Los Angeles Noir - Denise Hamilton [37]
What I could do with a part like Neely O’Hara. Not fucking Laura Wingfield, whom Chris had given me. He wanted me to find my soft side. Talk about miscasting. “It’s your job to find her, Holly. Allow her to live in you.”
I watched Mariah in her weird crocheted sweater and tights, unconsciously splitting the ends of her ragged hair. Her and Richard. Really? I wondered whether he was just yanking my chain. And how long ago?
“Poor Sharon,” Mariah said, watching the screen, Sharon Tate doing her breast exercises. “Did you know the La Bianca house is right around the corner, across from the nuns?”
The first Manson killing. Right here in Los Feliz. Better look out for Charlie’s girls …
It was a cold afternoon and I shivered, thinking of that freaky guy with his flock of bizarre little girls, exactly the kind of thing people in Kearney worried about when they thought of L.A. I wrapped my fingers around the packet of white powder Richard had given me. I was supposed to put it into Mariah’s drink. Some ground-up barbs to knock her out for a few hours. So far I’d taken a few things—a letter here, a signed picture there—but it was time to get into her Deco bedroom for a little scout around.
Yes, Grandma, there was lots to worry about in L.A., and they didn’t always look like Charlie and his girls. There were people like Richard. People like me.
And yet, I couldn’t help wondering how he knew her. If they’d really been lovers. She might have known him when he had hair, and she was a movie star. I was jealous of her, having had him, this fuzzy-headed has-been in the goat-hair sweater. I could imagine them together, how it was. I thought of it all the time, knowing what it was to have Richard; I’d never known sex could be like that. He was a drug. He hardly even came, just got you off about twenty times. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“I met this guy at Orzo’s,” I said, sipping my Corona. “He said he knew you.” I was taking a chance, but couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t know one fucking thing about Richard. Who his friends were, what he liked to do besides fuck. “His name was Richard something.”
She shrugged, sipped at her Scotch, watching Sharon Tate and Lee Grant on the flickering screen.
“Kind of intense, brown eyes?” I added.
The speed at which she turned to me, I knew. And it was either big or recent. But it hadn’t been good. She looked downright scared. “Was he tall, lanky? Attractive in a sort of reptilian way?”
I backpedaled fast. I didn’t want to tip her off. “No, this guy was stocky. Sort of like a wrestler. He said he interviewed you in the ’80s. You snorted coke together.”
She relaxed, went back to watching the TV. “Oh, a journalist. Yeah, I seem to remember someone like that. Richard somebody. Stevens. Sheehan.”
Onscreen, Sharon Tate was launching a porn career to care for her declining husband.
“So,” I said, natural as all get-out. “Who was this other guy?”
“Someone I had a thing with,” she said, not turning away from the TV. “Years ago. But what a psycho. I had to get a restraining order.”
I thought of Richard. Had he threatened her, had he hurt her? Was he capable of that? I had imagined him as dark, but was he dangerous? You’ve got to layer. Hold something in reserve. Easy. Casual. “What was his name?”
“Anthony. Karras. I had him fired off a set. People don’t take too kindly to that.”
“That’s kind of harsh, isn’t it?” I searched for my inner Laura. “Makes you kind of feel sorry for him.”
She patted my leg. “You’re a nice kid. Don’t feel too sorry for him. He was one of those guys who’s exciting in a kind of bad boy way … and then you get involved, and they’re just freaks. I got wise and told him it was over, to move the fuck out, but he wouldn’t. Had to call some people to get rid of him. He said he’d kill me. Showed up at my house. Called my friends. I took him off the picture and got a restraining order. Told the casting agents to watch out for him, he was a definite freak.” She got the remote, turned up the sound. “Learned my lesson, baby. No more smart men.