A Man Named Doll

by Jonathan Ames

“Sorry,” I said. But I didn’t mean it. I had done it on purpose. For when the detectives showed up, I wanted to plant the seed with these two that I was confused and in pain, and I wanted them to report that to their superiors.

  Then if the detectives, who were going to grill me a lot harder than Cole and Randle had, perceived something off in me, I wanted them to think that maybe it was the pills and shock and not the fact that my story was full of holes and lies. It was more of my crazy logic: get fucked up to cover up.

  And I looked at Lou in the other room, dead on the couch. If I had just said yes when he came to my office, maybe none of this would have happened. Had he been selling the diamond to raise money to buy a kidney from someone else? And where did he get the diamond?

  “If you don’t need anything more right now, I’ll be upstairs,” I said to the two cops. “I got to lie down a second.”

  Randle said: “The detectives will be here in less than ten minutes. They’re going to want to hear everything again.”

  “I know,” I said, and I went upstairs and lay on my bed, and George lay next to me and deposited on my chest, as an offering, a toy, a furry, saliva-drenched skunk, and I said, “Thank you, Georgie-boy,” and I dropped it off the side of the bed in such a way that he wouldn’t notice, and he put his head on my chest with a sigh, and I felt like he wanted to say: “You shouldn’t have lied to the police. You’re acting crazy. You’re high on Dilaudid and the marijuana you ate.”

  So then I started thinking that George was right: I was acting crazy and this had gone far enough. When the detectives arrived I had better come totally clean: the diamond, Dodgers Hat, 2803 Belden, and the two dead blondes.

  That’s what I’m gonna do, I thought. It’s the right thing to do. Tell them everything.

  Then I fell asleep, just passed out completely, and when I woke up, Thode and Mullen were standing above me. Thode still had purple lips and Mullen was still fat. They were the homicide detectives assigned to this murder—Hollywood is a small town, after all—and Thode was leering at me.

  So I stuck to my story.

  The one filled with lies.

  5.

  They didn’t like it and they still didn’t like me.

  “He shows up here, says nothing, and just dies?” said Thode, and he blinked twice. Twitchy.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  We were still in my bedroom. I was sitting up now, my feet on the floor, and Mullen had sat his big, wide self on the corner of my bed. Thode was in the doorway, two feet away.

  I didn’t like Mullen touching my comforter with his pants, being anywhere near my bed, and to make things worse George was in his lap, showing no discretion.

  “Can we go downstairs?” I said. I wanted to get George off of him.

  “Too noisy,” said Mullen. “Let’s keep chatting here. You got a nice dog. His ears are like velvet. I had a dog but he died.”

  “Don’t say that. George, come here,” I demanded. But he just looked at me. He liked the big man. Mullen was probably giving off a lot of good yeasty odors.

  Thode said: “So Shelton makes all that effort, climbs your fucking stairs with a bullet having perforated his gut, and then tells you nothing?”

  “That’s right. Nothing.”

  “Why does he come to you?”

  “I don’t know. We were close. He was a cop, you know.”

  “Good. You were close,” said Mullen, and his thick fingers were in George’s fur, making love to him. “So any idea who might want Shelton—might want your friend—dead?”

  “No idea,” I said. “George, come here.”

  “Leave the dog alone,” said Mullen. “He’s content.”

  Thode said: “Okay, let’s review. Shelton gets here a little after two. Your phone has died and you plug it in and try to stop his bleeding.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And he says nothing, but then dies, like, two minutes later.”

  “Right.”

  “And you don’t call for almost an hour.”

  “I was just sitting with him. He was my friend for twenty-five years. I don’t know…I lost track of time. I’m on these pills. I’m a little screwed up. I’m not right.”

  Mullen looked at me and smiled. “That’s the first honest thing you’ve said.”

  I didn’t have a response to that, and then Thode started in on me again: “You can’t think of anybody who would want to take Shelton out? Somebody he owes money to? Somebody with an old beef?”

  “I’m telling you, he didn’t have enemies.”

  “So why does he come to you? Why doesn’t he drive to a hospital? Are you his best friend?”

  “I’m a good friend. But it’s not like we were writing love letters every week.”

  “What kind of guy was he?” asked Mullen.

  “Stand-up. Loyal. Smoked too much.”

  “How’d he keep himself occupied?” Thode asked. “He was retired, and his address is a motel.” He produced Lou’s driver’s license, looked at it: “Mirage Suites, in North Hollywood. What’s that about?”

  “He worked the desk there at night. He liked working a desk. It’s what he did at the Seventy-Seventh. It’s how we met.”

  “Jeez, a real success story like you. A motel clerk.”

  “Show some respect,” I said.

  Then Thode, twitch-blinking, looked at his phone, read something. Then he said:

  “They sent his file over from the station. Does look like he was a good cop. Put in thirty years. Two citations for bravery. A Medal of Valor in ’94 for taking a bullet during a riot”—that would be the bullet he took for me, but I didn’t say anything—“and a Police Star in ’75, for breaking up a diamond heist downtown and saving his partner, who got shot. Not bad.”

  Lou had never mentioned anything about this diamond heist and I got a chill down my spine and thought about the bloodstained blue square in my freezer. Then my face must have given something away because Mullen jumped on me:

  “What are you thinking? You look scared all of a sudden.”

  “Not thinking anything except my friend is dead.”

  But I was thinking that Lou had grabbed a diamond back in 1975 and had been sitting on it for forty-four years. Then, trying to sell the diamond, he’d met with the wrong people. At least four wrong people. The two blondes. And the two in the car: Dodgers Hat and the one with the gray hair.

  “Fucking work with us,” said Mullen. “You know the guy. He must have been into something. Drugs? Whores? Gambling?”

  “Nothing. He had one vice: cigarettes.”

  6.

  And it went on like that for a while, the two of them asking me the same questions in different ways, and then they cuffed me—just to be tough—and drove me to Hollywood station. They said the commander wanted to talk to me. In the car, from the front seat, Mullen half joked: “You been keeping us busy this week. A one-man shit show. Got any other homicides you want to tell us about?”

  He didn’t know how close to the truth he was, and I said: “I got a lead on the Lindbergh baby.”

  “Who’s that?” said Thode.

  “Never mind,” I said, and we lapsed into silence. I knew they didn’t think I had killed Lou or anything like that, but Mullen, especially, could tell I was holding out. He was a good reader of people. His eyes in his big round head were shrewd, and he was one of those types who understood others but not himself. And I’m the same way. I’m not fat, but I have other blind spots.

  When we got to the station, they put me in a small, windowless interrogation room and told me to wait. The room was bare and bleak and only had two chairs, one of which I was sitting on. There wasn’t even a table.

  But so far, so good, I thought. They were just bullying me and had nothing.

  Though if they were to interview my neighbors in the morning, I might be in trouble. Somebody could have peeked out and seen me leave and then come back in the Maverick.

  But there had been no lights on in an
y of my neighbors’ houses, and cars, at all hours, wander up Glen Alder hoping to find a parking spot but almost never do, and then they make a U-turn in the cul-de-sac. So sounds of cars coming and going wouldn’t be paid much attention to, wouldn’t be remembered.

  Of course, one of my neighbors could have had insomnia and been staring out the window, but…well, I was on the Dilaudid and feeling tough and sort of dreamy. Even the handcuffs weren’t bothering me.

  Then a big man came into the room. One of the biggest I’ve ever seen, and he closed the door behind him. He was at least six nine, well over 300 pounds, and all of it was hardened with age like a thick tree.

  He was in his early sixties—his hair was a grizzled white and cut to the nub like a Marine’s. He looked familiar somehow, but I couldn’t place him. Which troubled me. You couldn’t forget a specimen like this. His chin was huge and jutting, and his large, porous nose, veined by booze, looked like something that sucks along the bottom of an aquarium. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and his old but powerful arms were covered in coarse red hair, like wire.

  Where do I know him?

  He sidled over to me and stood in front of me. His eyes were close-set and dilated. All iris, no pupil. Black circles.

  “You’re Hank Doll?” he said. He had a deep voice. Was used to being listened to, obeyed.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You work with the station commander?”

  His answer was a large gun that suddenly blossomed in his hand.

  A .357 Magnum with a hard wooden handle.

  It had been tucked into the back of his pants, and he shifted the weapon in his hand and took hold of the barrel.

  “You’re a fucking bastard,” he said.

  Then he raised the gun into the air above my head, and there was enough time for me to think, Oh, shit.

  Then he swung the handle down at my face, rotating his hips and putting all his weight into it, like he was swinging a baseball bat, and he aimed the gun handle right for the center of my bandage, and it exploded my wound, and I went flying off the chair and onto the floor.

  I was seeing colors and lightning flashes, and I wiggled and crawled like a bug, and then I looked up and he was looming over me, a cruel god, and now I knew why he was familiar. In the father you could see the son. It was Bill Lusk. Carl Lusk’s dad.

  “I’m sorry about your son,” I started to say, but that only seemed to make him more angry. He was wearing heavy black shoes and he kicked me in the head, and I saw what looked like a Ferris wheel made of blood.

  Then I went to sleep, but did not dream.

  7.

  Thode and Mullen actually seemed to feel a little bad for me.

  They had set me up with Lusk—the commander had no interest in seeing me; that had been a bullshit story—but they didn’t know Lusk would fuck me up as much as he did. So they drove me themselves to the Presbyterian and escorted me into the emergency room, flashed their badges, and got me seen right away.

  I had told them in the car, “Don’t worry—I’m not going to say or do anything,” and they seemed to believe me, and they were right to. I’d been a cop once. I wasn’t going to sue the LAPD. I couldn’t. No matter what. It was a pride thing.

  And I didn’t take it personally what Lusk had done. He was sick and had raised a son that was sick. His anger was with himself, but he took it out on me. Whatever he had done to his kid years ago, making him weak in the face of adversity, had loaded my gun with that bullet. A bullet that had been looking for him.

  But still, I was the one who pulled the trigger. That was my sin.

  So. Fine. Hit me with your gun. Kick me in the head. I’ll take it. There’s also a blonde I threw off a balcony that I need to be punished for.

  Thode and Mullen left me on my hospital bed—this was getting to be like déjà vu—and Mullen said, in parting: “We still gotta talk about Shelton. You’re acting cagey and I don’t know why. So don’t think we’re done with this.”

  “Okay, sounds good,” I said. “I love talking with you two.” I was playing the tough guy again, and then the nurses got them out of there.

  I only had a mild concussion, which was lucky, and they stitched my face back up and put a fresh bandage on me; they also redressed my arm.

  At 6:45 a.m., I left the hospital, even though I wasn’t supposed to.

  I signed an “against medical advice” waiver, called a Yellow Cab from a pay phone, and went to the spa. I retrieved my car and stopped at the 101 Coffee Shop for scrambled eggs and four cups of coffee. Then I went home: everything was still in the hidden compartment and the freezer.

  Lou’s blood was on the couch, but he was gone. I didn’t feel him in the house anymore.

  I fed George and took him for a quick walk.

  Then I gave myself a sponge bath, so as not to wet my bandages, got dressed, and headed back out. With George. I didn’t want to leave him alone in the house. Dodgers Hat knew where I lived.

  I had Lou’s gun and diamond and everything else I had grabbed last night.

  I got in my Caprice and glanced in the rearview mirror at my face with its new bandage. I put on dark glasses and looked like the invisible man.

  But at least you couldn’t see the goose egg hidden in my scalp from where Lusk Sr. had kicked me. My hair covered it up and it felt pulpy, like a piece of bad fruit, and my whole head pounded and I dry-swallowed a Dilaudid. I had a lot of ground to cover and wasn’t going to let a concussion slow me down.

  But what did I think I was going to do? Make things right? Lou was already dead. The time for making things right had passed. There was really only one thing to do now: get to them before they got to me.

  8.

  I had two things to work with: the house on Belden and the diamond.

  I started with the house.

  It was clear and cool out, and I parked the car where I had left it the night before and walked back toward 2803 with George, which was nice cover: a man walking his dog.

  In the sunlight, my shoes on the pavement sounded less ominous, and the butterflies were out again, flying drunkenly, impossibly. They filled the air like locusts turned silly.

  We went past 2803—there was no police tape or any activity—and we went a little ways down the hill and then doubled back.

  The isolation of the house, alone on the edge of the S curve, was more apparent in the daylight. On the side of the road, just before the house, there was an old metal railing. It was meant to keep cars from plummeting over the edge. Since it was a long way down. For a car. Or a body.

  We walked past the driveway again and then ducked through the hedges to the front door. The Ken Maurais FOR SALE sign still leaned against the house, but the door was locked. I took out my doohickey, worked the lock, got Lou’s gun in my hand, and went inside.

  Blondie was gone and there was no blood on the floor. George and I went out to the balcony and looked down. The second blonde was gone, too. Dodgers Hat and the vulture-faced man driving the car—or someone else altogether—had been busy cleaning up. And the cops had been kept out of it.

  I looked out over the city. The wind was blowing right, and with all the rain lately you could see clear through to the port of Los Angeles, thirty miles away. You could see the cranes and the tanker ships and the ocean, which was glinting like a strip of silver.

  George and I got out of the house and nobody saw us. No cars passed.

  Back in the Caprice, I drove over to a side street in Lake Hollywood and parked. It was 8:45. I called a friend, a realtor named Rick Alvarez, who’s in his early fifties. A few years ago, Rick’s elderly father had bought a bogus coin from a scam artist for fifty thousand cash and the cops didn’t do anything about it.

  So Dr. Schine sent Rick and his father to me.

  It took me a little while, but I found the scam artist in San Diego, my hometown, and I was able to squeeze thirty-eight thousand out of him. The rest had been spent.

  Rick was beyond grateful that I had recovered as much as I ha
d, and we’ve stayed friends since. He’s one of those guys who, once you do them a good deed, they’re always there for you, and as a licensed realtor he has access to a lot of databases, which can be very useful to a private investigator. He’s also what I call a good googler. Some people have a knack for it. Not me.

  So more than once since I took care of things down in San Diego—though I don’t abuse the privilege—I’ve asked Rick for his help, which he doesn’t mind at all. The way he’s constructed he acts like he’s in debt to me forever, but he also finds the work exciting. Realtors, I’ve observed, are natural gossips and snoops, and so detective work comes easy to them.

  He picked up the phone right away, which is another realtor trait: always available, always working. “Hank,” he said. “It’s been forever, buddy. I’ve missed you.”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s been a while.” Which was true—with my business having slowed down, it had been a long time since I called him.

  “Hey, I saw the paper,” he said. “You okay?”

  “Yeah…I wish it hadn’t played out the way it did.”

  “I’m sorry. Anything I can do? You know I’m here for you.”

  Rick talks fast and moves fast. He’s a neat little dark man, built like a bullfighter.

  “It’s not related to what you saw in the paper, but I need some information on an address: 2803 Belden, in Beachwood Canyon. Can you find out for me who owns it? I think it’s for sale or was for sale. Realtor is Ken Maurais.”

  “Sure, buddy, I got it—2803 Belden. Maurais—sounds familiar. Listen, I gotta meet somebody—a client—in, like, a minute for a coffee, but then I’ll get on it and get back to you.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “Talk to you.”

  We hung up, and George and I got out of the car. It was 8:50, and at nine was my analysis. The side street I had parked on was in front of Dr. Lavich’s house. Her office used to be the garage but got renovated forty-plus years ago. She’s in her early eighties, been a Freudian analyst a long time.

  There’s a gate by the side of the office and a little outside waiting area with a bench. I flipped the switch on the wall that lets her know you’re out there, and George and I sat on the bench to wait.