As he got closer, the house got even huger. Like it was put there to make him feel small. All that was missing was one of them water thingies they put around castles, alligators and dragons swimming around snapping their jaws. One of them…mokes.
Thatwould be something, big moke full of monsters, just waiting to grab you by the business. Chain-saw teeth, before you knew it, you were a street taco.
Eno shuddered, imagining, stopped for more breath, resumed wheeling. Man this was steep.
Not only didn’t this castle have no moke, there was nothing out front period, not even a lawn, just dirt.
Why couldn’t the company drive him up from Benedict Canyon? He’d asked Laquitha.
No answer, bitch just sped off.
Leaving him with a fuckinghike.Eno hated hiking, reminded him of when he was doing state park service as part of his first arrest at fifteen in San Bernardino.
He finally almost got to the top. Place was a joke lick-wise; halfway up, he’d seen an alarm sign from a company he knew had went out of business five years ago. AProtected By VideoSurveillancesign but no cameras.
On top of that, the gate on Benedict was left wide-open since like three a.m. Saturday when the party ended. The crap that was gonna be left behind, sitting there, all clotted and sticky, a pain to scrub.
Another pause to breathe then he made it to flat ground. The place washuuuge,would take every minute of the seven hours Bright Dawn gave him. Twelve bucks an hour plus the shit lunch they packed for the workers. Huge place but a one-man assignment.
The rules were always the same: Start with the outside, then do the inside, there’d be a back door left unlocked.
Eno looked up at those two tall things, what did they call them…tur…bines? No, turbits. Coupla turbits sticking into the sky. Darker gray than the sky. Everything gray.
June Gloom his aunt Audrey used to call it. But this was May.
Eno called it L.A. shit-air.
Maybe there’d besomethinghere, not just red cups, empties, used condoms and needles. He looked for access to the backyard. Nothing on the left, there was a stone wall blocking him. But walking to the right side of the castle showed him another iron gate, wide open.
Nice iron, all fancy with squiggly things and flowers and twisted bars. The metal by itself some serious bank but he had no way to transport it. Years ago, he’d gotten into copper wire, did real good selling to places on San Fernando. Then, at a plumbing supply yard on Alameda, he got nailed by a junkyard dog that came outta nowhere and busted by a rent-a-cop with a Glock.
Thathad earned him five months at County, grand theft pled down to petty, the first forty-five days in the infirmary healing his leg. The rest of his sentence they had to put him in protective because all the regular cells were taken up by gangsters.
Maybe scrap metal wasn’t his thing.
He pushed the wheelie through the gate opening. What shoulda been a driveway but was dry dirt. Like someone built the castle then hated it and decided not to finish.
It took a while to get past a long wall of fake-stone but finally he reached the backyard.
More nothing-green, just a wall of trees all the way at the back, like someone was trying to take out a forest. Facing the back of the castle was one of those covered things rich people used for sitting in, a round dome roof covered by dead brown vines that reminded Eno of coiling snakes.
Over to the right was an empty blue hole where a big pool woulda been if the hole had water. At least one lucky break, he wouldn’t have to fish out used condoms. But around the fake-stone pool deck he spotted some, along with red cups and broken bottles.
Eno wasn’t paying attention to any of that. His eyes were to the left of the pool. Something different.
A super-stretch Town Car, white, one of those prom specials.
Eno had ridden in one when he was nineteen. Invited by his friends when they graduated high school even though he’d dropped out in tenth.
First, he’d said,Nah.
They’d said,Hey, E-man, fuck graduation, you can still party!
So he went. And had a pretty good time, until the girl he was fingering gave him a funny smile then barfed all over him. Everyone, including the girl, laughing. Eno knew right then and there that he wasn’t fitting in, would never. So he left and walked four miles home. Aunt Audrey was up, watching Discovery ID. Wrinkling her nose and saying, “Whoo, someone stinks like a pig with the runs.”
Laughing but also pissed off at Eno. Not letting him use the bathroom to clean up, he had to go outside and shiver naked while he hosed himself off.
Sofuckproms and stretch white Town Cars. Fuck thisjob,he wasdefinitelygonna mask-and-hoodie and take the next step.
