43 - Message from Bobo

 

 

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-machine in Sarah hadn't compelled her to start straightening up. He reached down to shake Dan but Mike stopped him.

 "Let him sleep," he said. "Who knows when any of us will get the chance again."

 Mike motioned Marie towards a second clumping of pillows and settled down beside her, obviously intent upon joining in Dan's oblivion. Marie looked docile again, and tired, and swiftly fell to sleep.

 Lance sighed and pushed through the beaded curtain into the hall, half expecting to find overdosed bodies sprawled on the bathroom floor. He found only the remnants of their journey, broken needles, burned spoons, and a few empty bags of dope in the sink. Dan's room contained excess clothing left behind from the orgy-- but no people. The master-bedroom door yawned at him, revealing that room empty, too, and he stopped, startled, blind to the torn clothing and scattered bed sheets. Sarah should have been here and wasn't. And the slatted, partially opened windows stared back like a doped set of eyes.

 He rushed back to the main room and kicked at Dan's feet till the man grumbled awake.

 "Where is she?" Lance roared.

 Dan snorted and coughed, his crinkled eye lids raising slowly as if from the dead. He stared for a moment, the pot haze pealing away into slow recognition. "Huh?"

 "Sarah!" Lance said, in loud impatience. "Where did she go?"

 Dan blinked-- a little more consciousness appearing in his eyes, though he looked puzzled. "She not in your room?"

 "No, she isn't!" Lance snapped, aware of Mike and Marie stirring to his right, growing impatient with him.

 "Then I guess she took off with the others."

 "To where?"

 Again came the shrugged. "Dale's place, I suppose. At least that's what some of them mumbled."

 "And you let her go?"

 This time Dan's gaze grew hard, his mouth twisting up into a snarl beneath the thick strands of moustache. "Look, man," he said. "I'm not your old lady's keeper. If you were so worried about it, why did you take off?"

 Lance's open mouth clamped shut. He hadn't an answer to that. Maybe Marie had been right earlier about him not being able to face Sarah's games any more, using Marie as shield and excuse. Dan waited for a moment, then closed his eyes again.

 "Get some sleep, Lance," he said.

 "Yeah, sure," Lance mumbled and staggered towards the bedroom again, stopping himself in the hall beyond the beaded curtain. He settled in Dan's room, where the scent of human sweat remained as reminder to the earlier events. He found himself a corner and settled into it, tired, but afraid of sleep. He didn't need the details as to why she'd gone. He could call up the scene out of the patchwork of his own fights with her, hearing her protest at Dan's ending the party as clearly as he could hear the rising city outside the apartment, her expression enraged when discovering Dan had acted on Lance's orders.

 She would have raged over the ruin of her small pleasures, agreeing with Dale's accusations of fascism, the big man inviting the part over to his house where "Nazi's like Lance" couldn't interfere with their games.

 And Sarah would have gone.

 Eagerly. Vengefully. Singing the woeful tune of the abused old lady.

 Lance just doesn't understand me. He thinks I'm still a child.

 Where did Dale live? Lance had heard it mentioned a few times in passing, but had paid little attention. Somewhere East of Hollywood.

 Echo Lake?

 That sounded right. No doubt L.A.'s dilapidated public transportation had buses there. But Lance didn't picture himself dragging a kicking and screaming Sarah back here by that means. Even if he found Dale's place, what guarantee did he have anyone would let him in.

 Lance the Fascist. Lance the Bring down.

 Suddenly, he felt empty and exhausted-- and the condition of the place mattered as little to him as L.A. itself. All he wanted was sleep, and slowly, he forced his eyes closed letting himself seep down into the darkness.

 

                  ***********

 

 Heavy pounding shook Lance awake, far from the mild tapping earlier at Free Press Bob's. He opened his eyes. Afternoon light illuminated the room, giving the stucco ceiling and ivory walls an orange tint.

 A duck-walking Mike appeared in the door, motioning Lance into the front room.

 "No," he hissed. "Don't stand up. They can see you."

 "Who can see me?" Lance asked, as confused as Dan had been earlier, not quite able to sort reality out from the dreams. Dreams of high mountains and younger Sarah and a guiltless self.

 "Don't know," Mike hissed. "Maybe the police."

 Dan crawled passed Lance and Mike in the hall. "I'll peek out and see. Just get someone to the door."

 Of course, it had to be the police, the next logical step in this spell of ill-luck. Sarah gone. The money gone. Now jail for them all.

 "Get to the door," Mike said, holding open the beaded curtain as to not make a sound. "But don't answer them until Dan gives the okay."

 Lance nodded-- the door handle warm from convention with the sun, the image of a bloated face floating in the peep hole-- not a cop's face from what he could tell. Too much hair.

 "It's not the fuzz," Dan said, rolling into  room again, breathless, his reddened face suggesting a held-back cough. "Just some hippie I've never seen before."

 "Take this," Mike said removing a pistol from his belt. "Cover him from the window. I'll slip out onto the balcony. Let Lance answer the door." He produced a second pistol for himself, then slipped passed the covered balcony door. Dan hesitated for a moment, then eased noiselessly back into the hall beyond the beaded curtain. Marie stared up at Lance from the floor, more like a small child than ever, though her eyes shimmered with the texture of glass.

 "Well?" she asked. "You going to answer the door or what?"

 He turned the handle slowly and brought the door back sharply against its chain, pushing his face into the opening. "What do you want?" he asked coldly.

 The poor fool staggered back, blinking madly in the bright light, obviously stoned, obviously unused to daylight or unpleasant welcomes.

 "Look, man," the hippie said. "I'm just here to deliver a message."

 "From who?"

 "Free Press Bob, man. If you don't want none of it, that's all right with me. I don't want to be here either. Can you dig?"

 Lance's shoulder's sagged and he laughed. "A little late, aren't you?"

 "Huh?"

 "You were supposed to be here last night with the message for Mike."

 The hippie's thick brown brows crinkled down over his squinting eyes. "Last night, man? I don't know nothing about last night or any cat named Mike. I just got the message this morning and it’s for a dude named Dan. This is his pad?"

 Lance managed a nod.

 "Good, man," the hippie said, pushing an envelop through the opening. "I've been real paranoid carrying this thing with all the cops running around this morning. Be cool."

 And with that the hippie left, feet pounding down the stairs to the driveway. Lance closed the door. Mike and Dan crashed into the room.

 "Let me see that!" Dan said and snatched the letter out of Lance's hand, tearing it open, sending shreds of paper to the cluttered floor. He read it and laughed. "Got him! The son of a bitch wants to meet and make a deal."

 "Then the ploy worked," Mike said.

 "To a point. It's bound to be a setup."

 "You want me to go with you?"

 "You can't. You have to be in Venice."

 They stopped speaking and only Marie stared at Lance, but he felt their attention on him, waiting for him to say something.

 "All right, I'll come with you," Lance snarled. "But I don't want to wind up in the middle of a shootout."

 "You worry too much," Dan said, patting Lance gently on the shoulder. "No one's going to get violent unless Bobo gets stupid."

 "Where does he want to meet?" Mike asked.

 Dan consulted the note. "East end of the Boulevard-- near Vermont."

 "And near where Billy did in the cops. Be careful, man."

 "I know," Dan mumbled. "I know."

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