transaction locales. I used to call it the scenic route. Make some quick money and get a tour of the way the other side lives.'
The same hills where Bowie Ingalls had died in a single-car encounter with a tree. The boys agreeing to meet
I said, 'Did you have lots of clients on the Westside?'
'Enough. Anyway, that's how I met Aimee. Once in a while, the boys would bring her along. When their parents were in Europe or somewhere, which was a lot of the time, those parents were always gone. When they did bring her, they'd leave her in the car and make cruel comments. Embarrassed to be seen with her. To be related to her. I went along with the program. Back then, I had not an atom of compassion in my soul, was hollow, cold, manipulative, thinking only of me, me, me, and not very much of myself, at that. Cause if I'd really thought a lot about myself, I wouldn't have done the things I did.'
He raised his arms with effort. Compressed his face and pressed his palms together.
'I was a very bad person, sir. I can't say that I'm a good person, now, and I don't give myself any credit for changing, because it was life that changed me.' A slow smile split his head. 'How much sin can a blind man with no feet get into? I'd like to think I wouldn't be bad, even with eyes and legs. But I can never be sure. I don't really feel sure of myself, here.' One hand lowered laboriously and touched his belly.
He laughed. 'Eye for an eye, leg for a leg. I ruined lots of lives, and now I'm paying for it. Almost ruined Aimee's life, too. Gave her dope- big dose of LSD, blotter acid. Her brothers' idea, but I didn't have to be talked into it. We forced her to swallow it, big joke, hahaha. She hollered and fussed and cried, and I stood around laughing with them.'
He drew a hand over sightless eyes.
'Poor little thing, hallucinated for four straight days. I think it might've changed her nervous system. Slowed her down even further, made her life even more difficult, and believe me, life had never been easy for that girl. Next time I saw her was her fourth day of freaking out. Garvey and Bobo wanted to score some mushrooms, and I was the candy man and I met them up in the hills the way we always did and there she was, sitting in the back of the car, but not still, like usual. She was rocking and moaning and crying her little eyes out. Garvey and Bobo just laughed, said she'd been tripping heavy since we blotted her, tried to plunge her hand in boiling water, had almost jumped out of a second-story window, they'd finally tied her down to the bed, she hadn't had a bath or eaten. Laughing about it, but they were worried because their parents were coming home and even though their parents didn't like her, they wouldn't have approved. So I brought her down with barbiturates.'
'Her parents didn't like her?' I said.
'Not one bit. She was different, looked it, acted it, and they were a nouveau riche family that made a big thing of looking good all the time. Country club and all that. Those boys were bad to the core, but they dressed well and combed their hair and used the right aftershave, and that made everyone happy. Aimee didn't know how to do any of that, couldn't be taught to fake it. She was less than a dog in that family, sir, and Garvey and Bobo took advantage of it. Did stuff and blamed it on her.'
'What kind of stuff?' I said.
'Anything that could get 'em in trouble- stealing money, peddling dope on the secondary market to other rich kids, setting fires for fun. They killed a dog, once. Bobo did. Neighbor's dog. Said it barked too much, annoyed him, so he tossed some poison meat at it, and after it died, he and Garvey had Caroline walk by the dog's gate a bunch of times when they were sure the neighbor was watching. So the neighbor would assume. Stuff like that. They bragged to me about it, thought it was funny. They talked about her like she was dirt. I don't know why I started feeling sorry for her 'cause really I was no better than them, but somehow I did. Something about her… I just felt sorry for her, can't explain it.'
'Obviously you weren't like them.'
'Kind of you to say so, but I know what I was.' He removed the mirrored sunglasses, revealed sunken black discs split by comma-shaped slits, scratched the bridge of his nose, replaced the glasses.
'You felt sorry for her and started baby-sitting her,' I said.
'No, I did it for the money,' he said. 'Told the boys I'd hang with her when the parents were out of town if they'd pay me. They laughed, and said, 'You could turn her out, you should pay us, bro,' figuring I wanted to do sexual things to her or maybe I was going to pimp her. And that was agreeable to them. I started coming by the house in my old Mercury Cougar and taking her places.'
'She just went along?'
'She was happy to be getting out. And she was like that- easygoing.'
'She wasn't in school?'
'Not since fifth grade. Severe learning problems, she was supposed to be tutored but never really was. She still can't really read much or do numbers. All she can do is cook and bake, but man, does she do that good, that's her God-given talent.'
'Where'd you take her?' I said.
'Everywhere. The zoo, the beach, parks, she'd keep me company when I did deals. Sometimes we'd just ride around and listen to music. I'd be high, but I never gave her anything again- not after I saw what that blotter did to her. Mostly, I'd talk- trying to teach her stuff. About street signs, the weather, animals. Life. She knew nothing, I never met anyone who knew less about the world. I was no intellectual, just a stupid junkie-pusher, but I had plenty to teach her, which tells you how pathetic her situation was.'
He craned his neck. 'Could I trouble you for another Diet Snapple, sir? Always thirsty. Sugar-diabetes.'
I brought him another open bottle, and he finished it within seconds and handed me the empty. 'Thank you much. The thing you should know is I never did anything sexual to her. Not once, never. Not that I get any credit for that. I was a junkie, and you being a doctor knows what that does to your sex urge. Then the diabetes took over, and the plumbing went south, so I haven't been much for sex in a long time. Still, I'd like to think it wouldn't have made a difference. Respecting her, you know? Not taking advantage of her.'
'Sounds like you respected her from the beginning.'
'I'd like to think so. You sound just like Dr. H. Trying to tell me something good about myself… anyway, that's the story with my Aimee. I like that name for her, chose it for her. Her family gave her the old name and they treated her like dirt so she deserved a new beginning. Aimee means friend in French and I've always wanted to go to France, and that's what she's been to me, my only real friend. Outside of Dr. H.'
He managed to place his hands on the wheels of the chair, rolled back an inch, and smiled. As if the merest movement was pleasure. 'I'm going to die soon, and it's nice knowing Dr. Harrison will be here to take care of my Aimee.'
'He will.'
The smile dissipated. 'Course, he's old…'
'Have you and he made plans?'
'It hasn't come to that, yet,' said Bill. 'We better do it soon… I've chewed your ear off, and you don't want to know about my personal problems. You're here to find out what happened to the Ingalls girl.'
'Yes,' I said.
'Poor Janie,' he said. 'I can see her face as clear as day, right here.' Tapping a mirrored lens. 'Didn't know her, but I'd seen her around, thumbing on Sunset. She and this friend she was always with, this good-looking blonde. I figured the two of them were hooking, because the only girls still thumbing were hookers and runaways looking to be hookers. Turns out they were just careless girls. The night I found them, I was driving to the party, ready to do some heavy business, saw them standing around on Sunset all confused. Not on the Strip, Bel Air, cross the street from the U. They were just a walk from the party but had no idea. So I gave 'em a lift. I still think about that. What if I hadn't?'
'You brought them to the party, then what?'
He smiled. 'Move it right along? Yeah, I brought 'em, tried to get ' em high. Janie smoked some weed, dropped some pills, drank, the blonde one just drank. We hung around together a little, it was a lunatic scene, rich kids and crashers, everyone high and horny, doing their thing in that big, old, empty house. Then Aimee showed up. Attaching to me like she always did. She was there in the first place because I'd agreed to watch her. The parents were off in India, or some place. Had just bought a bigger house, and the boys decided to give themselves a little good-bye bash. Anyway, Janie and her friend- I think her name was Melissa, something like that- were getting into the scene.'
