Dream a Little Death Read online

  Dedication

  For my father, who taught me to love Los Angeles

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Dreama Black’s Noir L.A.

  About the Author

  Also by Susan Kandel

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Map

  Chapter 1

  The first time I set eyes on Miles McCoy, I worried he might try to eat me. He was the size and girth of a North American grizzly bear, with long silver-tipped hair, a long silver-tipped beard, and small dark eyes that bore into me like I was a particularly fine specimen of Chinook salmon. It couldn’t have helped that I’d used a honey scrub the morning we met. I should’ve known better. Not just about the scrub, but about a lot of things.

  Like braving the freeway during rush hour.

  Like thinking you can’t get a ticket for parking at a broken meter.

  Like racing up to his penthouse in Balenciaga gladiator sandals, and expecting not to twist an ankle.

  Like watching his fiancée shoot herself, and assuming it was suicide, instead of murder.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself, which is another thing I should know better about. Because if I’ve learned anything at all from my study of film noir (which got me into the whole sordid Miles McCoy mess to begin with), it is to tell the story in the precise order in which it happened.

  The trouble started the day before, which was Valentine’s Day, a pagan holiday named after the Roman priest who defied Claudius II by marrying Christian couples. After being hauled off in shackles, the soft-hearted cleric was beaten with clubs, stoned, and when that didn’t finish him off, publicly beheaded. Makes you think.

  It had poured rain for eight days running, which isn’t what you sign on for when you live in Los Angeles. But that morning, as I stepped outside for a run, the sun was blinding—so blinding, in fact, that I didn’t see the fragrant valentine my neighbor’s dog, Engelbart, had left on the stoop for me. Not that I minded spending the next twenty minutes cleaning the grooves of my running shoe with a chopstick. It was a beautiful day. The rollerbladers were cruising the Venice boardwalk. The scent of medical marijuana was wafting through the air. Engelbart’s gastrointestinal tract was sound.

  An hour later, I hopped into my mint green 1975 Mercedes convertible, and made my way up Lincoln to the freeway. I was headed to Larchmont, an incongruous stretch of Main Street, USA, sandwiched between Hollywood and Koreatown. This was where studio executives’ wives and their private school daughters came for green juice, yoga pants, and the occasional wrench from the general store that had served Hancock Park since the 1930s. It was also where my mother and grandmother ran Cellar Door, known for its chia seed porridge and life-positive service. I helped out whenever my coffers were running low. Which was most of the time.

  You are probably frowning right about now. Surely a young woman who owns a classic convertible—as well as Balenciaga gladiators—should not be perennially low on funds. But it’s true.

  The car came from my grandmother, who received it as part of her third (fourth?) divorce settlement and gave it to me as a gift when I strong-armed my mother into rehab for the fourth (fifth?) time. The sandals I purchased online in a frenzy of self-loathing shortly after watching my ex-boyfriend the rock god serenading his current girlfriend the supermodel on an otherwise uneventful episode of Ellen. I’d tried to return the sandals, but one of the studs had fallen off, making them damaged goods. Like their owner. Not that I’m hard on myself. It’s just that my career—I take clients on custom-designed, private tours of my hometown of L.A.—wasn’t exactly thriving, which is why I was easy prey for the likes of Miles McCoy. But I’m getting ahead of myself again. Here comes the good part. The part where I’m driving like the wind and almost don’t notice the flashing lights in my mirror. I knew I should have fixed that taillight.

  I pulled over, cut the motor, handed the cop my license and registration. He looked down, then did a double take. “Dreama Black?”

  That would be me.

  “The Dreama Black?” he continued. “As in ‘Dreama, Little Dreama’?”

  Perhaps I should explain.

  I am a twenty-eight-year-old, third-generation rock ’n’ roll groupie—or “muse,” as the women in my family like to put it.

  My grandmother, a fine-boned blonde who never met a gossamer shawl or Victorian boot she didn’t like, spent the sixties sleeping her way through Laurel Canyon, winding up in a house on Rothdell Trail (a.k.a. “Love Street”) purchased for her by a certain lead singer of a certain iconic band whose name is the plural of the thing that hits you on the way out.

  My mother, blessed with thick, dark tresses and a way with mousse, was consort to many of the pseudo-androgynous alpha males of American hair metal, her chief claim to fame an MTV video in which she writhed across the hood of a Porsche wearing a white leotard and black, thigh-high boots. She also bought Axl Rose his first kilt.

  As for me, well, I was on my way to freshman orientation when this guy I’d been seeing, who’d played a couple of no-name clubs with some friends from summer camp, intercepted me at LAX, put his lips to my ear, and hummed the opening bars of a new song I’d apparently inspired. Instead of boarding the plane for Berkeley, I boarded the tour bus with Luke Cutt and the other skinny, pimply members of Rocket Science. Four world tours, three hit albums, two Grammys, and one breakup later, “Dreama, Little Dreama”—an emo pop anthem that went gold in seven days and has sold eleven million copies to date—had made me almost famous forever.

  “Step out of the car, please.”

  The cop removed his sunglasses. Peach fuzz. Straight out of the academy. “So.”

  He wanted to get a picture with me.

  “I’d love to get a picture with you,” he said.

  I smoothed down my cut-offs and striped T-shirt, removed my red Ray-Bans, ran my fingers through my long, straight, freshly balayaged auburn hair . The cop put his arm around me, leaned in close, took a couple of snaps on his phone. Let me guess. He’d had a crush on me since tenth grade, when he saw me in a white tank and no bra on the cover of Rocket Science’s debut C.D., and now he was going to post the pictures on Instagram to show all his buddies.

  “Awesome.” He gave me a brotherly punch on the arm. “No way is my wife going to believe this. She’s crazy about Luke Cutt. Hey, is he really dating that Victoria’s Secret Angel? She is smoking hot.”

  At least I didn’t get the ticket.
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  I arrived at Cellar Door just in time for the staff affirmation, a daily ritual in which the servers, line cooks, busboys, and dishwashers all sit in a circle on the sustainably harvested bamboo floor and pass the talking stick. Today, after the group hug, my grandmother passed out napkins and small, odoriferous pellets which everyone nibbled at politely, then tossed surreptitiously into the trash.

  I set to work wiping down the fir slab that constituted the communal table. Next I watered the herb wall and ironed the hemp tablecloths. Then I ducked into the kitchen. Gram was at the stove, testing the curry of the day.

  “How are you?” I gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  She whipped around, chiffon skirt flying, batwing sleeves fluttering. “Actually, I’m in a bit of a state.”

  “It’s the Night of 1,000 Stevies, isn’t it?” Gram always got upset when the annual Stevie Nicks tribute-cum-drag show, now into its third decade, rolled around.

  She shook her head. “I’m so over that. Everybody knows full well that she-who-we-shall-not-name stole her so-called ‘look’ from me. No, it’s Uncle Ray. He’s back in my life. And he’s in trouble.”

  “Uncle” is the generic term I’ve given to the unending parade of my mother’s and grandmother’s lovers. Uncle Ray stood out. He was high up in the L.A.P.D., for one thing. For another, he’d broken Gram’s heart.

  She took off her apron. “I don’t want you to worry about it. I want to hear about you.” She gave me a wink. “Anything special planned for tonight?”

  The woman could not comprehend a life without romantic intrigue, and I hated disappointing her. “The usual. Soft music, candles.”

  “Cruelty-free, promise?”

  “You’re mixing me up with my mother.” Whose use of handcuffs and floggers has been well-documented elsewhere.

  “I’m talking about the candles,” said Gram. “Are you aware that beeswax is stolen from hives, tallow is a slaughterhouse product, and paraffin is carcinogenic?”

  “You’re a fine one to talk about cruelty-free,” I answered. “What were those pellets you gave everyone earlier?”

  Gram narrowed her lids. “Carob-dipped goji berries.”

  I rest my case.

  My shift ended at four, and I took off soon afterward. I was driving against traffic so I made it home in under an hour. Home would be a tiny, bougainvillea-draped bungalow off Abbott Kinney, not far from the Venice canals, that I’d purchased with my unused college fund. The listing called it a “character house” in a “newly gentrifying area,” which means a teardown plastered with gang graffiti. After I signed the papers, the broker suggested I get a Doberman. But I’m not easily intimidated. Too bad. Maybe if I’d gotten the Doberman, I wouldn’t have gone for that gun. But I’m getting ahead of myself yet again.

  After opening my mail, I uncorked a bottle of Pinot Grigio and decided on a B.L.T. As I was pulling out the bacon, however, I remembered next month’s food tour for a group of Jewish singles from Milwaukee. I’d locked in the Kibitz Room at Canter’s Deli and a meet-and-greet with a fermentation evangelist in Van Nuys who makes artisanal sauerkraut (certified kosher-pareve). Beyond that, however, I had nothing. Suddenly verklempt, I took to my bed with a third glass of wine.

  The next thing I knew it was pitch-black and the doorbell was ringing. I looked down at my phone. Nine-thirty. I’d been asleep for hours. I pulled my cut-offs back on and stumbled out of the bedroom.

  “Who is it?” I called out.

  “Pizza delivery.”

  I looked through the peephole. Standing there was a hot guy in a Voidoids T-shirt. I let him in. His schnauzer, the aforementioned Engelbart, followed.

  “You look like you were asleep.” He scanned the room. “Alone, I hope.”

  When it comes to friends with benefits, geographical proximity can be a fine thing. Take the case of my next-door neighbor, Teddy. He’s there when the urge strikes. The walk of shame is only a few steps long. And once in a while he shows up with an extra-large pizza.

  “Sit down,” I said. “Pour yourself some wine while I freshen up.”

  I hustled into my bedroom, looking for something fetching but not trashy. And then there was my mother’s black leather catsuit, which I kept forgetting to drop off for her at the specialty dry cleaners on Sepulveda the exotic dancers all swore by. Oh, why not? After yanking out the shoulder pads, I have to say I looked pretty good. More like Scarlett Johansson in The Avengers than Tawny Kitaen in that Whitesnake video. Scarlett, if she were the waif type, that is. And wore a smaller cup size.

  “Freeze!” I whipped around at top speed.

  Teddy strode into the bedroom and put up his hands. “I surrender.”

  “Maybe we should eat first.” I’d never gotten to that B.L.T.

  “Not hungry.” He reached for the zipper running down the front of the catsuit.

  “Let me.” I tugged, but it didn’t budge.

  Teddy kissed me long and hard, then pulled back. “I have an idea.” There was a glint in his eyes. “Just like in the movies.”

  “No!” I backed away. “You can’t rip it! It’s vintage!”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m sorry, Teddy, but my mother wore it to Heather Locklear’s wedding to Tommy Lee. Where are you going?”

  He came back from the kitchen with a can of WD-40. “Hold still.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” I closed my eyes.

  “Fisherman spray it on their lures. The fish love it.”

  He pressed down on the nozzle. As the noxious scent filled the room I doubled over coughing. Plus, the zipper was still stuck.

  Teddy disappeared into the kitchen again, coming out this time with a slice of pepperoni and some scissors. “I’m cutting the thing.”

  “Can you get me a piece, too?” After he left the room, I called my mother.

  When she heard it was me, she dispensed with the usual niceties. “It’s Valentine’s Day, and you’re home alone on your computer. And drinking. Sad.”

  Leos are caring, but lacking in tact. “Actually, I’m with someone.”

  “Then what are you doing calling me?” Muffled laughter. “Stop that! Bad boy!”

  Teddy had returned and was waving a slice of pizza under my nose. I shooed him away. “What’s going on over there, Mom? Is that the guy who makes the savory seitan pies? Has he actually graduated from high school?”

  “He’s twenty-one, which was legal last time I checked. What about you? Please don’t tell me it’s your next-door neighbor. That is not how the women in our family do things. Love is not supposed to be convenient.” More laughter, then gulping sounds. “Ooh. Pineapple?”

  I was feeling vaguely ill now, so I cut to the chase. “The zipper on your catsuit is stuck and Teddy wants to cut me out of it.”

  “Grease the pig!” my mother commanded.

  “What pig? Mother, what is going on?”

  “I’m talking to you,” she said. “Do you have any Crisco?”

  “Crisco? Why would I have Crisco?”

  Teddy looked up from his phone. “Crisco? That sounds awesome.”

  “If you shove some down the front of the catsuit,” my mother said, “your body heat will warm it up enough to allow you to wriggle out. Remember, leather gives.”

  I walked Teddy and Engelbart to the front door with a full market list. Might as well kill two birds with one stone. After they left, I found the savory seitan pie dude on Facebook. He was eighteen. Then the phone rang.

  “Well, that was quick,” I said to my mother, trying not to sound superior. Only it wasn’t her. It was a man whose voice I didn’t recognize. He told me his name, but I wasn’t sure if I’d heard right. It couldn’t be.

  “The Miles McCoy?” I asked. “Miles McCoy, the record producer?” His story was legendary. A burly white guy from Detroit, he started a rap label in his college dorm room back in the nineties and won eight Grammys before graduation. After a split with his partners, he went into seclusion at a Tibetan mon
astery, only to emerge as a master of the turnaround, resurrecting the careers of washed-up crooners by getting them to record heavy-metal ballads, or engineering collaborations between country stars and faded hip-hop divas. He had four ex-wives, didn’t touch alcohol, and always carried prayer beads and a miniature legal pad.

  “Yes,” Miles said. “But don’t believe everything you hear. People lie.”

  People lie.

  It wasn’t like I’d had to read between the lines. The man had come right out and said it. But apparently, I hadn’t been paying attention. And what a pity that was. Maybe if I had been no one would’ve died.

  “You’re quite the cynic,” I said.

  “Not really,” Miles replied. “It’s just that I keep falling for smooth, shiny girls, hard-boiled, and loaded with sin.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Don’t tell me. Double Indemnity? No, The Big Sleep?” The other thing everybody knew about Miles McCoy was that he was obsessed with film noir. Me, too. Growing up, Gram, Uncle Ray, and I spent a lot of time on her couch, watching old movies on cable while my mother was AWOL.

  “You’ll have to look it up to be sure,” Miles said.

  “I will,” I said. “In the meantime, how can I help you?”

  He said he’d like to go over it in person. Was I available Thursday—tomorrow—at 9 a.m.?

  I hesitated only a minute before agreeing to make room in my busy schedule. Maybe Miles McCoy wanted to resurrect my moribund career.

  Later in the evening, I learned just how versatile Crisco can be. Soon after I would learn there are things out there a lot more slippery.

  I don’t mean rain-slicked pavements in a classic film noir.

  I mean music moguls who can quote Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely by heart.

  Chapter 2

  Miles McCoy lived in the penthouse of the Eastern Columbia Building, which I’d always admired from my car while stuck on the 10 heading downtown. Clad in turquoise terra cotta, ornamented with zigzags and chevrons, and capped with a four-sided clock tower, it’s the most beautiful Art Deco building in L.A., and—even more important—the site of the climactic scene in the pilot episode of Moonlighting, where Cybill Shepherd hangs by her fingernails from one of clock faces until she’s saved by Bruce Willis, when he still had hair.