LITMIR.BIZ

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      I didn’t answer, mostly because I couldn’t remember. I pulled out and headed down Ventura Boulevard toward the first freeway access street, figuring the 101 East to the 134 East to the 5 South was the quickest way to get to the Los Feliz area, which was just northeast of Hollywood. “You guys want the radio on?” I asked.

      “No,” they said in unison.

      “Okay.”

      We had driven no more than a mile, when I could hear hushed conversation between the two. It sounded like variations of, “You want to ask him?” followed by “No, you ask him.”

      “Ask me what, guys?” I volunteered.

      Taylor was the one who asked, and my foot involuntarily stomped on the gas pedal, which resulted in my nearly rear-ending the car ahead of me. I stomped on the brake and screeched to a halt. Maybe I’d heard wrong. I must have heard wrong.

      No, sport, Errol Flynn’s voice said, you heard right. By the way, he went on, if you’re not doing her, I will!

      THREE

      “Did you just ask me if I was fucking your mother?” I said, driving ahead cautiously.

      “Seems like an easy question,” Taylor commented.

      “How can I be fu…having se…I just met your mother a few hours ago!”

      “Yeah, but if you want to, it’s okay with us,” Burton said. “I think she can use it.”

      “Um, guys—”

      “She’s kinda uptight,” Taylor interrupted. “Of course, if you did start to fuck our mother.…”

      Burton picked up the thought. “That would make you.…”

      “A motherfucker!” they cried in unison, and then snickered.

      I got it; a carefully rehearsed routine. “Very funny,” I said. “You two should be on the road.” Flattened by a logging truck, W. C. Fields added. I decided to change the subject. “I’m sorry to hear about your father. I understand he was a hero.”

      “We don’t like to talk about our father,” Taylor said.

      “All right.”

      We drove for several more miles before I tried breaking the silence again. “So, what do you guys like to eat?”

      “Food,” they replied in unison.

      After several more miles, I said: “You guys like to watch television?”

      “If it’s not retarded,” Burton offered.

      “Or gay,” Taylor elaborated.

      At that point I gave up. No further words transpired between then and the time we pulled into the driveway of the Frost home on Commonwealth Avenue in Los Feliz hills. It was a quasi-Tudor brick house, probably from the 1920s or ’30s, and while not perhaps fully qualifying as a mansion, was certainly more upscale than my apartment in Studio City (which, if promises were kept, Nora Frost was going to allow me to keep through the end of the year.) “We’re home, boys,” I said switching off the ignition.

      “No shit, Sherlock,” Burton said, keeping his eyes on his Game Boy, or whatever the hell it was he was thumb-abusing. Neither he nor Taylor made a move to exit the Toyota.

      “Well,” I said, opening the car door, which set off the annoying dinging until I pulled the keys from the ignition, “you guys can stay here if you want. I’m going inside. Maybe I can find where your mom hides her good silverware and steal it.”

      Almost unbelievably, that drew responses from them. When they looked up from their games, they were actually smiling. “We get a cut from the sale,” Taylor said.

      “For not telling,” Burton added.

      “Fair enough, let’s go.”

      I was steeling myself for what the inside of the house must look like, but the reality of it exceeded my most exaggerated expectations. I can’t recall ever seeing shrines to living people, but that accurately described the Frost living room. Practically every square inch of the walls was covered with framed photographs of the two boys. One poster sized image, which was grainy and blurry, and appeared to have been blown-up from a very low-res phone picture, showed the boys standing outside a restaurant next to Tom Hanks, who smiled dutifully. I could only assume that Hanks was innocently having dinner there when he was spotted by Nora. Next to the leather sofa was a life-sized cardboard standee of the boys, dressed like Indiana Jones, and over the fireplace was an oil painting of the two boys that was of near photographic quality. I walked over to the standee, the sort of thing they have in tourist traps that allow you to pose for a picture with your arm draped around one cardboard shoulder so that it looks like you and your best friend Elvis are hanging out together. “Was this from a film or something?”

      “No,” Taylor said. “We were supposed to go on a safari in Africa and Mom was going to shoot it and make some kind of television show, but we ended up not going.”

      “I think she’s planning on dragging us out to someplace called an Arborium or something, so that it looks like a safari,” Burton said. “Then she’ll film the lions at the zoo and cut it together.”

      “Probably the Arboretum,” I said. “They have a whole jungle setting out there that has been used for films for decades. They shot some early Tarzan movies out there.”

      “I thought Tarzan was a cartoon,” Burton said.

      “Before the cartoon, there were about ninety live action…oh, never mind. Just let me look around for a rocking chair.”

      “I don’t think Mom has one,” Burton said. “Why do you want one?”

      “Yeah, I thought you were after the silverware,” Taylor added.

      “Oh,” Burton muttered. “Was that rocking chair thing like a joke? Like you’re so old?”

      My brain suddenly conjured up the image of a birthday party clown sweating his greasepaint off in front of these two and then deciding to go home and commit suicide. But before I could say anything, Taylor announced: “I’m going to get something cold to drink. C’mon, Burt.” The two of them marched out of the room, presumably toward the kitchen.

      “Nothing for me, I’m good, but thanks for asking,” I called after their shadows. Perhaps I should have gone with them, not to keep an eye on them, but because number five on the list in my notebook is that you can learn more about someone by viewing the contents of their refrigerator than you can anywhere else. On the other hand, I was relieved to be away from the little brats for a few moments. I decided to use the opportunity to examine the living room more closely. A brick fireplace with an ornate grate was set into one wall, though it appeared not to have been used any time recently. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was cleaner than my apartment. Its primary function was as a shelf; the mantle held several framed photographs, including one large, formal one of a man in military dress uniform. Examining it closely, I saw a small brass plate affixed to the frame that read: Lt. Randall Frost. This was Dad, the hero.

      Perpendicular to the fireplace was the sofa, and across from it was a large plasma television atop a horizontal cabinet with containing the kind of equipment one would expect to find in the home of a couple of tween boys, chiefly a DVD player and a game console. There was also a VHS machine. Sliding open the large drawer as silently as possible, I found about two dozen games in PS3 format, but a lot more jewel boxes filled with homemade disks, each labeled “Brothers Alpha” followed by a situation or location: “Brothers Alpha on Horseback”; “Brothers Alpha at Space Camp”; “Brothers Alpha on Catalina”; “Brothers Alpha at the Art Museum”; and about fifty more. I stopped looking, afraid I was going to come across “Brothers Alpha Knocking Over a Seven-Eleven,” or something else the knowledge of which would make me an accessory after the fact.

      I closed the drawer and went to sit down on the sofa. The iron-and-glass coffee

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