L.A. Success (19 page)

Ah yes...I heard it. I suppose I could have saved some money and bought the CD instead of ordering all these specimens. Damn. I don't suppose you can return this sort of thing.

LONNIE HERISSON

But why are we psychically connected like this?

DEFINITELY WEIRD KIND OF FOREIGNER

You are the one who first brought the Supplementary Terrian Dweller into my life. Its desire was to stay inside of you, but one fated afternoon, you evacuated it into the men's room toilet of my vegan restaurant.

LONNIE HERISSON

The tofu chili!

DEFINITELY WEIRD KIND OF FOREIGNER

Yes. And I entered that foul room right after, becoming the next host for the Dweller. When it entered my body, it merged a small section of your consciousness with mine. You see, the Dweller was not happy at having been evacuated in that way, and it was trying to lead me to you so that it could transfer back.

LONNIE HERISSON

How did you resist?

DEFINITELY WEIRD KIND OF FOREIGNER

With much difficulty, and it made me pay for my resistance.  I lost my restaurant due to my obsession with killing the foul alien, and my wife left me. She simply refused to believe that one could catch a Supplementary Terrian Dweller from a toilet seat.

LONNIE HERISSON

But now you're free. How did you do it?

The DEFINITELY WEIRD KIND OF FOREIGNER holds up the object he has been looking at. It is a strange-looking gun with a small jar mounted on the top. A tube runs from the jar to the barrel.

DEFINITELY WEIRD KIND OF FOREIGNER

After years of effort, I created this extraction gun. But the original version had no jar, so when I removed the Dweller, I had to try to catch it with my hands. It was more slippery than I had imagined, and it escaped down the sink. But if you now know where it is, take this gun. Extract the Dweller and save us all!

LONNIE HERISSON

I will. What do I do with it once it's in the jar?

DEFINITELY WEIRD KIND OF FOREIGNER

How would I know? Stick it in the microwave or something.

LONNIE takes the gun and looks at it.

LONNIE HERISSON

So, you have to shove this up—

DEFINITELY WEIRD KIND OF FOREIGNER

(Interrupting)

No, it must be placed in the belly button. If the Dweller is really in there, he will be instantly sucked out and into the jar. Now go! Leave me to my repose.

LONNIE exits.

26

As soon as I had finished writing the last sentence I whipped out Grant's business card and rang him up. He answered with the uninterested tone of someone who knows you have no choice but to go through him to get what you want.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Grant, this is Lonnie. I got the first act ready like you said. It's a real gem, with tons of intrigue. Can I come by and show it to you?”

“Why don't you just send it to me via email and I'll look it over.”

“Because if I wanted to do that I'd have to type it up,” I said.

“I'm not reading it if it's handwritten! What is this, kindergarten?”

“All right. I'll send it to you by the end of the day. But make sure to tell your boss that I'm using a pen name—tell him he'll know who I really am.”

I gathered up my things and drove over to Dennis' place. I sat down in front of the computer, opened up my email account, hit the new-message button and started typing. I had never been much of a typing guy, so it was taking me a long time to copy all the sentences. Every time I thought I had a good part of it done, I'd look up and see tons of squiggly red lines underneath the words. When I clicked on the problem words, a huge list of other words popped up, and maybe it was because I was tired or something, but they all started looking the same, so I just randomly replaced them until all the red lines were gone. Then I reread the few paragraphs I'd managed to get down, and they didn't make much sense anymore. I figured this email thing would take a lot longer than if I just stuck the screenplay in the mail, so I decided to do that, even if prissy Grant wouldn't like reading my handwriting. Once I hit the cancel-message button, my email account went back to the inbox, where I saw that I had no new messages. Helen had either not yet read my email, or had decided I was full of it and hadn't answered.

27

At about midnight I was getting ready to head over to my place when the phone rang. I picked it up as fast as I could to avoid waking up my dad.

“Hello,” I whispered.

“Hi Lonnie, it's Dennis.” He sounded either dejected or tired. “Hope it's not too late for you.”

“No, I was just heading back to my place. Do you need something?”

“I thought I'd call and see if you'd gotten your check yet.”

“One second. Let me look.” I had completely forgotten that I was waiting to receive another big check for doing absolutely nothing. I stepped out to the courtyard and opened up the mailbox. I found the envelope marked “attn: Lonnie Herisson” and opened it up. The amount seemed to leap off the check, so much so that I had to calm down before speaking again.

“Yeah, here it is. Everything's good,” I said.

“Okay. Well...how's the dog? Does he miss me?”

This seemed like a strange question to me. People were always projecting like that onto their animals. Dennis was clearly feeling a little homesick, but he refused to just say “I miss the dog.” Instead, he wanted me to play along like this. I thought about saying “No, what the dog really wants is for me to continue wearing your clothes and driving your cars around. He also wants my dad to keep hanging out on your couch,” but in the end I liked Dennis, so I played along.

“You know, I think he does. He keeps looking up the stairs toward your room, like he's waiting for someone to come down.”

“Oh! The poor thing! You can give him some extra doggy treats.”

“Sure thing. But overall, you've got nothing to worry about. He's having a good time,” I said and reached down to pat him on the head. My hand sank a little deeper than I expected into his fur. I started worrying that my dad had forgotten to feed him while I was gone and that underneath that afro, he was all skin and bones. I glanced over at his dog bowl, but it was full.

“Hey Dennis, you sound a little blue, if you don't mind me saying. Are you doing all right?”

“Well, Ignacio has had to push back his arrival here a week. He says he has some business in L.A. to take care of before he can get free. I don't know—it just doesn't sound right. I'm probably being paranoid. Otherwise, I have no reason to complain at all. It's a little slice of paradise here. I suppose I'm just jealous by nature.”

“Aren't we all? I wouldn't worry about it. He'll be there in no time.”

“Thanks Lonnie. I appreciate it. Call me if you need anything.”

We said goodbye and hung up. This was definitely not what I needed right now. Everything was going well, but if Dennis found out that Ignacio had been running around on him, he'd get on the first plane back to L.A., and I'd lose my nice fat checks. And if Dennis had the suspicion that he was being cheated on, then that was probably the case.

I decided that it would be a good idea to do a little snooping around to see what was really going on. The problem was that all I knew about this guy was his first name. Dennis didn't even have any pictures of him sitting out anywhere. I thought about directly asking Dennis if he wanted me to go check up on him but then decided against it. I didn't want Dennis using my name if he did have to accuse Ignacio of something. Who knows what kind of psycho this guy was or what he'd do to me. I couldn't come up with a sneaky way to look into it, so I stopped thinking about it and went back to my place.

28

During the night, the big poodle was scratching more than usual. He woke me up several times because his back paw kept slamming down against the mattress. It sounded like someone was beating a drum. After a while I turned on the light and looked through his afro. Sure enough, he had fleas swarming all over, the poor guy. I tried to help him out by scratching a little around the collar, which made his metal tag jingle.

I was dead tired, but I could see I wouldn't be able to sleep until I had gotten rid of the fleas. I drove to an all-night grocery store and picked up some flea shampoo. When I got back, Ballsack was still scratching away. I took off his collar, led him into my shower, got him wet, and then lathered him up. Then I figured I might as well lather myself up just in case. I rinsed and repeated, and then looked through his afro while he was wet. A lot of the dead fleas had fallen off, but some had gotten tangled up in all the hair. I hosed him off a little longer and then dried him.

Then I changed the sheets and put the old ones in the washing machine. When the big poodle jumped up on the bed, he lay down like he was ready to go to sleep immediately. I had forgotten to put his collar back on, so I went and grabbed it from the bathroom. I put it on backwards at first, because the address side of the tag was facing forward. I reversed it and then hit the lights.

After I drifted off to sleep, I dreamed that I was walking the big poodle along Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. All the girls were smiling as I passed by. I tried to play it cool and act like I wasn't interested in any of them. Then I started noticing strange men peeking out at me from behind the palm trees. I ran over each time I thought I saw someone, but when I arrived, no one was there. And then I no longer felt any pulling on the leash. I looked down to see that it had come unattached and that the big poodle had disappeared. I began to panic, because even if someone found him, the address on the tag was wrong. How was I going to get the dog back? I started running down the street, dodging cars and calling his name.

I awoke with my heart racing and reached over to reassure myself that Ballsack was still there. I decided I was going to get his tag updated first thing the next day. But even after I had made that decision, something was eating at me. And then I realized what it was. If Ignacio had given the big poodle to Dennis, then the address on the tag must have been one of Ignacio's. If that was the case, then I had potentially found a way to check up on Ignacio and make sure he wasn't two-timing.

I went back to sleep and didn't wake up until almost noon. I didn't have to shower since I had already done it in the middle of the night, but to cover up the smell of the flea dip, I added a few extra squirts of cologne.

After stopping by the post office to mail off the screenplay, I took Ballsack to the pet store and had the new tag made up with the correct address. I put the old tag in my pocket. I also picked up a few new chewy things and some more dog shampoo.

I decided I should take the big poodle back to Dennis' before checking out the address. If Ignacio was there, he would recognize the dog and realize I was spying on him. I dropped him off, said hello to my dad, and then sped off again.

29

The address was in West Hollywood, off North Laurel Avenue. I overshot Laurel by several miles to the east, so I had to double back on Hollywood Boulevard past all the tourist traps and freaks. Everyone talks about going to Hollywood, but when they visit all they see are shoe- and handprints in front of a movie theater and stars set in the sidewalk. Well, that and a lot of cheap crap to buy. And since they find the visit so anti-climactic, they usually hit the souvenir stores or buy tickets to a guided tour within the hour, not because they want those things, but just because they can't get over the fact that they came all that way for practically nothing.

I turned left on Laurel, a street that was nice by apartment standards, but not at all where I expected a rich guy like Ignacio to live. It had the standard rows of tall, skinny palm trees, which, I had been told, were like the poor cousins of the shorter, fat palm trees that had to be shaved periodically to keep the rat nests out. Whether you're a person or a palm tree, being rich attracts the scum. This street was also like most of the other apartment streets in L.A. in that there were bunches of smaller trees planted right in front of the buildings. This was either to cover up the boring, boxy architecture and faded, cracked stucco or to give people the impression that they had privacy.

The building I was looking for was a sun-bleached, tan stucco affair that had been divided into condos. It had that 1960's design, which for me mainly meant the windows weren't big enough for convenient spying. After a few passes around the block, I parked close enough to see the front door and waited, flipping through the radio stations whenever a bad song or an advertisement came on.

After about an hour, I couldn't take the waiting anymore. It had been a while since my last stakeout, and I had since gotten used to a more active surveillance. Plus, now that I was working with Gertie, I really needed to relax on my time off. I decided to get it over with and just knock on the door. Ignacio had never seen my face, so even if he was there, I wasn't risking anything.

I walked over to the condo and rang the bell. I couldn't hear anyone moving inside so I started to look in the windows. Then the door opened slowly, and a little girl's face peeked out.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hello. Who are you?” she asked. She had that expression kids of around four have when they aren't able to find a place for you in their universe.

“Oh me? I'm nobody, but I found a dog, and the tag has this address.”

“Where's the dog?” she asked.

“He's at my place. If you want him, you have to tell me what he looks like.”

“Is he white?”

“No. What I meant was, if you lost a dog, tell me what the dog you lost looks like, and if it's the same dog, I'll bring him over.”

“My dog is white, but he's not here. He's at my other house,” she said. I heard someone else moving in the apartment. A teenage girl appeared in the doorway.

“Go put your toys away, Amanda,” said the teenage girl. Amanda disappeared inside, and a clattering of plastic followed. “Can I help you with something?” she asked, smacking away at her gum. Her expression was evidence of an intense disinterest in my presence. Although annoyed, I envied her for not yet being at the stage when you have to fake caring about the person in front of you.