L.A. Success (8 page)

“Sorry about that. You okay?” I asked.

“I've bumped up against harder things than you,” she said and gave me a wink. She continued over to the counter to order a coffee. I went outside and sat down with the writers. After a few minutes, she strolled by us on her way over to her office, her rump swaying to the rhythm of her high heels. I watched her go down the sidewalk and into her office.

I looked over and noticed that Pocket-Watch Eddy was fidgeting more than usual. He had a desperate look on his face. He started hitting the keys harder than normal and was breathing like an animal. The other writers noticed it too and stopped working.

“Eddy,” said Hat-Guy Leonard, but Pocket-Watch Eddy just continued banging away at his laptop. “Eddy!” he said again, louder.

“No no no, not now,” said Pocket-Watch Eddy, and he continued to hammer away. “I was just not thinking big enough—I'm changing directions. Bigger, better, more modern. Going with what people like. Everything's flowing fast now.”

“Eddy,” said Hat-Guy Leonard, “you aren't working on that idea that you told us about last week, are you?”

“I've made changes, lots of changes. It's okay now,” he said. He looked hysterical as his fingers tapdanced all over the keyboard.

“No Eddy, it's not okay. Just go back to the themes Sony is developing. Give them what they want,” said Hat-Guy Leonard.

“To hell with their themes! I can't write in a box, Leonard! They're holding me back, killing my creativity. No, no—I won't do it!”

“What are you working on, Eddy?” asked USC-Shirt Jake, but it didn't sound like a question.

“Oh, you'd like to know, wouldn't you? I'll never tell you!” he answered, and hunched up closer to his screen to prevent us from seeing anything.

“We know what you're writing, and we want you to stop,” said Scarf-Guy Al. “Stand up, stretch your legs a little bit, grab another coffee—I'm buying—and get back to work.”

“You have no idea what I'm writing! It'll be the biggest film of all time!” he said. Then he leaned back and stared off into the distance. “Imagine an enormous, environmentally friendly luxury cruise liner, sailing inexorably toward a tragic destiny, upon which a friendly race of twelve-foot tall, blue, cat-like people vacation peacefully, all of which have humanoid sexual organs that you will guiltily try to sneak peeks of throughout the movie. Suddenly, an American Army spacecraft lands on the deck of the ship. Their mission: infiltrate the vacationing blue cats with advanced cat clones in order to turn the giant, doomed ship into an oil platform and drill for rare natural resources beneath the sea—resources that seem unnecessary based on the level of technology they have clearly acquired to be able to make the clones, but hey, you'll be too busy trying to look under the loincloths to make that deduction. One man resists and is accepted by the cat people before the ship slams into a floating sea rock and sinks, killing everybody except the cat woman who had been getting it on with the good human.”

“Damn it Eddy! You told us about 'The Titavatar' when you lost it last week. You don't have permission to use those characters. Stop it now!” said Hat-Guy Leonard.

Eddy seemed to come out of his trance. He looked down at his screen.

“My God, what have I been doing?” He erased the document and then stood up to go get a little air.

“At least we caught him early,” said Scarf-Guy Al. He looked over at me. “I once cracked like that and started writing a movie about an ambitious wookie groomer, who, when confronted by an intergalactic conflict, decides to move to a neutral country and open a salon. It was a musical. I finished half of if before the guys realized I had cracked and stopped me.” He shook his head and went back to work.

20

Gertie came out of her office about a half an hour later. I watched her as she made her way over to her car. It was a yellow '78 Eldorado Biarritz, one of those old boats that, even though it was the size of a house, only had two doors. It had sweet white-wall tires. It was going to be easy to follow.

I ran over to my car and got in. I pulled around to her side of the parking lot and caught a glimpse of her making an illegal turn onto Venice Boulevard. She was heading out west. I turned east and then, when I was sure no cops were around, swung a Uey. I had lost sight of her, but I had no trouble catching up in Dennis' powerful Charger.

She drove like a maniac. Sometimes she sped up for no reason, and then after I matched her speed, she'd slow down suddenly and I'd have to slam on my breaks to avoid hitting her. I got the impression that she was looking for something in the glove compartment or trying to find a station on the radio, because the Eldorado kept jerking to the left and right, and would even slowly drift into the oncoming lane once in a while. But one good thing about the way she was driving was that I could be sure she wasn't looking around to see if she was being followed.

She continued until she arrived at her house, a nice little place in Venice on the corner of Dell Avenue and Sherman Canal. She pulled into her garage and parked. I drove by, pretending to be just another tourist gawking at the houses on the canals. I got a good look at her place and was happy to see that there was nothing blocking the windows. Most of the canal houses have small lawns, so the owners plant a lot of trees to give them some privacy. Gertie had a few trees, but the second-floor windows were clear. The real problem was going to be trying to find somewhere to park. All the streets in that area were permit only, and if I parked somewhere else and walked around, that'd only fly for a while. I could take pictures and pull out the binoculars—everybody does. But after a while people would start to get suspicious. I drove north up Dell Avenue and then turned around and drove slowly over the canal bridge, looking right into Gertie's windows. Then I turned around and did it again, but she had already pulled the curtains closed.

I tried to make another pass, but there were so many cars that it was taking forever and turning around was getting difficult. I decided to park a little to the west on Pacific Avenue and then walk back on foot. I'd pretend to be a creepy tourist until it got weird. By the time I got back to her place, the lights were out. I couldn't tell if she was still there. I did a tour of the entire canal system waiting for any changes, but nothing doing. I either hadn't seen her leave, or she was in a room I couldn't see very well.

21

I walked back to the Charger and got in. The radio said it was almost seven in the evening. I hadn't eaten anything in forever, and since I had just done some serious walking, I was feeling light headed. Then I realized I hadn't ordered anything for my dad either, so he must have been hungry, too. I drove back to Santa Monica, picked up some sub sandwiches, and then went over to Dennis'.

When I walked in, I smelled something funky. Ballsack had left a little package for me on the tiles in front of the door. I guessed that it was his way of telling me he was pissed off at me for staying out all day without him. I also noticed that my dad wasn't playing chess. He was just sitting on the couch doing nothing.

“Dad, I'm sorry about this. I got caught up in a bunch of stuff and just forgot.” He didn't look over.

I took out the sandwiches and set everything in front of him. He waited a minute or two and then tore into his. When I went to feed the big poodle, his bowl was already full. My dad must have given him something to eat. That made me feel even worse. My dad was becoming more responsible than I was. I downed my food, cleaned up the poodle poo, and straightened up the place a little. Then Ballsack came strolling sheepishly into the room. He must have thought he was going to be in trouble, so I stroked his afro a little to make him feel better.

The dog and I went home to sleep after I saw that my dad was back to normal. When I lay down, I could really feel my body aching from all the walking I had done, but my brain was going crazy thinking about everything I had done that day. The caffeine must have had something to do with that. Even when I didn't want to think, everything was turning round and round. I had to listen to more frog barking than usual before I flushed that day out of my head.

22

I spent longer than usual in the shower the next morning. I let the hot water massage all the soreness out of my muscles. I hadn't been so active in a long time, and I certainly hadn't laid off the booze like that in a while. If I kept this pace up, I wasn't going to have time to be so fat anymore.

I got dressed and left Dennis' cool clothes in the hamper for Tommy to wash. I was thinking about bringing a week's worth of Dennis' clothes over to my place because going over to his house and changing again every morning was starting to be a pain in the ass.

I grabbed a bunch of delivery menus from the kitchen before I headed over to Dennis' house. I decided I was going to leave them with my dad so that he could start ordering food whenever he wanted. I had thought about picking up some groceries and stocking Dennis' fridge, but I didn't think my dad was going to be ready to cook things, or even to put sandwiches together. This delivery system would be easy for him. I'd just leave some more money in the chess-winnings bag, and he would think he was earning his own food now.

I explained all that to my dad while I was soaping him up. Making him take a shower now was a lot easier than the first time. He basically did everything by himself. The only thing I had to make an effort on was the shaving. He still didn't like that at all.

23

I decided to take the big poodle with me today. I changed cars so that if I had to tail Gertie again, she wouldn't recognize me. Ballsack jumped in the green Mercedes and gave the windows his usual licking over as we drove off to Culver City.

All my writer buddies were already drinking coffee and hammering away at their laptops. I tied the big poodle to one of the tables and went in to see my favorite coffee guy, Max.

“Okay,” I said when I made it up to the register. “Give me whatever you would give Remington Steele.”

“Who's that?” asked Max.

“That's the name James Bond used to use. I mean one of the old James Bonds, back when he was an investigator on TV.”

“Which Bond? The ugly one no one liked?”

“No, that Charles Bronson guy,” I said. This Max didn't know a lot of stuff.

He thought it over for a while.  He started up a special brew of dark roast from the largest cocaine-exporting country he could find, and then once he found the biggest cup in the joint, he filled it up three-quarters of the way full. Then he dropped a couple of shots of espresso in it. Now, whenever you drop shots of anything in something else, you know you got a hell of a drink. I'd never thought of this Remington Steele guy like that, so I was thinking Max here was a little light in the loafers, but whatever.

I went outside and got into my surveillance position. Although I now knew where Gertie lived, I was thinking that it wouldn't hurt to watch both places. If she was doing a married guy, she'd probably meet up with him during the day anyway.

I took a drink of my coffee. As it flowed down my throat it felt like an ice pick was being jammed into my skull. I took another drink to make that feeling go away. I felt like a car that had needed a jump but was now purring softly. I downed half of it in a few more gulps. I wiped away a couple of drops that were rolling down my chin before they could stain my Arnold.

I set my cup off to the side and started in on some fake writing, all the while keeping an eye on Gertie's office door. I could see Ellen's shadow moving around more than usual, and that made me curious. She seemed to be moving slow today, and, in fact, the guys seemed to be typing slower than normal, too. Then Ballsack saw a squirrel and jerked his leash so hard that he made the table move. My cup came off the table and started falling toward the ground. Without even thinking, I reached out and grabbed it before it had fallen halfway down.

“Niiiiiice,” said USC-Shirt Jake.

It was the caffeine. It had given me some kind of super speed. I was feeling wicked invincible, like I could do anything.

“Hey guys, guard the dog a minute. I have to run an errand,” I said, and before anyone had time to answer, I was off in a flash.

I ran over to my car to make the guys think I had forgotten something. When I saw they weren't looking, I cut back in the other direction toward Gertie's office. With this super speed, I was going to find out what Ellen was up to. Maybe she was setting up an open house for her boss. I could pose as a client and get some inside information.

I made two or three lightning-fast passes in front of the windows. It looked like Ellen was organizing something on her desk. She had a lot of stuff laid out all over the place, but I couldn't tell what. On my next pass, I quickly smashed my face up against the window, and when my view was blocked by the listings posted up on the glass, I slid around until I had an unobstructed vantage point. All this I did so fast that—

“Can I help you with something?” asked Ellen, who had materialized right next to me.

“Uh...Yes,” I said. I was thinking about making a run for it, but seeing how I had already overestimated my abilities once, I thought it would be better not to push my luck. And anyway, all sorts of normal people who aren't spying on anyone look at the houses displayed in real-estate office windows, right?

“You've got something on your nose,” she said. She pulled out a tissue and handed it to me. “The pollution gets on everything. We have these windows cleaned every week, but with all the cars...” she said, pointing at the window. I noticed that my nose and hands had left circular tracks all over it. And I thought I had just given a few sneaky peeks.

“I have to get some reading glasses some day,” I said, wiping off my face.

“Come on in.”

Normally I'd have made up an excuse to leave, but this chick had got me all confused by making me imagine myself sliding my face all over the window. I followed her in.

“So, what's your name?” she asked.

I knew that the last name in the world I should say was Dennis.