The chief of police flinched and glanced sharply to his right. He saw Pearl smiling beatifically through the open car window. He ignored her and kept on walking toward the SUV with the ominous tinted windows. His security aide opened the door for the chief and he got in.
Hollywood Nate said sotto, “So that’s your idea of get-back? Snuffy’s revenge has come down to calling the chief of police a crazy Eskimo?”
Snuffy Salcedo whispered back, “When you get right down to it, she mighta got it right. He’s been giving the L.A. media and City Hall a major snow job for the past seven and a half years.”
When they got out of the car and entered the building, Snuffy said, “Anyways, Pearl did her best. On our way to the funny place, let’s stop and buy her some ice cream.”
“Ice cream! Whoopdedoo!” Pearl cried, and yodeled merrily as she frolicked along the corridor and into the depressing basement office of the Mental Evaluation Unit, inside the doomed old building that for more than half a century lawbreakers had called the Glass House.
FIFTEEN
Marty Brueger said to Raleigh Dibble, “It’s Thursday and I’m sick of sitting around here. If I’m gonna stroke out and die, I want it to be in Chasen’s eating a big bowl of chili.”
Raleigh said, “Mr. Brueger, Chasen’s has been closed for a very long time, don’t you remember?”
“Oh, shit, that’s right,” Marty Brueger said. “Oh, my mind.”
Raleigh was removing the breakfast tray from the table in the cottage and trying to keep his game face on, even though the old coot was starting to smell ripe. It took an effort for Raleigh not to turn away when he needed to take a breath. He also wanted to trim the tufts of hair sprouting from the geezer’s ears.
“Elizabeth Taylor loved Chasen’s chili. I saw her there many times,” Marty Brueger said.
“Yes, I know,” Raleigh said.
“She was usually with her husband, Rex Harrison.”
“Richard Burton,” Raleigh said.
“What’s he got to do with it?” Marty Brueger said.
“She was married to him. Not to Rex Harrison.”
“Oh, shit!” Marty Brueger said. “Don’t ever get as old as me, Raleigh. Take the gas pipe before you do. An old man’s life is for shit!”
“There, there, Mr. Brueger,” Raleigh said. “Why don’t you take a nice bath? It’ll make you feel better.”
“All right. Then I wanna talk about going someplace. I’m sick of this fucking place.”
“Do you need help getting into the bath?” Raleigh asked.
“Raleigh, the day I can’t go into a walk-in shower and sit on a bench and turn on the water, that’s the day I’ll ask you to go out and buy me a gun.”
“Okay, Mr. Brueger,” Raleigh said. “I’ll give you an hour and then I’ll come back and we’ll talk about an outing. Maybe we could drive to the beach and look at the pretty girls. You said you used to like to do that. Or maybe we could go to the movies in Westwood. Or maybe-”
Marty Brueger interrupted Raleigh with plaintive eyes that looked somehow touching through those Coke-bottle glasses. He said, “I can’t even remember the last time I was able to get an erection. I should have had it carbon-dated.”
This time it was Megan Burke dragging Jonas Claymore out of bed. Jonas had done way too much Vicodin before going to sleep and he’d washed it all down with screw-top wine. He opened his eyes in utter disorientation when she shook him and said, “Jonas, wake up! You gotta get up right away.”
“What?” he said. “What?”
She said, “Mr. Casper’s on his way.”
Jonas raised himself on his elbows and said, “Who?”
“Your landlord, that’s who,” Megan said. “He just phoned your cell and he wants his rent money. Twelve hundred dollars.”
Jonas yawned, sat up, and said, “It ain’t no thing. Give it to him. You got it from your old lady, didn’t you?”
“Jonas, focus! I got two hundred from my mom, remember? And we spent half of it last night. Do you remember saying you wanted vike and vino?”
“Oh, Christ,” he said, vaguely remembering. “Is that all this fucking world’s about? Greedy rich people keeping people like us as serfs and slaves?”
“You have to talk to him,” she said. “He says he’ll shut off your water and have you evicted.”
“Like hell he will,” Jonas said. “That little slumlord kike can’t push us around.”
“Get dressed,” Megan said, “and think of something.”
“Okay, that does it,” Jonas said. “We’re going up to the Hollywood Hills in earnest today. No more casing. This is the real thing. Where does Paris Hilton live these days? Anybody can walk into her crib and she won’t even know it.”
While Jonas was trying to swallow a bite of scrambled egg with stale toast, Megan tried to tidy up the little apartment. She stacked the pizza boxes and paper plates on top of the fridge and piled the other debris in the kitchen sink, since the trash can was full of soft-drink cans and candy wrappers.
Then she hurried into their tiny bedroom, and Jonas said to her, “Where you going?”
“To make the bed. In case he goes in there to check things out.”
“Get the fuck back here,” Jonas said. “You think I’m gonna let that little hebe cocksucker walk into our bedroom? He’s gonna talk to us from outside the door.”
“No, Jonas!” Megan said. “We have to invite him in. You need another rent extension, so you have to be nice to the man. You get more flies with honey, right?”
“We got more than enough flies in this fucking place,” Jonas said. “We don’t need no more.”
He was making a halfhearted attempt at brushing his teeth in the bathroom when the knock came at the door. He heard Megan say, “Good morning, sir. Come in, please. I’m a friend of Jonas and I’m visiting for a couple of days.”
Jonas was shirtless and shoeless when he entered the living room in his last pair of jeans that still had the knees intact. He gave the landlord a sulky nod and said, “Good morning.”
Contrary to Jonas Claymore’s description, Mickey Casper was not little. He was several inches shorter than his lanky young tenant, but he had impressive arms, a chest that stretched his cotton shirt, and veined hands that belonged on a larger man.
He spoke with a very slight Israeli accent and said, “Jonas, I told you last time that I don’t need this aggravation month after month. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Jonas said, “I got laid off from my job, Mr. Casper. Times are tough right now. We need you to be patient till I get another job.”
“This has been going on too long,” the landlord said. “I’m giving you notice.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Jonas said. “I got an interview today with the manager of a Starbucks. I’ll be going to work on Monday if he likes me. And I know he’ll like me. He said I’m just what he’s looking for.”
“Which Starbucks?” the landlord asked.
“The one at Sunset and Cahuenga,” Jonas said.
“There is no Starbucks at Sunset and Cahuenga. I know that area very well,” the landlord said.
Jonas stared at the man, trying to think of what to say, but the fucking headache was killing him. He couldn’t think.
Megan said, “Could you please just give him a couple of weeks, Mr. Casper?”
“I’m sorry,” the landlord said. “This has been going on too long. I’ve given you notice, Jonas.”
At that moment Jonas’s headache peaked and he exploded with, “Okay, you little kike bastard, but for now this is my residence. Get out.”
The landlord went pale around the mouth and started to speak but then changed his mind. He walked toward the door, but it wasn’t fast enough for Jonas Claymore. As the landlord stopped and was about to say something, Jonas gave him a little shove and said, “Get the fuck out now!”
The landlord reacted with a blow to Jonas’s solar plexus. It was a punch that only moved eight or ten inches but it was delivered with power and in exactly the spot where he was taught to hit when he’d done some boxing as a young man. Jonas sucked in a breath, started coughing, and went down on one knee and then flopped onto his back.