Little Boy Blue (44 page)

During the drive to Venice by the sea, Alex
held an open bottle of Chablis between his legs. He was careful to swig when no
headlights were close behind. He certainly didn’t want them stopped
for a trivial misdemeanor, especially when he lacked identification and a
parole-violation warrant was out for him. Still, he consumed enough alcohol
during the forty-minute drive to feel a pleasurable, warm glow in his belly,
and the glow of intoxication in his brain, too.

Wedo parked in a lot a long block from the pier.
The scent of the sea struck them the moment they got out. The glow of the
pier’s lights and the sound of its carnival music could be seen and heard
over the intervening buildings. The music, in particular, aroused in Alex
memories of the eight days he’d spent hidden out around here. The garage
he’d lived in was a single block away. It was just two years ago, not
long to an adult, but it was a large percentage of the life of a
fourteen-year-old striding through pubescence to adulthood. So much had
happened to Alex in the interim, so many changes. He wondered about Rusty and
B.B. They had hidden and fed him. Now, had he been alone, Alex would have
probably looked for them. But Wedo was with him, and to Wedo they would be
“kids,” too young to merit his attention.

For an hour, Alex and Wedo wandered aimlessly
amid the crowds. They ate hot dogs and cotton candy, stood in the throng
listening to the pitch of barkers at various shows—one showed the bullet-
riddled car of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, or claimed it to be, and Wedo
wanted to go inside, so Alex shrugged and went along, seeing nothing but an old
Ford with numerous holes and a cracked windshield. Wedo got angry when Alex
said, “Man, I could’ve seen this in a junkyard.” It wasn’t
fighting anger, however, so Alex mollified it with humor and lighthearted
ridicule.

Down the pier they stopped at the roller
coaster, hearing the screech of joyfully terrified passengers getting their
money’s worth. They had paid to be scared—and they were—while
still being safe. Alex would have taken a ride, and so would Wedo, but the
latter was worried that the excitement would diminish the heroin in his system,
necessitating that he fix out of his regular schedule. Thus they went on a
little way, stopping at a penny arcade (it was already ten cents and would
inevitably be three times that) to push coins into slots and play games.
Mainly, however, they walked around and looked at things and people. The idea
of having fun at the amusement pier lost its force once they arrived. Emotions
necessary for enjoyment had been debilitated by the tension and adrenaline
generated earlier to pull the robbery. It would take rest, perhaps sleep, for
their systems to clear and for emotional capacity to be rejuvenated.

When they came off the brightly lighted pier
itself, they decided to walk the boardwalk along the beach. It, too, was
garish: hot dog stands, fortune-tellers, movie theaters, the panoply one would
anticipate under the circumstances—all of it bathed in colored globes and
neon. Normally, Alex thoroughly enjoyed amusement parks, the rides, the games
and the sideshows—and especially the shooting galleries. Now, however, he
didn’t enjoy it, but he didn’t want to dampen Wedo’s
pleasure. Wedo, however, felt the same way: “
Ese
,
Alex, let’s hang this place up… go back to our turf and find a
motel and fix. Then go eat something?”

“You’re reading my mind.”

The motel was on Sunset Boulevard near the
invisible line that creates Hollywood in the center of Los Angeles. Wedo had
stayed here before. Although the office was at the entrance, there was a rear
driveway into an alley, so they could come and go without being seen. It was a
nice motel that survived on persons who didn’t want to be monitored or
questioned.

The moment the door was
locked,
Wedo had a glass of water on the nightstand and was beginning to lay out the
paraphernalia. Jesus, Alex thought, a junky can’t think about anything
else… fix… fix… fix… fuck that.

“So you want a taste?” Wedo said.

“On second thought—I pass.”

“Okay, more for me,
ese
.” He grinned and
winked.

As is common among crime partners in the
underworld, especially with junkies, the two youths were virtually
inseparable. They were together nearly all the time. On the morning following
the first armed robbery, Alex bought some clothes, including his first
suit—powder-blue sharkskin. He even bought a couple of neckties, which he
didn’t know how to knot. That evening they picked Teresa up a block from
her home and went to a movie. Afterward they cruised around, winding up on
Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills. Other cars were parked nearby, the
occupants overlooking the endless flat sprawl of Los Angeles. The wide
boulevards seemed to be twin streams—one of diamonds, the other of
rubies, depending on which way the cars were moving. Wedo and Teresa in the
back seat began necking so hotly that the sounds played on Alex’s mind,
arousing him. He got out and stood on the brink of the precipice, smoking and
looking down at the city and at the lights of the few houses that dotted the
closer hillsides and canyons. He wondered if he would ever have a house on a
hillside with the city at his feet. He didn’t know if he wanted one, or
even what else he wanted, but he knew he wanted something. Maybe he could find
better robberies for himself and Wedo. If he were three years older he could
legitimately be on his own.
Could he last that long?
All he could do was exactly what he was doing—trying to steal or rob for
the money he needed to live, trying to avoid arrest as a parole violator,
trying to see life and experience as much of it as possible. Circumstances
foreclosed him even thinking of long-range plans. His was a primal world of
action and reaction, of continual tension and fear. It wasn’t how most
boys turning fifteen years old lived their lives.

His reverie was broken by the single
headlight flashing on and off, summoning him to the car. Teresa had to get
home.

After they dropped her off, Wedo fixed in a
gas station. Then they cruised around looking for a score. They didn’t
look too hard. They still had some money, and everything they saw had some
flaw.

The next night they stuck up another
drugstore, this one in North Hollywood. It went without trouble, except that a
customer came in, saw Wedo behind the counter with the pistol, and started to
back out—until Alex prodded him from the rear with the shotgun. Customer
and manager were left in a washroom. The young robbers got nearly four hundred
dollars apiece from the combination of the cash register and what Itchy gave
them for the excess drugs. Wedo now had enough dope to last for two weeks, an
eternity of freedom of choice to a street junky. They even abandoned the
battered junkheap of a car when it wouldn’t start, and each put up a
hundred and fifty to buy a ‘41 Buick convertible in pretty good shape.

Wedo preferred to do nothing until they again
ran short of money or dope. He preferred to spend his time fixing and nodding
in the hotel or motel, going out to eat once or twice a day, usually quick-
fried foods at some dingy cafe. Although much of Alex’s young life had
been spent lying around cells, which should have prepared him for sedentary
living, he fretted about it. Even books failed to provide an escape from the
forces grumbling around inside—a chafing irritant, an unfocused yearning,
a rage for something. Sometimes he left Wedo dozing and went out to walk the
neighborhood or go to a movie, although movies, like books, failed to provide a
refuge for the nebulous dissatisfaction. In Preston, his thoughts were that
everything would be good, even wonderful, once he resurrected. It hadn’t
proven true. The reality was dreary and lonely. When he smoked marijuana it
failed to elate him, only increasing his sadness and fretfulness. Because in
action and danger he could forget his depression, or anxiety, or whatever it
was, he prodded Wedo to pull more robberies. Wedo would take the risk only when
the wolf was at the door, so to speak, only when he lacked money for a roof and
for heroin. Alex, in addition to being goaded by inner tangles, was
dissatisfied by hand-to-mouth thievery. He wanted an automobile of his own and
whatever else struck his fancy. The feeling of money in his pocket was good; it
gave him options that alleviated some of the swirling bad feelings. He did not
merely want to go out more often; he now felt ready to go after bigger scores
than liquor stores, gas stations, and drugstores. Wedo, on the other hand,
thought the smaller places were easier and safer.

In two weeks they lived in one downtown hotel
and two Sunset Boulevard motels. Alex had two suitcases of clothes and was
proud of how sharp he dressed. Wedo, who had always chased girls, was
uninterested in that, too. He even pretty much ignored Teresa, which caused
mixed feelings in Alex. He had eyes for Teresa, and if Wedo and she really
broke up, maybe Alex could move in—but he disliked the expression and
worried about being disloyal, whatever the expression. The three of them
went out in the newly purchased convertible. Wedo was too full of drugs and
kept nodding out and mumbling incoherently. That alone created tension in the
car. Teresa finally showed anger when he didn’t notice dropping a
cigarette on her skirt until the smell of something burning made them look
around. They found the smoldering hole, the size of a half-dollar, and put it
out—but they didn’t put out her fire. She wanted to go home, and
she didn’t want to see Wedo or talk to him again if he was blotto on
dope. When she gave the ultimatum he felt almost nothing. The heroin in him eradicated
the capacity for painful feelings. As soon as she was out of the car, Wedo
muttered “fuck it” and let his head fall to his chest in the
classic “nod,” occasionally scratching his nose somnolently
while Alex drove across the city at night toward the motel.

The next day, however, Wedo felt some pain.
It showed itself in anger. “We’ll show her, carnal. No
bullshit… show her what she lost, que no? We’ll cruise up in a long
Coupe de Ville, know what I mean?
And be sharp, sharp in a
bad motherfuckin’ Hickey-Freeman mohair and some alligator shoes.”

Alex listened, nodded, and grinned warmly
as his partner “talked shit.” Alex hoped it wasn’t a
momentary attitude. He had happened to walk down a nearby alley while a panel
truck was being unloaded behind a wholesale drug company outlet. The truck had
a burglar alarm and heavy mesh separating the driver’s area from the rear
compartment. The rear also had special locks with dual keys. Like some safes,
the one way to open it was for two keys to be used in sequence. The driver had
one key; the outlet manager another. Alex walked out of the alley and around to
the front. Horton and Converse was the company name. Prescriptions could be
filled over the counter, but the main business was supplying pharmacies and
medical clinics. The front window listed outlets in Los Angeles, Santa Monica,
Pasadena, and Long Beach. Retail drugstores had been their best scores so far,
and the easiest. Legal narcotics were dirt-cheap in comparison to diamonds and
other things, and therefore wouldn’t be so rigorously guarded. Their
value was only in the underworld. Moreover, he couldn’t sell diamonds,
but he surely had an outlet for morphine and such. A place like this would have
several times the quantity of a drugstore. He’d even mentioned it to Wedo
several days ago, but Wedo hadn’t been interested, especially when Alex
added that they would have to look it over for a couple of days, and watch to
see what was what. Wedo preferred to just drive around until they saw
something, and then go take it. Now, however, Alex painted a picture of enough
narcotics to maintain Wedo’s habit for several months, plus enough for
them to sell for several thousand. This time, Wedo listened, thinking that
Teresa would eat her words if he showed up in a really classy car, maybe a
three-year- old Caddy convertible, and him wearing a sapphire pinky ring and
Italian silk suit.