Tinseltown Riff (17 page)

 
 
 

Chapter Seventeen

    

 

The very next day, caught in a hodgepodge of straggly hills, switchbacks and hideaways, Deke pulled over and left the rental car. No way he was going to chance running into something on this winding drive so he decided to walk up.

As he approached the top of the incline, he heard a hollow smash of pottery and a high-pitched scream. Trudging up closer, which sure as hell was doing his back no good, he heard another crash, another scream and a slap. Two more screams and he caught a glimpse of a gal holding the side of her face and making obscene gestures at the sky. As he fixed his gaze on the fake frosty highlights in her hair and her tight-looking bod, he knew it had to be this Angelique character and he'd found the right place.

He moved back down a-ways, snatched his cell phone out of his suit jacket pocket and hit the redial.

“Yeah,” said Walt, his gravelly voice echoing in the sudden stillness, “what now?”

“I'm here. But I'm not about to step into some domestic dispute.”

“Look, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear nothin'.”

“You called it.”

“Wrong. The goddamn point man sent for you. Likes your style, remember? But in case you're losin' your hearing, I don't like your style, never did. And I sure don't like what you pulled outside of Salinas. Hell, you want to work alone, Deacon? Cut your own throat? Go right ahead.”

There was a long slurping sound, as if Walt was punctuating this last remark with a deep pull from a frosty ale and a wipe across his walrus mustache.                                         

“So,” said Walt, back on the line, “in case you're losin' your memory too, I have had it with bunglers, shifty financing--the whole kit and caboodle. For my money you and the goddamn point man deserve each other.”   

“Okay, Walt, forget it.”                                                                                       

“Damn straight. The very second you clean up this mess--and let's not forget the freakin' accountant the Outfit is still on my ass about.  They don't buy ‘no news is good news.' They want some closure. Is he alive? is he dead? is he on ice or what?”

Deke broke off the connection, pocketed his cell and slipped past the Jaguar through the open gate. Ignoring Angelique, who was slumped down on a chaise lounge next to the pool checking out her left cheek, he headed straight for the sun porch. He noted that the shape of the house, like the serpentine drive, was made up of high, concrete curves, as if designed by some pastry chef with a thing for pink swirls.  

“I wouldn't go in there just yet,” Angelique whimpered behind his back like a sulking teenager. “He's still picking up the pieces and isn't fit for human company. That is so-o Ray, taking it out on a girl or anything handy.”

The name Ray struck a chord but no image came to mind.

Deke scuffed back a few feet till he was by her side. He tried to avoid looking down. Not because she was wearing a bathing suit of yellow ruffles and shreds that covered practically nothing. But because the glare from the sun was bouncing off the pool water, pink tiles, her outfit and bleached hair. Along with everything else, it was giving him eye strain and a headache. The everything-else included the bimbo waitress from Castroville who gave him no rest till he finally ditched her; plus the drive from the airport yesterday afternoon, getting lost on the freeways and to hell and gone; and, to top it off, the skinny gals and punk rockers jumping each other last night in the suite next to his at the Prado.

“So you're the tracking service,” said Angelique, abandoning her simpering, whining act.                                                                                                                 

“The what?”

“The detective, whatever.”

“Could be.” Continuing to avoid the looks she was giving him, he rubbed his watery eyes.

“Hard night?” said Angelique, making things worse by pulling out a hand mirror.

“In a way.”

“Come on, lighten up, talk to me. What are the chicks wearing?”

“Chicks?”

“Girly girls, starlets at the Prado. Come on, I know you're staying there. What have they got on?”

“Slips and slippers, I guess.”

“Oh, that is so-o Joline.  Came out with that lingerie look a week ago. Purple rules the red carpet now. Lavender, color of royalty, Hollywood's hottest hue, right?”

“I wouldn't know.”

“But you must have noticed. Violet silk camisoles, lilac, dark-purple tank tops.  What's the scene around the pool? With the open cabanas and chicks slinking around the lacey bamboo, floating on the water like goddesses, right? ‘Angelique,' this hottie said to me the other day, ‘how do you keep looking like some Venus?'  No bull, really, I swear. But still, in this town, you gotta keep up.”

“Sorry, can't help you.” Hearing no more noises, Deke set out again for the sun porch.

“Wait,” said Angelique, trying out a purring sound. He glanced back as she reached under the chaise lounge, fumbled around and pulled out a bent cigarette from a crumpled pack. Pouting, giving him another come-on, she held the cigarette by her glossy lips and let it dangle there.   

Deke reached in the suit jacket pocket, struck one of the little wooden matches against the side of the box, gave her a light and flipped the match into a hibiscus bush. Then, just to make sure, he said, “About this Ray. Does he have a nose like a beak?”

“That's the one. Ray the hawk. Hawk anything. Keep handing you a line and slap you around as long as you put up with it.”      

Deke nodded. Now he knew exactly who he was dealing with.

“Hey, nice suit. Pin stripe, huh? Helmut Lang, elastic wool, tuxedo shirt. Cool.”

Wasting no more time, he walked clear away from her.

“Hey, what is it, my cheek? Think it'll show? Like that's the last thing I need, huh?”

The lull ended the moment Deke set foot onto the porch. The screeching electric wail came from somewhere past the curtained glass door.

“That is so-o-o Ray!” Angelique hollered. “Can't play a lick but sure can fake it.”

Deke stepped inside and slid the glass door shut behind him. If the pool area was an eyesore, this playroom did it one better. The overhead lights flashed off Ray's chrome-plated guitar and speakers in the far corner; the walls covered top to bottom with metal-mesh curtains; the surveillance cameras and the vents blowing frigid air from all directions. Even the floor and ceiling had a polished sheen, and so did the broken shards of glazed pottery lying by Deke's feet. The only soft spot was a gaming table in the center, with a plush-green felt top, standard Vegas markings, inlaid wooden chip trays and padded sides.

Ray himself was wearing a silver T-shirt, a white linen jacket with the sleeves rolled up and white satiny pants. He also had on the same blue reflecting goggles he wore in Vegas when Deke last saw him. As far as Deke knew, Ray had his finger in everything but nothing in particular. Always mouthing off like a Sin City tout. But who knew what was under the bullshit?  

As wiry as ever, with that pointy chin and nose too big for his face, he shifted his bony fingers up and down the frets still wailing away. The slap and broken jug a minute or so ago plus the twitch in his cheeks was all the more proof Ray was losing it.      

Spotting an ice bucket and bottles of mineral water on a cart in the near corner, Deke ambled over and poured himself a drink. Just as he was about to swallow a pain pill, Ray pulled the plug and the screeching came to a halt.

“That's what it's like, man,” Ray said in that nasal twang of his. “When somebody guts you, there's a short circuit. No chords, no vibes, no nothin'. It's shot.”

Dropping the guitar and letting it rattle around for emphasis, Ray waited for a response.

Deke swallowed the pill and washed it down.

“You follow?” said Ray.

“Uh-huh.”

“‘Uh-huh' is your answer?”

Deke nodded.

“Listen, you need to appreciate something and that something is this. You have value because no one sees you coming: not the CPA who tried to screw me over with some frickin' audit, not my own two dicksters you gave the slip to, and certainly nobody here where you could pass for anybody.”

Ray scuffed over to the gaming table, ripped the cellophane off a new deck of cards, split it, riffled the cards, fanned them out and slid them from side to side. “Now as anybody knows, everybody wants in on the hustle. In Vegas, if you're a floater, it's hit the tables, luck out, crash and burn, and you're out of it. But when you're a player, when everything's riding on it, like a shark, you got no rest.”

Deke poured himself another glass of water. All Ray was telling him was that he was at the end of his rope.

“Give me something here,” said Ray.

Deke raised his glass.

“Okay,” said Ray, “I'll take that as a ‘yes'. You see, what we got here is the world's most number of wannabes who'll do anything. Even if instead of the spotlight, they're askin' for it. Headin' straight for the La Brea Tar Pits.”

For emphasis, Ray pointed to the overhead cameras and lights and flipped a few cards at the chip trays. Two landed in the slots, the rest fluttered to the floor.

Deke stood pat in the corner.

“What am I sayin'?”

“You thought you had it covered but you got stiffed.”

Ray reached around, came up with a wide blue rubber band and began stretching it and twirling it around his fingers as if trying to decipher exactly what it was that he was saying. Finally he said, “So let's hear it. Am I right or am I right? What's the skinny? What's the score?”

Deke told him that the rockers, starlets and hangers-on didn't gather at the Prado till around six-thirty. At that point, they squeezed into the banquettes that lined the pool, lit the candles and waved as he drifted by.

“Beautiful beautiful. Yes! You could be a new studio exec. The latest face in the revolving door. So? So?”

Using the lingo he picked up, Deke went on. “No setup. Right off, a surgeon's implanted a bomb in somebody's wife and she's missing.”

“Movies. You're talking movies, right? Must be. Good, it's only flicks. Keep going.” Ray began circling the pool table, twirling the rubber band a little faster.  

Deke recounted more trade talk, continuing to play the cool cowboy Ray expected.

“Which means,” said Ray, groping for a leg-up, “our problem is an inside job and the Prado lead was a decoy. Which leaves this Pepe.”

Not sure where he was going with this, Deke let it ride.

“Who is he? Where did he come from? Is he on to us, trying to horn in? What is the word on this guy?” Ray snapped the rubber band hard against the padding as if this Pepe character was already on his hit list.

“Listen,” Ray went on, more antsy than ever, “I caught this message on the machine, ‘Just to let you know, Angelique, Pepe's in on it.' I'm talkin' a cool woman's voice. Is she from the Feds? The Outfit? What? Then I spot her—this is a different her, I'm talkin'-- sneaking up the drive; then down at the bottom with this guy, then gunning it the hell out of here.”

“Who?”

“Who what?”

“The one you spotted?”

“Never mind. Who's calling the shots here? So then what?  Back to your end.  You ran it down, right?”  

“What?”

“The real deal, the Pepe lead. What am I talkin', Greek?”

Going along for now, Deke told him the Mexican parking attendants at the Prado said they'd also heard that a Pepe was in on everything but they weren't sure what. Then they got suspicious and blew him off. Said if he wanted more information, he'd have to go to the barrio where Pepe was from. The way they said it, Deke wasn't sure they weren't leading him into a trap.

What he didn't tell Ray was, with his bad back, he was not going to wander through any ghetto in East L.A., dealing with people he didn't trust and didn't trust him,  dressed-up in this pin-striped monkey suit just asking for it. Which was why he'd located a Levi jacket at a costume shop on Hollywood and Vine and braced himself for the worst.

Deke did let on that a gang, some Los Cobras clique, swore at him. They banged on the hood of his rental car, rocked it and tried to tip it over. What he didn't tell Ray was that he had to gun the motor to get the hell out of there. One of the kids bounced off the windshield, two off the hood and one took a whack in the thigh as he swerved hard and sped off. He did, however, admit that a bony kid warned him not to mess with Pepe whose identity was secret, whose reach was everywhere and Deke had better say his prayers.

Ray gave the padding of the gaming table a few more welts. “You know what the problem is? Generosity. I give Angelique her head, let her hire whoever she wants. I mean, hey, all I need is a new front. But somehow ... somehow ...”

Ray switched from the rubber band to snapping his fingers and spun over to a meshed-covered door leading deeper into the house. “I will tell you something and that something is this. It is coming to a head with this Pepe. I can feel it, I can taste it. How he got in on it, I don't know but you will need some insurance.”

Ray's cheek went into another set of involuntary twitches as he brushed by Deke and disappeared. In turn, Deke stretched his back as the pain pill started to kick in and offered him some relief.

Over the swish of the air-conditioning he heard Ray making a call, shouting at somebody and then giving in.

A minute later, Ray was back clutching a sleek stainless steel briefcase. “Okay, okay, okay,” said Ray handing it over. “A little insurance like I said, plus index cards, legal pads, whatever, as you keep playing the part.”