69 -- Used and abused
The apartment door’s slamming behind me sounded like a gun
shot, making me briefly grimace, but this only hurried me down the steps to the
driveway, then out to the street, the line of palm trees dripping with the
steady rain on both sides of McCadden.
I should have gone out to Highland and hailed a cab, to get
to where she was headed first, but I needed the walk to calm me down, LA’s cool
winter rain on my face to keep me from burning up.
My step, however, quickened with the rapid beat of my heart
and I soon found myself running up McCadden to the Crossroads of the World, the
found front like a movie house, windows glistening with dripping and a tall
ivory colored tower with a blue globe at the top, nearby light house miles from
water, dulled by the gray day.
I turned left, then up the slightly deviated McCadden in the
direction of Hollywood Boulevard, the buzz of Sunset Boulevard already fading
except for the swish of tires over its wet pavement, like the voice of ghosts.
She was a ghost, too, evading detection, although I was
certain she had come this way. But I saw no sign of her blonde hair or the thin
brown jacket she had put on before leaving the apartment.
I started glancing into driveways of homes to see if she had
ducked into any of these, knowing she would not, knowing she had one thought,
one destination in mind, and would not be diverted by rain or traffic or – me.
At Hollywood Boulevard, I slowed, catching my breath, but
more importantly, trying not to look too suspicious to the ever vigilant
police, and this allowed me to look into the doorways of various store fronts
on the off chance she might have taken refuge from the rain in one of them.
The rain – a heavy mist actually – had discouraged most of
the tourists and many of the hippies, leaving the star-strewn sidewalk free of
pedestrians except at places like the Golden Cup, where gay men and women stood
just under its slight overhang, smoking cigarettes and teasing the tourists
huddled in the tour buses as they passed, asking the fathers and husbands in
front of their wives if they wanted a date and if they’d ever had a real piece
of ass.
None accosted me, perhaps sensing my urgency and my rage,
perhaps simply seeing me as no challenge, just another Hollywood hippie caught
up in the same straight whirlwind as they were.
Knowing she would not likely go into such a place, I still
stepped through the door, glancing briefly as the men and women there before
moving on, back onto the Boulevard, going in the direction I knew for certain
she had gone, even if I could not see her.
At intervals I saw my reflection as I passed darker store
windows, and cringed, seeing myself as a madman already out of control, my wet
hair matted against my forehead and cheek, my wet clothing hanging heavily from
my shoulders.
The reflection spoke truth about what I was, and I hated the
rage I saw in that figure, a man in love with a woman who wanted something I
found utterly offensive, and yet could not stop her from doing.
I kept wondering what I would do if I actually caught up
with her, how could I stop her if she had her mind set on doing it anyway.
Maybe Dan was right in telling me to move on, leave her to
live out the life she wanted.
“There are plenty of good women left in LA who would love to
be with you,” he’d said.
Only I didn’t want any of them. I wanted Louise. I had done
too much and gone to far just to give up on her, even if it appeared she had
already given up on me.
Finally, I reached the store front I wanted, and pushed
passed the panels of photographs, each woman’s face taking on the image of
Louise, each scantily dressed and smiling, which only shook me more as I shoved
through the door and marched up the stairs into the office, where the startled
woman from my previous visit kept shaking her had at me, and telling me I
shouldn’t be here and that I’d better get out before her boss hears me.
“He won’t be nice to you the way I am,” the woman said.
“I just want to know where she is,” I said.
“I can’t tell you that,” she replied.
“But I have to know! Don’t you understand that?”
“I do understand,” she said, still sympathetically. “I knew
this was going to happen. I warned you about it. I told Paul not to hire you as
a couple. This will only get someone hurt, will get you hurt unless you get out
of here now.”
“I’m not leaving until I find out where she is,” I said,
slamming my hand down on the desk, scattering the sheets of paper across the
desk and onto the floor.
She glared at me, scared and angry.
“If you don’t leave now, I’ll call Paul,” she said. “Or
would you prefer I call the police?”
For a moment, this alarmed me, stirring up the old paranoia.
I was not certain that the identification Bob had sold me would hold up,
especially if the police dragged me down to the station to fingerprint me. But
the rage and distress won out inside me.
“Go ahead,” I said in a tone of voice that did not sound
convincing at all. “Then I can tell them what you people are up to here. I can
give them names and addresses. Would you like that?”
Her indignity flowed out of her, and her fear returned, her
nervous gaze looking towards the door behind which Paul should have been, but
apparently wasn’t at the moment. Finally, she scribbled something on a piece of
paper and slid this across the desk at me.
“Here, take it, and get out,” she said. “But we’d better not
see you here again. Paul will do more than just call the police.”
I picked up the paper. It had an address on it. Then I
looked at her.
“I’ll have no reason to come back here,” I said. “You people
perverted my girlfriend and torn us apart.”
The woman’s gaze stayed hard. “Nobody perverted anybody.
Your girlfriend came to us, knew what she was getting into, even if you don’t
like it. She let it happen. Now, leave.”
I nodded and fled back into the hall and then down the
stairs, clutching the paper in one hand as my other hand gripped the rail so I
wouldn’t fall, I was shaken that deeply.
Out on the street, the drizzle greeted me; I hardly noticed,
even though each of the trees dripped heavily and the star-studded sidewalk
glistened with the dull reflected lights that had come on unexpectedly early.
Rage rushed through me as I clutched the address the woman
had given me in one hand and waved down a cab with the other.
The driver yammered at me in Spanish but understood enough
for me to direct him to where I needed to go.
I shivered more with anger than from the chill of being wet,
an anger that got worse as the driver sped down Hollywood Boulevard then
steered south on Vine to Sunset, and then along Sunset, west bound, following a
similar trail that I had taken previously to go to the shoot, heading towards
Beverly Hills, making me wonder if everybody in that privileged town was
engaged in the skin trade.
The anger felt like
an out of control fire, burning me up from the inside, and I imagined I looked
a little like one of those Saturday morning cartoon characters with smoke
coming out of both of my ears.
I almost didn’t notice when the cab pulled up to the curb
and stopped, the driver telling me we’d arrived, and asking for payment, which
I dished out into his upturned palm and stepped back out into the rain.
It took me a moment to see the sign for the photo studio,
and the rain-blurred images of what might have been legitimate fashion models
displayed on either side of the door.
I pushed open the glass door into a store front with a
counter, and shelves and a door leading to some rooms in the rear. A bell
sounded far in the back.
To my right, against a wood paneled wall stood several vinal
chairs, an obvious waiting area with a few potted plants on small tables between
each. I heard voices in the back as I eased around the corner to the door,
which was open just a crack. Darkness filled the space beyond, except for a
single light illuminating a naked woman crawling across a thick, black,
fur-like rug. It was Louise, and she was crawling towards a man lying on a low
couch with his pants unzippered. A camera on a dolly filmed the scene from
above as Louise’s fingers reached for the man’s crotch.
“NO fucking way!” I yelled and threw my weight against the
door, forcing it to bang against the wall as I charged in, rage boiling over in
me.
I knocked down one of the poles that held up the light and
it crashed to the floor, sending up an array of sparks before plunging
everything into semi-darkness, leaving the room to be illuminated by the front
room from which I had come.
Someone shouted in the darkness: “It’s him,” apparently having
been warned by a phone call from the woman at the Hollywood Boulevard office.
Although I felt the movement of large men around me, none of
them laid hands on me, at least, not until I cross the room and tried to pull
Louise up from the floor.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” a harsh male
voice said from the camera platform above me, barely visible in limited light,
except for his angry eyes.
“I came to collect my girlfriend,” I said in a thin,
frightened voice. I was convinced I was going to die.
Someone on my level flicked on a light, which only
marginally increased the rooms luminance, although carved the features of the
man above out of the darkness. He was tall with short military-like hair, broad
shoulders and had a cruel look, especially around his mouth and eyes.
“She signed a contract with us,” he said coldly. “We have a
film to make.”
“Use someone else,” I said, feeling a bit bolder. “My girlfriend
isn’t going to be in your film.”
“As I said, she signed a contract,” the man said, making his
way down a ladder as he spoke, “and because you broke the light, she’ll be
getting no fee.”
Two hefty men appeared from out of the dark corners. They
looked like linebackers, and each bore the expression of experienced fighters
as they approached me, grabbing my arms from behind so I could not put up a
fight.
“Get him out of here,” said the first man, who had finally
reached my level.
I could see more of the room, a small stage with a bed on
it, and a wall decorated with items that I would have better associated with a house
of torture than a porno film.
The two thugs dragged me back out through the door to the waiting
room, dumping me into one of the vinal chairs, as they rolled up their sleeves,
the door to the other room closing firmly behind them.
“Now, we’re going to teach you some manners,” one of them
said, grinning at me, his mouth full of crooked teeth.
The other man yanked me back up from the chair, then hit me
in the stomach so hard I collapsed back into it, pain rushing through me along
with exhaled breath.
I wanted to cry; but I was still too angry, and I took that
blow and the next and those that came after that, tasting the blood from my
broken lips and the nose I assumed was broken as well, before they finally got
sick of their fun and dragged me back out to the street, dumping me at the curb,
rain pouring over my wounds but little relief.
“You’re girlfriend will be out when the boss is through with
her,” one of the thugs said, then made their way back inside.
She came out an hour later, limping, and crying. They had
used her, and she seemed lost, refusing to look at me as I hobbled along side
her, in search of a public phone to call a cab to get home.
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