Jonathan Kellerman_Petra Connor 01 by Billy Straight Page A

Malibu, just to play it safe.
    “Malibu, huh,” said the guy. He had a fuzzy little beard and his hair was longer than the girl’s.
    “My parents are in there,” I said, pointing to the museum. “They took my little brother in, but I figured it was boring. They promised to take me to the beach and Hollywood if we can find it.”
    “Where’re you from?” said the girl.
    “Kinderhook, New York.” The first thing that spilled out.
    “Oh. Well, Hollyweird’s about five, six miles that way—west—and the beach is the same direction, another fifteen miles after that. Kinderhook, huh? That a small town?”
    “Uh-huh.” I had no idea. All I knew was it was Martin Van Buren’s birthplace.
    “You a farm boy?”
    “Not really, we live in a house.”
    “Oh.” She smiled again, even wider, and looked at the guy. He seemed bored. “Well, tell your parents Hollyweird
is
weird; all kinds of freaks. Be careful, you know? During the day if you’re with your parents it should be okay, but not at night. Right, Chuck?”
    “Yeah,” said Chuck, touching his little beard. “If you go, check out the Wax Museum on Hollywood Boulevard, little dude. It’s pretty cool. And the Chinese Theater, ever hear of that?”
    “Sure,” I said. “Where the movie stars put their hands and feet in the cement.”
    “Yeah,” said the guy, laughing. “And their minds in the gutter.”
    They laughed and walked on.
    The first bus I got on the driver said I needed exact change, so I had to get off and buy a lime snow-cone and get change. Which was fine, because it took care of my thirst and put a sweet taste in my mouth. Half an hour later, another bus came along and I was ready with the right coins, like someone who belonged.
    The bus made a lot of stops and there was so much traffic I could see the sky turning grayish-pink through the tinted bus windows by the time the driver called out, “Hollywood Boulevard.”
    It didn’t look that much different from where’d I’d just been: old buildings with cheap-looking stores and theaters. Same noise, too. Waves of noise that never stopped. Watson has its sounds—dogs barking, trucks rumbling over the highway, people yelling when they’re mad. But each noise is separate; you can make sense of things. Here in L.A., everything’s one big soup.
    At the trailer park, I could walk around at night, look in windows. I’ve even seen people doing sex—not just young people, old ones, too, with white hair and flabby skin, moving around under a blanket with their eyes closed and their mouths open, holding on to each other like they’re drowning. I knew places in the groves where it was always quiet.
    Hollywood didn’t look like a place where I could find quiet, but here I was.
    I walked up Hollywood Boulevard, looking out for the freaks Chuck had warned me about, not sure who they really were. I saw a big tall woman with huge hands that I realized was a man, and that sure qualified; teenagers with rooster hair and black lipstick; more drunks, some of them pushing shopping carts; black people, brown people, Chinese, whatever. The restaurants sold stuff I’d never heard of, like gyros and shwarma and oki-dogs. The stores sold clothing, costumes and masks, souvenirs, boomboxes, fancy underwear for girls.
    Lots of bars. One of them, called the Cave, had a row of Harleys parked in front and guys coming in and out, big and ugly, dressed like Moron. Seeing them made my stomach burn. I went past there really fast.
    I saw a hamburger stand that looked normal, but the guy inside was Chinese and he didn’t look up when I stood there. One hand kept frying meat, and his face was half hidden by smoke and steam.
    Two dollars forty-two cents for a burger. I couldn’t spend anything till I had a plan, but I did manage to take some ketchup packets lying out on the counter. I ducked behind a building, opened them, and sucked out the ketchup, then I kept walking to a street called Western Avenue and turned