L.A. Success by Hans C. Freelac Read Free Book Online

two ladies at the same time.
    “She could really use a present,” said the other lady. “I hear she needs some cheering up.”
    “Well, she changed her address recently. She left it with us. Let me see...Here it is,” said the secretary. She wrote it down on a piece of paper and handed it to me. I recognized it immediately. It was Helen's sister's place.
    “Did she have an accident or something?” I asked.
    “No, thank the lord. She's under the weather,” said the other woman. “But you didn't hear it from us.”
    “Thanks a lot,” I said and left.
    The dog was ecstatic to see me when I got back to the car. In his dog brain, it must have seemed like I had been gone for hours. I noticed he had been licking his side of the windshield to pass the time. It was slimed up so much that I had problems seeing out of it.
    Helen's sister lived out east, near Griffith Park. At that time of day with the traffic, I wouldn't have made it out there until her family was back from work. I needed to talk to her alone, I thought. In fact I didn't really know what I wanted to say, so I needed to think of something first before I went tooling over there.
     
    13
    I drove back to Dennis' place and got in my own car with the dog. What a difference. Now I realized everything that was wrong with it. I had to fight the steering wheel to keep it going in a straight line, and the brakes only worked after I gave them a serious mashing. I didn't think I could go back to it now that I'd been in a real car.
    I drove to my place and parked. Tommy was inside looking up words in his dictionary. This guy was amazing—he had time to study and to clean my place up spotless. I'd always heard about people exploiting foreigners, but I'd never known exactly what I was missing until now.
    “L.O.,” he said. He looked at the dog and I could tell he was worried about the extra cleaning he'd have to do.
    “Hey Tommy. You want a car to drive around?” I threw my keys toward him. They hit his fat belly and fell to the floor. I guess French people can't catch things with their hands because they're more into soccer. If I'd have thrown the keys near his feet, maybe he'd of done some cool soccer shit with them.
    “Car?” he asked. Well, I imagined that was a question. He smiled big, so I figured that made up for the dog.
    “Yeah, you can use it all you want. You know how to drive?”
    “Yes! I 'ave pairmee,” he said, whatever the hell that meant. “But I can't drive 55! uh...because...uh...I'm on a 'eyeway to 'ell!” he said and picked up the keys.
    “All right Speedy Frogzales, just don't get too many tickets.” It really was amazing how fast he was learning English.
    Ballsack and I took off on foot to buy something to eat for my dad and me. On the way out of the neighborhood I saw one of the Mrs. Oldhags. I waved and yelled over “do you like my new dog? He was a little expensive, but hey, I'm worth it, right?” Being Dennis for a day had been great. I was thinking I could get used to it.
    We made it back to Dennis' place with burgers and sodas. I gave the big poodle a bowl of crunchy dog food and left him in the courtyard. My dad was still staring at the computer screen. It didn't look like he had moved an inch since I left.
    “Hey Dad, you went to the bathroom while I was gone, right?” I could see from the way he glanced over at me that he was about to explode. I walked over to the computer and pointed at the chess clock on the screen. “Look here—you've got 15 minutes to make each move. You can get up and go do something else. As long as you make one move every fifteen minutes, you're good.” He stood up and ran into the bathroom. When he came out, he looked much better.
    “Here's something to eat.” He sat down with me on the couch and scarfed down the burgers and fries. I really liked seeing my dad happy like that. Maybe the only reason he liked to live in Venice was because he didn't realize he could play chess all day inside. I'd