Santa Monica (LA Series Book 1) - Bo Dodge

Santa Monica (LA Series Book 1) by Bo Dodge

Book excerpt

Jack Spark didn’t let nobody in. Not nobody, not no how. They didn’t have a pass, they didn’t get in. That’s why Fats had hired him, to guard the entrance to the club.

He was a Sphinx, Jack, which is what they came around to calling him.

Hey, check it out, man, there’s the fuckin’ Sphinx.

Jack didn’t care, as long as nobody kicked up a fuss when he turned them away.

He was a brick wall. Worst case scenario, he took half a step forward and stuck out his chest. Kind of like, yo, take a hike, friend, there’s nothin’ for you in there.

Jack didn’t dig the word “bouncer.” He never actually bounced anybody. He just didn’t let ‘em through the door in the first place.

First thing he’d asked Fats Foley — the owner of Studio 74, a superhip top-end nightclub on West Sunset — was, “So, I stand there three nights a week like a ton a bricks, and you slip me 200 bucks a night?”

“That’s the gig, Jackie: you get paid for bein’ a party pooper. You in?”

“I keep everybody out, who’s in here dancing to the Bee Gees?”

“We don’t play that Bee Gees shit, and obviously you don’t keep everybody out,” Foley said. “This joint’s exclusive, but you think I’m in here doin’ the hustle by myself? You’ll be amazed, Jackie: the more citizens you turn away, the more of ‘em’ll be lined up the next night waitin’ to get in. You know how word spreads in this town. People are gonna want to know how come so-and-so got in but some other son of a bitch didn’t. And the more schmucks line up outside, the more special the lucky bastards who make it through the door will feel. And you know what happens then, Jackie? When they’re in here feelin’ special?”

“No idea,” said Jack.

“The more special they feel, the more money they spend.”

“So which ones you want me to let in?” Jack asked. “I mean, what’s the norm?”

“Norm?” Foley laughed. “Jack, there’s no ‘norm.’”

“Then how do I know who gets in? There some kind of password?”

“Nah,” said Foley. “Passwords are like from the Middle Ages. This is a hip club, not fuckin’ Camelot.”

“What, then?”

“I had passes made up, VIP passes. They flash a pass, you let ‘em through. Simple.”

“Passes,” said Jack. “You mean like membership cards? Like at the gym?”

“Exactly. Some of ‘em are good for a month, some are one-time-only. You don’t have to worry about the passes, that’s my department. Your job’s just keep the losers without ‘em outside.”

“Do I get a pass?”

“What for? You’re not comin’ in. You stay outside, on guard.”

“Like in ‘Nam,” said Jack. “I’m the lookout.”

“Something like that.” Foley clapped Jack on the shoulder. All he had to remember was: they showed a pass, he swung the door open. No pass, he kept them out.

“You want the job,” said Foley, “and I can’t see why you wouldn’t, you can start tonight. You get a nice suit, a dress shirt, a tie and an ear.”

That one went over Jack’s head. He already had two ears.

“Like a walkie-talkie,” Fats explained. “So you can stay in touch with me.”

“Cool,” said Jack.

A walkie-talkie. Jesus, he should have known. By the time he’d come home from ‘Nam, a couple years back, the whole world had changed.

They were sitting in the club’s main room, a disco ball hanging from the middle of the ceiling. Foley — thin as a rail, the Invisible Man in a white silk suit — was drinking a rum punch. Jack had a Cuba Libre. The suit, shirt and tie were waiting for him on the bar. A pair of mirrored sunglasses sat on top of the clothes.

“Why the shades?” Jack asked.

“You don’t have to wear ‘em all the time, but they might come in handy. When they can’t see your eyes, it makes you mysterious, gives you more power.”

“But I’m working nights?” asked Jack. “After dark?” He couldn’t for the life of him imagine why he’d want to put on a pair of sunglasses to do this job.

“The last guy wore ‘em. He said they prevented misunderstandings. I mean, we get some weirdos, Jack. Say some joker shows up without a pass, you tell him to buzz off, but he thinks he sees you wink at him and figures you don’t really mean it, suddenly you got yourself a confrontation. The last guy said the shades were like a shield, a mask. You put ‘em on, nobody messes with you. You’re fuckin’ Batman.”

“What happened to him?” asked Jack.

“Who, Batman?”

“No, the last guy. How come he left?”

“He got fed up.”

“Fed up?”

“The confrontations, you know?” Foley slurped his rum punch. “He got sick of gettin’ beat on.”

Jack didn’t understand. A bouncer doesn’t get beat on. He beats on the other clown, when the other clown tries to slip past him.

“It only happened one time,” said Foley. “When the jerks are on their own, you can handle ‘em easy. But this one asshole got turned away and came back with like six of his buddies. I guess they messed the last guy up pretty bad, broke everything but the shades.”

“And then they came in the club?” asked Jack.

“You’re not gonna believe this. They were not the kind of customer I want, but here they were. And they weren’t here to dance, you know what I mean? The place was packed. The DJ was playing the Commodores. ‘Machine Gun.’ So the buddies head for the bar, and the first asshole squeezes onto the dance floor and taps one of my regulars on the shoulder like he wants to cut in and dance with his date.”

“Yeah?”

“Then all of a sudden there’s a gun in his hand, and he blows the fuckin’ guy’s brains out.”

“Jesus,” said Jack.

“Yeah. So the Commodores go right on playing, and the asshole and his buddies turn around and stroll on out. They step over Batman — who’s still lying out there on the sidewalk, pretty much unconscious — and head off into the night. I never saw any of them again.”

Jack was silent. Fats Foley wasn’t exactly making the job sound attractive.

“But the way I see it, Jackie, it was all Batman’s fault. If he’d a done his job, they wouldn’t a got through the door, and we’d all still be dancing to the Commodores, you know what I’m sayin’? The guy just didn’t do his job. So I went to see him in the hospital, brought him a bunch of flowers and two weeks’ severance pay. ‘Cause when it comes to my club, I got no room for people don’t do their job. I’m tellin’ you that up front.”

“Yeah, I get the picture.”

But Jack wasn’t sure he did get the picture, not all of it. Foley was looking for a scapegoat, someone to blame for what had happened. The way Jack saw it, the last guy was lucky to have survived his final night on the job. Maybe he ought to think twice about putting himself in the same position. Nah, he only had to remember ‘Nam, the rotting corpses, the stink of napalm, the Saigon whores. That was all three years in the past, but he still hadn’t got a handle on the next chapter of his life. Maybe this was finally it.

“That asshole with the gun came to cap my regular,” Fats went on, “but I think he was pissed off the last guy wouldn’t let him in, and that’s why he fetched his buddies. I mean, how come other schmucks were gettin’ through the door but not him?”

“Yeah, that’s what I keep asking myself,” said Jack. “How come some people get passes and others don’t? You got a dress code? You want more women than men?”

“There’s no code. Every night’s different. Some times I let ‘em in wearing sneakers, other times not. Some times I keep it funky and cool, other times I like to see the men in suits. It’s like life, Jackie: every day’s a new surprise, you never know what to expect.”

“So you’re playing God.”

“That’s right — and now God’s offering you a job.”

Jack let that sink in.

“The last guy’s not coming back?”

“Not an option. He can barely walk. I mean, they really did a number on him. He’s practically crippled.”

Jack had to let that sink in, too. “You got anything else for me?” he asked, glancing at the uniform laid out on the bar. “A piece?”

“A piece? What are you gonna do with a gun, stick it in their face they try to slip past you? You’re a bouncer, Jack, not Wyatt Earp. Jesus, how long were you in fuckin’ ‘Nam, man?”

“You make it sound like I’m puttin’ my life on the line here.”

“Maybe I’m exaggerating a little. I mean, look at you. You got nothing to worry about. You’re gonna keep the beard, right? It works. You look like some Roman centurion or something, you don’t even need the shades. What do you weigh? Two hundred pounds, 210?”

Jack nodded. He weighed in at a little over 200, height just under 6’2”. He was in excellent shape, sharp as a razor.

“You won’t have no trouble,” Foley said. “Trust me, you tell ‘em they can’t come in, they’ll turn around and walk away, meek as kittens. Christ, they’ll apologize for bothering you. I mean, you’re an imposing guy, Jack. You’re a fuckin’ Pharaoh.”

Jack knew Fats was buttering him up, but he didn’t really have much choice. He hadn’t had a decent gig since ‘Nam. He’d traveled around the States for a while after getting back, and what he hadn’t seen didn’t interest him.

Actually, the thing that attracted him about Fats Foley’s offer was how totally dumb it sounded. Stand in front of a door for a couple hours a night and get paid for it? That was a heck of a lot better than standing guard in the jungle, knowing every second might be your last. Compared to that, this was a fairy tale — with Jack as the prince.

Foley was saying something about the rules. What Jack could and couldn’t do if there was trouble. He couldn’t lay a hand on nobody unless they threw the first punch. After all, Jack’s side of the door wasn’t the club, it was the free world, which — according to Fats Foley the philosopher — was exactly what Jack had been fighting for in ‘Nam. He couldn’t let himself be distracted, Fats warned him, not by some hot girl strolling past, not by a fight breaking out in the street, not by his own mother. Anything that caught his attention could be a diversion, a trick.

Jack knew about diversionary tactics. After all, he was the one who’d been in ‘Nam. He’d been on his guard since the moment he busted out of the womb.

“All right, I’m in,” he said.

“Welcome aboard,” said Foley.

It didn’t strike Jack until later that he wasn’t actually coming aboard. His job was to remain ashore and keep the undesirables from coming aboard.

“You’re gonna need a nickname,” Foley told him. “But you don’t have to come up with it yourself. It won’t take long before somebody hands you one.”

Jack nodded.

And it hadn’t taken long before somebody’d come up with “the Sphinx.” In ‘Nam, he’d had a different nickname, but he hadn’t used it since his return. It called up too many bad memories.

“Some of these assholes will try to bribe you to let them in,” said Foley. “I don’t have to tell you that’s against the rules.” He stood up and held out a hand. Jack tossed back the last of his Cuba Libre and got to his feet and shook. “You’re blind, Jackie. You put on those sunglasses, man, you’re not just a bouncer, you’re fuckin’ Stevie Wonder. Hey, you hear the new double album? It’s amazing.”

“Yeah, I guess I’ll take the shades, after all,” Jack said.

That was the first and only time Jack Spark ever saw the inside of Studio 74. From that moment on, his place was on the outside, listening to the disco beat that pulsed behind the club’s front door. He would let in the lucky souls who could show him their VIP passes, wave away the slobs who couldn’t, and whistle up a cab for the poor dopes who had too much to drink inside. If some steamy couple stood there French kissing right beneath his nose, he would pay them no never mind. He would just stand there manning the door.

In a very real way, he would be the door.

“Hey, you know we had Neil Diamond and Paul Simon in here last week?” said Foley, as he walked Jack out to his post. “And the week before last, Burt Reynolds. He shaved off his mustache, the last guy almost didn’t recognize him. Gunsmoke, man. Deliverance. God damn!” He came to a stop and grabbed Jack’s arm. “Listen, Jackie, celebs like that, you let them in, okay? Pass or no pass.”

“Pass or no pass,” Jack echoed.

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