Boulevard Read Free Page B

her statement, the pimp instantly plead out.
    â€œLong time,” Jimmy said. “Keeping out of trouble?” As Jimmy talked to her, his head rested on his crossed hands on the top of the steering wheel.
    â€œTrying.”
    Tulip checked behind her, and then out the window. She reached for Jimmy’s fly and tugged the zipper. Jimmy pulled back.
    â€œWhat are you doing?”
    â€œWhaddya think I’m doing?”
    â€œNot interested.”
    â€œRight. Only cop in Hollywood who isn’t.”
    â€œCome on,” Jimmy said.
    â€œCome on? You wanna work, gotta pay.”
    â€œThat’s bullshit.”
    â€œNo. That’s for real.”
    â€œYeah? Who’s been asking you for it?”
    â€œWho hasn’t? You want the list?”
    â€œGoddamn right I want the list.”
    â€œHow about Sergeant Cooper, Coop or whatever you call him. Duran, that jerk, gets it all the time. And the new guy with the mustache and real short blond hair and—”
    â€œStop. I don’t wanna know … I do, but not right now. Sometime, I promise. What I do want, is something on who greased the mayor’s pal.”
    â€œLike I got the 4-1-1?”
    â€œYou hear shit,” Jimmy said.
    â€œYeah, someone’s really walking the Boulevard saying ‘I taxed the dude’.”
    â€œNo, but there’s lots of big-mouths out here, who might have dropped something they didn’t mean to.” He passed Tulip a card. “My beeper. You hear something, you let me know.”
    â€œWhy should I help you out?”
    â€œâ€™Cause there’s a killer out here and you’re sharing the street with him.”
    â€œThere’s lots of killers here, you still ain’t offering shit.”
    What a waste, Jimmy thought. She should be out at a movie or on a date—a real date, not this. Jimmy looked at her … and through the thick black mascara, the red and blue tattoo of a tulip on her wrist, and the ice-hard pro in torn fishnets act, she was still a kid. Then the pain hit. His daily dose. He thought about Rancher. His kid. Sixteen. Where was he tonight? God only knows.
    All day long he worked like a dog trying like hell to stick a finger in the dike against the drugs, killings, hustlers, serial rapists, child-abusing assholes, and all the other horrendous shit that goes down on the street—but he couldn’t even save his own kid. He thought about it every day of his life.
    â€œHelp me out with this one,” Jimmy said, “and I’ll give you a get out of jail free card.”
    â€œFor real?”
    â€œFor real. As long as you didn’t grease him yourself. But regular shit—dates, drugs—free ride.”
    Tulip smiled and pushed open the car door. “Okay. Deal.”
    Before she was gone, Jimmy called after her, “You seen Rancher?”
    â€œNot in a while.”
    â€œYou see him, ask him to call me. Tell him, no questions, I just wanna talk.”

6
Casey
    C asey walked the Boulevard with Robin, the new girl, both looking down at the bronze stars imbedded in the sidewalk, watching them silently sweep below their feet: Marilyn Monroe, Stevie Wonder, Walt Disney. Those guys she knew. She also knew the astronauts who were on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. Walk on the moon, get the best spot on the Boulevard, no complaint with that—but all these other guys—Walter Houston, Marlene Dietrich, Vincent Minnelli, Joanne Woodward—who were they? No one she ever heard of. But they came here, probably from someplace else, like she did, and made it. Made it enough that in a hundred years people will still be looking at their stars, knowing they had done something with their lives. As many times as she walked the Boulevard, she always checked out the stars, and now Robin was doing the same.
    Robin told Casey she was from Boston. There was a fight with her parents that ended up with her sister going to jail and Robin