No Second Chances, page 4
“You make your own chances,” Floyd said, forming a loose fist, thumping it once, lightly, off the tabletop.
“Not that easy. I can’t land an audition for anything but low-end voice work. And I won’t score a big role without an agent.”
“Purpose doesn’t need a goddamn agent,” Floyd snapped. “Start a charity, read to old folks, write a novel. Jesus Christ, do something.”
Luke reached across the table and placed his hand on top of Floyd’s, signifying that the message had been received, and that he was grateful. Floyd’s reaction to Luke’s attempted suicide had been exactly what Luke needed, neither too damning nor overly mawkish.
There was more to it, though. Luke looked at Floyd’s softly trembling mouth, then into his discolored eyes, and accepted the truth he’d been avoiding for the last hour or so—that this was their final afternoon together. Floyd’s discourse wasn’t just the wisdom of a man who’d been around the block a few times. It was a parting lesson. A loving goodbye.
An understanding passed between them. It came in silence, and Luke found comfort in it. He didn’t give voice to the many sorrows chasing through him. The only thing that mattered was that moment, and holding on to it, somehow.
“To hell with it,” he said, his hand still placed on top of Floyd’s. “I’m going to get another drink. A real goddamn drink. You’re welcome to join me.”
“Aw shit, I shouldn’t,” Floyd responded. “But this late in the day, what difference does it make?”
Luke went to the washroom, using those few minutes away from Floyd to shed a few tears. On the way back, he ordered a pitcher of beer and two large bourbons—to hell with driving; he’d Uber home and pick up his car in the morning—and the two friends drank together until early evening, talking only about the things that complemented their shape.
And as always, classic soul filled the background. Floyd’s eyes occasionally glossed over and he would gently touch his ear, indicating not just a top-ten hit or a musician, but a lifetime of harmony and achievements and love. The music of living.
“I played on this.”
4
Making Moves
“You lonely, baby girl? You can come home anytime.”
She was two thousand miles from the people she loved, from the neighborhoods, the scenery, the comforts (and discomforts) she had known for all of her twenty-four years. Not a day went by when Kitty didn’t think about going home.
“You hear me? Anytime.”
“I hear you, Mama.”
Kitty had gone from calling her mama once a week to every other day. Homesickness, that was all. But there was a reason she’d moved west. Louisville—for Kitty, at least—was a dreamless place. Going back, she would assume the role that had been scripted for her by the neighborhood she lived in, the name on her birth certificate, and the color of her skin. Her potential could be packed into a small box, whereas in L.A., there was no box.
“There was a tornado in Bullitt County the day before yesterday,” her mama said, sensing Kitty’s emotion and kindly steering the conversation elsewhere. “Twister touched down.”
“Yeah? Anybody hurt?”
“No, but Muncel Stevens says she saw that mean ol’ thing and ran like her ass was on fire.”
Kitty’s new life was large and intimidating, but it was hers to script, and whenever that felt like too much, she would remember the dreamlessness and the small box and, most importantly, the boy she had left behind.
Kitty told her mama that she loved her and ended the call, then sat on the floor and gave in to a moment of self-pity. Mama had asked if she was lonely. Kitty wasn’t, but she often felt alone, and there was a difference. She’d met a few people, of course. The neighbor directly below—Sophia—was ten years older, an ER nurse originally from Tennessee, and far too busy for anything more than an occasional coffee. There were a couple of women at Kitty’s yoga class that she had friendly conversations with, but again, their busy lives had prevented them from getting together socially.
Then there was Johan Fly. Kitty hadn’t seen him—or his Mustang—in the three weeks since their encounter, but he’d called her. She didn’t know how he got her number, but supposed he had no problem getting what he wanted.
“You’re still working for Sly Boy,” he’d noted. It was the first thing he said when she answered. “Hopping between garbage cans. My little raccoon.”
“I’m not your little anything,” Kitty responded, and then, as if she needed to explain herself: “It’s easy work. Good money.”
“You deserve better.”
“It’ll happen.”
But would it? For all its life and color, Los Angeles was still the City of Broken Dreams. Kitty had pondered this notion since Johan had introduced it, and found it helped to approach it from a different angle: that dreams—all dreams, not just hers—were broken on arrival, and that only those with the tenacity to rebuild, one tiny piece at a time, would achieve success. Her resolve would be tested, but she had to believe, to trust.
“I can do that,” Kitty whispered to herself.
She got up from the floor, deciding that was all the self-pity she could handle for now, and crossed the room to the window. It was just after five, still a few hours from sunset, when her street would be struck with passion colors, which always filled her with warmth and appreciation. No passion now. An elderly neighbor was practicing kung fu forms in his front yard, and Luke Kingsley was sitting on his front step, eating a banana.
She waved but he didn’t see her.
Kitty had turned the internet over in the days following their eventful meeting. She read accounts and interviews, watched news stories, scoured forums, viewed countless photographs. The most haunting—and damning—was Luke’s shirt, splashed with his wife’s blood. Kitty recalled the depleted look in his eyes (although that may have had more to do with the carbon monoxide poisoning) after she’d dragged him from his garage. I didn’t do it, you know, he’d said, and there’d been such a sadness—such a desperate quality—to his voice that she wanted to believe him.
Detective Tera Montecino of LAPD’s Missing Persons Unit had not been of the same mindset. “We’re following multiple leads, questioning witnesses,” she’d said during an intense and emotional press conference. “If Lisa Hayes is alive, we’ll find her. If she’s dead . . . we’ll find her. And then we’ll bring the guilty party to justice. I don’t care how many movies he’s made.”
This was three years ago. So far, neither Detective Tera Montecino, nor anybody else in the LAPD, had found Lisa Hayes.
But did Luke kill her?
The sadness in his voice was one thing, but that bloodstained shirt was tough to overlook, not to mention the tabloid-fodder nature of Luke and Lisa’s relationship. They had argued constantly, colorfully, publicly. There was cell phone footage of them being ejected from Musso & Frank’s, with Lisa taking open-handed swipes at Luke while calling him a “small-dick motherfucker.” One night, Lisa called the police to their house in Sherman Oaks, claiming Luke had tried to drown her in the pool. Luke insisted he was trying to save her. Both were drunk off their asses.
“He doesn’t look like the killing type,” Kitty said to Connie, her older sister, during one of their weekly Zoom chats.
“They said that shit about Ted Bundy,” Connie replied. “Motherfucker was a killing machine.”
“I know, but—”
“Woman goes missing, you can bet your sweet ass her man is behind it,” Connie interjected fiercely. “Same when they’re killed. Ninety percent of the time it’s the husband or boyfriend. Maybe ninety-nine. That’s some factual shit.”
Female homicides connected to a significant other were closer to fifty percent. Kitty had already looked it up.
“You stay the fuck away from him, Kitty.”
Her sister was not one of the world’s great sages, but Kitty thought this was good advice. She intended to heed it, too, yet found herself, just two days later, sitting in the passenger seat of Luke’s Caliber, en route to Fairfax. She’d told Luke she was meeting a friend for drinks, but was in fact going to collect six thousand dollars’ worth of crystal meth from the trunk of a parked Cadillac.
The first several blocks were tense. Kitty sat rigidly, her skateboard across her lap, one hand on her phone’s screen, ready to dial 911. But it wasn’t long before she started to loosen up. Luke was relaxed and engaging. He asked where she was from, what she did for work (she told him she was a courier), then shared a few showbiz anecdotes that made her snort with laughter—physically snort, so that she had to cover her mouth and nose.
Kitty had debated getting into the car with him, and asked herself later why she did. Maybe she was drawn to his celebrity, such as it was. Or maybe—and this was more likely—after saving his life, she felt he needed someone in his corner.
He’d dropped her at the intersection of Third and Fairfax. As she skateboarded to the Caddy, she thought how strange it was that, four and a half months into her life in L.A., Luke was perhaps the closest thing she had to a friend.
Time drummed along. Kitty’s days were spent chatting with family and friends back home, going to the gym, fluttering through her socials, and attending her yoga classes. Her nights were spent making drops for Sly Boy, hating herself every time she put her hand into a garbage can.
The Viking was right. She deserved better.
On her night off, seven weeks after thwarting Luke’s suicide attempt, she joined him for a cold beer, both lazing across the hood of his Caliber, propped against the windshield. It was warm, the heat rising from below after spending the whole day beating down. Crickets chirruped in the weeds along the sides of Luke’s house. A neighbor’s sprinkler made a tranquil whispering sound.
“I don’t care how many industry awards he’s won,” Luke said, concluding another of his Hollywood anecdotes. “He’s still an asshole.”
Kitty smiled, guzzled her beer. She stared at the hazy night sky for a beat or two, then turned to Luke. He was looking better. The hotter days had bronzed his skin. He’d trimmed his beard and put on weight.
“You have an agent?” she asked. The question surprised her—her mouth in motion before her brain was in gear. A trait of the exuberant.
“Not anymore.” Luke swirled the contents of his bottle, then took a swig. He wrinkled his brow as he swallowed, as if the drink were bitter. “I used to be with Marty Lustbader at Paradigm. A tiny guy, five-foot-zip, but tough as rocks. He was the reason I got A Bullet Affair. It was down to me and Timothy Olyphant, but Marty worked his magic, nudged the producers in my direction. It was good to be on his roster. Felt like a goddamn hammer to the gut when he cut me loose.”
Kitty inhaled, letting the night chorus fill the silence between them. She peeled one corner of the bottle’s label, the moisture making it lift easily. Horns sounded distantly. Luke shifted and the hood voiced a metallic pop.
“Why?” he asked. “You want an introduction?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Kitty drew one knee to her chest and looked at Luke. “I just want a chance, you know. I didn’t move to L.A. to be a delivery girl.”
“You have any acting experience?”
“I modeled in my teens—ball caps for Lids and outerwear for Banana Republic. And I enrolled in summer classes at a performing arts school in Lexington, but had to give it up after my daddy was sent to prison. Mama took on a second job and I had to help look after my little brothers.”
“Doesn’t get any easier,” Luke remarked. “Your first year acting—or trying to get paid work—you feel like you’ve run a marathon. Then you turn around and see you’ve actually moved about ten yards. And the clock is always ticking. There’s always someone younger, prettier, hungrier, ready to take your place.”
“I’m not afraid to put in the time,” Kitty said. She shrugged and peeled more of her beer label away. “Anyway, just thought I’d ask. And hey, so you know, that’s not the reason I saved your life.”
“Didn’t think it for a second.” Luke grinned and clinked his bottle against hers. “Shit, you’d be better off getting a job at Chateau Marmont or Spago. Someplace like that. Smiling your smile as you serve those big-league producers their smashed avocado toast.”
“First thing I tried when I got to town,” Kitty said, and it was true. She’d had a stack of résumés printed off and hit every landmark in Hollywood. There were no takers. “Those places are tough to crack. It’s all favors and referrals.”
“Well, my name’s worth shit in this town, and my referral is worth even less.” Luke peeled off his own beer label, rolled it into a ball, and flicked it from the tip of his finger. “But I might be able to work something out. I know a guy, Denny Chick, a makeup artist. Does a lot of horror movies. You ever see It Came from the Dumpster?”
“Yeah. At a drive-in in La Grange.” Kitty raised her eyebrows. “First and last date with that fucking guy.”
“Remember the scene where the dude’s severed head bounces down the basement steps?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Thonk-thonk-thonk. Hit every fucking step on the way down. Like a goddamn Slinky.”
“Yeah. It’s etched into my mind.”
“Denny did that.” Luke’s eyes flared with excitement. “One take. No CGI. You know how hard it is to get the head to hit every step? He used ball bearings and raw beef liver. Had to get the weight exactly right.”
Kitty frowned and drank her beer, trying not to dwell on Luke’s enthusiasm for severed heads.
“Anyway,” Luke continued. “I bailed Denny out of a gambling debt to the tune of seventeen thousand dollars. This was back in the day. He’ll never be able to pay me back, which means I can always call on him for a favor.”
“What can he do?” Kitty asked.
“He’s made a shit-ton of pictures,” Luke replied. “Knows a lot of people. I can ask him to get you face time with an agent. Hopefully a lunch meeting. That way, the referral comes from Denny, not me.”
“You’d do that?”
“I owe you big, Kitty. It’s the least I can do.”
A grin stretched across Kitty’s face. It felt, for a moment, like all of her—a Cheshire Cat on the hood of Luke’s old Dodge, beaming into the soupy night sky. Something dislodged inside her, too. A tension. A reserve. The space around her dreams expanded.
“Thank you, Luke,” she said. “Holy shit, thank you.”
“A referral isn’t a guarantee,” Luke said. “This is Hollywood. Anything and nothing can happen. And once you’re in front of the agent, you’re on your own. Just, you know . . .” He shrugged, a touch bashful. “Be your winning self.”
“I’m hungry,” Kitty said. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Yeah? Well, you may want to be careful who you share that willingness with.” Luke finished his beer, wiped his lips with the back of one hand. “The big bad wolf may be in prison, but there are still a lot of fucking dogs out there.”
Kitty quit her “courier” job two nights later, but maintained her working connection to Sly Boy. The possibility of lunch with a talent agent may have encouraged this decision, but it wasn’t the only thing. She lingered on what the Viking had said to her. Hopping between garbage cans. My little raccoon. She didn’t want to be a raccoon. She wanted to fill the sky with light. You deserve better.
And maybe she could have shouldered the indignity for a month or three, or at least until she started getting regular auditions, but a couple of things happened that fast-tracked the move.
The first was Angelo Gallo, who’d bumbled toward her from a shadowy doorway, cupping his crotch, high on crystal.
“I’m gonna fuck you one day, Kitty,” he slurred. His dirty curls fell across his forehead, bouncing like springs as he twitched and jerked. “Gonna hit every hole in that sweet Black body.”
“Fuck you, Angelo.”
“Maybe make a few new holes.”
The second thing to happen was not as threatening, but it upset her more deeply. She’d just made a drop at a garbage can in Rampart Village, half an ounce of meth in a crumpled Subway wrapper, which she had to push down to keep it from blowing away. She was in the process of doing this when a car horn pipped twice—hey, you!—and she turned, her hand still in the garbage can, to see a familiar Mustang grumbling at the light. Johan sat in the passenger seat, one tattooed arm hanging loosely out the open window. He smiled, flicked a finger in salute, then the light turned green and the Mustang pulled away. Kitty groaned, slowly withdrawing her hand, her sense of shame so vast that she stood rooted to the spot for eight minutes.
She finished her rounds, then rode her board to Fusion 44. Sly Boy wasn’t there when she arrived. She waited two hours. A nu jazz band played brightly. An old guy with a missing tooth hit on her. Kitty was about to leave when Sly Boy came in. He greeted a few of his regulars before taking the barstool next to Kitty’s.
“I’m not doing this anymore,” she said to him. “I’m out.”
“Maybe we can talk about this some other time.”
“No.” Kitty shook her head, then borrowed Johan’s analogy. “My L.A. dream doesn’t involve me hopping between garbage cans like a raccoon—”
“A well-paid raccoon . . .”
“I deserve better.”
The band played, hitting a groove that felt like pure improvisation, but sounded tight enough to have been rehearsed a thousand times. The vocalist—white hair, a tight green dress—swayed like an orchid. Sly Boy watched them appreciatively for a moment, then ordered two Cognacs. He gave one to Kitty.
“This won’t change my mind,” she said.
“Not trying to change your mind.”
He had Clooney good looks, close to fifty years old, strong shoulders. There wasn’t a worry crease on his brow, and why should there be? He’d amassed a small fortune dealing heroin from the late 1990s to the early 2010s, and had semiretired to the good life. Fine suits, fast cars, a house in the Bird Streets. He owned two clubs: Fusion 44 and E-Five, a rock venue in Santa Monica.
