The Mirror Thief(43)

Who?

Ramon Novarro! There, entering the beanery!

Claudio does an about-face; Stanley plants a hand on his breastbone and shoves him into the coach before he can bolt. C’mon, kid, he says. Let’s move it along.

Claudio’s craning his neck, pressing his nose to the grimy glass as they settle into their seats. I can’t believe this, he says. Ramon Novarro eats his breakfast at this same restaurant. We should have spoken to him.

What the hell are you on about?

Ramon Novarro! Star of Ben-Hur! Star of The Arab, and The Prisoner of Zenda! These are films of great importance.

As the bus rolls past the fountains and the arbors of Beverly Gardens, Claudio summarizes the career of Ramon Novarro and recounts the plots of his many movies, proceeding with such abandon that they all blend into a single swashbuckling epic of hysterical complexity. Stanley only half-listens. He’s hunched in his seat with his eyes closed, letting the engine’s rumble massage him toward sleep. He pictures Claudio as a lonely boy in Hermosillo, his small fingers flipping through faded American screen magazines, his black eyes going wide as the lights of the cinema darken.

It’s nearly noon before they see the ocean. On the way through Santa Monica they hit a couple of grocers’ shops: Claudio pesters the proprietors while Stanley picks through the shelves—spic doesn’t understand a word of English—and soon they’ve replenished their supply of fruit and crackers and potted meat. Stanley even comes away with a quart of milk and a couple of Heath bars, but Claudio is unimpressed. He’s growing weary, short-tempered. The fog is gone. The day is warming up.

Claudio washes down the chocolate with a swig from the bottle and passes it back to Stanley. Now what will we do? he asks.

I don’t know. Lie on the beach, maybe. Get some shuteye. What do you mean?

I mean, now what will we do for money?

Claudio sounds detached, automatic, like he’s starting up an old fight again out of habit, or just to keep from thinking about something else. Stanley shoots him a look. Money? he says, and gives the combat pack a shake to rattle the tins inside. We got three days’ worth of food here. I can hardly carry this thing. What do we need money for?

Claudio’s face pinches in consternation, but his eyes are steady. We need money for a place to stay, he says. A proper place. So that we can become established.

Established? Stanley says. What’s this established? Do you even know what that word means?

I know what it means. I know we cannot keep on like this.

Stanley glares at him, hitches up the pack on his shoulder. Yeah? he says. Speak for yourself, chum. I been keeping on like this since I was twelve years old. If you don’t like it, that’s too bad. You f*cking pansy.

Claudio blanches, but doesn’t take the bait, and Stanley feels a little sick for having said it. I helped you, Claudio says. I helped you look for your man. Now you help me.

Sure, you helped. You had no desire at all to see Hollywood. Right? What a terrific sacrifice you made. How can I ever repay you?

Silent gulls bank overhead in the clear air; their perfect shadows drift across the pavement with motionless wings, like outlines hung from a child’s mobile. Stanley steps off the boardwalk, onto the sand. Claudio follows him. The wind is cool by the water, the beach all but deserted. Two old ladies pass with bundles of polished driftwood. Farther up the beach, a thin and shirtless man in a black beret stands before an easel, daubing at a canvas. A crowd of sandpipers runs ahead of Stanley and Claudio, then stops until they close the distance, then runs ahead again.

The beach widens as they walk south, and when they’re far enough from the boardwalk—too far to be worth a vag bust for a cop—Stanley sits down. The tide is in: there’s a towering surf, and waves are erasing the domed temples and square towers of an elaborate city built in the sand. A piece of blackened wood is trapped in what’s left of its central plaza, and Claudio stoops to pick it up. It looks like a burnt plank from an old ship, heavily encrusted with dogwinkles and goose barnacles, afloat maybe for years. Claudio lets it drop into the next big wave and it glides away. In the distance, beyond the line of breakers, the sea is featureless, a shimmering silver band.

After a while Claudio sits down next to Stanley. Stanley brushes the sand from his palm and slips it under Claudio’s shirt, against his narrow back. Claudio flinches, then relaxes. You will help me get money, he says.

Stanley studies the horizon, the pattern of flashes there. His eyes are tired. You want to go back to the three-card routine? he says. That made some good money.

Those hoods will bother us again.

We could take the game into town. Back into Hollywood.

No. Hoods are everywhere.

Claudio slides up the cuff of Stanley’s jeans to expose the bandaged cut. He looks at it without comment, then covers it again. Moves his hand to Stanley’s knee. Runs it slowly up his thigh.

Stanley’s leaning toward him when he spots something in the waves off to the right. Did you see that? he says.

What?

Look, Stanley says, pointing.

Three black spheres are floating in the smooth sea halfway to the breakers, appearing and disappearing between the swells. They look like the heads of frogmen, surfacing for a moment to spy on the land.

I don’t see.

Look! There’s three of ’em.

Stanley scrambles to his knees, kneels behind Claudio, rests an outstretched arm on his shoulder, sighting down the length of it. Look, he says. Right there.