Los Angeles (9 page)

I know I did.

I thought of the night I had seen her at the Velvet Mask, when she came out of the back room and looked around, that blank
expression on her face. I didn’t know if I should stand up and wave or just wait until she noticed me. I had decided to wait.
For some reason, I thought it would be funny for her to discover me there, an ordinary asshole just checking out the girls.
She had walked around one of the stages, moving in that languid, graceful way I had seen her move at home, until she finally
noticed me. The blank expression filled in immediately, the same way it had the first time I had seen her. But this time it
wasn’t sympathy or understanding; this time her smile was instant, unyielding — it was happiness, and it sent waves of emotion
through my body, something far beyond the desire I had been feeling, a sensation I could hardly identify.

I noted the bewildered looks on the faces of the Japanese salarymen and the drugstore clerks.

“Angel,” Angela said, almost squealing, “you really came!” The waitress had brought my eight-dollar Pellegrino’s, and I was
sitting there with one of the cold bottles between my legs and the other on the table beside me. “I didn’t think you would
really show.” She plopped down beside me, draping a thin arm over my shoulders.

“You made me promise,” I said, laughing. “You made me swear to —”

“I know, but —”

“— God, so here I am.”

“— I thought, I thought you were just saying it.”

“So tell me what’s what and who’s who,” I said. “Show me everything, because this is the only time.”

Angela leaned against me. It was odd, but I felt the way I had felt as a kid with all those actresses, stylists, and production
assistants. I felt like
someone.

Her eyes, I noticed, were green tonight. “Okay,” she said, “that’s Virginia.” She pointed to the dancing girl with flashing
hair. “That’s Ashley.” She pointed to the emaciated blonde performing for the Japanese businessmen. “The DJ tonight is Alvin,
but I don’t really ever talk to him.” Over in the corner was a booth with two turntables under a smoky cone of incandescence.
A white guy in wraparound shades and giant silver headphones stood inside it. “Usually it’s Eddie,” she said. “But he was
fired for bothering the girls.” The music was harsh, pulsing, guttural, mindless screaming over a senseless beat.

I had to ask. “What’s he playing?”

Her eyes grew wide. “You don’t like it?”

“I’m just curious.”

“ImmanuelKantLern,” she announced. “They’ve got a new CD coming out.”

“Immanuel —”

“— KantLern,” she finished. “They run it all together in one word, isn’t it funny? Immanuel Kant was a philosopher who —”

“I’ve heard of the philosopher.” I laughed. “It’s the rock group I’m not so familiar with.”

She leaned toward me, whispering conspiratorially,
“I slept with the bass player.”

“You —”

“Joey. I met him at a party after they played at the El Rey.” She raised her eyebrows.

I had to ask: “Are you his girlfriend?”

“Are you jealous?”

I felt a sharp prick of anger, a sensation I wasn’t accustomed to, so I changed the subject, indicating the giant man in the
silvery tie sitting beneath the exit sign. “Who’s that?”

She laughed. “That’s Lester. He looks mean, but he’s sweet.”

“He works here?”

A shrug. “He’s the bouncer.”

“Why is he dressed like a henchman from an old James Bond movie?”

“During the day he’s a driver for a funeral parlor.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a loud voice said over the sound system, “coming to the stage of the Velvet Mask All Nude Gentlemen’s
Cabaret is the beautiful Gigi and the seductive…
Cassandra.
”

“Oh shit.” Angela leapt up. “That’s me.”

______

“Hello?” a voice said. There was a knock, a hard rap against hollow wood.

There was another voice, saying, “He said his name is Angel. I think he’s an albino.”

I heard the first voice, now shrill.
“Are you Angel? Is your name Angel?”

I lifted my head.

Oh shit. Oh Christ. I was sitting on a toilet in the bathroom of a stranger’s house.

“Yes,” I said, rubbing a hand over my mouth. “Yes, I’m Angel. I’m so sorry. I must’ve fallen —”

The door opened, and when my eyes adjusted, I could see the round, flat face of that ten-year-old kid and what must have been
his mother, a woman in her thirties with the same strangely concave face, standing in the hallway.

“I must have fallen asleep,” I explained.

She was in the middle of a panic. “What were you doing in there?” Her voice was sharp. “Do you have any idea how long you
were —”

“I’m so —”

“— in there?”

“— sorry.”

“Are you taking drugs?”

“No, no, absolutely not. I was, I had a migraine. I must’ve —”

“He was in there for, like, two hours.” Victor’s laughter was spiky, high-pitched.

“— lost consciousness.” I was up now, and I would have moved into the hallway except that the two of them were blocking the
way.

Victor’s mother had her hands on her hips. Worry lines rippled across her forehead.

Victor just kept laughing.

“Please,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…”

She gave me a hard look. “Well,” she said, still unsure, “you certainly don’t look dangerous.”

“I’m so not dangerous,” I told her, “believe me.” I realized I still had the damp washcloth stuck to my forehead. “I’m the
most un-dangerous person you will ever —”

She sighed, lips pursed, softening.

“— encounter,” I said, rinsing it under the tap. “I know it must seem strange, finding me here like that. But I was… I was
having a migraine, and your son, Victor… he was nice enough to let me use your bathroom, and I just… and I guess I passed
out.”

Victor’s mom must have decided that a character as preposterous as me couldn’t be telling her anything but the truth. “Well,”
she said, “are you all right now?”

“Absolutely, I’m fine, thank you.”

She had light brown hair, straight, shoulder length. She had pink lips and sympathetic eyes. For some reason, I assumed she
was a nurse.

I knew what I looked like: blue skin, pink eyes, white hair, wearing a puke-streaked shirt. I was a vampire, a mutant, and
a grown man alone in the house with her ten-year-old son, maybe a child molester, possibly a drug addict, probably a criminal.
I was lucky she hadn’t called the police. I touched the top of my head and realized I still had my mother’s octagonal pink-tinted
glasses on, too.

Great.

She sighed. “Would you like a glass of iced tea, Angel?” Luckily, the altruistic impulse to rescue this pathetic refugee she
had discovered in her bathroom was prevailing.

I took a breath and it came out ragged. Nervously, I folded the washcloth and placed it over the lip of the sink. “I’m so
terribly sorry. I don’t know what to say. I don’t —”

Her voice had become gentle. “Come this way.” She led me a few steps into a spacious kitchen, Victor chuckling behind us.
I was his afternoon entertainment, I realized. He would be talking about this on the playground for weeks. “Sit down.” Victor’s
mom was the kind of woman who performs well in emergencies, I realized, Maybe she really was a nurse. “And we’ll get everything
all straightened out.”

There was an imitation mission table and chairs in here, just like the furniture in the living room. I pictured her in Ethan
Allen with her arms crossed, biting her lower lip, deciding between the classic Hollywood collection and the eclectic
Friends
suite. I took a seat while she opened the refrigerator and found a carton of pre-made Lipton. She poured it into a blue glass
and added a few ice crescents from the freezer. Sitting at the small wooden table on the stiff, uncomfortable chair, I rubbed
my temples. At least the headache had mostly — not entirely, but mostly — faded.

Victor stood in the narrow hallway between the kitchen and the living room, rocking back and forth in his oversize Adidas
and wearing an equally oversize grin.

His mother turned to him. “You have homework?”

He rolled his eyes.
“Mom.”

“Victor.”

Seconds later, I heard those Adidas thumping up the stairs.

“Victor said your name is Angel?” Victor’s mom said, turning to face me. She set the glass on the table.

“Yeah.” Gratefully, I took a sip and let the coolness flow through my empty body. “And again,” I said, “I’m so —”

“You’re looking for Jessica.”

“Well,” I answered, “not really. I mean, I know she’s not here. I just wanted —” I thought for a moment. What did I want?
“I just wanted to find out something about her.”

“Like what?”

“Like anything,” I said.

“May I ask why?”

“Jessica is my next-door neighbor.”

Victor’s mom wrinkled her brow.

“She moved to West Hollywood,” I said. “Into my building. But now she’s… now she’s missing.”

She put a hand to her mouth, not in a shocked way, but in a slow, measured gesture to let me know she was concerned.

“Just to be sure,” I said, reaching into my pocket, “this is the person we’re talking about, right?”

When Victor’s mom looked at the photograph, she furrowed her brow. “Was she mad at you?”

I looked at the picture… the half smile, the half sneer, the middle finger. I didn’t answer, saying, “I think she’s in trouble,”
instead.

“What do you mean?”

“Something happened. She… she called me, and from the sound of her voice, I could tell she was calling from the dark.”

“From the dark? What did she say?”

“She just said my name, and then she was cut off.”

Victor’s mom narrowed her eyes. “How do you know she was in the dark?”

I remembered how difficult this had been to explain to those cops. “I just know,” I said. “It’s something I could hear in
her voice. I could be mistaken, but I don’t think so.”

“When was this?”

“Yesterday, in the morning. I called the police, who didn’t come until the middle of the night. They went into her apartment,
but it just looked like… it looked like nothing had happened. I found a couple of envelopes with this address on it, so —”

She brought a hand to her mouth again. “She probably went on a trip, a last-minute thing. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

I shook my head, then looked up. “She brought me lamb stew.”

“That’s funny.” Victor’s mom smiled. “She brought me a pie.”

“A pie?”

“When she moved in, Jessica came over with a cherry pie.”

I pictured Angela at the door of their house, holding a cherry pie wrapped in a red-checkered cloth.

“Did you ever talk to her?” I asked. “Were you friends?”

Victor’s mom thought for a moment. She leaned a wide, pretty hip against the counter and poured herself a glass of iced tea,
too. “A couple of times when she first moved in, she came over for coffee.”

“And?”

“She just seemed depressed, that’s all.”

“Depressed?”

Victor’s mom shrugged. “Jessica always seemed like such a sad person, you know what I mean?” Her hair fell in front of her
face, and she brushed it away.

I waited a few seconds, then said, “Not really.” And I couldn’t help but wonder why she was talking about her in the past
tense.

Victor’s mom looked at me. “How well do you know her?”

I went ahead and said it: “She’s my girlfriend.”

She nodded, but it was the kind of nod that contained doubt, the kind of slight movement of the chin that meant she heard
what I said but didn’t necessarily believe it.

“After she moved in next door,” I told her, “she started coming over. It all happened pretty quickly, I guess, but… well,
you know how these things go.”

Victor’s mom made a small
mmm
sound. Then she said, “Is it possible she got a part?”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe she’s shooting a commercial or something. Isn’t she an actress?”

I didn’t move. “She never mentioned anything like that.”

“I don’t know if she was ever in anything, but I just assumed… you know.”

I shook my head. If it hadn’t been for that photograph of Angela flipping the bird, I would have believed we were discussing
a human being I had never met.

Victor’s mom smiled one of those I’ve-seen-it-all smiles, then took a contemplative swallow, ice rattling in her half-empty
glass.

I had been thinking of Angela as a burst of undivided light. But now I found myself picturing light shining through a prism.

An actress? This was a facet of Angela’s existence I hadn’t even known about, and one I certainly hadn’t expected.

It must be a mistake, I thought.

Victor’s mom developed an interesting look in her eyes at that moment, something between confusion and awareness, then turned
to the counter and gingerly touched her forehead. She seemed about to say something more but then stopped.

Which was fine with me, because I felt a searing bullet enter my brain just then. It rested there, molten. I thought the migraine
had faded, but now, unexpectedly, it had returned, reaching a whole new, ecstatic level. I got up and placed the glass in
the sink, making a hollow metallic sound that rang through my being like a stone dropped down an empty well, and forced one
of those unconvincing smiles onto my aluminum lips. I just wanted to get home, to get out of these clothes and back into my
bathrobe. I especially wanted to remove my mother’s pink octagonals. I had Angela’s real name, at least, which was something
to start with, not to mention that mysterious envelope in my pocket. “Sorry that I.… that I passed out in your bathroom,”
I said. “It’s just that I have these migraines sometimes, and —”

Victor’s mom cut me off with a motherly smile. “You don’t have to explain.” We had stepped over a line now, it seemed, had
reached an impasse. There was nothing more she could tell me, and I could sense that she just wanted me the hell out of her
house.

“Did you ever know Jessica by any other name?” I asked at the front door.