Nightlife: A Novel

39

Hugo Poole sat in his office beside the projection room of the Empire Theater. He was thinking seriously about going out to a club tonight, just for the sake of being seen. Since Dennis had been killed he had virtually shut himself away, and that was not good for business. Just as he stood up, the telephone rang. He picked it up, and said, “Yeah?”

“Hugo Poole?”

“You got me.”

“This is Calvin Dunn.”

“What’s happening?”

“I called to find out what Joe Pitt is doing in Portland.”

“Joe Pitt? I don’t know.”

“You don’t?” said Calvin Dunn. “It’s a relief to me that you don’t know. I would really hate it if you were trying to set up a competition.”

“A competition? Why? So I could take bets on who bags her?”

“Sometimes people who are smarter than anybody else think too much. They figure out ways to get themselves twisted around and meet themselves coming back.”

“Not me, Calvin. I paid him off and thanked him for his efforts before I ever called you. Where did you see him?”

“He’s at the same hotel where I’m staying,” said Dunn. “If you didn’t send him, then he’s just part of the mix. I’ll change hotels. This girl has popped about four people now, so it’s possible somebody else hired him to find her. I’ll let you know when it’s done.”

Hugo Poole put his telephone down and stared at the office wall. It was clear that he had just managed to duck while Calvin Dunn’s resentment had whistled past him. Dunn was said to be very good at what he did, but he was too temperamental. Hugo didn’t like having to be tolerant of jealousies and fits of egotism.

The call made him wonder what Pitt was doing. It could be the little policewoman, Catherine Hobbes. She was single and a very nice little handful. The whole thing could be completely harmless—Pitt going up to Portland to spend time with Catherine Hobbes. Hugo reached for his telephone, but held his hand. It was not a good idea to call back. Calvin Dunn had seen her in Flagstaff, and he was smart enough to figure the rest out. If Hugo was right, he gained nothing, and if he was wrong, he would weaken his position with Calvin Dunn.

Calvin Dunn was not somebody he had ever wanted on his payroll. Hugo had resisted the idea for a long time. He had tried waiting for the Portland police to handle things, and then tried hiring Joe Pitt—a reputable detective who had some appreciation of the complexities of Los Angeles life that might have caused a killing way up there in Portland. What more could anybody expect? Hugo had been as patient as he could be, but he’d had a limited period of time.

He had needed to be sure that unfriendlies in L.A. didn’t get the idea that Hugo Poole would permit someone to kill a member of his family without paying for it. He had to be sure that the friendlies didn’t get the same idea and conclude that they had to make common cause with the unfriendlies. He had to be sure that the people who worked for him weren’t put in danger by the rumor that he couldn’t protect or avenge them. He had been in this life for so long that he had seen all of the moves in advance. He had given the authorities all the time that he could. Then he had hired Calvin Dunn.

He had also owed it to his aunt Ellen to do something. She was his aunt because she had been briefly married to his father’s brother. She had barely known Hugo’s mother, who had never even lived with his father, let alone married him. Hugo had been conceived on a late-night pickup in a bar. After Hugo’s mother died, Ellen had come to the funeral and then driven him back to the apartment to pack and come with her.

She had put him into a bedroom to share with her son, Dennis, and explained that they were cousins. Then she had treated them exactly the same. Everything she had bought for Dennis, she had bought two of and given one to Hugo. Anytime she’d gone out, she’d carried three pictures in her wallet—her ex-husband, Dennis, and Hugo.

When he was seventeen, Hugo had left Ohio and come to California. He had not talked to Aunt Ellen again for four years, then called her on the telephone and asked her how she was. She had cried so much that he had barely understood anything except that she had been worried about him. He had told her that he was sending her a present, and he had mailed her a check for fifty thousand dollars.

He had kept calling her and sending her checks. Half of every conversation had been about Dennis—some degree he had earned, some job he had gotten, some promotion he’d won. When Dennis had started his own computer business, Aunt Ellen had put up half the money. It had come from Hugo’s checks.

A few days after Hugo had heard about the new business, Dennis had called him. “Is this Hugo?”

“Yeah?”

“This is Dennis.”

“Hey, Dennis. I hear from your mother that you’re doing great, starting your own business and everything. I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks, Hugo,” said Dennis. “That’s really why I called after all this time. I wanted to tell you about it. The place is a computer sales business. I’m good at the technical part of it, but I’m finding that I need help. I wondered if you want a job. You could be vice president, and help me handle the people.”

Hugo had been paralyzed for a moment: Aunt Ellen had not told Dennis where the money had come from. Dennis had simply decided that because he’d had some luck he would share it with his cousin Hugo. Hugo had needed to answer. “Dennis. I want you to know that I’m honored. It makes me happy that you would do this. But I can’t accept.”

“Why not?”

“Here are three reasons. I’ve got a good job here, and I’m happy in L.A., and I don’t know a thing about computers. I really appreciate it, though, Dennis.”

He remembered hearing his own voice and being shocked. People always said that they regressed when they talked to their parents, became themselves as children. Hugo didn’t have any parents. What he did that day when he talked to Dennis was go all the way back to the fork in the road—the day he had left Ohio—and take the other choice. He sounded like the Hugo who would have existed if he had stayed in Ohio.

Hugo might be a failure and an embarrassment to people like his aunt Ellen and his cousin Dennis, but he was considered an enormous success in this part of the world. It was a place where things were for sale. If a man had a name for his wish, or if he could only describe it, somebody could be paid to make it happen. At least Hugo could do this. He could get the one who had killed the poor, ignorant sucker Dennis.