite of the toxic condition of her metabolism. She liked the feeling. The music stopped and she breathed deeply in the silence.
“Hey!” It was Tony, yelling from the bed.
“I’ll be right out.” She kept breathing deeply. Moments went by and it was almost possible to forget the dread she had felt.
“Hey!” Louder this time. “You wouldn’t be holding out on me now, would you?” Tony had run out of coke and hit a wall trying to get Richard to extend his tab. He was crashing now, which was when he seemed to get meanest.
Lilah opened the door and stepped back into the bedroom. “No, Tony, for Christ’s sake, I’m not holding out on you.” He sat against the headboard, head tilted back as he drained his bottle of Wild Turkey.
The music came on again, louder than before. Tony rolled his eyes. “Oh, great. The hip hypnotist is really swingin’ now.” He put the empty bottle down and glared at her. “Okay, what have you got, you sneaky little bitch? Where’s the vial?” He pushed himself up off the bed and stepped toward her.
“There is no vial.” She wanted to tell him how she felt, that they were better off without the stuff, that they could just walk away, maybe go to one of those meetings or something. “Really, Tony. If you want to know the truth . . .”
“The truth?” Tony leered. “If I wanna know the truth? You’ve never told the truth in your life.” He reached out and grabbed Lilah by the throat, pushing her against the wall. “You wouldn’t know the fucking truth if it was vibrating in your ass.”
Tony was hurting her now, his fingers tight on her throat. Suddenly, he pulled her toward him and then slammed her head into the wall. He did it again, and then a third time. There was a look in Tony’s eyes that told Lilah he wasn’t going to stop.
“Hey!” She said it as a command, focusing her anger into it, and Tony hesitated. “If I tell you where it is, will you stop this?”
He let go of her throat and shook his head slowly in exasperation. “You are so fucking predictable.”
She giggled and said, “Come here. I’ll whisper it to you.”
When Tony bent and turned his head, she reached up and put her face next to his. She opened her mouth and said, “It’s in the—” and bit down hard on the soft part of his ear. She bit until the skin gave with a little pop, then put her knee between his legs and hooked her foot around the back of his knee. As Tony jerked back, she pushed.
A piece of dead meat was in her mouth, rubbery and smooth. She spat it down at Tony, who was lying on the floor holding his hand to the side of his head. Something warm and wet trickled over her lip and down to her chin.
There was a knock at the door. She opened it, relieved to see Doctor Jack. He smiled pleasantly, leaned in slightly to get a clearer view of Tony naked on the floor, and said, “My, my. Aren’t we getting a little bit carried away?”
Tony glared at him and said, “Get the fuck out of here, you old quack.” Still holding his ear, he propped himself up on one elbow, retrieved the earlobe from his chest, and maneuvered into a standing position. Lilah backed away a step. Tony took his hand from his ear and looked at the blood running from his palm down his forearm. “You’re dead, you crazy little bitch.”
“Now children, violence won’t settle anything.” Doctor Jack was still smiling. “But this might . . .” She saw him bring forward one of his hands, which had been behind his back, and produce a plastic baggie of with a golf ball-size chunk of cocaine in it. He held it up, dangling from thumb and forefinger, invitingly toward Tony and said, “Lilah, would you kindly excuse us for a moment?”
“Sure, Jack.” She was only too glad to get Tony out of the room.
She watched as Doctor Jack made way for Tony to pass through the doorway. She looked at Tony’s naked ass and solid, muscular body as he turned into the spare bedroom. Doctor Jack followed, one hand still holding the baggie, the
other hidden by his side. Holding something.
She was about to turn back to the bathroom, wash the blood off her face, maybe even shower if Tony would leave her alone long enough, when she heard the sound. It pierced right through the music, a crack! of impact, a sound she had never heard anything quite like before. A nightmare sound. And again. And again.
Frozen, she suddenly knew what the sound was, realized what Doctor Jack had been holding. Unbelievable, she thought, but saw that at a deeper level she had always known he was crazy enough to do this, that the dread she had felt was legitimate, and that insanity and death were present.
She turned to the bedside table and picked up the phone, stabbing at the buttons to reach 911. The first ring had just begun when she turned to see Doctor Jack in the room, his arm raised.
The first blow crashed down on her arm, causing her to drop the phone, and then grazed her cheekbone. Dazed, as if only able to move in slow motion like in a frustrating dream, she tried to protect herself but felt the second blow strike her forehead. She fell to the floor, oddly aware of being struck several times more but unable to feel it. Unable, for that matter, to feel anything, but still awake. Awake enough to sense Doctor Jack’s closeness as he bent over her, rolled her aside, and retrieved the phone from the floor. Awake enough to hear the dial tone and the ringing; to hear him say, “Joanie? Good, you’re in. I thought I’d stop by on my way out of town. I’ve got a little something for you.”
CHAPTER 59
⍫
By late Wednesday afternoon the heat had become intense, making Jeff want to go home, rinse off in a cool shower and lie down somewhere in the shade, maybe even nap. The Santa Ana winds had kicked up again and the darkroom, though cooler by far than outside, lacked air conditioning. His hands were dry and smelly from the chemicals in the trays, and in the close, still air he had to fight through his lethargy to clean up the lab so he could be finished for the day.
Trust Me Page 25
