“Gorgeous,” Cleo said, and smiled up at the Cyclops again.
A tide of red swept from the base of Clop’s throat to the top of his ears. “You really think so?” he asked the joker girl. She nodded vigorously. “Would you like to have dinner tonight?” he asked. Cleo nodded again.
“Gee, isn’t that just… swell,” muttered Goathead. “I’m going home.”
“Wait,” Finn cried. “We haven’t…”
But Clops and Cleo were strolling off with her arm tucked through his, while tourists on a bus gawked out the window and shot photos. Goathead went clattering off around the corner. Finn took a last look up at Marlowe’s window. Inspiration did not descend. Finn headed off down Hollywood.
In the old days the Boulevard had been a magical, glamorous place. Now it had fallen on hard times. The street was lined with cheap tourist shops selling tee shirts, tacky memorabilia and maps to stars houses. Hookers, male, female and joker, worked the corners, fading down side streets when an L.A.P.D. cruiser would roll past. Down those side streets the robbers waited. They generally left the hookers alone. Tourists were easier targets.
Finn, depressed and in a brown study, wasn’t paying much attention to where he was going or who he passed. He had to tell his father he couldn’t do this, and they had to call the police. Then a familiar voice called out to him. “Hi, Bradley.”
“Tanya.” He looked around, but he didn’t see any evidence of a boyfriend or even one or two of the Bimbo Battalion. “Are you alone?”
“Yeah.”
“This is not a good part of town for you to be in.” She laughed. “No, I’m serious.”
“So escort me,” she demanded.
Finn felt like a sun had started burning down in the pit of his belly. The warm good feeling spread upward and broke out in a broad grin. “Sure. Where do you want to go?”
“I was going to Musso and Franks. Have you eaten?”
Banishing the thought of the short stack of pancakes, egg and sausage he had consumed only two hours before, Finn shook his head no. “But Musso’s is tough for me. Pretty much nothing but booths and narrow isles. Do you like Chinese?”
Tanya nodded. “But only in Chinatown.”
“Do you know Hop Li’s?” She shook her head. “Come on, you’re in for a treat. I’m parked over by Grumann’s.” She slid her arm through Finn’s and the bright glow seemed to explode out the top of his skull. He forgot about Grace Kelly, the movie, even Stan. He was prancing down the Walk of Fame with the prettiest girl in Hollywood.
Tanya did have a pretty good location. Off Melrose on the fringes of Beverly Hills. Lunch had been terrific, and he didn’t mean the food. They had talked for two hours, and by the second hour Tanya kept laying her fingers gently on his wrist. Once she had even brushed a hand through the hair at the nape of his neck. Finn offered to drive her home. She agreed with a secretive little smile and then briefly touched the tip of her tongue to her bottom lip. Finn sensed she was going to invite him in. Then during the drive to North Hollywood Finn had started to worry. What if she lives in one of those nineteen fifties apartment buildings with the concrete and metal exterior stairs. There is no way I can negotiate those.
Tanya directed him up a quiet street off Melrose, and Finn felt his spirits soar. The street was lined with nineteen twenties duplexes. Most were not aging well. There was missing stucco, missing tiles on the Spanish roofs. Tanya’s was differentiated by the fact it had beautiful landscaping. She followed his look. “I take care of the landscaping in exchange for half the rent.”
“Wow, you’re an incredible gardener. You could do this professionally,” Finn said enthusiastically then realized from way the skin around her mouth tightened that he’d said the wrong thing. “Look, I wasn’t suggesting it as the fall back position when you don’t make it as an actress.”
She gave him a smile, and it was the first one Finn had seen that didn’t seem calculated. “You’re a nice guy, Bradley Finn.” He felt the same rictus tightening of his cheek muscles as his smile went thin. “And no, I don’t mean that as a kiss off. I mean it as a come on.” And she leaned over and kissed him on the lips. Her tongue flicked out to explore his lips. Finn suddenly couldn’t breath. “Now come on in.”
The duplex was sparsely furnished, something which he suspected had more to do with poverty then design. But it was clean and almost obsessively neat and the spicy scent of incense gave it an exotic feeling.
Tanya walked backwards down the short hallway, unbuttoning his shirt as they went. Finn was willing to follow. At that moment he would have followed her anywhere. She yanked off her tank top, took Finn’s hands, and cupped them around her breasts. The skin was warm, slightly sweaty, and very soft. He ran his thumb across her nipples, feeling the roughness as they puckered. She pushed his shirt off his shoulders. He felt it slid across his back and down his side and his horse hide quivered at the tickle.
Gasping, he pulled her close and kissed her. The flesh on their chests seemed to lock together, glued by sweat. Tanya tugged him forward. Finn opened one eye to see where they were going.
It was then that, if not sanity, practicality returned. Finn looked at the bed. “I can’t use that.”
That seemed to rattle her. “What?”
“I can’t get down like that. And even if I could I’d squash you. I weigh about four hundred pounds.” She retreated several steps. Too much information, Finn though with a cringe. Didn’t need to mention the weight thing.
She glanced at the walls of the room. “So what do we do?”
“Put the mattress on a table.” A new worry intruded. “Do you have a dining room table?”
She looked around the room again. “Yeah, but I don’t want to make love in there.”
“We could carry it in,” Finn suggested and cringed because he thought he was sounding desperate. Probably because he was desperate.
“There’s not enough room,” she said.
“Yes there is if we set it horizontal to the foot of the bed.”
She was looked desperately around the room again. “It won’t work. Look, what do you say we hold this thought, and you come back later. I can get some help moving the table…”
“What, you need movers? How big is this table? I can move the table.”
She was staring past his shoulder. Nausea replaced the earlier hot tingle of arousal. For the first time Finn took a hard look at the bedroom. He noted the way the track lighting spotlighted the bed. He spotted the tiny shotgun mike nestled next to one of the light cans. Careful mincing sidesteps with his hind feet brought him around to face the side wall. It wasn’t a large hole. It didn’t to be. He wasn’t sure if he saw or only imagined the glint of light off the camera lens. It didn’t matter. He gulped down tears of rage and shame and went galloping out the door of the bedroom.
Harry Gold popped out the bathroom door, and waved his arms over his head. “Whoa, whoa!”
Finn reared, forelegs pawing the air. It was a trick that usually made people step back. Harry Gold froze and stood staring admiringly up at Finn. Suddenly Finn realized what was holding the producer’s unwavering attention. Finn felt his balls trying to retreat, and his penis pulled as far back in his sheath as was possible. He dropped back to all fours and rushed past the porn producer. He felt his horse shoulder connect with Gold. There was a loud thump and a shout of pain from the little man.
Finn didn’t look back. He sprinted for the front door. As he charged through the living room, his hind brain noticed the dents in the carpet where furniture had stood. Far from being sparsely furnished, the room had been packed with furniture. They had moved it for him so he would have a straight shot to bedroom, led by his dick. Shame and humiliation were a foul and oily taste on the back of his tongue. Bradley yanked open the front door.