Los Angeles Noir Page 12

  Eloise hadn’t been going to a girlfriends’ get-together every year—but she had needed everyone to think that. She had been checking on her illegitimate son. It’s not a word that Madonna’s generation uses, but it was a common one, and an unkind one, to Eloise’s generation. She’d given this boy up for adoption, as unwed mothers did then, and had gone to college nearby to be close to him.

  Now her boy was dead, yes, but would she have killed herself over that? She still had two children and a loving husband, and her secret was safe in her poor son’s grave.

  As I assembled the bits of newspaper, Eloise’s bracelet gleamed on my arm. The one she never took off. So much of Eloise’s jewelry were mementos or gifts, so many of them inscribed—I wondered, had she engraved this one with some secret reminder of her son, like his birthdate, meaningful only to her?

  I slipped it off and tipped it into the light, turned it. Nothing.

  Not even a hallmark? A karat marking? I switched on the lighted makeup mirror, that lab-quality magnifier found in the bathroom of every woman in Beverly Hills, the forensic facial tool in the ruthless hunt for any hint of imperfection.

  In the merciless light I could see that the bracelet was missing something else. Something less definable than a hallmark, more elusive. Something a Beverly Hills brat would know from the time she was old enough to try shoplifting at Fred Segal: the unmistakable inner glow of deep, true gold. I looked closer. Here and there, under unforgiving magnification, the tiniest pinpoints of cool metal gleamed through.

  Silver. Not gold.

  A fake. No, a copy.

  I spread a thick towel on the marble countertop and laid out what I’d brought back from the BHPD. One after another, in the unrelenting light, I began to notice almost microscopic clues—a jewel cut slightly too deeply, a patina a little too dull, another a little too bright. Line for line, the copies were exceptionally accomplished, but copies nonetheless.

  Why? Why on earth would a rich woman have fake jewelry?

  I tried to use my father’s practical brain instead of my academic one. Eloise Davis had killed herself. She had gone back to her “annual reunion” and learned that her boy was dead. He probably didn’t know about her, didn’t know that his upbringing, his education, med school—all had been paid for covertly by Eloise.

  Eloise, who could have asked her husband for anything but this, had sold her jewelry piece by piece, and concealed her losses by commissioning superb copies that could pass muster almost anywhere. Except, maybe, in BH.

  My mind hurried down the stairs to the Cézannes that still hung in the dining room—not because thieves didn’t want Cézannes, but because perhaps they too were copies and the thieves knew it.

  For thirty years, the Davises, their friends, their guests, their help, had all been so used to seeing the paintings that they never noticed the switch. But the savvy thieves recognized them for what they were.

  Once they’d had the leisure to scrutinize Eloise’s stolen jewelry, they would have twigged to the fact that it was all fake too, and dumped it fast on that Koreatown pawnbroker, where it turned up along with some of their lesser jewelry haul.

  I imagined those looky-loos at the police department coming back, looking once, twice. Somebody would eventually figure it out. In this town? You bet they would. Two girls in my sixth-grade class did their science fair project on how to test for genuine gold.

  Soon it’d be whispered from salon chair to salon chair, from restaurant booth to restaurant booth. Eloise Davis’s fabulous jewelry is fake.

  Her suicide made a sad kind of sense: She’d rather be dead than humiliated—or humiliate her family. New BH would laugh at her pretensions; Old BH would expel the Davises for having embarrassed them in front of New BH.

  Once, Eloise had owned the real things, the satin and velvet jewelers’ boxes from Harry Winston and Van Cleef’s, and the insurance appraisals to prove it. But once le tout BH knew the jewelry wasn’t real, Mr. Davis, good lawyer that he is, would set out to turn up the truth about why his wife wore fake jewels. And then he’d find out about the illegitimate son and the gold and diamonds gone to pay for his upbringing, his education, maybe even the very car he was driving the day he was killed.

  And good lawyer’s wife that she was, Eloise had planned—so she thought—for every contingency. Her will specified that her jewelry be buried with her. Sentiment, everyone would agree. The jewels had disappeared, and the insurance company would have paid up. But instead they resurfaced, very publicly. That, on top of her boy’s death, knocked her plan awry, and she must have seen only one solution—in the pill bottles beside her bed.

  Oh, Eloise, you desperate, foolish, loving woman. By the time the tox results came back from the lab, she and her jewelry would be long buried.

  No one would connect a Beverly Hills matron’s death with a GP killed in a car crash in the rural Midwest.

  I switched off the glaring makeup light and the room subsided into shadows. I pocketed the bit of newspaper and carried the jewelry out to the dressing table. Now it hardly mattered whether anyone stole it before the funeral. Maybe one of these days, another pack of thieves, less discriminating, would steal the fake Cézannes and tie up that loose end.

  The family didn’t know. And they never would, not from me. As I said, in Beverly Hills, the police don’t talk. The victims don’t talk. And I am my father’s daughter. Why should I?

  OVER THIRTY

  BY CHRISTOPHER RICE

  West Hollywood

  The bus bench at the intersection of Santa Monica and La Cienega was empty, which meant that Jawbone was probably holed up in a shelter somewhere, possibly drying out from the combo of malt liquor and meth that kept him shouting at passing traffic for days on end. It was Ben’s lover Ron who had given Jawbone his nickname, a nod to the fact that the guy’s face was so wasted from drug use that the only solid thing left in it was his mandible. The intersection had been Jawbone’s turf for years now, and the fact that he had chosen this night to go on hiatus made Ben feel all the more shameful as he walked home from a sleazy gay bar at a little after 2 in the morning.

  For most of the night he had guzzled weak vodka tonics. Then he had made the mistake of buying a tab of ecstasy off a nineteen-year-old tranny that had turned out to be spit and aspirin. Because he was slightly numb and seriously nauseous, it took Ben a few seconds to realize that he recognized the giant face staring down at him from the billboard for some new cop show that had just gone up over the intersection that afternoon. Ben had slept with the handsome actor right after moving to L.A. They had shared the same agent and the same cosmetic dentist and, to Ben’s disappointment, the same taste for throwing their ankles skyward in the bedroom. Now that he was being prepped for prime-time glory, it was a safe bet that the star-to-be, who had apparently changed his name from Peter Lefkin to Peter Lowe, no longer sped around West Hollywood in his Porsche convertible with Leontyne Pryce blasting from the stereo and a vial of coke tucked inside the pocket of his white jeans.

  For a while, Ben just stood there, staring up at his former lover. Peter Lefkin Lowe had been given all of the same opportunities as Ben, and had adopted a few vices that Ben had never been forced to reckon with, and there he was, towering over the intersection of Santa Monica and La Cienega, while Ben, thirty-five and a year from his last acting job, stumbled home from a night spent watching adolescent go-go boys dance on top of a dirty bar.

  He was supposed to be in Palm Springs getting wined and dined by his agent. But earlier that evening, an hour before he was supposed to brave rush hour traffic, Ben had taken a good hard look at the evidence and realized that his agent’s idea for a weekend getaway was probably a separation hearing. He hadn’t worked in over a year, not since being booted from the cast of A Passing Wind. Never mind that his four-year stint as alcoholic, sexually compulsive corporate attorney Arthur Bowden had earned him four Daytime Emmy nominations. Never mind that he had spent years training to be the kind of actor who didn’
t have to hit the gym three times in a single day to make up for his lack of talent. The minute Ben Campbell started to grow a belly, Arthur Bowden’s life ended in a fiery helicopter crash, and now Ben Campbell was considering commercial work for the first time in ten years.

  The bungalow he shared with his lover was the kind of tiny, absurdly expensive property that real estate agents referred to as charming and upwardly mobile gay couples referred to as transitional. Still, Ben felt a surge of pride as he approached it; this was the only real accomplishment he had left. Six years ago, he had convinced his lover Ron to take on the mortgage at almost ten percent interest, a testament to the fact that Ben’s powers of persuasion were dependent upon the firmness of his ass.

  Ron would be furious when he found out Ben had cancelled on his agent, so Ben decided to delay the inevitable as long as possible by entering through the side gate instead of the front door. Ben had spent the last 365 potential working days turning the backyard into a Zen meditation retreat, but he hadn’t done much of anything in it besides sneak the occasional cigarette. Squares of white gravel held rows of faux-bonsai trees and a stone Buddha sat cross-legged in the middle of the yard, a thin stream of water gurgling from a hole in the center of its bald head. Ron’s only contribution to the landscaping had been to repeatedly batter it with his gas-powered leaf blower, before one of the neighbors called to angrily remind him that gas-powered leaf blowers were illegal in the city of West Hollywood. That was Ron—ever successful in all of his business endeavors, he was convinced that this gave him license to remain ever defiant in the face of small rules designed to make other people comfortable.

  Maybe I’ll sleep on the sofa, Ben thought. What on earth would he tell Ron if he woke up? Sorry, honey. I jeopardized my relationship with my agent so I could spend the night at Rudy’s. You remember Rudy’s, don’t you, honey? That trashy dance club you and I went to last Friday when we ran out of the things to say to each other at dinner? The one where you got a hard-on for that twinky little porn star they had dancing on the bar? I even pretended to be the progressive gay wife while you slid a five-dollar bill into his sweaty jock strap, remember?

  When he closed his hand around the knob, Ben realized that the back door was slightly open. Like most of their friends, they had come to a specific agreement about sex outside of the relationship. Unlike most of their friends, however, they had both agreed not to have any. Suddenly, Ben realized that he had executed the kind of detective work a suspicious wife usually took weeks to plan—he had convinced his lover he would be out of town and had not given any indication that he was returning home early.

  A fluid-filled groan came from the direction of the master bedroom, too low to be heard by anyone besides a startled lover hovering on the back steps. Ben was confident that Ron had made the sound, and in his mind’s eye, he saw the nubile young porn star from Rudy’s straddling Ron’s hairy chest, the kid’s hands gripping the headboard in front of him as he jammed his erection down Ron’s throat. Force-feeding was Ron’s favorite position and Ben had assumed it countless times, fearing the day when he would be too heavy for Ron to accommodate him without cursing. From what Ben could remember, the kid had almond-shaped blue eyes, enormous bleached teeth, and a compact body that was still one-quarter teenager. The night Ron tipped the kid so handsomely, Ben had gone online and found out that the kid’s professional name was Mike Ellis and his most recent credits included The Boners and Farewell My Daddy. In terms of output, the kid’s career was outpacing Ben’s two to nothing.

  The bedroom door was open. His fingers going numb as he gripped the edge of the doorframe, Ben peered in and saw the lower half of his lover’s body, his back resting against the bed’s footboard, his legs splayed on the carpet in front of him. The white soles of his sneakers stared back at Ben like eyes without irises. Ron’s head and torso were blocked by the towering figure standing in front of him. The exertion of the guy’s thrusts drove his baseball cap back over his mop of shoulder-length hair. Ben couldn’t see the stranger’s hands but he figured they were gripping the back of Ron’s head.

  Ben had left the back door open behind him. He stepped out of it, just as silently as he had entered, when Ron let out a sharper, more high-pitched sound that suggested the activities being carried out in the bedroom had grown more penetrating. Ben made it to the box hedges that concealed the back fence, then he fell to his knees and threw up. After he caught his breath, he realized what a tragic irony it was that he had rid himself of all the chemicals that could have kept him numb during this.

  TV movies had taught him that there would be certain pivotal moments in his life, so like a good little actor, he had rehearsed for them. The emotional press conference he would have to give after his adopted daughter was abducted off their front lawn. The moment when Ron finally sank down on one knee and officially proposed. And, of course, the black day when he would walk in on Ron in bed with someone else.

  Where was the tearful rage he had practiced? What had become of the venomous one-liners he had meant to hurl at the offending home-wrecker as he made a mad dash from the bedroom? Indeed, it was Ben who had headed straight for the back door, not the tall baseball cap—wearing stranger. Now, down on his knees in a dark corner of his own backyard, he tried to read some meaning into his own strange instincts.

  Why had he run? Why was he still hiding? Because it wasn’t a confrontation he wanted. He had to get a good look at the man who had led Ron to stray. He had to observe him. Pinpoint just what qualities the man had that Ben had squandered. Maybe Ben could get some of those things back, even if he had already lost Ron.

  He drew his knees to his chest and wedged himself between the back fence and the box hedge, readjusting until he was in a position that allowed him to see the back door. After only a few minutes of this, his back started to tense up, and his stomach clenched at the thought that Ron might ask this stranger to spend the night with him in their bed. Their friends Phil and Tom had been in an open relationship together for years, but both of them were always eager to recite their number one ground rule: Never in our bed. If the wait became unbearable, Ben would use his cell phone to call the house, claim that he and his agent had had it out and he had pulled over to collect himself on the drive home. Would be there within minutes. Surely that would send the tall dark stranger racing out the back door.

  The stranger had been too tall to be Mike Ellis, prince of the sweaty jock strap. That left the blond Yale Law graduate he and Ron had met at a fundraiser cocktail party for the Equal Liberties Defense Fund two weeks earlier. Yalie had made a beeline for Ron after spotting him across the buffet table. The arrogant little prick didn’t even bother to extend his hand to Ben when Ron finally introduced them after several agonizing minutes of small talk. Like every other twentysomething queen fresh off an American Airlines flight from JFK, Yalie heaped generous amounts of disdain on a city that had already granted him a flawless tan and the most spacious apartment he had ever lived in, all while undressing Ron with sparkling chestnut eyes.

  Overboard. That was the expression Ron had used when Ben had vented his annoyance about the little son of a bitch on the ride home. When he saw the look on Ben’s face, Ron had tried a sheepish grin and said, “Relax. I said overboard. Not over thirty.”

  The touch of cold steel brought Ben back into his body, and he realized he was standing in front of the garden shed, fingering the padlock on its doors. The lock had been left open and the gas-powered leaf blower abandoned on the dirt floor inside. Another image struck him. Ron hearing the phone ring over the leaf blower’s dull roar, tossing it inside the shed before he ran back inside the house, steps quickened by arousal and anticipation. A set of manual hedge clippers hung from a nail inside the shed. Ben could just make out their silhouette, knew that if he opened the doors a few more inches the security light over the back gate would throw them into sharp relief, transform them into an invitation he might not be able to turn down. When Lorena Bobbit cut off her husband’
s dick, it didn’t actually kill him, Ben thought. Ergo, while cutting a man’s dick off is a very dangerous thing, it doesn’t always end in death. Castration and attempted murder are two different things.

  He was growing impressed with this quick logic when the back door to the house slammed shut. Ben spun around just in time to see a shadow streak through the security light’s halo and out the side gate. The hedge clippers forgotten, Ben took off after the guy.

  By the time Ben reached the sidewalk, the stranger was a block away, moving at a steady clip with his shoulders hunched forward and a backpack jostling against a puffy waffle-print coat that was too heavy for the spring evening.

  The stranger somehow sensed that he was being pursued and whirled around. Ben threw himself behind a sycamore tree before he could be seen. He listened to the man’s frenzied whispers, tried to make out his words but couldn’t. After surveying the lay of shadows all around him, he decided to venture a peek. Half a block away, the stranger rocked back and forth, his head pivoting as if he had been scanning the sidewalk behind him and some internal gearshift had gotten stuck. A nearby porch light illuminated his matted shoulderlength hair but not his face.

  The stranger backed up until he was at the mouth of an alleyway that ran behind the businesses on Santa Monica Boulevard, a once-important West Hollywood thoroughfare that had born the nickname Vaseline Alley before the sheriff’s department had planted traffic barriers at either end to keep the predators from cruising it after dark. When the stranger saw this new path of escape, he turned on his heel and entered it.

  As soon as he reached the mouth of the alleyway, Ben called out to the stranger, who backed away from a dumpster he was trying to open with one hand.

  “Jawbone,” Ben whispered.

  The resident lunatic stared back at Ben with cue-ball eyes, chapped lips parted over yellowing teeth. Not a porn star. Not an Ivy League graduate. A deranged drug addict. He held a bulging black backpack in his right fist. The front flaps of his waffle-print coat were smeared with blood and it looked as if the bag was as well, even though the color partially masked the stains. Jawbone’s lips were moving rapidly, forming words Ben could barely hear.