Broken Windows Read online

  I set her on the pyramided deco tile floor. I could see her mind wondering what the hell was going on. I bent over, held her with one arm, and coupaged her with the other. My hand tap-tap-tapped first one lung then the other, as we sweltered in the makeshift sauna.

  “How’s that, girl?” Her only response was to cough, sounding like an old man.

  We walked back out to the breakfast area under our own steam and she lay in her spot. I looked at her, small and frail. Not the big Chinook she’d become, if she would become it now. Helpless.

  I cleaned the mess she’d made, flipped on the radio. Another report about Susan Karubian. The news media, and I use the term loosely, love a juicy Hollywood story. But knowing Hollywood as I did, I almost couldn’t blame her for taking the dive. I hated the people I worked for, most of them anyway, and especially the Hollywoodites. I had plenty of cases to be working. They didn’t interest me. I was a victim of my own success, and guilt.

  Everyone needs redemption. And I needed it more than most. I had caused a young woman’s death, indirectly. But it still kept me awake at night. If I could help Marisol, maybe I could help myself. Maybe then I could call Rita instead of hoping one day the phone would ring and it would be her. Maybe one day I could look in the mirror and not see famous Duke, dragon slayer, savior of lost dogs and avenger of dead damsels. But just see myself.

  I believed in the “broken windows” theory, which says that if you replace the broken windows in your neighborhood there will be less crime overall. The murder of Marisol’s brother Carlos was a broken window that needed fixing.

  And I decided right then: I would help Marisol, whether she wanted it or not.

  CHAPTER 5

  Two days now and the phone still hadn’t rung.

  Eric’s journey had taken him from the tony thirty-third floor Century City law offices with movie star clients to a third-floor walk-up apartment in Venice, with cockroaches and gang bangers for neighbors. He looked out the window, angling to see the Pacific. He’d always wanted to live by the ocean—now here he was. Three stories up. If he jumped, would all the King’s men and all the King’s horses be able to put him back together again? Or would they take him off to some potter’s field and bury him in a shallow grave? Did they even have potters’ fields anymore?

  Eric paced, fourteen steps this way, fourteen steps back. Every time he made a round trip, his room grew smaller. And every time he hit one end of the room he saw himself in the cloudy mirror, several days’ growth of beard on his face. It wasn’t like the Hollywood elite—trying to look cool, slumming. No, it was ’cause his last razor blade had cut the hell out of him and he’d thrown it away. He would give anything for a brand new one so he could shave and stop the itching. Look reasonably presentable.

  Hollow eyes ringed with black half circles stared out at him under a shaggy head of hair. How different he was now. He looked at the bags under his eyes—suitcases he’d called them on his father when he was a child. And his father had laughed, saying he wished he had those suitcases full of nickels. But he had a house and a wife and two children. Eric had had that too, the American Dream, but his Dream went up in flames. And it was his own damn fault.

  He stared at the apparition in the mirror, remembering back to his college days. The English lit course he hadn’t wanted to take and T.S. Eliot’s line about hollow men: “shape without form.” He remembered the end of that poem too, “This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper.” And he wondered if that would be his fate.

  He grabbed the bottle of forty-ounce Colt 45 off the counter. He hadn’t yet sunk to the level of Thunderbird or wine with screw-on caps. But he liked to keep a constant light buzz going, something between inebriation and painful sobriety. Something to make the world a little more like looking through rose-colored glasses.

  He gulped a mouthful of the bitter brew. A long way from having a sommelier open a bottle of wine, pour a taste in a crystal glass, and offer it to him for a sniff. Eric took a swig from the bottle of Colt. Right now he wished he had a different kind of Colt—a Colt .45. That would end it all with a bang and not a whimper.

  How long had he lived in this dump now? The days, weeks, months all ran together. All this time and he still hadn’t met his neighbors. From the looks of them that was just as well. Or was he being a snob? Some vestige of a former life? Did he ever have a former life? It was getting harder and harder to remember.

  Maybe a little paint would brighten up the place. Yeah, that and a million bucks and he’d be set for life. At one time he thought he had been set for life; now that seemed like a different life, something he saw on a movie screen in a darkened theater once. Now he’d be lucky if he could make this month’s rent on this crappy little place.

  He listened to the waves crashing—or was it just the whoosh of cars? No matter, in his mind it was the ocean. That was good enough for now.

  “Ring, Goddamnit. Ring!” He squeezed the phone in his hand, wanting to throw it across the room, smash it to little pieces. He had to consciously talk himself out of it. It was his only phone.

  Eric reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet. He felt the soft Spanish leather. This wallet had set him back three hundred dollars. His fingers brushed the surface several times before he opened it. Forty-four dollars. Not enough for rent. But enough for a pack of razor blades and a book at the used book store. If he didn’t have something new to read he’d go nuts. He could go to the library but he was embarrassed by his appearance. At least if he bought a book he felt like a solid citizen—someone who could afford a book, even a used one. Besides, he had to get out of here. The walls were closing in on him like a coffin.

  He wished he still had his mobile car phone. But at least he had an answering machine. He set it, grabbed his keys, and split like a fox running from the hounds.

  The fog spilled off the ocean like a shroud. Eric walked to his car, vigilant. Head turning in every direction at the slightest sound. Gang bangers thought this was their territory. He’d heard about their initiation practice of having to kill a white person for no reason. He didn’t want to be that person. Or maybe he was just being paranoid again. In all the time he’d lived here he hadn’t been bothered by anybody except for a bum or two—or maybe he should call them homeless, since he might be one of them soon.

  The Beamer’s metallic blue paint was faded and cracked from the sun and salt air. The automatic door opener didn’t work anymore. The tires were bald, the seats tattered. The floormats worn through to the floorboards. And the car was filthy. But it was his and, believe it or not, it still ran pretty good. He looked at it admiringly, remembering the day he bought it. How proud he’d been. His first new car. He should have sold it when it was shiny and relatively new. But he couldn’t part with it. It was the only vestige of his former life. Besides, soon it might be his home.

  He had thought he might go for a drive, then decided it was better to conserve gas and money and walked toward the Strand, the Venice boardwalk. At one time he’d laughed about the colorful characters down here. Now he was one and others were probably laughing at him.

  The bleak sky mirrored his mood. It had been raining off and on, mostly on, for weeks now. Eric used to like the rain, now it just depressed him—now everything depressed him. This was Los Angeles, L.A., it was supposed to be sunny all the time. And all the people here were supposed to be sunny and optimistic and good looking and rich.

  Not many people on the boardwalk today. The police bike patrol rolled on a couple hundred feet ahead. On one hand they gave Eric a sense of security. On the other, he felt guilty every time he passed them. Felt like they would stop him, question him, make him assume the position, just for being there. Just for being a bum in ratty clothes and worn out shoes.

  The two cops wheeled toward him, nodding as they went by. Two Adonises, one black, one white. Youth and time on their side. They’d learn sooner or later that time waits for no one.

  A few
yards behind them, an old man, gray hair, prickly salt and pepper beard. Baggy, ripped cargo pants. But damn, what a nice blazer. Looked like something from Brooks Brothers or Nordstrom’s. The man looked about Eric’s size. He wanted that jacket. He wanted something to make him feel normal again. He contemplated shoving the man between a couple of buildings and taking the jacket off his hands. The distance between them closed. Eric’s fists clenched. He wasn’t as strong as he’d been, hadn’t been to the gym in a long time. But he was young.

  Ten feet and closing.

  Eight feet.

  Four feet.

  Eric let the man come up on his right so he could use his right hand to grab him.

  Two feet.

  Side by side.

  Now Eric was several feet past the man. He couldn’t do it. Why not? Hell, the world sucked. It had cheated him. Screwed him. There was no justice. No right and wrong. Everybody out for himself and screw you. So why the hell couldn’t he do it? Damn.

  His fists slowly unclenched as he came on Small World Books. He reached into his pocket for his money and went inside.

  He didn’t really want to spend the money for a new book, but he liked looking. Liked the feel of a book in his hands. The smell. The way the pages crackled when he turned them. Nobody bothered him here, but he still felt out of place and walked out.

  Down the boardwalk a ways a vendor had a couple of medium-sized folding tables packed with used paperbacks. This was more his speed these days. He stopped to look. The books were all well-thumbed. When he was buying books new he’d never crease the edges, even when he read them. Though he often didn’t have enough time to read in the old days.

  He paged through books by Tom Wolfe and Toni Morrison, James Ellroy and Charles Bukowski. He came to one called Shoot the Piano Player by David Goodis. The cover said it was originally titled Down There. Since he felt “down there” he picked it up. The spine was broken in a hundred places—it must have been bought and sold a dozen times already, judging by the various prices that were penciled inside the front cover. The last one—the one that wasn’t crossed out—said thirty-five cents. Hell, Eric was a King—he could afford that.

  “Good book.” She was small, gamin-like. He’d seen her on the boardwalk before, though they’d never spoken. “Goodis is, uh, good. He writes about people like us. And you might try Dan Fante too. But don’t get him mixed up with his father, John. Though they’re both good.”

  Eric looked at the cover. “You’ve read it?” He knew it was a silly question as soon as it escaped his lips. She must have read it to know it’s good. He felt like a moron. She smiled.

  “I’ve been ‘down there,’” she said.

  “Down where?” Were they flirting? It’d been so long Eric didn’t know.

  “Down so long it looked like up to me.”

  He wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “I hope you’re not down that low anymore.”

  “If I am I don’t know it anymore.”

  That frightened Eric. He worried he might start to feel like that too.

  He started to pay her. She reached out a hand, then pulled it back. “I don’t work here. Just browsing, like you. Pay that guy over there.” She pointed to a man leaning against a wall, tottering on a folding green, white, and orange beach chair. Long, greasy hair dangled over his eyes. Eric could smell him from here. Not so long ago he wouldn’t have gone near the man.

  Eric paid the man, who said nothing, just nodded, sliding the money into a decrepit cigar box.

  Eric sized the girl up. Too skinny. But skinny enough to be a top model with that heroin-chic look. Stringy black hair that set off a kabuki-white face. He looked for track marks on her arms. Didn’t notice any.

  “How ’bout if I buy you a soda?” She was young, maybe nineteen, maybe in her early twenties. But he longed for someone to talk to, companionship. Maybe they’d have nothing to say to each other, but it would be nice just to have a Coke with someone.

  “You don’t have to cheer me up.”

  “I’m not trying to cheer you up. But since you gave me a review on this book I figure I owe you.” He winked. She agreed to have a soda with him. They walked down the boardwalk until they came to a hot dog stand. He splurged on hot-dogs-on-sticks and giant pink lemonades for both of them. She scarfed her hot dog down like it was the first food she’d eaten in three weeks—maybe it was. He bought her another. He still couldn’t make the rent and buying a couple hot dogs and lemonades wouldn’t make a difference one way or another.

  “How long you been down here?” she said.

  “I’ve lost track.” But he knew every day that he’d fallen from grace, as if he was X-ing them off on a makeshift prison wall calendar.

  “I thought you were a newbie.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “You don’t have that empty look in your eyes.”

  He looked into her eyes, trying to see if she had the empty look. He couldn’t tell for sure.

  “What’d you do, lose your job?” she said.

  “Something like that.”

  “Couldn’t get another?”

  He didn’t want to go into the whole story. “Not in the same field and I’m not really qualified for anything else.” He wanted to change the subject, away from him. What was the point of telling her his tale of woe? That he’d lost his law license. That it sent him into a downward spiral of cheap booze and feeling sorry for himself, even though he’d brought about his own downfall. That he was overqualified for most jobs, at least to the employers. But he knew he was really underqualified and under motivated. That he didn’t want a real job, not if it didn’t involve the law and there was no law firm in the city willing to hire him, not even as a paralegal. “What’s your story? Are you out here on your own?”

  “Damn straight.”

  “You’re awfully young.”

  “You wanna hear my story? I’m twenty, came out here to be a moo-vee star like all the rest. That was a joke.”

  “Where do you live?”

  She hesitated. “Anywhere I can. There’s some squats I know about.”

  Eric knew what a squat was. Usually an abandoned building, no electricity. No running water, no toilets—the halls and floors served that purpose. Filled with a lot of lost kids with nowhere else to go, who would have had broken dreams if they had time to think about them.

  “I know you don’t know me, but you could stay at my place. It’s not much, but—” he said.

  “No thanks. And no offense.”

  They talked a little more, not saying much of consequence, except that she told him her name was Lindsay. They said maybe they’d run into each other again and went their separate ways. He hoped she hadn’t thought he was coming onto her. He didn’t care about sex—not now. He just wanted a friend. It’d been so long.

  Eric sat on his bed, the new-used book next to him, feeling like a character in a Hopper painting, alone, and lonely in a cold light. He’d had an opportunity to buy an original Hopper sketch once. Jennifer said it was depressing and he let it go in favor of some no-name artist’s work that hadn’t appreciated but came highly recommended by her art guru. He wondered if he’d ever really see the girl again—Lindsay. He wondered if he’d ever get on his feet again. He wasn’t qualified to do much and the one thing he was qualified for he couldn’t do. Maybe he should be a janitor. Was it really beneath him at this point? Hell, he thought, you gotta be an illegal alien to do that work. That was a good enough reason not to try. He caught himself. In the old days he never would have thought like this, wouldn’t have even used the term illegal alien. What the hell was happening?

  He picked up the book, opening it to the title page, then checking the copyright notice. He always read the front and back covers, prefaces, author bios, publishing history, acknowledgements, the little blurb on what typeface they used, anything there was to read before he actually started a book.

  He turned to page one: “
There were no street lamps, no lights at all.” Then the phone rang.

  CHAPTER 6

  Jack came by to see Molly. Brought her a rubber chew toy, but she would have been happy to see him anyway. He was her savior. I watched them. A good team. Like Jack and I. She was still sick, but the medicine seemed to be working, and her joy at seeing Jack seemed to push that into the background as she rolled on the kitchen floor. The room hadn’t been remodeled since my parents lived here and I don’t think they’d ever done anything with it. It still had its original nineteen twenties’ deco tile and now-yellowed linoleum floor. But even that lent it a certain charm.

  The Motels’ “Only the Lonely” played in the background. I always figured Martha Davis, the chief Motel, could write the soundtrack to my life.

  “And you talk about me listening to ancient music,” Jack said.

  “Hey, it’s not that old.”

  “It’s from the eighties, man. The early eighties.” He adjusted his shades. Outdoors or in, the shades almost never came off. He saw the world through a polarized glass twilight that, in some ways, separated him from it by just enough distance.

  “At least it isn’t the sixteen eighties.”

  “Hey, that’s the Baroque era. Now you’re treading on thin ice, buddy.”

  “Well, ‘Only the Lonely’ was from eighty-two, if I remember correctly.”

  “Ancient history.” Jack listened to the lyrics for a moment. Martha Davis wailed about loneliness. The shades came off for a moment—he looked at me with one of those piercing stares, the kind that could spear right through you and cause almost as much pain as if he’d been using a real spear—and just as quickly they went back on.