Shooting Elvis Page 7

  Like I was supposed to get all stupid and sentimental remembering how he tried to pick me up in the lounge at Oak Tree Bowl, make me think he was an all right guy after all. Don’t know why they called it Oak Tree Bowl, musta been an oak tree cut down where they built it. Wrex used to hang out there a lot, not to bowl, to drink beer. Sure I thought he was cute, but remembering that first night didn’t fill me with romantic nostalgia. Wrex had been trying some combination drug and beer thing that didn’t mix just right, spent half the time making unexpected runs to the bathroom.

  I drove to Santa Monica, had an appointment with Bobby Easter, the gallery owner I’d met the night before. His place was called SMART Gallery, stood for Santa Monica ART. He was uncrating a painting of Sharon Stone and Billy Baldwin kissing when I walked in the door. The painting was from a scene in some movie. It was Billy b’s painting. I didn’t know Easter sold Billy b’s work. Like the night before, he dressed with lots of color. Lime green suit, canary yellow shirt buttoned at the neck, no tie, red leather shoes, pink-tinted eyeglasses. I waited for him to notice me. He didn’t. I coughed, stepped up, said I liked the painting.

  He looked me up and down like I was something he’d order off a menu, said, “You’re Billy b’s friend, aren’t you.” I got the feeling he wasn’t judging me so much as Billy b’s taste. He was curious, the way somebody will glance over to see what the guy at the next table is eating.

  He said, “Well, let’s have a look.”

  I spread the portfolio open on the corner of the reception desk. He flipped through the pages, smiled like he thought the photographs were amusing. He wanted to know where I’d exhibited before, who bought my photographs. Collectors, he called them. I answered zero exhibits, zero collectors.

  He said, “You know, I never exhibit photographers.”

  His mouth puckered in distaste when he said the word “photographers.” I couldn’t figure why he asked me to come by if he didn’t like photographs. Maybe he volunteered to see me because he sold Billy b’s paintings, wanted to keep him happy. Maybe it was a set-up job. Maybe Billy b told him to say he’d heard of me, so I’d think Billy b was a big shot.

  He said, “Nobody will buy these if you haven’t exhibited before.”

  He said, “Nobody will exhibit you if you aren’t in any collections.”

  He said, “Every gallery in town will look at this and tell you to come back when you’re a little further along in your career.”

  I zipped up the portfolio, walked away, said, “Thanks for your time.”

  “Hey,” he called.

  I stopped.

  “Talk to Barbara Whitney at LACE. She’s curating a group show for emerging artists. Don’t wait until tomorrow. Do it this afternoon.”

  I said I would, moved toward the door.

  “Nina,” he called.

  I stopped again.

  “When you’re done with Billy b, come and see me. It won’t hurt your reputation.”

  I had no idea what LACE was or where it was located but wasn’t going to tell him that. I stopped at a gas station, looked it up in the white pages. LACE stood for Los Angeles County Exhibitions. Barbara Whitney was behind the front desk when I got there. She looked rich. Pearls curved white against gray silk. Flawless makeup. Not a single ripple disturbed the smoothly brushed surface of her hair. Only somebody with a lifetime of money could look perfect like that.

  I walked up to the desk, introduced myself.

  She studied my portfolio while I stared at the ceiling, the clock, the counter, nervous as hell. She took her time. It was weird watching a woman like that examine my photographs. Maybe it was the National Geographic effect that interested her, pictures from a primitive culture, because she flipped back and forth in the book as though not quite believing what she was seeing.

  “And you’ve never been in a show before, is that right?”

  I told her no, not really.

  She handed me an application, said this was the last day to file so I had to fill it out now. She’d wait. I checked boxes, filled out answers, handed the application and my portfolio over the desk.

  She said, “We have over a hundred applications, you know.”

  I said, “So don’t get my hopes up?”

  She said, “Life is safer that way.”

  Hadn’t made up my mind what I was going to do about Wrex. Decided to drive north, check out his story, didn’t have the case with me so I wasn’t going to do things exactly the way he wanted. Maybe he deserved at least one chance to explain what was going on, how he planned to get me out of trouble. But I wasn’t going to walk up, say here I am. I wasn’t stupid. I was the one delivered the briefcase blew up in the airport. I didn’t plan to trust him all the way to jail or worse.

  The Honda was a problem, more identifiable as Mary Baker than I was. Couldn’t risk parking it in front of the bowling alley, have Wrex or somebody else know I was there. I parked it on a side street about a mile away, decided to walk up. Stuck my thumb out when I reached the main road. Never hitchhiked before, wanted to see what would happen. One of those mini pickup trucks pulled over, had big tires, custom mud flaps, extra chrome, fancy lettering on the back window said Smokin’. One look at the guy inside, I knew he meant the lettering more than one way. Long-haired headbanger about seventeen years old, listened to Anthrax full blast on his stereo, said his name was Phil. Looked at me like I’d just made his day, asked, “Where you going?”

  I told him I was going bowling. He didn’t expect to hear that, I could tell he was suddenly asking himself if maybe bowling was hipper than he thought. Here I was, obviously not from around there, an older woman, exotic looking, probably someone he’d fantasize about. Bowling must be the new thing. I noticed his hand shook a little when he tried to light a cigarette, like I made him nervous. It was strange coming back to my town the kind of person seemed exotic, dangerous to the people I once lived with. Then I asked if he wanted to come with, because I thought someone like Phil might be good cover, help me scout things out.

  Phil said sure he’d go bowling, goes bowling all the time, cool sport. He chirped the tires pulling away, thought he’d impress me with his driving skills, drove with his left elbow hanging out the window, his right wrist draped over the wheel. He drove the way guys do in small California towns, real fast and then cruising slow, showing off. Dumb way to drive, but I didn’t tell him that, I just smiled when he looked over to see if I realized how cool he was, pretended to gasp when he whipped the wheel left and bounced the mini-truck into the parking lot. Sure, Phil was just what I needed. I used him like a screen when I went in, nobody expected me to come with somebody, nobody expected me to look the way I did, I half hid behind him as we went straight for the bowling lanes. We stopped at an empty lane across from the lounge. Phil set his smokes and keys on the scoring table, walked up to the counter to get shoes and a scorecard. I went up to the racks like I was looking around for a bowling ball. Wrex was sitting at the bar, turned around to watch some sports thing on the big-screen TV. Then I saw someone else looked familiar, back turned at the phones like he was making a call. Rayon windbreaker and stay-pressed slacks, a guy spreading out in middle age, losing his hair. I looked around for his brother, didn’t see him, didn’t mean he wasn’t around, waiting for me to show up. Made it seem like a trap they wanted me to walk into, was thinking I might get Phil to take a message to Wrex, when somebody started shouting in the bar.

  Frick jogged away from the phones, knocked on the men’s room door, his brother came running out hand dipped inside his coat like he had something in there could shoot somebody. They ran into the bar, stopped. The somebody doing the shouting was Wrex. The brothers turned to see what he was shouting about. A news bulletin. My face, bigger than life on the big-screen TV. The newscaster said,. . . twenty-four years of age, with fair hair and complexion, last seen driving a late-model red Honda Civic. Anybody with information should please. . . . The picture was from my high school yearbook, blond hair piled high on
my head in a disastrous bun, eyes unfocused, mouth gaping in a sweet but insecure smile. My vanity was offended. Here I was, infamous, and they had to broadcast the worst picture they could find.

  I went back to the scorer’s table, slipped the keys to the mini-truck off Phil’s key chain, left a note saying I went to pee, walked out the door into the parking lot. I didn’t feel good tricking Phil like that, but I was sure he wouldn’t mind lending me his truck if I coulda told him the trouble I was in. I didn’t know when I could give it back either, because it looked like I was going to have to borrow it permanent.

  The mini-truck started right up, I popped the clutch and punched the accelerator, didn’t realize how light the thing was in back, almost spun a three-sixty just getting out of the parking lot. It had a 4.0-liter V-6 under the hood, in a small car like that a big engine is like strapping a rocket to a bicycle. Second gear, I was doing forty, wasn’t even red-lining the RPMs. Phil had done some work on the engine, put new pipes in the back, the thing let out a satisfying roar when I gave it some gas. The rearview mirror said no cops, no Wrex, no Frick and Frack. I headed to the edge of town, took side streets looking for a car with dust on its windshield and current registration tags. Found one parked in front of an empty lot, looked like it was abandoned. I took the front and back plates, put one on the mini-truck, drove back to my Honda and put the second on that. I grabbed my camera bag from the Honda, threw it and the old plates on the passenger floor of the mini-truck. The driver’s seat was set too far back so I reached underneath where they usually keep the lever that adjusts it, felt something there underneath the seat, pulled it out. It was a plastic baggie, had a bunch of pills inside, little white ones, a sheet of paper marked off into tiny squares, each square printed with the stuck-out-tongue logo of the Rolling Stones. Reached under again, found an envelope, opened it to three one-hundred-dollar bills tucked inside. Seemed Phil had a little business venture to help him make payments on his truck. A lot of kids did that in high school, was the way most kids bought their drugs, from another kid. I was sorry for Phil, but it would be a good business lesson to lose his truck, his stash, teach him about risk.

  Then I just ran. Got on the Palmdale Freeway and headed east. The sun dropped below the horizon, traffic ahead moved a good ten miles faster than the speed limit. I saw the cutoff to downtown L.A., didn’t take it, kept going east. I didn’t have a plan. Just running on the open road. Traffic thinned to a broken line. The sky poured liquid blue over the desert hills. The summer heat lifted to the cool of night. I didn’t need a plan. The mini-truck loped along under the palm of my hand. All I needed was an open road.

  I didn’t feel good about my mom finding out. My pop, let him think his daughter is a terrorist, shake loose a few of his dead certainties about the world. But my mom, she didn’t need a new source of pain in her life. I hadn’t even talked to her. I owed her at least a phone call. The FBI was camped out in her living room, waiting for me to call. Mom was serving coffee, asking if they wanted something to eat, worried half to death inside. She always did her best to take care of people, family or strangers. It made her feel good to be needed, that was more important than happiness. She knew how to be unhappy. Pop needed her, in his own brutal way. Ray needed her more than anybody. She was his life, I think. But Ray couldn’t talk to her. He didn’t know how. I was the only one who talked to her. Now I’d messed up, was just one more pain she had to deal with.

  I ran low on gas near Barstow, pulled into one of those interstate complexes with a gas station, mini-market, motel, coffee shop, bar and restaurant. It was getting near eleven, I wanted to wire up on coffee. The coffee shop was bright lights, orange vinyl booths, happy muzak. I bought a jumbo coffee to go and five Milky Way bars, asked if they had a big paper bag they could give me. I took the drugs, old license plates and Phil’s headbanger tapes, put them all in the paper bag and the bag in the trash. Then it was back in the truck and the long stretch of desert between Barstow and Phoenix. The moon rose above the horizon at midnight, dusted the desert floor with a silver glow. I kept the mini-truck at a steady seventy, the right speed to eat up the miles, keep the highway patrol at bay. The moon crept up the windshield, disappeared over the roof. Around four A.M. I turned south on a desert highway that promised to take me to Tucson, from Tucson to Mexico. My headlights spot-lit saguaro cacti at each curve, threw three-pronged shadows along the desert floor. I didn’t see another car for miles. I didn’t think about much. I watched the road and the changing colors of the sky.

  The sun was up and blinding by the time I hit the out-skirts of Tucson. I pulled off at a coffee shop, bought a copy of the Arizona Daily Star, sat down to a breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, orange juice and coffee. The newspaper mentioned me by name on page three, but no picture.

  A circular display of postcards stood by the cash register. I selected one showing a saddled jackrabbit the size of a horse. Wrote my mom I was sorry I hadn’t called, but I had to leave town in a hurry. I was in trouble because somebody played a mean trick on me. Didn’t know what to do, was thinking about leaving the country. But not to worry. Life will all come out in the wash and mimic the socks. Some disappear on mysterious paths no one can figure out, some are abandoned and alone, some find a new partner, and some stay mated for life. A running washday joke between Mom and me, started when I was a little girl helping out, turned into a big soap opera about the Life of Socks. I knew the FBI would be reading her mail. Let them try to figure out what it meant. My mom would understand. Life is not always predictable. I wrote I loved her six times in small print with big exclamation points, signed my name, put the card in the post box outside.

  It was short of nine A.M., and the truck was already hot as a furnace. Not a cloud in the bleached blue sky. I decided to drive east, into New Mexico. I didn’t know what I’d do once I got there. Get a job washing dishes maybe, keep driving, move from here to there. I didn’t know anybody, didn’t have any place I could go, no place to hide, the only other thing I could think of doing was buying gas until I ran out of money, driving until I ran out of gas. Once running, there was nothing to do but keep running.

  A couple hours out of Tucson, I had to stop, get some sleep, didn’t want to risk a motel, figured the police would keep an eye on every motel near the interstate. I took a highway south, pulled off the road where the land looked empty of people. Phil had a blanket stashed behind the seat. I tucked it under my arm and walked into the desert. A hill and outcrop of rock looked a good ten-minute hike distant, I hoped I might find a cool spot in the rocks. The desert was hot and quiet, but there was life everywhere around, waiting out the sun. Ants on the ground, birds in the spidery branches of these trees with bark almost black. Cactus shaped like pears stacked one on top of another, others shaped like barrels, or little fingers full of stickers and everywhere the saguaro, those big ones look like a man with his hands held up, so many in the hills around me it looked like an army coming down to surrender. When I got to the top of the hill, I climbed around the rocks until I found a flat one out of the sun, spread the blanket to get some sleep, stood to drink some of the Coke I brought before it got too warm to drink.

  Something below on the desert floor moved, caught my eye. I sat, watched for what it was. Looked like a dog, but it wasn’t a dog, it was a coyote. It paced back and forth a couple hundred yards away, nose to the ground, scouting for something. Then it loped on. Even at that distance I could see a spot of red where its tongue hung out. I didn’t think it saw me, people probably shot coyotes around there, not like in the national parks, where one will practically steal food out of your hand. The coyote stopped, ears up, listened for something. I couldn’t hear anything, just a little wind brushing against the rocks. Then it dropped its head, doubled back, excited about something. Paced back and forth around a cluster of sagebrush, pawed and sniffed around the base.

  Two rabbits broke free, sprinted different angles away from the brush. The coyote made his decision faster than I could see it happ
en, chased one rabbit, cut it off from where it wanted to go, caught it with a crisp and brutal snap of its jaws. The rabbit screamed when it was caught, I didn’t know a rabbit could make a sound like that, like a person screaming, like the kind of scream I would make if something jawed the back of my neck. The coyote shook its head, broke the rabbit’s neck, the scream stopped. Just like that it was over. The rabbit was alive one moment, dead the next. It ran, was caught and killed. No fun being a rabbit. No fun being hunted, caught, eaten. I went to sleep, slept through the hottest hours of the day. When I woke up, I turned around, drove back to L.A.

  9

  The Steel Investigations office squatted above a boarded-up strip joint on Ivar Avenue in Hollywood, in a two-story crumble-bum structure on the biggest nothing street in Hollywood, which can be a pretty nothing town. The strip joint looked boarded up a couple years, cheesecake eight-by-tens still in display cases, tasseled breasts bleached green by the sun. It took me most of the day to get around to Steel. I started with Pinkerton’s, where an operative who looked more like an accountant told me I needed a license to work for them unless it was secretarial, and I didn’t look much like Pinkerton material anyway. ACE and Eagle Security and Nolan’s Investigations, they all said pretty much the same thing. If I didn’t have any experience, I had to go to detective school and get a certificate. I said to the guy at Nolan’s, I didn’t have time to go to school, who might hire me as is?