Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [47]
I got into the car and waited. Walter sipped in silence for about ten minutes. When he spoke I knew he had been freshly restored to his old insanity. “Where have you been?” he said. “I’ve been calling you for days. I needed the dubious pleasure of your company.” He held up his hands and placed them a few inches from the windshield. They were perfectly still.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I said. “Do you still want to make the run?”
“Of course.”
We rolled up the windows and I hit the air conditioning. Cold air flooded the car and we took off, awash in hazy sunshine that seemed to permeate everything from blacktop to billboards. As we drove north on P.C.H. the sun reflecting off the ocean was blinding.
“How did it start this time?” I asked Walter.
“It all happened at once,” he said, throwing his straw and plastic lid out the window and drinking directly from the cup. “Dear is definitely going to marry the wop. It’s all set. She’s got him by the balls. She even got him to renounce his Catholicism, at least temporarily. A Christian Science Practitioner is going to perform the service. With his emphysema and Dear’s claws into him, he probably won’t last six months. He’s been making friendly overtures toward me, no doubt to curry favor with Dear. He even offered to set me up in my own fruit stand. He looks like a gila monster and he smells like garlic. Dear treats him like shit. It’s depressing beyond belief. And I’ve been without T-bird. Dear ripped off that C-note you put in my pocket. It was you, wasn’t it? Who else could it have been? She told me that I was in a blackout and offered her the money to pay for some of the damage I’ve done around the house. The usual threats ensued, on both sides, until she popped her final ace—’Walter, if you persist with this behavior, I shall have to call Judge Gray and have you committed.’ You know the bitch will do it if I push her far enough, and Judge Gray has had it in for me ever since I poured winter-green down his ugly daughter’s bra in the eighth grade. He’s Republican, Christian Science, and law-and-order militant: the trinity. So without funds, I have been ripping off Scotch from Thrifty’s. And it hasn’t been working. I drink and I drink and I’m not drunk, and then wham, I’m out like a light. And the music doesn’t help either. I heard the Bruckner Third the other night on KUSC. Haitink and the Concertgebouw. Lonely Anton at his peak, and I didn’t give a shit. Nothing’s working anymore, everything’s changing and it’s driving me fucking batshit.”
We entered Topanga Canyon with its green hills that resembled the Fjords. Knots of youthful hikers walked along a stream that runs parallel to the twisting blacktop, several of the women carrying babies papoose-style in specially rigged backpacks. Friendly dogs followed them, stopping frequently to explore interesting scents. Walter was staring out his window, where the edge of the roadside led to nothing but a steep drop.
“You want some advice, wino?” I asked.
“Sure.”
“Don’t lose the momentum you’ve got going. I know exactly how you feel. It’s exactly how I felt ten months ago. The fear, the loss, the sense of slipping, the whole shot. Go with it. Don’t let the old illusions take hold of you again.”
“I think I’m really scared this time, Fritz.”
“Good. Look, I have to go down to Mexico for a few days. I’m on a case, a real one. Try not to drink until I get back. Hit some A.A. meetings. It works for some people. Read. Stay away from Dear. Try to eat. When I