Casing The Joint
“Look Blue, up there, that’s the house with the lights in the windows upstairs!”
Blue told Lady, “Don’t stop! Cut your lights, we’ll park a little further on. I know which one now! That’s a good girl.”
They were in Brentwood, California, made famous by OJ and still famous for all its Hollywood denizens. The house in question was on a very dark street that went straight up and then winded its way down again to the flats off San Vicente Boulevard.
Photo: Joel Goodman
This was their plan. Lady would phone the fucker, say she was coming over, get him in bed, leaving the front door unlatched, and then Blue would come in and finish him off. They weren’t going to use Lady’s Ladysmith, Blue explained to her that the bullet might be matched to the gun, and the gun to her, if things went bad. He’d either strangle the dude, or knife him, that could be decided the morning of. Then once he was iced, the two of them would get in Lady’s car and hit the road.
“I’ve got a year, maybe a little more, and we can use up all the money!”
“How much have you got?” Blue asked her.
“A hundred to use, fifty I’m leaving to my daughter, we can’t touch that.”
“Ok, cool,” Blue replied. And he meant it.
She had told him the story, the dude who was into popping cherries. And how after her cancer went into remission, it was her greatest desire to see him dead. Things she told him had changed since he, Blue, came into her life. And Blue got it, like everything had changed since he had walked out the door with Lady after Nate’s class that day that seemed a long time ago.
Just over a month now.
Blue in turn told her about Endless, fucking Endless who kept showing up. Lady remembered him standing in front of their bench at the Palisades Park; she remembered the look on Blue’s face on the mountain when Endless tracked him down. And of course, that last time before class when the blind woman’s dog tore into him. Too bad the dog hadn’t finished the job.
Lady agreed. She totally agreed. They had to leave town because Endless was bound to come back. But meanwhile she wanted the cherry popper dead.
Blue didn’t mind.
Because fuck it, maybe he was just made for murder. The same way some people are made for dancing, or to be painters or chefs, or writers, or whatever their inborn talent. His inborn whatever was definitely for bad shit. He’d practically never had a good day in his life before he met Lady.
Lady didn’t mind. That’s what he loved about her, in addition to her good body, her soft hair, the kind way she took him in, it was her being ok about him being who he was. Everybody else had tried to change him, or save him, or something. She met him right in the eye. It was a shame, actually that she wanted him to off the dude. He would have stopped killing for her. He would have said, “I’m done.”
“Let’s go home, now Blue, we don’t want to be caught here. Neighborhoods like these have security swarming. Who knows they could be taking our pictures right this second.”
Lady drove down the hill.
They needed something for dinner, so they stopped at Vicente Foods which was the best market Blue had ever seen. Fuck the Whole Foods where it was so easy to steal. He would think twice before reaching out for anything here. Staff everywhere. Staff in aprons and clean shirts. Everything first class.
They bought a cooked chicken, one just off the spit, some potato salad from the deli counter and a quart of fresh orange juice. Lady said they had the best orange juice here, they squeezed it every day.
A lot of his adult life had been spent inside. A meal such as they had just picked up casually, like it was a penny on the street, did not exist inside. Imagine fresh squeezed juice in the slammer.
They were in the Lady’s car now, heading home, the savory smell of the fresh roasted chicken was making him hungry. And for some reason, he kept thinking about the trays of food in juvenile detention: the trays, the color of the plates, the sogginess of everything, and what wasn’t soggy was stale. Or had mold. No juice of any kind. Milk once in a while. Flies swarming over everything. Rotten coffee in the morning, half a cup, tasted like piss. So did the chocolate milk, though it tasted like shit.
He’d do anything for Lady and this year they had ahead of them: her last. And maybe his last too.
by 
