NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD - Chapter 22 -by Peter Nolan Smith

TWENTY-TWO<

A toxic stench ferreted into Sean's nostrils. He coughed twice and sat up on the couch. A smooth-faced TV preacher was shouting for brimstone to cleanse the world. Armageddon was not the source of the chemical reek. The poisonous fumes came from the inferno video tapes in the fireplace, which was fed by Che Chasta. She was in a tan raincoat and her blonde hair was fluffed from her head like a wilting Afro.

Each cassette ignited with a whoosh and acrid smoke furled over the mantle to billow upward to a surly cloud warning that the super-hot gases would soon reach a dangerous flashpoint. Sean jumped to his feet and pulled Che away from the fire, but she fought him off to throw another armful of videos into the fireplace.

"You got to stop.”

"Not until they're all destroyed.” Che was completely out of her head. "That's the only way to get at him.”

"You're going to burn the place down." Sean dragged away Che, as the flames crawled up the wall blistering the paint. The fire would soon be a killer and the scorched air spoke in a primordial tongue, tempting his very bones to stay and watch.

"Now we can go." Che handed him a heavy bag of videotapes and seized two smaller pieces of luggage.

He ran outside into a cold drizzle. A racking of coughs cleared the smoke from their lungs. Sean turned to the bungalow. Black smoke seeped from the windows. Dogs barked out warnings around the neighborhood, their ears alert to danger. Sean reached for the garden hose.

"Leave it." Che strode down the sidewalk to a dented lime-green Cadillac.

"You can't walk away.” Sean caught up with the blonde, as she threw the luggage into the back seat.

"Just watch me.” Che opened the Cadillac's door. "If you want to stick around and explain the fire to the Fire Department, be my guest, but the more distance between me and that shithole the better.”

Several panes of glass cracked from the searing heat inside the bungalow. Che sat behind the wheel and started the engine.

"It's not my house and it's not yours." Her excuse made sense. No one was inside the house. A neighbor would soon call 911. The LAFD would extinguish the fire and the LAPD would ask who, what, when, where, and why over and over again, till the cops had a suspect on whom to pin the arson. The bass revving of a Motown engine forced Sean's hand and as soon as he jumped in the Cadillac, Che stamped on the gas . The big car swerved down the street, narrowly missing several parked vehicles. At Franklin Che braked impatiently and waited for an opening in the traffic before turning left.

"You burnt all those other tapes, why not these?” Sean pointed at the bag in the backseat.

"Those are the masters of the ones I liked. Somehow I felt, if I destroyed those, then I'd disappear.”

"You mean like taking your picture might be stealing a part of your soul?” Sean didn't like his picture being taken, mostly because it told the truth not so much of your soul, but whether the picture-taker liked his subject. He hadn't had a good photo in years, although the Polaroid from Sherri wasn't bad.

"I don't have enough soul left for anyone to steal." Che threw back her head to shake loose the blonde mane. "Only what's left on these tapes.”

"I understand that, but why'd you burn down the bungalow?”

"You have to ask? You saw the way he left me. It wasn't the first time he treated like a piece of meat, but it was the last.” The wide lanes of Franklin were devoid of traffic, which is the only sign of life in LA in the rain, but Che stayed well under the speed limit. "I could have killed him, but without those videos he'll never make another penny off me.”

"Who are you talking about?” Sean expected the flashing lights of fire trucks to appear any second.

"You don't know, do you?” Che was far from the near-corpse of the morning. 911 had not erred in ignoring her call. She was alive with rage. Anger is a great pick-me-up.

"No.” The only face coming into his head was that of the old man in Vegas, but his being C he's persecutor was too great a coincidence, even for a city so wrapped up in the cinematic circumstances of normal lives.

"It doesn't matter now.” Che swung the wheel sharply and the rear tires skipped across the greasy pavement. She had obviously bought the car for surviving accidents, not handling. "I'm out of here for good now.”

Sean had the feeling Che had said that last line too many times without ever leaving.

"Why don't you go to the police?”

"Don't play me for stupid. You weren't in any car crash in the desert. Someone tried to kill you. Someone a lot scarier than the police, so you ran and I’m running all the way to Johnson City, Texas. An old boyfriend has a ranch out there. He'll take care of me. Maybe even love me. Hey, if it's such a good idea now, why wasn't it back then?” Che Chasta was down to her last pages in the book of making it in LA. The Chapter called Leaving Town.

"Things change.”

"Don't they?” She paused a second, then asked, "You watched those films this afternoon. All the men and women I did. You think it's too late to start all over?”

"Not as long as you never have to walk back across the bridge you just burned.”

"I hope you take your own advice,” Che smirked with the satisfaction of turning a new leaf.

”Never."

"Me neither." Che jammed on the brakes and veered onto the southbound ramp of the Hollywood Freeway. The Cadillac scuttled to a stop on the crumbling shoulder and Che turned to him with a wrinkled nose "Is that you?”

"I haven't bathed in a couple of days." Sean smelled his armpits without detection a strong odor, then again women have better nose than men.

"That all." Che cracked the window. "Where you heading, stranger? I could use some company on the way out to Texas.”

"Back to the Valley." Sean hoped she would offer him a ride, instead she shook her head like a lovelorn housewife on the prowl for some hitchhiking trash.

"I'm never going back that way again. Tell that to all the assholes over there. Just keep quiet about where I'm going, huh, stranger.”

"Sure.” Sean scowled with his hand on the door.

"You angry at me for dumping you in the rain."

"I thought I might get a ride into Valley for saving your life."

"I wasn't dying." Che revved the engine. "And I'm not going into the Valley. No telling what might happen if I go over there. You understand? When you got to go, you got to go.”

Che leaned across the seat and pulled him close, opening her mouth to kiss him. Her tongue pushed apart his lips. Their hot breaths mingled for several seconds, till Che broke away and said, "If you were coming to Texas, I could thank you properly.”

"It's tempting." Sean screened a ride to Texas with Che inside his head. XXX road trip with only one possible ending. "Somehow I see myself in the middle of Texas and you driving away to be with your cowboy.”

"He's not into menage-a-trois." Che smiled with the promise of the open road lying before the Cadillac. "All I can offer is a ride.”

"Thanks but no thanks." Sean couldn't write a sequel to her deserting him in Texas and he opened the passenger door.

"You tell Sherri and Lena I love them. I really do.”

"Anything else?" Sean wondered ho many years it had been since she had been home.

"Yeah, you, like every other guy I ever met, want to ask how a nice girl like me ended up doing films. The therapists were always blaming my mother or father, but nobody ever forced me into this. I was born wild. I liked being in adult films. I love sex and enjoyed being a star, but you men, you're all scum. From Adam on up. Take my word on that.”

Any chance Sean had to defend his half of the species died, when Che gunned the engine and motioned for him to get out. As he stood on the wet pavement, she opened the raincoat and flashed a parting shot of her naked body.

"You're missing one hell of a ride.”

Bald tires ripped up the mud and the car sped down the ramp to vanish into the Freeway's afternoon rush hour. The rain fell harder and a dirty flume of black smoke rose into the air over the trees from where they had come. He looked for a taxi, except LA is more like Queens than Manhattan. A bus rolled a block away and he dashed across the street, only to have a siren whoop and megaphonic voice ordered, "Stay where you are.”

A LAPD cruiser pulled up to the curb and a uniformed officer got out of the patrol car, right hand on his holster.

Sean raised his hands thinking, "One of the neighbors called in my description. It's over. I'll tell them everything. About the fire, the attempted murder in Las Vegas, the wallets, deRocco and Driscoll, every crime I ever committed. I'll do time, but I'll come out of it clean and that's all I'm after, isn't it?”

The cop regarded Sean's beaten face and asked for ID, which was not SOP for a felony arrest. Sean handed over his Irish passport. "What'd I do, officer?”

"Jaywalking is against the law in California, Mr. Coll,” the young cop made a face. His nose scrunched up in disgust.

Before the officer in dark blue could lecture Sean on pedestrian safety, three fire engines roared up Franklin with lights flashing and sirens blaring. The cop's shoulder radio squawked out an indecipherable message. Visibly disappointed at being unable to roust Sean, the cop handed back the passport.

"You have the luck of the Irish, Mr. Coll. There's a fire up the street. Cross at the lights next time.”

"Sure thing, officer." Sean could play good citizen with the best of them.

The cop retreated with his hand on his holster, just in case Sean tried anything, then got in the cruiser and chased the fire engines out of sight. Sean couldn't believe his good fortune. He ran over to the Freeway's northbound on-ramp and stuck out his thumb. It was the only way he was going to get out of here.

Standing by the FREEWAY ENTRANCE sign, Sean shivered in the cold rain and blew on his hands between surges of cars. Not many people hitchhike anymore and Sean soon found out why the old tradition was gone.

Each pair of motorists' eyes was locked on the road before them. Their backs were hunched over the wheel like they had evolved from turtles. He tried to look sympathetic, but every driver's faces with whom he attempted eye contact greeted him with scorn. Even those motorists in barely drivable wrecks deemed themselves worthier than the tramp they saw in Sean, for if there's anyone a driver in LA hates worst than another driver, it's a pedestrian, but he had to ask himself, "What could have put these people in such a shitty mood?”

The answer was too easy, for having to drive everywhere in LA had imprisoned most Angelenos within these steel machines, depriving them of any human contact, but while Sean regarded the car as the partnership between two Neanderthal inventions, fire and the wheel backed up by a little basic navigation, he would have given anything to be a driver now, but no one was going to pick up someone as roughed up as him. He was stuck here like a roadside museum piece and, when a van almost sideswiped him, and he swore, "Fuck Jack Kerouac.”

He was ready to give up, but a Nissan Sentra pulled over to the shoulder ahead. Once inside, the car drove away and merged with traffic and Sean said, "Thanks a lot.”

"Been out there long?” The middle-aged man in a brown suit sneaked a glimpse at Sean's crotch.

"Long enough,' Sean knew what was coming next.

"I'll turn up the heat. That should be better.”

"Yeah, lots,” Sean replied, but stiffened as the driver finished talking about the weather by saying, "Have you been with a man?”

"Not since I was a young boy.”

"I like your cologne. Is real musty." The driver eyed Sean with interest.

"I've been wearing only a couple of days." Jack Kerouac wrote in ON THE ROAD that the worst part of hitching was proving to the driver that they hadn't made a mistake stopping for the hitchhiker. The heavy skies opened up and the deluge obscured the Freeway. He could still be out there, so played along with the driver's come-on, grateful to be out of the rain.

Sean kept up the small talk, enticing the driver with tales of his youth in New York. Most of it was lies. Thirty minutes later Sean arrived at the complex in North Hollywood, damp, but not cold. He knocked on the door.

"I thought you had gone." Lena opened up with visible relief. She smiled at her lover. Obviously the older woman had been betting on his being gone for good. It was nice to be wanted and not wanted at the same time, although the first was better than the latter.

"I did." Sean pulled off his wet coat.

"Where?" Sherri was holding a video camera in her hands like she wanted to throw it at his head.

There was nothing to be gained from telling the truth and he didn't want to lie.

"I went over to Hollywood. Saw and old friend and came back." He picked up a towel and wiped his face. "She said I smelled like the dead.”

"And did you take a shower?" Sherri eyed him as if he might have slept with this woman. Not with jealousy, but with disgust. She really hated men.

"No, I'm as dirty as a bucket of sludge."

"It's only going to get worse." Sherri had accepted his story.

"If you can live with then so can I." If she wanted him dirty, then he was going for it. He had seen her at her worse with Che. Sherri might be cleaner, but neither of them were saints. "Man, it was wet out there.”

"It's supposed to clear up tomorrow,” Sherri countered and said, "We have a lot of work left before we leave in the morning. I suggest you get some sleep.”

It was more an order and Sean went into the back bedroom without a single mention of her films with Che or even their fifteen seconds in an after-hour club in New York twenty years ago or his wanting her more than ever, despite her hating men. Why was a question he could not answer, but definitely not one he would ask Sherri any time soon. Not if he knew what was good for him.

NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD - Chapter 18 - by Peter Nolan Smith

EIGHTEEN

Sean woke in a strange bed and walked take to the window. He was unmistakably in LA.

Back in 1972 a speed freak in a Buick Riviera had picked up Sean outside Sterling, Colorado and muttered what sounded like, "I'm going to San Francisco."

A straight shot to the coast had sounded good. He was headed to Big Sur. Somewhere in Nevada the hype-up driver had turned south. The desert landscape looked all the same at night and Sean woke up as they passed a highway sign saying 'San Fernando'. It took him several seconds for his awakening mind to realize that the meth-head had earlier said San Fernando, instead of San Francisco.

The speedfreak had dropped him off on the highway next to a gigantic orange grove. It was the dead of night. Sean was disappointed by his 400-mile mistake, but too tired to hitchhike on the highway. He walked into the orange grove and fell asleep breathing the scent of night jasmine. The throttle of the throttling semi-trailers on the highway lullabyed his dreams. It was like a remake of Kerouac's ON THE ROAD, which was impossible in 1995. The next day he hitch up the PCH to Big Sur.

The ensuing twenty-five years had been cruel to the Valley. The suburban sprawl had obliterated the Southern California immortalized by the car, surf, and hippie songs of the 1960s.

Fields of orange groves had been reduced to individual trees in backyards bordered by a freeway congested with slow-moving traffic. The Valley suffered from too many people, then again not everyone could live in Hollywood Hills.

For the moment Sean was happy. In some ways Driscoll's almost killing him might have been just the catalyst to jump-start his life, though he could skip another close encounter with death.

Someone had put the wallets and money in a paper envelope. His clothing was gone. ean sat on the bed with the wallets. Driscoll must have planted them after the first punch. He opened each one at a time. He recognized none of the names on the credit cards. The names meant nothing. The faces on the IDs belonged to normal men. The oldest was sixty-five and the youngest thirty-seven. The addresses were mostly from LA and New York. Sean figured each man as dead. He had been very lucky f in the desert. With that in mind Sean wondered what to do with the wallets.

Sending them back to their respective addresses would only re-awaken the families' anguished questions. Posting them to One Police Plaza in New York with a note explaining the connection between the wallets and the two cops from the 9th Precinct might spark an investigation,. There was no guarantee the package would reach Internal Affairs intact. The Wall of Blue have a tendency to misplace any evidence incriminating another cop. Getting rid of the wallets was probably the best solution and Sean stashed them along with the counterfeit money in a manila envelope under the bed. They might come in handy.

Sean walked quietly to the living room with ADAM AND TWO EVES.

The other bedroom door was shut. The women were sleeping late. Maybe not. He had no idea of the time and thee wasn’t a clock in the apartment.

He lay on the couch and began to read the screenplay. The plot flowed easily through the post-apocalyptic tale of two women driving through the wastelands. The last two people on Earth are happy with this empty world, until meeting a derelict man. They agonize over whether to kill him outright, but opt to be impregnated by him to resurrect the human race.

Surprisingly the monologues about the preservation of humanity were darkly humorous and the love scenes were more tableaux of comic desperation. The sex scenes happened behind closed doors. Upon reaching page 105, the women are about to kill off the man, There was no page 106 or the words THE END. He rifled through the script to find the final page.

Nothing.

He flung down the screenplay and stood up, feeling the grime from the air travel, a day in a cheap motel, the tumble in the desert, a long car ride, a night's sleep in a strange bed crawling on his flesh,, What he needed now more than the ending to the script was a hot shower and a shave .

Sean tiptoed down the hallway and stepped into the bathroom, an orderly shrine to feminine hygiene. He lifted the toilet seat to relieve himself. His kidneys hurt from the booting. His urine was its a bright yellow without any reddish tinge. A good sign He put down the seat cover, then stripped off his underwear and tee-shirt and turned on the shower. The water was hot and strong, the way a real shower should be. He borrowed a new Bic razor from the cabinet and pulled back the plastic curtain, thinking, "This is going to be good."

The opening of the bathroom door startled him and he grabbed a towel to cover himself.

"Relax, I've seen plenty of naked men before." Sherri surveyed his body like a butcher deciding how to slice up a slab of beef. Her body in white cotton underwear was as lean as a welterweight. Her stomach muscle were a hundred times more defined than his.

"I'm not shy." Sean clutched the towel tight to his waist and sucked in his guts.

"Good, because you'll be naked in this film." "In the meanwhile no shaving.” Sherri took the razor from his hand.

"My beard comes in white.” Sean noticed the Interstate of narcotic abuse inside Sherri's arm. They were old. His were a lot less.

"That's fine. You're the man from nowhere. The more beat-up the better." She ignored his interest and shut off the water. "I also want you grimy. Like there were no more showers in the world. Just wash yourself off in the sink. And hurry up, breakfast will be ready shortly."

"I'll be quick, I had two sisters.” Sean released the towel and wiped his face, underarms, and groin with a hand towel. The grim of the desert was a dark brown.

"Looks like a bad crash." Sherri regarded Sean's cuts and bruises. She reached into the medicine cabinet from a bottle of alcohol and cotton swabs.

"It was.” Sean shut off the shower and threw the soiled face cloth into the hamper.

"Not at all, but let me tend to that cut on your neck. No sense in letting it get infected." Sherri sat him on the toilet seat and expertly probed at the seared flesh on his neck with a cotton swab. "You ever been in a film before?"

"Only one.” Sean twinged from the bite of alcohol. "I shot a Dracula film. 8mm. One reel."

"How long ago?" Sherri daubed at the edges of his wound.

"I was 8. The cast was my brothers and sisters. My mother discovered us playing bloodsuckers in the basement. She denounced us to the Church. The priests and nuns had us pray for our souls. My father never developed the film."

"So you've never been in a film?" Sherri patted his neck with a red-stained cotton ball.

"No."

"Like I said there'll be nudity in this film. Do think you can do a love scene? PG-13. No penetration."

"That depends.” He cringed in reaction to the Mercurochrome's sting.

"Depends on what?"

"On who's getting naked."

"In this case we are talking about you."

Sean had read in the script that his character makes love to the younger woman for procreation and the older for recreation, but still had to ask, "Me?"

"We don't have the money to use body doubles, Mr. Tempo."

"I don't mind looking all beat-up, but I don't want to look fat."

Sherri put down the medicine and laughed aloud.

"What's so funny?” Picturing their scene together in a deserted mountain cabin, his body responded in the old-fashioned way.

"People no longer care about good versus bad, but the breaking the Eleventh Commandment, "Thou shalt not look fat.” Mr. Tempo, we'll shoot you like Orson Welles shot himself. From the fifth rib up.” Sherri pushed his head forward and applied a greasy antibiotic salve to his neck. "You'll be the Man from Nowhere like you are now."

"I didn't think either of us were after beautiful," Sean commented, having extracted from the script that the author would have been happier, if men were extinct.

"No, we're not, but that decision belongs strictly to the camera.” So we are okay with being naked?”

”I am now. Why not later?” .

"Glad we settled that, Mr. Tempo. Will there be anything else?"

"Yeah, the last pages of the script seem to be missing."

"That's, because we don't have an ending yet.” She stared at him coldly in the mirror.

"There's only twenty five stories and five endings."

"Says who?"

"The classics.” Sean rose to his feet, several muscles protesting the move.

"The classics?” Sherri checked him a little closer. His body carried deeper and older scars than those from his car crash. The injuries to his face and busted knuckles on both his hands were uneven. He had been in more fights than most men and lost a good share of them. Like her he had used his body roughly, but his eyes displayed more intelligence than his battered face deserved. She bit on the bait and asked,” So what are these five fabulous endings you're talking about?"

"Good ending, bad ending, nothing ending, everyone dies in the end, or it was all a dream,” Sean quoted from either Boston College professor of English from twenty years ago or a half-forgotten men's magazine article. "Of course there's a sixth ending, where all the other ending are combined for the mega-finale. For ADAM AND TWO EVES, I can see how you'd like to kill off the male for a big pay-off. Me, I think it'd be better, if they left him back where they found him. Sort of the abandonment of Adam by the Eves. An ending for him. Not good not bad. Good ending for the women. The dream continues with their pregnancy. No one gets killed. No car chase. The new world."

"Nice pitch, Mr. Tempo. We'll have to think about it.” Sherri was surprised by his coming with such an unforeseen, yet logical ending. Maybe he was as different as Lena thought, except 'maybe' was a big word, when it came to men. "One more thing."

"What's that?” Sean was thankful she had not asked what the twenty-five stories were, because he could only come up with boy-meets-girl.

"Are the police looking for you?"

"If you mean, is there a warrant out for my arrest? The answer is no. If I am suspected in a crime, the answer is still no.” Neither Driscoll nor deRocco were the police to him and having only faked killing the old man in Vegas absented his name from any APB, but he admitted, "Sure, I've sinned, but I've been putting that behind me."

"Sometimes that's not so easy."

"I'm sure you know how hard that can be, but right now I don't want to be a problem to anyone."

"That makes two of us.” A masculine musty stench rose off his body and Sherri's nostrils flared involuntarily with disgust. It would only get worse over the next two weeks.

"You must be hungry, what about breakfast?"

"Sounds good to me.” Getting something in his stomach would help to deaden the feeling that he had been dragged into town on a morgue slab.

Get dressed, Mr. Tempo. I’m washing your old clothes. I set you out jeans on the bed. We don't need you naked now.” It had been a long time, since she had been this close to a man and the old habits took their time dying, for as she left the bathroom her eyes glanced down at this crotch. His erection was to be expected. Not too big. Not too small.

"Breakfast will be ready in five minutes."

The bathroom door shut. Somewhere in this beaten body was the key to why these two women were taking a chance on him. For now he would heed his father's advice about not attempting to fathom the depths of a female mind. He had enough trouble understanding himself.

After putting on the jeans and a t-shirt, he hurried into the kitchen. The smell of sizzling bacon struck his nostrils and Sean greedily eyed the eggs frying in bacon fat on the stove.

"Can I be of any help?" Sean had been living alone for a long time. Even longer in the company of women. Good manners were rusty but not forgotten.

"Yes, just set the table for three." Sherri pointed to a kitchen cabinet.

The terrace windows had been opened to clear out the greasy bacon smoke and the morning damp had worked its way into the apartment. He had never thought California could be this cold and he blew into his hands.

"Sorry, we don't use sugar or dairy products." Sherri handed him a steaming cup of coffee.

"That's okay as long as it's real coffee."

"It's real.” Sherri glanced at the rain outside. "We'll take you out shopping for warmer clothing later. It gets cold this time of year in the desert."

Sean hadn't had a woman buy him clothes in years, though in this case Sherri was more like a sister annoyed at her ne'er-do-well brother than a loving girlfriend. Any question he was about to ask her about the desert died on lips, when Sherri lifted the eggs out of the frying pan and onto a plate of toast and bacon. It stayed on the counter and she placed a bowl of yogurt and fruit on the table.

"What about me?”

"That's for Lena. The clock for your diet is clicking. This is your one meal of the day. For the rest of the day you get vegetable juice and plenty of water. You want to look good for the camera, right?” Sherri arched her eyebrow.

Sean almost protested, except Lena entered the kitchen, wearing a filmy teddy and kissed Sherri on the neck. She turned to Sean and asked with the most pleasant voice he had heard in years, "Did you sleep well?"

”Yeah." Neither the yogurt nor fruit would fill the emptiness in his stomach.

"It's amazing what a good night's sleep will do for your looks," Sherri was exhausted from spending the better part of the evening organizing the Super 16mm camera, sound and light equipment, a crew, a check on film permits, lawyers, and truck rentals. It was a mess and this was for a low-budget movie. Sherri was keeping as close to the bone as possible. There was no cast of thousands. Just the minimum.

Lena leaned against the edge of the sink with her feet wide apart. She regarded this blonde man closely, as he ate the yogurt and fruit. Sherri was right. He was just a man, but she couldn't help seeing someone else on his face. The man from nowhere. This was really him and soon she would be one of the last women on Earth and so would Sherri.

Sherri disliked the distant cast in Lena's eyes and her suggestive body language even more. She grabbed the man's half-finished bowl.

"That's enough for now. We have to go out for a few hours. Try and keep your face out of the fridge. The camera is no fat man's friend."

"Thanks for the hospitality.” Sean planned on pigging out as soon as they left.

"Thank you for being in the film.” Sheri dumped her food in the trash and bent over to kiss him on the cheek. The exotic scent of cinnamon and tar rising from her skin might have taken his breath away, except the plates on the table began to shake and the room vibrated with a low ominous rumble like a jet plane was going to crash in the apartment. Sean tried to get to his feet, but his legs were mushed by a series of monstrous oscillations. Just when it seemed, as if it was going to last forever, the trembling stopped and the roaring was replaced by the car alarms screaming throughout the neighborhood. The two women were white-faced and Sean figured he was too.

"That wasn't no airplane, was it?"

"No, that was a tremor,” Sherri stated calmly, having regained her native-born composure.

"Was that big?"

"Probably in the fours. Nothing like the last one. Nothing to be scared about, Mr. Tempo. Not like back East. Hurricanes, blizzards, floods, crime."

"I lived through New York in the Seventies and never got mugged,” Sean was protective about his adopted city, though he had been knocked out on countless occasions, stabbed twice, and shot once in the leg.

"You got blind to the crime out there and here we are accustomed to the earthquakes, the fires, and smog. You will too, if you stay out here long enough.” Sherri wondered whether she had ever seen him in New York. They were the same age and the tracks on their arms meant they ran in the same circle. She had gone through too many men in her life to remember just one.

"I'll be out of here long before the Big One comes along,” Sean predicted, though without any conviction, and Sherri added, "I think we all will be, but for now you be a good boy and make yourself at home. C'mon, Lena, we have places to go."

The two women left the kitchen and re-appeared five minutes later dressed for the bad weather.

"Mr. Tempo, we'll be back in a few hours. Study your lines and stay out of trouble."

"How much trouble can I get into by myself?"

"I hope I don't have to answer that question later." Sherri grabbed her cars keys and the apartment door was locked from the outside. He wasn't their prisoner, but acted the good guest and washed the dishes in the sink. After drying them he brought his coffee into the living room and sat by the telephone. He dialed the first number he had ever memorized. After two rings his father's recorded voice said that he was in Florida for the month, which was reassuring, since he was out of harm's way.

"It's your son. I'm in LA. I'll call you later. Everything is fine."

Sean hung up and picked up the script. He had about 100 lines. He read them aloud and they sounded dead to his ears. He needed a crash course in acting and could only think of one person to help him. For some unexplainable reason Sean had written the actor's 310 number inside his Irish passport. Vic Granollers could give him advice. His old friend had been nominated for an Oscar, could. After the third ring a woman answered with a European accent. It was not Vic's wife and she asked brusquely, "Who is it?"

"Is Vic there?"

"Who is this?” she demanded.

Sean told the woman his name, thinking she was screening calls, but she rudely stated, "Call back tomorrow."

"Can you take a message?"

"I told you. Call back tomorrow evening."

The line went dead.

The only other number in LA he had memorized was that of his ex-girlfriend from the late 70s. He dialed Tammi's area code, and then hung up the phone. She would be grateful that he had left her out of this.

Despite tens of his friends having abandoned New York for LA in the last twenty years, his mind came up blank for anyone else he might know here. Once people came out to the Coast, they cut all ties to New York, fearful that the mere mention of New York might jeopardize their new lives on the Pacific.

Most of those people would have been ecstatic to be the lead in a film, but Sean grasped that in another world and dimension a bullet had torn through his skull and vultures were now feasting on his corpse.

It wasn't the first time he had come close to dying, but none of them prepare you for the next time. After his chills settled down, he picked up the TV remote control and flicked on the Weather Channel. The sun had to be shining someplace and seeing it would make him feel better, if only until he was long gone from LA.

NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD - Chapter 4 - by Peter Nolan Smith

FOUR

The red light next to Las Vegas flashed on the departure board. America West's flight was in the final stages of boarding and Frank deRocco rushed Sean through the JFK's crowded terminal. The detective's gold shield got them through the metal detector and Sean's bag passed the X-ray test.

They ran to the gate and deRocco brandished his badge.

"I gotta get this man on the plane."

"They're shutting the door." The Dominican attendant was closing out the flight.

"Is the door shut?" deRocco presented his NYPD gold shield. He was out of breath. Cigarettes were killing him.

"Not yet." The gate attendant hated dealing with late passengers, but he picked up the phone and told the ground crew to hold the flight. "I wish you people could get here on time.

"This is police business." deRocco wasn't taking no for an answer. "Tell them to hold the plane."

"I could always catch the next flight." Sean tried to shrug off the heavy cop's grip.

"No you can't. I paid for this one and this is the one you're taking." deRocco dragged him down the slanted corridor to the Boeing 757. Once more the badge was presented and the ground crew reopened the door.

"Are you sure you're going to be alright?"

deRocco's face was a florid red.

"Stop stalling and get on the plane." deRocco pushed Sean through the jet's door.

"What about you?"

"I'm not going anywhere."

"I'm going alone?"

"Yeah, you're going alone, but someone will meet you in Las Vegas. He'll tell you the what, where, and when."

"What about the money?"

"The money?" The detective stuck an envelope in Sean's pocket. "You just do like I told you. It'll be a snap."

The 757's door shut with a slow thunk and the stewardess asked Sean to take a seat.

"Does this flight make any stops?"

"No, it's direct to Las Vegas."

"Figures."

A non-stop flight excluded his deplaning at a hub airport. deRocco's contact would be waiting in Las Vegas with Sean's photo in hand and probably a gun in a shoulder holster, but that fate was hours away and he walked down the aisle.

He almost sat in first-class.

No one ever questioned an intruder, but decided to not push his luck and settled for snatching three magazines from the overhead bin. Economy was almost as bad as a charter flight, since nearly every passenger was white-haired and overweight. The steward motioned for him to buckle up and Sean sank into his seat by the window.

The 757 pulled away from the gate on time and taxied onto JFK's main runway. The big engines throttled up with a roar and the jet's acceleration drove the tons of steel down the runway, till the plane climbed into the air in defiance of gravity. Seventeen seconds later the pilot banked the aircraft, giving Sean a slanted vista of Manhattan's spires and towers and for the first time this morning he realized that he was leaving New York.

Once the 757 leveled off at 24,000, the flight crew passed out free nuts and drinks.

Sean scrounged three packets, which he devoured in a minute.

Once the seat belt sign went off, he dug his bag for a leather toiletry bag. The cop hadn't touched a thing. With Las Vegas only five hours away he had a lot of work to avoid violating the Fifth Commandment.

Back on the ground at JFK deRocco punched a ten-digit number on his portable phone and a gruff voice answered after three rings, "Who's this?"

"Like the only person who has this number. Me."

"Where are you?"

"JFK."

"Where's Tempo?"

"On the plane"

"What about you?"

>"I don't fly, you know that." Throughout their long collaboration Kev had played the ‘away games'. The ex-cop had insisted on his partner joining him for this last contract and now shouted, "You and your fuckin' flyingaphobia. How am I gonna do this?"

"You're not doin' nothin'." Normally Driscoll could have executed this contract in his sleep, except every pro only has so many 'games' in him and Kev was well into overtime. "You got the Fed-Ex package, right?"

"Yeah."

"Just do like I told you and we're in the clear."

"Is he clean?"

Tempo?"

"Who else?"

"He's like an altar boy." deRocco fought off the urge to light up a cigarette in the non-smoking terminal.

"Good, this is going to tie up a lot of loose ends."

DeRocco was slowly coming down from the morning's high-tension act.

"What's it like out there?"

"What'd you care, you fear-of-flyin' freak? I'll call you later." The line went dead.

Outside the terminal building deRocco lit up a cigarette and lifted his eyes to a jet lumbering into the sky. What scared him most about flying was the lack of control. All you could do was sit there and pray the plane didn't crash into a swamp or cornfield.

Shaking these fiery images, deRocco sucked on the burning tobacco and congratulated himself on another job well done. No one else would have, of course very few people did what he did and after this job neither would he.

NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD - Chapter 5 - by Peter Nolan Smith

FIVE

The warm California sun flayed the storm clouds into fleecy shreds and soon the morning reminded every non-native why they had moved to Los Angeles in the first place. Two days of rain had painted the hillside scrubs a verdant green and the palm trees wavered with the waning wind. By mid-morning the temperature in the Valley rose into the mid-seventies and a superbly conditioned brunette touched up her tan on the back balcony of the unoccupied apartment complex near Sherman Way.

Any voyeur would have mistaken the naked woman to be a mindless sun worshipper, but Sherri Conti was thinking very hard about how to get money to finish her first non-pornographic project ADAM AND TWO EVES.

She had the crew, the equipment, and the two actresses, Lena and herself for this low-budget feature about the last man on earth. They had shot 70% of the film throughout December. Neither woman had exchanged Christmas gifts, since they had financed the film through their credit cards. All their plastic was maxxed out to the limit. Another $20,000 would finish the film, however money wasn't the biggest problem for this project. Sherri could get the money with a single phone call.

They didn't have a male lead.

Hollywood actors’ fees were out of her league and most weren't risking their careers on working with an unknown director connected to the porno industry. Sherri had scavenged every casting book in the business. She had auditioned almost a hundred unknowns. None had fit her vision for 'ADAM AND TWO EVES' lead, a man like the saint from Bunuel's SIMON OF THE DESERT.

Beaten by weather and cursed by God.

40 and still handsome.

He had to be out there somewhere.

Sherri turned her head to the bedroom.

Lena was packing an overnight bag for her trip to Las Vegas.

After forty-one films together their relationship had become more than simply sex for the older woman. Lena was unlike any other of her previous lovers and Sherri wasn't the only one who felt that way.

Men and women at gas stations, supermarkets, and coffee stores demanded autographs, as if Lena was a budding Hollywood star. Most of them had seen the young actress in Sherri's XXX videos online, which portrayed women as instruments of their own desire rather than receptacles for men's lust and Lena's uncanny metamorphosis into the films’ characters had helped these films realize a massive cross-over demand from the mainstream audience. In recognition of these phenomena, Lena would be honored with the 'Best New-Comer' title at the XXX-RATED Awards ceremony tonight in Las Vegas.

She deserved much more.

Several minutes later Lena came out on the terrace.

"You all ready to go?" Sherri shielded her eyes from the sun.

"After a kiss, yes." The young actress wore a matching combo of gold silk hot pants and a tube top. A white leather jacket dangled from her fingertips.

"Aren't you going to be cold?"

>"That's why I have the leather." Lena didn't like clothes. "I wish you were coming with me."

"I have some editing on the film, besides this is your big night.”

Twenty years ago Sherri had been a young girl straight out of the Jersey Pine Barrens on the way to the top, completely blind, deaf, and dumb to how much the lifestyle of a porno actress would demand from her body and soul.

"I'll go to the gym later."

"To exorcise the demons." Lena was too young to be haunted by an adult past.

"It's the only way." A strict diet and daily exercises fought off the tidal tug of her old life. She was in good shape for a woman her age or ten years younger, but her heart was a wasteland from too much sex and too many drugs.

"There are other ways besides gym and hard work." Lena rubbed the back of her heel. The straps of her high heels were biting into the flesh. They were new and she liked the sound of them clicking on tile.

"Like you."

A psychiatrist had diagnosed her condition as 'adonia mixed with apathy'.

This inability to feel pleasure stole any chance to fall in love and Sherri prayed that Lena was the cure, but as long as they were involved in porno, nothing would fill the emptiness of her soul.

"Yes, me." Lena knelt between Sherri's bare thighs. "You know I want you with me."

"I know, maybe next year.” Lena was young and the only thing Hollywood worshipped more than beauty was youth, which was the one commodity that money could not buy in this town.

"I know the real reason you can't come.” Lena inhaled the fragrance of burnt peaches off Sherri's skin and her finger skated along the raised tracks of scar tissue inside her lover's arm. “You can't see any of those people. Those people from your past. You think it would kill you, if you did, but I wouldn't let that happen to you."

"I know, but I'm still not strong enough.” Sherri stroked Lena's head, so the long black tresses tumbled onto her belly. "Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for, Sherri, but if you don't mind, I want to wait a few more minutes before I go.” Lena shucked off her clothes and the morning sun melted their nakedness together, until Sherri tapped her shoulder. "If you don't go now, you won't make it there."

"Only if you insist." Lena picked up her clothing from the tiled floor. It took her less than ten seconds to get them on.

"Go have a good time.” She had lived through her own wild period without listening to anyone and understood Lena was too young for domestication. The two women kissed without parting lips. How long Sherri could hold Lena was a question she would never ask the girl.

"If you see anyone suitable to play the male lead for ADAM AND TWO EVES, get their number."

"Anyone?" Lena had met tens of men who could have performed the role and Sherri had turned them all down.

"You know what I'm after.”

"Yes, a man in his forties. Blonde hair. Slightly beat-up. Not too thin, not too fat. A rough voice and a not just another pretty face." Lena wouldn't have been so strict as Sherri. After all it was just a movie.

"And he has to look like he has lived on the road."

"Slightly brutish. Like Robert Mitchum with a heart of gold,” Lena joked, but Sherri remembered the actor’s darker roles. "Not from NIGHT OF THE HUNTER."

"Or CAPE FEAR."

"And he's too nice in HEAVEN KNOWS."

>"And too young in THUNDER ROAD.” They would never find a man at this rate. "I have to get going."

Sherri handed over the keys to the Skylark parked downstairs. "Drive carefully."

"I'll come back in one piece." Lena could not bring herself to tell Sherri she loved her for letting her run free. She had heard the word 'love' from too many men and women in a multitude of languages, when they meant something else, instead she stepped into the hallway from where she would have blown Sherri a kiss, except the apartment door shut.

Accustomed to no good-byes, Lena pressed the elevator button for the garage.

>The Buick's V-8 powered the Skylark onto the Ventura Freeway. Lena's finger hit the stereo's PLAY button and Madonna's MUSIC blasted from the speakers. Her body wriggled to the beat under the fastened seat belt.

A warm wind blew through the driver's window.

Once she was out of the city, she'd put down the top.

She was happy to be on the road, for like a river overflowing its bank, there was no controlling youth once she were free.

NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD - Chapter 6 - A novel by Peter Nolan Smith

SIX

The 757 descended for its final approach to Las Vegas. The passengers tightened their safety belts and the male steward knocked on a bathroom door. A single passenger was missing from the flight.

"Sir, you have to get back to your seat."

"Just a second.” Sean Collan was unraveling the turban of toilet paper in front of the bathroom mirror. The blonde man in the reflection resembled an aging extra from a 1960's biker flick. The wedges inside his shoes added another inch of height and his rumpled black suit shadowed his persona with a nondescript aura. He exited from the bathroom and said to the steward, "Thanks for being so patient."

The steward was visibly dismayed by the passenger's bizarre appearance, especially since no golden-haired man had boarded the plane at JFK.

"What seat are you in, sir?"

>"32-A, I can show you my ticket, if you would like."

"No, that won't be necessary."

Satisfied by the steward's bafflement, Sean proceeded past the passengers gaping at the wonders of Las Vegas below the 757. They should have been recoiling in fright like they were meeting a thief in a dark alley, yet none of them cared a fig whether they won or lost at the gaming tables or slots as long as they weren’t home watching television.

A black boy about eight years old had changed seat for the view.

"You the same guy here before?"

Sean raised his eyebrow to indicate 'maybe'.

"Where's your mom?"

"She's waiting for me at the airport." The boy peeked out the porthole.

"First time flying?" Sean stashed his bag before buckling into the aisle seat.

"Yes, sir.” His small hands gripped the armrests for dear life.

"Empty planes never crash." Sean imitated the exact tone with which his own father had calmed his son on a shuttle flight from Boston to New York decades before, except the boy slouched fearfully into the seat.

"Mister, last year I seen this movie, where a plane crashes in the mountains. Everyone had to eat everyone else."

"Trust me, I won't eat you.” Sean reached over to tighten the boy's seatbelt, as the 757 dropped with a wiggle of its wings. Seconds later the tires touched down on the runway. The young boy had survived the worst of his fears and proudly announced, "That was nothing."

"Just like I said and you'll be with your mom soon."

The 757 stopped at the terminal gate and the young boy was escorted by the steward. Sean positioned himself behind two beefy men in Giants paraphernalia and shuffled from the plane in a slouch. Inside the gangway a bearded air marshal dismissed the bleached-blonde man as a danger only to himself.

Two old ladies elbowed him out of the way and scuttled over to the nearest WHEEL OF FORTUNE slot machine. All seniors loved that show.

Waiting friends, relatives, lovers, and drivers ignored Sean and no one called his name on the ride down the escalator or as he walked out of the terminal into the warm desert air. He had visited Vegas in 1971 and gazed dreamily at the hazy outline of distant mountains. Somewhere over those peaks lay Death Valley and California.

A rough voice short-circuited his attempt to flag a taxi.

"Nice outfit, Tempo, though a little late for Halloween, ain't it?"

"You know the East Village." Sean turned around hoping the voice belonged to a mirage, but he should have known that deRocco would have never sent him on that plane without his maddog partner being on the receiving end.

"Yeah, it's Halloween all the time with those losers." Driscoll's eyes ping-ponging back and forth. The invalided cop was on a binge of speed and dope.

"So I didn't fool you at all?"

"No, but I almost bust a gut seein' you do this hobo thing. Where'd you learn that shit anyway?" Driscoll was in a dark suit a size too small for his waist, but his belly didn't matter, because ex-cops like Driscoll never ran from trouble.

"I went out with this married make-up artist in Paris. She disguised me to keep from finding out her husband from seeing that she was going out with a man."

"She did you up as a woman?"

"Yeah." Sean was telling the truth. "This lasted about six months and finally the husband came up to me at a bar. He was a big guy about your size and showed me some pictures. At first I thought they were me, but the husband told me they were of her old boyfriends."

"Why he tell you that?"

"He thought I was her lesbian lover and wanted to go out with me."

"I woulda liked to seen you as a girl. You have nice hair." Driscoll’s laugh stuck in his throat. “I woulda thought you got the disguise thing from your ex-wife. She's an actress, right? Or your friend, Vic Granollers. Now he's really big in films now, right?"

"I didn't know you were such a movie buff."

"I like to know all about my friends and their friends.”

They entered the shade of the parking garage and Sean changed the subject.

"Where we going?"

"I'll tell you, when we get there." Driscoll ran his hand through his thick hair.

A blue-jacketed peace officer was ticketing a car and Driscoll jabbed Sean's ribs with what felt like a pistol muzzle. "He's havin' a good day, so why would you want to spoil it?"

"Not me." Sean walked past the local policeman to a fire engine red Mustang 5.0.

Driscoll forced him into the front passenger seat and handcuffed his wrist to the door.

"Just think of the cuffs as an extra safety feature."

"What if we get into an accident?"

"This piece of shit has dual air bags, Seano." Driscoll got behind the steering wheel, and revved the engine once before peeling out of the parking lot. Sean took the wedges out of his shoes and the ex-cop chuckled at the show.

"What's so funny?” Sean rubbed his feet.

"Whatcha gonna do with your hair?" Kevin Driscoll pointed at his head.

"Let it grow out." Sean smoothed down the brittle blonde hair and looked out the window at the throngs of tourists. Even the sorriest of the casino fodder was better off than he was.

"Might take some time."

"And I have plenty of that, right?"

Driscoll didn't answer him and drove under I-15.

The glittering hotels and tourists on holiday were replaced by car repair shops, sleazy go-go bars, truck stops, cheap motels and transients permanently down on their luck. Driscoll pulled into a heat-warped parking lot of a run-down motor lodge and stopped the car before room #7. He undid the handcuffs from the door and said, "Get your own bag, cause I ain't no bellhop.”

Sean got out of the car.

Dust devils swirled across the vacant lots into the desert where Las Vegas ended for better or worse.

“Ain't nothing to see here." Driscoll pushed him into the small room. Two single beds were topped by faded polyester spreads. A Formica card table and two plastic chairs leaned into the corner and the bureau was missing its bottom drawer.

"How romantic." Sean dropped his bag on the mildewed carpet.

"Cheap and cheerful, not in the middle of town, so no one sees us come in or out."

"Place stinks." The disinfectant had failed to kill the smell of a thousand illicit affairs.

"This might help.” Kevin Driscoll twisted the AC to the max. "Now strip."

"What for?" Fear crawled like a million fire ants on Sean's skin.

"Cause I said so." Kevin Driscoll performed the finger-breakings, the baseball bat beatings, and the killing for the two-man team. The ex-cop took off the gray suit jacket. Sweat stained his white shirt. A shoulder holster held a 9mm Beretta, his weapon of choice.

"What if I don't want to?"

"You don't want to know.” Driscoll wasn't usesd to people saying 'no'.

"Since you put it that way." Sean took off his jacket, trousers, and shirt. Once he was down to his boxers, Driscoll said, "Stop there. I don't need to see your pecker."

"You sure?"

Several years back deRocco and Driscoll had been staked out a cocaine warehouse on Avenue D. A lookout spotted the unmarked car and three Dominican gunmen surrounded the car to discover one man fellating the other. The dopers told the maricons to get lost. When the warehouse was busted, Driscoll capped the three witnesses to his giving head and earned a citation for the killings. Later deRocco had joked that his partner was the only cop in NYPD history to get a medal for sucking cock.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

No one in the 9th Precinct had had the balls to ask what his cock were doing out at the stake-out and Sean was following their lead. He lifted the handcuff on his wrist. "What about this?"

"Thanks for reminding me." Driscoll holstered his weapon and snapped the open manacle onto the TV stand.

Both men eyed the telephone and Kevin Driscoll tugged the wire from the wall.

"Sorry, it just broke."

"I wasn't calling anyone anyway."

"That's for sure." Driscoll punched Sean's arm.

It was not a playful gesture and Sean slumped into the wall.

"I'll see you."

The door slammed shut and five seconds later Sean tugged at the chain, but the TV stand had been bolted to the wall by anti-theft experts. These four cinderblock walls were his Las Vegas.

No showgirls, roulette, blackjack, craps, or even a nickel slot machine and he couldn't help from asking himself aloud, "What I ever do to deserve this?"

His first bad deed had been erased from his memory, but his most recent sins shone crystal-clear; greed for fencing those watches, lust for trusting Mira, and pride for thinking he'd fool Driscoll. He slammed his fist into the wall. The shock of pain to his long-abused knuckles was enough to prevent any repetition and Sean turned on the TV.

Its bright glow wavered across the bleak room. He was in purgatory and his only release from this limbo depended on his breaking the 5th Commandment.

Sean attempted to visualize whether his target was a man or woman, good or bad, young or old, usually ending up with the image of a lowlife criminal deserving of this death sentence, as if this boldfaced delusion could render homicide more doable in his eyes and Sean once more tried to free himself from the TV stand.

After futile five tugs he rubbed his chaffed wrist, resigned to the fact that the world's population had been savagely reduced down to three people; Driscoll, himself, and the unknown victim. Everything had become very simple, when kill or be killed were your only options.

Ten minutes later Kevin Driscoll entered the room with two large paper bags from McDonalds.

"Dinnertime."

"Great. I guess the condemned man doesn't get a choice of last meals."

"What wrong with Mickie Ds?"

"The beef is everything of a cow other than the moo and I don't think there's any potatoes in the fries." His mouth watered upon smelling the fries.

"You're wrong. The fries are 65% potato. I read it on the wall, besides you're not gonna do the dying, so stop the drama." Driscoll flipped one bag to Sean, who caught it without spilling the soda inside and lifted the cuff.

"Think the prisoner can eat with his hands free."

"Stop rushin' me." Driscoll snapped before freeing Sean from the TV stand.

"What about my wrist?"

"What about it?" Driscoll ignored whatever Sean was implying until headed across the room and Driscoll asked, "Where you think you're going?"

"My teeth are floating. Mind, if I go to the bathroom?

>"Knock yourself out," Driscoll mumbled through a mouth filled with fries, as Sean entered the bathroom.

"Don't shut the door."

"Can't I do this in private?"

"What and let you slip out the window? No way."

>Once Sean finished, he squeezed past Driscoll to sit on the bed with his food. The barely-warm cheeseburger tasted good after having not eaten anything for seven days. The ex-cop ate a second burger in three bites.

"Everything is go for tonight."

"Tonight?" Sean choked on his food.

"Yeah, tonight. Better this way. You come into town and do the job, then you're history. A quick in-and-out."

"You mean, I go in, kill him, and come out alive? No one seeing me?" The burger trembled in his hand.

"That's the way it's supposed to go."

"And who am I killing?" Sean doubted whether Driscoll had any idea as why the victim was being targeted. To him it was just another job.

"You ask that question, when your French whore poisoned those businessmen?"

"That was different."

"Take it from a pro. The whos and whys are unimportant. Names only make you remember the faces later."

"So I kill a total stranger and then what?"

"You go your way and I go mine."

"After you give me the five grand."

"You think I'm gonna welch on you."

"Sorry to hit your sensitivity button, it's just that I never killed anyone before."

"Don't think nothin' about it, this is basically your 'wham-blam-thank-you-ma'am' deal." Driscoll stroked the barrel of the 9mm inside his jacket.

"Nice to put a sexual angle on it."

"Hey, everyone gets their kicks different ways."

"If you say so." Sean had no doubt murder gave the ex-cop a hard-on and finished his meal in silence, as Driscoll brushed the crumbs from his lap.

"Get dressed, Seano. We got places to be."

"Now?"

"Now." Driscoll repeated with a directness detouring any argument.

Sean dressed in his black suit and the ex-cop patted him down. He pulled out the $5000 from deRocco and handed back the roll.

"All you gotta do is pull a trigger. Boom, and you get another five Gs. Ten Gs for a day's work. Good deal?"

"You keep telling me that and I might believe it." Sean stuffed the money in his pant pocket and checked himself in the mirror, thinking he looked more like a defrocked priest than an initiate to murder.

"You'll be thanking me once it's over. 10 Gs for a minute's work."

"Too bad I'm not working every day."

"Too bad is right." Driscoll left $50 to cover the mini-bar and the damaged telephone. He swiftly policed the room for any trace of their presence and plucked an empty Fed-Ex package out of the trash, then pushed Sean toward the door.

"I'm not going anywhere, till this cuff comes off." Sean dug in his heels.

>"No?" Driscoll flexed his knuckles and the tendons of his neck stuck out like a garrote was cutting off his wind.

"No." Sean prepared to dodge a punch, however the ex-cop unlocked the handcuff.

"You happy now?"

"Happier, yes. What about you?"

"I would have been happier killing you a few seconds ago."

"You wouldn't kill someone who owed you $10,000."

"I'd grease 'em like lightning," Driscoll spoke with a cold-bloodedness of which only true killers are capable. "When you want to kill someone, screw the money. Now pick up your shit and let's get out of here."

Sean grabbed the leather bag, stuffing the extra French fries and a packet of ketchup into his jacket pocket.

"I thought you didn't like Mickie D's."

"I didn't, but I might get hungry later."

Have it your way."

The two men exited from the motel room.

Only two other cars were in the parking lot. Their passengers had not come to the Desert Inn to look out the windows. Across the street a piggyback of train engines hauled a long line of boxcars southward on the Union Pacific's tracks. The squeal of the steel wheels on the rails mingled with the peal of a couple's laughter from a motel room.

"This why I like this place. No one is nosy, so nothing can connect us to here."

"I'll remember that next time I want to kill someone.” Sean pulled up his collar against the cold wind and lifted his head to the sky. The stars seemed bigger in the desert night.

"You'll have plenty of time to stare at the stars later." Driscoll shoved Sean into the Mustang's passenger door. "Throw your shit in back and get in the car. The door's not locked."

"Okay, okay, chill your jets." Sean strapped himself into the seat, wishing he was a couple of inches taller or had studied Kung Fu or Frank deRocco had not found him at the diner this morning or he had not blown the money Mira Lachelle had left him or he had not met her in the first place.

deRocco started the car.

"Put on your seatbelt. I don't want the Vegas PD stopping us for somethin' stupid."

The car's V6 revved into the tach's red zone and Driscoll stomped on the gas. The Mustang burned rubber out of the parking lot to cut off a commercial van, then accelerated through a yellow light to catch up with the flow of traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard.

"So much for doing nothing stupid." Sean shook his head.

"Just driving like the rest of the losers. How about a little mood music?" Driscoll tuned on a country-western station.

"Country?" Sean reached for the dial.

"Yeah, country." The driver karate-chopped his left arm. "Don't touch that dial. I love Willie Nelson."

Sean rubbed his wrist and stared out the window. The only signs of human life were the heads and shoulders wrapped inside cars.

"We're goin' to where we'll do it later.” Driscoll steered past a slow-moving camper with Michigan plates. “It's a glassed-in stairway. You wait on the second-floor landing. Out of sight. There are no video cameras. No guards either. When the 'guy' shows up, you stick the gun in his ear and pull the trigger. The bullet will do the rest. You get his wallet to make it looks like a robbery. You come out and meet me. I give you your money and we split. One, two, three, maybe four, five, six, sounds easy, huh?"

"A snap." Sean rotated his wrist, which he had broken three years ago on the Thai-Burma border, when an opium farmer's pick-up truck rammed his motorcycle head-on. He had been shocked to have survived and sometimes thought that this existence might be the After-Life, though tonight was not one of them.

"After checking out the hotel, I'll take you out to the desert to pop off a few shots.

"Target practice?"

"You're gonna be too close to miss. Just get used to pullin' the trigger, so you don't freeze up."

"You have a picture of this person or do I have to guess who he will be?" Sean scratched at the day-old stubble.

"You're doing him." Driscoll handed Sean a photo of old man in his 70s.

Somewhere along the line he had committed an offense great enough to warrant his being wanted more dead than alive.

"Why don't we give him a couple of weeks to die of natural causes." Sean passed back the photo.

>"Cause that's not the way this works. The next time you see that guy, you're gonna do him." Driscoll inspected his passenger's shadowed face, trying to ascertain whether he could go through with this. Not many people could, but twenty-two years ago he had seen Sean beat a Russian Mafia member close to death, which meant somewhere he had it in him to go all the way and if Sean couldn't, then doing Sean would give him the right motivation for doing the stranger.

"It’ll be over before you know it." Driscoll drove into a hotel parking lot across from the Casino Center.

"Yeah, that's real comforting.”

All that was required was a little nerve and a few ounces of pressure on the trigger.

A little more than a breeze.

How easy a steel-jacketed bullet ended the universe for another human being bothered Sean, but he would find out soon enough how hard it really was.

NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD - Chapter 7 - by Peter Nolan Smith

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