by Dan Fante
I decided to reexamine the stuff I’d found. Climbing back up I took the bag down from the vent and spread the items on the bed again, going once more through the driver’s licenses.
No question. It was him. Raymond Sanchez.
After I’d consumed most of the first bottle, my shakes were gone. The paranoia was gone too.
I located the room’s phone book and looked up the only person I could remember who might know Ray Sanchez. It was his Uncle Benny. Benjamin Sanchez, the man who had once managed the motel.
There were five Benjamin Sanchezes in the Santa Monica directory, and I began calling. The second person I dialed turned out to be Uncle Benny. He sounded older but was still without a shit’s worth of kindness in his voice.
“I remember you,” he said after I said my name and reminded him of my friendship with his nephew Ray. “The two of you used to stop by and party in one of the rooms. You and that other punk Ray knew. I forget his name.” Then the sneer in his voice: “The good old days, right?”
“The motel used to be our hangout in college,” I said. “We’d go there to watch TV and talk.”
“Izzat what you assholes did? You watched TV?”
“Right. And we drank beer.”
“Look, you callin’ me up today to waste my time and jerk me around?”
“Ray and I were college buddies. That’s all I’m saying.”
“College? Raymond never gave a stinkin’ shit about college. A juicer, a loser, a dope pusher with a big smile just like his old man. A mentiroso. Look, I’m on my way out. What’s this about? Whaddya want from me?”
“I have some stuff. I think it belongs to him. To Ray. I want to return it. Do you know how I can get in touch with him?”
“Yeah, I do. I know exactly where you can find Raymond. Where my sister buried him is where you can find him.”
“Jesus. When did that happen?”
“Look, he’s dead. Whaz the difference? Lemme ask you something: You been drinkin’? You sound like you’re half in the bag.”
“I’m just asking a question.”
“Okay, a week ago. He died a week ago. Eight days tomorrow, okay? My nephew Raymond, your old college chum, they found him in that motel I used to run.”
“How did it happen? I’d like to know.”
“Let’s juss say they needed to clean the room afterwards. You understand what I’m tellin’ you?”
“I understand . . . Look, I was there. I mean, I’m there now. Here in the room.”
“At the L.A. Vista Motel?”
“That’s why I’m calling you.”
“Jesus, what’re you doing there?”
“He left some things. Some personal stuff. I found a bag.”
“I don’t care what you found. Just keep it. Whatever it is. We don’t want no part of it. Keep it or throw it out.”
“There’s some money . . .”
“How much money?”
“Close to a thousand dollars.”
“Okay, that’s different. That’s a different story.”
“What do you want me to do with it?”
Uncle Benny thought for a second. “Here’s what you do,” he said. “Send it to his mom. My sister. Get a pen and I’ll give you her address.”
I wrote the information down on the margin of the open phone book, then tore out the page.
“No note,” Benny said. “No names. Don’t say nothin’. Don’t upset her. Just put it in an envelope, wrap it up or whatever, and mail it.”
“Okay. Then there’s some other stuff too.”
I was about to tell him about the baseball cards because I assumed they were also valuable.
“I told you, no,” Benny barked. “Whatever it is, we don’t want it. No personal stuff. Just send the money. I know she can use the money.”
Then there was a long pause. Uncle Benny’s voice had lost its edge. “So—you’re calling me from the room, right?”
“Right,” I said. “I’ve been here a couple of days.”
“You’re in the room where Raymond killed himself?”
“I guess so. Strange coincidence.”
Another pause. “You’re talking to me on the phone next to the bed where Raymond stuck a .45 in his mouth and blew his head off, right?”
“Right. I guess so.”
“Tell me something: When did you last see him? My nephew?”
“A long time. Years ago. We’d lost touch.”
“So, what made you want to come back there? Now.”
I had no answer. “I needed a place to go and be alone. I guess that’s the only reason,” I said.
Another long pause. Then Uncle Benny emitted a sound—like blowing out air. “If I were you, guy,” he said, “I’d find myself another motel.”
Then he hung up.
That afternoon, when I arrived back at the penthouse on Hillside Avenue, feeling dazed and spooked by my experience at the motel, I was also drunk.
Terri was furious.
When I told her what happened at the motel—finding Ray’s stuff and his suicide—Terri made a face. Then I showed her the heroin and the baseball cards. She refused to touch them and said they were cursed. This was all a sign, she said, a warning. A death warning. Her psychic girlfriend Ginger, in the Bronx, she said, had forecast just this kind of malevolent, negative shit for me. Dark influences had taken possession of my life. I had blackness all around my aura, according to Ginger and Terri. If I didn’t do something now, she threatened—quit the booze and my rages—she would call David Kasten and spill her guts about me going crazy and the stuff I was doing.
Terri wanted nothing that had belonged to Ray in the house. She followed me and watched as I tossed his fake IDs and dope into the hallway trash chute. I kept the baseball cards in my pocket. Curse or no curse, I had a signed 1941 Ted Williams.
The Metropolitan Center for Mental Health on Sunset Boulevard was six blocks away from our place on Hillside Avenue. The business specialized in psychological counseling and hypnotherapy. Dr. Barnard was the head guy. For twelve hundred dollars a month, four times a week, he said there was a good chance he could cure my drinking and help me to resolve my anger issues through hypnotism.
I had my checkbook with me and we got started that day. It worked.
Every time I came in for an appointment, a woman in a white coat led me to a wood-paneled room with a lounge chair in it. The lights were turned off and I was given a set of blinders and a pair of earphones. I closed my eyes and half a minute later a recording came on. “All is well,” Barnard’s voice began. “Every part of your mind and body is at peace. You are completely at ease . . .” By the time his voice said, “You are going deeper and deeper,” I’d be asleep. An hour later I’d get up and go home.
It took a few days, but I began to cut back on my drinking. My mind slowly started to ease up, and after the first couple of weeks, I began sleeping through the night. For the first month, once a week, Barnard supervised my progress.
It took a few more visits before I stopped jonzing for drink entirely. One of the suggestions that the doctor must have implanted skewed the taste of booze. I’d take a sip or two, then put the glass down. Whiskey tasted strange. Bitter.
Soon Terri Rolla began to come to bed again, naked, and I resumed spending my days at my desk—getting things done. I even put on a suit and went to Sacramento with some other limo owners to lobby for stricter gypsy-cab laws at the airport. I was also beginning to get along with my drivers. No one had quit recently.
Because of Dav-Ko’s flashy clientele, I frequently received invitations to Hollywood events and parties that I almost never attended. When the card came for Mae West’s eightieth or eighty-fifth birthday, Terri Rolla nagged me until I called up to RSVP.
On our way by limo to the Beverly Wilshire hotel ballroom, dressed in something black that cost too much money, my girlfriend, always edgy anyway from her speed consumption, began to take potshots at me. I was wearing my limo suit pants. They had wrinkle
s and a tear in the crotch. I was a slob. I needed a haircut. I looked more like a bum than a limo owner.
Any other time, with a drink or two in me, I would have ignored the diss, but after I’d been on a natch for two months her attitude made me lose it. The scene in our limo that followed caused our driver, a nice guy named Frank who was once a teacher, to pull over on Sunset, get out of the car, and wait until we agreed to stop yelling.
When we arrived at the hotel I got out alone and walked inside.
In the ballroom, a few minutes later, avoiding Terri, I bumped into an actor I knew, a guy who’d once played someone’s father on a TV series. The guy’s name was Paul Hoag. Paul was tall and handsome and in his seventies. Mae’s escort for the night. I had driven him myself to a premiere or two when he accompanied Mae. Paul was drinking gin and tonics, and when one of the pretty male waiters came swishing by with a tray, Paul scooped a glass off. I decided, screw it, and grabbed one too.
My first sip of the G and T tasted like cigarette ashes at the bottom of a day-old beer can. It made me sick to my stomach and for some reason my head and neck immediately began to feel hot, much like an Antabuse reaction I’d once had.
So I tried another sip. It was the same as the first but slightly less offensive. I was now red and sweating, so my solution was to finish the entire drink.
Half an hour later Mae made her entrance in a long white gown with a gold wig stacked a foot above her head. By then, after three gin and tonics, I was okay again. I’d conquered sobriety.
The real really good news of the night was that I had been able to stop at three drinks. For some reason I did not get smashed at the party or say anything that got me into more trouble with Terri.
My booze moderation and self-control went on for several weeks and things between me and Terri stayed on an even keel. I was usually able to stop at three drinks. Never in my life had I been a moderate drinker. Now I was better able to stand my relationship with my girlfriend. I could leave her alone and not engage her in arguments. I could simply stop talking and walk away. Our relationship had become a standoff.
One Friday I took her shopping in Beverly Hills and bought her five pairs of expensive shoes.
Late one summer night a customer called in with an emergency pickup in Brentwood. The drivers had all checked out and I was unable to flog off the booking to one of our farm-out affiliates, so I got dressed and did the run myself.
It was after two a.m. and I was on my way back home after dropping the customer on Sunset Boulevard.
I stopped for a light and a kid jumped in. She was tiny and skinny, maybe ninety pounds, and flat chested.
She flashed a big smile. “Is this your car?” she swooned. “You own THIS? Oh my God—I’m in love!”
“Hey, look,” I said, “I’m the driver. I’m working. You’ve gotta get out of the car.”
“Can I talk to you for a second? One small fucking second, okay? I need a ride. I was supposed to meet my friend but her car broke down.”
“Out,” I said. “No kidding.”
“Can I suck your cock? I’m pretty good. No charge. You drop me at Cahuenga and it’ll be a freebie.”
I thought it over. “That’s not a freebie—that’s a trade. What’s your name, kid?”
“Call me Star. What’s your name?”
“That’s it? That’s your name? Star?”
“It’s a nickname. I hate my real name.”
“Okay, then call me Elvis. That’s my nickname.”
“C’mon, what’s your name? Don’t fuck with me. I wanna know.”
“Dan. It’s Dan.”
“Watch this, Dan.” With that her shirt was up and she was cupping her tiny tits. Flashing me. “Look, all natural. One hundred percent me.”
I had to laugh. The light changed and I was rolling again.
“See—I’m funny, right?”
“Yes you are. You’re funny.”
“So, is it a deal? I got a shaved pussy too. Wanna see?”
“No.”
“We can do it in the backseat? I love your car, Dan.”
“Okay, what the hell,” I said. “It’s a deal.”
“How about a drink first?” she whispered, always selling. “You got booze in the car, right?”
“That’s for customers.”
“Sooo, how about some wine.”
“Wine? No kidding. You drink wine. How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Liar.”
“Okay, I’m a little younger—but not much.”
“Sixteen?”
“I’m fifteen, actually. I always tell the truth about my age.”
“You just lied to me about how old you are.”
“Older guys—tricks—like that I’m fifteen. Wanna see my ID?”
“So, I’m an older guy?”
“Noooooo. You’ve got a beautiful car. You drive rock stars, right?”
“Sometimes.”
With that her tight jeans were down, revealing her shaved crotch. “Jesus,” I said. “And you call yourself Star?”
“See. Nice, right?”
“Okay, okay, pull your pants up.”
“I promise you won’t forget me, Daneeee . . . Hey, pull over here—by that liquor store.”
I guided the limo to the curb. “Okay,” I said, “whaddya want?”
“Mogen David. Mad Dog 20/20. I like getting fucked up.”
“You’re a kid. That’s a very downtown wine.”
“It warms me up and gets my pussy crazy.”
Later, after the wine was gone and I was very drunk for the first time in months, after a blow job and sex in the back of Pearl, I let Star talk me into getting her a motel for the night.
Star’s pimp was named Tello, a twenty-year-old black kid from Watts. He was bisexual and drank cheap wine and smoked sherm (angel dust). His dump tenement, a one-room apartment, was near Western Avenue. For the next two weeks, I was there three or four nights a week, having sex with Star and sometimes letting Tello suck my cock—the three of us in bed together drinking Mad Dog. What Star lacked in looks and body she made up for with her sense of humor and her sexual enthusiasm.
Then I got arrested for what in California is called “drunk in auto.”
One night while being chauffeured, Terri and I were making the rounds of the Hollywood bars. On Cahuenga Boulevard at two a.m., I decided to make a political speech through the moonroof of my car. Terri vowed that if I didn’t stop drinking again she would have my nuts “ground into dog shit.”
A day or two later Star and Tello showed up at the office, stoned, while Terri and I were working. A big mistake. Star had made a nice score with a young TV actor and was flashing a roll of hundred-dollar bills, wanting to rent a limo to drive her and Tello to Two Bunch Palms near Palm Springs for the weekend.
I’d developed a crush on the kid and Terri, always paranoid from her use of cocaine and speed, bottom-lined the situation immediately and was having none of it. She ordered Star and Tello out of the office, telling the little teenager to shove her money up her cunt.
When they were gone, Terri broke a few office things and threatened to expose me to my boss again.
The next day she was gone, on her way to the Bronx and Manhattan to visit her girlfriend Ginger, taking what her note called vacation time. I knew she would probably visit David Kasten and present a catalog of my misdeeds to him. I decided that with her in New York and out of Los Angeles, now was the time for me to make my break, before she could meet with David one-on-one.
To cover myself I called Kasten. I copped to enough misbehavior to cover myself, then suggested that Terri’s drug use was out of hand. Kasten had been aware she was doing coke because, months before, our night dispatcher (who’d quit the following day), after weathering a run-in with Terri, had called David himself in New York out of frustration. Terri had effectively been ratted out already.
David Kasten took his junior partner’s side, at least over the phone.
That afternoon I had the locks changed on all the doors. Within a couple days I’d found Terri her own furnished apartment a few blocks from the office. If she was going to stay on at Dav-Ko, she would not be living with me.
As expected, Terri had her meeting with Kasten. In it she documented all my fuckups. My partner let her rant, then decided, after she’d gone, to demote her to bookkeeper/dispatcher, rather than day dispatcher/manager.
I wrongly assumed that I’d saved my neck. As it turned out, Terri’s visit to New York was the beginning of the end for me in the limo business. As a result of her gut-spilling visit to Kasten, I was under daily scrutiny from my boss-partner.
In one phone conversation pissing-match, Kasten hissed, “Your girlfriend says you’re losing it. You’re banging a fifteen-year-old street hooker and in a blackout almost every night. You have put our partnership and our business in jeopardy.”
It turned out David Kasten’s method of dissolving our partnership, and cutting my throat, was clever. The West Coast branch of Dav-Ko was permanently in need of more limos. We had been operating a twenty-car business with ten limousines—outsourcing the daily overflow to affiliate companies for a 20 percent kickback. Over the past few months, Kasten and I had discussed adding to the West Coast fleet, but nothing had been done. My partner’s stand had been that the company was strapped for cash and couldn’t afford more equipment.
In those days Los Angeles was far more glitz-conscious than Manhattan, and Dav-Ko’s West Coast reputation had been made largely because of our flashy equipment, stocked bars, and installed telephones.
Now Kasten, without my participation and consent, threw me a curveball. He had three of his two-year-old New York stretch clunkers refurbed and painted, then shipped West. These tankers all rattled, and two of them still had electric window problems.
When they arrived and I looked them over, I was furious for days. Almost immediately I began to get customer complaints. My boss-partner had stuck me with bad equipment to piss me off and force a showdown between us. It worked.
