Once we’d finished with the bedroom, we sat down on the naked mattress and took stock of the situation so far.
“Here’s my take on it,” Louise said, twirling her lip ring. “If I didn’t know better, I’d want to look into Ray to see if he had anything to do with Helen vanishing on us. I say that because guys like that are total fuck-wits, real scum-nuts, and they go into ‘entertainment’ to take advantage of chicks like that. I don’t really think he has anything to do with it — I know the guy, he’s a creep, but this isn’t on him — but I do think we need a two-prong attack, here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean while we’re looking for Helen, we should be looking into whoever made that fucking movie, the old one that got your ass out here to start with.”
“It’s just an old movie, though,” I said. “Anybody remotely involved with it has died of old age by now.”
“Except for the star.”
“Except for her,” I agreed.
“Think about it,” she went on, “something happened to that girl back in the day, right? We don’t know what, but something did. And that shit got fucking buried, and it was serious enough that all this time later somebody’s out there shooting motherfuckers to keep it that way. Am I on target so far, chief?”
“So far, so good.”
“Then you start at the beginning. Keep trying to find Helen — fuck, everybody else is already dead or in a fucking coma — but at the same time get back to the good old days and see who made that thing, that Angel of the Whatever.”
“Angel of the Abyss.”
“Right, and you said you actually have the movie, didn’t you?”
“Most of it, in reels.”
“Let’s give it a watch while we’re at it, you and me. You might see something on the second pass, and an extra set of eyes couldn’t hurt.”
I said, “I don’t want to waste any more time. She’s out there somewhere, and the quicker I find her, the closer I am to helping Graham.”
“You really dig that guy, huh?”
I knitted my brow, not really up to explaining how a one-way friendship worked. I did dig the guy, even if he wasn’t really all that fond of me. I wasn’t really all that fond of myself, so I didn’t really blame him.
“We’ll help your friend,” Lou said after a moment. “Whatever we got to do.”
“This is great and all,” I said, giving her a bewildered look, “but why are you so invested? I mean, I appreciate the hell out of everything you’ve already done, Louise…”
“Lou, please. Just Lou.”
“…but you don’t know me, or Graham, or any of us. You’ve got no stake in this crap.”
“The truth? Helen was a fuckup and a bit of a cunt, but I liked the bitch. She stood up to Ray when nobody else would, and I respected that shit.”
“Well, that makes one of us.”
“And I know a bastard when I see one, too. I’ve got plenty of practice. You’re no bastard.”
“Thanks?”
“Don’t get any fucking ideas, now,” she added with a black-lacquered fingernail in my face. “It ain’t like that.”
“10-4.”
“Come on, let’s go check the boxes in the living room.”
I followed her, more astounded than ever.
Sandwiched between the two workers, we pored through the remaining boxes, clawing our way through Helen’s collection of completely useless ephemera while the painter sang along to each and every song on the radio. The guy had a memory like a steel trap; I couldn’t even remember the words to my favorite songs.
In my last box, I found a small but respectable collection of porn on DVD. I slowed to admire her taste when Louise said, “Hey, get a look at this.”
She was kneeling over her last box, which was stuffed with cooking magazines and a jumble of mail. In her hand was an open envelope, from which she’d taken the contents and now handed to me. It was a paystub from the Royal Blue Theater on Tremont in Fairfax. Helen M. Bryan was identified as a concession associate at the paltry rate of $9.75 an hour.
“I’ll be damned,” I said. “She got herself a day gig.”
“That’s a revival house,” Lou informed me. “As in, they only play old movies.”
She waggled her penciled brows at me while I took a minute for it to sink in. When it did, I gasped.
“Holy crap,” I said. “Now we know how Helen knew Leslie Wheeler, don’t we?”
“Yes, we do,” she agreed with a toothy smile. “Ain’t detecting fucking fun?”
“Can you guys get the hell out now?” the burly workman interrupted. “If we get fired, it’s your asses.”
I pocketed the paystub and we got the hell out.
22
The pair watched Ronald Colman as Beau Geste at the Arcade on Broadway, though neither of them paid the slightest attention to the picture. Rather, they smoked one cigarette after another, slumped in their seats, and waited for the afternoon to drag by as the organ player punched out the musical accompaniment in the least graceful way possible. Grace and Frank had an appointment to keep, and that appointment was with Junior Bassof, a rough customer who might or might not find their terms—her terms — acceptable enough to let Frank go on living.
They ate deviled eggs and sipped fountain pops, and when the picture was done, they emerged back into the sunlight to light cigarettes and get serious about their rendezvous with destiny. Destiny was billed to come in the form of Junior, Frank’s erstwhile boss, who agreed to meet him and his supposed moll at a Jewish delicatessen on Fairfax for the trade-off. They sauntered that way, just a block and a half from the Arcade, with hardly a word between them.
Upon arriving, Frank gestured with his chin at a pair of men seated opposite one another in a corner booth by the window.
“Those are Junior’s stooges,” he whispered.
“Then let’s go say hello,” suggested Grace.
“Give me the package,” he said. “Let me take care of this. You go on home. No sense in us both ending up in the ground if this thing goes south.”
“The ground?” Grace gasped. “Don’t be dramatic. Come along.”
He seized her arm and gave her a bewildered look. Grace just smiled.
“I’ve dealt with plenty of lowlifes over the years, real low characters on the circuit and elsewhere. These goons don’t scare me.”
With a wry smirk, she sauntered over the greasy tiles to the booth, where she slid in beside the shorter of the pair like she belonged there. The men glanced her over with appraising leers while Frank lingered several feet away, his face a mask of astonishment.
“You Frank’s girl?” asked the man seated across from Grace. His smooth face betrayed a youth he clearly tried to hide behind a put-upon demeanor.
“I thought we were seeing Mr. Bassof,” she said.
“You’re seeing us.”
“All right,” she said, beckoning Frank with her hand. He came over slowly and sat down beside the taller one.
“Hi, Frank,” the tall youth said. “Petey sends his regards from the morgue.”
Frank put his hand on his wounded shoulder. “He shot me. I shot back.”
“Guess you’re the better shot, then.”
“Guess I am.”
“So what’s it going to be?” Grace put in. “I trust you gentlemen know the terms. We cover the expenses of the car and the — the shipment—and we call this whole cowboy game off. So what is it?”