Women

13

A week later I was driving down Hollywood Boulevard with Lydia. A weekly entertainment newspaper published in California at that time had asked me to write an article on the life of the writer in Los Angeles. I had written it and was driving over to the editorial offices to submit it. We parked in the lot at Mosley Square. Mosley Square was a section of expensive bungalows used as offices by music publishers, agents, promoters and the like. The rents were very high.

We went into one of the bungalows. There was a handsome girl behind the desk, educated and cool.

"I'm Chinaski," I said, "and here's my copy."

I threw it on the desk.

"Oh, Mr. Chinaski, I've always admired your work very much!"

"Do you have anything to drink around here?"

"Just a moment…"

She went up to a carpeted stairway and came back down with a bottle of expensive red wine. She opened it and pulled some glasses from a hidden bar. How I'd like to get in bed with her, I thought. But there was no way. Yet, somebody was going to bed with her regularly.

We sat and sipped our wine.

"We'll let you know very soon about the article. I'm sure we'll take it… But you're not at all the way I expected you to be…"

"What do you mean?"

"Your voice is so soft. You seem so nice."

Lydia laughed. We finished our wine and left. As we were walking toward my car I heard a voice. "Hank!"

I looked around and there sitting in a new Mercedes was Dee Dee Bronson. I walked over.

"How's it going, Dee Dee?"

"Pretty good. I quit Capitol Records. Now I'm running that place over there." She pointed. It was another music company, quite famous, with its home office in London. Dee Dee used to drop by my place with her boyfriend when he and I both had columns in a Los Angeles underground newspaper.

"Jesus, you're doing good," I said.

"Yes, except…"

"Except what?"

"Except I need a man. A good man."

"Well, give me your phone number and I'll see if I can find one for you."

"All right."

Dee Dee wrote her phone number on a slip of paper and I put it in my wallet. Lydia and I walked over to my old Volks and got in. "You're going to phone her," Lydia said. "You're going to use that number."

I started the car and got back on Hollywood Boulevard.

"You're going to use that number," she said. "I just know you're going to use that number!"

"Cut the shit!" I said.

It looked like another bad night.