They descended an escalator and then headed down a long, glaring, crowded tunnel where they stepped onto a moving sidewalk. When they reached the end of the tunnel, they passed two frazzled men wearing priest collars. Each man was holding a small plastic bucket filled with coins and bills that sported the sign, HELP THE HOMLESS.
Brooks yanked hard at Clendon's elbow.
"They're phonies," Brooks said loudly, and pulled Clendon toward the exit gate. "I read an expose about them in the paper. This town's full of them."
"I like an open scam."
"Leeches. And they need to learn to spell. Baggage claim is to the right."
They took a hard right around a corner.
"How's Shelley?" Clendon asked.
"She's a goddamned clinical psychologist now, a Ph.D. When she got her degree, she made me call her 'Dr. Symmes-Boyd' for a week. Now she thinks she owns a license to print money."
"Symmes-Boyd?"
"Yeah. She's modern."
The baggage crashed down a chute and onto the circling conveyor. Clendon tried to stop thinking about committing adultery.
"Got your claim check?"
"Right here. I need a pair of sunglasses. It's so bright, even inside."
"No problem. You'll get used to it."
"I saw the goddamnedest thing flying in the smog looked like it had Reagan's face imprinted on it. What was it?"
"It's called the Reagan effect. It's the latest tourist attraction."
Clendon's old canvas bag slid onto the conveyor and he picked it up.
"When do I start?"
"Hell, you can start tomorrow. I only go first class now. Pretty soon you can buy yourself a new set of luggage and a new wardrobe. Money gushes out here in barrels, and all you need is a drop of it. Welcome to the land of dreams."
"Have you been doing coke?"
Brooks made a fake snort.
"Avarice," he said. "It's in the air."
Clendon followed Brooks to the parking garage. The license plate on Brooks's new baby shit green Mercedes-Benz 450 SL read IURNDIT. They eased into the leather seats. Brooks started it up and zipped his Benz through a series of ramps, alleys, and detours. Construction cranes and cement mixer trucks bullied the mob of cars, vans, and buses circling through the airport.
"Olympics are in town next summer," Brooks said over the stock market report droning from his car radio. "So they're building a new international terminal. Named after the mayor. For some peculiar reason, they wouldn't name it after me. I deal in international commerce more then he does."
Brooks glanced in his rearview mirror often as he squeezed onto Century Boulevard.
"What exactly is your business?"
"High tech. Very competitive and hush hush."
"Is it so hush hush you can't tell your newest employee?"
"It's in the computer business. I'll take you to Boyd-Tek's office tomorrow. Get you checked in, signed up, and serviced. You work hard, Clendon, you'll be my right hand guy in six months. It's a great business, but it's hard to find people you can trust. Out here a man's word ain't worth the Mercedes he rides around in."
Brooks pointed across the boulevard to the black glass tower of the airport Hilton.
"You're staying there," he said.
He swung a hard U turn against a red traffic light, narrowly missed an Avis bus, and pulled into the Hilton. After he dropped his Benz off with the valet, he glanced around, smiled to himself, and turned his head-bobbing radar off. They went into the lobby crowded with well-dressed American salesmen and Japanese businessmen. Brooks signed for the room and chattered with the clerk about expense accounts, tax deductions, and company image. He tipped the bellman too much to carry up Clendon's bag. In the hotel room Brooks handed Clendon $300 in cash.
"Go to Bullock's this afternoon and get yourself some sunglasses and a bathing suit. Oh yeah." He pointed at Clendon's boots and shook his head. "Deep six that cowboy crap and get yourself something decent."
Brooks pulled open the curtains. They were five floors up, facing mountains cuddled in smog.
"God, it's beautiful," he said.
"The mountains?"
"No, L. A. See that string of high rises?"
He pointed to a cluster of buildings, miles away, hunkered together at the foot of the mountains.
"My office." He smiled. "I need a drink."
The Hilton hotel bar was cool and dim and empty except for a platinum blond woman sitting alone at the bar, hunched over a pina colada. She was wearing a black miniskirt and smoking a cigarette in a holder. She glanced at Brooks. He and Clendon took a booth and ordered shots of bourbon. Clendon downed his in one quick gulp. Something felt sucked out of his spine, right between the shoulder blades.
"You look like a guy with a load of chips on his chest," Brooks said.
"It shows?"
"Like a slaughterhouse in Beverly Hills. How's Melody?"
"I don't know," Clendon said. "The day after I told Melody I'd been laid off, she ran off in my Cobbco Cadillac with another man. Cobb didn't know that Melody liked his company Cadillac better than she liked me. When I told Cobb about the stolen Caddy, he shook his head and said, 'you should've shot that bitch two years ago. Need a ride home?' He was right, too."
"What, that you should've shot her?"
"No, that I needed a ride home."
"What happened?"
"Well, I got a ride home."
"No. To Melody."
"It's been almost a year. I haven't heard a word. Not even divorce papers."
"What happened to the Cadillac?"
"I don't know. I think Cobb reported it stolen. At least he never billed me for it."
"Cobb's a sport. Is he still in business?"
"No. He filed for bankruptcy, then disappeared one day. The police think he went to Mexico with his secretary, because she's disappeared, too."
"What a God forsaken place," Brooks said.
"I'm here now," Clendon said. "Tell me about Boyd-Tek."
Brooks looked very serious.
"Boyd-Tek means future tech. Future tech means high tech. High tech means computers. Computers need software to operate, but certain software is difficult to obtain. A million dollar super mainframe computer is worthless if you can't tell it to do the right things, right? Well, I obtain the software to tell computers to do the right things. Look. It's like this. You're a landman. What's that mean? You find land. But what's so special about that? You want a certain kind of land-- land that has oil under it. You want land that has enough oil in the ground to fuel the country for a year. Land but no oil-- you're a worthless guy. Right kind of land-- with oil-- you eat apple pie with the big boys. So land without oil for you is like a computer with no software. That's my business. I put together hardware and software for the most sophisticated high tech operations in the world and being that knowledgeable and able middle man is very lucrative, old buddy."
"How'd you get started?"
"Worked for Positron as an electrical engineer and computer programmer. Positron-- we call it Posi-- is an aerospace firm that specializes in the high tech shit that's ruining your part of the country. Since Reagan made that Star Wars speech a few months ago, every executive out here has been walking around with a perpetual hard on. The whole Star Wars program is only a dream, but like all massive boondoggles for the good of the country, a lot of people will get very rich and I intend to be one of them. I decided six months ago to start my own damn company with a short client list I'd compiled from meeting the right people in and around Posi. So, Clennie, I'm going to start you as a gofer, have you meet some people, learn the biz, and no shit, buddy, in six months, you could be V. P. in charge of sales for Boyd-Tek."
Clendon stared at his empty bourbon glass. He felt tired, as if he'd jogged all the way to the coast.
"That woman has been watching you," Clendon said.
The platinum blonde smiled at
Clendon. She mashed out her cigarette but kept the holder between her fingers. She stood, wobbled on high heels toward them, and stopped at their table. Her eyes were almost black. Clendon decided she was wearing a wig.
"Do you have any Eskimo shoes?" she asked.
She blinked like she couldn't focus and then drunkenly walked away and went into the ladies room.
"It's L. A.," Brooks said.
He whipped out his eel skin wallet, took out a crisp twenty, and placed it on the table.
"Enough talk. Let's get out of here before that woman comes back. We'll get you an automobile so we can start doing some business."
* * *
Brooks drove while Clendon groped in the glove compartment. The glaring sunshine forced Clendon's eyelids into tight slits despite the Mercedes' tinted glass.
"What are you, with the FBI?"
"No, I'm looking for a map. Ah-ha!" Clendon pulled out a Thomas Guide. "I love maps."
"Everyone is allowed one secret perversion."
"No, I used to study all kinds of maps-- National Geological Survey, seismic survey, plat, landform, demographic-- I just like to know where I am at all times and where I'm going."
"A map can't always tell you where you're going."
Brooks drove north on Lincoln Boulevard as it slid through a tight curve and swooped down the side of a long, steep hill and into open, grassy marshlands. Clendon looked at the map.
"Where we going?"
"Marina del Rey."
At European Auto Leasing, Brooks flashed his American Express gold card and his business card, and they handed him the keys to a powder blue BMW 318i.
"Bosses drive the Benzes out here. Lieutenants get the BMW's. It's the pecking order."
"What about Porsches?"
"Porsches are for lieutenants who have feelings of sexual inadequacy. Do you have some problem I don't know about?"
"No problem," Clendon said.
"Good. I have to go work out now at Gold's Gym-- maybe you can go with me next week. But I want you to head for Bullock's and then meet me at ten in the morning at my office."
Brooks handed Clendon a business card. It said "Boyd-Tek, Inc.," and gave an address on Avenue of the Stars, Century City, and a phone number.
"One piece of advice, Clendon. Don't give anybody the finger when you're driving. They might pull out a gun and shoot you."
Brooks jumped into his baby shit green Mercedes, slipped into traffic, and was gone. Clendon decided to buy some polarized sunglasses to block the glare from Brooks's shiny Mercedes. He wanted a clearer look at what kind of rig Brooks was selling.
* * *
Clendon had a fantasy about Shelley. It involved a darkened movie theater and a pair of brushed denim pants, gray. They would be sitting together in the dark theater and Shelley would be wearing gray brushed denims that fit her tightly. She sat on Clendon's right, eating popcorn. The movie started. It could be any Paul Newman movie. Clendon would place his right hand on her left thigh, just above the knee, his fingers cupping the inside of her leg. He would then move his hand up her thigh slowly, about one inch every five minutes. The brushed denims were smooth and erotic. Shelley munched her popcorn, watched the movie, and never acted as if Clendon were doing anything.
It would take about an hour for Clendon to work his hand all the way up her thigh. Her thigh muscle would twitch once. She was almost finished with her popcorn and her left hand would touch and then hold his right bicep. His hand rested at the top of her thigh, his little finger grazed the material of her pants between her legs, and Clendon could feel her heat through the denim. She thrust her hips forward, slightly.
Clendon would move his hand to the button of her pants and unsnap it. Then he would unzip her very, very slowly so that no one could hear the zipper going down. When she was unzipped, he would slip his hand inside her pants and feel her soft lower belly, then move his hand farther down until he touched her first curly pubic hair, and then move his hand down even farther. She would drop her popcorn. Her eyes closed, she began breathing faster, the movie forgotten. . .
When the phone rang, Clendon had been dreaming that he wasn't dreaming the dream that he had been dreaming every night. Instead, he dreamed of Shelley and thick wads of hundred dollar bills. When the phone rang again, his eyes flipped open. When the phone rang the third time, he moved against the crisp hotel sheets, and remembered.
He groped for the phone and lifted the receiver.
"Hello?"
"Clendon?"
"Brooks?"
"Clendon, you awake?"
"No. This is a recording."
"Clendon, do you want to start today? Did you get yourself some nice shades at Bullock's?"
"I charged the whole store to Boyd-Tek. You should be receiving the bill by messenger this morning."
"Ah, speaking of messengers, Clennie, I need you to do some work for me today. Delivery. Easy, quick, and clean."
"Clean. That's a peculiar word."
"It's a peculiar town and a peculiar business, Clennie."
"I guess I'm ready."
"Good. Get your ass out of bed, check your maps, adjust your shades, get in your BMW, and haul over here to my office by ten."
* * *
Clendon slipped on his new Pierre Cardin sunglasses with the blinders. He felt like a real L. A. guy driving the new BMW and wearing his new Allen Solly oxford shirt and his new Calvin Klein slacks and tie. He had kept his boots. The Alfani oxfords he had tried on had hurt his feet.
On the San Diego Freeway, bumper-jammed cars stretched in front of him to the mountains and behind him to the airport. Drivers read the paper. Men shaved. Women brushed their hair, applied eyeliner, and preened in the mirror. Clendon cruised the radio dial and tuned into a talk show.
"This is Dr. Bruce Hoffman. You're on the air."
Dr. Bruce's voice was smooth and overly calm.
"Hello?"
The woman caller was scared.
"Come on, dear. Get to the problem."
"My husband likes to go to the track."
"He gambles?"
"He loves those ponies."
"More than he loves you, you feel?"
"Yes."
"He loses a lot of money?"
"All of his paycheck yesterday."
"And that's devastating to you?"
"Very. And also. . . "
"What, dear?"
"He beats me when he loses."
"He beats you when he loses. Did you call the police?"
"Why?"
"Why? Because he's assaulting you and that's against the law."
"But he can't help it. I've tried to help him. . . "
"You called me. He didn't call me. I can only help you."
"Okay. I just don't know what to do."
"Call the police. Your husband is dangerous and needs to be dealt with by law enforcement."
"But I can't-- "
Locked in on Dr. Bruce, Clendon missed his exit. He squeezed over to get onto the next off ramp. Above it, a billboard loomed over the traffic. It was a painting of a woman's lean, vacant face, her lips pursed in a bored pout. She was gazing into the sky, her eyes arrogantly avoiding any onlooker. On the woman's head sat a pill box hat that Clendon fixed on, mystified, until a red Corvette behind him honked its horn. Finally, he could see that the pill box hat was actually a picture of a shopping center. Beneath the blank gaze of the woman, spreading out behind and beyond the billboard, lay the immense green lawn of a large cemetery, its thousands of identical white tombstones running in perfect rows.
* * *
Brooks's office was in a radiant, glassy spicule of Century City. The building's underground parking garage brimmed with white Rolls Royces, gold Mercedes-Benzes and red Porsches. There were plants in the lobby, Spanish tile floors, and bored security guards. Boyd-Tek was listed on the building directory-- 425.
Clendon rode up the elevator with t
wo bleached blond secretaries. It appeared that they had spent a week's salary on their perfume, clothes, makeup, and hair. They stayed on the elevator when Clendon got off on four. He checked his tie in a full length mirror then went down the hall to a door labeled "Boyd-Tek" in calligraphic lettering. Clendon went in.
Another bleached blonde with her dark roots showing sat at a desk with a nameplate: Tricia. She was about twenty. Her skin had an orange cast from excessive tanning.
"Clendon Lindsey to see Brooks Boyd, please."
"Do you have an appointment?"
"Yes."
Tricia picked up her office phone and pushed two buttons.
Brooks bounded into the hall, grinning. "Clennie! In here babe!" He turned to Tricia. "No visitors, no calls till he leaves." Brooks waved at him. "This is the command module."
Brooks's office had a large computer terminal, a phone with a dozen buttons, video monitors, electronic decks, polished chrome and black leather furniture, Sooner football photographs on the walls and a view of the Santa Monica mountains.
"Look." Brooks pointed out the window across the Avenue of the Stars to a curved, glass-encrusted building. "The Century Plaza Hotel. Site of Reagan's victory party. Right there."
Brooks inhaled deeply, his eyes closed. Clendon sank down on a soft L-shaped ebony leather sofa. Brooks settled into his black leather executive's chair.
"How's the football team this year?" Brooks asked.
"Overrated and out of shape. I saw 'em lose to Ohio State a few weeks ago. It was 105 and who wilted in the heat? Not the Buckeyes."
"I hate to admit it, but I dropped some coins on that game but I came out ahead for the weekend on the pros. How do they look against Texas on Saturday?"
"I wouldn't put a nickel bet against a dollar on the Sooners."
"Clendon, Clendon. I always bet on the Sooners against Texas. I don't care what the spread is, how they're doing, or who's President. I just can't bet against the Sooners when they play those goddamned Texans. I'm betting a quarter on OU."
Brooks's eyes bubbled.
"You mean $25?"
"$25,000."
"You're too serious, Brooks."
"Come on. A little action is what gives juice to life."
"All right. Put me in for ten after I make my first deal today."
Brooks sprang from his chair. "My God, Clendon! Ten thousand for you?"