Read Online The Cactus Club Killings (Joe Portugal) by Nathan Walpow - Free Book Online
Authors: Nathan Walpow
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I opened it, and there stood Gina. She was doing the interior of Elaine’s new office in Westwood, and Elaine had invited her on the pretext of expanding her religious horizons but with the ulterior motive of fixing usup. Gina and I were uncomfortable—for the first thirty seconds or so. By the end of the evening we were the best of friends. She brought me up to date; she’d gotten married and divorced, been through a punk phase, and started her own interior-design business.
We were a couple of jerks that evening, ignoring everyone else except Lauren—Elaine and her husband Wayne’s daughter—who was nine and a fine audience for our antics. By the time the last matzo was eaten, Gina and I had arranged four or five activities together.
Being in the entertainment world—however loosely you use that phrase—meant I’d always had female friends. But there was generally an undertone of sexual tension, on my part at least. I’d treat the women as buddies and secretly plot some way to get them into bed. It happened once or twice and ruined the friendship.
But when I ran into Gina again, I felt no chemistry. We’d used it up back in ‘81. She obviously felt like I did, and besides, her social life was already complicated enough. She’d been juggling two lovers, one male and one female, for several months. Before our reacquaintance was a week old, she’d related all their shortcomings to me—
all
of them. I responded with similar complaints about the woman I’d been seeing on and off It was great. It was like suddenly having the sister I’d never had, except you couldn’t talk to your sister about blow jobs.
Being a guy, I was more interested in what went on with Gina’s female lover. She would demand to know why men were so aroused by the thought of two women together. I could never think of anything to say other than, “It’s a big turn-on,” at which point she would ask how I would respond to the sight of two men together. I would mouth platitudes about how everyone had the right to whatever orientationthey chose, then curl my nose and say that actually seeing two men together sounded icky.
I smiled in the dark. “I still think it sounds icky.”
“What’d you say?” It was Gina, standing in the doorway to my room, her slim form outlined by the light of the moon.
“Nothing. What are you doing up?”
“I had to pee. You?”
“Couldn’t sleep. Casillas and all.”
Her silhouette nodded. “Forget him for now. Get yourself some rest, baby.”
She slipped off toward the bathroom, and I was asleep before she came back out.
O N WEDNESDAY MORNING, WITH GINA STILL ASLEEP IN THE living room, I washed my six days’ growth of beard down the drain and left the house at six-thirty. My destination was West Covina, one of a patchwork of small cities to the east of Los Angeles. It’s along Interstate 10—which is the Santa Monica Freeway in my part of town but the San Bernardino out there—and out past the 605. The 605 has a name too, but no one can ever remember it.
The whole commercial thing had gotten pretty routine. Every couple of months one of my auditions would work out and I’d find myself on a soundstage or in some rented house. The other actors would be obsessing about pictures and resumes and casting-director workshops, and I’d be daydreaming about pachypodiums. Acting was so important to some of my competition that occasionally I felt guilty for nonchalantly taking some of their jobs. But not often. Especially not when the residual checks came.
I got off the freeway and followed the fluorescent-orange signs with OLSEN’S lettered in Magic Marker to an address on a residential street. Equipment trucks lined the block; a covey of crew clustered around the honey wagon. I found aspot half a block away, checked in, and went to my dressing room—a trailer segment—to await my makeup call. I ran into the woman who’d been cast as my wife, played the game where we tried to figure
We were a couple of jerks that evening, ignoring everyone else except Lauren—Elaine and her husband Wayne’s daughter—who was nine and a fine audience for our antics. By the time the last matzo was eaten, Gina and I had arranged four or five activities together.
Being in the entertainment world—however loosely you use that phrase—meant I’d always had female friends. But there was generally an undertone of sexual tension, on my part at least. I’d treat the women as buddies and secretly plot some way to get them into bed. It happened once or twice and ruined the friendship.
But when I ran into Gina again, I felt no chemistry. We’d used it up back in ‘81. She obviously felt like I did, and besides, her social life was already complicated enough. She’d been juggling two lovers, one male and one female, for several months. Before our reacquaintance was a week old, she’d related all their shortcomings to me—
all
of them. I responded with similar complaints about the woman I’d been seeing on and off It was great. It was like suddenly having the sister I’d never had, except you couldn’t talk to your sister about blow jobs.
Being a guy, I was more interested in what went on with Gina’s female lover. She would demand to know why men were so aroused by the thought of two women together. I could never think of anything to say other than, “It’s a big turn-on,” at which point she would ask how I would respond to the sight of two men together. I would mouth platitudes about how everyone had the right to whatever orientationthey chose, then curl my nose and say that actually seeing two men together sounded icky.
I smiled in the dark. “I still think it sounds icky.”
“What’d you say?” It was Gina, standing in the doorway to my room, her slim form outlined by the light of the moon.
“Nothing. What are you doing up?”
“I had to pee. You?”
“Couldn’t sleep. Casillas and all.”
Her silhouette nodded. “Forget him for now. Get yourself some rest, baby.”
She slipped off toward the bathroom, and I was asleep before she came back out.
O N WEDNESDAY MORNING, WITH GINA STILL ASLEEP IN THE living room, I washed my six days’ growth of beard down the drain and left the house at six-thirty. My destination was West Covina, one of a patchwork of small cities to the east of Los Angeles. It’s along Interstate 10—which is the Santa Monica Freeway in my part of town but the San Bernardino out there—and out past the 605. The 605 has a name too, but no one can ever remember it.
The whole commercial thing had gotten pretty routine. Every couple of months one of my auditions would work out and I’d find myself on a soundstage or in some rented house. The other actors would be obsessing about pictures and resumes and casting-director workshops, and I’d be daydreaming about pachypodiums. Acting was so important to some of my competition that occasionally I felt guilty for nonchalantly taking some of their jobs. But not often. Especially not when the residual checks came.
I got off the freeway and followed the fluorescent-orange signs with OLSEN’S lettered in Magic Marker to an address on a residential street. Equipment trucks lined the block; a covey of crew clustered around the honey wagon. I found aspot half a block away, checked in, and went to my dressing room—a trailer segment—to await my makeup call. I ran into the woman who’d been cast as my wife, played the game where we tried to figure