The Flaming Motel

XII


I took the file and showed myself out. As I was walking down the steps to the driveway, Brianna pulled into the driveway in a bright red Porsche Boxster. She waved at me with the fingers of one hand and smiled. She was wearing a loose, silky suit that draped over her body like a cloth covering a sculpture. “Fancy seeing you here so soon,” she said.

“Sorry to run out on you like that. I just felt sick all of a sudden.” I took the stairs two at a time and met her at the bottom.

“I hope it wasn’t too bad.” She took off her sunglasses and grinned at me. “You look alright now.”

“I’m better. Did you find a place?” I asked, thinking about her website, my conversation with Ed, and the feeling of her pressed against me on the balcony.

She shrugged and said, “I saw a few things. Nothing’s perfect. But I just need to buy something and get out of here. I think I’ve spent enough of my life in this place.” She stared past me at the house. Her words had a conscious, symbolic tone.

“Ed seems to have the same feeling,” I said.

She smiled and shook her head. “Yeah, but he doesn’t live here. He hasn’t since college. It’s Tiffany’s house now and, without Don around, it’s suddenly not big enough for the two of us.”

I don’t know why I’d assumed that Ed lived there. I glanced down at the folder in my hand, wondering if I was holding stolen property. I said, “I gather that there’s no love lost between Tiffany and Ed.”

“That’s an understatement. Especially now.”

“What’s that mean?”

“She inherited the businesses. Ed’s going to be working for her, if he doesn’t kill her first. You should have heard them fighting this morning.”

I suddenly realized it was nearly noon and we were standing in the middle of the driveway. I imagined Tiffany Vargas pulling up the driveway any second and finding me there. I wanted to talk to Brianna more, about a lot of things, but this wasn’t the place to do it. Without thinking, I asked, “What are you doing later?”

She smiled and said, “Nothing. What do you mean? How much later?”

“Tonight.”

With a coy growl in her voice, she said, “Are you asking me out?” .

“I’m asking you to dinner,” I said, trying to make it sound like business and telling myself that’s all it was. “I’d like to talk to you about all of this, but now’s not the time.”

“So it’s dinner, but it’s not a date?” Her voice was flat, but her eyes told me she thought I was just being cautious. “It’s okay,” she smirked. “I’d go out on a date with you, even if that’s what you called it.” She got out of the car.

I backed away a couple of steps and slapped the file against my leg. “Seven?”

She did her best fake gushing smile and said, “I’ll be waiting anxiously at the top of the stairs.”

I heard the heels of her shoes click their way up the steps behind me as I walked away. At the edge of Mulholland Drive, I turned to look back just as she disappeared into the house. The curves of her back seemed to evaporate in the bright sunlight and I stood alone in the midday quiet.

Walking back down the road, I could see north, out over the San Fernando Valley—the Valley—and the capital of the porn industry. The grid of streets and freeways on the Valley floor below me shimmered in the November air, stretching all the way to the dusty brown San Gabriel and Santa Susana Mountains.

My car was on the side of the road, next to the driveway, right where I left it. I could see the guard in the gatehouse, reading the paper and working his way through a sandwich. He grinned when he saw me coming and leaned out the window.

“You look a lot better than you did last night.”

“I’m sure I do,” I smiled back. I walked all the way up to the little window and he handed me my keys. “Thanks a lot for getting me home last night.”

“Hey,” he said, “I gotta sleep at night too. Don’t want to be reading about someone else I knew getting killed.” He waved the paper as he said it. Then he pointed up the road with his chin. “You coming from the Vargas house?”

“Yeah.”

“Friends of yours?”

“Not really. I do some work for them.” He gave me a look like he thought I was a porn star, although, given my clothes, it should have been obvious I wasn’t. “Not that kind of work.” I grinned.

“That’s too bad.” He smiled wide, showing a gold tooth far back in his mouth. “It’s nice work, if you can get it.”

I motioned toward the paper. “You know them?”

“Met the dad a couple of times. He was a real nice guy. Whenever they had a party, he’d come by and tell me that there might be some folks parking along here. Most folks around here don’t do that. But he wasn’t like most folks.” He rustled the paper as he spoke. “That’s why I hate to be reading this. It’s just terrible. And I’d hate the family to think I had anything to do with it.”

“Why would they think that?”

“That night, a cop came by asking questions. He said the records showed the call about the noise came from this phone.” He pointed to the phone inside his booth and laughed. “I said no way, their records were messed up. No way I’d call about that. I liked Vargas. Besides, a little noise is better than just sitting out here in the dark all night.”

“You work all the time?”

“Naw,” he grinned. “There’s another guy. Pedro, little Mexican dude, we split the nights.”

My brain was still sifting through the information. I turned and looked back up the road, trying to remember last night. When I turned back to him, I said, “When I parked last night, you couldn’t even hear the party.”

The old guy laughed and shook his head. “I know. That’s what I told the cops. Why would I call a noise disturbance if you can’t even hear it down here?” He shrugged and leaned his dark arms against the narrow white counter in the window. “They didn’t question me much. I think they just wanted to make sure they came down and talked to me. It didn’t really matter. What was done was done. Vargas was already laying in a morgue somewhere by then.”

I thought it through. I supposed mistakes got made now and then. And the old guy was right. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was what the cops did after they got there, and the police chief had already put his seal of approval on that.

The guard pointed over at my car. “I got out a hose and washed your door off a little. Hate to see a nice car like that with dried puke all over it.”

“Thanks.”

“Like I said last night, it’s a helluva lot nicer than the last car that parked there.”

“Yeah, you told me. The junker car, on Halloween.” I took a few steps toward mine and admired his work. Now I had a dusty car with a very clean door.

“It was funny too,” he went on. “The dude driving it didn’t look much better than his ride. I guess it’s like when they say people look like their pets. Some people look like their cars.”

“Maybe he was dressed up for Halloween.” I grinned, and tossed the cluster of keys from hand to hand.

“Naw, I think he was just ugly. Just wanted to borrow my phone to call someone to pick him up. Then he got his car started again and drove off. Goofy looking kid with this ratty-assed red beard.”

I heard the keys hit the pavement before I realized I’d dropped them. Suddenly, they seemed terribly cold to the touch. But the chill was inside me.