Malcolm had seen dozens of women leave the shopping center and go to their cars, but this was the one he wanted. She drove an old gray Volvo sedan, and she was alone. He followed her, careful to keep a car between them like in the movies, and that part was thrilling. He knew that nothing was going to happen. He was only playing a game, a stalking game. She wasn’t going to pull into an underground parking garage like the last one. It couldn’t happen like that again. He was just fooling around, just passing the time until his anger subsided and he could go home.
Malcolm followed her onto a residential street six blocks east of the Wilshire Country Club. She lived in a bungalow, the type he’d seen in movies about old Hollywood. It was white stucco with a Spanish-tile roof. There was a tiny yard in front and there were lots of other small houses nearby. He parked half a block down the street, leaned back, fingers interlaced behind his head, and closed his eyes. He was just waiting to grow calm again. He needed a good night’s sleep, he thought. Soon he was dozing fitfully.
The first “clients” arrived a few minutes before 6:30 P.M., and Dewey, with his best Realtor’s smile, met them on the front porch, holding the door wide open. They were a young Latino couple, he with a pronounced accent, she with a slight accent and a baby in her stomach. Dewey figured they were no older than twenty, and they were shy.
The husband had the look of a gardener. He wore a khaki shirt and frayed jeans, and there was dirt under his nails. His naturally dark skin showed a decided tan line across his forehead, where his hat was usually worn.
Dewey held out his hand and said, “Welcome, folks! I’m Brad Simpson. Here’s my card.”
The young man shook his hand, and his wife spoke for them, saying, “We’re the Valencias. We spoke to a lady in your office.”
“Yes,” Dewey said. “That was my secretary, Ethel. We’ve had so many inquiries in the last hour. She’s called me on my cell four times. This one is going to be rented quickly. Come on inside.”
Dewey saw their disappointment at the condition of the foreclosed house, and he said, “The last tenants were pretty awful. We haven’t had time to clean the place. Also, we’re going to paint the living room and the bathroom. Did my secretary tell you there’s a little powder room just off the kitchen? We’re going to wallpaper that as well as the kitchen. Everything will be done before you move in, if you decide to take the place.”
They listened politely and then walked through the small rooms, until the wife said, “This could work for us, but we have one more house to look at.”
Dewey said quickly, “How much did my secretary tell you the rent would be?”
“Twenty-four hundred a month,” the young woman said.
“It’ll go before the evening’s over,” Dewey said. “In fact, I have an appointment with a prospective tenant in”-he glanced at his watch-“thirty-five minutes.” He looked at them thoughtfully and said, “You know what? I’d like you two to have this place. It’d be a nice street for your baby to grow up on. Gosh darn it, you remind me of how it was when my wife and me were starting out. I’m gonna take it upon myself to trim three-no, make it four hundred dollars off the rent. I know the owner won’t give me any trouble when I tell him the place is not in good condition. He lives in Oregon and never comes to L.A., so I pretty much have total control over his property management. And I’ll waive the security deposit. You write me a check for the first and last month and it’s yours. You can move in on the first of the month, when the place will look fresh as a daisy, I guarantee you. Paint, wallpaper, plumbing repaired, the works.”
Dewey smiled large and studied them while they talked quietly but enthusiastically in Spanish, and then the wife took a checkbook from her purse and said, “We accept and we thank you! Shall I make out the check to Brad Simpson Real Estate?”
“That’ll be fine,” Dewey said, thinking that four Clevelands would be a nice deposit to the account he’d just opened at the bank as Brad Simpson.
He filled out the rental agreement as fast as he could, figuring that the next “client” would probably also be arriving early for their appointment. After he said good-bye to the couple, he only had to wait ten minutes until the next appointment arrived.
This was a black couple, a bit unusual in that there were not many black people living in Hollywood. Every other ethnic group was more than proportionately represented, especially the growing Latino and Asian populations. These two were only slightly older than the last couple.
Dewey’s professional smile broadened, and he extended a business card, saying, “Folks, you’re just in time. The last appointment said they’re coming to my office in the morning and will probably take the place, but until I get their first and last month’s check, it’s still open. My name is Brad Simpson and I’m very pleased to meet you!”
When the couple was looking at the kitchen, Dewey had a flashback to the last time he did the rental gag. On the first of February, six moving vans had arrived at the cottage he’d rented in mid-Hollywood. The street was blocked by the trucks, disputes raged, and the police were called. He happened to be driving by on his way to another “rental” and had to take a detour because of the traffic jam.
Malcolm Rojas could hardly wait until dark. He’d been watching the cottage for an hour. Dusky light blasted through the Hollywood smog, and the cottage where the woman had entered gave off a burnished glow. That light excited Malcolm. He was excited by everything around him, and even though the anger had not abated, he couldn’t say for sure which emotion was stronger, anger or excitement.
No one else had entered the bungalow, no children, no husband, nobody. It was such a small house that he figured she lived there alone. Somehow that made him angrier. That bitch got a little house of her own, and he had to share an apartment with his mother, like a helpless child.
She had unlocked the front door and had carried her shopping bags inside but had not returned to the door. Maybe it wasn’t locked now. Regardless, he was going in. If he had to, he’d ask her if his friend lived there. Who? Thomas, that was it. He’d ask if Thomas lived there. But if the door was unlocked, he was not going to ask anything. He was that angry and that excited. He reached into his pocket and stroked the box cutter.
She never heard him enter. She was in the kitchen, thawing a small steak in the micro when she heard him bump into a kitchen chair. When he rushed her from behind, he clamped his hand over her mouth, showed her the box cutter, and said, “If you scream even once, I’ll cut your throat.”
When he had her down on the kitchen floor, she began sobbing, her eyes on the box cutter that he held to her face.
She kept repeating, “Please don’t! Don’t hurt me! I’ll give you money! Take the money from my purse! Take my car! Please don’t hurt me!”
The bitch! She looked even older up close. He thought she was at least forty-five years old, maybe older. He looked at the roots of her strawberry blonde hair and could see gray. So she was maybe fifty years old. Look at her fat thighs! He pulled at her underwear, ripping it away from her while she said, “Please don’t hurt me!”
“Shut up!” he said. “First you’re going to suck me off, you fat old bitch!”
There was no doubt which team would win the Almost-a-Hollywood-Moon contest and get an extra-large pizza with the works from Sergeant Murillo for handling the weirdest incident, not after 6-X-66 got a call to the memorial park that night. One of the employees had returned to pick up a set of keys she’d inadvertently left on her desk, and she’d seen a door to the mortuary slightly ajar. She’d put in a 9-1-1 call on her cell and then informed the guard at the exit gate.