Hollywood Moon

FOURTEEN

HOLLYWOOD NATE WAS HAVING women troubles, and by now Dana Vaughn was growing accustomed to her role as adviser. The latest problem involved a secretary of a casting agent who, Nate was “almost positive,” might cast him in a made-for-cable pilot for a cop show being shot on a soundstage in the San Fernando Valley.

Dana, who was driving, interrupted him to say, “Nate, the Valley is the porn capital of the universe. Have you checked out this production company?”

“This is a legit indie production,” Nate said. “They’re making it on a shoestring, but they’re trying to hire a good features director.”

“Whadda they want you to do?”

“They need a cop technical adviser, but the secretary told me I’m being considered for a scene that runs for five script pages. That’s a significant part.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“Her name’s Sharon. She’s okay, but way alpha. My ex-wife was a man-eater too, and I just wanna run the other way when I meet another one like that.”

“So what?” Dana said. “You’re trying to get a job, not trying to get laid. Or am I wrong about that part?”

“No, you’re right, but she has other ideas.”

Dana stopped at Melrose and La Brea in the middle of a rush-hour traffic snarl, with people driving home from work in all directions, and she said, “Are you telling me that Hollywood Nate, the most talked-about male in the women’s locker room except for George Clooney, isn’t willing to take one for his acting career?”

“I must be getting old,” he said. “These days I have to feel something for the women I sleep with.”

When the light changed, Dana proceeded cautiously across La Brea, trying to get around a beer truck, and said, “Would you be mortified if I shared with one or two of the other girls that Hollywood Nate has at last got in touch with his inner child? Who’s turned out to be that nice boy his mother always mistakenly thought he was when she glowed at his bar mitzvah?”

“Don’t even think about doing it. You’re my partner and sworn to secrecy.”

“Okay, so what’re you gonna do about this?”

“I was hoping you’d have some advice,” Nate said. “I’m not sure she could kill the job if she got really pissed off, but I think she could make it tough. I’m expecting a call any day now with a contract offer from her boss.”

“How old is she?”

“About your age,” Nate said.

“Okay, I see your dilemma,” Dana said. “Who in the hell would go to bed with a woman my age, right?”

“That’s not what I meant, partner,” Nate said. “You’re a bona fide Betty. In fact, if I hadn’t been forced to finally become a grown-up after the Oracle was no longer here to protect me, I’da tried leaving my house key in your ticket book.”

“My life,” Dana said melodramatically. “Always bad timing.”

“Come on, help me out,” Nate pleaded.

Dana considered it for a moment and said, “Okay, it’s gonna be hard for a dreamboat like you to manage, but you’re just gonna have to get less attractive to her.”

“Don’t expect fanny burps,” Nate said.

“Worse than that,” Dana said. “You gotta start subtly criticizing her makeup. Like maybe she uses too much or too little. Or maybe you don’t think the color of her lipstick is quite right for her. And if you really wanna end her lust, start inviting her to the gym to work out with you. Tell her it’s a good way to burn off the cottage cheese that clings to the thighs of women her age. Within a week she’ll hate your guts.”

Hollywood Nate thought it over and said, “I don’t wanna be that snarky.”

“Then leave off the cottage cheese part.”

They were interrupted by a call that had just been given to 6-X-66.

“We can mosey over there as backup,” Dana said. “If I’m all through being your shiksa auntie.”

After their coffee and donut fix, the partners in 6-X-66 had been chatting pleasantly, until Sheila Montez started talking about a cop she’d met in grappling school last year.

“There we were,” she said to Aaron Sloane, who was now driving east on Melrose Avenue, “supposedly learning street fighting. How to protect ourselves when we’re on the ground, battling for our lives. He wasn’t a big guy at all. More like my size. And after lying on top of each other for five days-you know, wrapping legs around each other-the sexual tension started building. On the last day of class, he says to me, ‘Wanna go have a drink?’ ”

Feigning lighthearted curiosity, Aaron said, “And did you?”

“Of course,” she said, and he could see her smile but didn’t know how to interpret it. “Best affair I’ve had since my divorce.”

And then she glanced sideways at him, smiling even more with that dusky, sloe-eyed way of hers, and he didn’t know if she was kidding him or not. And she didn’t appear to know about the stab he felt in his heart every time she mentioned another man to him, or how it could depress him for hours or even days.

The call that 6-X-66 received seemed benign enough: the ubiquitous “family dispute.” It was at a medium-size shopping center with a large supermarket as its anchor. The premier mall within the boundaries of Hollywood Division was certainly the Hollywood and Highland mall, where the Kodak Centre loomed proudly. This particular shopping center was frequented by many of the people who spoke one of the more than two hundred foreign languages of Los Angeles, and two of them were speaking Spanish heatedly when Aaron and Sheila arrived.

They were a young Latino couple, both natives of Colombia, and there seemed no cause for alarm, nothing to make the cops more cautious than usual. After they saw police, the pair stopped yelling at each other, and the pregnant twenty-year-old mother began fussing with her thirteen-month-old baby in a stroller.

The police never did find out who placed the call and only learned later that it was a female voice speaking Spanish-accented English that had said, “Violence might happen.”

Sheila was first out of the car, and while Aaron was emerging, she approached the young couple, who were standing quietly, awaiting their approach. As was her custom, Sheila spoke in English until she was sure that the citizens did not understand her, before she switched to Spanish.

“Good afternoon,” she said. “We’ve received a call that there’s a problem here.”

The well-groomed and neatly dressed young man, who turned out to be the woman’s occasional boyfriend, had no tatts, nothing that might suggest gang affiliation. The cops weren’t sensing a threat until he reached down and grabbed a semiautomatic handgun concealed under a bag of disposable diapers. He pointed it at the baby.

“Get back or I will kill her!” he said in slightly accented English as the baby began screaming for her mother, who began screaming even louder.

Sheila froze, as did Aaron, who was approaching the couple from an angle to their right.

“Easy, sir!” Sheila said. “Easy! Just take it easy!”

Aaron reached for the nine on his belt, until the young Colombian yelled, “Touch it and I will shoot!”

Nobody moved then, and while the mother of the baby screamed, “Noooooooo, Arturo!” he kept the gun aimed at the baby’s head and pushed the stroller toward the door of the supermarket, all the time turning back toward the cops as he walked forward.

Aaron was the first to grab his rover and make the call for assistance. Like all LAPD cops, he was instinctively reluctant to broadcast an “officer needs help” call-the equivalent of a mayday, and the most desperate call in the street cop’s repertoire-especially since he was not convinced that the gun was real. The code of machismo said that a good cop should be able to take care of business without calling for code 3 backups, which would bring police from everywhere and mark the caller as a pantywaist if the help call turned out to be unnecessary. And nothing was worse for an LAPD male copper than to be labeled a pantywaist.

So he said, “Officers need assistance, man with a gun!” and stated the location.

Sheila Montez, who was not burdened by male machismo, and who was utterly horrified by the threat to the baby whether or not the suspicious-looking gun was real, cried, “Bullshit on assistance!” She grabbed her rover and said, “Six-X-ray-Sixty-six. Officers need help!”

Before they heard the siren of the assigned police unit speeding their way, they were both walking along at a medium pace, deployed wide apart, trailing the Colombian, who was still pushing the crying baby toward the supermarket door without taking his eyes from the cops.

“Stay here and wait for the officers!” Sheila said to the hysterical mother, who was beside her, wailing.

“Look, you’re not in really serious trouble yet!” Aaron yelled to the Colombian. “Put the gun on the ground and let’s talk!”

“So you can shoot me?” the young man shouted.

“Nobody wants to shoot you,” Sheila said, approaching closer. “Put the gun down and let’s talk.”

Without breaking stride until he was only thirty feet from the glass doors of the supermarket, the young man said, “I am not going back to Colombia. They will kill me if I go back. I prefer to die here.”

“Who’s gonna kill you?” Aaron asked.

“There are very bad people in my country who hate me,” the man said. “And they will kill me.”

They had to raise their voices again in order to be heard over louder wails from the baby. The young man was ten feet from the entrance doors to the supermarket when the car that had been assigned the help call roared into the parking lot, siren yowling.

“You don’t wanna hurt that baby,” Sheila said. “Is she your baby?”

“No,” the Colombian said. “She is yours.” And abruptly he stopped and shoved the stroller directly at Sheila, who chased it and caught it just before it tipped over. The young man ran into the supermarket before Aaron’s pistol was clear of the holster.

Within ten minutes, Sergeant Hermann, Sergeant Murillo, and two supervisors from Watch 3 had arrived and got on the air to call a tactical alert. In another seven minutes, there were twenty-two officers, some from neighboring divisions as well as a pair of motor cops surrounding the supermarket, with SWAT on the way. And supermarket shoppers, who had not seen the action taking place outside the market, were baffled when police kept arriving and blocking the exit doors, refusing to let them leave.

Sergeant Hermann’s car was parked near one of the entrances to the market, and she got on the PA to address all officers, saying, “The store stays locked down until patrons can be escorted outside!”

Another five minutes passed as more officers arrived, while angry and frustrated customers worked at triggering the opening device on the glass doors, yelling to the cops outside that they wanted to go home.

When Sergeant Hermann addressed the swell of customers at the door, saying, “Is there a man with a gun inside the store? Are you being threatened?” a dozen voices, both male and female, began shouting in several languages.

Those speaking English were yelling things like “There’s no gunman in here!” and “Let us outta here!” and “My kids are getting scared!” and even “My goddamn ice cream’s melting, you assholes!”

While this was going on, Sergeant Murillo and Sheila Montez were interviewing the mother of the baby in Spanish. After each exchange, Sheila would translate bits and pieces into English for Sergeant Hermann and Aaron Sloane.

Finally, Sheila said, “She’s been dating the guy occasionally for six months. She knows him as Arturo Echeverría. He told her he’s hunted by members of a drug cartel and has to carry a gun for protection, but she claims she didn’t know it was under the diaper bag. He doesn’t work at any job as far as she knows, and he doesn’t have friends. He told her he lives alone in an apartment in Little Armenia, and that’s all she knows about the guy.”

Sergeant Hermann said, “Okay, let’s let the women and kids out, escorted by officers. The men stay inside for now until SWAT arrives. Sloane and Montez, you two stay by each exit door. You’re the only ones who know what he looks like.”

The plan sounded reasonable, especially since nobody in the store was aware that the police were searching for an armed and desperate man in their midst. Both Sheila Montez and Mindy Ling got on the PA, Sheila speaking Spanish and Mindy speaking Mandarin, and told the patrons that women and children would be escorted outside ten at a time, questioned very briefly, and released.

One of the problems was that in Hollywood (called Babelwood by the cops who worked there) the police had no officers to make the same announcement in Arabic, Cambodian, Farsi, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Armenian, Thai, or any of the other languages spoken by the customers inside the supermarket at that moment.

Officers escorted outside the first ten women and kids, and none of those who understood their questions had seen a man with a gun. Then another ten were escorted out with the same result. Then all hell broke loose.

The man known as Arturo Echeverría, who had been very busy inside that store scurrying around looking for a way out, eventually finding himself in the storage area behind the meat counters, had decided that it was time to act. And for the first time, Aaron and Sheila and the other cops at the scene learned that the gun was indeed a real one.

Arturo Echeverría stood behind the mobs of customers at the west exit door, who were hollering and complaining, and he began firing! The customers heard five explosions behind them that shattered glass displays and ricocheted off concrete floors, reverberating from one side of the checkout counters to the other.

And then, pandemonium! Some customers crouched or hit the floor, women with children shielded their young ones with their bodies, and the masses decided, the hell with Sergeant Hermann’s reasonable plan. They charged both exit doors. People screamed, people fell, people were trampled. And the cops stood helplessly while men, women, and children, shouting in languages the cops could not understand, stampeded from the store, shoving officers back as they ran from the gunfire. Aaron Sloane and Sheila Montez tried to visually examine each young man who ran from the supermarket, but it was hopeless.

Many of the men who fled were store employees in white shirts and dark trousers, some wearing aprons and badges, some black baseball caps with the store’s logo on the front. And some others wore meat-stained white aprons as well as the black baseball caps. There were half a dozen of them, as panicked as everyone else, and, like everyone else, they scattered when they got past the first line of cops, running far enough to stop and gather in groups or to duck behind cars in the parking lot or simply to say in Spanish or Tagolog, “Screw this. I don’t get paid to get shot.” These last few raced for their cars in the parking lot.

As it turned out, one of those who fled toward the cars was Arturo Echeverría, dressed as a butcher in a long white coat, a meat-stained apron, and a black baseball cap with the store’s logo on the front. He ran to a car, following behind one of the store’s butchers, and as soon as the butcher unlocked his car, Arturo Echeverría said to him, “I need a ride, compadre.”

When the butcher looked at him and said, “I ain’t never seen you in the store before,” Arturo Echeverría drew the gun from under his apron and said, “You see me now. Vámonos. And do not cry out.”

The terrified butcher drove away with Arturo Echeverría behind him on the floor of the car, promising not to kill the man if he obeyed orders. The butcher was released at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and Vermont Avenue and was not robbed of his money or cell phone. The stolen car was later found in a parking lot near LAX, where the hunted man had no doubt flown out of Los Angeles and possibly the country.

Among the many officers who had responded to the help call that afternoon were Flotsam and Jetsam, who aided in the search of the building after the stampede of customers and market employees had ended. It was determined that nobody was hiding in the store and that none of the customers had been hit by gunfire. Some clothing belonging to the night-shift butchers was missing from a locker, but that was all. And after paramedics had treated several with minor injuries incurred in the stampede, the surfer cops were standing by their car, chatting with Hollywood Nate and Dana Vaughn, who had also responded to the help call.

Flotsam said to them, “You know, that was, like, a way cooleo escape. That dude? He deserved his freedom.”

Sergeant Miriam Hermann, who was sweating and tired and feeling her age, was enormously frustrated that the man with a gun had escaped while she was in charge of the tac alert. And she happened to be walking past the unsuspecting surfer cops at that precise moment.

Sergeant Hermann froze in her tracks. “What… did… you… say? Repeat that.”

Caught unawares, Flotsam turned. “Oh, hi, Sarge! I was only, like… I was sorta… I was just… just…”

“He was just leaving, Sarge,” Jetsam said, grabbing his partner by the arm as they scurried to their black-and-white.

Watching the events at the shopping center along with hundreds of other spectators was Malcolm Rojas, who’d recently finished his workday at the home improvement center warehouse. He found it exciting when the SWAT team showed up with all their equipment. This was like reality TV, and he got so involved in the show that he almost forgot his meeting coming up with Bernie Graham. Malcolm had decided for sure that either he made some money with Bernie Graham tonight or he was through letting the man string him along. Part of him didn’t care one way or the other because part of him wanted to quell the feelings that had been growing inside him all day, feelings that scared and excited him and demanded release.

Something that he’d been realizing more and more was that the stalking of those women was more exciting than the time he had them in his power. He always thought that the sex was what he wanted, but now he wasn’t so sure. He hadn’t gotten any sex yet, because the bitches were so… so… he didn’t know what they were, other than clever and tricky. Stalking them was way better than jerking off, that was for sure. He loved the stalking part. But he knew he’d have to have sex with one of them sooner or later. Just so he’d know. But what would he know? It was all so confusing and frustrating that the rage began to stir within him.

“When was the last time you had a square job?” Tristan wanted to know as he drove to the duplex/office for their meeting.

“I was a hod carrier in El Monte for a couple months,” Jerzy said after he opened his eyes to see if they were getting close to the east Hollywood neighborhood.

“When was that?”

“I don’t know. Two, three, years ago. What the fuck difference does it make?”

“I worked at a Hollywood dance studio for almost three years,” Tristan said. “I did the books and made all the appointments and I was learnin’ to become an instructor. I even got all kinds of promises about becomin’ a partner in the business. And then one day the boss and his wife were gone and the dance studio was taken over by the landlord, and all the promises were like the shit your momma told you when you were little. About how good life was gonna be. I ain’t had a square job since.”

Jerzy smirked and said, “Yeah, well, you can take your half of the money we’re gonna make and go home to New Orleans and show your momma what a success her Creole boy is.”

“My momma ain’t in New Orleans,” Tristan said. “And I ain’t no Creole.”

“And you ain’t never been to college like you said, right?”

“Right,” Tristan said.

“I figgered as much,” Jerzy said. “Jist another refugee from Watts. Come to Hollywood after the fuckin’ greaseballs took over your ghetto.”

“I’m only a thief like you,” Tristan said and then added, “but when we pull off this gag, I’m gettin’ outta the game so I don’t end up like you.”

“You can never be like me,” Jerzy said. “I’m a white man.”

Tristan and Jerzy rode in silence and arrived at the duplex thirty minutes before their boss was due to arrive. They tried to slip the front door lock with a credit card but were unsuccessful. Then they walked along the driveway that led to rear carports and tried to open the bedroom window, finding that it was an old aluminum slider and could be pried open with little trouble.

Tristan got a screwdriver from the trunk of his car and gave it to Jerzy, who first pried off the screen with his buck knife and then used the screwdriver to pop open the slider. Then he boosted Tristan up and through the window, and Tristan opened the door for him. They brought in the six-pack of beer that Jerzy had insisted they buy on this hot summer day and were having a brew when a black-and-white, fresh from the siege at the supermarket, parked on the street in front.

Tristan peeked out the window and saw two cops, a tall one and another one, both with streaky blond hair, walking toward the apartment, as though they were expecting trouble.

“Cops!” Tristan said to Jerzy. “Get rid of the buck knife! Sit on the kitchen chair and stay cool, fool!”

Jerzy said, “Fuck! We can’t get away from them! They’re everywhere!” And he shoved the knife inside his boot under the leg of his Levi’s jeans as Tristan opened the door before the cops reached the front step.

“Hi, Officers,” Tristan said with a smile.

Both cops looked wary, and Flotsam said, “We got a call from a neighbor that somebody climbed in the window here. Was it you?”

“Sure was,” Tristan said brightly. “We lost our key. Come on in. We appreciate that you’re watchin’ out for us.”

Flotsam entered with Jetsam following behind. Tristan noticed that each cop had a hand very close to his pistol, and he said, “This here is my friend Jerzy. He boosted me in the window. Our friend Mr. Kessler is expectin’ us here.”

“Wait a minute,” Jetsam said. “You mean you don’t live here?”

“Take a look around,” Tristan said. “Nobody lives here. There’s a fridge in the kitchen and a table and two chairs and a fleabag chair in the livin’ room, but that’s it. There ain’t no more.”

The cops moved their hands away from their pistols but still were looking very cautiously at both men. Jetsam said, “All we know is you two climbed in the window.”

“Him,” Jerzy said. “My ass is too big to climb in windows.”

“Okay,” Jetsam said, “but until we figure out what’s going on, we’d like to make sure you’re not burglars.” Then he said to Jerzy, “Stand up.”

Jerzy was used to cops. He stood, moved his hands away from his body, and let Jetsam pat him down. Tristan did the same for Flotsam. When the cops were through with the frisk, Flotsam said, “Your IDs, please.”

Both Tristan and Jerzy gave the cops their legitimate driver’s licenses, and Jetsam pulled out his rover and stepped outside the front door, only a few steps away.

“We’re clean,” Tristan said. “We already got a check run on us the other day.”

“Yeah?” Flotsam said. “You two must be pretty busy to always be getting checked out by police.”

“No, it was jist a ticket,” Tristan said. “But I guess we look suspicious or somethin’.”

“Everybody looks suspicious when they climb in windows,” Flotsam said.

“I can see that,” said Tristan. “You got a job to do.”

When Jetsam came back in the apartment moments later, he said to his partner, “Mr.”-he couldn’t pronounce Jerzy’s last name and pointed to him-“has been in jail a few times for drugs and grand theft. Mr. Hawkins has a misdemeanor record for petty theft and DUI.”

“The petty theft was when I had to steal some milk for my baby sister after our family got foreclosed on,” Tristan said.

Flotsam looked at Jetsam and said, “Why does everybody give us such lame stories?”

Tristan said, “Officers, is there somethin’ in this here apartment to steal? We’re waitin’ for Mr. Kessler, who wants us to help him haul some furniture and fix up this place for his pregnant daughter and her husband. It’s a hot day, so we decided to pop open the window and sit in the shade and suck on a brew till he shows up. No harm, no foul. Okay?”

Flotsam glanced at his partner, who’d finished writing FI cards on both men. Jetsam signaled by raising his eyebrows almost imperceptibly.

Flotsam said, “Okay, Mr. Hawkins, but maybe next time you should sit on the step outside to wait for your boss instead of scaring the neighbors.”

“I hear you,” Tristan said. “We’re sorry.”

When the cops had gone, Jerzy said, “So your name’s Hawkins. What’s your Christian name? Or are you a fuckin’ Muslim?”

“Whadda you care?” Tristan said.

“I jist wanna know if it’s a circumcised cock or an uncircumcised one that I’m gonna cut off and jam down your throat if you get me busted behind this crazy fuckin’ scheme of yours.”

During all the goings-on at the supermarket, and just after the surfer cops had departed from the duplex-office, Dewey Gleason as Jakob Kessler showed up, carrying an overnight bag, and unlocked the door. He’d never bothered to have the place alarmed, because there was nothing of value there. It was no more than a convenient spot to meet his runners, pay them, and receive the fruits of their labor.

He was surprised to find Creole and Jerzy Szarpowicz already inside, waiting for him. Creole was wearing a white Polo shirt and chinos, as though he was ready to work a job for him at a westside hotel. As usual, the Polack, in his black T-shirt, filthy jeans, and boots, looked like he’d just crawled off a Harley. Wearing his baseball hat backward made Jerzy even more repugnant to Dewey, if that was possible.

Dewey said in his accented Kessler voice, “How did you get in here?”

“Pried the window open with this,” Jerzy said, holding a big screwdriver like a stabbing instrument as he stepped between Dewey and the only exit door.

“You did what?” Dewey said, his accent slipping a bit.

“It’s a hot and smoggy day,” Jerzy said. “We wanted to relax inside. In fact, we bought a six-pack. How ’bout a brew? They’re in the fridge.”

“This is an outrage!” Dewey said, not sounding as outrageous as he wanted to sound. “I want to know what game you two think you are playing.”

“We ain’t-aren’t playin’ a game, Mr. Kessler,” Tristan said, correcting himself by force of habit when talking to this man.

“What are you doing, then?”

“We’re formin’ a partnership,” Tristan said. “You’re the senior partner and we’re the junior partners. We’re willin’ to work real hard. Sixteen hours a day if you want. But we’re takin’ a percentage of what we make together. No more chump change.”

Dewey turned as though to leave, but Jerzy didn’t budge. He stood with his arms folded, looking down at Dewey. Then he showed Dewey a mirthless smile, and said, “Siddown. Take a load off. Lose the wig. Lose the glasses. And lose the fuckin’ elevators. We saw you without them. You’re kind of a cute little shit when you ain’t playin’ gestapo.”

“I am leaving!” Dewey cried, and he pushed past Jerzy, who dropped the screwdriver and grabbed Dewey around the neck, driving his fist into Dewey’s midsection. Then he did it twice more.

“Chill, wood!” Tristan yelled. “What the fuck you doin’?”

As Dewey slid to the floor, gasping and going fetal, Jerzy said, “I’m cuttin’ to the fuckin’ chase. I’m sick of this game. I’m gettin’ his attention. You got a problem with that?”

Then he snatched the gray hairpiece, tape and all, from Dewey’s head, jerked the steel-frame glasses from Dewey’s face and tossed them on the kitchen table, and, for good measure, pulled the $600 elevator shoes from Dewey’s feet.

“Look at these skates, Creole!” Jerzy said. “I put these on, I could look like Frankenstein.”

You already do, you dumb Polack, Tristan thought, and you’re about to fuck up my whole play here!

Then Jerzy grabbed the man by the front of his shirt and made a fist, as though he were going to move his facial bones around. Now the big Polack was scaring Tristan as much as he was the man on the floor.

“Don’t go turbo, dawg!” Tristan said. “Step off! We don’t wanna kill the man. We wanna work with him. Jist chill, okay?”

“Okay,” Jerzy said. “But I got a feelin’ this actor’s gonna sing better if I tune him up.”

“Help me get him in the chair,” Tristan said, taking hold of Dewey’s right arm.

Dewey’s gasps turned to groans mixed with a few sobs when they each took an arm and, lifting him to his feet, put him in the overstuffed chair that Jerzy knew from experience was full of fleas. Then Jerzy grabbed a kitchen chair, placed it facing the door, and straddled it, arms crossed on the backrest.

“I’m sorry about the violence,” Tristan said to Dewey. “I don’t work that way, but you got my partner upset when you tried to bounce.”

Jerzy pulled the buck knife from his boot, held it up beside his face as though to shave with it, and said, “In case you try again, Mr. Kessler.”

“What name do you want us to call you?” Tristan said to Dewey, who was in pain with every breath he took.

“I don’t… don’t give a shit what you call me,” Dewey said, unaccented. “Just take my money and get out.”

“The man thinks we’re thieves,” Jerzy said. “Common fuckin’ thieves. I’m insulted. How ’bout you, Creole?”

Tristan had not expected anything like this and was trying to readjust his approach, now that the dumb Polack had freaked out.

He said to Dewey Gleason, “What name do you want us to call you?”

“My name’s Bernie Graham,” Dewey said. “Whadda you want from me?”

“Like I said…, Bernie,” Tristan said, “we’re gonna be partners.”

“I think you’re both crazy,” Dewey said and then winced again as he tried to move to a more comfortable position in the chair.

“We were very patient, buyin’ into your Nazi act,” Jerzy said. “Lettin’ you take advantage of our hard work with the minimum wages you paid us. It’s different now.”

“Is this a kidnap?” Dewey said. “If it is, I don’t have any money at home. There’s about six hundred and change in my wallet. Take it and go.”

“Who do you got at home?” Tristan asked.

“Nobody. I live alone.”

“Where do you live?” Tristan asked.

“What difference does it make?”

“Don’t make me get up,” Jerzy said.

“I live in Sherman Oaks,” Dewey lied. “In an apartment.”

“Alone, huh?” Tristan said.

“I live with my dog.” Another lie, and he winced again.

“Yeah, I seen her,” Tristan said. “You got that part right.”

Dewey said, “What?”

“You oughtta take her to a groomer once in a while,” Tristan said. “Get her shampooed and fluffed up. She smells like an ashtray.”

That got Dewey’s attention. His eyes widened, and he said, “What’s going on here?”

“And while you’re at it, get yourself flea-dipped, Bernie,” Jerzy said, “after sittin’ in that chair.”

“We know where you live,” Tristan said. “On Franklin. And we know your geek, Miss Nicotine Fingers. How many computers is she runnin’?”

After a long silence, Tristan said, “And of course we know where your storage locker is. And we know about the job you did on the owner of that house in Los Feliz. Wait’ll he gets his American Express statement.”

“You were in on that,” Dewey said. “You made money from that.”

“Chump change,” Jerzy said. “Chicken feed for pigeons.”

“I got a friend at Hollywood Station,” Tristan lied. “A detective who busted me a while back. If I was to call him now and tell him all I know about you, he’d see to it that I get a suspended sentence and probation for dimin’ you.”

“How about your partner?” Dewey said, his mind racing, trying to digest all of this. “Is he willing to go down with me?”

“Me?” Jerzy said. “I’d flip too and get the same deal Creole gets. The DA would probably buy us French dips downtown at Philippe’s when we get through testifyin’.”

“You won’t call the cops,” Dewey said, so scared that his teeth clicked together when he talked. “You don’t wanna get arrested. There’s nothing in it for you.”

“Sure there is, dude,” Jerzy said. “We get to take you way down and see you go to the joint, where some of Creole’s dark-skinned cousins will turn you into a screamin’ bitch. I would like that because I don’t like you…, Bernie.”

“You wouldn’t let yourselves get busted just to bring me down,” Dewey said painfully. “You’re bluffing. This is all bullshit.”

Tristan laughed out loud at that and said, “Sure we are, bro! You’re too smart to think we’d go to jail even for a day jist to nail your puny ass. No, you and your geek can get outta Dodge tonight if that’s what you wanna do. This crazy Polack and me, we’re gonna sit up on your crib and watch the door. If you two go, all you can take is the clothes on your back and an extra set of underwear. Your computers, all your checks and credit-card equipment, all the files you prob’ly have inside there-all that precious information stays. Not to mention your storage room full of very valuable goods. The second we see you drive off, I’m gonna call the cops, like the good CI that I am. And then they make their big recovery of stolen goods and all the rest of the stuff you got at your crib. By the way, Bernie, CI stands for ‘confidential informant’ in cop talk. In case you didn’t know.”

“I’d like to take a piece of him to leave behind before he says good-bye to Hollywood,” Jerzy said, pointing the buck knife at Dewey.

Ignoring Jerzy, who was wrecking the conversation flow by terrorizing the man, Tristan said, “I’ll get in real good with that detective for providin’ him with information that breaks up a criminal enterprise. It’s always good to have a get-outta-jail-free card from a cop. How much is everything worth that you’ll leave in the apartment and in the storage room? That’s what you’re gonna lose, along with the whole business you worked so hard to start up. Are you ready to give up your entire livelihood to keep from payin’ your junior partners a reasonable percentage of what we can all earn together from now on? Are you that dumb, Bernie?”

Dewey was quietly watching Tristan. Then he looked at Jerzy and back at Tristan, and he said, “Were you the guy from Water and Power?”

“You ain’t-aren’t the only actor in Hollywood, Bernie,” Tristan said with another hearty laugh.

“Get me one of those beers from the fridge,” Dewey said. “Help me sit up and we’ll talk.”

Tristan said, “Get the man a beer, wood.” And he helped Dewey sit up straight in the chair.

Jerzy said, “He oughtta get his own fuckin’ beer. What am I, his personal negro?” But he did as he was told, grumbling as usual.

“Open that bag,” Dewey said to Tristan, “and give me the hand towel and the loafers.”

“Sure,” Tristan said, putting the overnight bag on the kitchen table, opening it, and finding casual clothes neatly folded, a pair of Bernie Graham glasses, and the Bernie Graham mustache.

“Is this your props and makeup department, Bernie?” Tristan said. “Who are you when you change into this?”

“A guy named Bernie Graham,” Dewey said. “That’s what you can call me.”

“Wanna put them on?” Tristan asked, fascinated now. “Would it make you feel better if we let you, like, get into character? Is that what it’s called?”

“Just give me the towel.”

Tristan threw the hand towel to Dewey. Then he and Jerzy pulled up kitchen chairs and sat watching.

“The spray bottle,” Dewey said.

Tristan handed him the plastic bottle and he sprayed it directly onto his face and wiped the shadows from under his eyes and around his mouth, and then sprayed more onto the towel and wiped his sideburns free of the gray.

“I suppose you want your comb and brush,” Tristan said, handing them to the man.

“Thank you,” Dewey said, and he took the comb and brush and worked on his hair while Jerzy stood watching with Dewey’s can of beer in his hand.

“What the fuck is this anyways?” Jerzy said. “The Creole and Bernie Show?”

“Let the man get into character,” Tristan said. “Want your stash, Bernie?”

“Thank you,” Dewey said, carefully sticking the mustache over his upper lip. “And my Bernie glasses, please.”

“They busted when I tossed them on the table,” Jerzy said.

“Those are my Kessler glasses,” Dewey said. “I’ll never need those again.” And he held his palm below his eyes and removed both contact lenses, which had lightened his brown irises.

“Ain’t that some shit, wood?” Tristan said with admiration. “I’m proud to be a partner of this man!”

Dewey said, “The reason I’m getting into character, as you call it, is because I have to meet a new runner here in thirty minutes. Would you please help me get into my loafers? I can’t manage. I think I have a cracked rib.”

“Puttin’ the man’s shoes on his feet is definitely a job for you, Creole,” Jerzy said, handing the beer to Dewey. “There’s some things a self-respectin’ white man won’t do.”

After Dewey looked sufficiently like the person that his new runner was expecting to meet, he gulped some of the beer and said, “It’s amazing how good a cold beer tastes after someone has just beaten the living shit out of you.”

“Forgive and forget, dude,” Jerzy said. “Close the book on that misunderstandin’, but make sure there ain’t another one.”

“The first thing I have to say,” Dewey began, “is that you’re right. Just getting outta town with the clothes on my back is not in the cards. And neither is the partnership that you envision.”

“Don’t back up on us, Bernie,” Jerzy said ominously.

“Let the man finish,” Tristan said.

“But I think we can work together and come up with a plan that’ll make you a lump sum far beyond what you could make working an entire year with me.”

“Doin’ what?” Tristan said.

“The geek, as you call her, is my wife. She’s a brilliant hacker and has accounts that I have no way to access. In fact, I don’t even know which bank they’re in. If we could devise a way to make her give me some information I’d need, I’d be grateful enough to pay you half of what’s in those accounts.”

“And how much would that be?” Tristan asked.

“Maybe as much as eighty thousand dollars,” Dewey lied. “You would get half of that amount.”

“Forty grand?” Tristan said. “Whadda we gotta do? Torture it outta her? We don’t do violence.”

“You couldn’t prove it by me,” Dewey said, moving painfully in the chair.

“You mean you jist can’t tell the bitch to give it up?” Jerzy said. “What kinda man are you, Bernie?”

“Not a confrontational one,” Dewey said. “She was married before we met, and she had already set this up. She does all the secret banking online and in private.”

“That’s kinda like a prenup, ain’t-isn’t it?” Tristan said. “That you agreed to?”

“Her version of one,” Dewey said. “It’s her money, not mine, she says. But I think I’ve earned it more than she has.”

“You said ‘accounts,’ ” Tristan said. “You think there might be more than one bank account?”

Dewey was thinking fast, trying to sell his story to Creole, who was obviously the intellectual superior of the two.

“Of course we have lots of small bank accounts that we open and close under different names when we have to move money around. That’s how I get cash for the runners. But the secret account is the one I’m interested in learning about.”

“Could there be more than just the eighty grand?” Tristan asked. “You two do some pretty good business.”

Dewey told a whopper, saying, “No, I don’t think so. If you added up all the accounts she’s opened and the ones I’ve opened, there might be another two thousand in there. Whatever there is I’ll split with you if we can agree on a sensible plan for making her cooperate.”

“Do you have a plan in mind, Bernie?” Tristan asked.

“This meeting today has opened certain doors and made it all very urgent. I need some time to think.”

“We ain’t got time for you to think,” Jerzy said, getting his mind around a $40,000 payday. “So what if we was to, like, kidnap you? We could phone and tell her we’re gangsters and we know all about your business and we’re holdin’ you for ransom. And we’ll cut your fuckin’ throat if she don’t give up what’s in the bank. Wouldn’t she pay us to save the love of her life?”

Dewey flashed a weak, ironic grin, took a sip of beer, and said, “To tell you the truth, Jerzy, I think she’d go ahead and leave everything behind and be on the first flight out of L.A. I think that within six months she’d have another Bernie Graham working his ass off for her, and she wouldn’t think twice about the husband she left in the hands of kidnappers. In fact, I think she might see right through your plan and figure that I was in on it. She’s very cunning and clever.”

Tristan, who’d been listening quietly and thinking, said, “There’s not much use in goin’ home and sleepin’ on it. There’s only one answer here.”

“What’s that, mastermind?” Jerzy said.

“We gotta kidnap her, not Bernie, and we gotta make it look good. We gotta put more fear in her than we put in Bernie today. And Bernie’s gotta play his part and have very serious phone talks with her, where she’s so scared she begs him to pay the ransom of, say, a hundred grand.”

Jerzy snapped open another beer, guzzled most of it, pointed to Bernie, and said, “He says there’s only eighty in the account.”

“Dawg,” Tristan said patiently, “if we ask for eighty, she’ll know for sure Bernie’s in on the game.”

Now it was Dewey who appeared to be deep in thought, and he surprised Tristan when he said, “Don’t ask for a hundred. Make it five hundred thousand. That’s a nice round number. Why not be extravagant?”

Tristan paused just for an instant and said, “Why ask her for an amount that’s gonna make her think it’s all hopeless, Bernie?”

“It gives us a chance to pile on the bullshit during negotiations,” Dewey said much too quickly. “You know, back and forth. The price gets whittled down, because that’s what kidnappers do when they have to. She has to finally be convinced that you thugs are gonna settle for the eighty grand because you’re satisfied there’s no more in the bank.”

“All this makes me not wanna pop the question to my bitch if this is what marriage does to people,” Jerzy said with a bemused smile. “Anyways, she don’t do drugs, so a mixed marriage wouldn’t work.”

Tristan stood up and said, “And what if your wife don’t wanna cooperate, Bernie? Then what?”

Dewey finished the beer, groaned in pain, licked the foam from his lips, and said, “She will have to be made to believe you’re for real.”

“Bernie,” Tristan said, “let’s hope she believes our bluff. Far as I’m concerned, the game’s over if she figures out it’s you that’s behind this thing. Or if she decides to die for her money rather than let you get your hands on it, I’m tellin’ you right now, I’m outta there. I ain’t gonna torture no woman. I’ll walk away from this whole gag.”

“How do you feel about it?” Dewey asked Jerzy.

“That’s a lotta money to walk away from,” Jerzy said. “I think we gotta convince her to talk. If you got her back with some minor damage, it’d be okay with you, huh?”

“I won’t be getting her back,” Dewey said. “If she doesn’t give up the information, it’s probably because she figures I’m in on it. She’ll dump me, so I’ll be gone either way with whatever I can get for the stuff in the storage room. Which of course I’ll share with you fifty-fifty.”

“You got a lot ridin’ on this game, don’t you, Bernie?” Tristan said.

“You forced the issue,” Dewey said. “I have no choice. If it all goes sideways, the only good thing is, she can’t go to the cops about us without going to jail herself when the whole gag is busted wide open. Anyway, I’m willing to try it if you are.”

“You’re a cold-blooded little motherfucker,” Jerzy said. “I’m startin’ to like you a lot. So how’re we gonna go about kidnappin’ your old lady?”

“That’s gonna be easier than you think because you’re gonna kidnap both of us,” Dewey said.

“What?” Tristan said. “Both of you?”

“It’s the only way it can work,” Dewey said. “I have to be there as another kidnap victim to make her believe it. And I have to help persuade her to talk.”

“And you think you can do that?” Tristan said.

“Yes,” Dewey said, “because I’m a real actor, even if that bitch never gives me credit for it. When I perform, I can convince anybody of anything. Creole, I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon with a foolproof plan.”

“Somethin’ bothers me about this,” Tristan said. “If she gives up what you need to find her secret account, you ain’t gonna be able to slide on into her bank and pull out the cash. You’ll transfer the money to one of your runner accounts, am I right?”

“Yes,” Dewey said, surprised.

“Well, if I remember right from when I helped do the books at the dance studio where I used to work, there’s a ten-day waitin’ period at the banks for big transfers to clear. Am I right?”

Dewey hadn’t counted on Creole having a whole lot more between his ears than Jerzy, but now he could see how he’d completely misjudged his runner. If they suspected that Dewey was after Eunice’s hidden treasure chest of cash, this whole gag could explode in his face.

Dewey wore his mask of sincerity when he said, “The bank where I’ll transfer the funds to is a small independent bank that I’ve done lots of questionable business with. I know the manager exceedingly well. There won’t be a ten-day wait. In fact, it’ll take two days at most and we’ll have our money.”

Dewey figured that two days would be enough time for him to tie up loose ends and get the hell out of L.A. with Eunice’s “retirement fund.” He looked into Creole’s amber eyes for any hint of disbelief but saw none.

Dewey watched him nod to Jerzy and say, “Can we hold her for two days, wood?”

“That’s a long time to keep her,” Jerzy said.

“That’s a lot of money,” Dewey countered, touching his ribs and grimacing.

“Okay,” Tristan said, “but remember, if you decide to get outta Hollywood tonight, one of us will be campin’ out right near your crib.”

“I understand,” Dewey said. “Now you can go ahead and leave. I’m expecting the runner any minute. You’re welcome to sit out on Franklin Avenue tonight and watch my front door if you want, but I guarantee I’m going nowhere but to bed. If I can make it there. You boys have actually brought things to a head. I should thank you, and I will when it’s over. For now, take two hundred from my wallet and have a nice meal on me.”

“From what I saw of your woman, she’s older than you, ain’t-isn’t she?” Tristan said.

“Yes,” Dewey said. “Several years older.”

Tristan grinned and said, “I saw a story on Access Hollywood that claims older women with younger guys makes for married bliss in this town, Bernie.”

Dewey showed a crooked grin, adjusted his stick-on mustache, and said, “It’s true that we’ve got an age spread like some famous Hollywood couples. But Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher we are not.”