Orchard Grove (32 page)

Here’s one for you: I once got high with Brad Pitt back in ‘90 or ‘91 out in the turnaround of the Avalon Hotel in West Hollywood. I did shots with George Clooney in his trailer on the Universal Studios set of
Out of Sight
for which I was the show runner. I even hitched a ride with Johnny Depp to a 7-Eleven on the corner of Olympic and Reeves when he needed a pack of cigarettes and I needed a sixer of beer. On the way back to a mutual friend’s townhouse on Santa Monica Boulevard, he stole one of my beers and I stole one of his butts. We blared Nirvana and laughed at the stupidest shit.

Now I’m not sure Johnny Depp or George Clooney would have the slightest clue who I was. That’s how long gone I’d become. How positively yesterday I was. Like an old T-shirt that had been ripped and shredded and tossed into the corner of the garage to collect dust and spider webs.

But I was still a writer.

No son of a bitch could ever take that away from me. But what if I turned myself in? Would the cops believe me when I told them I just wanted to see what it looked like when a man ate his piece? That I was conducting research at the time? That I had no idea his wife had planted a bullet inside the gun? That John insisted on demonstrating how it was done. So what if his teeth were broken. Maybe he did that by mistake when he shoved the barrel inside his mouth on his own. Just because his teeth were broken didn’t mean I shoved the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

It’s how I would explain it to Miller. But chances are, he wouldn’t believe me. Or maybe believing me would be beside the point. A man was dead and it was my fault. There was also no getting around the fact that it was my prints on the bullet casing and no one else’s.

But John Cattivo was just the first in what would become two dead bodies in less than twelve hours.

Would Miller believe me when I said I was defending myself against a raging convenience store clerk? It wasn’t likely. Even when forensics scoured the place and discovered he shot at me first, they’d come up with a scenario that proved I was physically threatening the old man. In the end, they’d work it out so that he was the one acting in self-defense. Not the other way around. After all, I’d already killed a cop.

The future looked black and bleak.

And now here I was lying on my back inside some roadside motel, filled with fear and exhaustion so deep, I could feel it in my teeth and in the core of my bones. What I should have been doing was heading south to New York City where I could ditch the Porsche in the East River and then blend into the crowd. At the first chance I got, I could either steal away on a cargo ship bound for South America, or I could somehow figure out a way to pay off some Chinese smuggler for safe passage to Asia where I’d disappear forever under a false ID.

Maybe, just maybe, if I had even an ounce of luck left inside me, I would end up in Burma or maybe Vietnam where I could tend bar and write novels under a pen name, open up a Swiss bank account where I’d receive my royalties. It wasn’t a likely outcome for a man who’d fallen off the bitched-for-life tree and hit every branch on the way down, but just the thought of it offered me a smidgeon of hope.

Hope… Hope floats like a bloated carcass…

I closed my eyes, felt myself drifting off, sinking down and down until the world turned black.

T
hen a knock on the door.

I shot up, sweat dripping off my forehead into my eyes. Damned A/C didn’t work any better than my luck. How long was I out? Ten, twenty minutes at the most. I slid off the bed, limped the few steps to the door.

“Who’s there?” I said.

“You called the escort service,” spoke the voice, which was clearly female.

I nodded, as if she could see me through the wood door. Side stepping to the window, I peeked out through the slim separation between the glass and the filthy fabric. I made out a slim, woman dressed in cut-off shorts and a tight T-shirt that ended half way down her slightly soft belly. She sported ample breasts and her smooth, straight blonde hair was thick and trimmed maybe an inch or so above her shoulders, just like Lana. From where I was standing, she didn’t look any older than nineteen or twenty, but I could have been mistaken. The important thing was that she was here now, hadn’t brought any cops along with her, and that she reminded me of Lana.

Tossing my jacket back over the shotgun, I unlatched the chain, unlocked the deadbolt, opened the door just enough to show my face.

“Good morning.” She smiled. “Or is it still good evening?”

I just looked at her, at her blue eyes and her beautiful young face veiled by blonde hair. She wasn’t Lana but she was my Lana for now. She held a plastic shopping bag in her hand. The bag was stuffed with something.

I opened the door wide enough to allow her to slip on through. When she was in, I took a quick look around outside and saw that the coast was clear. For now anyway. Closing the door, I put the chain back on and reengaged the deadbolt.

She turned to me, held out her free hand, like we were meeting for the first time at a fundraiser.

“I’m Casy,” she said, all smiles. “Casy without an E before the Y.”

I tried to picture in my head how I might spell Casy. I would have put an e before the Y, as in “The Great Casey at Bat.” A silly poem my dad would recite every time he’d get plastered on Genesee Cream Ale while watching a Yankee game on TV. Seemed to me the name should be pronounced Casy with a hard a, as in Lassie.

I pulled my hand away.

“Your name is Lana for now,” I said.

“Oh yes,” she said, holding up the shopping bag. “They told me what you want.” Then, turning for the bathroom. “Do you mind if I slip into this?”

“How old are you?” I said.

“Old enough,” she said, unbuttoning her shorts, allowing them to fall to the carpet.

“You in a rush?” I said. “How much time do I have?”

She stepped into the bathroom, out of sight.

“I go to the community college around the corner,” she said. “I have a class in an hour. Hope that’s okay?”

“You asking or telling?”

“Neither silly.” She came back out, wearing a red kimono, and not much else. It wasn’t exactly like the one Lana wore. And it was acrylic rather than satin. But it would do. “You’re aware of the pricing?” she added.

“Remind me,” I said.

“One hundred for the initial hour. Fifty dollars more for each additional hour. But that won’t be a problem since I have to skedaddle.”

My eyes were struck by her young blue eyes and pert breasts, which for now were covered by the kimono. She reached underneath with both her hands, went to pull down her thong panties.

“Don’t,” I said.

“Excuse me?” she said.

“Leave them on,” I said. “And turn around.”

She did it. “I have to ask you to pay in advance.”

Digging into the pocket, which also housed my cell phone, I peeled off the correct bills.

“Would you mind being a doll and put the money in the left-hand pocket on my jean shorts? Say, what did you do to your foot?”

“I had it operated on a few weeks ago. Taking a while to heal.”

“Ouch,” she said. “People should learn to take care of their feet. You’re bleeding.”

Reaching down, I grabbed her shorts, stuffed the money into the left pocket as requested, then tossed them onto the easy chair by the door. She shuffled over to the television, turned it on. The tube just happened to be tuned into the local channel 9 news. The picture was clear and bright but the sound was muted.

“Hope you don’t mind,” she said. “I like to work with the TV on. Makes me feel more secure. You know, protected. Like someone is watching out for me.”

“I don’t mind,” I said. “Sit down in the desk chair. Face the back wall. Lift your face up a little, like you’re sunning yourself outside on a deck.”

Pulling out the desk chair, she positioned it, and sat down, facing the back wall of the room. “Like this?” she posed. “To be honest, I’m not entirely crazy about turning my back on you. And I don’t mean any disrespect. It’s just that a girl has to be careful.”

“You’re doing fine,” I said, feeling myself grow rock hard. I was looking at Casy, but in my head, I was seeing Lana sunning herself on her back deck. “You can trust me.”

“Lots of nut cases out there these days. Killers. Did you know somebody killed a convenience store owner just last night out in Nassau? Crushed his skull with his own gun. I got friends live in Nassau. Scary shit.”

I felt a slight start in my heart.

“You just never know when your time is up,” I said, watching the back of her head, the way her hair draped the red kimono. “Now,” I went on. “Slowly take off the robe.”

She did it, slowly peeling it away from her shoulders and arms. I shifted myself so I could see her breasts, which were plump, the nipples erect, and pale.

“Do you want me to touch myself?” she said in a randy, sing song-like voice.

“No,” I said, maybe a little too forcefully. “Just pretend you’re sunning yourself.”

“It’s okay, mister. No problemo.”

“You don’t happen to have any sunglasses,” I said, picturing the big rectangular ones Lana wore.

“I don’t,” she said. “Was I supposed to bring some?”

“It’s okay,” I said, knowing that I couldn’t produce a pair of sunglasses for her any more than I could make her sport a red crying heart tattoo on her ankle. Still, she was doing the trick for me, fooling my brain into thinking I was looking at Lana. I was so hard I thought I might bust out of my pants. For the moment, I just wanted to watch her. I just wanted her to be Lana, even if only for a few peaceful moments. I wanted it to be like it had been before Lana and I met one another in person. Back when I would watch her from the window in the bedroom, and she appeared to have no clue about me. That was nature of our relationship then, and it was pure, and real, and lovely. Even if we didn’t know one another physically, we shared an erotic and intimate relationship nonetheless. And it was beautiful.

After a time, my eyes filled, and the tears started to roll down my face.

“Are you crying, mister?” she said after a time. “Are you okay?”

I sniffled, wiped my face with the backs of my hands.

“Never mind,” I said. “I’ll be all right.”

I watched her like that for ten more minutes, until I told her to get up and come to bed. I remembered my dream of Lana and the bed we shared in the forest. That was back when I had no idea about who the real Lana was. The evil Lana. For just a little while longer, I wanted to experience the good Lana. The Lana of my imagination. Of my fantasies.

With my eyes closed, I made love to the woman of my dreams.

A
knock at the door. I got up, pulled on my pants as gingerly as possible over my impossibly swelled foot. I went to the chair, pulled the jean jacket off the shotgun, and grabbed hold of it.

“What the hell is that?” Casy barked.

“Relax,” I said. “It’s just that I’m not expecting anyone.”

“I don’t like guns,” she said, wrapping her arms around her breasts. I recalled her telling me about the convenience store clerk. When she made the connection, she would naturally assume I was the killer.

I thought quick. “I’m in town for a trap shooting contest at the rod n’ gun club. I’m a professional shooter. You can look me up on the web if you want.”

Snatching up the baseball cap, I showed her the NRA logo stitched into the fabric. Setting it back down again, I peeked out the window, saw that it was the pizza I’d ordered. I’d forgotten all about it. The young man who was delivering it wasn’t much older than Casy. Setting the shotgun back onto the chair, I covered it back up with my jacket.

“You might want to get under the covers,” I said.

“Company?” Casy said, sliding under the white sheet.

“Pizza,” I said. “Hope you’re hungry.”

“You sure are a strange one, mister,” she said. “But kind of sweet too.”

Unlocking the door, I let the young man in.

“Thirty-five fifty,” he said, handing me the large, white-boxed pizza along with a plastic shopping bag which I assumed contained the whiskey and the sealant. I set it all on the round table.