cleaner.
There was a french press filled with cold yellow urine next to the bed when I came in. He pointed at it. I emptied it in the en suite bathroom.
“Giuh hanbac for a hajaa,” he said repeatedly.
It was only when I was leaving that I realized he was saying, “I’ll give you a hundred bucks for a hand job.”
Meth and booze are a killer combination as consistent as cocaine and heroin, so defying Esteban, I put the Ice 9 behind two shampoo bottles on the top shelf of the bathroom cabinet-hopefully he’d need to be reasonably sober to find it.
I closed the front door and walked up the hill to the next residence, an easy one, that of an actor called Bobby Munson who was in L.A. and apparently not coming to Fairview at all this winter. There I did some light dusting and flushed the toilets.
The next house, a weekend retreat for a rich Denver family, was also empty. They had a Dyson vacuum cleaner and it was almost a joy to run that thing around. I dusted, emptied trash, made beds, ate fruit from their fridge. Oranges, grapes, and a kiwi that I lovingly cut, peeled, and diced into quarters. They seemed just the type to have a hidden camera that spied on the help, but fruit was my American obsession and what difference did petty larceny make when I was planning a kidnapping and worse.
Yuri Amatov was a production designer-whatever that is-a skinny, bald man about forty. When I rang the doorbell, he took my arm and led me inside.
“Where is it?” he asked.
“Excuse me,
“Where the fuck is it?” he screamed.
I reached into my messenger bag and brought out the cellophane-wrapped meth. He snatched it from me. “Now fuck off,” he said.
“The cleaning,
“What part of ‘fuck off’ don’t you understand?”
Another walk. The gradient increased as you went farther up the hill; seemingly the climate zone changed too. The wind was blowing from the north, the temperature had fallen considerably, and the sky was filled with ominous gray clouds.
“Looks like snow,” I said to myself with no excitement whatsoever.
These thoughts left my mind at Youkilis’s house.
Gravel drive. Carved wooden door. Bell. Paul Youkilis came to the door in a sweatshirt, sweatpants, flip- flops.
“You’re late,” he said, looming over me.
“I’m sorry, we-”
Youkilis raised a hand. “I don’t want the details, just get this shit cleaned up. It’s driving me crazy.”
He smiled and added, “Christ, I sound like such a fucking feudalist. Get this shit cleaned up,
The conditions were Chinese food cartons, newspapers, a couple of beer cans, and what looked like dog excrement in the kitchen.
Youkilis’s house was smaller than Jack’s. A few downstairs rooms painted in bright primary colors and adorned with Mediterranean pottery. The windows looked out on forest and there was no mountain view. I couldn’t tell if this was all he could afford or whether he had just taken it to be next to Jack. Presumably he got 10 percent of Jack’s salary, but how much did Jack make? How much did a second-string actor get in Hollywood? I should probably find out.
Youkilis went upstairs. I’d been cleaning for about fifteen minutes when I became aware that Jack was upstairs with him.
As I was changing the vacuum bag both men came down.
Evidently they had been in the middle of a heated discussion, but now neither was saying anything. Jack was wearing jeans and a blue shirt unbuttoned to the navel. His hair was product-free and he looked tired, frazzled.
Something was going on.
“Plato thought everything had a true self, an ideal form, from which all things deviated,” Youkilis said.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Jack snapped.
“Everything has to be perfect. For a movie to happen, all the stars have to align, there are so many things that can fuck up: the money, the director, the cast. Every single little thing has to be perfect.”
Jack’s face was red. “So what are you saying? I’m trying to read between the goddamn lines here. Have I lost the movie again? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Paul smiled. “Relax, buddy, you haven’t lost anything. Focus still wants to do it. This is just a hiccup. A rag in the gears, not a sabot.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, man! Can you speak English for once!” Jack yelled.
“Look, relax, I’ll talk to CAA and get the story. As I understand it, the movie’s been delayed but not postponed and not canceled. I’ll get the information. Now just fucking relax. The script is finished. We have a completed script. Can you imagine how many people are really screwed because of the writers’ strike?”
“Just get me the story, will ya?”
“Ok, ok. I’ll do my best. Probably doesn’t help that we’re in fucking Colorado, not L.A. You sit there, I’ll go and get this cleared up.”
Paul went upstairs to make a phone call. Jack sat heavily in a chair and put his head in his hands. I finally changed the vacuum bag and rewrapped a worn piece of silver duct tape around the tube. The suction was lousy but Youkilis never had to use it so what did he care.
Suddenly Jack looked up at me. “Hey, would you mind shutting that fucking thing off,” he said.
“Oh, it’s you. Sorry about that. I’m at the end of my… I’m just… I’m going to lose the fucking movie. My first real lead and it’s all going to shit.”
I nodded but I couldn’t even fake sympathy. Try working sixty hours a week for four dollars an hour like Paco, try living on a dollar a day in Havana. But although I was unable to give him a simulacrum of concern, I hadn’t meant to look contemptuous. Jack smiled. “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: Spoiled Hollywood motherfucker, doesn’t know a goddamn thing about the real world. Yeah? Something like that.”
I shook my head.
“Listen, I know about the real world. I worked hard to get where I am today. Fucking hard. Thousands of auditions. Not hundreds, fucking thousands. You know, I lost out on one of the leads on
“Who are you talking to? Are you on the cell phone?” Paul yelled down the stairs.
“See? Hear his voice? He’s shitting himself. It’s not just about the money. It’s a house of cards. This movie falls apart, what’s Plan B? There is no Plan B. And then there’s the strike. Fucking writers. And then our guild goes out. That’s a year. And there’s a whole new crop of young actors up for your part. I should be in the fucking Cruise war movie. I can do an accent.”
“Get off the phone, Jack! Don’t discuss this with anyone. We don’t know what’s happening yet.”
Jack walked to the bottom of the stairs. “I’m not on the fucking phone, you dick! Ok?”
“Then who are you talking to?” Paul shouted.
“Nobody. Ok?”
Nobody. That summed it up. But somehow it wasn’t so bad. Jack had a twinkle in his eye as he spoke, as if he knew he was giving a performance, hamming it up even for the maid.
“What did you say?” Paul shouted again.
