L.A. Success (27 page)

I had only talked with two people in the courtyard, not counting my dad or Dennis. One was Tommy. The other was Spieldburt, or so I had believed. The man in the sculptures was not Spieldburt, and it certainly wasn't Tommy. The sculptures were of the Talking Man, or, more precisely, the man I had talked to when I had first started taking care of Dennis' house, the man who had called himself Mr. Stevens.

The guy, in fact, looked nothing like Spieldburt. He had a thin nose and sunken cheeks. If my dad had got the proportions right, he was a lot taller than me. Then I noticed a detail that made me remember something: in one of the sculptures, he was wearing pants that looked like long shorts. They went down to right above his calves. I had talked with this man a second time, in Santa Monica. It was the guy who had called the big poodle by his real name. I couldn't believe it. I had been followed this whole time.

I pulled my head out of the fridge and shut the door. As I turned to grab a glass out of the cabinet, I saw the real Talking Man standing at the entrance to the kitchen. I felt like I had taken a lightning bolt to the heart. With my blood racing, I turned and bolted toward the kitchen door, which, because it was still ajar, greeted my head with a sonorous thwack that rang throughout my body as if I had been a church bell and the door a hammer. Everything went black.

7

I don't know how long I was out. When I finally regained consciousness, I found myself lying on the kitchen floor surrounded by broken glass. As soon as I began to lift myself up, the Talking Man appeared next to me.

“Don't move,” he said.

“What are you going to do to me if I do, kill me? What do you want anyway?” I asked with much difficulty, my head alternating between throbbing and stabbing.

“You, Lonnie Herisson, have been standing between me and my happiness.”

“How's that? I don't even know you.”

“No, but you've been preventing me from getting something I need, and that's going to come to an end today.”

“I don't know what you want!”

“Right, of course you don't. Two men have been guarding this house twenty-four hours a day for no reason at all,” he said. “I know why you were hired so don't play stupid with me.”

“You can beat me all you want, but I don't know what you're talking about—wait a minute, I didn't mean that. Don't beat me all you want.”

“I'm not the violent one in this situation. I'm a business man, and all I want is to be left alone. Here, let me help you up, but slowly. We should get you to the hospital.”

“Oh god no, not there. They’ll take every cent I have. Just help me over to the couch.” I felt a little better knowing that he was more worried about protecting my health than stomping it out, but I was sure that would change if he didn't get whatever it was he wanted.

He held out a hand and lifted me to my feet, and then stopped me as well as he could from weeble-wobbling all over the place. We made it to the couch, and I lowered myself onto it like a spaceship landing on a strange planet.

“I imagine you're being paid quite well for this, so I won't even try to low-ball you. You give me those pictures, and I'll give you more money than you've seen in years.”

“What pictures?”

“Damn it! There's no more reason to lie about anything! I know what you're protecting here, and you know which pictures I want! The pictures of me and my lover!” he yelled, his hands shaking as if he wanted to wrap them around someone's neck. He got them under control and regained his composure. “The pictures you're supposed to give to my wife.”

“So, you're Ignacio? Ignacio...Reyes?”

“Yes.”

“The pictures aren't here anymore.”

“I know they aren't here. I searched everywhere while you were taking your little nap on the kitchen floor. I found and erased the files on his hard drive, but I know he printed hard copies. I imagine once you told Dennis that Raymond was still living in my West-Hollywood apartment, he had you take them someplace safer.”

“Actually, he asked me to give them to your wife. I was going to do it this afternoon. But I never said anything about this Raymond guy. I told him I ran into a little girl named Amanda.”

“Raymond's daughter,” he said. I must have had a confused look on my face, because then he said “from his marriage, when he was still in the closet.”

“So you never broke up with this guy? No wonder Dennis is angry. Why'd you go and help him become gay if you never intended to leave the other guy?”

“Ha! I didn't help Dennis do anything. He's been putting me through hell ever since I brought that poodle to the animal shelter. I had to get rid of Manolete because he bit Amanda, but I was worried they would put him down if no one adopted him. Dennis assured me that someone would take him since he was just a puppy. I didn't think anything of giving my personal information to Dennis because he worked at the shelter and seemed nice enough. He said he'd call me if there was a problem.”

“Why was Dennis pretending to work at the shelter? Was he investigating something?”

“What do you mean? That was his job. Well, he volunteered. He's never worked a real job as far as I know. He's a trust-fund baby.”

“He's not a private investigator? But he's got all that equipment,” I said.

“He bought all of that to follow me around. He called to tell me he had adopted Manolete himself, and then he kept calling every couple of days to tell me how he was doing. At first I thought he was just weird, but then I would spot him following me, or I'd see him parked on my street. He realized I was cheating on my wife and started blackmailing me. I thought he wanted money, but what he wanted was to
be
me. The guy is absolutely nuts. He made me promise to leave Raymond or else he was going to tell my wife everything.”

“He told me you guys were together.”

“We were, sort of,” he said.

“But that's horrible! You were gay-doing a guy you hated?”

“Oh no. I told him he was too fat to have sex with. That kind of backfired because he lost a billion pounds in only three months. I think he went on an all-liquid diet. Then when he got pretty thin, I told him his clothes were so ridiculous that I couldn't take him seriously as a lover. That one worked really well. He started experimenting with new styles, and then he really did look like an ass and he knew it, so he didn't feel confident enough to stand up to me. We were supposed to have sex for the first time in Ibiza, which is why I've stayed away from there. My plan was to get him out of this place and then find all traces of those pictures and destroy them. Now that Dennis is probably on his way back, I've got to act fast. It looks like you've found yourself in the right place at the right time.”

“So how much money are we talking about?” I asked, hoping that Spieldburt hadn't already chucked the photos out the window of his car.

“Fifty grand, in cash.” Normally, I wouldn't have believed someone was willing to pay so much, but I knew he was going to be screwed if those photos got back to his wife, and from what Dennis had told me, this guy was loaded.

“Double that and we've got a deal,” I said. He didn't even flinch.

“Fine. Where are they?”

“They aren't here. I'll go and get them. It might take a while, but you've got nothing to worry about. Dennis doesn't know where they are. He's not getting back until Sunday, just in case you were wondering.”

“That will give me enough time to take care of this and to get ready for him. He's going to go nuts once he finds out he's been had,” he said with a worried look on his face.

He gave me his phone number and took off.

8

After I was able to stand again I got out of there. I didn't bother cleaning up the broken glass, because once Dennis found out I had made a deal with Ignacio, he wasn't going to give me the last check for the house sitting anyway.

I returned the carpet cleaner but had to have one of the pimply faced bagboys carry it in. It was embarrassing standing there in front of everyone while a kid half my size labored to get the thing out of the trunk. While I was in the store, I picked up a slew of pain killers and ice packs, and then went home to rest up.

Ballsack greeted me at the door. He looked all antsy, like he needed to go outside. If my dad had been in the living room, I'd have made him do it, but he wasn't there. I saw that the door to my bedroom was shut, so I figured he was sleeping. I grabbed the leash and took a walk around the neighborhood, each squirrel running by resulting in stabbing pain for me as the crazy dog tugged to go after it. What really pissed me off was that I knew the dog was dying to go to the bathroom, but he kept walking like he was looking for the ultimate spot to ruin. Some guy could make a fortune if he'd invent a spray that imitated big, angry-dog urine, so that owners could just spray a few squirts on their lawns and have Fido go crazy trying to mark his territory all over again. I found myself trying to think like the big poodle and find spots that would be better than others. I would get all excited when he started sniffing, and then desperately annoyed when whatever doggy criteria he had was too exclusive for the spot I had chosen. Who'd have thought finding a place to take a leak could be such an emotional roller coaster?

When we finally got back, I sat down on the couch with a big glass of water and took a stomach full of pills. Then I strategically arranged the ice packs, the last one going on top of my head.

With the pain finally becoming numb, I was able to think over everything that had happened that day. There was something that didn't make sense to me. If I hadn't ever talked to Spieldburt in the first place, why had he wanted more of my crappy screenplay? The guy had been willing to meet me in public and had almost been ready to pay me money—before he flipped out and kicked my ass. What did he think I knew?

Unfortunately, that meant I now had two reasons to call Grant. I needed those photos back, and I needed to know exactly how much leverage I was going to have to get them. I suppose this also meant I was going to have to part ways with my new phone. Screw it; I hated talking on the phone anyway. I dialed my former number and prepared to grovel.

“I feel like I'm being harassed by myself,” said Grant.

“Hi Grant. I've been thinking a lot about what I did, and I have come to see that it was not cool. I understand that a man in your position really needs to read crucial notes stored in your phone, notes such as 'Mr. Jenkins' wife has mismatched implants,' and 'Cindy Turner seems to be scratching herself a lot.' And I've also come to see the ground sloth as a beautiful creature, whose extinction was a tragedy. Why did other animals have to be so fast, oh why?”

“Are you going to call and fuck with me for much longer?” he asked.

“I'm serious this time. I want to give your phone back.”

“And pay for my paint job?”

“Come on, that piece of crap you drive is about to hit the junkyard anyway. I'll buy you a couple of tubes of touch-up paint, but that's it.”

“Fine, I just want my phone back. I'm in Culver City now. Can I come by and pick it up?”

“I'll text you the address. Be there in twenty minutes.” I sent him one of the Oldhags' addresses and added that I'd be waiting outside.

I walked down the street with the big poodle and waited for Grant. He swerved up in the slothmobile, sloth still attached, five minutes early. His face was beaming as he got out of the car. When he stepped over, I held out his phone. He snatched it up and gave me back the shit phone, which looked like it had been cleaned up.

“So what do you really want? I know you didn't give this back to me because your conscience was bothering you,” he said.

“I want to ask you a question. After I gave you my first act, you told me you weren't even going to read it, but that Spieldburt ended up asking you to bring it to him. Why was that again?”

“Because of the name of your character, Gertie Elliot. I thought it was a funny coincidence at first. He, on the other hand, took it very seriously. But I've got to admit he's been acting weird lately. This afternoon he stormed into his office, slammed the door, and started yelling and breaking things. I was supposed to show him some new scripts, but he canceled everything for the day.”

“He was acting a little weird when I saw him earlier as well,” I said.

“He always acts weird when you're concerned. He actually made me type up your first two acts. I was sure you wouldn't mind, so I took the liberty of fixing your spelling and re-arranging some scenes that you clearly wrote out of order. It's actually somewhat readable now. I'm interested in seeing the final act.”

I had intended to go off on him for what he had told Helen, but he was being oddly nice and caught me completely off-guard.

“Thanks. And hey—tell your boss I need that envelope back. He'll know what I mean. We'll be in contact, I'm sure,” I said.

He got back into the slothmobile and took off. I could tell by the jerky movements of his car that he was already texting away, making up for all that lost time.

9

I now had a lot of questions I wanted answered, and they all seemed to involve Gertie Elliot. Spieldburt had had no reason to read that stuff I'd sent him, but he had done it anyway when he had found out she was in it. Why was this? And then another question I'd never thought of before came to me: Why had Ignacio given me her name in the first place?

I dialed her number, but she didn't pick up. When I got back to the house, I knocked on Tommy's door, but he wasn't there. Gertie's office was closed for the day, so the only place I could try was her house. I took the big poodle, mainly so he wouldn't scratch at my bedroom door and bother my dad, and drove down to Venice.

Several of the lights in Gertie's house were on. I rang the bell. She opened the door wearing a silk nightie that was a real turn-on until you saw the wrinkly parts protruding out. From the way her gaze drifted off to some spot behind me, I could tell she was sloshed.

“Hi Gertie. I don't mean to bother you, but I need to ask you something. Are you busy?”

“I have time. Tommy's getting the bedroom ready. You wouldn't expect it, but he's a serious neat freak. He likes to make the bed before we get into it, even if it's midnight. He even shakes the sheets out the window. Come in,” she said and then looked down at the dog. “Good god! How does that thing see? He's like a ball of hair.”