COURTESY CONFIDENTIAL, Chapter III

If you are just tuning in Doll, you’ll have to back up a couple chapters or this next one will make about as much sense as a bottle of baby formula in the line-up next to the bottles of Grey Goose on the wet bar at Jones’s. Or maybe it might. Depends on what you’re into and to tell you the truth I’m not that interested.

The next important piece to my experiment involved following the sissy. With my car. First, I would have to locate him again after my previously coy exit. He was a local, so he should be pretty easy to spot. He was tall by L.A. standards, which for a guy means anything above five foot five. This one was probably five-ten, stocky, dark hair with that sort of studied messy look that was supposed to represent the morning after a serious bender, but was really achieved by dumping a load of expensive crap in his hair that his personal stylist told him was a must-have. He was dressed a little old school, meaning his clothes matched, he wore socks with his shoes and smelled liked he’d had a bath in the last hour or two. Dove soap.

I pulled my car out of the parking garage in my building. I instantly smiled that kind of smile that a gal only gets when things are working just her way. The sissy drove right by me. I couldn’t have asked for a better deal. It looked like he was talking on the phone so he missed seeing me when he went by. He wasn’t using a headset. I made a mental note of that as I pulled my car out slowly and settled in behind him for the ride.

I should mention here that driving in L.A. is the true acid test of anyone’s civility. At any given moment a person in a car can be driven to shout, single-finger gesture, wave a gun if they’ve got one, shoot it if really provoked or just cram their car up the backside of the idiot they want to kill just to make a point. The insurance will probably cover it. We call it Road Rage. It’s a mental condition caused by there being more cars on the road than there are places to drive to. The only thing we’ve got in abundance that comes close to the car population in L.A. might be Starbucks. Starbucks needs to catch up, ‘cause it is way behind.

I followed the guy down to Santa Monica Boulevard and headed west through Boys Town toward Beverly Hills. We traveled that way for a few miles until he cut left onto Little Santa Monica and started slowing down. That meant he was looking for parking. Another thing L.A. didn’t plan for when it decided to forego public transportation for the personal vehicle. Up ahead I could not believe my eyes or my luck. Two spots, one in front of the other at the meters. I shot into the next lane, cut ahead and backed into the front spot lickety split. The sissy didn’t have a clue. He had that angry look on his face that people get when anyone gets in front of them for any reason whatsoever. He finally realized there was another spot. He started to pull into it. I was already out of my car and at the meter. The meter for his car.

I started putting quarters in his meter as he jumped out of his car yelling, “You wanna tell me what you think you’re doing?”

I looked up and smiled. He recognized me.

“You’re the dame with the baggies,” he said.

“Yup.”

“Small world,” he said.

“And it keeps getting smaller.”

“You following me?”

“Nope.”

“You wanna tell me why you’re putting money in my meter?”

I chuckled. “Don’t you ever feel like doing things people don’t think you should do?”

He studied me for a beat and answered, “Not during the day.”

“Too bad. You should try it sometime,” I said.

“Yeah. Maybe I will.” He studied me again. I noticed he actually had a nice set of peepers. Green, with little flecks of yellow. Bedroom eyes. I walked back to my car and put my quarters in that meter. He spoke again.

“You know I read somewhere that somebody got arrested for putting money in other people’s meters.”

“Amazing the little things they’ll arrest you over. I guess I’m a bad girl.”

“Are you now?”

“Only during the day.”

I smiled, winked and turned away, heading for the Starbucks on the corner. I knew without a doubt or eyes in the back of my head that I had his attention.

To be continued……