The Hollywood Trilogy by Don Carpenter Page B

on me.
    She looked a little disappointed.
    I went into the kitchen and popped open a beer.
    â€œYou want a beer?” I called to her. No answer. I drained off about half and went back into the bedroom. She was in almost the same position. I could hardly pretend not to be interested since my cock was dancing around in front of me, so I just stood there, sipping at my beer, while she got to her feet and pulled up her pants.
    â€œThat wasn’t very nice,” she said at last.
    â€œI guess you’re right,” I said. I felt okay, and she didn’t seem any the worse for wear. I sat on the edge of the bed and watched her finish dressing.
    When she turned around from combing her hair in the mirror I stood up and started to tremble. “Texas bitch,” I said, and we came together, touched and disappeared.

    WE DIDN’T really disappear, it just felt that way. The next thing I knew everything was coming back into focus and I was lying next to the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. I won’t describe the way we made love, there’s only a limited number of choices after all, but what we did glowedand seemed brand-new, our experiment, our invention. Naturally, people have been inventing these sweet pastimes since the beginning and thinking they were unique. Is this love? Who knows?
    But it sure felt good, and I wanted more, lots more. I didn’t know how Sonny felt because I never know how other people feel, but she looked all rosy and clung to me and seemed to radiate hot love for me all the time we were in that room, and I wish we could have stayed there together forever, because nothing is ever the same.

    THE MEADOR estate was on Fourth Street in Santa Monica, high on a cliff overlooking the beach, surrounded by cypress, pine and cedars of Lebanon, an old low rambling vanilla icecream plaster and red tile compound of buildings, tall skinny palm trees with little bursts of foliage at the top looking crazy next to the evergreens. Karl’s little tan Mercedes two-seater was in the drive in front of the closed garage doors, and we pulled in next to it.
    â€œHave you ever been here before?” I asked Sonny. I walked around the car to hold the door for her, but she was out and looking around by the time I got there.
    â€œNo,” she said. Our arms and legs kept touching as we went around the side, through a little wooden gate and into the pool area.
    â€œProbably out here swimming,” I said. She touched my arm with her fingers. It was dark and cool beside the house, and I stopped to kiss her, just a couple of slow kisses, and we went on around the big greenhouse and out into the open. The Olympic pool was surrounded by lawn and garden. Here and there on the grass were groupings of furniture, but no Karl or Jim. At the far end of the pool the old man sat in his wheelchair talking to a big woman in white.
    The old man, Max, Karl’s father, with his dark-tanned skin, his sunglasses and the white towel draped around his neck, looked like Gandhi in a wheelchair. He had been knocked over by a heart attack thirty years ago and most people outside the business thought he was dead, the ones who didn’t think he was crazy, but not Max Meador. Karl told me once that his old man made more money the first half-hour of the day than most people will ever see in a lifetime. He would sit out by the pool in the early morning, drinking coffee out of a tiny cup and glancing over the morning L.A. Times , New York Times , Wall Street Journal , stock reports and whatnot, make a few calls to his broker or his banker, and huge chunks of wealth would be moved around here and there, drawing money like magnets, and then the old man would take a swim, helped in and out of the water by members of his staff.
    â€œI like to keep busy,” he told me once.
    Sonny and I walked toward him across the lawn. “My God,” Sonny whispered to me, “this grass is like moss, it’s so