Read Online Hollywood Ending by Kathy Charles - Free Book Online Page A

mister—’
    â€˜HANK! MY NAME’S HANK!’
    â€˜â€”Hank, but I can’t come over. I don’t have a car.’
    â€˜Get a cab. There’s plenty of cabs in this town.’
    I scrambled for excuses. ‘It’s more complicated than that,’ I said, hoping my vagueness would make him give up. I was wrong.
    â€˜It’s as complicated as you wanna make it. What I got, I think you’ll like. I think you’ll like it a hell of a lot.’
    I don’t know what came over me, whether it was the darkness of the house, the silence, or merely curiosity about what was on offer. Hank waited on the other end of the line, his breathing raspy. Jesus, I thought. He’ll probably kill me. Chop me up over all those old newspapers in his apartment.
    â€˜Well, all right,’ I said, against my better judgment. ‘Just don’t try anything. I’ll be telling people where I’m going.’
    â€˜I said it ain’t like that. You will get a kick out of this. Trust me.’
    â€˜When?’
    â€˜I’m an old man. I ain’t got all the time in the world.’
    I rifled through an imaginary diary in my head, every page blank. Benji had mentioned a dentist appointment he had the next day. ‘I suppose I could squeeze in some time tomorrow.’
    â€˜Done!’ Hank cried, and slammed down the phone.
    Done. I looked around my room, the sound of the dial tone still echoing in my ear. I looked again at the photograph of Leslie Van Houten. When she was first convicted she was just another gangly hippy teenager with scraggy brown hair, a glint of mischief in her eye. Now she was an old lady, her face gaunt, grey hair pulled back tight in an old-fashioned bun. She had put a pillowcase over dress-shop owner Rosemary LaBianca’s head, tied it with electrical cord, and held her down while another Family member stabbed her in the stomach with a knife.
    I wondered if she thought it was all worth it now. I wondered if in agreeing to meet with Hank, I was getting myself into something I was going to regret.

NINE
    The next day I took a cab to Echo Park. It was going to cost a fortune but I couldn’t bring myself to take the bus. There was something unsavoury about riding public transport in Los Angeles. All I could think of was the song by Billy Idol about the killer travelling on the bus, reading books about murder and thinking about his next victim. It was The Night Stalker’s favourite song. He’d play it on his Walkman as he skulked through people’s yards, looking for an unlocked window or open pet door. Anyway, I didn’t really have to worry about money. Lynette made enough and gave me a healthy allowance to keep me quiet and out of her hair.
    The driver turned on the radio and The Ramones were playing. I couldn’t believe that three of the band members were dead already. ‘Can you turn it up?’ I asked. The cabbie leant over, turned a knob, and The Ramones and their special brand of frenetic punk rock blasted through every corner of the cab.
    â€˜Pretty rockin’ huh?’ the cabbie yelled over the music.
    â€˜Hell yeah.’
    â€˜Most girls your age, they like the pop music, you know? Britney Spears. Christina Aguilera. They don’t like the good stuff. They think Maroon 5 is rock and roll. I got more if you like.’
    The cabbie put in a CD of hard rock hits—AC/DC, Nine Inch Nails, Metallica. We drove down the freeway, the music battling against the sounds of the other traffic. Fifteen minutes later we pulled up outside the drab apartment block in Echo Park. The same mail catalogues were still on the lawn, dry and brittle like fossils. I paid the driver.
    â€˜You okay?’ he asked, looking up at the apartment. ‘You need me to wait?’
    I considered it for a moment. ‘No, I’m fine. Thanks for the tunes.’
    The cabbie shook his head and drove off. I looked up. Unlike the day before the