The next day I took a cab to Echo Park. It was going to cost a fortune but I couldn’t bring myself to take the bus. There was something unsavoury about riding public transport in Los Angeles. All I could think of was the song by Billy Idol about the killer travelling on the bus, reading books about murder and thinking about his next victim. It was The Night Stalker’s favourite song. He’d play it on his Walkman as he skulked through people’s yards, looking for an unlocked window or open pet door. Anyway, I didn’t really have to worry about money. Lynette made enough and gave me a healthy allowance to keep me quiet and out of her hair.
The driver turned on the radio and The Ramones were playing. I couldn’t believe that three of the band members were dead already. ‘Can you turn it up?’ I asked. The cabbie leant over, turned a knob, and The Ramones and their special brand of frenetic punk rock blasted through every corner of the cab.
‘Pretty rockin’ huh?’ the cabbie yelled over the music.
‘Hell yeah.’
‘Most girls your age, they like the pop music, you know? Britney Spears. Christina Aguilera. They don’t like the good stuff. They think Maroon 5 is rock and roll. I got more if you like.’
The cabbie put in a CD of hard rock hits—AC/DC, Nine Inch Nails, Metallica. We drove down the freeway, the music battling against the sounds of the other traffic. Fifteen minutes later we pulled up outside the drab apartment block in Echo Park. The same mail catalogues were still on the lawn, dry and brittle like fossils. I paid the driver.
‘You okay?’ he asked, looking up at the apartment. ‘You need me to wait?’
I considered it for a moment. ‘No, I’m fine. Thanks for the tunes.’
The cabbie shook his head and drove off. I looked up. Unlike the day before the curtains and windows were wide open, making me feel a little better about being there. At least if I screamed it would be carried on the wind.
‘YOU!’
I jumped. Hank was hanging out the window, waving.
‘Hello,’ I called, waving back.
‘Come up! Come up! Christ, don’t just stand there.’
‘Okay.’
I walked up the stairs. The front door was already open when I got to the top, Hank standing there in a pair of white shorts and a blue Hawaiian shirt. He waved me in. ‘Hurry. Come on, get inside. Quickly.’
‘I’m Hilda,’ I said, stepping inside.
‘I know who you are. What the hell you think I’ve been standing up here waving my arms for? Get inside, quick!’
Hank threw the door closed behind me, giving one last look outside as if he suspected I’d been followed. The apartment was much cleaner than two days ago. The bottles had been cleared away and the ashtrays emptied, but the smell of alcohol still hung in the air. With the windows open and the breeze coming in, the place seemed much nicer, more inviting. I stood in the doorway as Hank dashed to the kitchen, scooping the kettle off the stove. On the bench were two matching cups and saucers. He poured us tea and brought the cups into the living room.
‘Don’t just stand there like a freakin’ hatstand,’ he growled. ‘Sit down.’
I sat on the edge of the dusty old couch, as far away from Hank as possible. Again I looked around the room. No easy exits. The door was locked, but if I needed to I could jump out the window, break a few bones. I was curious about people who put themselves in situations where death was almost inevitable. The wife who gives her violent husband a second chance. The girlfriend who lets her ex-boyfriend visit late at night to return her books, a knife concealed in his jacket. I always thought I was much smarter than that, but here I was, in a strange man’s apartment with the door locked and only an open window for escape. Maybe I had a death wish?
‘Tea?’ he said, handing me a cup of hot, milky liquid.
‘No thanks. I can’t stay long.’
‘Sure you can. Take the goddamn tea.’
I took the cup.
‘Everyone’s always in a rush,’ Hank said. ‘Rushing here and rushing there. No one takes the time to sit anymore.’
‘I really can’t stay long,’ I said again. ‘I’m due back—’
‘To what?’
‘Well, I have stuff to do.’
‘What have you got to do that’s so important?’
‘Excuse me?’
His lip curled. ‘You heard. A girl who spends her time going into strangers’ houses to take photographs of bathroom sinks ain’t got a lot going on in her life, if you get my meaning.’
‘Kinda hard to miss it.’
‘You know that friend of yours?’
‘Benji?’
‘He’s some kinda asshole. Ain’t as smart as he thinks.’
I frowned. ‘You said you have something for me?’
Hank’s eyes were grey and dull. The skin on his legs was dry and scaly, and had flecked off only to get stuck in the spindly hair that grew there. ‘What are you doing with someone like that?’ he asked.
‘There’s nothing wrong with Benji.’
‘Sure there’s not. Comes in and tells an old man someone died in his bathroom.’
‘Look, I’m really sorry about that,’ I said, taking a mouthful of tea and swallowing hard even though it was scalding hot. It would be rude to leave with tea still in my cup, so I decided to drink the whole lot as fast as possible. ‘We shouldn’t have done it. We were just curious.’
‘Yeah, well people do things and once it’s done you can’t take it back. Now here you are. Ain’t nothin’ but consequences in this life.’
‘Consequences huh?’ I tried to sound like I didn’t care, like what he was saying wasn’t creeping under my skin and taking root in my veins. I didn’t like the sound of ‘consequences’, the way his eyes glazed over when he said it, like a murderer reminiscing about his last really satisfying kill. I wondered whether I could smash the tea cup right there on the table if I needed to, pick up a sliver of ceramic and drive it into his throat just as he lunged for me, or whether I should just throw the whole cup at his head, praying to God I hit a temple or some other magic spot that would make him black out. A hundred different scenarios raced through my mind from movies and TV shows: Dan Aykroyd getting a TV smashed over his head in Grosse Pointe Blank, the scene from Single White Female where a guy gets dispensed of with a high heel to the forehead. I stood.
‘I gotta go. My brother’s gonna be outside. I told him to pick me up. He’ll be looking for me.’
Hank laughed. ‘You ain’t got no brother pickin’ you up. What the hell is wrong with you? You think I’m gonna attack you?’
‘I don’t know. When you sit there talking like Hannibal Lecter about “consequences” you can really start to freak a girl out.’
‘What the hell do ya think I’m gonna do? My prick’s been useless for years. I’m lucky to get any piss out of it let alone make it stand to attention long enough to get my rocks off. So sit down will ya? You’re makin’ me nervous. I don’t get many people around here you know.’
I stayed standing. ‘Listen, I know we did kind of a shitty thing. It was not a cool thing to do. But if you think you’re going to hold me hostage because I feel bad about it, and make me do some kind of forced community service by coming here to visit you to make up for it, you’re mistaken.’
‘I ain’t holdin’ no one hostage. You came here of your own volition. And it’s because I have somethin’ for you. I wasn’t lyin’ about that. Just wait.’
‘You know what? It’s cool. I don’t want anything.’
‘No. Wait.’
I watched him slink into the kitchen and take something off the bench. When he came back I saw it was an old brown paper bag, crinkled and stained. He handed it to me.
‘What’s this?’ I asked.
‘Open it.’
‘It’s not some dude’s severed ear is it?’
Hank cocked an eyebrow then scratched his ass. ‘You’re a weird kid, anyone ever tell you that?’
‘Only every day.’
I opened the bag an inch, went to look inside, then closed it again. I handed it back to Hank.
‘You open it,’ I said. ‘I don’t feel like getting my finger ripped off by some bizarre booby trap.’
‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ he said, snatching the bag away. ‘Give it here.’
He turned the bag upside down and tipped the contents out. In the middle of his liver-spotted hand sat a piece of blue ceramic tile. It was a perfect square, the edges sharp and exact except for one corner that was chipped, the whiteness exposed beneath. I carefully picked it out of his hand.
‘What is it?’ I asked, turning it over in my fingers.
‘A pool tile.’
‘So why do I want this?’
‘It’s from Jayne Mansfield’s swimming pool.’
My heart skipped. I held the tile up to the light.
‘Are you serious?’ I almost squealed. Hank smiled. It was too good to be true. Jayne Mansfield was a Playboy bunny and actress, a cheaper, gaudier version of Marilyn Monroe. She died when the car she was travelling in hit the back of a truck in poor light, decapitating her and killing the two men beside her while her children sat in the backseat. Her heart-shaped pool was a Hollywood icon, torn down by some unfeeling developer who didn’t much care for history. A couple of looters had managed to retrieve a few tiles from the demolition site but mainly they were the stuff of legend. And now I had one, right in my hand, and it was blue and beautiful and filled with mystery. ‘Is this for me?’ I squeaked.
‘Sure is. You can have it. I ain’t got no use for it.’
I turned the tile over. It was so special, unique, perfect. ‘How did you get it?’
‘I helped build Jayne Mansfield’s pool in the fifties. She was a real sweet girl. Terrible what happened to her. When we were done building it she gave each of us a tile from the pool. And that pool, shaped like a loveheart, what a sight. Such a shame.’
‘Did you know her dog was decapitated in the car accident too?’ I asked. ‘A little Chihuahua sitting in the front seat on her lap.’
Hank made a face. ‘Christ girl, how old are you?’
‘Seventeen.’
‘Seventeen and talkin’ like that. What is it with all this death crap? Do your parents know you’re into all this shit?’
‘Sure,’ I lied. ‘They don’t care what I do.’
‘Well, I don’t see no reason why a young, pretty lass like you gotta be fillin’ your head with all this morbid stuff.’
‘It’s just a hobby.’
‘Strange hobby. Sure ain’t stamp collecting.’
‘I guess not.’
‘Aw shit,’ he growled, and looked at the floor. ‘I feel like I got this all ass-backwards. How about we start again? I’m Hank. Hank Anderson.’
‘Hilda Swann,’ I said, and held out my hand to shake his. ‘You really don’t know how much this means to me.’
There was no way he could know. I had something in common with Jayne Mansfield. To own an item that once belonged to her just brought us closer together, made our fates even more entwined. Hank reached forward and took my fingers, shook my hand with a soft but firm grip, and it was then that I noticed the black smear on his arm that had once been a tattoo. It looked as though it had been scrubbed until it was nothing but an indistinguishable blob on the inside of his wrist.
‘You know what Hilda Swann? You look like a young Louise Brooks. At least you would without that pink shit in your hair.’
‘I’ll try and take that as a compliment.’
I let go of his hand, acted like I hadn’t seen the mark on his arm. I noticed some old VHS tapes with no covers on top of the television set. ‘You like movies?’ I asked, picking one up.
Hank groaned as he sat down in a worn armchair, splayed his legs and scratched at the rim of his boxers. ‘Sure, I like movies. If they’re good.’
I read the tape labels. Gilda. Gone With the Wind. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
‘Classics, huh?’
Hank heaved himself up. ‘The trouble with Hollywood these days is the women have no grace. No style. All those sluts down on Sunset with their cooches hanging out. Goddamn tramps.’
‘What about Julia Roberts? Reese Witherspoon?’
‘Bah—it’s not the same. Back in my day, actresses were elegant. Refined. They were more than women; they were apparitions on the screen. We feared them, adored them.’
‘So you haven’t seen Lindsay Lohan in Herbie the Love Bug?’
Hank frowned. ‘Today, everyone finds it so easy to laugh at things. Everything is a big joke.’
‘Oh no, Lindsay Lohan is no joke. She’s a terrifying reality.’
He tilted his head at me. ‘There is something about you that is too familiar. You make jokes, but they don’t come from a place of joy. A joke from the heart lights up an entire room. When you joke, there is no light. Your face goes dark.’
I put the tape down on the television set and crossed my arms. ‘You wanna talk darkness? How’s it feel living in a place where a guy killed himself?’
‘I’ve lived in worse.’
I looked towards the bathroom. The door was open and inside I could see small shafts of light from the tiny window, illuminating the tiles. ‘So you’re quite happy to brush your teeth at that sink every day?’
‘Brush, floss, hell, I’d probably beat off if I still could.’
I looked again at the mark on his arm. ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’
‘Sure I do.’
‘But you’re not scared to go in there?’
‘Shit no. If there’s a ghost in there, at least I’ll have someone to talk to.’
I walked over to the bathroom. There were a couple of dirty towels on the floor, mouldy and smelly. The mirror above the sink was so rusty you could barely see a reflection. I opened the little brown bag, peeked inside to make sure the tile was still there, that I hadn’t imagined it.
‘Well, I should be going,’ I said.
‘Fine. Go. People always have somewhere else they have to be. Never here. Never now.’
‘Thanks for the tile.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
I made my way towards the front door. Hank didn’t get up. ‘You gonna open this for me?’ I asked, and for a minute I got scared, but I needn’t have because Hank got to his feet and undid the deadlock, then stood behind the door as I walked outside. I hesitated, seized by a genuine desire to spend more time with this strange old man who had given me such a special gift. Maybe it was because as I took a last look around his apartment, with the grey, matted carpet and brown walls, I was overcome with immense sadness. All I knew was that as I prepared to step off his front doorstep and into the night, I became seized with incredible panic. Everything felt unfinished. More than that: it felt like we’d only just begun.
‘Well,’ I said, holding up the paper bag with the tile in it. ‘Thanks again for this. You were right. It’s pretty amazing.’
‘I got no use for it,’ Hank scowled, his expression suddenly cold. ‘It’s just a piece of tile. Silly to think a piece of tile is so special. Ain’t nothin’ in that bag but dust.’
‘Well, I think it’s beautiful.’
‘That’s good for you,’ he said, stepping forward. ‘Now if you’ve gotta go, you go.’
And he slammed the door in my face.