Avenue Of The Creep
I’d never heard of Avenue of the Stars, so I stopped at a payphone and got directions from Jennifer.We were going to see Neil, regular customer, on Galaxy, just off Avenue of the Stars in Century City.
“Building 6, number 305. Tell the guard,” Jennifer had said. Code talk for ‘It’s a gated condominium community with a gate guard. You’ll have to sign in with the guard, who’ll look at you suspiciously and leer at the girl, grill you on the purpose of your visit, call the customer to verify that you’re expected and finally, against his better judgment, give you a temporary pass. You’ll have to park inside where you’ll be stuck for the duration, no running down to the corner 7-11 for coffee or driving around looking for an open gas station rest room. You’re stuck behind closed gates, looking very suspicious sitting alone in a condo visitor’s parking lot.’
Of coarse I was too green to know what the code words ‘tell guard’ meant then. I was just happy that we weren’t going to another Holiday Inn. As it turned out, I didn’t have to suffer the indignities of this condo visitor’s parking lot for very long, though.
I sat in the visitor’s lot a few minutes watching a harried, Alice In Wonder-land Rabbit-like woman race across the grassy knoll to my right with a large briefcase handcuffed to her arm.
She hastened to the same door Chloie had gone in, looking around to see if anyone was following her. She didn’t see me. I was slouched down in the seat peeking through the steering wheel.
Woodpeckering the call buzzer with her index finger, the woman looked around some more. Just as she was buzzed inside, Chloie came running out towards my car. She had been inside five minutes, six max.
“Let us go now!” a disheveled, shaken Chloie yelled as she dove into my car.
Chloie never told me what happened at Neil’s condo. I would later find out that she rarely talked about the calls. And I would find out that Neil was one of the sickest creeps on the circuit. The Dragon Lady used him like a stick to beat her rule-breaking girls into submission.
“We find zee phone now. You call. Tell Jennifer zee call was no good.” Chloie lit a cigarette with trembling hands. She rarely smoked, only after the worst calls. What goes around, comes around, I thought. It’s that karmic wheel of fortune thing again.
Circling the chain of hotels on Avenue of the Stars, I slid the big Buick to a stop at a payphone next to the AM/PM on Olympic, got directions to the next call and rejoined Chloie.
Dragon Lady took the news well. Too well. I had expected anger or surprise at the cancelled call, but Jennifer just seemed pleased that I was learning how to use the internal telephone number.
“Did she give you the cancellation fee, James?” Jennifer asked sweetly.
“Cancellation fee?”
“The girls collect $20 cancellation fee from customer. Tell her give it to you for driving her there. You doing a good job,” she purred. She purred, but there was an edge to it.
“Okay. Thank you.” I was too embarrassed to tell her I couldn’t even get my own money back from Chloie from the Frito Bandito.
No comments:
Post a Comment