Free Naked in LA by Colin Falconer Page A

yet. Every waitress, bar girl and stripper in this whole city wanted to be an actress.
    The couple next door were still going at it. You could hear every damned thing through these cheap motel walls. Dios mio , it was eleven in the morning, didn’t they even plan to stop for breakfast? The way she was moaning, she had to be a hooker.
    I grabbed my bag and headed out. I was going to be late for my bus.
    There was a swimming pool out front, but it had emptied out a long time ago, probably during one of the earthquakes. This city shook like a jelly on a plate. Nothing looked sadder than a derelict pool on a summer day in California. There was a crack along one of the concrete walls at the shallow end and now management used it to dump old furniture.
    “Come on in, the water’s fine.”
    I stopped, recognized the voice straight away. He had salvaged a deckchair from the junk at the end of the pool and he was sitting there with his eyes closed and his face turned to the sun like he was waiting for a waiter to bring him his cocktail. He was wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt like the ones the tourists wore in Havana, and there was a copy of Variety magazine open on his lap.
    “Reyes?”
    “Nice place you got here. Service is a little slow, I ordered a beer half an hour ago and it still hasn’t got here.” He took off his sunglasses and gave me the benefit of that million-dollar smile. “Good to see you again, princess.”
    I couldn’t believe it. My humiliation was complete. “How did you find me?”
    He came up the steps, slapping Variety against as he thigh as he walked. “I’m insulted you even asked that question.”
    “Did Angel tell you?”
    “Angel and I don’t talk much, you know that. It was a friend of mine, Jack Rubenstein. Ruby was telling me you’d left Miami and come here to pursue a career outside of office management.”
    “How did he know that?”
    “Ruby knows everything that happens in Miami. That’s why we’re friends.”
    “But why did he tell you about me?”
    “Because I asked him to find out. I was sorry to hear about your father.”
    “Thank you. He’s at peace now, at least.”
    “I hope it was quick at the end.”
    “Reyes, he was an invalid for most of the time we lived in Miami. He suffered every day. Quick at the end does not make up for three slow years of suffering.”
    “He didn’t deserve that. I only met him a couple of times but he always seemed to me like a decent man.”
    “He was the best.”
    He walked with me down to the highway, hands in his pockets. He looked so different from Havana, when he always looked like a playboy out of a Peter Stuyvesant advertisement, and Miami, where he looked like a desperado. Now here he was, dressed like he was about to go on vacation. I realized Reyes was a chameleon who could change his persona with every shift in geography.
    So who was he really?
    “Nice uniform,” he said. “Interesting colour. Is that what they call puce?”
    “It has the added benefit that if a customer throws up on you, it doesn’t show.”
    “You see, that’s thinking ahead. You must have a very smart boss.”
    “He’s Greek and he keeps trying to feel me up in the kitchen. Have you come here to gloat?”
    “Why would I do that?”
    “I don’t know.”
    He just smiled and stood there, doing a good impression of the most charming man I’d ever met. I tried not to look too eager, but if he’d gone to the trouble of tracking me down then I supposed there must still be hope for us after all.
    Or perhaps there had been, until now. The last time he had seen me I looked like Jackie Kennedy. I was wearing the diamond necklace Angel had given me and every man in the bar had turned his head to stare at me. Now I was dressed for yet another diner and I had on hardly any make-up. I was just out of the shower and my hair was a mess. He must be regretting that he went to so much trouble.
    “I heard you want to be an actress.”
    “I’m starring in my own