Квентин Тарантино - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - The First Novel By Quentin Tarantino

Caleb lifted up his clay cup and clinked it against Johnny’s cup. Both men brought the fiery liquid up to their lips and drank.

But what exactly was he toasting? The execution of a successful undercover operation that placed him on the inside of his father’s enemies? Or a newfound collaboration with an old friend against a bitter enemy? What was more important to him, his future or his past? Was he Johnny Lancer or Johnny Madrid? Looked like Johnny had till morning to figure that out.

Chapter Nineteen

“My Friends Call Me Pussycat”

When Cliff noticed the film with Carroll Baker playing at the Eros on Beverly Boulevard was rated X, he thought there was a good chance of seeing Carroll Baker really fucking somebody. No such luck. Unlike I Am Curious (Yellow) , where Lena Nyman actually looks like she’s fucking on film, the Italian Carroll Baker movie was just movie fucking.

European movie fucking, which was more lurid and violent, but nobody was actually getting fucked on set.

Too bad.

But it was a pretty good mystery anyway, and it had a great twist at the end. All in all, not the worst way to spend an afternoon. However, if he knew Carroll Baker wasn’t really fucking on film, he would’ve probably seen Ice Station Zebra at the Cinerama Dome.

On 93 KHJ, the Real Don Steele introduces the new song by Los Bravos (the “Black Is Black” guys), Bring a Little Lovin’ , as Cliff speeds down Forrest Lawn Drive, makes a right on Hollywood Way, and pulls into the left-hand turn lane. He sits idling, waiting for the light to change to green, at which point he’ll negotiate his left-hand turn onto Riverside Drive.

Digging the forward momentum of the high-energy Los Bravos tune, Cliff slaps out the song’s rhythm against the steering wheel with his fingers.

Then he spots her on the corner of Riverside Drive and Hollywood Way, standing in front of a bus stop advertising local Channel 9 newscaster George Putnam. Just like she was when he saw her standing in front of the Aquarius Theater, she’s hitching a ride.

Except now she’s alone.

Jesus , Cliff thinks, what are the chances of seeing the same hitchhiker three times on the same day in three different parts of Los Angeles? He thinks, Who knows, with all the kids hitching rides these days, maybe that’s not such a big deal. It sure seems like a big deal. But this time this slinky little sexpot is going in Cliff’s direction. In fact, once he receives his green directional arrow, he’s going to turn right into her. A quick ride could easily turn into a behind-the-wheel moving blow job (Cliff’s favorite kind). Or at least a twenty-minute French-kissing session. He rises a little bit in the driver’s seat at the anticipation of what this ride could lead to.

As Cliff contemplates this thought, the brunette hippie pickle girl spots him idling in the cream-yellow Cadillac.

As soon as she sees him, she leaps in the air and waves frantically. Cliff acknowledges her. She sticks out the little fist that’s attached to her long arm and gives her protruding thumb a jerk, which indicates, Gimme a lift?

He gives her a pointy salute back, which indicates, I’ll give you a lift.

In response to his pointy salute, she screeches and does a spastic dance on the street corner. The dance she does could be best described as a combination of a pirouette and jumping jacks.

Look at this little grasshopper on the corner , Cliff thinks. “Grasshopper” is Cliff’s name for slinky, sexy, tall girls who are all elbows and kneecaps. He calls them that because when they wrap their long legs and gangly arms around you, it’s like fucking a grasshopper.

But Cliff thinks the idea of fucking a grasshopper is sorta sexy. So for him, it’s a term of endearment.

Then, as Cliff sits in Rick’s Coupe de Ville, waiting for the light to change, he notices a blue Buick Skylark, going in the opposite direction on Hollywood Way, make a right-hand turn at the corner of Riverside Drive, pulling to a stop right next to the brunette hippie pickle girl.

Leaning forward in his seat, Cliff says out loud, “What the fuck?” Across traffic, he watches the hippie girl lean down and talk to the driver through the open car-door window on the passenger side.

After a bit of back and forth between the driver and the hitchhiker, she nods her head yes.

She straightens up for a moment, looks across traffic at the blond guy in the cream-yellow Cadillac, gives him a big shoulder shrug, and dips inside the Skylark.

As pickle girl’s car drives away, Cliff’s directional arrow turns green. Cliff negotiates his left-hand turn onto Riverside Drive and falls behind the Buick Skylark. The Real Don Steele comes back on the air and reminds listeners, “Tina Delgado is alive!”

Through the Skylark’s back window, Cliff can see the outline of both the male driver and the female passenger very clearly. The driver seems to be another hippie type, with long, frizzy, curly red hair. Maybe he’s that funny-looking guy who plays Bernie on Room 222 . He watches the bushy-haired silhouettes talk animatedly with each other. Red-haired shaggy Skylark guy says something and pickle girl laughs, slapping her bare knee in response.

Cliff says to himself, “Okay, now she’s just fucking with me.”

He yanks the steering wheel to the left, and the Cadillac jerks off of Riverside Drive onto Forman and pulls into an open parking space on the curb across from the big beige carpet store. Cliff twists the ignition key, cutting off the engine and the Real Don Steele, then gets out of the Cadillac and crosses busy Riverside Drive on foot. Passing the Money Tree bar and grill, he walks down the sidewalk, heading for the Toluca Lake record store Hot Waxx.

The Monkees’ catchy hit The Last Train to Clarksville hits him right in the ears as soon as he pushes open the record-store door. The place smells like most places these days that cater to young people. Sort of a combination of incense and BO. Four other customers, all under twenty-five, poke through the store’s inventory.

A black guy in a dashiki examines Richie Havens’s self-titled album.

A girl who looks like that chubby flower-child singer Melanie, who Cliff’s got a crush on, holds Simon and Garfunkel’s Bookends in her arms.

A young guy who looks like he could be the son of somebody Cliff was in the Army with riffles through the movie-soundtrack section.

The fourth patron, like the guy in the Buick Skylark, is another frizzy-haired guy who looks like a cross between Jesus Christ and Arlo Guthrie. He’s in a discussion with the skinny shovel-faced twenty-two-year-old male who works at the store about the future of Ringo Starr’s career post-Beatles.

That Tom Jones song, Delilah , has been haunting Cliff ever since he first heard it on the radio three weeks ago. He wants to pay attention to the story part of the song, but the only part that he can remember is the chorus. And just catching it when it comes on the radio isn’t working out. Naturally, Cliff is partial to songs about guys who kill their women.

He walks up to the counter and asks Shovel Face where they keep the 8-track tapes.

“Susan’s got the key,” Shovel Face says. “You need to talk to Susan and get her to open the case for you.” Apparently, stores thought 8-track tapes were so valuable that they felt the need to keep them under lock and key. You couldn’t just thumb through them, choose the one you wanted, and take it up to the counter. You had to get an employee to open a locked glass case with a key, then they would stand there and watch over you as you scanned the shelf and made your selection. Then keep an eye on you as you walked to the counter and actually bought the fucking thing. Now, true, it was easier to slip an 8-track tape of Rubber Soul in your inside jacket pocket than it was an LP. Nevertheless, you would have thought they were trading in diamonds. Also, it’s a little odd to assume all your patrons are thieves.