Loser's Town Read online

  ‘I’m not beautiful,’ she says. ‘I know that.’

  ‘I think you’re beautiful,’ Potts said. ‘I think you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘I’ve been with other men. Too many, I think. I’ve done things with them, because of them, that I’m ashamed of. But I’ll tell you, if you want to know.’

  ‘I don’t need to hear it.’

  ‘I don’t want you to think I’m something I’m not.’

  ‘I already know what I need to know.’

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

  Potts propped himself up on his elbow and looked her in the eyes. ‘That you’re a good woman. Neither one of us is an angel. I’ve done time, for one thing. I did five years in Texas for armed robbery. That make a difference to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You think you’ll want to see me again?’

  ‘I don’t want to let go of you now,’ she said.

  Potts heard the sound of his old man’s voice. He pushed it away.

  Seventeen

  Bobby Dye was having a barbecue at the top of the world.

  It seemed like it to Spandau anyway. It was a crisp sunny day, and from the deck of Bobby’s pool, LA stretched out forever and could be tolerated because you were one of the gods and above it all. Two budding culinary geniuses manned the giant grills, food was brought round by acting students going through their obligatory waitress phase and who were nearly as pretty as the models who disported themselves in and out of the water. The males were all friends of Bobby’s – a few minor actors, some musicians, drinking and drug buddies from the old days. No one from the film cast or crew. It was the weekend and Bobby was letting his hair down. This was about relaxation, the kind of down-home event where you could say what you want. You couldn’t, really, but Bobby enjoyed the illusion that you could. The models were friends of Irina Gorbacheva, Bobby’s girlfriend, and to the utter joy of Bobby’s pals were competing to see who could shove the most body into the least amount of cloth. A few had already given up and abandoned the top half. Rock music blared from the speakers and, while booze was everywhere, many were bright-eyed from other sources.

  Irina was tall and blonde and perfect. She knew this as well as anybody and was generous about being stared at. She was far and away the most beautiful woman there, and had planned it that way as well as Bobby had planned his own superior presence. Only an idiot sets a stage to their disadvantage. Spandau felt guilty about watching her, but so was everybody else, and anyway she liked being watched. Irina wanted to be a movie star and as long as people couldn’t help staring there was hope. She hadn’t an ion of talent and sounded like a fluffier version of Natasha in the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons, but then so did Arnold Schwarzenegger and look how he turned out. Spandau was standing off to one side drinking a beer when Irina drifted over. She took the beer from his hand and took a pull of it and made a face.

  ‘Russians like vodka,’ she said.

  ‘So I’ve heard.’

  ‘A nice life, huh?’ she said, sweeping her hand around in a grand gesture. ‘Shitload better than Petersburg.’ She was from Minsk but someone had told her that Minsk didn’t sound as good.

  ‘It’s tolerable,’ said Spandau.

  ‘So if somebody shoots at Bobby, will you jump in front of the bullet?’

  ‘Is that what I’m supposed to do? Jesus, nobody told me.’

  ‘You’re a very funny man.’

  ‘It’s a gift.’

  ‘Lots of pretty girls around and you stand here drinking beer. At least one of them wants to fuck you. Are you gay?’

  ‘I was wounded in the war. Caught a landmine between the legs.’

  ‘That’s too bad.’

  She walked over to a deckchair. She looked at Spandau, smiled, and took off her top. She draped herself along the chair in the sun. Ginger appeared with a plate of food.

  ‘Shy little thing, isn’t she?’ Ginger said.

  ‘How long have she and Bobby been together?’

  ‘A couple of months. They met on the set. Jurado introduced them. I had the pleasure of watching it. She sort of went up to Bobby and grabbed him by the ear and said, “You’re mine now.” He didn’t have a chance.’

  ‘He’s a big boy.’

  ‘No he’s not. He’s in love with her. Can you imagine that? Somewhere in his head, he imagines she’s going to settle down and be a housewife like June Cleaver. No, I’m sorry, Miss Gorbacheva has other plans.’

  ‘Which are?’

  ‘Well, we want to be a star, darling, don’t we? Why else is she here?’

  Bobby popped up, looking nervous. Ginger faded away. ‘You having a good time?’ Bobby asked Spandau.

  ‘The view is nice.’

  ‘Yeah. It’s like a fucking Victoria’s Secret convention. How come you’re not hitting on something?’

  ‘I’m out of my league here.’

  ‘Bullshit. You’re my friend. You’re in the circle now.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  Bobby was dancing in place. ‘I’m about to piss all over myself. There’s a fucking mile line to the downstairs bathroom.’

  ‘Use the upstairs.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Bobby stared at him. At that moment Spandau too envisioned the dead girl.

  ‘I’m looking for a new place. I can’t stay here. It’s haunted now. I fucking can’t do it.’

  Bobby looked around and spotted Irina topless on the deckchair.

  ‘Fucking shit.’

  Bobby went over to her and said something angry. She argued back. He said something else sharply and she shrugged but put on her top. Bobby came back over to Spandau.

  ‘They got no fucking shame,’ said Bobby.

  ‘Bobby, there are photos of her all over the place.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. It’s one thing in a magazine, it’s another thing her waving them around in front of my friends.’ By now Bobby was looking desperate. ‘This is my fucking house and I have to go piss in the bushes. Jesus.’

  Bobby wandered off to find a spot to pee. Spandau found a chair at the edge of everything and finished his beer and then had another one, entertained by the beautiful in frolic. When he went into the house there was indeed a line for the downstairs bathroom. He went upstairs and knocked on the toilet door. A woman’s voice said, ‘Yeah, just a minute . . .’ Spandau waited and heard voices coming from the master bedroom, the one Bobby was now afraid to sleep in. The voices sounded familiar and Spandau moved nearer to the not quite closed bedroom door and saw Irina and Frank Jurado having an intimate tête-à-tête. They were talking softly and Irina was pouting at him. Jurado smiled, not taking it seriously, and pinched her nipple through the skimpy bikini top. Irina laughed but didn’t move his hand away.

  The bathroom door behind Spandau opened and a blonde came out, sniffing and rubbing her gums with her finger. She smiled at Spandau and brushed past him while inside the bathroom yet another model was dusting off the countertop and dropping a vial into her purse. She too smiled at him and went downstairs. He looked at the toilet and the sink and remembered Bobby’s description of the dead girl. Spandau saw her sitting there, limp, the spike dangling from a blue-tinged thigh. He closed the door without going in.

  Irina came out of the bedroom and gave him a playful poke in the ribs as she undulated past. Spandau went to the bedroom door. Jurado sat on the edge of the bed, talking into his mobile phone. He looked up at him but didn’t interrupt his conversation. Spandau went back downstairs.

  Spandau was standing in front of a large bookshelf looking at Bobby Dye’s library. There were books on philosophy mixed in with movie-star bios and books on film and directing. Several books on John Cassavetes. A copy of Sun-Tzu’s The Art of War. Spandau opened it up. Inscribed on the title page was, ‘To my Shining Star / Let’s make a movie! / Best wishes / Richie.’ Jurado was looking over his shoulder.


  ‘Where’s Bobby?’ Jurado asked him.

  ‘Last time I saw him, he was peeing behind a rosebush.’

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to be guarding his life or something? You don’t appear to be taking any of this very seriously.’

  ‘The biggest threat to Bobby right now is getting stung on the dick by a bumblebee. Not much I can do about that.’

  ‘You think about our little talk?’ said Jurado.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Has he talked to you about the Crusoe premiere?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You’re not necessary. We’ve got our own security.’

  ‘He wants me there.’

  ‘Well, he’s the star, right?’ Jurado said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You better hope nothing happens to him, cowboy.’ He gave Spandau a friendly pat on the back. ‘Tell Bobby I had to go. Nice party though, and thank him for inviting me.’ Jurado made his way, fashion model by fashion model, to the front door.

  When Spandau got back to the pool, Bobby was standing at the bar knocking back a vodka. He ordered another and sank that as well.

  ‘You have a hard time watering the plants?’ Spandau said to him.

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘I’m not your whipping boy, chief. I’m here because you asked me. If you’re having a hard time, take it out on somebody who likes kissing your ass, not me.’

  ‘Fucking coke-head cunt.’

  ‘We’re not talking about me this time, are we?’

  ‘I look around and the bitch is gone. Somebody told me she was upstairs in the bathroom doing lines. She promised she wouldn’t.’

  ‘Aren’t you being a little naive about all this?’

  ‘Don’t you fucking start. Not you too.’

  ‘I don’t want to see you get hurt.’

  ‘Mind your own goddamn business.’

  Bobby motioned for a third vodka. ‘You seen Frank? Somebody said he was here.’

  ‘He left. He told me to thank you for inviting him.’

  ‘Fucking bastard. We were going to talk about my film, the one I’m going to direct. I got this idea for a script. I want to do it in South Central. Shoot it in 16mm, handheld camera, no fucking actors, man, just real people. Fucking gritty.’

  ‘That ought to wow them at the box office. People just love gritty.’

  ‘What have you got a bug up your ass about?’

  ‘All this physical perfection is starting to get to me. I’m going back to the guest cottage, unless Cosmopolitan has decided to do a shoot in there.’

  He left Bobby drinking at the bar and went back to his room. He thought about inviting one of the girls but the idea of having sex with a stoned woman, however beautiful, didn’t do it for him. He missed Dee. He thought about getting shitfaced drunk himself and calling her. Dee would talk to him and in the end he’d only say something to compromise them both. She deserved to be happy, she deserved to choose what she wanted. It wasn’t him. He went back to the guesthouse and locked the door and lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. He drifted off into a fuzzy sleep and woke with a dark-haired model scratching on the window and smiling at him. But perhaps he was only dreaming. He never knew anymore.

  Eighteen

  ‘Anybody ever seen this fuck before?’ Richie Stella said.

  They were in Richie’s basement watching his wide-screen plasma TV, where a grainy but easily recognizable Terry McGuinn moved around in the crack-lab trailer. Martin and the Geek looked at each other like Laurel and Hardy.

  ‘I dunno,’ said the Geek. ‘I never seen him. Got to be a cop.’

  ‘Cop my ass,’ said Richie. ‘You hear any sirens? Cops find a crack lab, it’s like going to the fucking circus. He was a cop, he wouldn’t a waited until you left. Now it’s all inadmissible, they wouldn’t have shit. It ain’t no cop.’

  ‘Then who?’ said the Geek, and immediately knew it was the wrong thing to say.

  ‘How the fuck do I know?’ bellowed Richie. ‘Ask numbnuts here, he’s the guy who brought him.’

  ‘Hey! How do you know it was me?’ Martin protested.

  Richie tossed him the homing device in the magnetic collar. ‘Because it’s fucking always you. Because we found this on the car. You weren’t my cousin, I swear I would blow your fucking brains out.’ To the Geek he said, ‘You close it down?’

  ‘Burned to a cinder. Not a trace, nothing, and no way to trace it. We’re set up again in the place out near Barstow. Business as usual.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Richie,’ said Martin. ‘I really am.’

  ‘You want to make it up to me? Find out who this bastard is.’

  ‘Sure, Richie. But how?’

  ‘Get a still of this guy made from the video, show it around. This guy don’t know that we nailed him, so he won’t be hiding. Ask around the club, but be fucking discreet, will you? You know what discreet means? I’ve seen this guy in the club. I know I’ve seen him in the club.’

  ‘What then?’ asked Martin.

  ‘You just fucking find him,’ said Richie.

  ‘Why don’t we go to Cabo,’ Richie said to her. ‘You ever been to Cabo?’

  They were in the office of the Voodoo Room. It was ten o’clock at night and Richie had been hanging around all evening. Most of the time you couldn’t get him in the office with a cattle-prod and the employees were just as happy, because whenever he did show up it was to rant and rave about something pointless and chew asses indiscriminately and then fire somebody. Usually it was the wrong person, but after Richie had canned someone he was happy for a few weeks and nobody saw him. Allison dreaded him coming into the office like everybody else, and recently he had taken to coming in almost daily. It was driving her mad. He’d follow her around playing grab-ass when he could, making it hard for her to get anything done. Allison was good at running the place, she liked the work, and thought maybe, one of these days, she’d get away from Richie and manage a place where the owner didn’t try to grab her tits every five minutes. She’d been working there for six months and so far had managed not to sleep with him. But Richie was getting antsy now, which was the reason he was underfoot.

  ‘I don’t have time to go to Cabo,’ Allison said to him. ‘I’m too busy running your club.’

  ‘I can find a hundred people to run this bar.’

  ‘Great, swell,’ she said. ‘Then what the hell do you need me for?’

  ‘You know why I need you.’

  ‘I’m not your girl, Richie.’

  ‘Sure you are,’ he said.

  She was at the desk, trying to make sense of a pile of bar receipts. Richie came over and started massaging her neck. His hands on her neck sent a jolt through her body, and if the muscles weren’t tense before they were now. Maybe he was actually trying to massage her or maybe it was a threat. You never knew with Richie.

  ‘Sure you’re my girl,’ Richie said, kneading his thumbs at the frail point where her spine disappeared into her skull.

  Allison stood up and held some papers out for him to see.

  ‘They’re fucking stealing us blind. Why don’t you just let me do my job, Richie? I’m good at this, I really am. Why can’t we just leave it at that?’

  ‘Jeez, what are you going to do? You going to quit on me again?’

  ‘Would it work this time?’

  Allison had quit twice then found out that Richie had put the word out and no one else would hire her, unless she wanted to sling burgers, and even then it was doubtful. Everybody knew Richie and nobody wanted to cross him. She had a kid and a house and she needed the job. She came back both times, just like Richie knew she would.

  ‘The thing is, we both know you don’t want to quit. We both know what you want. You want the same thing I do. You want to quit, quit. I never stopped you, did I? So how come you keep coming back, huh?’

  ‘I’ve got work to do,’ Allison said.

  ‘You think about Cabo,’ Richie said. ‘We fly down, spend a week in the sun drinkin
g margaritas and laying on the beach.’

  ‘I’ve got a kid, Richie.’

  ‘You leave him with your mom. Hell, I’ll get them into Disneyland for a week. No, fuck that, I’ll fly them both to Florida, fucking Disneyworld in Orlando. Don’t tell me they wouldn’t like that. Everybody likes that shit.’

  ‘Can we talk about this later? I have to take care of this,’ she said, showing him the papers.

  ‘Sure, sure. We’ll talk over dinner. Schedule yourself off tomorrow night.’

  ‘You honestly don’t think I do anything around here, do you?’

  ‘Now don’t get huffy on me, baby. I know you work hard. You make this place hum like a top, I know that. But you got to consider the delicate machinery of management and labor. The wheels need to be oiled occasionally.’

  ‘And you want your wheels oiled, is that it?’

  ‘You’re taking all this the wrong way,’ Richie said. ‘I’m trying to be professional.’

  ‘Yeah, I think so,’ said Allison. ‘And maybe a pro is exactly what you need.’

  ‘You just got to be a hard-ass, don’t you,’ Richie said to her. ‘You just got to make everything so fucking difficult.’

  ‘I just want to do my job, Richie. That’s all I want. Why don’t you go and take your squeaky wheels to somebody else, okay?’

  Allison took her handful of receipts and went down to the bar. She was relieved when Richie didn’t follow. Sooner or later if she didn’t give in (and even if she did, for that matter) Richie was going to get bored. Allison had no idea what would happen at that point. What she hoped was that, if she could hold out long enough, Richie would get fed up and let her quit. Then she could move on to someplace else. Her gut told her this wasn’t the way it would happen, though. Richie was a shit if he didn’t get what he wanted, and he held a grudge. He’d screw her over just as a lesson to anybody who followed, as an example. On the other hand, if she slept with him God knows where it would go. When he got bored then maybe he’d let her quit, or maybe he’d find other uses for her. There were rumors this had happened to other girls who’d worked at the club, though nobody was suicidal enough to elaborate.