The Big Nowhere

Hartshorn was beet red and spilling tears. Buzz let go of his neck, saw the imprint of a big ham hand and made that hand a fist. Hartshorn tremble-walked to the sideboard and picked up the whiskey decanter. Buzz swung at the wall, pulling the punch at the last second. “Spill on Loftis, goddamnit. Make it easy so I can get the fuck out of here.”

Glass on glass chimed, followed by hard breathing and silence. Buzz stared at the wall. Hartshorn spoke, his voice dead hollow. “Reynolds and I were just a… fling. We met at a party a Belgian man, a movie director, threw. The man was very au courant, and he threw lots of parties at clubs for our… his kind. It never got serious with Reynolds because there was a screenwriter he had been seeing, and some third man they were disturbed over. I was the odd man… so it never…”

Buzz turned and saw Hartshorn slumped in a chair, warming his hands on a whiskey glass. “What else you got?”

“Nothing. I never saw Reynolds after that time at the Knight in Armor. Who are you going to—”

“Nobody, Charlie. Nobody’s go

“Oh God, is this the witchhunts again?”

Buzz exited to the sound of the sad bastard weeping.

Rain had hit while he was applying the strongarm—hard needle sheets of it, the kind of deluge that threatened to melt the foothills into the ocean and sieve out half the LA Basin. Buzz laid three to one that Hartshorn would keep his mouth shut; two to one that more cop work would drive him batshit; even money that di

Home was the Longview Apartments at Beverly and Mariposa, four rooms on the sixth floor, southern exposure, the pad furnished with leftovers from RKO movie sets. Buzz pulled into the garage, ditched his car and took the elevator up. And sitting by his door was Audrey Anders in a rain-spattered, sequin-spangled, gold lamé gown, a wet mink coat in her lap. She was using it as an ashtray; when she saw Buzz, she said, “Last year’s model. Mickey’ll get me a new one,” and stubbed her cigarette out on the collar.

Buzz helped Audrey to her feet, holding her hands just a beat too long. “Did I really get this lucky?”

“Don’t count your chickens. Lavo

“I thought you and Mickey were in love.”

“Love has its flip side. Did you know you’re the only Turner Meeks in the Central White Pages?”

Buzz unlocked the door. Audrey walked in, dropped her mink on the floor and scoped the living room. The furnishings included leather couches and easy chairs from London Holiday and zebra head wall mounts from Jungle Bwana; the swinging doors leading to the bedroom were scavenged off the saloon set of Rage on the Rio Grande. The carpeting was lime green and purple striped—the bedspread one the Amazon huntress lollygagged on in Song of the Pampas. Audrey said, “Meeks, did you pay for this?”

“Gifts from a rich uncle. You want a drink?”

“I don’t drink.”

“Why not?”

“My father, sister and two brothers are drunks, so I thought I’d give it a pass.”

Buzz was thinking she looked good—but not as good as she did with no makeup and Mickey’s shirt hanging to her knees. “And you became a stripper?”

Audrey sat down, kicked off her shoes and warmed her feet on the mink. “Yes, and don’t ask me to do the tassel trick for you, because I won’t. Meeks, what is the matter with you? I thought you’d be glad to see me.”

He could still smell the queer. “I coldcocked a guy today. It was shitty.”

Audrey wriggled her toes, making the coat jump. “So? That’s what you do for a living.”

“The guys I usually do it to give me more of a fight.”

“So you’re telling me it’s all a game?”

He’d told Howard once that the only women worth having were the ones who had your number. “There’s gotta be somethin’ we’re better at than buttin’ heads and askin’ each other questions.”

The Va Va Voom Girl kicked the mink up in her lap. “Is the bedroom this outré?”

Buzz laughed. “Casbah Nocturne and Paradise Is Pink. That tell you anything?”

“That’s another question. Ask me something provocative.”

Buzz took off his jacket, unhooked his holster and threw it on a chair. “Okay. Does Mickey keep a tail on you?”

Audrey shook her head. “No. I made him stop it. It made me feel cheap.”

“Where’s your car?”

“Three blocks away.”

All green lights to make his best stupid move an epic. “You got it all figured out.”

Audrey said, “I didn’t think you’d say no.” She waved her mink coat. “And I brought a towel for the morning.”

Buzz thought, RIP Turner Prescott Meeks, 1906—1950. He took a deep breath, sucked in his flab, pushed through the saloon doors and started peeling. Audrey came in and laughed at the bed—pink satin spread, pink canopy, pink embroidered gargoyles as foot posts. She got naked with a single flick of a clasp; Buzz felt his legs buckling as her breasts bobbed free. Audrey came to him and slipped off his tie, undid his shirt buttons, loosened his belt. He pried his shoes and socks off standing up; his shirt hit the floor via a bad case of the shivers. Audrey laughed and traced the goosebumps on his arms, then ran her hands over the parts of himself he couldn’t stand: his melon gut, his side rolls, the knife scars ru

He kissed her—soft, hard, soft; he rubbed his nose into her neck and smelled Ivory Soap—not the perfume he’d played pretend with. He took her breasts in his hands and pinched the nipples, remembering everything every cop had told him about the headliner at the Burbank Burlesque. Audrey made different noises for each part of her he touched; he kissed and tongued between her legs and got one big noise. The big noise got bigger and bigger; her legs and arms went spastic. Her going so crazy got him almost there, and he went inside her so he could be part of it. Audrey’s hips pushing off the covers made him burst going in; he held on and she held him, and he gave her all his strength to smother their aftershocks. Half his weight, she was still able to push him up as she kept coming—and he grabbed her head and buried his head in her hair until he went limp and she quit fighting him.

Pink satin sheets and sweat bound them together. Buzz rolled over on his side, hooking a finger around Audrey’s wrist so they’d keep on touching while he got his breath. Eight years without a cigarette and he was panting like a track dog—and she was lying there all still and calm, a vein on the back of her arm tapping his finger the only thing that said she was still racing inside. His chest heaved; he tried to think of something to say; Audrey made finger tracks on his knife scars. She said, “This could get complicated.”

Buzz got his wind. “That mean you’re thinkin’ angles already?”

Audrey made like her nails were animals’ claws and pretended to scratch him. “I just like to know where I stand.”