Fade to Blonde

I rolled in a new page and wrote Move Across Town. L.A. was a big place. Scarpa wouldn’t waste time looking for me. Hell, I could go stay with Joanie in Baldwin Park. Sure. Her and me and Lewis. Of course, Hollywood, Culver City — every reason I had for being in this town was on the West Side. Right in the middle of Scarpa’s patch. So if I wanted to, I could go crawl into a corner somewhere and live the way Rebecca did, looking over my shoulder every time I left my room. And again, what money was I going to use until I got set up? Sure, sell the car. And how was I going to get around? Or get to my new job, once I got it? I pulled out the paper and crumpled it, then smoothed it out, then crumpled it again and threw it away.

I rolled in a new page and wrote Talk to Scarpa. No. There wasn’t a damn thing I could say to Scarpa, nothing I could offer him. I could show him newsreel footage of somebody else burning down his whorehouse and he’d want me gone or dead just the same. He was tired of thinking about me.

I x’d out Scarpa and wrote in Burri. But that wasn’t any good either. Burri got a kick out of me, but I’d shut down one of his lieutenants’ businesses. One of his businesses. Could I convince him I hadn’t? And even if I could, the old man might like to ride Scarpa a little, but he wasn’t going to bang heads with him over some yegg he’d just met.

I wondered what Round Head and Green Eyes were doing just then. I could see them coming up my walk. Going to see the cutie, one last time.

I thought about making another grilled cheese sandwich.

I rolled in a fresh sheet and wrote Exterior. Day.

I started with a medium shot of a young woman swimming. She was swimming beautifully, and you got the light moving on the water after she went by, but that’s not a shot to open on, and I x’d it out and tried a long exterior of a convertible coming down a dirt road. There were half-built houses all around. A woman behind the wheel. A little dust coming up behind the car and hanging in the air. Her hair was loose, but that was all you could tell. You couldn’t see her face, so you kept watching. Her face could wait. You knew she was beautiful. That was all right as far as it went, that would photograph, but what then? She was in trouble, she was on the run. In a car like that? Sure. Maybe. She was going to meet somebody. She had high hopes and the world on a string, but he was going to set her up, he was going to betray her. He? I felt the air coming out of it. There had to be a guy, but what sort, for a woman like that? I thought of a few and set them talking to her. But she only looked their way because it was in the script, and all that came out of anyone’s mouth was Noel Coward crap. I couldn’t get them going. All I really had was her moving beautifully and silently, in the water or a blue convertible, no one getting anywhere near. I’d never seen a movie like that, and I didn’t think I’d buy a ticket if they made one. I killed a few more sheets, then lay my arms on the desk and my head on my arms. When I opened my eyes it was dark, and someone was hammering on my door and weeping.

I opened the door and Rebecca half-fell inside. “You wouldn’t open up!” she shrieked. “You just sat there!”

Her nose had bled down her chin and neck, long enough ago that the blood was drying and her nose was running mucus now over the blood. There was a scrape on her forehead and her hair and dress were filthy with dry red dirt and something that could have been oil. It was a party dress with a satin yoke collar, and it had been ripped down one side so that she had to hold it up with her hand, and the bottom hem was ragged and dangling. One knee had been bleeding and was bleeding again. Her feet were bare and dusty and her stockings hung in dark shreds from her ankles. Her red eyes kept squinting and widening. “You just sat there! I saw you through the window! I saw you. Lorrie’s dead,” she cried, “he’s dead, he’s the only one who didn’t think I was a liar, and now he’s dead, and he’ll kill me, he’ll kill me next.”

I held her. Her back was damp with cold sweat. I took her purse and dropped it on a chair. She let go of her dress. It slid down her ribs, and a sharp stink of hysteria rose from inside. “Where’s Halliday now?” I said, stroking her cold back.

“I don’t care, I don’t care,” she said, sobbing. “He can kill me if he wants. But I just can’t be running around like this anymore.”

“Becky, does Halliday know you’re here?”

“Nobody knows,” she sobbed. “Nobody knows.”

“Becky. If Halliday’s coming, I have to get ready.”

“I told you he doesn’t know. He left me out there. He left me. Lorrie tried to save me, and he killed him, just shot him, and I thought he was going to kill me too, but he just — ” Her voice had risen to something that was almost a whistle, and she had to force the words out. “He took my — car! And he was beating me! And I was running, and he was laughing at me!”

“All right,” I told her. “It’s all right now.”

“He killed him, Ray, he shot him like it was nothing. Like it was nothing.”

“It’s okay.”

“He’ll come here,” she said.

“No he won’t. You said he doesn’t know where you are. Look. I’m locking the door now, and bolting it. That’s the only door. And I’m closing the curtains, all right? And look, Becky.” I opened the desk and took out my gun. It made a good clunk when I set it down on the blotter. “See? We’re ready for anyone. Now let’s get you cleaned up a little.”

“I’m very dirty,” she said.

“You’re a sight,” I said. I slipped off what was left of her dress and stockings and dropped them in the waste-basket. I undid her brassiere, then gave her a quick onceover and had her move her arms and fingers. Nothing broken. I wrapped her in a blanket and sat her down in the armchair while I ran a bath, and had her watch my fingertip as I moved it around in circles in front of her face. No concussion I could see. The bath was ready then, and I helped her into it. She blinked and looked around, and worked her feet in the water. I handed her the soap and she began to wash the blood from her face.

An Avianca stew had left half a bottle of blue dolls in my medicine cabinet. She only used to need two to put her away for the night. I gave Rebecca four with a finger of Old Overholt. “I don’t want it,” she said.

“Drink.”

I took the glass from her and helped her lather up her hair. “Becky? Where did all this happen?”

“Don’t want to think about it.”

“Tell me.”

“Down past Crenshaw.”

“Where exactly?”

“Where Crenshaw jogs over, past 405? As if you’re going to the airport, and there’s a little hill and those jointed oil things. That look like bugs. Crickets.”

“Which one? Near which of the pumps? Can you remember?”

“Don’t know. Three or four of them. There’s a little silver shack. Listen, Ray?” She sat up in the water and looked at me with wide eyes to show me how reasonable she was being. “I decided, he can have my face if he wants, because don’t you think he’d leave me alone then? And be satisfied? It doesn’t matter what I look like if he’ll just leave me alone, but I can’t be running around like this. I can’t be scared all the time.”

“Close your eyes,” I said, and dunked her head in the water. She reached back and worked her fingers through her hair, then sat up again.

“We didn’t get it all out,” she said. “But don’t you think he’d leave me alone then? It doesn’t matter what I look like. How I look’s never brought me anything good.”

“What were you doing down there past Crenshaw?”

“We went for a ride. He must’ve followed us.”

“From where? Where had you been?”

“Don’t know.”

“We need to dunk you again,” I said. “There. I think that’s all of it.” I lifted one of her feet from the water. “You’ve got some blisters coming up. Want me to take care of them?”

“Yes please,” she said, speaking very clearly. She was starting to go.

I didn’t have a needle, so I got out a fresh razor blade and used the corner. She acted as if I was doing it to someone else’s feet. “There. Let’s get you dried off and in bed now.”