previous: Anywhere You Hang Your Keys

02: Everyone's a Comedian

I had to give him two things. He didn't go all what's-this-about on me. And he kept his sense of humor. "Does this mean you're not financing my next project?"

"Lie down on the bed." Upon further reflection: "On your stomach."

"I don't do anal."

"Everyone's a comedian. Just do it."

"Why should I?"

"Because if you don't I'll hurt you."

He sized me up. He had three inches on me. Probably thirty pounds. "You don't look very tough." A comedian, and a master of understatement.

So I pulled out the gun. It's non-functional—Gina put her foot down on that one—but it sure do look real. "Do it."

He heaved a big sigh. Like I was putting him out. But he did what I asked. I pulled a cable tie from my inside jacket pocket. John Santini's underling Vito had shown me all sorts of things that I'd never expected you could do with cable ties. I fastened Charley Szyzmanski's wrists behind his back. Had him turn over. Let him sit up. Watched his eyes go to the door a couple of times.

"I sent them all home," I said. "We're all alone."

"I don't believe you."

"Charley. There's an easy way and a hard way." I was on a roll.

He struggled to sit up. Almost fell off the bed. But he made it upright and and gave me his best dour look.

"I'm looking for Frankie Roja," I said.

"Whatever. You know, people are going to start wondering where I am."

"I've got lots of cable ties. Start talking."

"Why do you need lots of cable ties if you sent everyone home?"

I stared at him.

"That's what you said before."

I give it a smile, just enough to make him think he'd charmed me, and then I went over and found a point on his arm Vito had shown me. Charley Szyzmanski screamed and gnashed and thrashed.

"That's point one," I said. "There are twelve." I only knew there were twelve because Vito had told me so. He was demonstrating them on me, and I only got up to three.

Which was better than Charley Szyzmanski did. "He'll be here around ten," he muttered.

"That's better."

"You gonna let me loose now?"

"Hell, no."

"Asshole."

I pushed him off the bed. Then I gathered his ankles and cable-tied them. Then I pushed the bed toward the wall so he was marooned in a little triangle of floor. Then I told him if he made a peep I'd be back with the gun.

Then I stepped outside the room and leaned my back against the wall and wondered how the hell I'd managed to become the kind of guy who waves guns, albeit fake ones, at people. And tied them up with electrical accessories.

It started a couple of years back, when I first crossed paths with John Santini. At the time I didn't know that he was a gangster. I just thought he was some guy running an import-export business southeast of downtown L.A. By the time I knew he was a crook it was too late to escape the web that had already ensnared hundreds of my fellow citizens. By the time I found a way out, I realized that I didn't want to.

Because, against all expectation, I discovered I liked the guy, a sentiment that was more or less reciprocated. And because during the course of our little pas de deux, I realized that I had some aptitude as, for lack of a better term, a detective, and that I enjoyed playing around at being one. And John Santini had a need for a guy like me.

Meanwhile, I was starting to understand that gangster was entirely inadequate to describe what John Santini did. What he did, kind of, was run the city. Not run it like Al Capone ran Chicago during Prohibition. But run it like the city manager that the City of Angels doesn't have. He got stuff done. Sometimes how he got it done was legal, and sometimes it wasn't. But, on balance, it was a better city with John Santini around than it would have been without him.

So I went to work for him, as sort of a contractor, finding out who did certain stuff and why, tracking down certain people, delivering certain packages. The income thus gathered combined nicely with what I continued to earn doing TV commercials, and the schedules meshed perfectly. I'd figured out what I wanted to do when I grew up.

After a while John Santini had me spend some time with Vito, and I learned some "man stuff," as Vito like to call it. Which I hadn't used yet, not really, until that summer evening in the Encino porn house. When out came the fake gun and the cable ties and the push onto the floor.

I went downstairs and did a head count. A couple of the crew were moving the last of the equipment into the garage. Serena, Jessica, and the redhead were arrayed on the sectional watching a reality show. Someone was about to be voted off. They all wanted it to be the bitch with the ponytail.

I smiled and waved and went wandering. No one seemed to care. I didn't find anything that told me anything, so I headed back for the living room.

The tech guys had gone. So had Serena. The redhead was ready to go. She was telling Jessica Love Dooitt she'd be a little late tomorrow. She had a conference with her son's teacher. The kid was bored in class and the teacher wanted to discuss enrichment programs.

She left too. "Just you and me," Jessica said.

"And Charley," I said.

"Right."

"But he's tied up upstairs." Sometimes I kill myself.

"You're not really an investor, are you?"

"No."

"I didn't think so. You're not slimy enough."

"Is that a compliment?"

"Best you're going to get. Am I gonna find him dead up there or something?"

"No. Nothing hurt but his pride."

"So you with vice or something?"

"Something."

"I'm not going to get shit out of you, am I?"

"No."

She had lovely eyes. They were blue heading toward green, except the left one had a brown arc of iris, maybe sixty degrees worth, a little off-center at the top. Her nose looked like it had been broken once. Her mouth . . . oh, the stories it could tell.

"You know Frankie?" I said.

"Frankie, the guy whose place this is?"

"Yes."

"Never met him."

"He lives here and you never met him?"

"I heard he usually spends the night at his girlfriend's. And when he does come home it's always late. We're usually way out of here by then. We're usually out by seven. We were only here tonight because of Serena. We had to switch the whole schedule around." A pause, a bit too studied. "I ought to get home."

"You don't want to stay and amuse me some more?"

"The only amusement I'd stick around for is the kind you'd pay for."

"Maybe I'll pay."

"You're not the type. I think that wedding ring means something to you."

"You want your card back?"

She smiled, shook her head. "Keep it. Pass it on to someone a little less attached." She gathered up her stuff, went to the door, pulled it open. "Only, if you end up dead or something, you mind getting rid of it first? I don't want any cops coming by."

"You got it."

"Thanks." The door closed behind her.

I went upstairs to check on Charley. He'd squeezed through where the bed butted against the wall and was halfway to the door. I dragged him back to where he started.

After that I did a more disciplined search of the house. Found nothing I wouldn't have expected. Except the script to the movie they were taping. It was registered with the Writers Guild. That brought a smile.

I found a copy of The Day of the Locust on a bookshelf in a room that was serving as an office. The markings on it said it had disappeared from the John Marshall High School library about ten years back. I'd been meaning to read it for years. I settled in with it. Waiting for Frankie Roja.

The Day of the Locust isn't a very long book. Not much more than a hundred pages. So it wouldn't have been that surprising for someone to finish it by the time Frankie Roja arrived home. But I'm a slow reader. I'm lucky if I get through thirty pages an hour. Still, I managed to finish it, as well as Miss Lonelyhearts, which was bound in the same volume. When I shut the book, there was still no sign of Frankie. It was past two in the morning.

Somewhere along the line I heard noises upstairs. Like Charley was trying to get through the door. After a while they stopped. He'd either given up or died.

At three o'clock I decided Frankie wasn't coming. I figured Charley'd have peed his pants by then, so I brought a set of Frankie's sweats upstairs with me. Frankie was a lot smaller than Charley, by the looks of his wardrobe, but he liked his sweats big.

Turned out I was right. From the looks and smell of things, I'd been right three or four times.

"You bastard," was the first thing he said. No imagination.

I let him take a shower and threw his clothes in the trash. Gave him the sweats. Then I let him drive me back to his office.

He laid rubber when he drove off. Compensating. I, on the other hand, moved nice and smoothly onto the freeway that would lead me home to Gina. It seemed prudent. It was late and I was tired. I kept it below sixty. It was almost four-thirty by the time I got home.

next: Something Disconcerting