The Chinese Beverly Hills (8 page)

Her dad had been badgering her that very morning about her grades, so she could get out of a second-best college and go to a really good school like Caltech or Berkeley. Her whole future depended on her grades. Her car would stop running, the stars would crash to earth. As politics had crumbled away into hopelessness for her, his incessant hectoring was becoming intolerable.

Now she had to worry about Sabine. Back when the Berets had been a viable Chicano-Chinese alliance of over thirty idealistic kids, and their blood enemy, the Commandos, had still been a rampaging racist gang, each of the leading berets had taken one of the thugs to watch. But as far as she could tell, the Commandos were down to three now, and the Berets had shrunk to two. Mosquito vs. gnat. Dear Lenin. Did you ever cry when things became this pathetic?

*

Overcome with trepidation, Megan Saxton parked in front of the isolated ranch house near the border. She had come from her motel again to carry on the interview with this strange man for the
New Yorker
. He had turned out to be another force of nature, truly frightening, but she had to go with that.

The flagstone patio beside the pool was an artifact from the 1950s, ribboned with blown-in desert dust. Hardi Boaz sat there in a cast-iron ice cream chair, wearing some kind of Arab robe. He glanced up and grinned. “You save me the trouble of searching you out,
liefling
.”

He waved an arm grandly toward a pitcher of margaritas on the table. The gesture billowed his loose sleeve like a giant seabird trying to get airborne.

She set the tiny recorder on the table and turned it on, but didn’t know quite how to begin.

“You have violent, piercing eyes,” he said.

She felt herself blush.

“Have a margarita, lovely. It’s proof the Mexicans are good for something.” A smile acknowledged her lack of response, though he still didn’t look directly at her. “The loud Boer has offered you a drink. I believe for the moment you are choosing to punish my magnetism with silence. That is fine, too. By birth I am pure South African beef, but now I am as big as all America.”

He laughed a peculiar stage laugh.

“Look there.” He pointed out at sparse chaparral beyond the hurricane fence surrounding the pool. “I can sit here with a rifle and hunt wetbacks and drug-runners. From this yard I protect the American race from a flood of mud people.”

She checked to make sure the recorder was going.

A hard, dark point of abhorrence was congealing at the center of her chest, a numbness spreading through her, and she was losing her peripheral vision. The man talked and talked. What is this, what’s happening to me?

“Go ahead and drink, sweet. I promise there is no aphrodisiac in it. I’m all the aphrodisiac any woman needs. I am the force of life, but my sweetest fruit is my gentle nature.” He threw back his head and laughed.

She noticed a giant Rottweiler waiting just inside the sliding door of the house, glaring straight at her.

“My charm consists in not caring a damn what people think about me, especially the weak-kneed city pooftahs. I am the full-blown runaway id of the white people. I am the goddamn poet of our race, where poetry is written in grunts and growls and gunshots.

“I am the only thing standing between the sissy white people and the barbarian hordes. It’s true, I may lose here, too, and the brown monkeys may end up running us out. Who knows? Even if you can give me mathematical proof that I am going to be overrun, I am still going to do my best right now to prevent it. And along the way I’m going to enjoy every goddamn minute.”

She knew she should consult her notes, ask more about the Border Guardians, but her forehead burned. The odd harangue went on and on. She had been planning to slap him hard, but she couldn’t move. An ice cube cracked like a firecracker in her margarita, and she almost screamed.

“Listen, sweetling, you didn’t get yourself home before the dark, and your fantasy life is becoming real. The hairy Boer stirs, and his life force is in ascendance.”

He stood and walked over to her. His great ham hands lifted her as if she were weightless.

“Yes, please,” she heard herself say weakly. She hadn’t even switched off the recorder.

*

Somebody had added a generous picture window to the back wall of the garage, really just a huge sheet of glass with unpainted moldings tacked up to hold it in place. The window offered a breathtaking view out over the hills east of her studio bedroom, though all that glass chilled the room at night and blinded her with sun in the mornings. She’d set up the studio portion of the room to be near the window and grab non-directional skylight from about ten on.

This afternoon she was using the light to study a still life she’d set out on a small table. A tipped-up cast-iron frying pan. A pebbly black Scotch Tape dispenser. A shiny black coffee cup. A study in tones. She’d discovered she was better at tones than colors, and wanted to see how far she could push it.

Her teacher seemed so helpful and so genuinely impressed by the works she brought in on Tuesdays and Thursdays that Maeve had decided to ignore the half-inch wood Tinkertoy spools he had in his slit earlobes. You’re trying way too hard, man, she’d thought.

She dabbed some white into the bare image of the pan and saw she’d gone too far. With acrylics you had to work fast and you couldn’t move the paints around and blend later. She’d probably switch to oils. She realized it had been more than an hour since she’d fussed about Bunny.

There was a tap at the door, like punctuation to her thought. But it could have been anybody. Annoyed, she stabbed the brush into a jar of water and unstrapped her apron.

“Come,” she called, trying to sound odd and mysterious.

She froze. It was Bunny herself, peering in with a hangdog look and carrying a flask-shaped bottle of Bunny’s favorite, Mateus rosé.

“Peace offering.”

Maeve’s spirits soared. She felt faint and had to grasp the back of the sofa for support. “Thank you, Bunny. So much.”

“Did I hurt you bad?”

“I was hurt.”

“I understand, sweet. I laid my good down and my own problems gushed all over the place. I been under pressure in ways you don’t want to know.” She made a gesture, waving it all away. “I want to make it up to you.”

Maeve wasn’t all that fond of sweet Mateus wine, but she would have drunk battery acid just then. All her affection flooded back in. She couldn’t help thinking—trying hard not to stare—what a glorious, abundant body Bunny had. Maeve plucked two washed-out jam jars from her painting supplies, opened the wine and poured. They sat face to face on the hooked rug.

“Can you tell me about this pressure?” Maeve asked.

“I need a cigarette.”

“So smoke.”

“You said this was a smoke-free zone.”

“Girl, smoke.”

Bunny lit up with a wooden match and sighed with relief. Maeve fetched a jar lid for an ashtray.

“I’m supposed to color inside the lines for now,” Bunny said.

“Who said that?”

“Swami Muni.”

Maeve was startled. She’d had no hint of another side of Bunny at all. The name sounded like a local bus line.

“He assigned me a boyfriend two months ago, like some zoo, and I didn’t like the guy at all, but he told me I had to give him a try. He picks his nose, Maeve, and he never went to college. But I try to like him.”

“You’re the one who’s going to get hurt,” Maeve said.

Bunny hung her head for a while, and Maeve resisted the urge to sidle over and hug her.

“I still feel I have things to learn from the swami. I can be pretty shrewd.”

“No, you can’t. Why are you doing this thing?”

“I offered my searching soul to Muni at a retreat a year ago. He knew startling things about me with just a little talking. I know you’re not persuaded.”

“I’m here for you right now.”

There was a sudden hammering at the door, definitely none of their roommates.

“Are you holding?” Maeve asked.

Bunny shook her head. “It’s probably the guy. He acts like he’s Thor, the god of the big dick.” She giggled once. “Actually, the appendage is just so-so.”

“I think I could get him beaten up if you want.”

“Just get him to leave me alone.”

After more door-banging, Bunny crouched down behind a Japanese screen. A muscular redhead with freckles everywhere tried to barge in.

“Stop there, freckle-face.” Maeve stood against him as firmly as she could, and after a lot of mindless shoving back and forth, he backed off.

“I want to see my Bunny.”

“Cool it. This is
my
home. Look, guy, my father runs bets, and his pals will teach you manners in an alley if I ask them to.”

“What the fuck’s the matter with you, girl?” His voice almost went shrill.

“You push into my room and ask what’s the matter with
me
? If you’ve got a message, tell me.”

“Bunny Walker is my woman. We been assigned. She’s fat and a smarty-pants and I let that go ’cause I’m a good guy. Tell her I ain’t strung out no more and to come over. She better.”

“I’ll tell her. Don’t get in my face again.”

Maeve was amazed how easy it had been to buffalo him. She locked the door, including her new deadbolt, and found her hands trembling like a kitten.

Bunny peered out, obviously impressed.

“You got any feelgood?” Maeve asked.

“I got some in the bedroom.”

“Forget it. Stay here.”

They poured out more rosé.

“The guy’s a
pendejo
, as we say. You’re not fat. You’re perfectly proportioned.”

Bunny laughed and brushed away a tear. “Thanks, Maeve. I know I’m a biggish girl. You’ve seen me in the altogether.”

“A lovely altogether it was.”

Then Bunny did cry a bit and hit the wine hard. She explained that the swami had her money and credit cards and some horrible letters against her parents.

“Maybe we’ll have to take this swami down,” Maeve said.

“You sound like the Lone Ranger.”

“I am the Lone Ranger.”

Bunny lay on the floor and wept silently.

Other lives made her own seem so idyllic, Maeve thought. She slid closer and rested a hand on Bunny’s shoulder, comfort fashion. She knew better than to seem to take advantage.

“Maeve, if you’ll promise to be my best friend forever you can have my body whenever you want.” The woman said it like an offer of self-immolation.

“I’m your BFF right now. Just cuddle. I’ll protect you.”

*

“I got this brainstorm,” Marly Tom said. “We write us a new phone app. Call it Whack-a-Chink. Bucktooth faces pop up out of holes and you smack ’em into big blood splashes.”

“Work it out. I got to plan the kegger right now.” Zook cradled a beer he wasn’t planning to share.

Across the room, Captain Beef danced heavily at the beat-up old foosball console in the clubhouse, whiz-bang-rattle. He had no opponent but it was still taking him two or three spins to score.

“Beef, that noise is driving me to drink,” Zook called.

“Put your mind at rest, Zookie. Just drink up and say,
thank you, Jesus
.”

“I ain’t trying to turn you around. I need you over here for a minute.”

Beef came and plopped down on a folding chair. “Hup-hup-HUP.”

He’d been center when they’d all played football at Mark Keppel High.

“Okay, Mr. Seth tells me he’s bringing in an important border defender and the guy is ours for the afternoon. I want to do a keg for right-thinking people the way we used to. The border guy will give a little inspirational talk about saving the U.S. of A. And we can gather the clans. Godfather Seth will be watching over us so we’re all on our P’s and Q’s.”

Their benefactor was a pole-up-the-ass lawyer from San Marino, but he let them use the old barbershop he owned as clubhouse, and they did favors for him.

“Does that mean I can’t wave The Big Captain in front of the girls?” Beef asked.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what it means.”

Captain Beef had a pecker bigger than the legendary John C. Holmes and at parties drunk San Gabriel girls tended to chant:
Big Cap! Let him free! Big Cap! Let us see!

“We’re all altar boys Saturday.”

“Sure, Z,” Beef assented.

“Back to your game, Beef. Marly and I’ll handle the details.”

Zook watched Tony Buffano waddle away. Keppel High had once been the powerhouse team of the Almont League, but ever since the Chinks filled up the school, they’d had a hide-your-face record of 0–10 for twelve straight years.

“We going for the power lines?”

“Yeah. The rest of the world’s too civilized.”

The area was unfenced, weedly land under the high-tension power lines that crossed town, fine for al fresco parties. They only had to push Sgt. Manny Acevedo in the Monterey Park P.D. to get his pals to look the other way for an afternoon. Open container in public, etc.

Zook still had dreams of reanimating the Commandos. It would be good to keep their name out there. “Seth can get real bucks, so let’s be good to him.”

They did a soft high five and watched Beef jig around for a few moments.

Zook had a sudden sour feeling. Life was whizzing past—his mom drinking too much now, an endless run of dead-end jobs. He’d won a scholarship to UCLA but chosen to stay at East L.A. City with his pals. Zook had tremendous loyalty to the last of the old gang.

“Zook,” Marly Tom said softly. “You saw that shadow watching us the other night, the one Beef took a shot at.”

“Coulda been anyone.”

“I don’t know. I think it was dogging us the whole time.” He sighed. “What about that Chinese chick you said was following you?”

Ed Zukovich shrugged. “Must’ve given up.”

*

“Seth, be a man,” Andor said without inflection. “Show us what a he-man from the Golden State can do.”

“I’m no big game hunter. I trained on an M16 in Iraq, but I never touched it after basic. I was in Legal Services.”

Out on the verandah in Indiana, Andor was insisting he take the bolt-action rifle. The barrel appeared unusually fat. Seth Brinkerhoff finally took the weapon and sat on one of the rattan chairs.