In my business if I don’t court the bizarre every so often I’ll grow stale...not to mention broke! Since Los Angeles thrives on a quirky, ‘out-patient’ insomnia weirdness, odds are in my favor of finding the bizarre in my day-to-day rounds. But bizarre doesn’t even begin to describe my job for Marvini that last week of September.

Although I had never met the man, Marvini’s reputation preceded him; he was old Holly-weird...emphasis on my last syllable. The bean-pole of a man had been around for nobody knew how long, thrusting his ferret-eyed face into civic ceremonies, raising the requisite glass of champagne in his liver-spotted hand at celebrity functions, appearing as an extra in movies being filmed in and around town: for the past three decades Marvini was a regular-irregular in the LA scene. He had always been here, a permanent fixture like the sin and the smog but unlike the s&s, Marvini had never managed to stick enough to cash-in or fouled of enough to get caught. Stuck in his late 50’s for as long as anybody could remember, he spoke in tenor-pitched clipped knots of expression or monotone-toned rumblings of rifled fact. Certainly not liked by everybody, but respected as a man who knew all this city has to offer and coffer…and has survived it.

We met at the Hollywood Coffee-shop.

“Tony Dee said you were good,” Marvini said after a second sip of what the restaurant called an “Arnold Palmer”; ice-tea and lemonade mixed. I was having one also, plus a turkey burger to Marvini’s tuna salad.

“Third time you mentioned it,” I slurped. “And again, I’m flattered, but...”

“But...I’m stalling,” the man agreed. “It’s just not every day I share my business with someone.”

“First of all...” I began, stealing another ‘slurp-ah’ of my drink. “...I don’t know your business...”

Sure, I had heard all manner of things about the guy, from running numbers, to listing prostitutes for one of the larger ‘independent’ studios, to selling real-estate. A full spectrum of illicit to explicit, none of which I could prove, or cared to.

“...and all I need to know is what you need to tell me to hire me.” I finished.

“I get five a day plus reasonable expenses,” I added. “I provide all receipts and keep our business to myself. But I’m sure T.D. told you that too.”

“I have no doubt of your discretion Mr. Elm and no quarrel over your fee. I simply need to impress upon you the delicate nature of what you will be hunting for.”

“Hunting?”

“Bad choice of words,” Marvini said, attempted what I assumed was a smile and took another sip of his drink.

“To locate for my associates...” he paused for dramatic effect, attempting no doubt to inspire my imagination to conjure a group of faceless dark suits standing in absent, yet ever diligent watch over this man’s shoulder: ‘associates’. When I didn’t flinch, Marvini submerged the dramatics with a quick downcast look, cleared his throat, looked back up at me and continued:

“But I would appreciate if you regarded your quest, as we’ll say, as one of an explorer attempting to find a prized artifact. An expensive jewel if you wish.”

“However you want to look at it,” I said. “Whatever your ‘jewel’ is, I’ll find it.”

“Of that I have no doubt.”

A minute of silence passed.

“So, I guess on to it then,” Marvini began.

A man like me, while being a bit behind the times and a few flags short of the full wind does hear things. O.K., maybe not precisely the exact thing Marvini was regaling me with, but I knew full well that almost every possible theory, myth and half-truth has come through this town; Marvini’s story wasn’t any weirder. In fact it went a long way in explaining a lot about L.A. and that elusive ‘star quality’ that some people seemed to have while still others, equally as talented, handsome, buxom or what have you, never seemed to court or catch.

It would explain a lot...if only I believed it.

“Nobody can actually pinpoint the exact date the Elixir came into existence...” Marvini continued, his chest full, his tiny blue eyes glaring now that he was in full ‘tell-this-pion-the-big-secret-and-see-if-it-doesn’t-simply-flip-him-out’ mode. Being showered with his oratory come-shot I wasn’t sure if I should stand and applaud or just wipe my face!

“...’t’s believed probably around the end of the silents, but no one can be sure.”

I knew history; who did this guy think I was? Vaudeville stars and local lay-abouts recruited to the silver-screen in the hopes of filling the new Nickelodeon with faces that didn’t repulse the nickel-paying masses. Stars emerged from sheer bravado or will, sometimes talent and an industry was born out here between (or some would say at the expense of) never ending sunlight and once resplendent orange groves. It would follow logically that the ‘Elixir’ would come into existence then, when who knows what performers brought who knew what to the new medium.

Perfectly sensible.

Perfect bullshit.

“Think of it…” Marvini continued as I tried to stifle another chuckle; I’d need something a bit stronger then the ol’ Arnie P. if I was gonna get through this load of crap with a strait face!

“…a formula that has been added to over the years, the distillation of the stars. Sweat from Grant, spit from Brando...God knows what from Marilyn,” he said, stopping to wink as if I shared the joke.

“You take a touch in your youth, put back a smidgen in your later years.”

Of course it wasn’t hard to believe that Marvini and his crones, directors, stars, wanna-bees and never-bees could believe this garbage. I, on the other hand, was hired to do a job and I’d do it, belief or not. The stuff in the bottle, the magic Elixir could be Wonka Fizzy Lifting Drink or pure un-distilled whale sperm for all I cared! All that mattered was that Marvini and his pals believed (or hoped), the people who heisted it believed and I knew Marvini could be trusted to pay me what I was asking.

Let me tell you about money in this town.

As I drove down the hill from my meeting with Marvini I thought hard and long about money...as I often do.

Money in L.A. is as much a fiction as the movies made here. Nothing in L.A. is real, it’s all a facade of re-written dreams (man, am I getting poetic in my old age, or what?) and money is the least real thing that will ever flap in our briny wind. What I mean is that when you have it here you tend to spend it and soon you ain’t got it anymore. Yeah, that can be said for many places, but in this town bills fly like shit through the proverbial goose. God knows why I’ve never moved, I’m as no good holding on to cash as the next guy. But I have it sussed for me; a little place on La Cienega, a few friends I drink with, no real woman to bleed me, hit Vegas once a year when things are real good. So I’m tight and my overhead’s not too taxing for a man of my modest, some would say pedestrian, wants.

So I wasn’t immune to spending, but that afternoon I didn’t even think about speeding by the Hustler store and filling up on all the latest. Instead I began working Marvini’s ‘search’ by spreading some of his cash around.

Like I said, in this town you don’t hold onto it for long.

Jake is a twenty-something Hispanic kid who is probably more like thirty, sells “Star Maps” and hustles. He and I were close, not tight like buds or anything (despite what people say I really do keep my seediness to my side of the door) but I knew the kid and he me and what’s more I knew he had good ears. Besides, Jake had seen so much another impossible tale from the Hollywood suits wouldn’t make him flinch in the least...or refuse the fifty I offered him.

“None of the boys could pull it off, that’s for sure,” Jake coughed into my driver’s side window. The kid smoked all the time, I never saw him without a cigarette dangling out of his chipped teeth. It was a nice pariah habit from the old days when you still could light up in this town and they wouldn’t take your first-born.

“First they got to believe it,” I offered.

“Yeah, well, who knows dude?. Those old queens run a lot of games,” Jake said and sucked another drag respectively to the side of my window. “You should see some of the shit I’ve seen.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, shuddering to imagine ‘some of the shit’ Jake had seen! God, to be so young and to have lived so hard, I thought, but quickly raced this sympathy away in my head; I’d get nowhere with him if I started to empathize.

“Like they all believe it so it has to be true,” I added submerging my stupid wave of empathy.

“Lot of that going around,” Jake agreed.

A truer statement never hung on the stale sunshine. The thing the locals know and the tourist will never understand is that L.A., the movie, T.V., ‘star’ industry is built on legend and lies. A story can be told, mutilated, burned and resurrected for a century, a story that is a complete and utter falsehood and still that story will work this town; people out here live and die by the lies they believe. Marvini’s story fit in perfect. It made no difference if the Elixir wasn’t real-which I knew it couldn’t be-what mattered is that through the years people believed it was and had acted accordingly.

In the big scheme of things, belief is the least of it.

“Who the fuck knows,” Jake said, breaking me from my ruminations.

“So, nothing?” I prodded one last time.

“Not I heard, but you know I don't hear everything,” he smiled, standing up then.

Even this far into our ‘relationship’ Jake still worked it for me. He knew I wasn’t interested, my tastes ran a bit more hetero-although if you sniffed around me lately you wouldn’t pick up the scent of anything even remotely female...or living-still he liked to preen his sinewy self. I gave him a minute to adjust his package, stomp out the smoke and look down the street before he leaned back into my open window one last time.

“Go see Ralph,” he said, as if an after-thought. “If anybody can run it down, it would be Ralph.”

Of course I knew this all along but before I went and cloistered myself in a bookstore for the next half hour I figured I’d try Jake and the street. But the kid was coming clean with me and I like throwing some money to friends when I can. I just smiled and turned the car around as Jake went back to his corner.

Book Soup is a nook-and-cranny must-heaven for readers...day or night. A labyrinthine semi-tourist place right on a busy corner of Sunset, it’s also the home-away-from-home of Ralph Fays. Any time of day, I’ll find Ralph rummaging through volumes of just about anything. A bean pole asthmatic with a slight left leg limp and runny blue right eye, Ralph looks like a crunched-up Ralph Machio on Darvon (see if you can’t get that picture in your head!); he looks a lot younger then you know he has to be to be so fucking smart.

When I reached Ralph he looked up at me, attempted a smile, then actually left his volume of whatever...and led me out of the bookstore.

“Word’s out what you’re looking for,” he said, rather clandestine considering we stood right then on the corner of Sunset on a busy afternoon.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Things are on the move,” he offered.

“Yeah?” I said.

When I get going, I can be quite the conversationalist.

“They want a ransom and it’s gonna be paid.”

If Marvini knew of this he hadn’t told me. Maybe he wanted me on the case to stop the exchange, or be in the way if something went wrong; I’d speak with him later for the truth. For now I’d get what I could from shaky Ralph.

“How much?” I asked.

“Million,” Ralph said and his spindly arms came up to cross his equally spindly chest.

“Where?” I pushed.

There was simply so much this guy was gonna tell me...or that he could be trusted to tell me.

“Ask Marvini,” Ralph spat, then turned to walk back into the bookstore.

“Jesus!” I growled there on the street when Ralph turned back to me to add:

“Didn’t even ask if it was real,” he spat. “Jesus, you are a fucking whore.”

O.K. you want me to admit it...I was starting to get the creeps. Not the creeps you get when you happen into Crenshaw on a late Friday afternoon (a maneuver I had managed only once in my life when I actually thought money was THAT important), but the kind of creeps you get when your perceptions are being challenged. Ralph was a semi-xenophobe, no doubt about it. Marvini was way goofy and this was LA. Usually I don’t care about the particulars beyond what I need to know; I have no care why he/she is cheating, what the money meant, how the family feels. An hour previous I didn’t care much about the Elixir being what Marvini reported it to be, or even the possibility of it being what he reported it to be, but facts were adding up.

First of all, Ralph had no reason to lie to me and he certainly had always been well informed. Follow that, why would a million be asked for this bottle of ‘stuff’ if these suits didn’t think it held this value? And why would Marvini risk telling an outsider-me in this case-if he hadn’t wanted what had to be valuable stuff back in the quietest way possible (I’m not bragging here, but I am good). Could there really be a near century-old formula that made stars stars?

But what really gave me the creeps as I looked from Griffith Observatory’s height that five o’clock was that I was considering that there could be!

“I was hoping you’d find it first,” Marvini defended as he looked out with me across the dusking Los Angeles skyline; I won’t get into the particulars why a sunset over L.A. is not pretty, just trust me on this.

I had called Marvini right after meeting Ralph and told him to get his chubby ass to the sunset. I needed a few hours to breathe through it all and now that I had, I wanted the truth.

“I can’t do the job you want me to unless you give me all the facts,” I scolded, then took a step back and tried to smile.

I had to ease up here. I did feel for Marvini, out here in the wan sunlight he looked a lot older then he had when we had had lunch, kind of like a doughy messenger, all tired eyes and nervous hands. He wore a kind of melancholy around his chubby face and I caught a bit of a twitch at the upper right fold of his eye-lid.

“I’m afraid there aren’t that many more facts,” he said, barely shifting his eyes off the sick sunset to me.

“Tell me what you got then…” I blurted, to the bust of James Dean. “…all of it,time’s a’waistin’ and it ain’t on your side.”

Marvini and his ‘people’ had been fully willing to fork over the money. I had been seen as a worthwhile investment if I could track down the whereabouts of the Elixir before the appointed day of the ransom exchange, that Thursday. But the suits were growing scared, every day their precious Elixir was gone they were bouncing off of higher and thicker stucco walls. It had been agreed to pay the million-the fact that Ralph had known and confided in me-but to keep me in the dark so maybe I’d stumble upon something in two days. I didn’t mind being kept out of the loop, I usually am, what I did mind though was that I might not have been given a chance had I not known the extra facts kept from me because of the ransom.

I had all of Wednesday to get my shit together.

There comes a point in any of my dealings when I have to go it alone. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to ponder with this job, a day really, but I now knew I had all I could get from the people I had gotten it from, Marvini included and I had to take this Wednesday, a full day before the parties concerned were supposed to meet, and do some solo digging.

First of all, I’d now work with the assumption, the suspicion, the fear, threat, whatever-the-fuck have you that the Elixir was real. My logic was that if the old men believed this B.S., trafficked in it and would pay a healthy ransom for it, I’d have to be a convert until the job was over. Then maybe I’d have time to sit back with a beer and really think hard and long about the possibilities. I’d also be thinking hard and long about my life. I didn’t want to, but there was a gnawing I couldn’t ignore, like a low humming in my head. I’d heard this noise a few times before and as much as I had tried to ignore it the fucker had grown louder these past two days. Somehow this search was adding sub-woofers to my already taxed patience for bullshit and deviltry.

But the self-reflection would have to wait. As if adding fuel to the fire of my dissolution I knew in order to learn what I could in only a day I’d have to run to some old haunts in search of answers. As I showered and shaved that late afternoon-I slept in most of the day formulating my plan-I felt the shudder that always came to me when I stepped out in L.A after dark. Last thing I wanted was to be out after dark, have a drink at the Viper Room, be seen anywhere near Hollywood Boulevard, but I knew I had to go. So donning my best, and most recently purchased suit, coping as much ready cash I could, I made my way into town.

I didn’t hit the Viper nor any other place of its ilk. No offense to the ‘stars bars’ or the fashionable eateries but the kind of secrets I was looking for only one type of person knew...

Strippers.

Who else in this town new more about money and where it was going than strippers and cops...and I really wasn’t welcomed by the men in blue ever since I found the wife of one of their own in a little domination ring down in East LA.

The ladies it would be.

Although my penchant for porn is legendary, I wasn’t a regular at the strip clubs. I much prefer paying for ‘it’ with dinner, drinks, dancing; I like the numbing anticipation of ‘will she or won’t she’ better than a sure thing. Despite my infrequent visits, the girls at this dimly lit little club knew me. Well, maybe they knew my rep. or they knew I could be touched for a few bills for ready information...or maybe they just liked the suit. Either way I had three ladies tickle and jive me even before I got to the stage. But deference to these lovelies and the waitress with the impossibly firm endowments who served me my flat coke, I was looking for somebody.

Suz had just finished her first set. She was strawberry blonde, my five foot eight height with what could possibly be described as a rear-end to die for (not that the rest of her wasn’t as tight and wonderful); I was sure if you kissed Suz’s derriere-as many men who had seen her had tried-you would most probably chip a tooth! Unlike the other girls here, Suz’s bod was tight, athletic tight, not like a seventeen year-old boys’ but not the silicon breast Super-Vixen rock star consort either. But what made her special, really unique beyond her firm perky breasts or wide smile, was that she was actually nice. Not nice in ‘what can you do for me’ nice, she was actually a decent, solid twenty-something girl who would always at least say hi as she made her way to the bar for a white wine spritzer. She saw me as she came around the side of the stage and came right over, as I had hoped she would.

“Long time,” Suz purred after kissing my cheek. She took the chair opposite me and the waitress suddenly appeared with her white wine.

“You know me…” I chuckled. “…my momma won’t let me out past eight on a school night.”

“Your momma is a cold woman,” the stripper said, purring into her glass as I tried not to stare too long at what she wasn’t wearing. Some sort of folds and robes and sparkles, I really couldn’t make out too much in the dim lighting. Suz smelled good though, that I could detect. I knew if I didn’t keep my wits about me I’d soon be swooning...hell, wasn’t I already?

“Yeah, but she always told me to find a girl just like you,” I said.

“Ah,” Suz said and reached across the table with a free hand to tickle my chin.

Waiting the requisite lifetime for my voice to return to normal, I cleared my throat to try and get to the matter at hand...my momma be damned.

“I’m working…” I offered, as if she hadn’t suspected as much...or would care. “…thought maybe you could help.”

“Sure” Suz said, shifting her amazing butt in the wooden chair and fixing me with her baby-blues.

God, I could marry you, I thought; Suz hadn’t asked for money up front. What a wonderful species we humans are.

“Tomorrow night an exchange is going down,” I began, sipping at the dead coke. “I can’t get into the details, but I was wondering if you’ve hea...”

“‘The stuff’, right?” Suz asked, putting down her own glass with mine.

I sat back to let her go on.

According to Suz, The Elixir was called ‘the stuff’ by those not circling in ‘those’ circles. Carrying its own spin-of-a-legend for girls like Suz, ‘the stuff’ was supposed to carry magic powers for a girl or guy lucky enough to be brought into the web of upper-echelon Hollywood. It was what Marvini had described but in Suz’s eyes and many more girls like her it held the key to why they were all still stuck here dancing and other girls were out there on the arm, or acting on the arm of the most recent celebrity. Suz had no history to tell me as Marvini had, but her eyes spun deep in her head with the same promise and joy that Marvini had held.

This stuff might just give Scientology a run, I thought.

“Of course...” she said, finishing her five minute explanation. “...it’s all bullshit.” I smiled, sipped my soda and formulated my next question. From what I had learned these past few days, the Elixir, ‘stuff’ whatever it was called, if nothing else, was a bottled scapegoat. On its existence anybody could blame their less than meteoritic rise through stardom or their lowly life. From Suz to Marvini to everybody in between the stuff was an excuse. Under it all, like the desert heat everybody knew lay bubbling under the surface of L.A. most folks didn’t, couldn’t believe the Elixir/stuff could do what it was said it could. It was like a fall-back position if you needed one, but an excuse you knew held no weight in the real world. So here I was poised to be searching for something Suz regarded as just another dream. If I pushed too hard for answers would I look just like another fool or what’s worse, a never-been looking for a reason?

“Just a big game,” I said to the table.

Let me sound like the wise-ol’ sage I was; I believed like Suz, or actually, didn’t believe.

“Men with their toys,” the stripper said, again sipping at her wine. “Some things never change.”

“I know, I know,” I agreed.

I was losing ground here. She was boring of the conversation, despite her heart-of-debit-card plastic. It was time to shift the stakes.

“Still, it ‘be’ my job little lady,” I drawled, Suz smirked and I pushed the fifty across the table.

“Anything you could tell me...”

‘It’s my job’ I used on more than one date or more than one group of aggravated cops. Those three words had gotten me through most of my thirty-three years, I was sure they would get me through with Suz too...the fifty didn’t hurt though.

“You know that weird guy, what’s his name?” Suz asked.

If Suz thought a guy was weird I’d never want to meet him, that’s for sure. Still I let her continue.

“You know, ya see him around town all the time,” she continued. “He’s what we call a ‘permanent fixture’. Although I don’t think I’ve seen him in here but a handful of times. He prefers Brandy’s ass over at the...”

“Brandy’s could never beat yours,” I interjected, reminding Suz I adored her.

That ol’ bad feeling was creeping up my spine. That carrion call that I had been ignoring for the past two days; I didn’t like the guy Suz was trying to describe.

“I think he’s English,” she added. “...who knows? I heard he’s mixed up in this somehow.”

“Mixed-up how?” I asked, not caring if I was tipping my hand with so direct a question.

“Marv, somebody,” the stripper continued, ignoring me as I tried to breathe. “Marvini, that’s it! I heard he stole it.”

“Fucking boys with their toys, huh?” Suz finished, took another sip and then I did swoon.

“You were paid,” Marvini spat as he sipped his drink and I just stared. Somehow the man looked bigger now than I remembered.

“No offense,” he added. “But Tony did tell me a few things, you know.”

“I just can’t believe you sent me on that fucking goose-chase,” I said, trying to avoid the obvious slight to my character, or was it a slight? I just looked at the ice-tea-lemonade mix and thought better of a sip. If I never stepped into this coffee-shop again it would be too soon and it was too bad since I liked the clean place a lot. I really did.

“It wasn’t a wild goose-chase,” Marvini said. “I needed you. You performed your job to the best of your abilities. I just never expected you to see Suz, she was the only fly in the ointment. She’s a smart girl and I never expected you to know her.”

“Why not?” I said, more pissed that he would think I didn’t know the classy stripper than being put through the run-around of the last two days.

“You just don’t seem the type,” he added. “I would have pegged you more a magazine, ‘Pay-Preview’ guy. Shows how wrong I can be.”

I wasn’t about to tell him he wasn’t so wrong, so I said:

“I still don't get it...”

“Jesus,” Marvini sighed and then reached back into his left hip pocket to produce a white envelope.

“There’s something extra in there. Maybe help you to understand.”

‘Trying to bribe me’ I screamed in my mind but reached for the envelope and tried to focus on the man across from me.

“One more time for us idiots,” I said, pleading with my eyes for the man to tell me his plan again.

“Thanks, by the way,” I added, secreting the envelope to my own hip pocket.

“O.K.,” Marvini sighed and began.

“I hired me a pretty good detective to sniff the stuff so anyone who doubted how important it was would have no doubt.”

“Put a price on your head to put a price on your head.”

“Although no-one knew it was my head,” he agreed. “Except that girl with the great ass. Nobody’ll believe her though.”

“I did,” I managed.

“And you’ll be the only one,” Marvini answered. “The guys I’m dealing with assumed you were on the case so they never went looking for anybody themselves. Those impotent clods would never know where to look for a girl like Suz even if they wanted to.”

“It’s just so freaking perverse,” I spat, sitting back. “I mean, I covered your ass by covering your ass.”

“Ben, it happens all the time, you know that. I thought you were Gittes here!”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said brushing off the reference.

Shit, I loved the movie as much as anybody. Being a ‘dick’ in L.A. somebody was always chucking that reference to me. I could imagine what the local gangster felt like when his butcher recited Godfather lines when he went to pick up the weekly hamburger.

Sipping my Arnold P. I made no move or sound to prod Marvini to continue.

“Not everybody goes for it though, even now,” he did anyway.

“Impossible,” I offered with enough sarcasm to choke a large horse.

“Kids, upstarts,” Marvini said, ignoring my tone. “Naysayers always have the loudest voices. Like they have any clue how this town works. Like any of them would know what to believe if it isn’t Kabala or sandboxes!”

“You…” he added through a big toothy grin “...gave me insurance.”

“What if I blow it for ya,” I tried.

What the hell card was I playing here, it was Marvini’s marked deck? Maybe the Arnold Palmer was giving me courage.

“Who would you go see? You have no idea whose paying me or how to get to them. You think Spielberg is hard to see?”

“Besides,“ he continued. “Why the hell would you? The stuff’ll be back where it always was, the movers and the shakers will lead their talent to the trough and everything will go on as usual.”

“And you’ll be a millionaire.”

“Why the hell not? I’ve been planning this move for years,” he said. “I mean, it took a lot of work to get inside.”

“They’ll find ya,” I tried.

“You think I’m sticking around any longer than it takes me to count those bills?” Marvini chuckled. “All I have to do is hit up the guys that helped, slide them a little extra and I’m a dim memory at best.”

“Besides…” the big guy said and then stood from the table.

For the first time I didn’t feel Marvini’s power as he said down to me:

“…whose gonna miss me?”

“Jesus,” I sighed, taking another drink.

“He had nothing to do with it,” Marvini added.

“So, is it real?” I blurted faster than I wanted to.

I still couldn’t get past it. Regardless of the money in my hands and this splitting headache, I felt like Jack N. here, plotting, prodding, needing the truth about the water and the girl: ‘Let it go’, ‘Let it go!’ my mind screamed but the cut to my nostril wasn’t healing. I looked up with as an impassioned a glance as my beady browns could manage: Oliver asking for more.

“See for yourself,” Marvini said and from his inside jacket pocket he produced what looked like an old fashioned medicine bottle. Speckled gray liquid sloshed inside the flat fluted glass he passed to me.

“Take a drop,” he teased.

My hand shook as I held the warm bottle. Was this all there was? Shit, I could run faster than Marvini, all I had to do was bolt out of...

“Always keep a sample on me,” the standing man explained. “Even before I stole the stuff. I think we all keep some on us, kind of like a secret decoder ring.”

“Never did,” he said to my un-asked question as I stared at the dirty still liquid and tried like all hell not to open the screw-top. “I have enough problems. But if you want to, go ahead. Consider it a double bonus.”

I handed it back up to him. Last thing I need, I thought. Marvini smiled like he understood, maybe he did actually-God knows I didn’t-and put the stuff back in his inside breast pocket.

“Guys like you and me....” he began, smiling so wide then that the skin at the side of his right eye crinkled into a laugh crevice so deep it was all I could do not to smile back. Shit, let him have his game with the old men, I thought then as my headache began to finally subside. What the hell did I care? I was paid, no harm done.

“...we get this town better than the people who think they own it,” he finished as if giving a speech to thousands and not just little ‘ol me.

“It was nice meeting you,” he said and then in one flash of an instant Marvini turned and walked out of the Hollywood Coffee-Shop and my life, and L.A. forever.

Am I a believer? Did I not take a sip, a drop, a splash those three months ago because I didn’t want to deal with sudden fame or was it because I didn’t want to get my suit wet? Tell you the truth I have no idea what halted my hand that day. When Marvini walked out of my life so did my sudden passion for the Elixir and the truth. In fact that very day I took to the open road and headed for Vegas with the cash Marvini gave me and managed to get home half a week later with five hundred extra. Maybe I got close enough to the ‘stuff’ that day in the coffee-shop that it increased my luck. Maybe it was just my week for Vegas.

Shit, that’s about as much as I’ll allow myself to think about it really.

I used to think this town changed about as much as I did...which is not at all. Lately I realize that I do change, have changed, continue to change...L.A. stays the same. As far as I’m concerned that little moment of hesitation that day in the coffee shop, when I stared at the fluted glass bottle and suddenly didn’t give a rat’s tail for even knowing about the ‘stuff’ anymore was a big moment of growth for me. I realized that I had no care to know about the inner world of the stars, the Elixir, the workings of the movers, shakers and quakers. I didn’t need that in my life, or to think about how far away from my life that all was, to know I had a life. Thing is, as long as I know I am changing, as long as I feel movement everyday, I feel like I have my own secret bottle of ‘stuff’ hidden that’s making me strong, a legend in my own mind, a star. Hell, I see Suz once a week now. I’m no longer the ‘Pay-Preview’/ magazine type. Maybe I did get close enough to that damn bottle that day and just don’t realize it.