Hollywood Moon (33 page)

“He can’t come in here!” Eunice said.

“Just shut up and get outta the way,” Dewey said. “Come on, kid, walk me straight ahead to the hallway, and we’ll make a turn
to the right.”

Malcolm looked in astonishment at the computer screens that were lit and full of names and numbers. Then he walked slowly
to the hallway, holding Dewey upright.

“The second room, Clark,” Dewey said. “Just take me in there, and we’ll try to get my ass on the bed without ripping my guts
out.”

Malcolm helped Dewey across the small bedroom to a double bed and helped him sit. “Easy, now,” Dewey said. “Don’t move fast.
Just scoot me slow and easy, and let me lie down on my side. Then try to lift my legs up onto the bed without killing me.”

The young man followed directions, with Dewey groaning incessantly. When his legs were elevated onto the bed, Dewey said,
“Now just flip me from my side onto my back. Gently. Very gently.”

When he was finally supine, Dewey said, “Okay, that’s better. Now step outside into the computer room and ask my… secretary
to come in.”

A moment later, Eunice entered and closed the door, saying, “Well, now you really did it, Dewey. That boy just had a good
look at our operation. Whadda we have to do to keep his mouth shut? Adopt him?”

“The kid doesn’t know anything, Eunice,” Dewey said, staring upward. “He just wants to make a buck.”

“The hell he doesn’t know anything,” she said. “He’s a new runner, isn’t he? What’s he supposed to think about the computers
and the files? And oh, yeah, I have credit cards scattered all over the table, most of which are almost useless thanks to
the poor quality of material you’re paying for these days. You just completely breached our security that I worked so hard
to set up.”

“He’s a know-nothing kid,” Dewey said. “Kee-rist, Eunice!”

“He only knows you as Bernie Graham, right?”

“Yeah,” Dewey muttered. “And you’re my secretary, Ethel, okay?”

“You really did it now, Dewey,” she said, shaking her head.

“Okay, Eunice,” Dewey said. “Go out there and kill him. Asphyxiate him with cigarette smoke. But then you can dispose of his
body all by yourself because I… am… fucking… hurt! Not that you give a shit!”

“So, what really happened to you, Dewey?”

“I got in a beef with one of the runners. A slob called Jerzy who’s not quite as big as a Humvee.”

“The old guy? He beat you up?”

“No, that’s Old Jerzy. I told you, he’s gone. I got beat up by New Jerzy.”

“Jesus Christ!” Eunice said. “Old Jerzy, New Jerzy, what the hell am I doing in this nutty fucking arrangement?”

“It was over a payment I owed him,” Dewey said with a sigh. “He wanted more. He’s a tweaker and he turned violent.”

“Tweakers again!” she said. “No matter how many times I say no tweakers, you still end up working with them. Is that kid in
the other room a tweaker?”

“That kid is a baby,” Dewey said. “He’s a nice, polite boy who wants to make some extra change. If he hadn’t showed up, I
woulda had to call an ambulance.”

“Okay, so if you really think you got broken ribs, then let him take you to the ER at Hollywood Pres. I don’t want paramedics
coming in here to haul you out.”

“My ribs’re feeling a little better. I don’t think they’re broken. I just need a good night’s sleep.”

“So, what am I supposed to say to the kid?” Eunice asked. “Now that he’s in a position to extort us?”

“Say good-bye,” Dewey muttered, “after you drive him back to the office. And give him fifty bucks for his trouble.”

“We better be planning to move,” Eunice said before opening the door. “I hope you enjoy your nap, because I won’t sleep a
wink tonight.” She made no effort to hide a little sneer, adding, “And Dewey, take off that stupid fucking mustache.”

When she closed the door, Dewey lay still, thinking maybe he could persuade Jerzy to make the kidnapping look extra real by
giving Eunice a few of his special knuckle shots to her fat gut. Just to see how she liked it.

Twilight had come to Hollywood and brought with it the endless streams of traffic. When they got trapped by two signal sequences
at a stoplight on Hollywood Boulevard, Eunice said to Malcolm Rojas, “You can call me Ethel. What’s your name?”

“Clark,” Malcolm said.

“We better not waste time,” Eunice said, “so I can hurry back and tend to the wounded. You may have noticed he doesn’t suffer
in silence.”

Eunice drove and Malcolm sat quietly. Several times she found herself glancing over at him. He was a handsome kid, she had
to admit that much. He was youthfully slender, with delicate features that made him look sensitive. She loved his curly hair
and his heavy black lashes over those burning dark eyes. Yes, he was a really good-looking boy.

Finally she said, “Do you have a job, Clark?”

“Yes,” he said, “I work at a home improvement center in the warehouse.”

“Do you like the work?”

“No,” he said. “It’s boring. I’m hoping Mr. Graham can get me some work that’s more —”

“Exciting?”

“Not really exciting, but —”

“Challenging?”

“Yes, that’s it. Challenging.”

“Mr. Graham is good at finding challenging jobs for young people,” Eunice said. “Maybe he can accommodate you.”

Malcolm surprised her when he said, “How about you? How long have you been Mr. Graham’s secretary?”

“Nine years,” she said.

“Is he a nice boss to work for?”

She had to smile. This boy! She hadn’t been around anyone like him since, well, she couldn’t remember when. “He can be nice,”
she said. “I’m sure he’ll be nice to you, because you’re nice.”

She looked over at him and he smiled shyly at the compliment. They rode quietly again, but she still found herself glancing
over. At last she said, “You have such gorgeous color. I was wondering, are you Hispanic?”

“No,” he said quickly. “My mother was a Persian. Her family was wealthy but they had to get out of their country and come
to America poor. She’s dead now. My father was a French chef who worked in some of the best restaurants in New York. He’s
dead too.”

Eunice didn’t believe a word of it. Just another Mexican-American kid, she figured, but with a rich imagination. Touching.
It was touching to be with him. She was feeling emotions she hadn’t felt in years. She was feeling like a girl!

When they got back to the duplex, Malcolm said, “That’s my car, the old Mustang.”

“A Mustang!” Eunice said. “My boyfriend had a Mustang when I was in high school.”

When she parked at the curb, she turned off the headlights. She had an uncontrollable urge to talk longer with this boy.

He started to get out, and she opened her purse and said, “Wait a minute. Don’t you want your money? Mr. Graham promised you
fifty dollars, didn’t he?”

Malcolm said, “Yeah, but I can’t take money for helping a man who was injured. Anybody should do that for free. Just tell
him I’ll be waiting for his call.”

“Wait a minute, Clark!” Eunice said, stunned. When was the last time she’d dealt with anybody who’d turned down money? She
closed her purse and said, “What kind of burgers do you like? I’m gonna get me a Whopper. Wanna follow me? I’m buying.”

“Well… ,” he said. “Maybe I should —”

“Come on. You gotta be hungry,” Eunice said. “I’m starved. We can talk about the business, if you like.”

That did it. He wanted to learn more about what Bernie Graham might expect from him and how much money he could make. He followed
her to Burger King, where they parked in the lot and went inside.

Malcolm stood examining the wall menu, deciding what he was going to order, while Eunice was in the restroom. When she returned,
her hair was combed and she was wearing fresh lipstick and even some eye shadow. Malcolm didn’t like it, seeing her made up
like this. It made her look… flirty. He felt himself getting angry, but he had to control it if he wanted to work for her
boss, Bernie Graham.

“I think I’ll do like you and have a Whopper,” he said, concentrating on the menu. “And a Coke, please.”

After she ordered at the counter and their burgers were ready, she brought a tray to the table where Malcolm waited. Eunice
put Malcolm’s burger and drink in front of him, along with a paper napkin.

“There,” she said. “You’re too thin to be missing meals.”

Malcolm said, “If you could explain to me some of the ins and outs of the business, I’d really appreciate it. I want Mr. Graham
to be happy with my work.”

“How old are you, Clark?” Eunice asked.

“Nineteen. But Mr. Graham said I could pass for twenty-one.”

“That’s astounding,” Eunice said, smiling tenderly. “I can’t remember the last time I talked to someone who wanted to look
older.”

Malcolm did not like the way she was staring at him. He didn’t like the way the conversation was going. He suddenly experienced
a wave of nausea and even fear, but he held it back, forcing himself to concentrate on the food.

“The burger is awesome,” he said. “Thanks a lot, Ethel.”

*   *   *

“You ever throw a rock at our car again and I’ll kill you and everyone you know,” Flotsam said to the Salvadoran kid who was
sitting on the curb with three other Latino teenagers after 6-X-32 stopped and the surfer cops got out. They made all four
boys kneel with their hands on their heads, and they kept flashlight beams on them while they patted them down.

“I didn’t throw no rock,” the kid said with a giggle.

Flotsam was pretty sure the rock had come from him, the one with the goofy grin. They were in a graffiti-tagged residential
neighborhood in east Hollywood. The boy was thirteen years old, an aspiring member of MS-13, the world’s largest gang. But
at this stage he was just a play gangster, just a wannabe.

Jetsam motioned for them to get to their feet and put their hands down, and he said, “Who threw it, then?”

“I didn’t see no rock throwed,” the kid said.

“Maybe that was a hummingbird sailing over our car,” Flotsam said.

“Maybe a bat,” the kid said, giggling again. “There’s lotsa bats flying around here.”

The other kids chortled at that, and Flotsam said, “You ever hit our car with a rock and I’ll kill you, your momma, and your
dog.”

“Our dog is with my brother, Chuey,” the kid said, giggling again, as a tricked-out lowrider squealed around the corner from
the boulevard onto the residential street. The kid turned to look in the direction of the car and said, “Yo, here comes Chuey
now!”

Flotsam and Jetsam turned toward the green lowrider with gleaming spinner wheels, and when Chuey spotted the black-and-white,
he floored it to the end of the street, where he made a screaming left turn.

The surfer cops jumped in their shop, ripped a rubber-burning U-ee, and went after the lowrider. Chuey had second thoughts
and stopped two blocks away rather than try to escape. It was another dark residential street like the first one, with modest
homes interspersed among deteriorating apartment buildings. Somebody was destroying eardrums in the house nearest to them,
playing hard rock that neither cop recognized. Salsa music was competing with it in the apartment building next to that house,
with a Marc Anthony CD cranked up to decibel overload.

Flotsam approached on the driver’s side and Jetsam on the passenger side of the car, both moving cautiously, lighting up the
interior with their flashlight beams. Neither of them saw Chuey’s “passenger,” who was lying down on the backseat.

When Flotsam got parallel with the backseat, Chuey rolled down his window and said to the tall cop, “Be careful, man.”

Flotsam put his hand on his nine and said, “Careful of what?” and found out when a Rottweiler rose up and roared, lunging
at the rear window that was open six inches for ventilation.

“Whoa!” Flotsam yelped and drew his Beretta reflexively.

Jetsam almost drew but relented when he saw that the dog could not get out. Then he said, “Bro, that is a major canine. Hugangus,
I would call it.”

Flotsam’s hands were shaking when he holstered his pistol. “Step outta the car, dude,” he said to Chuey.

“I can’t,” Chuey said, eyes red and watery, clearly tanked, which explained his initial panic.

He was no more than twenty years old and was inked up gangster-style. Of course, Flotsam directed his flashlight beam on Chuey’s
hands, and in this case he was looking for more than a weapon. He was looking for an MS-13 tattoo but he didn’t see one.

“Whaddaya mean you can’t?” Flotsam said.

“If I do, my dog’s gonna come over that seat before I can close the door, and he’ll go for you.”

“He does and I’ll shoot him,” Flotsam said.

Then Chuey said, “You can’t shoot him! That dog’s like my brother, man!”

“That dog is smarter than your brother,” Jetsam said. “We just met him back there.”

“You shoot my dog, I’ll sue your ass!” Chuey said.

“We’re gonna give you a sobriety test, dog or no dog,” Flotsam said.

“I’m warning you, man!” Chuey said.

“No, I’m warning
you,
dude,” Flotsam said. “And for the last time, get the fuck outta that car.”

Flotsam’s tone got the massive canine growling and his fangs bared.

By the time that growl came from deep within the animal’s chest to his throat and past his bone-crunching jaws, it was a lion’s
roar.

“Partner!” Flotsam called. “Come around here and cover me!”

Jetsam ran around the car, drawing his Glock, while Flotsam grabbed the door handle.

“You chickenshit motherfucker!” Chuey said. “You shoot my dog and there’s gonna be payback! I’ll find out where you live!”

Seeing that Jetsam had the man and dog covered with his pistol, Flotsam drew his side-handle baton from the ring on his Sam
Browne. The batons were made of aircraft aluminum and were supposedly unbreakable under normal conditions. Flotsam figured
this might turn out to be a real test of that claim.

“You on it, dude?” he said to his partner.

“Good to go, bro,” Jetsam said, directing his flashlight beam and his gun on whatever came out that door in a hurry.