Dream a Little Death, page 16
“You did what?”
“I raped Carmen,” he repeated.
“No, you didn’t,” I said in a rush. “Freddy Sims—Big Fatty—he was the one who raped Carmen. He was the one who went to jail.”
“Lots of innocent people go to jail.” Miles shrugged. “I got shitfaced, I blacked out, and I beat and raped the woman I loved.”
We always hurt the one we love.
But I’d thought that was Maya.
“You obviously don’t get it,” Miles said. “I used to black out. A lot. I did terrible things and had no fucking idea I did them. I wasn’t conscious! I didn’t remember! But you know what they say. You don’t remember the things you drink to forget.”
“Miles, I want to understand. But you need to slow down.”
He sighed. “It was one stupid night. One stupid night where everything went to shit. Pee Chee needed me. It was 4 a.m. I wasn’t in the office, and I wasn’t home with Petal, so Pee Chee figured I was with Carmen. She drove over to our place in Glendale.” He shook his head. “It was chaos. She found me on the kitchen floor. She slapped me awake, then dragged me into the bedroom. Carmen was lying there, barely alive, glass everywhere, on her, in her.” He was crying now. “I tried to call 911, but Pee Chee said it was okay, Carmen was going to be okay, the doctor was already on his way. But now, she said, now was the moment for me to sober up and finally make some good decisions. Those were her words exactly.”
Because Pee Chee was the head to Miles’s heart, the one who greased the wheels and tied up the loose ends.
“Carmen was a girl who wanted to live big,” Miles said. “She was incandescent. She burned brighter than the sun or the moon or the fucking stars! But sometimes she took it too far. She drank too much. She’d been out partying, she was out of it, she had no idea who’d raped and beaten her. And how was she going to feel when she found out that the man she loved and fucking trusted with her life was the one who’d crushed her, body and soul? Carmen’s brother had overdosed the year before. Carmen had gone through a pretty serious depression. Pee Chee said it was too much of a risk. And we were lucky. Pee Chee knew one of the guys who’d been out with Carmen earlier that night, and for the right price, she said, he’d be willing to take the fall. Pee Chee would fix it so he’d be guaranteed a short sentence. It was a win-win, right? Fuck it, I was so out of it that night, I agreed.”
Miles was a rapist.
Miles was a liar.
Miles had bought his own freedom with another man’s suffering.
“It’s karma, Dreama.” He walked over and rested his foot on one of the beads for a second, then kicked it across the room. “You can’t fucking escape it. Maya found out what I did, and she couldn’t bear it. That’s why she shot herself, and that’s why she did it in front of me. So I’d understand. So I’d feel her pain.”
“You can’t know that,” I said.
“Yes, I can,” he said. “I told you there was no suicide note, but that was a lie.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper, and handed it to me. “I found it on my bed when I came home that night.”
I looked at the piece of paper. It said, in big black letters, “I KNOW EVERYTHING. I CAN’T DO IT ANYMORE.”
“The only thing I don’t know,” Miles said, “is who told her.” Then he looked at me, his eyes glazed over.
I shook my head. “I didn’t know until now.”
He looked utterly broken. “I wish I could believe you.”
Just then there was a knock on the door.
“Boss? You got that appointment.” Mookie handed Miles a cup. “Your double soy chai latte.”
“Thanks.” Miles rose from his seat. “You need to go, Dreama.”
There was so much more I had to ask him. I needed to find out about the $40,000. About Lizeth. About that tattoo. But there wasn’t time. So I asked him the one question that really, truly mattered. I asked him what happened to Maya.
Miles walked over and opened the door. “Get out, Dreama.”
“Where is she?” I repeated.
He shook his head, then whispered, “I don’t know.”
I walked out into the sunlight and collapsed onto the curb. I was hot, I was cold, my entire body was shaking. It wasn’t so much what Miles had just told me. It was my own ambivalence about it. The thing is, I understood his pain. And, bizarrely, what I felt for him—more than loathing, more than contempt—was pity.
When I was a child, my mother used to black out. Gin was her poison. Martinis, Negronis, Tom Collinses, it didn’t matter, as long as a bottle of Tanqueray was involved. To this day, I can’t stand the pungent, flowery smell of it. Gin made her do and say things she was ashamed of. Gin made her doubt her sanity. At least once, gin made her want to die. I was four years old. She’d gone on a bender. It took two whole days until she could straighten herself up enough to make it home. The only problem was she’d left me there, all by myself, with nothing to eat. Uncle Ray was the one who’d found me. He and Gram hadn’t heard from my mother, and figured that meant nothing good. He drove straight over, heard me inside crying, and broke down the door. After Ray calmed me down, he took me straight to Du-par’s, where we polished off most of a cherry pie. When my mother sobered up, she begged me to forgive her. Of course I forgave her. I was her daughter. I loved her. But even then, I understood that she was damaged, and that I could never fully trust her.
I couldn’t trust Miles either.
But I knew what I had to do, and where I had to go.
Then I saw my car.
And realized that I wasn’t going anywhere.
Chapter 29
My car had four flat tires.
I’m talking no air whatsoever.
I’m talking flat as pancakes.
Yes, it’s tough on the road, what with all the potholes and debris. And sure, it’s possible to have a slow leak and not know it until you hear your rim grinding against asphalt, or you return from a tense meeting during which your client reveals he’s a rapist only to discover that your lovingly maintained vintage automobile has collapsed to the ground. But I knew this was not about a slow leak. I crouched down and took a closer look.
No puncture holes, no embedded nails, no screws.
Just some big, ugly slashes.
Someone had done this intentionally.
To me.
Before the panic took over, I slowed my breathing and practiced gratitude. It’s trickier than it sounds. Still, it was kind of working until a new thought started to worm its way into my consciousness.
No.
There was no way it could have happened again.
I raced around to the back of the car, popped the trunk, rifled through the contents, then spewed every four-letter word I could think of.
But it had.
$40,000 gone. Vanished into thin air. For the second time.
“Everything okay, miss?” The parking attendant had snuck up behind me.
“No, it’s not okay!” I snarled. “Something was stolen out of my trunk.”
“That’s terrible,” he said. “I hope it wasn’t anything valuable.”
I started laughing hysterically.
“Miss, are you all right? Is there someone I should call?”
There was no one to call. I was all alone in this. I couldn’t call Uncle Ray. I couldn’t call Gram. My mother was useless. I’d cut Teddy loose. Clayton was a cad. I could’ve called Cat, but to be perfectly honest, I was too embarrassed.
“Yes,” I said, pulling myself together. “I think you should get your boss over here. I paid ten dollars to park in this lot and you are supposed to keep an eye on these cars. Look at this!” I pointed to my tires.
“If you check your ticket, you’ll see the garage isn’t liable.” The attendant was backpedalling furiously now. “The legal term is assumption of risk.”
“Assumption of risk? What about pride in your work?” I demanded. “What about that?”
“You’re supposed to read the fine print,” he said with a shrug. “Look, I’d be happy to call the cops.”
“God, no,” I said. “No cops.”
“I get it.” He looked me up and down. “We all have things to hide.”
Who was this person? “Speak for yourself.”
“No need to be rude. I was just about to invite you into the booth to look at the surveillance footage.”
Never thought I’d say it, but thank god for surveillance footage.
The booth was a tight fit for the three of us: me, the attendant, and the attendant’s labradoodle, who needed to be taken out to pee first. Finally the conditions were optimal, and the attendant rewound the tape. Not that it was particularly helpful. Turned out there was only one camera. It was trained on the booth, where the cash box was located, as opposed to lot, where the cars were, meaning we didn’t catch anybody in the act unless you counted the dog, who by all appearances was responsible for the theft of his master’s Egg McMuffin.
“You could make an insurance claim,” the attendant said. “Though your rates will skyrocket.”
“Hold on,” I said. “Can you go back three minutes?”
And there it was.
An unmarked white van.
Entering the lot at 2:05 p.m., and exiting the lot at 2:08 p.m.
“Stop!” I cried. “Right there! Now go forward.”
The white van was passing the booth on the way into the lot. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see inside because the windows were tinted.
I turned to the attendant. “Can we talk about that white van? You gave a blue ticket to the person driving it.”
He nodded in acknowledgement.
“So was it a man or a woman? Old or young? Bearded or clean-shaven? Any distinguishing marks?”
“I get a lot of people in and out of here.”
“Come on.”
He furrowed his brow. “The only person I remember was a woman. She seemed like a wack job. Something about her eyes, you know?”
A woman.
Not again.
“What did she look like?”
“She reminded me of my aunt. But now that I think of it, that woman was driving a blue Jaguar.”
Oh, my god. “Why don’t we approach this from another angle? Can you zoom in on the license plate?”
“What do you think this is?” he asked. “A rerun of Law and Order? You can’t just zoom in anymore. Not with digital surveillance systems. The resolution is better than your old school VCRs, but the compression makes the digits unreadable. It’s all about saving bandwidth.”
“So that’s it?” I was feeling extremely sorry for myself now.
The attendant smiled. “Nope.”
He grabbed the keyboard, pressed a couple of buttons, then swung the screen around for me to see.
And there it was, clear as day.
K11 OBY.
“I thought you said it wasn’t possible,” I said.
“To zoom in,” he said. “You didn’t ask about using a deblocking filter.”
After jotting the number down, I went back to my car and sent a couple of texts. Thirty minutes later, the guys I’d met outside Lucius’s sister’s house pulled into the parking lot in a tricked-out Ford Raptor, with four new tires stacked neatly in the back. By the time they’d finished installing them—and popping out my dent, free of charge—one of their moms, who serendipitously worked at the D.M.V., had texted back the name and address of the person who’d stolen my money, ripped through my tires, and chased me through the rain-slicked streets of greater Los Angeles.
Somebody had some ’splaining to do.
Chapter 30
His name was Charlie “Chick” Churchill, he lived at 9633 Beachwood Drive, and I was pretty certain that he worked for Miles McCoy.
It seemed like the obvious conclusion. I mean, Miles had caught me stealing from him. And thought I was capable of blackmail. And believed that I’d told Maya about his having raped Carmen. Why wouldn’t he have hired someone to follow me? But I needed proof.
Beachwood Canyon is a small community located in the Hollywood Hills just below the famous Hollywood sign. First developed in the 1920s along the wooded ridge abutting Griffith Park, Beachwood has its own market, its own coffee shop, and its own riding stables, which I once visited with my uncle Axl, whose brief domicile in the neighborhood—and my mother’s life—came to a spectacular end the night he pushed a $38,000 piano through the side of his one-and-a-third-acre fixer-upper.
Charlie Churchill’s house was hard to miss. It was the ersatz Victorian from the seventies with the unmarked white van parked in front of it.
Let me reiterate. It was broad daylight. There was an elderly woman walking a dog, a FedEx truck down the block, a Time Warner Cable guy parked behind him, and a pool man carrying a net into the house next door. I didn’t feel particularly threatened. So I walked straight up to the van and peered into the back.
“Excuse me?” called the old lady with the dog.
I spun around. “Hi there! So nice to see you again!”
She looked confused. “Have we met?”
“You don’t remember? With Charlie? You were walking—what’s the little guy’s name again?”
She said, “Alison.”
“Look at those chubby paws,” I said. “Aren’t puppies the best?”
The woman said, “Alison is a senior. And morbidly obese.” She shook her head. “That’s what the vet says. I think it’s a load of hooey.” She crossed over to my side of the street, stopped short in front of me. “You’re Charlie’s girlfriend?”
I said, “It’s still kind of new.” Then I bent down to pet Alison. Close up, she was a lot bigger. In fact, her face was so fat you couldn’t see her eyes.
“Well, isn’t that nice? I keep telling him it’s not good to keep to yourself.”
So White Van Charlie was a loner. Big surprise. “Yeah, he’s gone through a lot.”
“Life is hard.” The woman looked at Alison, who was valiantly attempting to do her business. “Isn’t that right, my angel?”
I cleared my throat. “So where is he? He’s not answering his phone.”
The woman said, “You just missed him. He went out for a walk maybe twenty minutes ago. If you hurry, you can probably catch him.”
“That’s a great idea!” I exclaimed. “Charlie loves surprises. Which way did he go?”
She fished around in her pocket for a baggie, then bent down to pick up the fruit of Alison’s labors. “The usual way. He does the steps, winds up by the reservoir. You know.”
I nodded. “I know. The usual way. Steps, reservoir. Yup.”
“When you see him,” the woman said, “would you tell him FedEx left a small box with me?”
“Oh!” I clasped my hands together in glee. “The small box! Finally! Why don’t I grab it right now?”
She didn’t look entirely happy with that idea.
“Trust me.” I gave her a wink. “It will make the surprise even more memorable.”
We walked back across the street and she ducked into her house and got me the box. I waved goodbye, then stalled for a minute, pretending to dig around in my basket for my sunglasses, while she and the dog headed down to the coffee shop. As soon as she was out of sight, I tossed the box and my basket into my car, and took off to find Charlie.
After Googling “Beachwood Canyon steps,” I found a detailed map and itinerary posted by @happyhiker. Apparently, there were six sets of stone steps in Beachwood, and it took an hour to cover the 2.6 mile loop, which meant half an hour to get to the reservoir. At least I wasn’t wearing heels.
As instructed, I headed north on Beachwood. I found the first staircase just after the house at 2800. It was dark and littered with dead leaves. I landed at the top, already panting. Not a good sign. I consulted my phone, then took a right onto Westshire Drive, and looped downhill a ways until I got to the next set of stairs. These were steeper and shadier, framed on either side by huge clumps of lantana, which, according to my gardener, Jovani, is attractive to butterflies but invasive. He’d ripped all mine out.
I counted 149 steps up, the last 84 in a single unbroken run. Once I’d caught my breath, I turned left on Hollyridge, stopping to take a picture of the crenellated wall of a faux castle for my Instagram. The next staircase was at 3057. I followed it down for 178 steps, then walked straight up for a while, admiring the houses—which ranged from modernist boxes to Robinson Crusoe–esque treehouses—and wondering how the Time Warner Cable guy, who’d just pulled up in front of a bungalow with a Spanish galleon weathervane, could possibly be this efficient. Whenever he came to my house, he took forever.
The next set of stairs was constructed in 1928 and originally had a stream running down the middle. About halfway up, I heard some rustling in the leaves, then saw a lizard dart across my path and disappear into the brush. In dreams, lizards symbolize resurrection, which I took as a positive sign. I trudged onward, following Belden Drive around a couple of bends to the next staircase.
At the top of Durand Drive I stopped to catch my breath. The view was amazing, with the Hollywood sign behind me, the Griffith Park Observatory to my left, and downtown Hollywood spread out in front of me, a tinselly oasis teeming with key locales from my biography: the stacked platters of the Capitol Records Building, where I once played jacks with Uncle Bob Seger while Gram mended his leather jacket; the neon roof sign of the French château–style Fontenoy, where Nicholas Cage mixed me my first cocktail, a Tequila Sunrise; and the outsized W of the W Hotel, at whose rooftop bar Luke Cutt had humiliated me for the very last time. It was somehow very sobering.
Finally, I arrived at my destination, the hairpin corner at the intersection of Durand and the unpaved fire road. Just below my line of sight, framed by lush groves of oak, pine, eucalyptus, and sage, was the shimmering mirage of Lake Hollywood, a reservoir held back by a dam designed by William Mulholland himself, immortalized as Hollis Mulwray in Roman Polanski’s noir throwback, Chinatown. This would have been a great location for my tour, not that I had to worry about that anymore, much less the whole “satisfaction guaranteed” thing, given that the client in question had hired a man in a white van to stalk me, among myriad other crimes, small and large. Anyway, I snapped a couple of pictures, then started down the dirt path.
