Los Angeles Stories. Ry Cooder

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      I thought of Mr. John. “You can’t judge a book by the cover,” I said, but he was right in a way. The Book is not really meant for the ordinary home; it’s a service to the business world, that’s the official point of view. I once had the idea of offering it to homeowners on the time­ payment plan of fifty cents a week, but my supervisor said, “Can’t be done, just do your job.”

      I was reassigned to the district near the L.A. River called Aliso Flats, or just The Flats. Many of the local residents are Mexican, and Russians of the Molokan faith. Mexican women are usually at home, and I’m offered a little lunch sometimes — you never know what. Women often make lunches for sale in the home to make extra money. I list those as “lunch rooms.” Some homes have rented rooms so I need to talk to the roomers as well. My first week in the Flats, a housewife showed me to the back where the roomer lived. I knocked, but there was no reply. I said, “Hello, I’m from the City Directory, and I would like to ask you a few questions. It only takes five minutes.” I heard a radio playing. I knocked again. I pushed open the screen door and saw a man’s feet. His body was in the kitchen. There was blood on the floor and blood on the walls. The woman screamed and ran back inside the front house. I used the neighbor’s phone to call the police. That’s part of our training. The police asked if I knew the man, if I was an associate of his. I showed my business card like we’re trained to do. They took my name and address and told me not to leave town. I asked the officers if they would like to be listed in the City Directory. “Not on duty,” they said, but one officer gave me his home address and suggested I call on him later.

      I had difficulty in the Flats after the story got around. I overheard one Molokan woman, Sadie Tolstoy, telling her friend, “He takes the names to the dark side.” Finally, I stopped going down there, but I missed the little chili stand on Utah Street. It was only fifteen cents a bowl and very good.

      Thanks to Mr. John, I can eat wherever I want, but I usually make my own lunch. Pershing Square is a perfect place to sit and watch people. There are big shade trees and flowers and religious speakers. One day, I sat across from a woman dressed in black with tangled hair and strange fingernails that had grown out long and curved back. She shook her Bible at me. “False prophet!” she croaked. Another man walked by, and she shook the Bible at him. “Judas!” The man ducked his head down and hurried along the path. “Whore of Babylon!” she shouted to a woman in high heels pushing a baby stroller.

      I ate my ham sandwich and made entries in my daybook. A man on the bench next to me said, “What are you writing? Tales of the sordid, the lurid?” I showed him the Book. He was very old and poorly dressed, but you can’t judge on appearances. He put out his hand, saying, “Finchley by name, hobo by trade, no permanent address.”

      “The Directory doesn’t recognize that occupation,” I replied.

      “Oh, I’ve been many things. If you want the whole story, it’s going to cost you.”

      “The Directory doesn’t pay for information.”

      “They’ll pay. It’s a first-­rate yarn. Comedy, tragedy, sin — the worst kind! I’ll cancel all previous engagements. Just open an account at Gordon’s liquor store for the duration.” He shuffled off.

      I spent the rest of the day in the Japanese district called Little Tokyo. I interviewed three dentists, two lawyers, a doctor, and ten restaurant cooks in one building — all single men. The professional types spoke good English but the cooks thought I was checking white cards, so they clammed up. It took a long time, and the building was hot and stuffy. There was a bar on the street level called Tokyo Big Shot, a tiny little place with a counter and eight bar stools. It was empty except for the Japanese bartender and a white woman. I ordered Brew 102 — it’s cheap and it hits. The bartender poured one and sneered at me. “You a checker?” he asked suspiciously.

      “He don’t look like a checker,” the woman said. She was missing some of her lower front teeth, so it came out like “shecker.”

      “What a goddamn checker look like?” the bartender said.

      “He’s got a satchel like they got, but his eyes are bad. He ain’t a checker.”

      “What’s a checker?” I asked.

      “State liquor board,” said the woman. Aside from her teeth and a slight tremor in one hand, she was not so bad looking. I put the Book down on the bar. “This is what I do,” I told her. “How’d you like to be listed? It’s free.”

      “A shnooper,” she said.

      “Told you,” said the bartender.

      “Aren’t there any Japanese women around here?” I asked.

      “What’s he want ’em for?” the woman said.

      The bartender shook his finger at me. “Goddamn checker. You drink up, go home.”

      The Directory doesn’t list bars. I paid up and left.

      “Won’t turn any tricksh for him,” the woman called out after me.

      The next day, Billy the office boy came looking for me in Pershing Square. “Super wants you,” he said in his unfriendly way. I don’t like Billy.

      “What for?” I asked, just to irritate him. Billy hates questions, hates to give answers.

      “Hell do I know,” he said.

      I put my ham sandwich back in my bag. “And Daniel was cast in the lion’s den,” the woman in black said from her bench across the path.

      They call it the City Directory Library. I’ve never seen any of the public there, so it must be a library in name only for business reasons. In point of fact, the supervisor is the only person there, in my experience. You address him as Sir or Mr. Supervisor. I don’t even know his name.

      “Got a call about you from a Sergeant Spangler at police headquarters.” The supervisor has a way of talking to you without looking up from his desk. “Two dead men, so they wonder why.”

      “Three, if we count Howdy Clark the clarinet player.”

      “Unreported?”

      “He was in his apartment, in his coffin. I spoke to Mrs. Clark, but she declined to be listed.” That was the wrong thing to say. The supervisor blew up.

      “I don’t give a damn about any woman named Clark, you just forget all about that. I’ll tell you this, and I want you to understand this. No dead bodies. Any more of that and you are out,” he shouted, stabbing the desk with his finger.

      “But it’s bound to happen, look at the numbers,” I said.

      “You listen to me. Don’t contradict me. I’m reassigning you to beauty parlors, as of right now. Get moving.”

      “You heard him,” Billy said as I was leaving.

      Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But you have to go out and find them, and that can take up all your time. I have what you might call “hound-­dog reckoning” — a nose for where to look — and it comes in handy. I started with Beauty by Rene, next door to a fancy dress shop. I walked in and the smell hit me. I was unprepared for that! And the noise — hair dryers going, women talking in loud voices a mile a minute like crows in a tree. I spoke to the first operator. СКАЧАТЬ