It had long hair all over and big teeth.
I grabbed up my knife, but it jumped off my line
And ran up a tree. I picked up my shotgun,
But as I drew down on it
The damn thing hollered: “Gotta go!”
And flew away.
I turned to my dog, Miss King,
Who was sittin there watchin it all: “Miss King,
What was that?”
She say: “Trout.”
Don’t you know I kicked that dog’s ass for lyin!
Tellin me: “Trout.”
I felt I had hooked something like the creature in Claude’s poem.
The unknown was pulling at my line and I had better be ready for more than trout when I reeled it in.
It was dark again when the phone rang, waking me out of a dead sleep. It was Chris Boone, wanting a favor. Normally Paps was Chris’s errand boy but, with Paps dead, he decided to call me and offer his cab fee.
“I just need you to take me over to Kathy’s accountant’s house, wait for me, then drive me back home. You can do that for me, right?”
I thought for a minute, Chris was tied into this thing from some angle. I didn’t know how but maybe I could learn something by hanging out with him for a while tonight.
“Sure, why not, what time?”
“In about an hour, I’ll leave your name at the gate.”
Chris had married the superstar actress, Kathy White, a few years back and moved into her mansion in the Hancock Park area of L.A. off Wilshire Boulevard. Paps and Goat, after supporting Chris for many years, paying his huge phone bills, giving him projects like mine to steal, and in general seeing to it that Chris had the wherewithal to continue his struggle to the top, thought that this marriage would be a great step into the spotlight. Nothing, of course, could have been further from the truth. In his first major interview after the wedding, Chris described himself as an orphan Indian who had been raised by the Jesuits and struggled to the top alone. Chris had an explanation for this, of course, and Paps bought it. Chris’s brother Goat, however, went off on his own after that and was turning heads in the Hollywood scene with his Last Prophet to L.A. act. He seemed on the verge of establishing himself when he mysteriously disappeared. Chris seemed to grow a bit in the eyes of certain powers after the disappearance of his brother. Paps became the babysitter of Chris and Kathy’s first-born son, Orn. Paps and I remained friends but I had always suspected cahoots between he and Chris and some sort of foul play involved in Goat’s disappearance. Chris’ star seemed to fall as fast as it rose, and, after only a few months, he was back to being the spouse of a famous actress. For Chris, who was literally addicted to feelings of superiority, the shuffle was more than painful. He picked up a Hollywood nose candy habit and normally these little evening jaunts with Paps were to the candy store. Paps would drive and score while Chris would sit in the car and snort. The funny thing was, Paps was getting the reputation as a heavy coker and Chris was playing himself up as a concerned friend. Hollywood was strange; the only way to avoid being the target of gossip was to start your own and make it more interesting than anything that was going around about you. In Hollywood the story was more important than the truth. The town was built on stories.
I approached the guardhouse; a guard with a terrifying acne problem asked me my name and called the White mansion for clearance. I was cleared. As I drove down the small private street, I listed in my mind the names of the rich and famous neighbors who had moved in since Kathy had discovered the area. Halfway down the first block I turned into the large, circular driveway with the stone lions out front—the White house. As I made my way through the gardens I wondered what this was all about. Was this some code for a coke score? Did he have to get money from her accountant first? I entered through the garden door with an uneasy mind.
Chris was sitting in the kitchen of his wife’s house, listening to classical music on his wife’s antique radio. He looked troubled, more troubled than I’d ever seen him. It was obvious he hadn’t slept well in a long time. My footsteps startled him as I entered the room. I also startled four of the maybe forty cats and kittens which inhabited the White house and gave it the distinct aroma of the world’s most lavish kitty litter box. The cats went scrambling for the nearest window or door, Chris jumped up so fast he knocked his chair over and the large grandfather clock, in the empty dining room off the kitchen, toned ten o’clock. It was an eerie moment. I stood there waiting for the intense expression on Chris’ face to soften into hospitality as the gongs from the clock echoed through the house. Suddenly it was quiet, except for the clickity-click sound of tiny claws still scoring the polished hardwood floors in the rooms beyond the kitchen. Chris smiled. His face seemed to creak.
“You’re right on time. Pull up a chair.”
He lifted his chair back up and sat in it. I moved around to the other side of the large table and sat down. His kitchen was as big as an average two-bedroom apartment, complete with a fireplace. When he’d hired Goat and Paps to re-do it, they had spent months taking the cabinets back to the bare wood to give it the look and feel of the old Boone family place in Texas. It had worked. In spite of its overbearing size the room felt warm and cozy. Tonight, however, with the October mists drifting in the open windows, the stale smell of cat piss and the forlorn figure of Chris Boone sitting across from me, the place felt like a favorite aunt dying of cancer. In Texas, Chris Boone had been the kind of man who would stop his car to help a turtle across the street. Now, looking at his worn face, I had to wonder what kind of a man he had become.
“So, how’s the wife and kid?”
“Just fine, they’re in Florida right now. Kathy’s doing some in-depth training out there at a special school. I talked to them just a little bit ago and they sound like they’re doing great.”
There was nervousness in his optimism that told me not to ask any more questions about the family.
“So, what are we doing tonight?”
He smiled a little and lit up a cigarette.
“I’m on this new health program, Kathy’s idea, special diet, special exercises and these special vitamin shots….”
“Vitamin shots?”
“Yeah, I get them from her accountant.”
“Pete? You get these shots from Pete? But he’s not a doctor.”
“Sure he is, I mean, in their church he is.”
“Oh, so were going to Pete’s and he’s gonna’ give you a shot?”
“Yeah.”
“So what do you need me for?”
“Well the shots are pretty strong and sometimes I get a little dizzy so I would just feel safer if you took me there and back.”
“Sure, fine with me. When do you have to be there?”
“Actually we should be leaving right now.”
“Let’s go.”
“I’m gonna’ lock the garden door; we’ll leave by the back.”
Chris went to lock the garden door then led me out the back door, which was behind the kitchen. As we walked out I caught the strong smell of a dead animal.
“Christ! What died?!”
“Oh, a couple of the kittens. Orn was playing with them and he accidentally choked them. He was pretty upset about it. But you know kids, they don’t realize how fragile those little kittens are, they think they’re like stuffed animals.”
It was a quiet drive over to Pete’s and back. Chris had stayed in Pete’s over an hour while I sat in the car. When he came out he was puffy and his skin was bright orange, an effect of the niacin he