Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Because everyone knows who you are in Masons Bay, stalking is basically impossible. It was almost time for the barbershop to close, so I wanted to wait around and see if Denny might talk to me. I had the feeling he would.
Problem was there were only three cars on the street besides mine. I mean, how much more obvious could I get? As a cover, I took out my cellphone, flipped it open, pretended to dial, and held it up to my ear. After a moment, I began moving my lips and occasionally gesturing.
I would have placed an actual call, but the only person I could think of to call was my friend and former roommate Vinnie. Unfortunately, since he’d begun boning his new roommate he didn’t have a whole lot of time for me. Plus, I owed him twenty-five dollars and I didn’t want him bringing that up.
As I faked my phone call, Tim came out of the shop with basically the same haircut I’d been given.
Like father like son apparently. He tossed his camo cap into a Chevy truck through an open window.
The truck was light blue with rust around its wheel wells and a collection of bumper stickers on its tailgate.
Bush/Cheney 2000, 9/11 Never Forget, Sportsmen for Bush, Rush is Right, ‘Self-control beats birth control,’ and ‘Warning: In case of rapture this car will be unmanned.’
As he opened the door, he saw me sitting there faking my phone call.
He waved at me like I was an old friend and then got into the car.
I wondered what it might be like walking around and feeling like everybody liked you just because you were a decent looking white guy who believed all the right things.
I mean, yeah, I sometimes felt like that walking around a Santa Monica Boulevard gay bar, but that wasn’t the whole world. In fact, it was a very small part of the world. Guys like Tim got to feel that way wherever they went.
A minute or two later he was gone, so I stopped thinking about him.
Instead, I got very involved in my fake conversation.
Actually, it was becoming a little intense.
I was telling Vinnie how angry I was that he’d sort of, kind of dumped me.
Which after he’d jumped the gun and called an ambulance on me was hard to take.
Seriously, I’d been forgiving so why couldn’t he be?
Joe came out of the barbershop alone. I decided it was a good time for me to listen to Vinnie make his excuses, so I said, “Mmmm-hmmm, mmmm-hmmm,” until Joe got into his decade-old, brown Subaru. I waited until he drove off and then I hung up on Vinnie.
Serves him right.
Denny was the only one left in the shop. I thought about making another fake call, but what was the point? I wanted Denny to know I was waiting for him.
It took another five minutes before he came out of the shop. I thought for a moment he wasn’t going to notice me, and even had my hand on the horn ready to give it a little toot. But then he looked over and saw me. I mean, really, who wouldn’t notice a black Escalade lurking there.
Denny walked over, a smile creeping across his face. In a low voice with a rumbling undertone—definitely not the voice he’d used inside the shop—he said, “Hey. How’s it going?”
“It’s going,” I said. God, that was lame. But what was I supposed to say? ‘I’m lurking here waiting for you so I can solve a murder and get my grandmother to give me two thousand dollars?’
He didn’t say anything, just kind of watched me, like he knew what I wanted to say but wasn’t going to budge until I said it. I dove in.
“Do you know where I could get some Tina?”
“You PNP?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
Of course, I knew what it meant. Party and Play. I’m from L.A. for God’s sake. But I wanted him to explain it to me anyway. Not that it worked.
“If you know Tina then you know PNP.”
He kind of had me there. “Sorry. I’m a little shy.”
“You got a place?”
“I live with my grandmother,” I admitted.
“Bummer. I live with my father. The guy who cut your hair.”
“Yeah, I figured. You drive separate cars?” I asked, nodding toward the remaining car, a red, rusting Thunderbird from the late eighties.
“I start later in the day.”
“Ah, okay.”
“I guess if you can’t figure out any place to go...”
I could have let it go right there, and I kind of wanted to but that felt like a mistake.
Plus, he was kind of cute. He wasn’t tweaking to the point of homeliness.
Not like some I’d seen in L.A. I mean, I wasn’t going to do any Tina.
That was gross. But there were other things I was willing to do with him.
“We have a barn,” I said. “About eleven-thirty?”
“Sure. See you then.”
He walked away and got into his car. He hadn’t asked for my grandmother’s address.
I was back home around seven-thirty, just in time for a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond. My grandmother did not appreciate my changing the channel, but what was she going to do? She had trouble getting out of the chair on her own.
At eight we watched the Gilmore Girls. Mostly I liked it because Nana Cole hated it.
“That girl never listens to her mother,” she’d say.
“Rory? She listens to her mother all the time.”
“Not that girl. The Lorelei girl. She shouldn’t talk to her mother the way she does. And besides, this is just one long advertisement for teenage pregnancy.”
“So you think Lorelei should have gotten an abortion?”
“I think no such thing. I think she should have learned to say no. She certainly says it enough to her mother.”
When the Gilmore Girls was over, I got us each a bowl of ice cream and switched over to America’s Top Model.
It was an amazing episode. The judges criticized one of the models for being too thin even though you just knew that would never happen in real life.
Not to mention she was not the model they sent home.
So in the end, being too thin worked out just fine.
I was nervous. Very nervous. I had a guy coming over.
Which was certainly different. I wasn’t worried that Nana Cole would figure it out.
Her bedroom was on the other side of the house from the barn, and once I got her into bed she was kind of stuck there.
If she heard anything I could say I had to walk Reilly.
And that reminded me that I actually did have to walk Reilly. His last of the day.
Right after the show ended.
During the commercial, I wondered, did I want to have sex with Denny?
I mean, seriously, he’s a drug addict. It hardly seemed a good idea.
And just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
On the other hand, I’d had sex exactly once since February and I couldn’t even remember it.
I was used to a much more sexually adventurous lifestyle.
So maybe I should. It might be fun. But would it help me figure out who killed Reverend Hessel?
It would be kind of awkward to start asking questions in the middle of sex.
‘Wow you’re a good kisser. You know what I’m wondering? Do you think any of your druggie friends might have killed Reverend Hessel?’
Maybe it was better pillow talk.
‘That was amazing. You’re a super good lover. And by the way, did you kill Reverend Hessel?’
God, what if he did kill the reverend? I certainly didn’t want to sleep with him then. Yuck. I mean, obviously I’ve slept with guys who’ve committed crimes. Misdemeanors. Low level felonies. I mean most people had, right? But I’d like to avoid murderers. You had to draw the line somewhere.
Nana Cole fell asleep right before the end of America’s Top Model.
When it finished, I nudged her and helped her to the bathroom—I waited outside, of course.
Uck. And then to her bedroom. I got her pajamas out of the dresser and laid them on the bed.
She was managing to get herself dressed just fine. As long there weren’t any zippers.
By the time I got her settled it was almost eleven. I went upstairs and washed up a bit in my bathroom. I changed into a Godzilla T-shirt I’d gotten on Hollywood Boulevard and cargo shorts. I really didn’t want to look like I was trying.
I took Reilly out and made sure he peed. After I let him back in and gave him a treat, I quietly slipped back out and walked across the driveway to our pole barn. To be honest, I haven’t spent a lot of time in there.
As I recalled, there was an ancient tractor stored inside.
One that I suspected was now gaining in value every year, as antiques do.
On the far side of the barn, now in pitch darkness, was a work bench with a collection of tools hung on peg board, two stacks of tires, and a lot of farming-type tools that did things I couldn’t even imagine.
Off to the left was my grandmother’s red 1985 Ford F-150, which I had technically totaled when I was run off the road.
The whole front end now pointed upwards.
I know my grandmother wants to fight the insurance company to repair the truck, and I’m sure she’ll do it as soon as she’s a bit better. If they’re smart, they’ll just pay up.
Beyond the truck were two other vehicles: a burgundy-colored Sedan de Ville from the mid-eighties and a cream-colored Coupe de Ville from the late sixties. I mean, why trade your cars in when they can spend eternity in your pole barn.
Funny story: When I was a little kid, and my grandparents were still driving the Sedan de Ville, I thought that the Disney villainess Cruella de Vil came from the de Ville family, which I imagined to be some kind of automotive dynasty.
I was wrong.
Anyway, that night I lingered by the door of the pole barn.
Since I didn’t want to turn on any lights and it was so dark, I couldn’t actually see any of the things I’ve just described.
I tried not to worry too much about what I was about to do.
Was I about to do anything? I mean, I could just talk to Denny.
The point really was to talk to him. Whether I had sex with him or not was simply a side issue.
A few minutes later, I heard the sound of tires on gravel.
Denny had been smart enough to turn off his headlights before he turned down our driveway.
He was driving the same ancient Thunderbird I’d seen out in front of the barbershop.
He got out and gently shut the door. I thought that was very considerate of him.
Walking over to the pole barn, he pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and flipped it open. The tiny bit of light from his screen helped him to pick me out. When he did, he gave a little nod and smiled in a devilish way.
Reaching the barn, he stood very close to me and asked, “Where do you want to do this?”
“Well. In the barn.”
“Yeah, I know that. On the ground?”
“Oh. Yeah. Probably not. There’s, um, a couple of Cadillacs in here.”
“Cool,” he said, holding up his phone. It revealed the silhouettes of the two old cars. We felt our way in the dark until we got to the Sedan de Ville. I opened the back passenger door and climbed in. Denny got in behind me.
It was very dark and smelled like mildew and cigarette smoke. I’d forgotten my grandparents used to smoke. I could barely see anything. That, and the fact that I might be sitting there with a murderer made me very nervous, so I asked, “How was your evening?”
“Okay. We watched TV.”
“Did you watch America’s Top Model? I thought it was a great episode.”
“We watched something else. I kind of don’t remember what it was.”
Then, abruptly, he grabbed my face. I thought he was going to kiss me but instead I felt something under my nose, a tiny spoon or something.
“Take a hit,” he said.
Turning my nose to one side, hoping to not actually inhale much of anything, I sniffed hard. My plan didn’t work. A lot of the meth went up my nose.
“Oh my God, it burns,” I couldn’t help saying.
“Is this the first time you’ve done Tina?”
“No.” It was.
“Here, have another hit.”
“Oh no, I’m fine. This is plenty.”
I wasn’t feeling a whole lot yet. Well, obviously I was kind of nervous about what I would be feeling.
“So, you can afford Tina just by cutting hair?” I asked.
“Most of the time. I mean, I don’t do it, like, every day.” I had the feeling that might be a lie. “And if you PNP the other person brings some too. Sometimes they bring all of it.”
“Sorry,” I said.
Apparently, I wasn’t up to speed on my druggie etiquette. Except maybe I was. I had the feeling what he meant was that the pretty one didn’t have to bring anything and sometimes, possibly even most of the time, he was the pretty one.
He accepted my apology by pulling me into a kiss. My heart was starting to race. I was acutely aware of Denny’s hands on my arms, his lips on mine, the intense smell of his aftershave, his tongue…
I was beginning to see why people did this.