He got there twenty minutes early, locked up his bike near the Roosevelt Hotel and walked the two blocks to scope the meet point. He was relieved to see that his internet research had gotten it right: Alex Trebek’s star on the Walk of Fame was indeed right in front of the US Armed Forces recruiting center, the closest thing to a safe zone Waldo could conjure without involving the police.
He ambled west down Hollywood Boulevard, thinking about how to negotiate a face-to-face with Swag Doggg. Without the authority of a badge, simply locating him could be a challenge. He’d heard that stars do almost everything through their publicists, even arranging dates with each other, so maybe he should start by looking for Swag’s. Publicists by definition shouldn’t be hard to find.
He doubled back on the opposite side of the street, looking among the stores for a vantage on the foot traffic on both sides and from both directions. He wanted to spot Don Q and Nini before they saw him. He found a souvenir store that would work, with a big open entrance to the street and two racks of postcards to obscure him while he waited.
He was still ten minutes early, so he took a turn around the store and surveyed the cornucopia of shameless junk surrounding him, assaulting him. Having steered clear of the relatively modest kitsch shop at the coroner’s, he hadn’t been inside anything like it since his transformation. Picking up the first piece of crap he saw, a miniature fake Oscar with a tin plaque that read BEST NEPHEW, he felt the same brew of revulsion and fascination that compelled him to watch a man eat a dozen burgers. He surrendered to it now, studying every display, putting his hands on Thing after Thing that served no purpose but to be a Thing, garbage from birth—miniature cars and license plates and plastic animals, miniature currency with pictures of infamous murderers and bad presidents, miniature road signs for the 101 and 66 and Sunset and Wilshire. Hollywood, the store reminded, was hallowed ground, the very Mecca of the Religion of Pointless Waste, its Holy Trinity of Elvis, Marilyn and James Dean available for worship in your own home on matching commemorative plates.
A framed replica of Marlon Brando’s Walk of Fame star reminded him why he was there and he realized it was already one fifty-nine. He stood behind the postcards, looked both ways down the boulevard, and saw Nini and Don Q approaching from the east, half a block away. Across the street, a soldier in camouflage fatigues was coming out of the recruiting station. The grunt lit a cigarette and leaned on a rail. Perfect.
Waldo reached the meet point first and traded friendly nods with the soldier. He leaned on a rail opposite and dialed the general phone number of Swag Doggg’s record label. As he listened to the ring, big Nini and little Don Q settled in on either side of him. The soldier checked them both, watchful, without the pleasant nod he’d given Waldo.
Don Q said, “Army–Navy–Air Force–Marines, I respect the play, Waldo. And Trebek—that’s clever shit. ‘I’ll take Makin’ It through the Day Alive for a hunnerd, Alex.’” He chortled, pleased with himself. “Truth is, though, you didn’t need to sweat it. Gimme my Mem, you were walkin’ away clean anyhow.”
Waldo had been hoping to multitask, collecting some information from the record company while simultaneously taunting Don Q with his indifference. When all he got was a recorded message saying he could press his party’s extension if he knew it, he settled for the latter and put on a show, ignoring Q and saying into the void, “Hi, my name’s Colin Goldman and I’m writing a piece for Esquire on the new face of hip-hop.”
“What the fuck,” said Don Q.
Turning away from him, Waldo said, “I’d like to talk to Swag Doggg—could you put me in touch with his publicist?”
Don Q circled Waldo and looked up at him, eyes to chin. “You shittin’ me? I’m takin’ hours out of my busy calendar, and you gonna stand here on the phone and chitchat?”
Waldo ignored him again, turning and taking a couple of steps away. Still into the phone, he said, “I could cold call, but if you gave him a ring first as an icebreaker, that would be a big help—”
Nini reached out and snatched the phone from Waldo’s hand. Waldo looked Nini in the eye and flicked a cool thumb in the direction of the soldier, who stared at Nini and exhaled smoke through his nostrils. Don Q tipped his head and Nini hit a button, ending the call, but handed the phone back to Waldo.
The soldier, eyes still on Nini, dropped his cigarette butt on the ground, stubbed it with his boot and went back inside. But he’d established himself as a presence and a witness and Waldo felt safe. Better still, he could see he was getting under Don Q’s skin.
Don Q said, “Pretty bold to be disrespectin’ me, especially in light of Lorena’s final hours. You shoulda seen her eyes when I lit that match, bro—”
Waldo cut him off. “I talked to her.” It was a stretch but not a lie. Don Q looked at him like it wasn’t possible; no doubt he’d been told the same things about Lorena’s fiery death that Waldo had, maybe even saw the same photograph. “Uh-huh, she’s alive.”
“Not what I heard.”
“Yeah? Well, A, you weren’t the one who killed her, and B, it wasn’t Lorena that got killed. That was someone else in her husband’s car.”
Almost under his breath, Don Q said, “Shit.”
Waldo said, “But I do have your flash drive. So how about you put a lid on the gas-o-line talk and tell me why Lorena was messing with you in the first place.”
“I don’t gotta answer your questions.”
“You do if you want the Mem.”
Don Q fell quiet and then said, “Nini, go buy yourself an ice cream cone.”
Nini threw Waldo a glare but left, heading east on Hollywood toward the Chinese Theatre.
Don Q said, “When I find that bitch, she is dead. You know that.”
Waldo didn’t say anything.
“Lorena was workin’ for me. Not what you think.” Waldo wondered what Q thought he thought. “Marital surveillance, for my sister. Watchin’ my lazy-ass brother-in-law.”
“Go on.”
“First my sister don’t like what Lorena drags up. Then she don’t like Lorena. Then she wants me to renegotiate Lorena’s fee.”
Waldo shook his head.
“Don’t look at me like that. My sister’s trouble, man. She scares me. She scares Nini.”
Two beatings, days of grieving over Lorena, plus somebody did get burned to death in Lorena’s husband’s car, whoever and whyever that was. Waldo said, “That’s your problem with Lorena? A billing dispute?”
“Started that way. Coulda been resolved a lot easier, but your girl had to go and escalate. Came to see me at this chop shop in Pacoima I use for an office. I got my laptop out, bitch sees this Mem stick sittin’ there and palms it. Palms my Mem. Calls me later, tells me it’s collateral on the sum she claims I owe her.”
“The sum you do owe her.”
“Waldo. First rule of life in the private sector: you only owe what the owe-ee can collect.”
Waldo said, “This is bullshit. You want the Mem, it’s simple—let Lorena come back to L.A. Whack out the rest in small claims court.”
“No deal. Fuck up my rep, I let her get away with that kinda disrespect.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I don’t gotta suggest nothin’. You need to hand that shit over. Time’s on my side. Lorena pops up, I kill her. Mem pops up, I kill you. And before that, I find you alone, without the benefit of half the fuckin’ Pentagon—”
Before he could finish the thought, Big Jim Cuppy was on them, saying, “Okay, assbags—against the wall. Both of you.” He spun Waldo off the rail and began to pat him down. Don Q assumed the frisk position without assistance.
The same soldier burst out of the recruiting center, ready to bust it up. “Problem out here?”
“LAPD,” Cuppy said. “All under control.” The soldier looked Waldo’s way, not sure he was buying it. Cuppy flashed his badge and said, “Back to your tank, GI Joe. I got this.” The soldier took a step toward him but, presumably deciding that punching out an LAPD wasn’t worth the paperwork, sniggered and went back inside.
Don Q said, “Cuppy, man—you should have more respect for the brave men and women who protect our way of life.”
Cuppy found Waldo’s Beretta tucked in the back of his jeans. “Looky, looky. You got a permit for this? ’Cause if not, I could send you to live in a state cabin for a couple years. You’d like it—they let you keep about ten things.”
Don Q cackled. Waldo scowled at him. “Sorry, Waldo, but that shit is risible. That means it’s funny.”
Cuppy stuck the Beretta into his own belt and resumed patting Waldo down.
Waldo said, “If you’re looking for this asshole’s flash drive, you’re out of luck. I didn’t bring it.”
Don Q flared. “What?! But you brought a piece?! You are one nervy muthafucker.”
Cuppy turned Waldo back around. “Where is it?”
Waldo answered with only a shit-eating grin.
“Okay, then,” Cuppy said, turning to Don Q. “We’ll do it this way: you’re under arrest for the murder of Lorena Nascimento.” He turned back to Waldo. “And you are an accomplice.” He reached for his handcuffs.
Don Q cackled again and said to Waldo, “Want to read this boy the six o’clock news?”
Waldo said to Cuppy, “You can’t arrest me for Lorena.”
“No? Why not?”
“You didn’t have an ID from the lab when you showed me that picture, did you.”
“So?”
“So she’s alive. I’ve heard from her.”
“You’re lying.” Waldo imagined the mockery and abasement Cuppy would endure when it was discovered that he’d arrested two men for the homicide of a perfectly healthy woman. It must have bubbled into a smug and confident grin, because Cuppy read it and said, “Fuck!”
Waldo looked from Cuppy to Q and back. “Can I just say? Both of you suck at your jobs.”
Q took his hands off the wall. “Cuppy wasn’t gonna book us for Lorena anyway. He plays that bullshit with me alla time, reachin’ for any new squeeze he can think of, see if it’ll work. That’s what all this shit’s about, even the Mem: I’m the only businessman in town don’t grease this cocksucker.”
Seething, Cuppy said, “Little man, you ought to watch your mouth on days you don’t have that douchebag Eskimo following you around.”
Waldo nodded at something over Cuppy’s shoulder.
Cuppy turned to see Nini standing right behind him, eating a pink ice cream cone, double scoop. He handed the cone to Waldo, crumpled Cuppy with an overhand right, then reclaimed the cone and took another lick.
Don Q apparently wasn’t considering all this a bonding episode. He said to Waldo, “Next time I see you, you ain’t carryin’ a little present for me, I’m breakin’ a piece offa you instead. C’mon, Nini.”
Don Q stepped over Cuppy and he and Nini headed back down Hollywood Boulevard.
Cuppy sat up, blinking like a man who hadn’t been concussed in a while. Waldo said, “‘Eskimo’ is pejorative,” which befuddled the woozy cop even more, as did the hand Waldo offered to help him stand. Cuppy was big and useless and Waldo needed a second arm around his waist to lift him, giving his rib cage a fresh twinge. Cuppy stood on the sidewalk, trying to shake out the cobwebs. Waldo clapped him on the arm and pointed him in the opposite direction from the others, and Cuppy tottered away.
Waldo took his Beretta, which he’d plucked from the rear of Cuppy’s belt, and discreetly shoved it back into his own. Cuppy’s badge he tossed in a sewer.