Dreams Die First (9 page)

“Why not?”

“Well—it’s sort of, uh, pornographic.”

Mother turned to me. “Is it?”

“That’s Uncle John’s opinion. I don’t think it is. You read it for yourself and make up your own mind.”

“I will,” she said firmly. “You send it to me.”

“I’ll be leaving, too,” Eileen said, getting up. “I have some early classes tomorrow.”

We exchanged goodnights. I kissed Mother on the cheek and left her there with Uncle John. Eileen and I went out together. The Rolls and the big Caddy were the only cars in the driveway. “Where’s your car?” I asked.

“I walked over. It’s only two houses down the road, remember?”

I remembered. “Hop in,” I said. “I’ll drop you off.”

We got into the car and she opened her purse. “Want a smoke?”

“You got one?”

“I’m always prepared. I didn’t know what kind of night it would be.” She lit the joint as I pulled the car out of the driveway. She took a deep toke and passed it to me.

When we arrived at her driveway, she touched my arm to keep me from turning in. “Can I go downtown with you?”

I gave the joint back to her and kept on going. “Sure.” I glanced at her face in the glow of the dashboard lights. “What made you come tonight?”

“I was curious about you. I heard so many stories.” She turned to me. “You’re not really gay, are you?”

I met her glance. “Sometimes.”

“Most guys who say they’re bi are really only one way.”

“Want proof?” I asked. I took her hand and put it down on my hard-on. All it took to get me there was good grass and the right company.

She pulled her hand away. “I believe you.”

“Want me to take you home now?”

“No. Besides, I want to get a copy of your paper to see for myself what it’s like.”

***

I pulled the Rolls into a parking-meter space across the street from the newsstand in front of the Ranch Market on La Brea. We sat in the car and watched the action. The usual night crawlers were hanging out. They wore a look of bored patience. It was still early for them. The crunch would come about midnight. If they didn’t score by 1 A.M. the ball game would be called for the night.

We got out of the car, locked it and crossed the street. I started at the corner and walked down past the rows of paperback books and magazines, looking for the paper. I found it near the cash register.

While Eileen hung in back of me, I pretended to be a customer and picked up a copy. I started to open it, but there was a small piece of Scotch tape that bound the edges closed.

The man at the register scarcely looked at me as he spoke. His eyes kept darting up and down the newsstand. “Costs you fifty cents to look at the pussy.”

“It looks like a throwaway. How do I know it’s not a rip-off?”

He gestured with his thumb. I looked at the back of the stand. The paper’s centerfold was tacked along the backboard. “Fifty cents,” he said in a rasping voice.

“I never saw this paper before,” I said, handing him the change.

“Just out today.”

“How’s it going?”

“I started out this afternoon with fifty. I got maybe five left.” For the first time his eyes focused on me. “You the law?”

“No, the publisher.”

His weather-beaten face cracked in a smile. “You got a hot number there, sonny. You gotta make a lotta money if they don’t hassle you.”

“Thanks.”

“Maybe you can help me out. I called Ronzi and asked him for a hundred more. I got a big weekend coming up.”

“What’d he say?”

“No dice. He says there ain’t no more. Now I’m sorry I didn’t take the hundred he tried to lay on me.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

It was the same everywhere we went—Hollywood Boulevard, Sunset, Western Avenue. On the way back to Eileen’s house we stopped in at M.F.K.’s drugstore in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. The paper wasn’t on the small stand there. It was in a vending machine, with a sticker price of fifty cents. While we watched, a man threw two quarters in the slot and took the last copy.

At the counter I ordered a coffee for her and an all-black soda with an extra seltzer for me. As I sucked up the bitter sweetness, I watched her go through the paper. Finally, she looked at me. “Not bad.”

I lit a cigarette. “Thanks.”

“I can make a few suggestions if they won’t trip over your ego.”

“Suggest away.”

“The paper’s got a lot of guts and vitality,” she said, taking the cigarette from my hand. “But there’s a lot you don’t know.”

I nodded for her to go on and lit another cigarette.

“First, the writing is all the same style. It looks as if one man did it all.”

“One man did,” I said. “Me.”

“Not bad,” she said. “But you could use a change-up pitcher. Another thing, you have the lead article on page seven. The lead article should always be on page three, so that the reader catches it the minute he opens the paper.”

I said nothing.

“Want me to continue?”

I nodded.

“The typography should be cleaned up. Whoever sets it hasn’t the faintest idea of the content of the story. It’ll make the paper look crisper. Who’s in charge of typesetting?”

“The printer takes care of that.”

“He must charge you plenty for it. You ought to be able to get your own machine for about three thousand. You’ll get a better job and the machine should pay for itself in a couple of months.”

“You sound like an expert.”

“Journalism major for four years. I’ve got my BA and I’m working on my master’s. For the past two years I’ve been editor-in-chief of the
Trojan
.”

“You are an expert. I appreciate your comments. They make a lot of sense.”

“If you like, I’ll come down to the paper and see if I can help out.”

“That would be nice, but why the interest?”

“I guess maybe it’s because you’ve got something new. I don’t quite understand it yet, but I have the feeling that you’ve come up with a new kind of communication. An interpersonal thing. The paper seems to be talking to people, saying things that maybe they thought about but never put into words.”

“I take that as a compliment.”

Her eyes were level. “That’s the way I meant it.”

I reached for the check. “Thank you. I’ll take you home now. You give me a call when you’re ready to come down.”

She smiled. “Tomorrow afternoon okay?”

CHAPTER 13

The lights were on in the office when I pulled up. The door was unlocked. Persky was at his desk. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.

“What’s up?”

“Ronzi’s been on my back since seven o’clock tonight. He wants another five thousand copies in the morning. He’s getting calls from dealers all over town.”

“Good. Tell him no.”

“He said he’ll pay cash.”

“He can increase the order for next week’s issue. Let their tongues hang out a little. It’ll give them an appetite. He can afford it. We agreed on a thirty-five-cent newsstand price and he’s been getting fifty. He’s been ripping us off for fifteen cents a copy. Fuck him.”

“I think I can push him up to ten thousand. That’s another fifteen hundred, Gareth.”

“If he runs out, he’ll go for twenty thousand more next week. Tell him I don’t want to do it.”

“I been in this business a long time, Gareth. You gotta grab it when you can get it.”

“We’re going to be in business for a long time. Let’s not run until we learn to walk.” I started for the stairs. “How much would it cost to get a typesetting machine?”

“A good one—used, about three grand, new, eight.”

“Tomorrow start looking for a good used machine,” I said, thinking that Eileen knew what she was talking about. “Bobby still around? I brought his car back.”

Persky gave me a funny look. “He left in a cab about an hour ago. He said he was going to a costume party or somethin’.”

“Costume party?”

Persky laughed. “I never seen him like that. He was all made up. Rouge, lipstick, eyebrow pencil, and dressed in shiny black leather with pants so tight it was like they were glued on.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“Not a word. Just took off like a bat outta hell.”

“Shit.” I knew I should put the Rolls in the garage, but it was four blocks away and I didn’t feel like it. “Good night,” I called as I went up the stairs.

I let myself into the apartment. The bedroom door opened and Denise came out, still in the French maid’s costume she had had on in the morning.

“May I take your coat, sir?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Bobby left me on duty, sir,” she said, straight-faced.

“On duty?”

“Yes, sir. He went to a party.”

“Where’s Verita?”

“She went home. She said she had a whole week’s laundry to catch up on.” She came around behind me and helped me off with my jacket. “Can I fix you a drink?”

“I need one,” I said, sprawling on the couch. I watched her as she bent over the bar. She had a beautiful ass. I took a healthy slug of the drink she gave me. “What did the three of you do? Draw lots to see who got me tonight?”

“No, sir.”

“For Christ’s sake, stop calling me sir. You know my name.”

“But I’m on duty, sir. Bobby asked me to stay when he got the phone call. He said you don’t like to be alone.”

“When did he get the call?”

“About ten o’clock. He was really excited about it. I never saw him take so much time dressing. He was really up. He laid down two big lines of coke.”

With that much coke in him he had to be bouncing off the moon. “Must be a hell of a party. Did he say who was giving it?”

“No, but I heard him talking to someone named Kitty.” I felt my face tighten. She saw my expression change. “Is there anything wrong?”

“I don’t know,” I said grimly. If this was the Kitty I had heard about, Bobby had really got himself into the shit. Kitty, straight name James Hutchinson, headed up the meanest leather and S/M queens in town. He came from an old Pasadena family with nothing but money and upstate political clout. Rumor had it that he ran what they called a Chicken of the Month party and that some of the boys chosen for the honor had ended up in the hospital. If it weren’t for his connections, he probably would have been put away a long time ago. “Did Bobby say where they were holding the party?”

She shook her head.

I picked up the phone book. No Hutchinson. I tried directory assistance, but there was no number listed. “What cab company did he call, Denise?”

“Yellow.”

I called, but they wouldn’t give me any information. The only people they were allowed to give information to was the police. I pressed down the button and dialed again.

A gruff voice answered. “Silver Stud.”

“Mr. Lonergan, please. Gareth Brendan calling.”

A moment later my uncle’s voice came on the phone. “Yes, Gareth?”

“I need your help, Uncle John. I think my young friend may have gotten himself into trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I think he got himself elected Chicken of the Month at a James Hutchinson party.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“He took a Yellow Cab to the party. I want to know where it is.”

“Hold on a minute.” I heard the click of the phone as he went off the line. Less than a minute later he was back. There weren’t many people in town who said no to him. The address was right in the middle of the fashionable residential strip on Mulholland Drive.

“Thanks, Uncle John.”

“Wait a minute,” he said quickly. “What are you going to do?”

“Go up there and get him.”

“Alone?”

“There’s nobody else.”

“You could get yourself killed.”

“They told me that in Vietnam. I’m still here.”

“You won’t get a medal for this one. Where are you now?”

“At my apartment over the office.”

“You wait there. I’ll have some help for you in ten minutes.”

“You don’t have to, Uncle John. It’s not your problem.”

His voice grew testy. “You’re my nephew, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then wait there. You’re my problem.”

The line went dead in my hand.

“Is everything all right?” Denise asked in an anxious voice.

“It will be,” I said. “Where’d Bobby put the coke?”

“In the middle drawer over the bar.”

I laid down two lines for myself. I might need the energy. Lonergan was as good as his word. Within ten minutes I heard a horn outside my window. The Collector’s Jag was right behind the Rolls. I started for the door.

Denise’s voice was anxious. “You’ll be all right?”

“Just relax. I won’t be long.”

I went downstairs and stuck my head in the window of the Jag. “Lock your car,” I said. “We’ll take the Rolls.”

“Lonergan told me you would fill me in,” he said as I pulled away from the curb.

“My little friend got himself elected Chicken of the Month at one of Hutchinson’s parties.”

“And we’re goin’ to get him?”

“Right.”

“Jealous?”

“No.”

“Then why bother? Little boys like him are a dime a dozen. Sooner or later they all wind up there.” He reached for a cigarette. “They love that kind of thing. They’re always askin’ for it.”

“He’s romantic. He doesn’t know he can get hurt bad.”

“They want that, too.”

“If I thought that was his thing, we wouldn’t be going up there.” By this time we were on Coldwater, climbing up the hill.

He reached into his coat pocket, took out a pair of leather gloves and began to slip them on. “I have another pair for you,” he said, giving them to me. “I don’t like to hurt my hands.”

They felt heavy and a little stiff. I looked at him questioningly.

“They got a steel wire lining. Put ’em on. I know that crowd.”

The house was set back far off the road behind a high wall and steel gates. I saw the lights and the closed-circuit TV monitor as we pulled up to the call box. “Get down on the seat,” I said as I reached for the phone through the car window.

The floodlights came on as soon as I picked up the phone and the monitor observed me with its glass eye. There was a click in the receiver and I heard loud music in the background. The voice sounded tinny. “Who is it?”

I looked into the monitor. “Gareth Brendan. Bobby Gannon told me to meet him here.”