Dream a Little Death, page 24
Some things still confused me.
One of them was the whereabouts of Maya Duran. Maya had made a miraculous recovery, and the day the doctor had okayed her release, she hadn’t just left the hospital. She’d also taken all her new clothes and left town. Miles said she was the sort who needed her freedom. Sounded to me more like she’d had a fit of conscience. Or maybe she was afraid of Pee Chee. Given everything that had happened, Maya was probably lucky to have escaped with her life.
Another thing I never found out was who Pee Chee was waiting for when we were down in that basement. Lucius? Uncle Ray? Miles? And what exactly she was planning to do to him when he showed up. I think she knew that things had gone too far. That she was stuck between a rock and a hard place. That it was either keep killing to protect her secret, or face Miles with the truth of what she’d done, and neither was a viable option.
“Dreama!” my mother called from the living room.
“Please tell me she isn’t getting ready to strip down to her flesh-colored G-string again,” Cat whispered.
“It’s Luke.” My mother pointed to the T.V. “He’s on the red carpet with that insanely gorgeous young woman.”
Cat and I walked back into the living room just in time to see the Victoria’s Secret supermodel flashing her brand-new 8.5 carat engagement ring.
“Don’t worry, Dreama,” my mother said. “One day it’ll be your turn. Or not,” she added cheerfully.
Gram leaned in to me. “Did you tell her you and Teddy have started talking again?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to jinx it.” Which I didn’t. Maybe Teddy and I would get it right this time. Maybe we wouldn’t. All I knew was I wasn’t going to hold back. I was done with being afraid.
“Are there any real chips around here?” Uncle Ray called out from the kitchen.
Rory dove into his tartan plaid satchel and extracted a party-sized bag of Tostitos. “I always keep an emergency stash.”
Speaking of emergency stashes, Ray finally came clean about having taken the $40,000 from under my mattress. He’d thought he was protecting me, and that everything would be resolved before I’d even noticed the money was missing. When I’d asked him what he’d done with it, since he was hardly about to return it to Lucius or the drug dealer Lucius had stolen it from, Ray told me it was in a safety deposit box with my name on it at the Wells Fargo in Lake Arrowhead. That money was my Plan B. It was there in case everything went to hell. Chances are that wouldn’t happen, but life is unpredictable. In any case, Ray said, I’d earned it. That last point was hard to argue.
Gram patted the couch, and I took a seat next to her just in time to catch Destiny D-Low waltzing down the red carpet in a hooded yellow silk robe that looked like it had come straight out of Rocky Balboa’s closet. “Oil Slick” was widely expected to win for Best Song, but Destiny obviously still thought of herself as an underdog.
“Look who’s coming up behind Destiny,” said my mother. “Someone looks like he’s been dipping into the honeypot.”
She was talking about my former employer, Miles McCoy.
Remember how he’d saved my life?
Well, I was lucky enough to have been able to reciprocate.
A few days after getting back from Arrowhead, Miles and I took a road trip of our own. Mookie drove. Miles talked. And I listened, which is something I’m not always good at. I’ve been told that I lack humility. That I’m impetuous, and occasionally thoughtless. I’m trying. Like most people, I’m a work in progress.
Miles and I had more in common than either of us would’ve guessed. Like me, he was raised by two strong women. He and his grandmother had been especially close. She was a girl from a small town in Michigan who came out to Hollywood in the forties to make it in pictures. Her second day in town she got a job as a coat check girl at Lucey’s, the bar directly across the street from Paramount. One of the people she’d gotten to know there was Raymond Chandler, who frequented the place while he was under contract to Paramount to adapt Double Indemnity. He was a true gentleman, Miles’s grandmother said, who never failed to have a kind word for her. But he was also a troubled soul who didn’t have the stomach for the movie business. Hollywood, he once wrote, was the kind of town where they stuck a knife in your back, then arrested you for carrying a concealed weapon. Miles’s grandmother didn’t have the stomach for Hollywood either. After a couple of years, she went back home, and found her happiness there.
She’d passed on her love of noir to her grandson, however, and it had stuck. Miles had particularly admired Chandler’s detective, Philip Marlowe. But Marlowe was a cautionary tale. Chandler often said that Marlowe would never marry. That he’d always have a shabby office, a lonely house, affairs, but not lasting connections. Miles had finally figured out that he didn’t want to be that person. That he wanted love, and was willing to sacrifice his pride to get it. Pride was another thing Miles and I had in common. And it was the reason we were taking this drive down south.
We were going to find Carmen Luz.
Miles had never stopped loving her.
She’d never stopped loving him either.
He’d realized that only after I’d given him the stack of letters I’d found the day I’d hidden in Maya’s closet. After the rape, Carmen had written to Miles every week for three years, asking him if he could ever forget about what Fatty had done to her, if he could ever forgive her for allowing it to happen, if he could ever find a way to be with her again.
Miles had never seen a single one of those letters.
Pee Chee had intercepted them all.
Miles had thought about reaching out to Carmen—not once, but countless times. But each of those times Pee Chee had stopped him. She’d said that it would be selfish. That Carmen was healing. That the last thing she needed was to be bullied by the man who’d raped her. Poor Miles. All of those years obsessed with noir, and he hadn’t recognized the femme fatale standing right in front of him.
Three hours after leaving Los Angeles, Miles and I pulled up in front of a small house in a quiet neighborhood just across the border.
And out came Carmen Luz.
Her smile was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Tonight, as she walked the red carpet with Miles, it looked even more so.
“Carmen’s dress is amazing.” Cat grabbed the remote and hit pause. “And if I do say so myself, I did a damn good job on her lotus flower tattoo.” Then she turned to me. “She paid us what she owed us, by the way. And she’s coming in this weekend to move ahead with her sleeve. She specifically asked if Rory could work on the dharma wheel.”
Rory stroked his mustache, which had evolved nicely into a half horseshoe. “What can I say? The ladies love me.”
Tigertail looked up from nursing baby Kate. “The validation is helping Rory’s post-partum depression.”
Just then the doorbell rang. Strange. I wasn’t expecting anyone else.
By the time I got to the door whoever it was had already left.
I looked down.
And saw a manila envelope on the stoop.
Impossible.
I shut my eyes for a second, then opened them again.
The envelope was still there.
I picked it up, took it into my bedroom, closed the door, ripped it open.
There was $40,000 in cash inside.
This time, there was also a note.
Dear Dreama,
Okay, so maybe I did slash your tires and steal the money from your car. What can I say? I’m an angry person. And a starving artist with bills to pay. Also, you pissed me off when you called me Chick. Nonetheless, you did something really kind for Carmen. She came by yesterday and told me about it. And both of us appreciate it. I also remembered that it’s wrong to steal. This is your money. I hope you don’t feel guilty or anything and try to give it back to me just because I desperately need it.
Best wishes,
Charlie Churchill
No worries, Chick.
Guilt isn’t particularly my issue.
So here’s the thing.
I seemed to be up $80,000, which was quite a handsome sum to have made off of a film noir tour that had never happened. But that was hardly my fault, was it? I’d done a lot of work. And learned some life lessons. Plus, I was never going to touch that first $40,000. Well, maybe years from now. If I absolutely needed to. And only one bill at a time. To be spent in far-flung locations. I was starting to think of it as hazard pay, actually.
After slipping the manila envelope under my mattress, I went over to the mirror, and touched up my bangs, which weren’t looking half-bad tonight. Then I went back out to my party.
“Drink this immediately.” Cat handed me a tequila shot. “Your ex Luke Cutt just won for Best Song of the Year.”
I downed the shot.
Then Cat and I both started laughing.
Yeah, that’s the thing about us groupies.
We never say no.
Dreama Black’s Noir L.A.
Get ready to plunge into the noir underbelly of the City of the Angels. This tour requires a car, five to six hours (with two optional side trips), and a tolerance for bourbon and blood . . .
Mildred Pierce House, 1147 N. Jackson Street, Glendale, CAYou can’t go wrong starting with Mildred Pierce, written in 1941 by the poet laureate of hard-boiled fiction, James M. Cain. This house is one of the filming locations for the 1945 film starring the inimitable Joan Crawford, who won an Academy Award for the role. Rumor has it she faked an illness to get out of the ceremony, certain she’d lose to Ingrid Bergman in The Bells of St. Mary’s. After she won, she slipped into a negligée with padded shoulders, painted on her eyebrows, and invited members of the press to chat with her as she accepted her Oscar in bed. Screen the movie first, and then marvel at the fact that very little has changed on Jackson Street in the intervening years. Besides, of course, the real estate values.
Glendale Train Station, 400 W. Cerritos Avenue, Glendale, CAFor years, it was taken as gospel that the filming location where the ball-busting Phyllis Dietrichson and the pussy-whipped Walter Neff conspire to commit murder in the film version of Cain’s Double Indemnity (with a screenplay by Raymond Chandler and director Billy Wilder) was this magnificent Spanish Revival structure with sculpted terra cotta, a faux second story, and elaborately carved wooden doors. Too bad the Glendale station wasn’t actually where the scene was shot in 1944. That honor goes to the far less ornate Mission-style depot in Burbank. You can’t go there, however, because it was knocked down almost two decades ago—because it was old, and because that’s the way we do it in L.A.
Union Station, 800 N. Alameda Street, Los Angeles, CAAs well as being the largest railroad passenger terminal in the western U.S., Union Station is one of L.A.’s most famous architectural sites. Designed by John and Donald B. Parkinson, the 1939 structure brilliantly cross-pollinates the Art Deco, Mission Revival and Streamline Moderne idioms. I especially like the trompe l’oeil–esque ceiling in the waiting room, which looks like wood, but is made of steel. Union Station has been used as a location in countless noirs, among them Criss Cross, Cry Danger, The Bigamist, and Union Station, which, ironically, was based on a story set in New York City, but filmed entirely in L.A.
Far East Building, 347 E. 1st Street, Little Tokyo, CAThis building in Little Tokyo was home to the prototypical Depression-era Chinese joint (known alternately as the Far East Café and the Chop Suey Café) immortalized in Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely as the meeting place between the hulking client, Moose Malloy, and the reluctant detective, Philip Marlowe, the latter of whose lunch was interrupted when “a dark shadow fell over my chop suey.” Currently a hipster bar, the private booths with red curtains add period flavor.
The Varnish, 118 E. 6th Street, Los Angeles, CAFirst, order a French dip at Cole’s, which is a wonderful sandwich, if not as superlative as the French dip at Philippe’s. However, Philippe’s does not have an old storage room in the back, marked solely by the etching of a cocktail on the door, which leads onto the veritable epicenter of the craft cocktail universe. Welcome to the Varnish. For as long as it takes you to finish your gin gimlet or old-fashioned, you can pretend you are in a Prohibition-era speakeasy. Oh, and they chip ice from a single block. With an ice pick.
Eastern Columbia Building, 849 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, CAYes, Johnny Depp once owned six units in this thirteen-story turquoise, blue, and gold Art Deco icon. If you can get up to the rooftop pool, god bless. Otherwise, marvel at the details from the street—the sunbursts, the chevrons, the zigzags, the flying buttresses surmounting the spectacular four-sided clock tower. Originally built in 1930 after only nine months of construction, the steel-reinforced concrete structure had fallen into complete disrepair when it was snapped up by the Kor Group and transformed into luxury condos. Be sure to check out the movie palaces surrounding it down Broadway, in particular the Beaux-Arts Orpheum and the Spanish Gothic United Artists.
MacArthur Park, 2230 W. 6th Street, Los Angeles, CAOriginally called Westlake Park, it was established in the 1880s with the idea of beautifying the rough and tumble new city. Featured in the Donna Summer song, as well as many film noirs, including Too Late for Tears, Down Three Dark Streets, and The Bigamist. You probably don’t want to linger. After taking pictures and posting them, head straight over to Langer’s Deli for a #19, which is pastrami, coleslaw, and Swiss on rye.
Black Dahlia Death Site, 3825 S. Norton Avenue, Leimert Park, CAElizabeth Short was a beautiful, twenty-two-year-old girl from Boston, last seen on the night of January 9, 1947, walking south on Olive Street, after having been dropped at the Biltmore Hotel by a married traveling salesman. Six days later, her naked, mutilated body was found on this site—now an ordinary-looking house, then a trash-strewn empty lot. In short order, Beth Short became the Black Dahlia and ascended to the status of myth. People have confessed, books have been written, theories have been proposed, police files have been reopened, but this iconic, real-life L.A. murder remains unsolved.
Sowden House, 5121 Franklin Avenue, Los Angeles, CAOne of the most intriguing suspects in the Black Dahlia case is Dr. George Hodel, the man who owned this extraordinary 1926 residence in Los Feliz from 1945–1951. Built by Lloyd Wright (eldest son of Frank Lloyd Wright) to resemble a Mayan Revival–style fortress, the sharp ridges of the house’s façade are often likened to the gaping jaws of a vicious shark. Enter Dr. Hodel, whose day job was running a VD clinic catering to the rich and famous, and whose evening activities allegedly included beating his sons in the basement, throwing orgies in his gold bedroom, and raping his daughter Tamar. After his death, his son, a retired L.A.P.D. detective named Steve Hodel, came across a photo in his father’s effects that he claimed was of Elizabeth Short. Steve Hodel embarked upon an investigation, soon becoming convinced that his father had not only killed Short, but had also been responsible for several other brutal murders that took place in the 1940s, at least some of them in the basement of the Sowden House. Read Steve Hodel’s Black Dahlia Avenger for a provocative addition to the Black Dahlia franchise.
Philip Marlowe Office, 6385 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CAUnlike that other iconic detective, Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe didn’t have a secretary. Marlowe worked alone, in a decidedly unglamorous two rooms on the sixth floor of the fictional Cahuenga Building—the former Security Trust and Savings Bank Building on Hollywood and Cahuenga. A six-story structure built in 1921 by the Parkinsons, who also designed Union Station (see above), City Hall and the exquisite Bullock’s Wilshire, this was once the tallest building on Hollywood. Yes, it’s seen better days and is in need of some TLC, but be careful about what you wish for. Word is there are plans to turn the building into a boutique hotel.
Musso and Frank, 6667 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CALegendary Hollywood watering hole, first opened in 1919, with worn leather booths and a stunning mahogany bar, where old school bartenders mix the driest martinis in town. With the Screenwriters’ Guild just across the street, literary greats like Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Chandler—in town just long enough to eke some extra dollars out of the movie studios—dropped in regularly for liquid refreshment. Chandler, in fact, is rumored to have written several chapters of The Big Sleep while downing bottles of Kentucky bourbon in the Back Room. The menu still features classic dishes such as Welsh rarebit, lobster thermidor, and mushrooms on toast. You can never go wrong, however, with the sand dabs.
Alto Nido Apartments, 1851 Ivar Avenue, Los Angeles, CAThis modest Spanish Revival building, with its red tile roof and iron balconies, was home to the unemployed screenwriter Joe Gillis (played by William Holden) before he sold his soul and moved in with the aging silent film actress Norma Desmond (an unforgettable Gloria Swanson) in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard. Once in a while there’s actually a vacancy, but who’s kidding whom? These days, no struggling screenwriter could afford to live in this 1929 charmer, a mere block northwest of the legendary intersection, Hollywood and Vine. Sidebar: In 1948, Lila Leeds, who played a bit part in Lady in the Lake, adapted from the Chandler novel of the same name, survived an overdose of sleeping pills at the Alto Nido only to be arrested with Robert Mitchum for marijuana possession a few months later.
Crossroads of the World, 6671 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CALocated at the corner of Sunset and Las Palmas in Hollywood, Crossroads of the World is often described as America’s first outdoor shopping mall. Designed in 1936 by Robert V. Derrah in the Streamline Moderne style, with idiosyncratic cruise ship, lighthouse, and minaret details, it served as the headquarters of the tabloid Hush-Hush in the magisterial noir throwback L.A. Confidential, based on the book of the same title by James Ellroy.
