and there was dried blood crusted above his upper lip and there was a blurred tattoo of a dragon etched on his forearm and the boy told her he had wanted to live here in 1508, but the boy told her not to worry, that he was lucky, and then his face turned black and he bared his teeth and then he was dust, and I tell Rain about the party boy who had owned this apartment and I tell her that the building is haunted, that at night vampires hide in the palm trees surrounding the building waiting for the lights to go out, and then roam the hallways, and finally the camera gets her attention and she's animated and I keep flashing the camera, my head propped on a pillow while she glances at the flat-screen TV - a shot of people running from a jungle, an episode of Lost, and I reach for a Corona on the nightstand. "The vampires don't roam the hallways," she finally murmurs, recovered. "The vampires own the units." And then we run lines for the part of Martina in The Listeners.
Kelly Montrose was rumored to be with the Hispanic actress who had been found in the mass grave right before Christmas. The last sighting of him was on a tennis court in Palm Springs one afternoon in mid-December. Kelly's naked body was smeared across a highway in Juarez and then propped against a tree. Two other men were found nearby entombed in blocks of cement. Kelly's face was peeled off, and his hands were missing. There was a note pinned to his body revealing nothing: cabron? cabron? cabron? Things I didn't know about Kelly: the crystal meth thing, the stepmother who died during plastic surgery, the supposed connections with the drug cartel. This discovery feels only tangential since I never really knew Kelly Montrose - he produced movies, I'd met him several times about various projects - and he was never close enough to anyone I knew to define any of my relationships. Rain spends the day before Kelly Montrose is found at a distance: pacing the balcony, texting, taking calls, returning calls, increasingly agitated, leaning against the railing, gazing past the plunge of the balcony at a couple of guys jogging shirtless on the street below. When I ask her what's wrong she keeps blaming her family. I keep dragging her back to the bedroom and she's always resisting, promising "In a minute, in a minute ... " After downing two shots of tequila she lazes on the balcony in just a thong, ignoring the helicopter swooping above her, and that night in the dark bedroom in the Doheny Plaza, drunk on margaritas, candles glowing around her while I complain about another movie playing on the giant flat screen, Rain can't help it and for the first time something causes her to tune out and when I finally notice, my voice starts to waver and as I fade into silence she simply asks, without looking over at me, in a neutral voice, her eyes gazing at the TV, "What's the worst thing you've ever done?"
I have to go to San Diego," she says.
I'm just waking up, squinting at the light pouring into the bedroom. The shades have been pulled up and she's walking around in the brightness of the room collecting things.
"What time is it?" I ask.
"Almost noon."
"What are you doing?"
"I have to go to San Diego," she says. "Something's come up."
I reach out for her, trying to pull her back onto the bed.
"Clay, stop. I have to go."
"Why? Who are you seeing down there?"
"My mother," she mutters. "My crazy fucking mother."
"What's wrong?" I ask. "What happened?"
"Nothing. The usual. Whatever. I'll call you when I get there."
"When am I going to see you again?"
"When I get back."
"When are you getting back?"
"I don't know. Soon. A couple of days."
"Are you okay?" I ask. "You seemed kind of freaked out yesterday."
"No, I'm better," she says. "I'm okay."
To placate me she kisses me on the mouth. "I had a nice time," she says, stroking my face, and the sound of the air-conditioning competes with the big smile and then the smile and the cool air become in the drift of things suddenly amplified, almost frantic, and I pull her toward me onto the bed and I press my face against her thighs and inhale and then I try to flip her over but she gently pushes me away. I lower the sheet, revealing my