Boulevard

by Bill Guttentag

  It was really getting cold now. Casey pulled her jacket zipper all the way to the top, making a high collar of soft leather where she could hide her face up to her nose. The green chairs—that’s what she needed. She found Dragon, who was sitting by herself on the wall, freezing too. Casey took her along. She should know about Starbucks on Santa Monica and its great green chairs. Paul introduced her to it. Her breath danced in front of her face, and all she could think about was Paul.

  37

  A month earlier—which she’d give anything to return to—Paul left Casey in Joey’s and went out to the guy in the blue Mercedes. She sat by herself in the booth finishing his fries. He was so sweet to give her the jacket—actually, he was so sweet, period. Then something strange happened—she started getting mad at Paul. Every night, he was doing the same stupid thing, going out there and risking his life. Doing dates off Santa Monica without protection?—because that’s the way most of the johns made you do it—that was a one-way ticket. She also did the dating game, and she was stupid too, but at least she recognized it. Now, she was trying to make things better. She came up with a place for them to stay—the Fountain squat. It wasn’t paradise, but they wouldn’t have to freeze their asses off on Wonderland either, and they could stop doing the dates. Maybe even get some sort of real jobs.

  She stayed at Joey’s for as long as she could get away with it, then went to hang out at the wall. The more time passed, the madder she got. Paul was acting like a jerk. If he was so smart, how come he couldn’t see that what he was doing was crazy? When he came back, she was going to tell him just how stupid he was.

  Two hours later, maybe more, Casey looked up to see Paul coming towards the wall. She was still mad. When he got close, he broke into jog, sailed over, and kissed her forehead.

  “Let’s go!”

  “Go? Where?” she said.

  “Only the best Starbucks on the planet.”

  “Come on.” He took her hand and started pulling her up from the wall. She stayed put. But he just pulled harder. He smiled at her. He had the sweetest, greatest smile on earth. And she couldn’t be mad anymore. She let herself go, and landed hard, but nice against his chest. He wrapped his arms tightly around her and she wished she could put that feeling in a bottle. Later, when she thought about it, she was never sure what love meant—whatever it was, she wasn’t given a ton of it—but at that instant, when she was so happy to be held close in Paul’s arms, Casey realized this must be what love means—there’s one person whose presence makes your whole life worth living. He was the air in her lungs, and all she wanted to do was be with him.

  He took her down to the Starbucks. They had biscotti with chocolate on one side of them, hot chocolates and croissants. It was heaven—they called it Maui. Paul had lots of money in his pocket. The date was no hassle. All from Mr. Mercedes.

  “He’s a pimp?” Casey asked.

  “Sorta. He’s plugged in. Not some jizbag who has you do truckers by the freeway. Last night I was in Beverly Hills. Two hundred and fifty.”

  “No way?”

  “Oh yeah. Two-five-zero. And there’s more coming. He gave me a pager so I don’t miss any. Got one tonight. You wanna come?”

  “And do what?”

  “Just hang while I do the guy. Then we can go someplace nice.”

  The car was a Beemer, given to him for the night by the guy sending him out. Casey couldn’t believe it. Here was Paul, a street hustler used to sitting on a newspaper box with his shirt open on Santa Monica, and now he’s driving a Beemer? The radio played a new, cool, version of Chapel of Love. The car was kind of a chapel of love: speeding up the Strip, radio blasting, and heat cranking from the vents—a beautiful unending stream of flowing hot air. Sunset was a lot better when you were seeing it from inside a Beemer. Casey was loving it all. But suddenly, she felt bad—Paul was doing exactly what she said she wouldn’t do again. How could it be good enough for him, but not for her?

  “You sure you wanna do this?” she said.

  “Sure I wanna be cruising LA in this ride, about to make another two-fifty? You bet.”

  “But—”

  “Casey. I’m not gonna be some kinda creepy old hustler—losing my hair, and giving blowjobs behind Krispy Kreme. I keep doing this, we can get a place. Get the fuck off the streets. Do something real. This thing dropped out of the sky, and no way I’m gonna let it go.”

  Casey was in the car by herself. The street was lined with large trees with brown leaves. Casey thought it was one of those strange LA things—this was the middle of winter, but the trees still hadn’t lost their leaves. Everything—even nature—was twisted here. She found a lever under her seat and gave it a pull, which sent the seat almost flat. Paul had told her not to run the engine, so she wasn’t bathed in the great heat, but slipping into the soft leather, the tinted windows sealing out the city, still felt good. The street was quiet, no cars were moving. She knew they were in Beverly Hills, but beyond that she didn’t know where exactly they were. Paul was in a huge, super modern house just up the driveway ahead. Casey shut her eyes—then, she thought she heard a noise. She looked around. Nothing. Just a deserted street lined with parked cars. Casey looked up at the house. Inside, through a tall, very narrow glass window, she could see Paul sitting on a couch. Some old jerk, who was maybe sixty, walked over to him. Paul was laughing at something the guy was saying. Paul was good—the john was happy, but she knew all Paul was thinking was, how fast he could get it over with and break with the bucks. She heard the same noise again. Then she saw it. Up the street, on the far side of the driveway, was a parked Jag. There was a guy inside, hanging out with the engine off, like she was. The noise was the sound of its window sliding partially down. Casey looked closer at the Jag, but couldn’t make out the guy inside. She saw a glimmer of something and looked closer. Suddenly she got worried. Glimmer—silent guy in a car. He had a gun! What was going on? Casey lunged for the door handle—but stopped. It wasn’t a gun. It was a camera lens. The camera pushed a tiny bit outside the window and clicked away at Paul and the john inside the house. Strange. Casey curled up on the seat and tried to sleep. Everything was just too fucking strange.

  The car door swung open. Casey was asleep, a deep good sleep. She looked up to see Paul leaning over her. The cold came in with him, and she shivered a little.

  “So pretty when you sleep.”

  She curled up tight against the cold, not wanting to wake up.

  “Some of us get to work, some of us get to sleep,” Paul said as he slipped inside.

  “And some of us get to be in photo shoots as we work.”

  “So?”

  “You knew there was a guy taking pictures of you?”

  “For what they’re paying me, they can shoot 24-7.”

  He tossed Casey a slim pile of folded bills. She unfolded them—three crisp hundreds.

  “One date?”

  “Oh yeah! We’re moving into a whole other zone here.”

  Casey rolled the bills around her finger. This was one date? It was more money than she had ever held.

  “What do you wanna do?” he said. “We’re rich—anything you want.”

  “Anything?”

  38

  The Beemer limped around in a big crooked circle on the roof level of an empty parking lot next to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. Suddenly, the car lurched forward, then, a second later, screeched to a halt. Casey was at the wheel, smiling as she drove.

  “Shit,” she said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Paul said, “just gently give it the gas—nice and even.”

  She did, and the car took another clumsy leap forward.

  “Shit! But I’m gonna get it. I’m gonna get it!”

  “You’re getting it.” But an instant later, he yelled—”Watch out!!”

  Seconds from them—was a cinderblock wall. Casey snapped her head towards it in a blind panic—and an inch before impact—she swerved hard to the left, just clearing it.
>
  “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I know I’m gonna get it.”

  The sky was beginning to lighten. Tall aluminum lights on the roof cast wide orange beams, revealing air heavy with morning mist. The Beemer cruised all over the lot, turning left, then deftly going right, coming to stop, and then going in a smooth circle which took Casey and Paul by the railing at the edge of the roof, where they could the glistening lights of the Santa Monica Pier and the placid ocean. Casey began to laugh—”I’m getting it.”

  “You got it!”

  “I got it!”

  The car made another graceful circle and Casey kept on laughing.

  She and Paul sipped sweet coffees as they sat in white plastic chairs at Perry’s, next to the bike path along the beach. The day’s first rollerbladers and bikers were gliding past them. A tall surfer kid with a German accent was wiping the morning moisture off the chairs, as the smell of baking muffins floated over the tables. The coffee cup felt warm in Casey’s hands. The beach was empty and pretty, and for the first time in a long time, everything was peaceful and nice.

  Paul lifted his cup to toast. “To the judge.”

  They clicked coffee cups.

  “He was a judge?”

  “Think so. Had all these plaques with the thing they bang down with …”

  “A gavel?”

  “Right, Gavels. Mounted on them.”

  “Messed up,” Casey said.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. A judge? It’s sorta respectable.”

  “Yeah, right. Everyone’s respectable till they want to get sucked off. But, yo, he gets the same thing as I give everyone else, only he pays ten times more. Gimme a judge—any day.”

  39

  Jimmy

  Charles told Jimmy to go home. Only Jimmy didn’t want to go home. Too much was swirling around his head and he knew he’d never sleep. He pushed open the door to the stationhouse lot and saw Erin leaning against her white Jeep, having a smoke.

  “You weren’t waiting for me?” he said.

  “Yeah. I was … sorry about today.”

  “Don’t be. It’s the game. And we got some stuff that’ll help.”

  “It work out with the brass?” she said.

  “Shit rolls downhill.”

  “It’s not like we’re not trying.”

  “It’s okay. You going home?” As soon as he said it, Jimmy thought he sounded like an idiot. Where else was she going. A strip club? Run an ironman?

  “I guess. You?”’

  He looked at her and thought, why not ask her? … Why not—because he’d feel like an asshole if she said no.

  Erin took out her keys and said, “Good night.”

  The key slipped into the Jeep door.

  “Hey, you want to … to go eat or something?” Jimmy said.

  “Sure. That’d be great.”

  The hostess at the Peking was supposed to be taking them to the table, but for now she couldn’t be bothered. She’d get to them right after the girl on the TV game show blew the question that could give her fifty G’s. The question keeping them from Jimmy’s favorite booth was “what is a sphygmomanometer used for?” Jimmy thought, not in a million years would he get that one—questions like this is how they kept the money out of the contestants’ poor hands, and in the hands of the rich producers. While the girl on TV was shaking her head, Erin turned to Jimmy and said. “It’s the cuff and gauge that measures blood pressure.”

  A second later, the buzzer sounded. The contestant couldn’t even make a guess and the smarmy host, who acted like he knew the answer all along, and whom Jimmy figured without his cheat sheet, was as clueless as the contestant, said, “I’m sorry, Heidi, a sphygmomanometer is the device that measures blood pressure.”

  Jimmy looked at Erin.

  “Let’s get a drink,” she said. “I’ll tell you.”

  The hostess put them in Jimmy’s booth. Same tear in the leather, the gaffer’s tape covering it, a bit more frayed. But this booth at the Peking was where Jimmy most wanted to be. Away from the stationhouse, away from all the pressure and the mayor’s prick buddy. Away from the street kids and the horrors they see and the evil they do. Away from the assholes who specialize in fucking over the kids. Away from the heartache of Rancher. Just away. And being alone with Erin. She took a sip of red wine. It left a dark maroon film on her lips and when the tiniest part of her tongue slipped through to trap a wayward drop and bring it home, Jimmy felt himself pull in a short, deep breath.

  “My dad was a cop.” Erin said. “Old school. He had the mustache all the guys—well not you—but most cops have. He was big—six-three—and since he was a boy, always wanted to be a cop. He was LAPD for thirty years. In the first twenty-five, he pulled his gun out of his holster, like he was ready to use it, maybe three times. He fired it once. Missed the guy. I think he was secretly happy he did. But things started to change. In his last five years on the force, all of a sudden, he’s got his gun out all the time.”

  “And compared to what the crowd on the streets have, his gun’s nothing.”

  “Sure. My dad would always say, they got us out-gunned and out-manned, and nobody gives a damn. But it still looked pretty exciting to me, and when I was a senior in high school, and told him I wanted to go onto the force, he was incredibly unhappy about it. He couldn’t bad-mouth it entirely—after all, it was his life—how he paid for my sisters, my mom, and me to live. But at the same time, the idea of his little girl becoming a cop was more than he could bear.”

  “What did he want you do?”

  “Be a nurse. What else?”

  “Ahh. Starting to make sense. Were you interested?”

  “Actually, I was. And since I’m still the dutiful daughter, I go to Northridge and major in nursing. It’s not so bad. But without telling my dad, I do a double major. And the other one’s in criminology.”

  “Bad girl.”

  “Very,” she said with a smile.

  “What he say when he found out?”

  “I didn’t tell him till I was about to graduate. By then I had already applied to the academy. I mean, I hadn’t really lied to him. I did the whole nursing thing—graduated with honors in it. I just did criminology too. He was really torn. There was a side of him that was proud his girl wanted to be like him, but he was also scared for me, that every night I would be facing down the kind of stuff that in his time, he hardly ever had to deal with.”

  “He was right in a way.”

  “He was more than right. When I was doing my nursing training in the Cedars emergency room, I saw lots of terrible things. But at least there was some time between the shooting and when we saw the vic. The blood wasn’t still coming out of a hole in his head and you see pieces of his skull on the ground. And by the time they got to us, it was all about the treatment. Guy comes into the ER, the job of the team is to try to save him. That’s it. It wasn’t, who’s the shooter? Oh God, there’s a little girl who watched her mother get shot? But I didn’t listen, and went straight to the academy.”

  “Sorry you did?”

  “Not now.”

  Jimmy drove them down the Boulevard, back towards the stationhouse. When they hit La Brea, Jimmy passed a weird sculpture he always liked—four life-sized silver girls in a circle. Who knew what the hell it meant? Probably something to do with actresses and the movies, but the girls were hot enough, and it definitely beat looking at generals on horses. He jerked the car to a stop. Inside the circle of silver girls, sitting on the feet of one of the statues, was Mary. She was eating chips from a bag. As soon as she saw Jimmy, she got up and started drifting away.

  “Mary,” Jimmy called.

  She looked back at Jimmy and walked faster down the Boulevard. Jimmy followed, piloting the car slowly after her.

  “Mary.” She didn’t answer and kept on going.

  He turned to Erin, “This’ll only take a minute. Sorry.”

  Jimmy pulled the car over and jogged down the sidewalk after Mary.

&n
bsp; “Haven’t seen you around,” Jimmy said.

  “Haven’t seen you.”

  “How you doing?”

  She shrugged.

  “Rancher around?” Jimmy said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where?”

  “Around,” Mary said. “You know.”

  “I don’t know. Where around?”

  “Around.”

  “He okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s he doing? Where are you staying?”

  “He’s okay. I told you.”

  Jimmy looked at her. A young, pretty girl—and completely cooked on crack. His one thin connection to Rancher.

  “Tell him to find me, alright?”

  “That’s up to him.”

  “I know it’s up to him. But tell him. Please—”

  “How ’bout some money?”

  “For food?”

  “Yeah. Sure. And a room. It was freezing last night, you know.”

  “No drugs.”

  Mary shook her head.

  What were the chances? But he reached into his wallet and emptied it. Sixty or seventy bucks.

  “Now, what are you going to tell him?”

  “I’m gonna tell him to call his daddy.”

  “Look,” Jimmy said, “just tell him I wanna talk. That’s all.”

  Mary started to walk away. Jimmy called after her, “And tell him he can come home, both of you, if you want. The door’s always open.”

  “Sure.”

  Then she stopped and turned around.

  “Wanna know something?” she said. “You’re gonna be a grandpa.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. That’s right. Me and Rancher, we’re having a baby.”

  “What?”

  She smiled and headed for the corner.

  “Wait—”

  Jimmy ran after her. “Mary—stop.”