Read Online Manifesto for the Dead by Domenic Stansberry - Free Book Online Page B

my life. Girlie puss.
    Now she disappeared into the building. She did not see him, and he did not call out. Maybe, because in the back of his head somewhere he was thinking of Lussie Jones, imagining her in the seat beside him as he made his way down the shore.
    He tried the car. The engine wouldn’t turn. The motor was silent as the dead.
    He struggled the suitcase down the hill, sweating fiercely. Getting out was not so easy. On Hollywood Boulevard, he stepped again over all those stars embedded in the crumbling sidewalk. The clean-up crew was finished. The streets were empty and hot.

EIGHTEEN
    Back at the hotel, the desk clerk was stoned. His head lolled, and his eyes were shiny. He wore a jacket of the type worn by organ monkeys, only more frayed. The red fabric was matted by age, its color bleached by the sun, and the gold braid was all but worn from the sleeves. The jacket, too, had its own odor about it. It gave the young man the combined smell of the many men who had worn it before, then left it to hang, unwashed, in the bell clerk’s closet.
    â€œMessages?” Thompson asked.
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œLetters. Notes. Stationery scrawled with lipstick. Has anybody been by to see me?”
    â€œYeah. But nobody with lipstick.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œA man.”
    â€œDid he leave his name?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid you ask for it?”
    â€œHey, I buzzed your room. When you didn’t pick up, I told him to go knock on your door.”
    â€œTell me, kid. What the hell’s in your head?”
    â€œNothing. He gave me a tip.”
    â€œWhat happened to him?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œThe man who was here, where did he go?”
    â€œHe waited around in the lobby for a while.”
    â€œThen?”
    â€œHe said he’d be back later.”
    â€œWhat did he look like?”
    â€œI don’t remember.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, you don’t remember?”
    â€œHe gave me a tip, that doesn’t mean I memorized his face.” The kid squinted, as if looking up at Thompson from inside a dark hole. “Maybe you should loosen up.”
    Thompson had had it. “Go drown, you little rat.” He wanted to smack the kid, but instead he burst into a coughing fit. The fit racked his body with a spasm that started deep in his lungs and seemed for an instant as if it would never stop.
    The kid smirked. Thompson wanted to punish him. Instead, he went upstairs. He wondered who had come to see him. If the Okie had searched him out somehow, there was nothing to stop him from coming back in the middle of the night. The door lock was a flimsy piece of business.
    He thought of his sister’s place, and Lussie Jones. He called Greyhound, but the next bus wasn’t till tomorrow morning. He thought about Lussie again. The way things were going, he might not have another chance to see her. He went to his closet and got out some studio stationery. He still had courier privileges from his time working with Colossal. One thing about the studios: If they were slow about giving you something, they could be just as slow about taking it away.
    Dear Lussie,
    My sister gave me your message. Yes, I would be most glad to see you again, perhaps show you around the City of Angels. I will be at the Musso & Frank Grill tonight, sixish, for drinks and dinner. It’s a grand old place, dingy in the manner of the true Hollywood. If you are not otherwise engaged, I would love to have you at my table.
    Yours,
    J. Thompson.
    Six o’clock was less than three hours away. It was not much notice, but maybe she would come. Meanwhile, the heat was stifling; he went to the window to get what he could of the breeze. Outside, the scofflaws had taken to the doorways and alleys, camping in the shadows. The Okie was still out there on the streets, Thompson figured. Sooner or later he would run into him again. There were laws about such things. Rules of nature. An object in