‘Aw, in this town they’re all homeless,’ Lucille told him. ‘You put some food out on the stoop a few days in a row, leave the front door open, some more food in the kitchen, and before you know it you’ve got enough pet friends for an entire lifetime.’
Yet not quite enough it seemed, because three days previously Lucille decided she couldn’t endure the isolation any longer. She had taken Harry to a former Savile Row tailor she knew, to an elderly hairdresser in Rosewood Avenue and then — most important of all — to John Lobb’s shoe store in Beverly Hills. Yesterday, Harry had picked up the suit while Lucille got ready, and a few hours later they had gone to eat at Dan Tana’s, the legendary Italian restaurant where the chairs were as worn out as the clientele, but where Lucille seemed to know everybody and had beamed all evening.
It was seven o’clock. Harry inhaled and stared at the ceiling. Listened for sounds that shouldn’t be there. But all he heard was the first cars on Doheny Drive, which was not the widest street, but popular because it had fewer traffic lights than the roads running parallel. It reminded him of lying in bed in his apartment in Oslo, listening to the sounds of the city waking outside the open window. He missed it, even the ill-tempered ringing and the shrill screech of a braking tram. Particularly the shrill screech.
But Oslo was behind him now. Following Rakel’s death he had sat at the airport, looked at the departure board, and rolled a dice that determined his destination would be Los Angeles. He had figured it was as good as anywhere. He had lived in Chicago for a year while attending the FBI’s course for serial homicides, and thought he was familiar with American culture and their way of life. But not long after arrival, he realised that Chicago and LA were two different planets. One of Lucille’s movie friends, a German director, had described Los Angeles with bluster in a broad accent at Dan Tana’s the night before.
‘You land at LAX, the sun is shining and you’re picked up by a limousine which drives you to a place where you lie down by a swimming pool, get a cocktail, fall asleep and wake up to discover that twenty years of your life have gone by.’
That was the director’s LA.
Harry’s introduction to LA had been four nights at a dirty, cockroach-infested motel room without air con in La Cienega, prior to his renting an even cheaper room in Laurel Canyon, also without air con, but with larger cockroaches. But he had settled in somewhat after discovering Creatures, the neighbourhood bar, where the liquor was cheap enough for him to deem it possible to drink himself to death.
But after staring down the barrel of a Glock 17 this desire to die had ceased. As had the drinking. That type of drinking at any rate. If he was to be capable of keeping watch and looking out for Lucille, he would have to be somewhat sober. He had, therefore, decided to test out the drinking regimen his childhood friend and drinking partner Øystein Eikeland had recommended, although frankly it sounded like bullshit. The method was called Moderation Management, and was supposed to turn you into a substance user, meaning a substance abuser who exercises moderation. The first time he had told Harry about it, the two of them had been sitting in Øystein’s taxi at a rank in Oslo. His enthusiasm had been such that he had hammered on the steering wheel while proclaiming its virtues.
‘People have always derided the alcoholic who swears that from now on he’s only going to have a drink in social settings, right? Because they don’t think that’s possible, they’re sure it isn’t, almost as if you’d be defying the law of gravity for, like, alcoholism, yeah? But you know what? It is possible to drink to just the right level of drunkenness even for a full-blown alkie like you. And me. It’s possible to programme yourself to drink to a certain point and stop. All you have to do is decide beforehand where to draw the line, how many units. But, it goes without saying, you have to work at it.’
‘You have to drink a lot before you get the hang of it, you mean?’
‘Yeah. You’re smirking, Harry, but I’m serious. It’s about that sense of achievement, of knowing that you can. And then it’s possible. I’m not kidding, I can offer the world’s best substance abuser as living proof.’
‘Hm. I presume we’re talking about that overrated guitarist you like so much.’
‘Hey, have some respect for Keith Richards! Read his biography. He gives you the formula right there. Survival is about two things. Only the purest, best dope, it’s the stuff mixed in with it that kills you. And moderation, in both drugs and alcohol. You know exactly how much you need to get sufficiently drunk, which in your case means pain-free. More liquor after doesn’t help soothe the pain more, now does it?’
‘Suppose not.’
‘Exactly. Being drunk isn’t the same as being an idiot or weak-willed. After all, you manage not to drink when you’re sober, so why shouldn’t you manage to stop when you’re at just the right level. It’s all in your head, brother!’
The rules — in addition to setting a limit — were to count the number of units and decide on set days where you abstained completely. As well as take a naltrexone an hour before your first drink. Putting off drinking for an hour when the thirst suddenly hit actually helped. He had kept to the regimen for three weeks now and had yet to crack. That was something in itself.
Harry swung his legs out of bed and stood up. He didn’t need to open the fridge, he knew it was empty of beer. The Moderation Management rules specified a maximum of three units per day. That meant a six-pack from the 7-Eleven down the street. He looked in the mirror. He had actually put a little more meat on his lean bones in the three weeks since the escape from Creatures. As well as a grey, almost white, beard. It hid his most conspicuous feature, the liver-coloured scar. Whether that would be enough for the man in the Camaro not to recognise him again was doubtful, however. Harry peered out of the window towards the garden and the main house while he pulled on a ragged pair of jeans and a T-shirt starting to tear at the neckline reading ‘Let Me Do One More illuminati hotties’ on it. Put the old, non-wireless earphones in his ears, his feet in a pair of flip-flops and noted that nail fungus had created a grotesque artwork of sorts on the big toe of his right foot. He walked out into a tangle of grass, bushes and jacaranda trees. Stopped by the gate and looked up and down Doheny Drive. Everything seemed fine. He turned on the music, ‘Pool Hopping’ by illuminati hotties, a song that had lifted his spirits ever since he had heard it for the first time live at Zebulon Café. But after walking a few metres down the pavement, he caught sight of a car pulling away from the kerb in the wing mirror of one of the parked cars. Harry continued on, turning his head ever so slightly to check. The car was moving slowly behind at the same speed about ten metres back. While living in Laurel Canyon, he had been stopped twice by police cars simply because he was on foot and therefore deemed a suspicious individual. But this wasn’t a police cruiser. It was an old Lincoln, and as far as Harry could make out only one person was in the car. A broad bulldog face, double chin, small moustache. Fuck, he should have taken the Glock! But Harry couldn’t envision the attack happening in the middle of the street in broad daylight, so he continued walking. Turned off the music discreetly. Crossed the street just before Santa Monica Boulevard and entered the 7-Eleven. Stood and waited while scanning the street. But he didn’t see the Lincoln anywhere. Maybe it had been a prospective house buyer cruising slowly along while checking out the properties on Doheny.
He made his way between the aisles towards the refrigerators with beer at the back of the premises. Heard the door open. Remained standing with one hand on the handle of the glass door, but without opening, so he could see the reflection. And there he was. In a cheap, check suit and a body to match his bulldog face: small, compact and fat. But fat in the way that might mask speed, strength and — Harry felt his heart beat faster — danger. Harry could see the man behind him hadn’t drawn any weapon, not yet. He kept the earphones in, figuring he might have a chance if the man believed he had the element of surprise on his side.