Raindrops were beginning to splatter against the windshield and distant thunder promised more bombast as I reached a Y in the road I hadn't expected and was forced, in view of the lights bearing down on me from a vehicle somewhere in back and near to me, to make a decision. "Take the high road" wafted through my brain. I had no idea why I had remembered that now, but it had been a favorite expression of my Scottish grandfather, and it offered me more direction at the moment than anything else I had on offer. So, I turned right, uphill. I only saw a glimpse of the signpost in the gloom, set off at a useless angle, as I passed it, but I caught "Timber" something or other. I put the slip of paper I had up to the dashboard lights to refresh my memory. It said "Timberlake 760," so I thanked my grandfather for direction and gunned the motor to ascend the steep side of the hill.
I was a little irritated and on edge about this call out tonight. The call had come late, I had other plans, and it was going to storm a bitch tonight. Leon had given me the assignment slip, and I'd seen that it was an M-4 Regular Cowboy. All three elements combined to bode problems. The "M" was OK in its own right, but four of them meant there were few enough to indicate they might be rough and more than I could handle if they did get frisky. Under the circumstances, the "Regular" gave me pause too, especially in conjunction with the "Cowboy." When "Cowboy" was specified, the fantasy it provided usually ended with someone wanting to fuck someone—and if they hadn't paid for a "Special" up front, it often meant they knew they wanted it to end that way but didn't want to pay up front—or at all—for the special service.
At least tonight was supposed to be a double. Freddie had come up the mountain a bit ahead of me. At least there would be two of us. But I wasn't sure about that either. Freddie had bailed out on me before and left me to handle everything myself. Twice. I had half a notion to bail out on him tonight. I had a bad feeling about this assignment.
It was getting darker and the thunder was coming closer. There were few houses on this mountainside overlooking L.A. and the ocean. It was an exclusive section and the people living here could afford their privacy. No lights on the road and few address boards large enough to be read from the street, particularly not at night. But I could tell I was in the 700 block now, and, with difficulty, coasting slowly as the rain drops hitting the windshield got larger and larger, I picked out the number 760 and pulled into a pebbled driveway that turned me almost completely around as it dipped down to a small boxy log-sided building pushed into the side of a sharp drop off. A two-car garage was sunk into the hillside at the left of the parking apron that went to the right up to a sheer drop off. Nothing about the place looked inviting, and I didn't see Freddie's Corvette. So, he had abandoned me again, it seemed.
I was furious. Not just at Freddie, but because they hadn't even left a light on beside the door in the blank, windowless wall. There were no windows on the drive side on either story, and the place looked small and abandoned. I was going to dance for four guys in a place like this and they hadn't paid for sex on top of the dance. And Freddie wouldn't even be there to back me up. Terrific. But an assignment was an assignment, and if I bugged out I would be out my money—and Leon's goodwill. And if Leon was mad at me, I'd probably get an even worse assignment the next time.
I climbed out of the BMW, adjusted my breakaway shirt and pants and the chaps, put the ten-gallon hat on, set my professional face in place, and slammed the car door shut. As if on signal, the heavens picked that moment for the first deluge marking the oncoming storm, and I was drenched before I hit the door.
It was several minutes before the light came on beside the door. I was soaked to the skin and this would be the most revealing entrance I will have ever made to such an assignment. Breakaway clothes didn't leave much to the imagination when they were soaked. I was this far from returning to the car and roaring out of there when the door opened.
I recognized him in an instant. It was Ted Thorenson, that director of several very popular television situation dramas. And it was a very surprised Ted Thorenson. He obviously wasn't expecting anything. He was barefoot and encased in a plush velour robe and his hair was tussled as if he had just gotten out of bed. That impression was only strengthened when I looked past him into what was essentially a one-room cottage with an enormous double-sided stone fireplace between the two living spaces. I could see past the fireplace to an large bed that was as tussled as Thorenson looked and was lumpy with strewn pillows and disordered sheets and spread.
And there were not three other guys at the door salivating for an exotic Cowboy dance.
Thorenson's expression turned from surprise to amusement and then to something else—to something I was entirely too familiar with in my dealing with clients. He was interested. I had come to Hollywood with a dream of auditioning with such as Thorenson and I'd never even gotten into the outer office of a director at his level. A few porn movies leading to employment with an escort service were the best I'd gotten. And here I was, soaked, standing on the threshold of Ted Thorenson's hillside hideaway cottage, and looking silly in a transparent Cowboy getup. Charming. I had known this wasn't going to be a good night.
"760 Timberlake?" I asked in a hoarse voice. It was all I could think of asking.
"No, sorry," Thorenson responded in a British-accent voice that probably melted all of his conquests, of which I'd heard there were many. Thorenson was a handsome man. He was well into his fifties, but he had kept extraordinarily good care of himself and was quite distinguished looking, which had only been enhanced when his temples had gone gray. And he still had all of the power and presence of robust strength about him that extended from his early days as a Hollywood stunt man and movie hunk.
"This is 760 Timberwood," he continued. "It's a common mistake; you should have turned downhill on Timberlake back at the split in the road."
"Oh, sorry. Wrong house." I started to turn to leave, but he put his hand on my arm, and as he did so, his robe parted, and I saw that he had a heavily muscled barrel of a chest with a profusion of black and gray chest hair.
"You're soaked," he said gently, but with an air of authority. "Come inside and get dry and warm before you proceed. You'll get your death of cold otherwise."
I let him draw me into the house, which looked like heaven from where I was standing out in the rain on the blank-walled pebbled entry. Once inside, I saw that the house wasn't a claustrophobic walled-in box at all. The two walls away from the drive and the hillside were entirely of glass. Two stories of glass overlooking the blinking lights of the city and the dark ocean beyond. And the furnishings were lush cordovan leather, and pine furniture, with the colors of yellow, red, orange, and brown predominating, bringing a warm glow to the interior that was enhanced by the roaring fire in the dominating stone fireplace. To the right of where I now stood just inside the door was a living area, with a brown leather sectional sofa and heavy wool rugs in earth tones on a highly polished random-width pine floor. To the left was a dining area with pine furniture and a wall of kitchen cabinets with pine doors and red-tile countertops. The bedroom area was beyond the fireplace, in the corner of the two high window walls overlooking the city. The bathroom and dressing area was walled off from there on the side of the building pushed into the hillside. Above that was a loft area, which looked like it was set up as Thorenson's hideaway office.
"Come, get out of those drenched clothes before you flood my floor," Thorenson said with a smile. "Water would be murder on this wooden floor. I just had it installed."
"Sorry. But my other clothes are back in the car," I said nonsensically.
"And if you go back for them, they'll only get drenched too," Thorenson said. And then he laughed. "Here, those are hardly clothes anyway. Quite a getup."
"Uh, sorry," I said, and I started to unlace the chaps. I didn't know what else to say. What can one say who shows up at a Hollywood director's door on a rainy night in a breakaway cowboy outfit?"
