Boulevard Read Free

their golden smiles, perfect hair and teeth, and dreams unshattered. Now, when Jimmy looked at them, they were nursing Bloody Marys and watching a basketball game that no sane person gave a shit about. The crowd didn’t change much, but every few years the place would get trendy for fifteen minutes, and Jimmy would have to fight a bunch of kids, pierced and inked from head to toe, to get a seat. But for all the regulars bitching about the new arrivals, Jimmy liked the kids, and they often came over to his booth or sat beside him at the bar. The kids never knew what to make of him; he had a warm, round face, thick hair that was once dark red but now brown, and looked in his early thirties, but in truth, he was thirty-nine. He wore jeans and flannel shirts like it was a uniform and was cool to knock down beers with and talk about anything from the Dodgers’ hopes for winning the division, to how the CIA screwed the pooch on everything they touched. But he was also a cop so they never felt completely comfortable around him. That was okay with Jimmy, he already had plenty of friends. Besides, part of Jimmy’s theory of life was, everybody needed a place to escape, and his was this shit-hole bar on the corner of Santa Monica and Hibiscus.
    In a dark booth, where long tears in the red leather were patched with fraying gray gaffer’s tape, Jimmy took a pull on a Rolling Rock. Across from him, was a full bottle, untouched. He glanced up at the game, finished his beer, and wondered whether the time had come to go for the other bottle. A hand dropped down in front of him and lifted the bottle.
    â€œHard at work?” Christian said, as he slid into the booth.
    â€œMeeting with you, right?”
    â€œMost detectives come to my office, you know.”
    â€œThat would make far too much sense.”
    Christian threw his backpack on the table. He was tall enough to have to duck through half the doors in LA, in his early-thirties, and in good enough shape to be the guy to beat in the killer basketball games down on Venice Beach. Jimmy never could figure him out. He was good looking, got the girls, went to medical school, and now spent his days around the stiffs? A couple of months ago Christian confessed to him—and it seemed to Jimmy that everybody was always confessing to him, so much that he sometimes felt like a street-corner priest—that his dream was to become Thomas Noguchi. Noguchi? Yeah, Christian told him, he did the autopsies on Marilyn Monroe, Sharon Tate, Natalie Wood, and every rock or movie star that kicked in LA. If you’re gonna be in the autopsy biz, Christian told him, this is ground zero, the greatest place on earth. Some dream, Jimmy thought.
    â€œI’ve been thinking about this,” Christian said, “and I think I got it all figured out … The problem with you guys is, you’re always behind the goddamn curve. Never ahead. The slimeballs you’re after always know what you’re up to, because you’re always following behind them.”
    â€œI’ll have to remember to get to the murder before it happens next time.”
    â€œYou know what I’m talking about. If the perps weren’t such dolts, you guys would really be screwed out there.”
    â€œHow’s work?”
    â€œWe got bodies stacked up like CD’s at Virgin. I even got a dog to do.”
    â€œAn autopsy on a dog?”
    â€œYeah. Some genius was smuggling dope by putting the shit in balloons, and had his dog swallow them. Bright, huh? Acid in the dog’s stomach popped the balloons, and the pooch went toxic and kicked. I said to my boss, why don’t you get a vet to do it?”
    â€œWha’d he say?”
    â€œHe said most of our customers are complete low-lifes. A dog’s a step up for you.”
    â€œWho’s gonna argue with that?” Jimmy said.
    â€œCan’t. But you know what’s weird? Right before I came over here, when I looked at