Part 8 (1/2)

I take a long pause, then pick up the phone. Then put the phone down. Then grab the phone book for Hollywood. Dragging my finger up the page.

Redux Stereophonies Red Tag Appliances Red Sam's p.a.w.n Red Rooster Coffee Shop Red Room Lounge Red Room Lounge. 12614 Hollywood Boulevard.

”h.e.l.lo. I'm trying to find someone. I think she may be a customer.”

”Honey, we're a bar and grill, not an information service.”

”You just might know her name.”

”I don't know names. I don't know nothing. You want a drink, come on by.”

My chest is vibrating. It is six o'clock, or nearly so. If I change and leave immediately, I can be there by seven, but for what? An employee eager to tell me something? A customer? If so, why doesn't the card specify a day and time? I put the card down and start peeling potatoes for dinner.

Soon, however, I begin to feel a tug in the back of my head. Something on the postcard keeps ringing in my ears, but I can't place it. I find myself thinking about Joe Avalon and about the playing card. About many small, taunting whispers in my ear, whispers I'd heard and keep on hearing.

Within fifteen minutes, I find myself in the car, driving toward Hollywood.

Tucked between an Italian restaurant and a peeling office building, the Red Room Lounge is a basic shoe box building distinguished only by a heavily painted crimson door and a chain of paint-spattered lights across the dusty window.

The curtains are pulled across, but as I draw nearer I can see through the gaping edge. There is a mirrored bar, Naugahyde booths, and a few bustling waitresses with red scarves and blank expressions. My hand on the varnished wood handle, I take a breath and walk in.

Youngish to middle-aged men in cheap s.h.i.+rts and flashy grins turn to the door when it shuts behind me, and a few of the dull-faced girls with tightly curled haircuts and painfully arched brows glance over casually.

I guess I must have expected an immediate response, a stranger approaching me, an unmistakable clue. When nothing happens, I find a small table and sit down. A grim-faced waitress with a painfully shorn poodle cut takes my order and brings me a Seven & Seven.

I sit, brus.h.i.+ng off the occasional offer of a drink from pointy-jawed scenesters. I sit for nearly two hours, feeling the smoke , and grease and desperation fill my pores, wondering what in the world I am doing there, how I happened to fall for this.

”f.u.c.k a duck, it's Big Bill's baby sis.”

It is a long, blue drawl followed by the sharp clack of brightly polished nails on the table in front of me.

I look up: Lois. In all her crooked-faced, ruby-lipped glory.

She sits down, rakishly tugging her tiny evening hat over her eye.

Plastic cherries dangle from it, over her s.h.i.+ny white forehead.

”What you doin' here?” she says, dragging the words slowly, looking me up and down amusedly.

”Oh, I don't- I just wanted a drink. I stopped by on my way to meet a friend.”

”Is that a fact? Funny. Don't seem like your type of haunt.”

”It's not really. I just- I didn't know. I ...”

Her twisty grin suddenly turns broad and her eyes light up.

”Oh! Oh, I get it. Don't worry, honey. I won't tell.”

”Won't tell what?” I say, my mind racing over what it might mean that Lois is here. Could she have sent the postcard? But if she wanted to tell me something about Alice, why not come right out with it?

”You got a secret admirer,” she murmurs. Then, ”Scotty, another,” pointing to her lipstick-rimmed gla.s.s.

”No.”

”A randy-voo. Don't worry, sugar cake. I won't tell.”

”I don't. I just wanted a drink and-”

”And you just thought with your stiff hat and your starched gloves you'd dip into this dive. Don't worry, honey. I'm not bracin' you.”

”Are you here alone?”

”I'm never alone.” She brings the fresh drink to her lips.

”I'm with that party over there.” She points to a corner table filled with raw-boned servicemen and one baby-faced woman whose brightly gartered leg is tucked beneath her, flas.h.i.+ng a half mile of creamy, gleaming thigh.

”Friends of yours?” I say.

”Sure.”

Looking over at us furtively, the girl at the table mouths Lois's name. Or at least I a.s.sume it's Lois's name. For a split second, I think she's mouthing ”Lora.”

Lois merely waves and turns back to me.

”Who's that girl?” I ask.

”Some gal I met at a casting call. Why? You looking to join the party?”

One of the servicemen slams his gla.s.s down, sending ice everywhere. The others laugh even as the girl jumps in her seat, smile stuck on her face. Another grabs her leg and rubs it under the table. Her expression betrays nothing, and he keeps rubbing roughly, eyes fixed on her. A trace of fear skims across her face, but she quickly suppresses it, s.h.i.+fting her leg and slightly shaking herself away, bouncily downing her drink.

She looks back over at Lois fleetingly, eyes jumping anxiously. Lois merely winks back at her.

”No. I ... I wondered if, well, if Alice might have been with you tonight. Do you- Did you ever come here with her?”

”Alice?” Her painted-on brows shoot up and she laughs. ”I don't think so.” So, I realize with something like relief, it isn't Lois who sent the postcard.

She looks over at the increasingly loud, throbbing table of soldiers, then rises, sliding her drink into her other hand, along with her cigarettes and lighter. ”Looks like I should rejoin my party, angel face. Don't miss me much.”

”Okay. Good-bye, Lois.” I hunch my shoulders together, suddenly wis.h.i.+ng she wouldn't go. Suddenly afraid for her to go, to join those boys with their hard, tight, coiled hands, shoulders, faces. They look ready to pounce.

She pauses a long, silver moment, looking at me, the comb in her hair glittering in the low lighting. Her smile slides away and she just looks at me, thick, fringy lashes casting shadows across her face. I feel something. I feel something fall away.

And then the smile returns, at its usual half-mast. ”Hey, be careful, peaches. You know?”

”Right,” I say, watching her and watching the servicemen behind her, now all pounding their gla.s.ses hard on the table, red-faced and primed.

”You, too.” She turns, the back of her s.h.i.+ny purple dress sliding after her, swaying like a fish tail, swaying after her as I watch and feel a keen shudder.