An Accidental Affair (35 page)

I pulled Bobby Holland close to the wall and replied. “Ya. Beautiful. Like you.”

The scissors were near the edge of the pool. I eased my right hand out and pulled those to me. This was the problem with killing a man, once you started, only God knew how many people you would have to kill in order to get away. What had been done couldn’t be undone.

Even in death, Bobby Holland had me with a noose around my neck.

I did my best Bobby Holland imitation and said, “Come get in the pool.”

“I tell you that I no like to swim and you tell me to get in pool again.”

“Ya.”

“I sleep a long, long time today. The Benadryl make me so sleepy.”

“Ya. Antihistamines will do that.”

“My allergies feel much better. But I am still so very tired. And very lonely in bed.”

Her blond hair was no longer parted down the center. It had personality now, styled with pins and curls, locks in soft waves with the ends curled under, just like glamour women of the past. Looked like she had just stepped out of the 1950s. The wind picked up and whipped her locks into her face. I’d only seen her in the video I’d received from Alice Ayres, and then the former model and aspiring movie actress was wearing black leather pants, high heels, and a formfitting top that smothered her breasts. It was the teenager from Hungary. The fifth person who had been in Johnny Handsome’s trailer. Like a Valkyrie sent to escort Bobby Holland into Valhalla, Piroska Anastazia Dorika Vass Torma came toward the pool. Her silhouette never stopped reminding me of my wife. And in the darkness, which was probably where he kept her, the lights being off inside of his home being a tell, she probably felt the same, until she spoke, up to the point of entry. She was the perfect body double. Like John Derek had done when he had gone from Linda Evans to Bo Derek, Bobby Holland had found him a duplicate, body-wise, of the same woman. The winds blew in my direction. She was wearing Mapona, the scent of Regina Baptiste. The Hungarian’s walk was inebriated. Her steps slowed as her heels clicked along the tiled walkway. She ran her hand over her hair and gazed at the moon, then she smiled like the eighteen-year-old woman-child who had more child inside of her heart than woman. Innocent, naïve, and hungry. Out of the millions of people in Los Angeles, I would’ve never expected her to be here.

But I understood Bobby Holland better now. He’d found a new
love and now he could destroy Regina. The new girl had taken the place of the old love. Now he could blackmail.

She called out, “Yngvar?”

I squatted down, the frigid water at my chin, scissors in my cold hand, and moved down the side of the pool, one step at time, dragging Bobby Holland’s corpse as if it was my security blanket. I worked the scissors and freed the duct tape around Bobby Holland’s mouth.

“Ya. Piroska.”

“Oh, you’re down there.”

“What is it?”

“I have my Choo shoes. The ones with the brown leather and snakeskin and many straps and six-inch wooden heel. Don’t splash the water on me. I will not think that funny.”

“I left you a present, Piroska.”

“Did you? Where?”

I peeled the duct tape away. “Down at that end of the pool where you are.”

“Yngvar. Bobby, I will not get in the pool. My hair is too lovely.”

“Relax, Piroska. It’s not in the pool. Look down.”

Her heels clicked and she brought her nakedness to the edge of the pool. By then I had Bobby Holland’s face away from her. I splashed water to make it sound like he was moving. I splashed water and hoped that would keep her from coming too close.

She stayed where she was and said, “I’m horny.”

“Get in the pool.”

“I will wait for you to get out.”

“Get in with me.”

“No. My hair. And don’t splash water on my Choo shoes.”

She saw the package of cocaine that I had left down at that end of the pool.

She squatted and picked it up. “For me?”

“For you, Piroska. For you.”

She paused. “You sound strange.”

“This is my swimming voice.”

She picked up her present and walked back inside the house, her walk a little faster now, and her inebriation high. She disappeared and I worked with Bobby Holland. My hands were numb and I worked in desperation to cut the duct tape away from his wrists. I turned him over but he kept flipping, kept floating away from me. Living men were stubborn and dead men never cooperated. I grabbed his sweater and pulled him until I could get to his pants. Turned him over and cut the duct tape away from between his knees and ankles. I used the scissors to cut away his turtleneck, then unbuckled his pants. I had to pull those off. Just as I finished, the door opened again and Piroska returned, credit card and mirror in one hand, cocaine in the other. Now she had on a big housecoat. She was out here to stay.

She was coming in my direction as the cellular rang. It was the cellular that I had gotten from Alice Ayres. That stopped Piroska. She was six feet away. I hid behind the body of a naked dead man. She looked into the pool for a moment, saw Bobby Holland naked, moving his limp arms in a casual motion, then she hurried toward the phone, heels clicking fast.

I said, “Let it ring.”

“You have a new phone now?”

“Ya.”

“You promised me an iPhone.”

“We will get you one tomorrow.”

“The new iPad?”

“That too.”

She applauded and smiled and looked out toward the pool.

She sounded more than happy. “How long will you swim in that cold water?”

“Not much longer.”

“Don’t drown.”

“Will try not to.”

She laughed. “The cold water makes your balls so small. Looks funny to me.”

A moment went by. She came back in my direction. Saw Bobby Holland’s face, eyes open, but not blinking.

I moved his arms and asked, “You okay?”

“I want to give head before I go to sleep again.”

“Ya.”

“And get head at same time.”

“Ya, ya.”

“Stop imitating me. Always imitating me.”

“Ya, ya, ya.”

She laughed.

She started back toward the house, but halfway she turned and came back.

She said, “I wait for you.”

“Go wait for me in the bed.”

“Your home is so large and I am lonely. I wait for you here.”

She went to the lounger and took out the blow, made lines on the mirror, used a straw, and sniffed. She held her head back and waited on the narcotic to kick in. I let Bobby Holland go. I gathered all of his wet clothing, then remembered he had on a watch that cost as much as one of my cars. I waded back and removed his watch. I almost forgot the most important thing. The one thing that would make his death read like murder. I opened Bobby Holland’s mouth and fished out the page from the magazine. The last thing that he had tasted was the image of my wife. The last face that he had seen was mine. Then I gathered his clothing and crept back to the end of the pool near the house, where I had entered. I had to move across the waters and ease by her as she sat in the lounger moon bathing. The scissors were tucked inside my belt. Behind me Bobby Holland’s body floated out into the moonlight as Piroska Anastazia Dorika Vass Torma took a
package of cigarettes out of her pocket, lit up, and stared at the sky. She took two puffs then laid her cigarette inside an ashtray that rested on a small glass table.

I quietly got out of the pool, body weighted down by fear and the water that had taken up residence inside my clothes. Piroska turned on her side for a moment, faced the opposite direction. I put the damp clothing on the concrete and pulled the scissors from my jeans.

Water dripped from every part of me and I gathered up Holland’s wardrobe. I crept across the grass and found his garbage cans on the side of the house. I deposited his clothing there. The gate was in front of me. I could slip out and leave this crime scene. But I had to go back. My shoes were poolside. Plus there was more. Bizarro Bergs’s bag was a Tumi. That meant that it was registered. Most Tumi products were registered at the point of purchase. If that bag were to be found at the scene of a poolside murder, the police might connect me to the bag because Bizarro Bergs would rub his ugly face and wounded pride and tell them that I had stolen it from him, and do that with a smile that only a mother could love. The same for the iPhone. If the police showed up at Alice Ayres’s door, it wouldn’t matter if she was Regina Baptiste’s number one fan, that bird would sing whatever song kept her walking the streets with the free.

Corrupt acts had gotten me here. And more corrupt acts would have to buy my freedom.

I took slow steps, scissors gripped in my hand, raised high and prepared to strike. I’d stab her like Norman Bates. Like many said O. J. Simpson had done Goldman in Brentwood.

When I made it to the woman who had a physique that mirrored my wife’s, she was motionless. She was wrapped up in her housecoat, a hand between her legs, snoring lightly. She’d fallen asleep touching herself. I stared at the teenager, her hair made up like a starlet. She was just another woman-child, another nymph, another barterer who had just gotten off the bus, enamored by the titles of men and the
things that they owned, This was the life that Regina Baptiste had lived before she met me. I lowered the scissors, then held my breath as I gathered the iPhone and Tumi bag that held Holland’s gun. Body numb, shoulders hunched, I shivered, swallowed, and looked out at the pool. Bobby Holland floated in the moonlight.

I whispered, “Not
Chinatown
.
Sunset
Boulevard
.”

With minimal breathing and no musical accompaniment, I crept away from the scene of my crime, took steps backward, awkward steps, each step feeling arthritic and rooted in pain, until I made it to his rented house. I coughed and spat into the shrubbery and looked back. The picture painted by Greed hadn’t changed. The man who had drugged my wife and slapped me twice hadn’t been resurrected. I put my shoes on, opened his door, and eased it shut.

At any moment I expected to hear a woman-child wail louder than a banshee.

Back inside the office, water dripping down my face, my jeans and T-shirt clinging to my body like a second skin, I dropped a beige throw rug over the bloodstain in the carpet. I disconnected his Mac, rearranged his desk, put other awards in the place of the one missing, scripts and books where the computer had been, so that it wouldn’t look like it was missing. Straightened up his office, wiped anything that I had touched, picked up the broken Razzie and the Mac and the Tumi bag, wiped the doorknob and the handle on the back door, then made a trail of water to his front door. The computer would have to get reformatted, then trashed. If there were other copies of his madness out there, if that evidence was stored in other places, only time would reveal. The Razzie and my shoes would have to get thrown away. Same for my clothing. Shivering, I made it to the Bentley, climbed inside and turned the heater on high.

Driver had called me on the throwaway phone.

My wife had called my iPhone a half dozen times.

Hazel Tamana Bijou had called thrice.

There was more bad news. I knew that. I felt that. But now wasn’t the time.

And as I sat there, my nose running, hands wrinkled from being in the pool, both phones rang again. This wasn’t the time to take calls. Especially on the iPhone. The moment that I answered, the GPS would triangulate my position and put me at the scene of Holland’s murder.

As I pulled away, as I felt an awful, awkward sense of rightful vengeance mixed up with fear and caution, the gray car that had escaped my mind like a bad conscience, it followed me.

Like it or not, from the womb, Death followed us all.

Fresh bullet holes decorated the Bentley by the time I made it back to the shadows in Downey. A short detour had been made, one that took me on Skirball Center Drive, an access road of Los Angeles’s 405 Freeway in the area between the valley and UCLA.

The left headlight was dead, murdered by a bullet of unknown caliber. A second bullet had left its mark on the windshield. My left ear bled from being grazed by a third bullet that had been meant for my head. Nobody was taught to aim for an ear. The same thoughts remained with me; corrupt acts had gotten me here. And corrupter acts had either bought my freedom or sealed my doom. Bloodlust had taken hold of me. Bloodlust had taken hold of them.

How many more bullet were holes in the Bentley, I’d need daylight to be able to tell. There was no other place to take it, not right now. If I’d gone to Los Feliz and the paparazzi were still stalking, one photo of bullet holes in my windshield would have done me in better than any video Bobby Holland had on his Mac.

I pulled to the side, coughed off and on, dehydrated, hungry, head still aching, and battled with my nerves, remained as calm as I could as I spied around the land of graffiti and rubbish. Sweet Isabel’s car was parked a few cars away. So was Mr. Holder’s.

My cellular rang and I jumped. Hazel Tamana Bijou called yet again.

Seconds later, Driver called again. About five minutes later, my wife called once more.

My voice mail on the iPhone was full, had been full since I left Los Feliz, so I couldn’t receive more unwanted messages. I had no idea how to retrieve messages on the throwaway.

A caravan of cars sped by, from Range Rovers to Pintos. A few threw trash out of their windows as they rolled by. Tonight The Apartments was as calm as the Las Vegas Strip. It was a barrio of restless people. The troubled rarely slept the sleep of the gods.

Water saturated my clothes and tugged at my body as if Holland was still trying to pull me down, trying get his fingers and death grip into me. My nose was stuffy for a moment, but I blew it and was able to inhale a dry, cool breeze that carried a hint of smog. If that arid breeze were a painting, it would be colored by death and tinted by the undertone of danger.

I pulled up next to my Maybach, took in the shadows of this hard-boiled part of my world, the world of the other me, the man whom I had created when stress and anger had won the battle with logic and common sense. For a moment, inside my mind, I heard the echo of gunshots. Felt the weight of the .45, felt its rapid kicks inside my hand. It wasn’t like being at the range. On the range, targets didn’t move. On the range, targets never screamed and fired back. On the range, I wore earplugs to keep the explosions from deafening me. The ringing was still in my ears and even though my hand was empty, I felt the gun kick over and over. I felt it the way an amputee still felt his missing limb. I felt that weight of that gun inside of my hand. I had to shake off what had happened on Skirball Center Drive. And that reminded me. I dug inside my pocket and took out the spent .45 shells that I had collected from the pavement, and threw them all over the concrete wall into a barren lot. I closed my eyes and listened to the gritty sounds coming from the freeway, then to the wisps of music from scurrilous songs that had lyrics as pleasing as inhaling smoke. In the distance was an irritating hum. Someone was cleaning his or her carpet in the night.