*No shit?'

*His name was Bernie Bernall,' Benji interjected once again. *He was one of the biggest stars of the silent era. Valentino had nothing on him.'

*I ain't never heard of him.'

*Maybe he was before your time.'

*So he lived here?' Hank looked around his apartment, disbelieving.

*Sure did. And he died here too. In there.'

Benji opened the bathroom door and went in. I stood waiting in the living room, while Hank went into the bathroom and looked over his shoulder. This was taking too long. I wanted to be out of that dirty apartment and back in the sunshine. Hank came back and stood beside me. I looked at the floor.

*Gee, that guy's music is pretty loud,' I said, motioning to the apartment below.

*The walls here are paper-thin,' he grunted, stomping his foot. *Shut the hell up!' he yelled, and abruptly the music switched off. *Damn kid, always plays his music too loud. So, you're not in school?'

I shook my head. *No. Well, yeah, we go to school, but it's summer vacation.'

*So why ain't you at the beach, or the pool?'

*That's not really our kind of scene.'

*Oh,' he grunted. *And this is?'

I shrugged and offered him a small smile. We stood for a moment in awkward silence.

*So what's with your friend?' he asked. *Is he in the military or something?'

*No, he just dresses like he is.'

*What for?'

At this I laughed. *I think he just likes it. Maybe it makes him feel more masculine.'

*Well he looks goddamn ridiculous if you ask me.'

*Hilda, come look at this!' Benji called out. I walked into the bathroom, grateful to be away from Hank and his questions. Benji was staring at the sink. *It's the original one,' he whispered. *It hasn't been replaced.'

I leant forward. It was definitely the original. There were even dark splatter stains along the rim. I looked at the floor. There were spots there too.

*Whatcha lookin' at?' Hank asked, peering around the door.

*Oh, nothing,' I said. *Benji, you got what you need?'

*Just a second,' he answered, and snapped a few more shots. Hank wandered back out to the kitchen, clearly bored. I followed and watched him fill a kettle and place it on the stove.

*You like tea?' he asked.

*Tea? Uh, sure.'

He took three mugs from the cupboard and placed a teabag in each. When Benji walked out of the bathroom and saw the cups he recoiled.

*Oh, no thanks, man. We gotta get going.'

Hank held a small spoon in midair, ready to scoop sugar from a jar.

*You sure? Ain't no trouble. You ain't from the government or the newspapers, I ain't got no beef with you.'

*Maybe we could stay for one cup?' I said.

*No, we can't,' said Benji quickly. *We have that thing we have to get to, remember?'

*Oh, of course,' I said, although I felt a pinch of guilt for skipping out on Hank so fast. He was obviously lonely and staying would have been the nice thing to do. But nice wasn't in Benji's repertoire.

*So, Hank,' Benji said, holding out a business card. *If you ever decide to get a new bathroom sink or sell the one you got, give me a call. I'll take it off your hands, and for a reasonable price.'

*Now why the hell would I get a new bathroom sink?'

*Any number of reasons. Just, if it happens, give me a call.'

Hank took the card. I watched him study it, as if he could extract some greater meaning from what was printed on it, an answer to why we were there.

*All right,' he said, and slid the card into his boxers. *All right.'

Benji walked out the front door and I followed. Hank caught my hand as we left, leant in close and spoke quietly into my ear.

*That movie star,' he said. *How did he die?'

I hesitated. *He killed himself.'

Hank let go of my hand, nodded, and went back inside. He slammed the door and I heard the locks turn once again. Benji was already down the stairs, photographing the front of the apartment block. I ran down to be with him, in the sunlight where it was warm and you could see the blue of the sky.

*Damn,' Benji laughed, as we drove back towards Hollywood. *And I thought Bukowski was dead.'

*You didn't have to be an asshole,' I said. *You didn't have to make fun of him.'

*The guy was a freak Hilda. "Do you know me? Do you know who I am?" He was like something out of a James Ellroy novel.'

*He was a freak? You told the guy someone died in his apartment!'

*And that's probably the most exciting thing that's ever happened to him. Did you see all those empty wine bottles? By the rate he's putting it away, he'll have forgotten we were even there by tomorrow.'

I picked up Benji's camera and started scanning through the pictures. The bathroom in Hank's apartment was small and cramped, tomb-like. In one photo I could see Benji's reflection in the mirror, imposing and out of place in his army gear. In another photo Benji's detached, floating arm pointed out an original light fixture while Hank lingered at the edge of frame. In the next photo, taken just seconds later, Hank had raised an arm to cover his face. I turned the camera off and put it in the glove compartment in the spot where the pepper spray had been.

*Such an angry way to die,' I said, trying to shake Hank from my mind. *You know, stabbing yourself with a pair of scissors. It's not like pills, or even shooting yourself. It's like Bernie was still trying to say to the world hey, I'm different, I'm special, even as he was dying.'

*All suicide is angry,' Benji said in a dismissive tone. *Suicide by its very nature is a hostile act, an affront to the natural order. It's an offence against God.'

I looked out the window at the tourists walking down Hollywood Boulevard, disposable cameras in hand, taking photos of the metallic stars on the sidewalk and the footprints in the cement.

*I read an interesting theory the other day,' Benji continued. *Some religions believe that when we die we are reincarnated, and some souls just aren't ready to come back. They haven't dealt with all the things in their past life and they aren't at peace, and when they come back into the world they can't handle it. People who are crazy or killers are souls that weren't ready to come back, and just can't adjust to the world again. It's the same with suicides.'

*So suicides are lost souls?' I asked. Benji didn't look at me.

*I don't know. That's just what I read.'

THREE.

Benji lived in a large house a few blocks from mine; it was all glass and steel surfaces and reminded me of Cameron's house in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, where everything was cold and beautiful and he wasn't allowed to touch anything. Benji's dad was some kind of banker who worked long hours and was never home. His mom's job was to make sure the house always looked perfect. Benji's dad wouldn't let them hire a cleaner and Benji ordered his mom around the house like a servant, but she didn't seem to mind. I guess it made her feel useful.

We lay on Benji's bed listening to Nirvana, hands in our pockets, heads barely touching. Next to us was a tray of freshly baked cookies Mrs Connor had just served us, the chocolate soft and warm. Benji's cat Freddie was curled at our feet. The CD was a bootleg of Kurt Cobain laying down tracks in the studio, strumming an acoustic guitar and trying to work out what chords to use. We preferred to listen to bootleg recordings. They were raw and real, the distilled essence of the musician before the mixing desk came in and smoothed everything over. In the half-light of Benji's lamp it was easy to imagine Kurt sitting in the corner of the room, head down, chipped fingernails picking at the strings of an old Martin guitar; but if you turned to look at him he would disappear, dissolving into the air, and all that would be left were the last picked notes, floating into the night.

Benji sighed. I knew what was coming.

*I can't believe she got away with it,' he moaned.

I groaned. *For the last time, the evidence pointing to Courtney is entirely circumstantial.'

*How can you still believe her? Even after that documentary where they interviewed the bounty hunter? He swore Courtney hired him to kill Kurt.'

*Benji, the dude had no teeth.'

*Even so-how do you explain the amount of heroin that was in Cobain's system? He was so doped up that even medical experts say there is no way he could have lifted that gun and pulled the trigger after shooting up so much.'

*Ever heard of functioning junkies?'

*There's functioning and then there's superhuman. The woman's as guilty as OJ.'

*Okay, hold up,' I said, getting agitated. *You're just persecuting her because she's a strong woman who acts the way she wants to and doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks of her. You and the rest of society have cast her as the murdering wife because you don't know how else to handle her. She scares the crap out of you so you cut her down. She's not a murderer-she's a survivor.'

Benji stretched back and pouted. *Yeah? Well her solo album sucked.'

I sat up and looked around. Benji's walls were decorated with restraint, a poster here or there of his favourite bands, each of them carefully framed. Green Day. Fall Out Boy. A large portion of the space was taken up by a glass cabinet filled with memorabilia and illuminated by down lights. It was here that he kept his most prized possessions. A stone from Sharon Tate's fireplace. Phil Hartman's Welcome Mat, still dirty with his footprints. Pride of place was a script for the movie Animal House, signed by John Belushi. The scrawl was barely recognisable but Benji explained it away by saying Belushi must have been high at the time he signed it. Which made the script worth even more to him. For Benji, Belushi under the influence and living on the edge was more valuable than the healthy, sober version.

I had my own collection at Aunt Lynette's but it was much smaller and not as well organised. Lynette had not been expecting another occupant in her house, at least not one who would require an entire bedroom, so my living space was cramped, compared to Benji's spacious quarters.

*What's your favourite Nirvana song?' Benji asked.

Another Benji trait. Always cataloguing, passing a critical eye over everything. It was the disease of our generation. We were constantly distilling the world into lists, classifying our lives according to what was hot and what was not. Music. Movies. TV Shows. Countries you most want to visit. 101 things to do before you die. Ironically, the more obscure the list item, the greater chance it had of being considered hot, which in turn would inevitably make it mainstream. It was a vicious cycle.

*"Smells Like Teen Spirit",' I answered after some consideration.

*Amateur hour. Only people who have no understanding of Nirvana's work would make such an obvious choice.'

*And what's yours, Lester Bangs?'

*"Radio Friendly Unit Shifter",' he replied, citing one of their most obscure singles. He put his hands behind his head with smug satisfaction.

*You're a dick, Benji.'

He leapt up and went to sit at his desk. Annoyed by Benji's sudden movement, Freddie the cat jumped off the bed and sauntered away. In front of his PC and its enormous twin monitors, Benji squinted with concentration and clicked the mouse furiously. Moving rapidly from one screen to the next were album covers that he'd cut and pasted and dumped into folders.

I turned on the TV and watched America's Next Top Models strut across the screen. I glanced down at my own body, not exactly chubby but definitely a little dumpy. I'd been wearing the same plain black T-shirt for days and my jeans were tatty. Grooming had never been a priority with me. I usually threw on whatever was comfortable. With hippies for parents, I guess it couldn't have turned out any other way.

*What the hell are you doing?' I asked as Benji cursed under his breath.

*Looking for cover art,' he said, not taking his eyes off the screen. *For my iPod. If the artwork is missing it ruins the effect, you know that.'

*How many more covers do you have to download?'

*About five hundred.'

*Five hundred! How long is it going to take you?'

*Not sure. I've been working on it for a few days. I reckon in a few more hours I'll have them all.'

*Is it really that important?'

Benji swivelled in his chair. *Well, it's not cover flow if all the covers aren't there, is it?'

For a supposed punk Benji was the most pedantic person I knew. He made sure his mom ironed his band T-shirts perfectly and that his cargo pants had creases. I stared at the ceiling. Sometimes when Benji and I were talking like this, a splinter of despair would work its way into my heart. I could feel the wasted moments ticking away, and wondered whether large portions of my life would be lost to inane conversations about cover art and about whether Nirvana's mainstream hits were better than their B sides. Sometimes I felt like my head was so full of trivia there was no room for anything of real substance. I didn't care too much about it. The noise kept out things I would rather not think about.

*You wanna stay the night?' Benji asked, scratching at his arm as he spoke, like it was no big deal. Benji was always asking me to stay over but I never did because I didn't want him to get the wrong idea. I used to stay over all the time: Mrs Connor would make up the spare bedroom for me and fill my private bathroom with little unopened toiletries. It felt like staying in a hotel, and I'm sure if I'd picked up the phone in the middle of the night and asked for a sandwich I'd have probably got one. But I didn't stay over anymore.

*Nah, it's cool,' I said. *Lynette's expecting me for dinner.'

*Since when have you cared about that?'

*I don't care. I've just got shit to do. Comprende?'

*Whatever. You still up for tomorrow?'

Was he kidding? I had been looking forward to this expedition for ages. *Cielo Drive,' I said.

*Cielo Drive,' he repeated, and the name hung between us like a talisman.

*Benji?

*Yes, Hilda?'