ROBERT CRAIS: MAKING THE CLIMB WITH ELVIS COLE
                                          

     Elvis Cole and I reached the top of Mt. Lee where the service road ends at the big communication station they have above the Hollywood sign. Then we climbed higher. When you reach the station, you are in a chain-link and concertina wire box designed to protect the sign and the communication station, but the north side of the box is a steep rocky shoulder with a narrow path cut to the peak. I followed Cole up, busting through brittle, waist-high brush to a small clearing at the top of the mountain. Up there, we were above the fence and the video cameras and the motion detectors. We were alone at the top of Los Angeles.
     Cole brushed the sweat from his eyes, then stood with his hands on his hips, looking out at our city. It had been a long fast hike up the hill. I was sucking air like an iron lung, but he wasn’t even breathing hard.
     Cole said, “Some view.”
     “Where’s Pike?”
     “I left a message on his cell, said we’d be coming up here, but I never heard back. You know how he is. Might be down there right now, watching us. He’d do that just to see if we could spot him.”
     Cole studied the surrounding canyons, their cut ridges furred with pale gray chaparral and scrub oak. Spotting Pike would be like spotting a flea lost in hair, but I figured Cole could do it if anyone could.
     I said, “You see him?”
     Cole pointed.
     “Sure. Right there.”
     “Where?”
     “Right there. He’s waving.”
     I followed his finger toward a blur of dead brush, then caught Elvis Cole smiling out the corner of my eye.
     I said, “Funny. Make fun of the writer. Ha ha.”
     Cole offered his bottle of water, but I had my own. We drank, washing away the steep hike up from Griffith Park before I gazed out at the city. I never got tired of the view from that high place. The City of Angels spread south below us in a flat plain all the way to the Channel Islands and Santa Catalina. Skyscraper islands broke the surface to mark downtown, the Miracle Mile, Century City, and the Wilshire Corridor. Behind us, the San Fernando Valley ran north into a head-on collision with the Verdugo, San Gabriel, and Santa Susanna Mountains. The top of Los Angeles was a good place to talk. We did that sometimes. Often. Like we were doing that day.
     Cole said, “Want to ask you something.”
     “Listen, if it’s about the Dodgers tickets—“
     I had great season tickets and laid off ten or twelve games to Cole every year. Gratis. He used my seats to trade for information. Choice Dodgers seats work better than a court order in Los Angeles.
     Cole raised a hand, stopping me.
     “Not the Dodgers. I’ve been wondering about our relationship, me and you. I want to ask you something.”
     “If you want more games just say so.”
     He wanted more Dodgers tickets. I can read him like a book.
     “Don’t get pissy. Even if I did, you’re making more dough off my cases than I do. Look at how many emails you get through the website, people asking how come I always work for free.”
     “You don’t work for free. Peter Alan Nelsen paid you a load.”
     “And how long ago was that, Lullaby Town?”
     “Jonathan Greene paid you up front in Sunset Express. So did Jody Taylor in Voodoo River. Besides, I’ve only chronicled ten of your cases—“
     Cole widened his eyes, making a big deal.
     “Chronicled. Am I being chronicled?”
     “I only cover your interesting cases. Our readers wouldn’t care about the boring dogs you work to pay the bills.”
     “So my day-to-day is too dull to be chronicled?”
     “If it’s not the tickets, then what?”
     Cole had more of his water, then tucked the bottle into a pocket on his cargo shorts. He considered the city for another moment, then took off his sunglasses to look at me.
     “Why me?”
     “Why you what?”
     “You could chronicle cops or lawyers or architects, but you chronicle me. I’ve been wondering why.”
     Cole had never asked that before, though I often thought about it. He was right: I could have written any type of fiction from dark fantasies to so-called ‘literary fiction’ to westerns. The choice was mine, but I had chosen to write about Elvis Cole, a private investigator who lived and worked in Los Angeles. I had my reasons, and weighed their values and importance again with each new book.
     I said, “You represent hope.”
     Cole stared at me with an expression that said he got it, but maybe didn’t agree with it. Or like it. I tried to explain.
     “Why didn’t you become a police officer?”
     “That how we’re going to play this? I ask a question, you answer with a question?”
     “Bear with. It’s true I could write other things, but it’s also true you could have chosen a different line of work. You’re relatively bright—“
     “Thank you too much.”
     “You could have become a police officer.”
     “Too many bosses. Way I work now, it’s like being a writer. I don’t have to salute. I’m not staring up the ass of a command structure.”
     “Ha. Writer.”
     “Think about it—if I worked Hollywood Robbery, all I would see are robberies in Hollywood. Devonshire Sex Crimes, nothing but sex crimes in Devonshire. Me being freelance, I can do whatever I want. Like you.”
     “Not like me. All I do is make up stories. You put yourself on the line for people in need. That makes you more. Especially because of who you are.”
     Cole frowned at me.
     “Like how?”
     “You’re ordinary.”
     “This is a compliment?”
     “If you were a cop or an FBI agent, you would be part of an enormous bureaucratic system. You would have the full weight and authority of that system behind you. Even if I cast you as a man struggling against the system from within, you would still be part of a team. You would have power. I didn’t want that.”
     I tipped my head toward the city and the millions of people spread across that great flat plane, continuing.
     “You’re on your own. Like me. Like them. You’re one of us, so, I think, you’re a metaphor for us.”
     “What do you mean, us? You’re a bestselling novelist.”
     “I wasn’t always a novelist, and these books about you didn’t start out as bestsellers. We’ve come a long way, brother.”
     Cole grunted his agreement, then adjusted his cap. The late-morning sun was bright. Cole was wearing the faded blue Dodgers cap he wore when hiking or running or driving around with the top down. So was I. We often dressed alike.
     When he finished with the cap, he said, “So how does that make me Mr. Hopeful?”
     “Didn’t say you’re Mr. Hopeful. I said you represent hope. To me and to people like me. Look at it--”
     I waved at the city.
     “Those people down there, me, most folks—all we have are ourselves. The tranny drops a week before Christmas, some dip keys the new car, the rent jacks up, and we’re left wondering how we’re going to make it. That would be where you come in.”
     “I don’t do transmissions.”
     “All you have is yourself.”
     “I have Pike.”
     “You know what I mean. A lone character who faces the dark side in this crazy world inspires me. If you can survive, then I can survive. If you can persevere, then those people down there can make a difference in their own lives. You see?”
     “Bro, do not oversell this. I’m just trying to hang on like everyone else.”
     “That’s why you’re worth writing about. You’ve had what most people would call a pretty tough life—so has Pike. You could have become cynical and despairing. You could have given up on yourself, and people, and sit around moaning about how bad you have it and how life is shit, but you don’t.”
     Cole slowly shook his head. His voice was quiet.
     “No. I won’t do that.”
     “That’s what I love about you. That’s why you represent hope. You hang onto yourself with the humor and the Jiminy Cricket stuff and that damned cat, and the determination with which you help people become better than they are, just the way you’ve become better than you were. If you can hang on, I can hang on. If you can beat the odds, then I can beat the odds. Through you, I get to see the world as a better place, so maybe our readers feel the same way. You give me hope, man, and I believe hope is worth encouraging. Hence, the books.”
     Cole stared at the city as he thought it through.
     “It sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself.”
     “Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to crime fiction—I get to work through my fears. Maybe I need you to assure me.”
     Cole didn’t look pleased.
     “Like I’m what, some kind of hero?”
     “People need heroes, bro. Always have and always will. Heroes give us the hope.”
     Cole still didn’t look happy with me, like he knew I had dodged the hero question.
     He said, “Life isn’t fair.”
     “No, but I guess, down deep, I think it should be.”
     Cole nodded.
     “Me, too. Gotta tell you, though, all this makes me uncomfortable. Like I have some standard to live up to.”
     “Don’t freak out. Watching you live it through makes you worth writing about.”
     He stared at the city again.
     “Do people really think you look like me?”
     “Ha.”
     “You don’t look anything like me.”
     “I think I kinda look like Pike.”
     “Writers.”
     “Have I answered your question? Let’s head back. Unlike one of us, I’m real. My legs are getting stiff.”
     He frowned.
     “You keep saying I’m fictional. Has it occurred to you, maybe I’m real and you’re the fiction?”
     “It’s my name on the books.”
     “Uh-huh. So if I’m just something you imagined, and here you are talking to me, maybe you’re crazy.”
     What can you say to something like that?
     Cole said, “Maybe you’re a figment of my need to be chronicled. Maybe I’m writing books about a guy who writes books about a private investigator.”
     “Who would write about a guy who spends all day typing? Talk about yawn.”
     “You joke about me calling myself the World’s Greatest Detective. Maybe I’m not joking. Maybe I need to be famous so badly I’ve imagined there’s a guy writing books about me and that guy is you. Think about it.”
     Cole will say things like this with a straight face.
     I said, “Elvis Cole, Mentally Ill Detective?”
     “I can’t believe people think you look like me.”
     “Listen. Let’s start back. My legs.”
     Los Angeles spread out before us in all directions as far as we could see. Down below, other hikers were coming up the trail. We made our way back through brush that was dry and brittle from the heat. I looked for Pike, thinking he might be watching us, but I did not see him.
     Cole said, “You think I could have a few extra games this year?”
     I knew it. He’s like that.

© 2007 by Robert Crais
All rights reserved.