“Fine, but you don’t tell her I gave it to you.” He scurried off across the club toward the office, glad for the excuse to get away from me. His head was down, and his shoulders sagged. Beating down a whipped dog gave me no pleasure, but screw him, he made his own lumpy bed when he climbed in with wanna be gangsters.
“Did I ever tell you you’re my hero?” China asked, sidling up next to me.
“Just doing my job, like everyone else here.”
“What a man, what a man, what a mighty fine man.” She sang. Winding her small pale finger into a buttonhole on my shirt she pulled me close to her. The word had spread quickly that the Armenian tariff had been lifted. Looking around at the other smiling girls I knew I’d be offered enough free lap rides to keep me happy for days… If only that was what would make me happy. Maybe if I knew what happiness looked like I might know how to go after it. But, forty-three years on this miserable planet only taught me how to survive, not thrive. Every day I felt like just one more soldier trying to make it back to the world in one piece. If I was smart I would stay in the trenches, keep my head low and never play the hero. If I was smart.
CHAPTER 2
Kelly lived in a small 1950’s apartment complex clinging to the sheer green hillside above the reservoir in the Swish Alps. Silverlake, a trendy, oh-so-hip, gay community nestled in the steep hills between the gritty streets of Hollywood and the harsh reality of East LA. From her porch you could look down the sudden incline, past the Spanish tile rooftops to the shimmering blue water of the reservoir, water surrounded by chain-link and razor wire. Here in LA water was better protected than our children, I guess to some degree it was simple economics, one was more valuable than the other. Water turned this desert into a city, what had children ever given us?
Walking past Kelly’s little red Miata, I climbed the stairs. The curtains of one of the ground floor apartments parted and a pair of rummy eyes surrounded by white hair watched me pass. If the old woman didn’t like what she saw, she didn’t say so. I knocked on Kelly’s door but she didn’t answer. A string of miniature Japanese lanterns hung above her door, and a hand-painted Mexican tin heart was tacked below the peephole. I knocked several more times, but the apartment was silent.
Standing there on that peaceful afternoon, sunlight dappling down through a eucalyptus tree I started to feel a bit silly. A knight in rusted armor charging off to rescue a damsel who probably took her new puppy down to the dog park for a stroll. While sharing Chinese food in the dressing room she had told me about the puppy Angel, and how much she loved watching it play with the other dogs. Some breeder gave her a purebred Bullmastiff pup in the hopes it would buy his way into her shorts. She blew the guy off but kept the pup. She said the dog world was simple and pure, love without deceit. She didn’t have to say it, I knew she meant it was the opposite of everything around us. Strip joints act like they’re honest. Straight transactions, sex for cash. Bullshit. It’s all smoke and mirrors and denial and deceit. Every night the deal goes down all across America, and no one goes home with what they bargained for. Not the girls or the marks or dumb bouncers who think that just because they’re smart enough to see the crooked deal they’re immune to it.
Riding down the hill towards the dog park, I decided to give Kelly a verbal ass paddling. Chicks love drama more than they love new lace panties, but she had to know that when she reached out to me I took it seriously. Cruising past the large fenced park there were lots of happy pooches but no Kelly. She might have taken the dog down for a cup of coffee. Or she was asleep in her apartment with her earplugs in. Whatever, I was sure she’d call me sometime that night, all apologetic and chump that I am, I’d say it was no big.
Back in my bungalow I poured myself a tall McCallans. The scotch cost forty-five bucks a bottle, but a man has to have some extravagances. Sitting in my lazy-boy I cranked up U2. Bono was singing about a girl packing for a trip to a place none of us had ever been before. I couldn’t get Kelly out of my head, as if the song was about her. I saw her standing in an empty airport late at night, a cheap suitcase in her hand. Maybe it wasn’t her I was worried about, maybe it was me. Was Piper right? Did I think Kelly was my ticket to a normal life?
No, it was more, she stood for hope, hope that the whole planet wasn’t full of cheap scams and low-class trades. She was real in a life full of fake. Fake tits, fake passion, fake vows given to fake friends. Everyone looked out for Number One and everything was for sale if you just knew the price. But not Kelly. She was the only person I counted as a true friend, and I had never seen the inside of her apartment. What did that say about my life? We spent so much time in the dressing room chatting, goofing off, sharing take-out, that rumors spread that we were lovers. Most of the dancers had no reference point for a man and woman being friends. Fuck them if they didn’t get it. Hell I didn’t get it, what did she see in me that was worth her time? Finishing my drink I dialed her number, more busy signal. Not good. Climbing onto my bike I headed the Norton back to Silverlake.
Night fell soft and gentle as I moved up the apartment building stairs. I was moving quietly but not enough to avoid the watchful eyes of the white haired sentry, when she saw me looking at her she stepped quickly back behind the protection of her curtains.
There were no lights on in Kelly’s apartment. After knocking I pulled out a thin piece of stainless steel. It was the size of a credit card. As long as the dead bolt wasn’t set, it would open any door. Slipping the card into the doorjamb, I felt it click, and the door opened. Stepping into her apartment uninvited, I knew it was a betrayal. But, if nothing was wrong, she’d never have to know I’d been there. Sweeping the living room with my Maglite I could see it was a nice, friendly room as inviting as her smile. She had an overstuffed sofa with an old-fashioned floral print slipcover. A framed print of water-lilies hung over the sofa, it was a Monet; I could tell because it said so under it. A scarred coffee table held a small ghetto blaster and a stack of cd’s. What was missing was any of the normal flotsam and jetsam one collects in life. No books or knick-knacks, no memorabilia, nothing to personalize this apartment to Kelly. The kitchen was tidy, a few dishes in the sink but other than that everything was in its place. In a dish-drainer were four plates, in the cupboard, four water glasses stood next to four coffee mugs, all matching and relatively new. It made me embarrassed to think of the Salvation Army rejects that filled my shelves.
Opening the bedroom door I moved the light across the tan carpet and up onto the bed and across her pale feet. She was lying sprawled naked on a daisy print comforter, she looked peaceful as if she’d fallen asleep with her head resting on a rust red stain. The world skipped a beat slipping sync for a moment. She was Sleeping Beauty, this was a cartoon; any moment seven dwarves would burst through the door. I felt myself drifting in and out of my body for a moment as I looked down at her, no way this was real. I pulled the light off her face hoping that when I looked back she would be fine, but I found myself staring at the wall, it was splattered with blood, hair, bone chips and gray matter. Facts. Hard cold facts. From splatter to victim. No entry wound on her face. I could see it go down. They had forced her to suck on the barrel before they pulled the trigger. Entry wound back of her throat, exit wound back of her skull. I traveled down her body. Her left nipple was hanging on by a ragged piece of skin. They used pliers on her. Random small brown circles on both breasts, her belly… they burned her with a thin cigar too large to be a cigarette too small to be a robusto. A browning red stain smeared from her pubic hair down to her thigh. Jesus Christ they… back to her face. Her lifeless green eyes stared up at me. My knees went weak, I slipped to the floor, tears rolling out of my eyes. I hadn’t cried in years. I felt the weight of it all pressing down on me. In this whole shitty world couldn’t they leave this one perfect flower alone?