Make Me Sin

28

Four days later, at half past three on a sunny Friday afternoon, I stand outside my car at the end of a long dirt road in the Hollywood Hills, shading my eyes with my hand as I stare at a rusted chain-link fence bisecting the road.

It’s locked with a padlock. A sign warns, “Private Property. Intruders Will Be Shot.”

I’m very confused.

On Monday at Lula’s, I eventually admitted to the girls that I was having some pretty conflicted thoughts about A.J. After hearing the rest of the story about my night with him at the gay bar, Grace’s opinion was that it ultimately didn’t matter what secrets A.J. might be hiding, because I really only needed him for what was between his legs. (She’s sentimental that way.) She said go for it, have a crazy fling, learn a few new tricks in the sack, then go marry Eric or some other normal person, have my two point three babies, and live the life I was brought up to live.

That made me vaguely depressed.

Kat’s opinion was more ambivalent. She doesn’t want me to get hurt. She also knows you can never, ever judge a book by its cover, so even though A.J.’s particular cover is mad and bad, what’s on the inside might be anything but.

“First,” she cautioned, “you need to sort things out with Eric.”

I have repeatedly tried to do so, but he isn’t cooperating. I can’t get him to return my calls. When I mentioned that to Grace, she said, “So there you have it,” as if I were now free and clear to shop my v****a all over town.

I left Eric another apology message, asking him to call. I waited another full day to hear back. When the crickets got too loud, I decided I wasn’t going to wait any longer. Now here I stand, befuddled.

According to my GPS, this road is supposed to lead to the address Kat gave me where A.J. lives, but I can’t get around the darn locked gate. Which, by the looks of it, no one else has gotten around in a long time, either. Except . . .

Off to the left side of the road, where the dirt gives way to wild grasses and trees, there’s a man-height, oval break in the fence. It’s almost hidden behind a wall of shrubbery, but I see it, and go over for a look. The grass beneath it is flattened, and bald in some patches. There are slim tire tracks in the dust.

It’s a way in. A way in that someone on a two-wheeled vehicle is regularly using.

Oh, goodie. I found the entrance to the bat cave. I wonder if Bruce Wayne is at home.

I maneuver the car so it’s parked off the main part of the road, lock it, and continue on foot. It’s a pretty good incline, and soon I’m sweating. I don’t normally mind a good sweat—I love to run, and take regular hikes up Runyon Canyon—but I really don’t want to see A.J. when I’m looking like I just hopped off a treadmill.

After another ten minutes of walking, I realize I’ve left my phone, along with A.J.’s flower order form with the incorrect address, in the car.

I stop in the middle of the road, and look around. I see only gently rolling hills covered in trees and low shrubs on either side of me. Where perhaps, my mind inconveniently suggests, murderers and rapists are hiding. I chew my lip, undecided. Do I go back? Do I keep going?

Then a dog barks off in the distance, and I think I might be getting close after all.

I continue on. After another half mile or so, I crest the top of the low rise, and stop dead in my tracks.

“Oookay,” I say aloud, staring. “That’s not creepy.”

The road dead-ends in a broad, circular driveway perhaps three hundred yards ahead. In the center of the circle is a dry, cracked marble fountain choked with weeds. Beyond it is a sprawling, dilapidated, abandoned hotel. It looks right out of that horror movie where Jack Nicholson plays the writer who goes crazy and tries to murder his family.

Parked in front of the hotel, gleaming in the afternoon sun, is A.J.’s death mobile.

I stand gaping until the dog I heard earlier trots into sight around the rusted hulk of a dumpster on the side of the building. He’s a pale caramel color, thin and small. He has only three legs.

He spots me and freezes. His ears flatten. He seems to shrink closer to the ground.

“Hey, buddy. It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you.” I kneel down, holding out my hand.

He starts trembling. He skips backward a step. Poor thing, he’s terrified of me. Then, somewhere inside the hotel, music begins to play. The dog turns its head, perks its ears, and tears off in the direction it came, faster than you’d think a dog missing a leg would be able to.

I stand, listening for a moment, trying to identify the music. There’s a lone, piercing flute or clarinet, accompanied by a soprano, who is singing in . . . Italian, I decide.

Inside the abandoned hotel, with a three-legged dog as company, someone is blasting an Italian opera. This is getting weirder and weirder.

I move toward the massive double doors at the front of the building. It’s obvious this place was once beautiful. Now it’s a ruin. The tall beveled-glass windows are streaked with dirt. The carved lintel about the door is sagging and warped from both moisture and age. The roof was probably last repaired in 1930. Paint peels off the façade in long, curling flakes. But an echo of its majesty remains. Up close, it’s a little less creepy.

A little.