Later that night I sat in my bedroom looking at websites about the Manson Family. Leslie Van Houten was up for parole again. There was no way she would be released, even after thirty-seven years in prison. All the Manson Family murderers who were put on death row had their sentences commuted when California abolished the death penalty, but there was no way any of them would ever get parole. Murderers like that became part of the public consciousness, part of our collective nightmare. Kill an unarmed grocer in a robbery gone wrong and you might get twenty years. But if you kill John Lennon you can be pretty sure you ain’t seeing the light of day ever again.
Lynette was working late in her office as usual, and the house was quiet. All the lights were off except for a small desk lamp above my computer. I was looking at a photo of Leslie Van Houten in her jail manacles when the phone rang.
‘Hello?’ I said. A voice filled with gravel snapped back.
‘HUH?’
I waited. ‘Uh…hello?’
‘Is this Hilda?’
‘Yes it is. Who’s this?’
‘This is Hank.’
My mind was blank. ‘I’m sorry, who?’
‘HANK!’ the voice boomed back. ‘From Echo Park.’
‘Echo Park?’
‘You came to my place, you and your friend with the camera. You took photos of my bathroom.’
‘How did you get this number?’ I asked, already knowing the answer.
‘I called that wise-ass friend of yours. He left his card with me. I called and he gave me your number.’
‘I’m sure he did.’
‘So I was thinking I’d call, figured I had something you’d like to see.’
Great. Now I was getting obscene phone calls from senior citizens. ‘Not interested,’ I said.
‘You will be.’
‘Listen, I’m flattered, but you’re not really my type, get what I’m saying?’
‘No! Not like that, for Christ’s sake. Like the sink. The sink in the bathroom you wanted to see. I got something like that for you.’
‘Then why don’t you give it to Benji, you know, the guy who was with me? He said he was interested if you ever wanted to sell anything.’
‘’Cause it’s not for him! It’s for you!’
‘You know what? This is very nice of you mister—’
‘HANK! MY NAME’S HANK!’
‘—Hank, but I can’t come over. I don’t have a car.’
‘Get a cab. There’s plenty of cabs in this town.’
I scrambled for excuses. ‘It’s more complicated than that,’ I said, hoping my vagueness would make him give up. I was wrong.
‘It’s as complicated as you wanna make it. What I got, I think you’ll like. I think you’ll like it a hell of a lot.’
I don’t know what came over me, whether it was the darkness of the house, the silence, or merely curiosity about what was on offer. Hank waited on the other end of the line, his breathing raspy. Jesus, I thought. He’ll probably kill me. Chop me up over all those old newspapers in his apartment.
‘Well, all right,’ I said, against my better judgment. ‘Just don’t try anything. I’ll be telling people where I’m going.’
‘I said it ain’t like that. You will get a kick out of this. Trust me.’
‘When?’
‘I’m an old man. I ain’t got all the time in the world.’
I rifled through an imaginary diary in my head, every page blank. Benji had mentioned a dentist appointment he had the next day. ‘I suppose I could squeeze in some time tomorrow.’
‘Done!’ Hank cried, and slammed down the phone.
Done. I looked around my room, the sound of the dial tone still echoing in my ear. I looked again at the photograph of Leslie Van Houten. When she was first convicted she was just another gangly hippy teenager with scraggy brown hair, a glint of mischief in her eye. Now she was an old lady, her face gaunt, grey hair pulled back tight in an old-fashioned bun. She had put a pillowcase over dress-shop owner Rosemary LaBianca’s head, tied it with electrical cord, and held her down while another Family member stabbed her in the stomach with a knife.
I wondered if she thought it was all worth it now. I wondered if in agreeing to meet with Hank, I was getting myself into something I was going to regret.