Los Angeles Noir 2

by Denise Hamilton

  The sun was strong. The world was washed with white. The day seemed somehow clarified. He was wearing a leather jacket and shaking. It occurred to her that he was sick.

  “Excuse me. I must go,” she said. “If you follow me, I shall have someone call the police.”

  “Okay. Okay. Calm down,” Lenny was saying behind her. “I’ll save you a seat tomorrow, okay?”

  She didn’t reply. She sat in her car. It was strange how blue the sky seemed, etched with the blue of radium or narcotics. Or China blue, perhaps. Was that a color? The blue of the China Sea? The blue of Vietnam. When he talked about Asia, she could imagine that blue, luminescent with ancient fever, with promises and bridges broken, with the harvest lost in blue flame. Always there were barbarians, shooting the children and dogs.

  She locked her car and began driving. It occurred to her, suddenly, that the Chinese took poets as concubines. Their poets slept with warlords. They wrote with gold ink. They ate orchids and smoked opium. They were consecrated by nuance, by birds and silk and the ritual birthdays of gods and nothing changed for a thousand years. And afternoon was absinthe yellow and almond, burnt orange and chrysanthemum. And in the abstract sky, a litany of kites.

  She felt herself look for him as she walked into the meeting the next day at noon. The meeting was in the basement of a church. Lenny was standing near the coffeepot with his back to the wall. He was holding two cups of coffee as if he was expecting her. He handed one to her.

  “I got seats,” he said. He motioned for her to follow. She followed. He pointed to a chair. She sat in it. An older woman was standing at the podium, telling the story of her life. Lenny was wearing a white warm-up suit with a green neon stripe down the sides of the pants and the arms of the jacket. He was wearing a baseball cap. His face seemed younger and tanner than she had remembered.

  “Like how I look? I look like a lawyer on his way to tennis, right? I even got a tan. Fit right in. Chameleon Lenny. The best, too.” He lit a cigarette. He held the pack out to her.

  She shook her head, no. She was staring at the cigarette in his mouth, in his fingers. She could lean her head closer, part her lips, take just one puff.

  “I got something to show you,” Lenny said.

  The meeting was over. They were walking up the stairs from the basement of the church. The sun was strong. She blinked in the light. It was the yellow of a hot autumn, a yellow that seemed amplified and redeemed. She glanced at her watch.

  “Don’t do that,” Lenny said. He was touching the small of her back with his hand. He was helping her walk.

  “What?”

  “Looking at that fucking watch all the time. Take it off,” Lenny said.

  “My watch?” She was looking at her wrist as if she had never seen it before.

  “Give it here, come on.” Lenny put his hand out. He motioned with his fingers. She placed her watch in the palm of his hand.

  “That’s a good girl,” Lenny was saying. “You don’t need it. You don’t have to know what time it is. You’re with me. Don’t you get it? You’re hungry, I feed you. You’re tired, I find a hotel. You’re in a structured environment now. You’re protected. I protect you. It doesn’t matter what time it is.” He put her watch in his pocket. “Forget it. I’ll buy you a new one. A better one. That was junk. I was embarrassed for you to wear junk like that. Want a Rolex?”

  “You can’t afford a Rolex,” she said. She felt intelligent. She looked into his face.

  “I got a drawerful,” Lenny told her. “I got all the colors. Red. Black. Gold.”

  “Where?” She studied his face. They were walking on a side street in Hollywood. The air was a pale blue, bleeding into the horizon, taking the sky.

  “In the bank,” Lenny said. “In the safety deposit with everything else. All the cash that isn’t buried.” Lenny smiled.

  “What else?” She put her hands on her hips.

  “Let’s go for a ride,” Lenny said.

  They were standing at the curb. They were two blocks from the church. A motorcycle was parked there. Lenny took out a key.

  “Get on,” he said.

  “I don’t want to get on a motorcycle.” She was afraid.

  “Yes, you do,” Lenny told her. “Sit down on it. Wrap your arms around me. Just lean into me. Nothing else. You’ll like it. You’ll be surprised. It’s a beautiful day. It looks like Hong Kong today. Want to go to the beach? Want lunch? I know a place in Malibu. You like seafood? Crab? Scampi? Watch the waves?” Lenny was doing something to the motorcycle. He looked at her face.

  “No,” she said.

  “How about Italian? I got a place near the Marina. Owner owes for ten kilos. We’ll get a good table. You like linguini?” Lenny sat down on the motorcycle.

  She shook her head, no.

  “Okay. You’re not hungry. You’re skinny. You should eat. Come on. We’ll go around the block. Get on. Once around the block and I’ll bring you back to the church.” Lenny reached out his hand through the warm white air.

  She looked at his hand and how the air seemed blue near his fingers. It’s simply a blue glaze, she was thinking. In Malibu, in Hilo, in the China Sea, forms of blue, confusion and remorse, a dancing dress, a daughter with a mouth precisely your own and it’s done, all of it.

  Somewhere it was carnival night in the blue wash of a village on the China Sea. On the river, boats passed with low-slung antique masts sliding silently to the blue of the ocean, to the inverted delta where the horizon concluded itself in a rapture of orchid and pewter. That’s what she was thinking when she took his hand.

  She did not see him for a week. She changed her meeting schedule. She went to women’s meetings in the Pacific Palisades and the Valley. She went to meetings she had never been to before. She trembled when she thought about him.

  She stopped her car at a red light. It occurred to her that it was an early-afternoon autumn in her thirty-eighth year. Then she found herself driving to the community center. The meeting was over. There was no one left on the street. Just one man, sitting alone on the front steps, smoking. Lenny looked up at her and smiled.

  “I was expecting you,” Lenny said. “I told you. You can’t get away from me.”

  She could feel his eyes on her face, the way when she lived with a painter, she had learned to feel lamplight on her skin. When she had learned to perceive light as an entity. She began to cry.

  “Don’t cry,” Lenny said, his voice soft. “I can’t stand you crying. Let’s make up. I’ll buy you dinner.”

  “I can’t.” She didn’t look at him.

  “Yeah. You can. I’ll take you someplace good. Spago? You like those little pizzas with the duck and shit? Lobster? You want the Palm? Then Rangoon Racket Club? Yeah. Don’t look surprised. I know the places. I made deals in all those places. What did you think?” He was lighting a cigarette and she could feel his eyes on her skin.

  She didn’t say anything. They were walking across a parking lot. The autumn made everything ache. Later, it would be worse. At dusk, with the subtle irritation of lamps.

  “Yeah. I know what you think. You think Lenny looks like he just crawled out from a rock. This is a disguise. Blue jeans, sneakers. I fit right in. I got a gang of angry Colombians on my ass. Forget it.” Lenny stared at her. “You got a boyfriend?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “What’s it to me? That’s sharp. I want to date you. I probably want to marry you. You got a boyfriend, I got to hurt him.” Lenny smiled.

  “I can’t believe you said that.” She put her hands on her hips.

  “You got a boyfriend? I’m going to cut off his arm and beat him with it. Here. Look at this.” He was bending over and removing something from his sock. He held it in the palm of his hand.

  “Know what this is?” Lenny asked.

  She shook her head, no.

  “It’s a knife, sweetheart,” Lenny said.

  She could see that now, even before he opened it. A pushbutton knife. Lenny was rea
ching behind to his back. He was pulling out something from behind his belt, under his shirt. It was another knife.

  “Want to see the guns?”

  She felt dizzy. They were standing near her car. It was early in December. The Santa Anas had been blowing. She felt that it had been exceptionally warm for months.

  “Don’t get in the car,” Lenny said. “I can’t take it when you leave. Stay near me. Just let me breathe the same air as you. I love you.”

  “You don’t even know me,” she said.

  “But you know me. You been dreaming me. I’m your ticket to the other side, remember?” Lenny had put his knives away. “Want to hear some more Nam stories? How we ran smack into Honolulu? You’ll like this. You like the dope stories. You want to get loaded?”

  She shook her head, no.

  “You kidding me? You don’t want to get high?” Lenny smiled.

  “I like being sober,” she said.

  “Sure,” Lenny said. “Let me know when that changes. One phone call. I got the best dope in the world.”

  They were standing in front of her car. The street beyond the parking lot seemed estranged, the air was tarnished. She hadn’t thought about drugs in months. Lenny was handing her something, thin circles of metal. She looked down at her hand. Two dimes seemed to glare in her palm.

  “For when you change your mind,” Lenny said. He was still smiling.

  They were sitting on the grass of a public park after a meeting. Lenny was wearing Bermuda shorts and a green T-shirt that said CANCÚN. They were sitting in a corner of the park with a stucco wall behind them.

  “It’s our anniversary,” Lenny told her. “We been in love four weeks.”

  “I’ve lost track of time,” she said. She didn’t have a watch anymore. The air felt humid, green, stalled. It was December in West Hollywood. She was thinking that the palms were livid with green death. They could be the palms of Vietnam.

  “I want to fuck you,” Lenny said. “Let’s go to your house.”

  She shook her head, no. She turned away from him. She began to stand up.

  “Okay. Okay. You got the kid. I understand that. Let’s go to a hotel. You want the Beverly Wilshire? I can’t go to the Beverly Hills Hotel. I got a problem there. What about the Four Seasons? You want to fuck in the Four Seasons?”

  “You need to get an AIDS test,” she said.

  “Why?” Lenny looked amused.

  “Because you’re a heroin addict. Because you’ve been in jail,” she began.

  “Who told you that?” Lenny sat up.

  “You told me,” she said. “Terminal Island. Chino. Folsom? Is it true?”

  “Uh-huh,” Lenny said. He lit a cigarette. “Five years in Folsom. Consecutive. Sixty months. I topped out.”

  She stared at him. She thought how easy it would be, to reach and take a cigarette. Just one, once.

  “Means I finished my whole sentence. No time off for good behavior. Lenny did the whole sixty.” He smiled. “I don’t need an AIDS test.”

  “You’re a heroin addict. You shoot cocaine. You’re crazy. Who knows what you do or who you do it with.” She was beginning to be afraid.

  “You think I’d give you a disease?” Lenny looked hurt.

  Silence. She was looking at Lenny’s legs, how white the exposed skin was. She was thinking that he brought his sick body to her, that he was bloated, enormous with pathology and bad history, with jails and demented resentments.

  “Listen. You got nothing to worry about. I don’t need a fucking AIDS test. Listen to me. Are you hearing me? You get that disease, I take care of you. I take you to Bangkok. I keep a place there, on the river. Best smack in the world. Fifty cents. I keep you loaded. You’ll never suffer. You start hurting, I’ll take you out. I’ll kill you myself. With my own hands. I promise,” Lenny said.

  Silence. She was thinking that he must be drawn to her vast emptiness, could he sense that she was aching and hot and always listening? There is always a garish carnival across the boulevard. We are born, we eat and sleep, conspire and mourn, a birth, a betrayal, an excursion to the harbor, and it’s done. All of it, done.

  “Come here.” Lenny extended his arm. “Come here. You’re like a child. Don’t be afraid. I want to give you something.”

  She moved her body closer to his. There are blue enormities, she was thinking, horizons and boulevards. Somewhere, there are blue rocks and they burn.

  “Close your eyes,” Lenny said. “Open your mouth.”

  She closed her eyes. She opened her mouth. There was something pressing against her lip. Perhaps it was a flower.

  “Close your mouth and breathe,” Lenny said.

  It was a cigarette. She felt the smoke in her lungs. It had been six months since she smoked. Her hand began to tremble.

  “There,” Lenny was saying. “You need to smoke. I can tell. It’s okay. You can’t give up everything at once. Here. Share it. Give me a hit.”

  They smoked quietly. They passed the cigarette back and forth. She was thinking that she was like a sacked capital. Nothing worked in her plazas. The palm trees were on fire. The air was smoky and blue. No one seemed to notice.

  “Sit on my lap. Come on. Sit down. Closer. On my lap,” Lenny was saying. “Good. Yeah. Good. I’m not going to bite you. I love you. Want to get married? Want to have a baby? Closer. Let me kiss you. You don’t do anything. Let me do it. Now your arms. Yeah. Around my neck. Tighter. Tighter. You worried? You got nothing to worry about. You get sick, I keep you whacked on smack. Then I kill you. So why are you worried? Closer. Yeah. Want to hear about R and R in Bangkok? Want to hear about what you get for a hundred bucks on the river? You’ll like this. Lean right up against me. Yeah. Close your eyes.”

  “Look. It’s hot. You want to swim. You like that? Swimming? You know how to swim?” Lenny looked at her. “Yeah? Let’s go. I got a place in Bel Air.”

  “You have a place in Bel Air?” she asked. It was after the meeting. It was the week before Christmas. It was early afternoon.

  “Guy I used to know. I did a little work for him. I introduced him to his wife. He owes me some money. He gave me the keys.” Lenny reached in his pocket. He was wearing a white-and-yellow warm-up suit. He produced a key ring. It hung in the hot air between them. “It’s got everything there. Food. Booze. Dope. Pool. Tennis court. Computer games. You like that? Pac Man?”

  She didn’t say anything. She felt she couldn’t move. She lit a cigarette. She was buying two packages at a time again. She would be buying cartons soon.

  “Look. We’ll go for a drive. I’ll tell you some more war stories. Come on. I got a nice car today. I got a brand-new red Ferrari. Want to see it? Just take a look. One look. It’s at the curb. Give me your hand.” Lenny reached out for her hand.

  She could remember being a child. It was a child’s game in a child’s afternoon, before time or distance were factors. When you were told you couldn’t move or couldn’t see. And for those moments you are paralyzed or blind. You freeze in place. You don’t move. You feel that you have been there for years. It does not occur to you that you can move. It does not occur to you that you can break the rules. The world is a collection of absolutes and spells. You know words have a power. You are entranced. The world is a soft blue.

  “There. See. I’m not crazy. A red Ferrari. A hundred forty grand. Get in. We’ll go around the block. Sit down. Nice interior, huh? Nice stereo. But I got no fucking tapes. Go to the record store with me? You pick out the tapes, okay? Then we’ll go to Bel Air. Swim a little. Watch the sunset. Listen to some music. Want to dance? I love to dance. You can’t get a disease doing that, right?” Lenny was holding the car door open for her.

  She sat down. The ground seemed enormous. It seemed to leap up at her face.

  “Yeah. I’m a good driver. Lean back. Relax. I used to drive for a living,” Lenny told her.

  “What did you drive? A bus?” She smiled.

  “A bus? That’s sharp. You’re one of those sharp little
Jewish girls from Beverly Hills with a cocaine problem. Yeah. I know what you’re about. All of you. I drove some cars on a few jobs. Couple of jewelry stores, a few banks. Now I fly,” Lenny said.

  Lenny turned the car onto Sunset Boulevard. In the gardens of the houses behind the gates, everything was in bloom. Patches of color slid past so fast she thought they might be hallucinations. Azaleas and camellias and hibiscus. The green seemed sullen and half asleep. Or perhaps it was opiated, dazed, exhausted from pleasure.

  “You fly?” she repeated.

  “Planes. You like planes? I’ll take you up. I got a plane. Company plane,” Lenny told her. “It’s in Arizona.”

  “You’re a pilot?” She put out her cigarette and immediately lit another.

  “I fly planes for money. Want to fly? I’m going next week. Every second Tuesday. Want to come?” Lenny looked at her.

  “Maybe,” she said. They had turned on a street north of Sunset. They were winding up a hill. The street was narrow. The bougainvillea was a kind of net near her face. The air smelled of petals and heat.

  “Yeah. You’ll come with me. I’ll show you what I do. I fly over a stretch of desert looks like the moon. There’s a small manufacturing business down there. Camouflaged. You’d never see it. I drop some boxes off. I pick some boxes up. Three hours’ work. Fifteen grand,” Lenny said. “Know what I’m talking about?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah. You don’t want to know anything about this. Distribution,” Lenny said. “That’s federal.”

  “You do that twice a month?” she asked. They were above Sunset Boulevard. The bougainvillea was a magenta web. There were sounds of birds and insects. They were winding through pine trees. “That’s 30,000 dollars a month.”

  “That’s nothing. The real money’s the Bogotá run,” Lenny said. “Mountains leap up out of the ground, out of nowhere. The Bogotá run drove me crazy. Took me a month to come down. Then the Colombians got mad. You know what I’m talking about?”