Loser's Town Read online

  Spandau tried the restaurant door and it was locked. This was not surprising, since there was a big CLOSED sign hanging there. He knocked on the mirrored door, tried to peer inside. He waited. Locatelli watched him wait. It was always a good idea to keep people waiting if they were about to ask you for something. Finally Locatelli sent two men to the door. One of them frisked Spandau while the other relocked the door and checked the parking lot for surprises. They led Spandau back to the table where Locatelli sat.

  Locatelli looked him up and down and said, ‘I know who you are. You’re the cowboy with all the dead friends.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Spandau, looking down at the small, dapper man with the impeccable moustache and the impeccable gray wavy hair. The face was hard and never changed, but the eyes switched moods like Christmas lights. Right now they seemed, fortunately, to be amused.

  ‘Well, right off the bat we can tell you’re unlucky. You got three minutes, Texas. Just like a phone call. Start talking.’

  Spandau waited for a day, then three days, then a week. Nothing happened. Maybe nothing would ever happen. Spandau sat around the house and read and watched videos he’d already seen. He tried not to think about Dee or Terry. He missed them both. Only Dee was still alive. He could pick up the phone, call her, or drive out there. She hadn’t heard about Terry or she would’ve called herself. Spandau knew he should tell her, though she hadn’t known Terry very well and was one of the few women who didn’t like him. Spandau came close to calling a hundred times that week, but was afraid of his own weakness, knowing that part of him saw it as an excuse to try to get her back. He worked in the garden, cleaned the pond. Discovered there were more missing fish, nearly all of them in fact, and found fins and heads in the brush. A sole fish swam in the pond, in a constant circle around the perimeter, as if looking for its own way out. Spandau knew how he felt.

  They came for him early one night, about nine o’clock. Spandau was watching Rio Bravo for the thousandth time when he leaned back and felt the gun barrel against the back of his head. Spandau felt a little betrayed, that they’d been able to use the Duke to cover their entrance.

  ‘Richie wants to see you,’ said Martin.

  ‘Tell Richie to go fuck himself,’ said Spandau without bothering to turn around. There was more than one of them. Spandau could hear their breathing, feel their presence. One of them hit him.

  Guys get knocked out in the movies all the time. In real life it isn’t so simple. For instance, a single punch to the jaw is unlikely to knock a guy out unless you’re a heavyweight boxer. And any blow that has sufficient force to knock you out has given you a concussion, which can be followed shortly by brain damage both long-and short-term, loss of memory, emotional shifts, violent retching, blindness, and death. And of course headaches.

  Technically Spandau wasn’t knocked out. Stunned is probably a better word, and the headache would not be long in coming. They hit him with something heavy but soft, with enough impact to give his brain a good rattle and scramble things for a while. Enough to make him cooperative. They bound his hands behind him. He could stand and even walk, albeit not without falling over, and the three of them helped him out into the car. They were on the 405 heading into LA when one of them put a small heavy pillowcase over Spandau’s head. Spandau tried to visualize the course the car was taking, counting the curves, but now his head was hurting and he was dizzy. He wanted very much not to throw up inside the pillowcase and visualization only made it worse.

  The car stopped about thirty minutes later and somebody hit Spandau again. Not as hard this time, but another pretty good rattle. They dragged him from the car with the hood still over his head, up some steps, through a couple of doors, down a hallway. They dumped him on the floor and gave him a few kicks for good measure. Spandau lay on the floor, not moving, waiting. He waited for a while for another blow, something. Then he realized they’d gone.

  Spandau worked at his hands, bound by a thin rope. It wasn’t much of a chore and it occurred to him they’d meant it that way. He got his hands free then pulled off the hood, sat up. He was in the office of the Voodoo Room. The place was eerily silent. Richie was sitting in the big office chair with his back to him. He stood up, swaying a little, and waited for Richie to say something. When he didn’t Spandau went over and spun the chair around and saw that Richie had a small hole in his forehead and a narrow rivulet of blood trickled down the side of his face into his shirt collar. A roll of 35mm film was threaded on some string and tied like an amulet around his neck. Careful not to touch anything else, Spandau snapped the string and put the roll of film in his pocket.

  He went out of the office and down into the club itself. A single overhead light was on and the place had been nearly stripped, as if the club he knew had never existed. He pushed open the side door with his elbow and stepped out onto the street. His head hurt and he wondered if it was smarter to look for a cab on Sunset or walk down to Wilshire. He’d decided on Wilshire and had turned the corner when a car behind him flashed its headlights and rolled up leisurely next to him. The back window of the Lincoln came down.

  ‘You’re out late, Texas, and very far away from home.’ Locatelli motioned for him to climb in. Spandau did so and Locatelli rolled the window back up and nodded at the driver to move on. Locatelli looked out the window at the city as it passed, like taking inventory of private property. ‘Well, Texas, you were right,’ he said finally. ‘And now I owe you a favor.’

  ‘I don’t want your favor,’ said Spandau.

  ‘Oh, you’ll want this one. Because you know what it is? You get to walk away from this. You get to go on living, Texas. Provided you stay smart and keep right on walking.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘It’s the shank of the evening,’ said Locatelli. ‘I thought we’d stop off for a nightcap. Sort of cement our friendship. It’s been a long day. If you don’t mind my saying so, Texas, for a guy who ought to be dead you don’t look so happy about it.’

  ‘It was a very funny joke.’

  ‘Oh, gosh, the truth is that you were outclassed every step of the way. I’ve been watching you for weeks now, Texas. Not much goes under my radar. You nosing around, asking questions about Richie. I knew he was selling crack, but for the life of me I didn’t know where he was getting it. Turned out he was more enterprising than I thought. And using my cocaine to do it. Anyway, you did my dirty work for me. I thank you for that.’

  Locatelli paused to light a cigar. He offered one to Spandau, who shook his head. The odor made him sick. Locatelli puffed happily.

  ‘Richie was going to kill you, you know. He didn’t have a choice. He’d made such a goddamn mess of things, he’d have to start cleaning up loose ends before I found out.’

  ‘So why not let him?’

  ‘I probably would have, if it hadn’t been for that business on your friend’s boat. That was ugly, messy. Richie was fucking up right and left and calling way too much attention to himself. And to me. I like things nice and quiet.’

  Locatelli took a few more puffs, then looked at the cigar as if it had turned on him. He stubbed it out in the ashtray.

  ‘Anyway, what is this, the Old West?’ said Locatelli. ‘You can’t go around shooting people, Texas.’ He stopped to think for a second. ‘Well, not too many, anyhow. Guy as popular as you turns up dead and there are all kinds of problems. No real problems, mind you, but just enough to be irritating. Richie is another story. Nobody liked Richie. He will not be missed. Even his cousin sold him out. Martin’s going to be managing the Voodoo Room when we open it again. We’re going for a whole new look. You know, on the average, gay bars are twenty-five percent more profitable than straight ones? What is the world coming to, I ask you.’

  The car stopped in front of The Ivy. Locatelli stared at him, then said, ‘Well, go on.’ Spandau got out. Locatelli followed, stood on the sidewalk smiling, breathing the crisp night air. In the restaurant the maître d’ greeted Locatelli as an old frien
d.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Locatelli. Nice to see you again.’

  ‘Good to see you too, George. Have my friends arrived?’

  ‘They are waiting at your table. Have a pleasant evening, Mr Locatelli.’

  ‘Thank you, George.’

  Spandau followed Locatelli toward a table at the back of the dining room, where Frank Jurado and Bobby Dye sat laughing. They looked up to see Locatelli and smiled, though it was Bobby who first saw Spandau coming up behind him. He glanced painfully at Spandau then at Locatelli and then at Jurado.

  ‘Good evening, gentlemen. I think you all know Mr Spandau.’

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ Jurado said sharply.

  ‘Mr Spandau wanted to drop by to say hello. He can’t stay long. He has something he wanted to give to Bobby.’

  Spandau fished out the roll of film and tossed it across the table into Bobby Dye’s lap. Bobby looked at Spandau and for a moment he thought Bobby might say something, might thank him, but he didn’t. Bobby stared down at the film as he turned it over and over in his fingers.

  ‘Don’t you love it when everything works out nicely?’ said Locatelli expansively. ‘See how well things go when everybody gets into the spirit of cooperation?’

  Spandau felt his stomach churn, and he couldn’t tell if it was rage or hurt. Mainly he felt stupid and weak and he wanted to destroy the evidence. He couldn’t look at Bobby. He wanted to shame the little son of a bitch, but it was beyond that. If Bobby couldn’t tell shame now he never would, and Spandau watched his friend, his reluctant friend, drift into the darkness and out of reach. They had him now and they would keep him, and he hated Bobby more than he hated Locatelli or Jurado or Richie or any of the other million bastards who corrupted everything they touched. He hated Bobby for his weakness, for his willingness to be corrupted. You had to be willing, that was the key. They couldn’t take your soul unless you offered it first. If he had had a gun, Spandau could have shot everyone at the table. But he knew he’d have to finish off the rest of the room as well, then down the street, block by block, all the way to the sea and probably back again. It was endless, you’d have to kill them all. And then others would come. It would always be this way. Maybe it always had been.

  Spandau turned and walked away. Locatelli caught up with him on the patio. He took Spandau’s upper arm in a firm but gentle grip and walked him toward the street.

  ‘Let me tell you what my point is, Texas,’ he said patiently, like a father delivering a moral lesson to his son. ‘Unlike Richie, I don’t have to strong-arm anybody. I’ve already arrived. Movies? Hell, I’ve made ten films. You ever heard of Collateral Pictures? That’s me. That’s my point. You need to know that. Collateral cleared fifty million off its last picture. We finance movies all over the world. I’ve got business associates in every country on the planet, the greatest source of funds to be tapped since the fucking Vatican. And everybody wants to be in the movies, Texas. That’s where the real money is. Movies make cocaine and heroin look like child’s play. The point is, I don’t have to break into the system. I am the system. You’re walking this time. Next time you might not be so lucky. You think about that next time you wander into my woods.’

  Locatelli gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder then turned and went back into the restaurant. Spandau had forgotten where the taxi stand was in this part of the world. While he was walking around looking for one, he had ample time to think. It was over now. Richie Stella was brought down and Bobby Dye was free. Mission accomplished. Except three people were dead now, four if you counted that poor stupid girl who started it all. Four people dead but you couldn’t exactly call any of them innocent. Innocence is an over-rated quality, Spandau decided. Innocence got people into trouble. Innocence got them killed. Look at me.

  Twenty-Three

  On a cool night in February, David Spandau sat in his house and got drunk. He’d wrapped up a case for Walter a few days before and made a point about not taking another one for a week or so. He’d planned on getting very drunk on this particular day because he knew he would need it, that getting moderately shitfaced was the only way he was going to face it and that it would be a couple of days after before he managed to shake it off. Spandau started drinking in the afternoon and kept it going until the evening. Toward the end he sat drinking in the living room in the dark in front of a blank TV. Every now and then he would take a drink and then look at his watch and then take another drink. Finally he looked at his watch and then drained his drink and poured himself another one and turned on the television. It was Oscar night.

  Spandau watched with the sound off. There was no fucking point in watching any of this really, but it was some sort of conclusion and he badly needed a conclusion. Closure, Dee had called it. Spandau hated that fucking word.

  He watched the pretty, happy, elegant people move around quietly on the screen. There was a knock on the door and he got up to answer it and it was Dee. He hadn’t seen her for months. He’d been avoiding her. Didn’t return calls. Was afraid of what she was going to tell him. Was afraid of closure. That goddamn word. Some things you never wanted closed.

  ‘I wasn’t sure you were home. The lights were off.’

  ‘Come on in.’

  He let her in and then went into the living room and Spandau dropped back down heavily onto the couch. Dee stood above him, looking down at him.

  ‘This a bad time? I can come back . . .’

  ‘No,’ said Spandau, suddenly frightened at the thought of her leaving, even more frightened of how he’d react when she wanted to go. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

  Dee sat down in the chair across from him. ‘We haven’t seen you in a while.’

  ‘How’s your mom?’

  ‘Same as ever. She misses you.’

  Spandau nodded.

  ‘You’re watching the Oscars. I forgot they were on.’

  ‘You want a drink?’ asked Spandau. ‘Or I can fix some coffee.’

  ‘Look, I think maybe this was bad timing . . .’

  ‘Stay, will you? Please?’ His voice quivered and he was ashamed of it, clenched his teeth to keep it back, felt it well up in his throat.

  ‘It’s the wrong time for this,’ she said.

  ‘For what?’ But he knew. Oh, he knew.

  ‘You know what? Maybe I’ll have that drink.’

  Spandau got a glass and poured her a whiskey and handed it to her. She took it and rolled it between her palms and said, ‘You don’t answer your phone.’

  There was nothing to say. Spandau nodded, took a drink. Felt himself going crazy. Felt the mad spirits jumping in his skin to be let out, wreak havoc, scream, confess their sins.

  ‘I wanted to tell you. Before you heard it from someone else. Charlie and I . . .’ She can’t manage to say it. God love her, she can’t.

  Spandau stared at the silent TV.

  ‘We were never going to make it work, David. It was killing both of us, just trying to hang on.’

  Quiet. Let the jackals rage. Keep them on the leash, they’ll quiet eventually.

  ‘I wanted to tell you,’ she said. ‘I want your blessing, I guess.’

  ‘What?’ said Spandau, as if he weren’t listening. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe it was that roaring in the ears. The sound life makes before it goes over Niagara Falls.

  ‘I need to hear from you that you understand. That you don’t hate me.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Spandau.

  ‘I’ll always be there for you.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Spandau.

  ‘I’ve talked to Charlie, and if you ever—’

  Spandau reached forward and grabbed the remote and turned on the sound.

  GUY PRESENTER (on TV)

  . . . And the Academy Award for Best Picture goes to . . .

  (to GAL PRESENTER)

  . . . Aren’t you excited?

  GAL PRESENTER

  (giddy)

  Come on, come on, I’m going to have a heart attack . . .

  GUY
PRESENTER

  And the winner for Best Picture is . . . Loser’s Town! A Collateral Pictures Production, Frank Jurado producing . . .

  Applause, applause. We see Jurado stand up, kiss his wife, and make his way toward the stage.

  ANNOUNCER (VO)

  Accepting the award is producer Frank Jurado . . .

  Jurado takes the podium as they hand him the Oscar.

  JURADO

  You know, I’d like to thank all the little people who made this film possible.

  (laughs from the audience)

  But the fact is, there weren’t any little people, only big ones. Big people with giant hearts and a giant capacity for work and dedication. It was a struggle to get this film made, but we did it. A lot of people said it would never get done, that making a movie about a racketeer trying to force his way into Hollywood was verboten, that it was professional suicide, that nobody would ever finance it. Well, we did it!