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brows on the way out. Rice could hear him giggle all the way back to the parking lot.
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With the money under his pillow, Rice tried to sleep. Every time he was about to pass out, the staccato beat of the Vandals’ gibberish number “Microwave Slave” took over, and Vandy jumped into his mind in the frumpy housedress she wore when she performed the tune. Finally, staying awake seemed like the easier thing to do. Opening his eyes, he saw the ugliness of the room merge with the ugliness of the music. The frayed cord on the hot plate; a line of dust under the dresser; grease spots all along the walls. A lingering echo of Bobby Garcia’s psycho/buffoon act was the final straw. Rice packed the money and his shaving gear into the briefcase and went looking for a new pad. He found a Holiday Inn on Sunset and La Brea and paid $480 for a week in advance. No grease spots, no dust, no senile boozehounds clogging up the parking lot. TV, a view, clean sheets and daily maid service. After stashing the bulk of his loot, Rice drove up to the Boulevard and spent a K on clothes. At Pants West he bought six pairs of Levi cords and an assortment of underwear; at Miller’s Outpost he purchased a half dozen plaid shirts. His last stop was the London Shop, where a salesman looked disapprovingly at his tattoo while fitting him for two sport jacket/slacks combos. He thought about buying a set of threads for Vandy, but finally axed the idea: after he got her off the coke, she’d be healthier and heavier and a couple of sizes bigger.
Now the only white-trash link to be severed was the car. After dropping off his clothes at the new pad and changing into a new shirt and a pair of Levi’s, Rice drove to a strip of South Western Avenue that he knew to be loaded with repo lots.
Two hours and six lots got him zilch—the cars looked shitty and none of the sales bosses would let him do under-the-hood checks. The seventh lot, a G.M. repo outlet on Twenty-eighth and Western, was where he hit pay dirt, a bored sales manager in a cubicle hung with master ignition keys telling him to grab a set of diagnostic tools and scope out any sled he wanted. Rice did timing checks, battery checks, transmission checks and complete engine scrutinies on five domestics before he found what he wanted: a black ’76 Trans Am with a four-speed and lots of muscle—good under the hood and even better looking—a car that would impress any crowd he and Vandy sought to crash.
The sales manager wanted four thou. Rice countered with twenty-five 496
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hundred cash. The sales manager said, “Feed me,” and Rice handed it over, knowing the joker made him for a non–Boy Scout. After signing the purchase papers and pocketing the pink slip, Rice walked over to the street and saw an old wino sucking on a jug in the shade of his ’69 Pontiac. He tossed him the keys to his former clunker and said, “Ride, daddy, ride,” then strolled back to his sleek muscle car. When he got in and gunned the engine, the wino was peeling rubber down Western in the Pontiac, the bottle held to his lips.
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Now Vandy.
Rice drove north to the Sunset Strip, savoring the feel of his Trans Am. He avoided putting the car through speed shifts and other hot-rod pyrotechnics; he was now technically a parole and probation absconder, and traffic tickets would mean a warrant check and instant disaster. Street traffic on the Strip was light, sidewalk traffic lighter—schoolgirl hookers from Fairfax High turning a few extra bucks on their lunch hour, bouncers sweeping up in front of the massage parlors and outcall offices. Rice turned off Sunset at Gardner and parked. The lavender four-flat that housed Silver Foxes looked bland in the daylight, like just another Hollywood Spanish style. He walked over and rang the bell beneath the sexy fox emblem. A young man in white dungarees and a Michael Jackson ’84 Tour tank top opened the door and blocked the entranceway in a hands-on-hips pose. Rice sized up his muscles and figured him for a bodybuilder who couldn’t lick a chicken; strictly adornment and a little jazz for the fag trade. “May I help you?” he asked.
Rice said, “Some friends in the Industry said this was the place to go for female companionship. I’m in town for a week or so, and I haven’t got a lot of time to hit the party circuit. Normally paying for it isn’t my style, but you were very highly recommended.” He sighed, pleased with his performance—not a trace of Hawaiian Gardens and Soledad in his speech. The youth flexed his biceps and imitated Rice’s sigh. It came out a pout.
“Everybody pays for it somehow, this is the herpes generation. Who were these people who recommended us?”
Rice pointed to the office he could glimpse past the youth’s broad shoulders. “Jeffrey Jason Rifkin, the agent, and some buddies of his. I can’t remember their names. Can we go inside?”
Nodding, the youth stepped aside just enough to let Rice squeeze through the door sideways. Their arms brushed, and Rice felt his stomach turn over when the kid let out a little grunt of pleasure.