A Good-Looking Corpse Page 5

  I strip off my disguise save for the shirt and turn slowly to face the gangster.

  “You should have left town, homey,” he says, shaking his head, not exactly disappointed. It’s a look of calm malevolence, that of a lion descending upon a meal. His ice-cold gaze makes me shiver.

  Coco uses the gun to herd me back, deeper into the shop. If any of my fellow tourists have seen the piece, they’re at least smart enough to keep quiet. Though the store is open to all, it is presently empty save for the four of us—me, two gangsters, and the owner. And the owner is scowling just as hard at me as the other two. He’ll be of no help.

  I scan my surroundings, using my peripheral vision, searching for a weapon of any kind.

  “Keep going,” Coco insists when I pause. The store is full of blankets and towels—not so much as an ornamental samurai sword in sight. A decorative blanket hangs across the rear of the shop, offering a nice cover for what Coco no doubt has in mind. The blanket, hung from the inside of the hallway, is framed by the archway. On its stitched surface, a pretty Latina face is done up to look like a skull, the Mexican face of Santa Muerta. Lady Death. She who provides safe travels to the afterlife.

  The top edge of the blanket disappears not around a pole, but over the lip of a wooden plank resting on two shelf brackets. There are no screws in the bracket holes, meaning the plank is not affixed to anything and there’s likely something heavy resting atop the board, holding the blanket in place. When Coco jabs me onward once more, I step not around the blanket, but into it, pushing it up with my hands, letting the fabric slide through my fingers. It’s as if I am lost in its embrace and attempting to get free. This is not the case though. When I feel the bottom of the blanket connect with my thumbs, I grab hard and yank.

  Not waiting to see the results of my action, I sprint forward, running for my life. Behind me, I hear the groan of the plank slipping loose and a meaty thud as the wood and a series of weighted cardboard boxes crash down upon Coco’s surprised frame. A single shot rings out, coupled with an echoing ping as the bullet bounces off concrete. Likely, it’s the ground below him as the gangster and his gun are pushed by the gravity of the tumbling containers. I don’t stop running as I push on through to the store on the other side of the hallway, out the front, dislodging a display of neon clocks as I go. The street and its tourists are all paused at the sound of the gunfire, as if waiting for a second shot to tell them which direction they should begin running. I knock through anyone standing in my way and keep moving, zigging down what’s left of the Santee Alley district, unsure if I am being pursued.

  Lungs burning from a lack of cardio in my life, I feel like I can collapse into a wheezing pile, but don’t dare stop moving for several city blocks. When I finally do feel safe enough to stop and turn around, grasping a utility box, shielded, I can’t believe that I am alone. No Sureño Lowriders, no onlookers, just me and a momentarily silent street. “Sorry, Lady Death . . . not today,” I gasp, collecting myself through long sucking breaths that make my lungs hurt more. I stand and gather my bearings. At least I ran in the direction of my office.

  I shouldn’t, but I check my cellphone. Sure enough there is a text message. Only one person has ever texted me . . . and I just escaped him. I click in to check what he has to say, the dread of moments earlier flooding me once again. “Run Rabbit Run,” Coco has written me. “The dogs are coming.” I delete the text. He found me once and it cost my boss, Harold, his life. I do not doubt that Coco will find me again. Suffice it to say, this is not how I wanted to begin avenging Harold’s death.

  Chapter 5

  Massive black iron gates block the entrance to 100 North Carolwood Drive. Equally black metal screens fill in the spaces between the wrought iron bars, preventing anyone from looking through and into the clearly massive property. Streetlights illuminate white concrete walls standing at ten feet that run the perimeter. Sharp-tipped spikes barely jut out of the dense green foliage, hidden by it. If you didn’t know to look for the dangers and you went over the wall, you could easily wind up impaled on them. It seemed like an apt metaphor for Hollywood . . . Tinseltown. An intercom box on a black steel post stands just above window height on the Charger. I push a silver button to the bottom right of the silver box, just below the speaker.

  “Echo House,” comes the response.

  “I’m here to see Mikey Echo,” I announce. “He’s expecting me.”

  “Password?”

  “Alan Van.”

  Like magic, the gates part and though I am not easily impressed by affluence or celebrity, a tingle ripples through me, starting in my fingertips. There is something exciting about getting to see the unknown and off-limits. It’s how I used to feel ducking beneath the yellow caution tape that rings crime scenes back when I first started. Now I feel nothing for that experience, neither dread nor excitement nor anticipation. Just a numbed acceptance of reality. I have to imagine it’s how Mikey Echo feels about this palace now. It would be a shame to ever take something like this estate for granted.

  The grounds are as imperious and manicured as I expected them to be. A long freshly paved driveway, its cement still a shade of immaculate light gray, is flanked on both sides by tall evergreens. Beneath their shrouding canopy, luxurious cars rim the road, parked neatly head to tail the whole way up the drive. I park the Charger in the first open space I find, just inside the gates. A metallic-blue Porsche convertible is ahead of me and I am careful not to even tap the bumper while parking. It’s something I’ve noticed in crime scene cleaning: the richest people also happen to be the most litigious.

  I make the long walk up the driveway with its hairpin turn and finally emerge into a clearing. The foliage goes right up to both sides of the enormous white house, built like a French chateau. Three vehicles are parked, exposed in the circular carport to my right: that chrome Maserati Quattroporte, Ramen’s Ferrari, and a long black limousine. At the front of the house, two Hispanic men in red jackets give me quizzical looks as I stroll up and I feel like an idiot. Of course there would be valet.

  I nod at them soberly as if it is the most natural thing in the world for me to come strolling up on foot to this mansion.

  Another man, older, black, with dreadlocks and a gray beard, stands at the front entry doors in a somber black tuxedo with a top hat. This butler has facial tattoos—coarsely drawn, a raven sits beneath his left eye. On his neck, a faded black spiderweb. This man has done a lot of jail time.

  “Welcome to the Alan Van memorial,” the butler intones, giving a slight bow and pushing open one of the French doors.

  Just beyond the doorway, a portico is equipped with black vases containing equally dark orchids on fresh green stems. A large framed photograph of Alan Van, looking young and dashing, has been set up on an easel. Someone has taped a paper word balloon to extend off of Alan’s mouth, which tastelessly reads “I’m Dead.”

  Beyond, and inside the house proper, the interior departs from the Old World French look of the exterior. Mikey has the immense span of living room decked out in a motif of red and black with ultramodern furniture pieces that look like they were formerly in showrooms belonging to high-end designers. Styled in such an ultramodern way, the room seems likely to become outdated before the party is over.

  The artwork within the house has a singular theme: death. More specifically: human skulls. All the paintings look modern but insanely macabre with their grim imagery of humans decayed down to their internal structures. In keeping with the deathly facade, the room is devoid of the living. Despite all the cars in the driveway, there isn’t a guest in sight, and the large house is eerily silent. I sniff the air for any signs of a party, but all I detect is a light and masculine sandalwood and coconut fragrance. It is a bachelor’s scent.

  “The guests are downstairs, sir,” another black servant informs me curtly, not taking his hard brown eyes off me. It isn’t an outwardly threatening gesture, but there is a menace behind the gaze—as if he wants me to know that despite
his worker’s uniform, he isn’t beneath me. He too bears prison artwork on his neck and hands. “This way.”

  I start to follow him back through the recesses of the mansion but Ramen abruptly pops out from around a corner. “Oh Christ, Tom, I’m glad you came.”

  “Why’s that?” I ask.

  “Because Mikey really wanted you to come. He’s been talking about you all day. Also, I wanted to hang out with you some more.” He throws an arm around my shoulder and turns me back toward the entrance. “Come. We’ve got an errand to run.”

  “I’m just here to meet Mikey,” I try, but Ramen implores me to go.

  “Mikey will be here all night. We’ll just run out real quick . . . unless you don’t want to miss the dogfights?”

  “I can live without.” I just want to get this over with, dogfights or not. But Ramen seems intent on borrowing me away, so I finally let him.

  Heading east in the Ferrari, we scream out onto Sunset Boulevard. “Nice place, right?” Ramen asks me as we cruise, attracting plenty of stares.

  “Movie producing is that profitable, huh?”

  “If you’re good at it, yeah. And Mikey is very, very good at it. Ooh, there’s where River Phoenix died,” the slight Indian says, pointing at a spot in front of the Viper Room. “Overdose.”

  I look, but of course, there is nothing to see.

  “Where are we heading?” I ask Ramen, realizing I have no idea.

  “Just down Sunset a spell. A little place called Hollywood.”

  “What’s there?”

  Ramen grins his usual ear-to-ear expression of glee. “What do you know about Sunset Boulevard, Tom?”

  “It connects Figueroa and the PCH.” I shrug. “Downtown L.A. to the beach.”

  “Oh, it does a lot more than that, my friend. Sunset is one of the major streets of the world. Why, this little patch we’re on alone is a thoroughfare of discovery. How many bands made it big at the Roxy, the Whiskey a Go Go, Gazzarri’s, once upon a time—we’re talking The Doors, Guns N’ Roses, Mötley Crüe, Van Halen. Fucking Rocky Horror Picture Show made its American debut here. How many comedians got their big break at The Comedy Store and the Laugh Factory? Jim Carrey, Dave Chappelle, Sam Kinison, Andy Kaufman, Leno, Seinfeld, Carlin, Dangerfield, you name it. The pop culture that comes from the Chateau Marmont alone—fucking Belushi died there. Hunter S. Thompson, Charles Bukowski, F. Scott Fitzgerald—they all wrote there. Some of the finest watering holes on earth—the Skybar, Rock & Reilly’s, the Rainbow, House of Blues, Saddle Ranch, the old Hyatt House—they’re ALL on Sunset. And don’t discount this street itself . . . how much Eagles shit came from the band’s association with this road . . .”

  Ramen pauses his soliloquy to tap on the Ferrari’s horn several times, attracting the attention of several men clustered on the street. All of them carrying expensive cameras and video cameras, they rush out into the street to snap photos of the luxury car, indifferent to oncoming traffic. Ramen suddenly extends his middle finger out the window and slams on the accelerator, rocketing us forward. The men, agitated, all begin flipping him off from behind us. “Goddamn paparazzi,” he sneers. “Garden variety Hollywood mosquito. Easy to fuck with, impossible to escape. You can find them clustered at any Hollywood hot spot, just looking to cause problems.”

  “What sort of problems?” I ask.

  “Christ, their number-one goal is to piss off one of our actors. They can sell those photos for hundreds of thousands of dollars. They’ll hassle actors into taking a swing at them, crowd around cars so people can’t leave, chase people down—it can get ugly. Fortunately, they don’t give a shit about us upper-echelon types. We’re above their interest.”

  “Why?”

  “Producers don’t draw much attention from the tabloids and the gossip sites unless we fuck up majorly.”

  “Like kill someone?”

  “Hahaha, depends on the producer. Now stop asking questions, you’re fucking with my tour. Where was I?”

  “Sunset Boulevard.”

  “Right . . . Johnny Weissmuller was discovered here, Shaquille O’Neal got married at the Pink Palace—that’s the Beverly Hills Hotel. So did John Stamos, but who the fuck cares about him? God knows how many industry deals have been struck at the Polo Lounge. If I want to close a deal, I try to get it done on the Sunset Strip. And don’t forget all the movies that were filmed here—The Way We Were, Freaky Friday, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Rock of Ages—not classics, but still. American Gigolo, fucking Annie Hall and of course, Sunset Boulevard, for chrissakes. Fuck TV shows, but a lot of them were filmed here too. This street that we are so lucky to troll, it is the mecca for pop culture in Southern California. People come from thousands of miles, drawn like moths because of the words ‘Sunset Strip.’ Rock stars partied and fucked on this street, serial killers plucked their victims off this street. There’s so much life and death here. Hopefully I can leave my own little stamp on this gorgeous stretch of road one day.”

  Ramen abruptly turns left onto Highland and then another left down Hollywood Boulevard, pulling up directly in front of the Chinese Theatre there. He kills the engine, its purring cut short with a brief whine like the powering down of a jet engine. “We’re here.”

  “What are we doing on Hollywood Boulevard after that whole speech about your love for Sunset?” I ask, confused.

  “Sunset Boulevard has the legacy, Hollywood Boulevard has the good drugs.” Ramen hops out and marches over to what’s left of the street performers dressed up as comic superheroes. My options are sitting in the car or learning more about what Ramen’s motivations are. Deciding, I follow him out.

  There are at least three Spidermen capering about, one of them standing in a crouch atop a fire hydrant, well lit under the streetlights, posing for the night tourists. Additionally, Batman, Superman, the Hulk and a few others stand about, soliciting. Money for photos seems to be the deal here—or outright tips. Some young kid, looking to be about twelve, walks off after a photo without tipping and the Batman yells, “Cheapskate.” This is Hollywood as I know it: cheap, fake, and full of assholes.

  “Do you recognize me?” Ramen asks of one Spiderman when the tourists move off. The masked character shakes his head. “Are you the one who sells coke?” Again the character shakes his head. Ramen moves on to the next one. Same questions, same response.

  It is at this time that the third Spiderman, who has just done an impressive cartwheel for the crowds, signals Ramen over. “You recognize me?” Ramen asks him.

  “Yeah, watch ‘choo want?” the Spiderman asks, gruff, accented, maybe Puerto Rican.

  “How much you got? I’ll take all the coke you have. Every fucking gram.”

  The drug talk gives me a shiver through the heat. I miss my addiction—it got me through these long nights. I wander over to the mess of handprints and footprints embedded in concrete from the stars of yesteryear—and a few more modern-looking ones. The Spiderman does a back handstand that draws applause and trots off to fetch what he’s got stashed. Drug-dealing superheroes. I shake my head. I step onto the footprints of John Wayne, the western movie hero, but my feet don’t fit in his boots at all.

  The Spiderman has returned and is making a deal with Ramen that, while off to the side of the proceedings, is none too discreet. Several small baggies of the powder go over to Ramen in exchange for a roll of hundred-dollar bills. I look around to see who else is watching, but none of the gawking tourists, caught up in their selfies, is aware. Stuffing both full hands into his pockets, Ramen nods to me and gestures back to the car, which has attracted its own collection of tourists snapping pictures.

  “Are you famous?” a teenaged girl asks Ramen between sips on a Starbucks milkshake as we get into the car.

  “Hell yes I am,” he yells.

  “Cooooool,” she squeals and backhands her nearest friend on the tit. “He’s famous!” Ramen laughs and fires up the twelve-cylinder engine, still smiling. “Gotta love the normies,” he says to me, pu
lling out into traffic and abruptly cutting off a family packed into a hatchback.

  The ride back to Mikey’s goes quickly and neither Ramen nor I mention the drugs. Ramen has an electronic buzzer for the gates on his center console so he doesn’t have to deal with the intercom. We wheel sharply up to the front and Ramen screeches to a stop, laying rubber like he owns the place.

  “I don’t think we were gone long enough,” Ramen warns me. “I hope you have a strong stomach.”

  “Yeah, what’s with the dogfighting?”

  “Mikey’s a calculating dude—everything he does has a deeper meaning. Between us, I think he started the dogfighting to rid the neighborhood of tiny yapping dogs.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Hah, his thugs steal the dogs from the neighbors to feed to Mikey’s pit bulls. Tearing up the little ones gets ’em riled up. And then he gets rid of the pit bulls by making them fight. Circle of life or whatever.”

  Ramen leads the way down a descending staircase, hidden behind a thick oak door. I note it has several locks on both sides. “This used to be a wine cellar and tasting room. But Mikey isn’t about that, so he turned it into a fight club.” We reach another doorway at the bottom of the stairwell. It too has a mess of expensive locks, but this door is steel. Through it, I think I can just barely hear strains of yelling. Ramen pushes through and we are suddenly in a dungeon.

  Smoky and sparse, the large room is floor-to-ceiling smooth gray concrete and occupied by all the beautiful people who I couldn’t find in the living room. Men, women, most of them young, but a few older characters too, make up the crowd lining the walls of the basement space. The sound of meat hitting meat emanates from the center of the room, low, like it’s coming from the floor. Stepping in farther, I see there isn’t a floor, but a rectangular pit, cut maybe eight feet deep into the concrete. I expect to see dogs but instead it’s men doing the brawling. The pit has evidently been well used for violence tonight and many other nights as well. The flat walls within are stained with blood and impact wounds. Heads have clearly been driven repeatedly into those walls, and at one place I see what looks to be the imprint of a face dried into one stain. New blood and old, soaked and stinking up the room with its vinegary tang that cuts through the haze of smoke to sting my nostrils. No one else seems to be impacted by the stench of mildewy, moldy blood here though and I wonder if I actually smell it or my brain is playing tricks on me. The outside of the pit, where the expensive-looking people cheer the action with drinks and cigars, has the look of a nightclub. Black leather club chairs sit beneath electric red lights while glass tubing ferries neon across the walls, contorting the gas into the shapes of large skulls, which inertly take in the scene.