I shut my eyes. I gave the God guys time to get together and go for my deal. I could feel them finagling the fine points. Divine deals demand deliberation.
I opened my eyes. Ben Luboff bopped in front of my binoculars. He slid the sweaty swish a C-note and slid into the shack alone. The swish sashayed up to a lavender Lincoln and leaned in.
Ben bribed the too-tall brunser. That meant he didn’t want to roust his racket. The gig developed different dimensions–maybe divinely deigned.
I latched my lenses on the Lincoln and locked my eyes in hard. I saw hunky Rock Hudson hand up a handful of hard cash.
All praise to Allah! Joy to Jesus! Hush-Hush hosannahs to the Hebrew God!
Rock locked his Lincoln, ditched the drive-in, and joyfully jaywalked straight across Wilshire. He walked up to the front of the Fine Arts movie house and made with a wicked wolf whistle.
A winsome wolf whistle whisked back his way. A muscular manchild meandered out of a moonbeam and leaned in the lobby doorway.
Rock, you rambunctious rump ranger–
Rock loped into the lobby. The kid locked them in. They disappeared near a dark candy counter.
I blew out of my Buick and flew around the Fine Arts fast-footed. I saw blue lights blink at the back of the building upstairs. I shimmied up a shaky drainpipe and shagged myself onto a ledge. I undulated through an unlocked window and heard Rock ululating.
I landed on a lopsided pile of film cans. I pitched forward and pulled myself up. I peeped through a pebble-glass door and saw shadows shifting down a short hallway.
I fast-footed it out of the film-storage room. I saw flickery flits of light flick out from below two doorways. I ducked down the dark hall. Shifty shadows shot up from the door slits. I crept up on them and got down in a crab-crawl crouch. I slid one eye up against the door slits.
I saw a punk cameraman with a Panflex porta-cam packed into a pod-shaped peephole. Next door: Rock and the monster-hung man-child making meat-mangling motions on a light-colored couch with the lights on. Motherfucker: minuscule mini-mikes taped to a tall table lamp!
I flew back to the film-storage room. I rapidly reshimmied down that drainpipe. I whizzed across Wilshire, looped around La Cienega, and ducked down an alley behind Delores’s Drive-In. I vaulted a vine-covered fence, veered past Vance Vanning’s van, and vibrated up to that shitty little shack that the sweaty swish had swayed by.
The drive-in was deep in a late-nite lull. I spotted six sleds snouted into snack-serving slots. I looked left and wrapped my eyeballs right. I didn’t see the sweaty swish or Ben Luboff. I saw Vance Vanning and Buddy Berkow buzzing logs in their bug vans.
I fearlessly faced the shack door. I nervously knocked and locked my loins to fight a scandal-skank war of some scope. Nobody answered. I wiggled the door open and walked in uninvited.
A lousy little all-linoleum office. Disinfectant stench, a dirty desk, and a doily-covered chair.
A closet.
A preciously apropos prop and a prime hideout hole.
I hid in the closet. I hunched myself up and heaved for breath. Methedrine-mad minutes marched by. I sweated and swore out a warrant on Ben Luboff’s hide.
I heard the outer door open and shut. Furtive footsteps and vague voices. I peered through a pint-size pinhole in the closet door. I saw Ben Luboff and the sweaty swish.
Perspiration poured over the pinhole and voided my view. I locked my eyes shut and listened.
Ben said, “You know, it’s ironic. I’ve been hearing about your service for years, but it took a tip from fucking Danny Getchell to get me to contact you.”
The sweaty swish said, “Choice chicken, doll. The best boys in the West, and a good rep for discretion.”
Ben said, “Yeah, and that’s why the Rock buys all his extracurricular tail from you.”
The sweaty swish said, “The Rock ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog. He’s got a perfectly gorgeous lover at home–an art director at Metro–but he’s got to roll around with every Tom, Dick, and Harriet he can find–with the emphasis on Dick.”