“Sober, sexy, successful, and single. The four S’s.”
“She’s got a pad in Santa Monica and a guest house on some big estate near Point Dume. I’m spending the weekend with her out there before I start the new job.”
“Moving right along,” I said. “Sweet.”
“I’m havin’ a ball. I also met one of her girlfriends, at a Brentwood meeting. She’s okay, I guess. Kind of an L.A. bimbo, actually. Painted nails and aftermarket knockers.”
“Okay, so what about me?” I cracked. “I’m single and sober and semi-sane. Maybe she can help me ring the bell too. This girlfriend might be dying to meet a broke, semi-homeless, fucked-up, ex-private detective with a nifty career in the auto industry.”
Woody shook his head. “Nah,” he said, “Laighne’s cool—straight up—but her gal pal feels high-risk. About fifteen minutes sober from what I can tell, all about glitz and all that Beverly Hills celebrity clubbing jazz. My bet is that you’d be better off continuing to date your old standby: Mrs. Thumb and her four daughters.”
I checked my watch. I would now be returning late from lunch and I still had to walk the two blocks back to work.
Woody followed me to the corner traffic light, then grinned his pearly grin again and shook my hand. “Okay, pal, stay in touch,” he said. “Good luck with the new place. Call me tomorrow and maybe I’ll e-mail you the script so you can read it.”
“Deal,” I said. “See you Thursday, your place, right?”
“Sure. That’ll work. The two of us together can make that screenplay a total ass-kicker.”
ELEVEN
W hen I reported for work several mornings later, the day before my new day off and move (Rhett had fired two salesmen and shuffled the cards again), Fernando and I had a decent conversation at the back of the car lot behind the company’s detail van. He was smoking a joint and said he wanted us to be friends. He again denied that he had torched my mom’s Honda.
As we talked I realized that I had misjudged my co-worker as an ignorant South American asshole thug. He was a step up from that. He launched into a five-minute tirade in Spanglish about Sherman Toyota—how he hated Max and Rhett and the management staff with a passion for bullying him and changing his day off three times.
Nando’s style was to attempt to intimidate everyone he met. Even his bosses. When I had not backed down, and instead punched him out, I had earned his respect and affection. That day I found out that my lot partner was also an avid computer-dater and was consistently misrepresenting himself as a surgeon on several websites to the women he hooked up with, saying that because of his out-of-country medical license he’d had to settle for a career in investment banking, or some other whopper-snot. Fernando, on his first phone call to these women, would close the conversation with the all-important question, “Jou dell me somezing, my sweetz: are jou busty?”
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, to amuse me and himself, Nando, who was freshly annoyed at our boss Max for making him split a commission because he’d arrived at work late that morning, decided to square accounts. My lot partner reasoned that he now had nothing to lose: “Fuk disa cockzooker. I gonna fix hisa chit real goo. Jou zee.”
Max kept his big brass key ring on his desk. It contained Sherman Toyota’s business keys and his own car and house keys. While the tall oaf was in Rhett’s office with the paperwork on a deal on a two-year-old Prius, Fernando walked in and snatched his keys.
Outside, my lot partner motioned for me to follow him around to the back of the building. He then heaved the key ring up onto the flat roof of the dealership.
An hour later, after discovering his keys were missing, Max spent two furious hours calling people. Even a locksmith. His annoyed wife, Margie, had to drive the fifty miles from their house near Magic Mountain to bring Max the extra sets of keys to the house and his Benz
“She’s got a pad in Santa Monica and a guest house on some big estate near Point Dume. I’m spending the weekend with her out there before I start the new job.”
“Moving right along,” I said. “Sweet.”
“I’m havin’ a ball. I also met one of her girlfriends, at a Brentwood meeting. She’s okay, I guess. Kind of an L.A. bimbo, actually. Painted nails and aftermarket knockers.”
“Okay, so what about me?” I cracked. “I’m single and sober and semi-sane. Maybe she can help me ring the bell too. This girlfriend might be dying to meet a broke, semi-homeless, fucked-up, ex-private detective with a nifty career in the auto industry.”
Woody shook his head. “Nah,” he said, “Laighne’s cool—straight up—but her gal pal feels high-risk. About fifteen minutes sober from what I can tell, all about glitz and all that Beverly Hills celebrity clubbing jazz. My bet is that you’d be better off continuing to date your old standby: Mrs. Thumb and her four daughters.”
I checked my watch. I would now be returning late from lunch and I still had to walk the two blocks back to work.
Woody followed me to the corner traffic light, then grinned his pearly grin again and shook my hand. “Okay, pal, stay in touch,” he said. “Good luck with the new place. Call me tomorrow and maybe I’ll e-mail you the script so you can read it.”
“Deal,” I said. “See you Thursday, your place, right?”
“Sure. That’ll work. The two of us together can make that screenplay a total ass-kicker.”
ELEVEN
W hen I reported for work several mornings later, the day before my new day off and move (Rhett had fired two salesmen and shuffled the cards again), Fernando and I had a decent conversation at the back of the car lot behind the company’s detail van. He was smoking a joint and said he wanted us to be friends. He again denied that he had torched my mom’s Honda.
As we talked I realized that I had misjudged my co-worker as an ignorant South American asshole thug. He was a step up from that. He launched into a five-minute tirade in Spanglish about Sherman Toyota—how he hated Max and Rhett and the management staff with a passion for bullying him and changing his day off three times.
Nando’s style was to attempt to intimidate everyone he met. Even his bosses. When I had not backed down, and instead punched him out, I had earned his respect and affection. That day I found out that my lot partner was also an avid computer-dater and was consistently misrepresenting himself as a surgeon on several websites to the women he hooked up with, saying that because of his out-of-country medical license he’d had to settle for a career in investment banking, or some other whopper-snot. Fernando, on his first phone call to these women, would close the conversation with the all-important question, “Jou dell me somezing, my sweetz: are jou busty?”
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, to amuse me and himself, Nando, who was freshly annoyed at our boss Max for making him split a commission because he’d arrived at work late that morning, decided to square accounts. My lot partner reasoned that he now had nothing to lose: “Fuk disa cockzooker. I gonna fix hisa chit real goo. Jou zee.”
Max kept his big brass key ring on his desk. It contained Sherman Toyota’s business keys and his own car and house keys. While the tall oaf was in Rhett’s office with the paperwork on a deal on a two-year-old Prius, Fernando walked in and snatched his keys.
Outside, my lot partner motioned for me to follow him around to the back of the building. He then heaved the key ring up onto the flat roof of the dealership.
An hour later, after discovering his keys were missing, Max spent two furious hours calling people. Even a locksmith. His annoyed wife, Margie, had to drive the fifty miles from their house near Magic Mountain to bring Max the extra sets of keys to the house and his Benz
Similar Books
