Hip Cities and Lost Souls

   Mike stumbled through the crowd, disbelieving Demetre's entire tale. The circus atmosphere made it easier to disbelieve. Nothing in Hollywood was real. Not even the underlying electric fear which seemed to grip the faces around him, paranoid exchanged glances between hippies, bikers and drug people as Jesus Freaks and tourists went on blindly between.   Cops, their eyes said. Everywhere fucking cops.   Mike saw them, too, stuffed into cars on the corners, huddled into deep-set doorways. Waiting and watching, and occasionally, yanking some poor fool off his feet, to the hassle and indignity of search and bust.   It all seemed arbitrary. As if ill-luck chose its victims. And those lucky enough to miss its lottery, hurried on, afraid of the next selection a block or two later. Too many were going down. Already the ranks had thinned.   And in Mike the echoes of Demetre's illogical talk. Of heroes and villains. Of a demented fan waiting in yet deepe...

      Mike closed the apartment door quietly behind. The long angle of sunset light blinded him for a moment at the railing as he circled down the stairs to the driveway and then to the street. People sat on their lawns, pathetic little middle class kings and queens, surveying their quarter acre empires with suspicion. They eyed him as he passed, more suspicious for his wishing them a good day.   At the corner of Fountain and McCadden, a police car sat at the curb, the faces of its occupants hidden by tinted glass. But Mike could feel their gazes following him along the street and half expected the doors to burst open as he passed.   Nothing occurred-- though turning the corner he saw two more sets of cherry tops parked on either side, like gate markers to some invisible kingdom, waiting and watching for invaders. But the cops in neither car looked up.   Odd.   A moment later, a white four-door Ford pulled up, Demetre's scarred face behind th...

    The quiet pervaded the apartment interior like heavy satin drawn over it, smothering everything except for the smell-- the scent of dope remained thick in the dark air: pot smoke, melted pills from the bathroom, even the more elusive chemical bite of LSD. The party had moved on, leaving in its wake a devastation all too evident when Lance flicked on the light: spilled and broken bottles of beer, burn marks on the rug, sprawled grey piles of spilled ash and food and drink and God-knew-what-else.   In one corner, among the large gold pillows lay Dan's prone form, limbs sprawled out in four directions, his snoring nearly as loud as the music had been.   "Look at him," Mike said with a laugh. "There's the man who hoped to catch an elusive Bobo. The poor fool probably screwed all night."   Lance licked his dry lips, staring at the apartment, almost as shocked by it as he had been by the chase through Hollywood, wondering why the industrious clean-ma...

      Marie giggled at the hippies fucking on the lawn. She seemed to want to join them the way she had back at the apartment. It annoyed Lance. He hated public scenes of any kind, even arguments with Sarah, and his nerves still hadn't gotten over the chase through Hollywood. He kept looking over his shoulder expecting to see the army of Daddy's men descending upon him.   Bulldogs. Not human. Not Charlie. Even the cong had known when to give up. Lance didn't expect them to be fooled for long by his back door escape.   Yet it seemed safe here back in Free Press Bob's little haven, a bit of old insanity rather than the new variety, the line as long as usual with the same grumbling hippies staring at them as they moved.   "We're not here for papers," Lance said, echoing Mike's earlier visit, and like earlier, none of the hippies seemed to believe it, casting dark glances as Lance shoved Marie through the door.   "About time you got here!...

  "I love you, Michael," Chris whispered in his ear, sounding distant despite the closed space, her voice made raspy by weariness and running.   "What?" Mike mumbled, stirred awake by its sound, his legs and arms cramped and achy from too long sitting in one position. They had wedged themselves into a crevice of stone never meant for human occupation, part of the planetarium's decoration-- a space just side enough for them to crawl into. He'd half expected a bear or raccoon, though neither was native to this part of the country.   "I love you."   He twisted his head around to look at her face. It had the same terrible expression he remembered from every previous time they'd been together. "Are you going to start that again?"   "I don't mean to," she said, her eyes so watery that he expected a flood of tears to start at any moment. "It's just the way I feel-- the way I've always felt, even after all...