Los Angeles (11 page)

“I’m looking for Cassandra,” I said, giving him my ten dollars. “Is she working tonight?”

He shrugged, peering sarcastically up and down the Sunset Boulevard sidewalk. “You see anyone named Cassandra out here?”

I pushed my new asshole glasses up onto my forehead and entered the darkness.

Inside, laser light refracted through the air, cutting the murky atmosphere and transmuting the faces of patrons and dancers
into fanged, leering gargoyles. The music, as before, was dirgelike, molten rock, unrelenting, unvarying, probably ImmanuelKantLern
again. It was the same DJ in the booth again. Wearing his huge silver headphones and dark wraparounds, he hovered over the
turntables like a demented scientist over an evil experiment. The dancers thrashed in their squalid pools of hazy light as
if in slow motion. On the front stage, a tall woman with dark skin and a platinum wig gyrated crudely, her hips swaying hypnotically,
while on the other, a prototypical blonde with long, tapered limbs peeled off her dress. Her eyebrows had been shaved, I noticed,
then re-penciled at a contrived angle. The place was crowded with men — men in groups, men alone, men in pairs, men laughing,
brooding, glowering… I looked around for the waitress who had served me those Pellegrino’s the last time and discovered her
offering a tray of sodas to a group of agitated, underage boys. “Excuse me,” I said, approaching.

She wore the same purple minidress as before, but this time her velvet mask was pulled down. When she observed me through
the almond-shaped slits, her eyes were cold.

“Remember me?” I asked.

“Pellegrino, right?” She flashed an icy smile and started to walk away.

“Actually” — I had to shout over the searing music — “I was looking for Angela.”

Too quickly she said, “Angela isn’t here.”

“Do you know where she might be?”

“No,” she said, already walking away.

“She’s missing.”

The waitress stopped and turned around. Across her face glimmered a look of what I hoped was concern, but because of the mask
I couldn’t be sure.

“I live next door to her,” I went on. “She called me, and I could tell that something was wrong.” I decided not to mention
my theory about human voices and the dark. “And then I lost the connection.”

“She hung up on you?”

“No. It just —” I wasn’t sure I could explain this. “Was she here last night?”

I grabbed the waitress by the arm, and she looked at my hand as though it were a spider that had jumped on her.

I released her immediately.

“No,” the waitress said. “She definitely wasn’t here last night.”

“The night before?”

She thought for a moment. “I think she might have been here for a while. But I only worked until ten, and we’re open on weekdays
until two.”

“But you saw her? She was here?”

“I don’t remember.” She leaned toward me.
“Angel,”
she said, hissing my name, “I have to bring you something to drink. I can’t just stand around talking like this… you know
what I mean?” She glanced over to a yellow square of incandescence on the back wall. Inside it were silhouetted figures, and
from the way she regarded it, I perceived a threat.

“You don’t know what might have happened to her, do you?”

“What might have happened?” She shrugged and gave me that disingenuous smile again. “Maybe she found another client.”

“Another what?”

She released a long breath, then turned and walked away.

I was too stunned to stop her this time.

Suddenly, this new thought made me feel even worse.

The ten thousand dollars I had found in front of her duplex… Could she have been accepting money from a man? Maybe a regular
at the Velvet Mask? Perhaps he had fallen in love with her and she had taken advantage of him, accepting his gifts, and then
something had gone wrong and he had become obsessed, so he had kidnapped her and put her in the trunk of his car or had forced
her into a closet in his basement or had trapped her into a small dark place so he could keep her as his slave, and then she
had called me, finding my number on her cell phone, she had called and said my name, knowing I would come and rescue her,
just as I had rescued her in the pool, and then this man had discovered that she had the phone in her possession and took
it away and hurt her and now she was waiting for me, desperately waiting for me to save her.

I looked around in a panic.

Behind me I noticed that Buddha, his name was Lester, I remembered, sitting on his stool under the exit sign. He was dressed
in the same funereal suit as the last time I had seen him, the same long black coat, the same silvery cravat, and his face,
as before, was simultaneously tranquil and scary. “Sorry to bother you,” I said, coming closer, “but aren’t you Lester?” Even
though he wore that gloomy costume, there was something childlike about this guy, almost cherubic. I noticed a red scratch
across his face, a scrape from his jaw to his cheekbone that I hadn’t seen there the last time. I wondered if he’d had to
bounce someone, if there had been a fight.

But Lester didn’t respond; he hardly even looked at me.

A hand was tapping on my shoulder and a voice was saying, “He can’t hear you.”

I turned around.

It was a dancer, the timorously thin blonde with the penciled-on eyebrows who had been onstage when I walked in. Now she wore
a sparkling green evening gown that clung grotesquely to her emaciated ribs. Her fake breasts were like half grapefruits that
had been fastened to her pectorals. She had matching eye shadow and nails so long they curled under. Right now, one of those
lavish nails pointed to her ear, and she yelled over the music, “Lester is deaf.”

Deaf? Why hadn’t Angela mentioned that to me? “Okay,” I said, perplexed. “Maybe you can help me.”

“What do you want?”

“I’m looking for a dancer who works here. Her name is Angela — I mean, Cassandra. Do you know her?”

“Cassie!” I was rewarded with a big smile of realization. “Sure, I know her.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“No, no. Just, you know…” She made a swirling gesture that meant she only knew her from around here.

“When was she here last? Do you remember?”

She shook her head. “The other night, I guess. Monday, maybe Tuesday.”

“What do you remember?”

Her face turned to stone. “She was here, she danced, and then she left.”

“Did she leave with anyone?” I hesitated before saying, “A client?”

“What do you want to know that for?” She was teasing me like a schoolkid. “Are you her boyfriend?”

“I’m actually her fiancé,” I answered seriously. We hadn’t talked about that, of course, but I was telling myself now that
when I found Angela again, I would never let her go. I would force her to marry me. I would take her away somewhere and keep
her safe forever.

The dancer screwed up her face.
“Really?”

“She called me. I think something may have happened. She said my name and then she was cut off. That was the last I heard
of her.”

The skinny dancer suddenly became very direct, her voice dropping by an octave and a heretofore absent gleam of intelligence
appearing in her eyes. “She left with a guy.”

“What guy?” This was him, I thought. This was the guy who was holding her hostage. “Can you describe him?”

She looked at me, then shot a glance at Lester. She obviously didn’t want to say anything, or thought she shouldn’t for some
reason. “Just a guy.”

“A white guy? A black guy? What kind of guy?”

This got a laugh. “Not as white as you.”

“White, though?”

“White, middle-aged, gray suit, glasses.” She made a sweeping motion with her long nails, indicating a table full of men.
“They’re all pretty much the same, aren’t they?”

I looked around. It was true, many of the men in here
were
all the same. At least ten of them fitted that description.

White guy, middle-aged, gray suit, glasses.

I glanced back at Lester. His face was as inexpressive as asphalt. “You don’t have any idea where they might have gone?” I
asked the dancer.

“Guys like that take you back to their hotel,” she said, “and guys like that could be staying anywhere.”

“Can you give me an example?”

“The Four Seasons” — she shrugged — “the Mondrian, the Regent, L’Ermitage, Beverly Hilton, Château Marmont.” There are a lot
of business hotels in Beverly Hills and Hollywood, and she listed almost all of them. “Or maybe his apartment.”

“Thanks,” I said, then asked, “What’s your name?”

She licked her teeth, and the bimbo character reappeared. “Baby,” she said.

“I’d like to ask Lester if he saw her. Does he only understand sign language, or —”

“He can read lips,” Baby said with a slow grin. “He understands everything we’re saying right now.”

Lester got up then, as if to prove her point, wearing just the trace of a smirk on his wide, sweet face, and put his hand
around the back of my neck, gripping me like a beer can. His movements, which I was seeing for the first time, were graceful
and lithe. He glided toward the rear exit, sweeping me along.

“I guess that’s his way of saying it’s time to go,” Baby mocked.

“Why?” I choked. “What did I —”

She threw a quick look over to the phosphorescent square over the DJ booth. “Management,” she said. “They don’t like people
asking questions.” There was a more delineated silhouette in the window now, a person’s head backlit in yellow, clearly inclining
in my direction. The waitress was standing over there, too. She was pretending not to see me, I could tell, but I saw the
stiffening of her body, that unmistakable posture of apprehension as I was being escorted to the door.

I threw up my hands. “I’m leaving,” I said to Lester. “You don’t have to throw me out.”

His faint smile grew into a churlish grin. I think his eyes may even have twinkled in the laser reflections. The enormous
man walked me the few steps to the rear exit and slammed the door forcefully behind me.

I was outside. The sky was completely dark now, and I stood in a pool of dim illumination that issued from a single bulb hanging
over the Mask’s rear parking lot. A few dancers were sharing a cigarette out here, and the air was cool, almost chilly.

“Excuse me,” I said, “do any of you know a girl named Cassandra?”

They all looked at me blankly.

“Sorry,” a blonde with a thick Russian accent finally answered, “you should ask inside.”

“Thanks, anyway.” I had parked the Cadillac only a few dozen yards away, and I walked to it now. The sound of the heavy music
throbbed from within the building, but out here there was only a thin reverberation of some distant unpleasantness. I could
smell a syrupiness in the air, too, like flowers blooming. Not hyacinths, I realized, like the blossoms that flourished in
the old man’s yard. No. This was the smell of lilies, honeysuckle, oleander. Or, it occurred to me, a breeze was carrying
the dancers’ cheap perfume across the lot.

On the other side of a chain-link fence were the limits of a suburban cul-de-sac, a patch of trees, a row of duplexes, houses,
and apartment complexes, a neighborhood that covered all the territory between here and Melrose. The only light was starlight
and the artificial glow of that weak incandescent bulb. Nevertheless I pulled my asshole sunglasses down over my eyes and
slipped into the driver’s seat.

A few slots over, I noticed a black limousine with an ornate gold-lettered logo on the door that said Horace & Geary, which
I realized must be Lester’s funeral home.

I had to think for a minute.

Why didn’t they want me asking about Angela? I understood that men probably came around looking for dancers all the time —
jealous men, libidinous men, angry men. It would make sense to throw them off the trail. And the dancers, too, women who were
already on the run from something or they wouldn’t be strippers to begin with, would be naturally reluctant to answer many
questions. It was probably a simple force of habit that made these people reticent. I sat in the car and tried to envision
a scenario that made sense. I imagined that Angela had gone back to a hotel with some guy the other night, the white man in
a gray suit and glasses that Baby had described. Could it have been the same guy who left her the note?

I looked at the luminous analog clock in the ersatz bird’s-eye maple dashboard and saw that it was nearly midnight. Since
it was Friday, the Velvet Mask wouldn’t be closing until four a.m.

Here is what happened, I told myself, remembering that stupid cop.

Here is what
transpired:

Angela was being stalked by some crazy anonymous man. He had probably seen her at the Mask and started leaving those obsessive
notes on her doorstep. It had become disconcerting, even frightening, and she had been forced to move, which is why she took
the crappy apartment next door to mine on San Raphael Crescent, and which is also why that blue note had been left on the
doorstep of her place on Orange Blossom — he didn’t know she had moved. Unaware that he was her stalker, Angela had probably
left the club with him on Wednesday. She had gone to his hotel. She was with him all night, and things had gotten out of control.
He held her at gunpoint, put her in the closet or in the trunk of his car, which is when she had called me — just as I was
staring out the window looking for that fucking cat.

I glanced up now and saw that the dancers who’d been sharing a cigarette had gone back inside. The door had been left open
a crack and was releasing a neon glow and a dull throb of musical chaos from within.

The dashboard clock said it was two-forty-five.

How long had I been sitting here? Had I fallen asleep?

It was obvious what I had to do. I had to find the man in the gray suit.

White, middle-aged, gray hair, glasses — it wasn’t much to go on. Half the men in the world match that description.

I started the car, pulled out, and made my way down Sunset.

And then I imagined her voice again, and the way she said my name. The darkness. I could still hear it. I could hear every
little particle and wave of fear inside it.