The Shaft

by David J. Schow

  'Make yourself at home, Jonathan. Mi casa es su casa, right? Help yourself to anything you see. As our little rent-a-slut

  Jamaica says, you've saved me a lot of trouble and expense by pitching in. That gesture should be rewarded, since you don't know me from Caligula.' His eyes sought Jamaica. She was at the bar, her back turned. 'She's a dear. We always spar this way. Just like nasty little pussy cats.'

  On the big screen, a flash of crimson as Jason split wide a copulating teenybopper. Krystal went whee, wheee.

  'Ciao for now.' Bauhaus was off down the hall.

  Jonathan let himself be drawn back in Jamaica's direction. He was uncomfortable in this movie-cum-reality. Since he had come through the front door, none of Bauhaus' three worker bees had spoken a syllable.

  'Hi.'

  'Hi yourself.' Jamaica finished her toot and dabbed up the residue to work her gums. 'I need a drink.'

  Voice lowered, Jonathan said, 'I need something; this is just all too weird, okay?'

  'Mm. Hadn't noticed.' She snickered and boffed his bicep. 'Don't fret all this showoff shit. Bauhaus was the fat kid in school who never made friends, and now he has power.' She found a thick-bottomed tumbler and filled it with Stoli on rocks as clear as medical lenses.

  'I guess a beer.'

  'Permit me,' she said, waving him toward a stool. 'Never mind Blow White; sit on down.'

  Whatever Chari was fixated on, Jonathan could not perceive. Occasionally she would run her fingertips over her neck, her thighs, as though feeling up something in the dark and trying to guess what it was.

  On the bar below one of the brass hurricane lanterns he saw what resembled a chromium soup bowl heaped with flour. It was close by the fruit-salad dish of pills.

  'Jesus. Is that cocaine? I mean… is that all cocaine?'

  'Bauhaus cares enough to stock the very best.' She spoke with her head in the fridge. 'How do you feel about New Amsterdam?'

  'I'm not sure about old Amsterdam yet. Got any Quietly?'

  'Wow, I see we've gone native. Yeah, here's one.' She opened the freezer and extracted a heavy, frosted mug. Her gaze followed Jonathan's from her legs to the cocaine and back. 'Go on, sailor, have a snort. One thing about Bauhaus' in-house coke - you don't have to worry about it being cut with lye. Although the purity sometimes makes it feel the same in your sinuses.' She laughed at her own joke.

  He dipped a finger and inspected the powder as stupidly as Chari's expression. She continued to stare deep and hard into the gossamer weave of patchouli smoke. Into nothing. Behind her on the bar was an open can of Coca-Cola with condensation beading the lower half. Granules littered the pop-top.

  'Looks like our lost little girl has been putting the coke back into Coke,' said Jamaica.

  'Coke used to have real coke in it… didn't it?' This conversation was tilting into the surreal.

  'Yup. True cocaine was removed from the mix around the turn of the century. They substituted caffeine. And there was a cocaine wine once that was really popular - Vin Mariani. Thomas Edison drank it. Jules Verne drank it. Even a President - Grant or Wilson or McKinley, somebody like that. It was more popular than acid in the Sixties.' She set up Jonathan's Quietly with a perfect one-inch head, then took stock of the rest of the bar makings. Jonathan stared as though at hieroglyphs. 'Speaking of acid,' she said, 'we got some medium grade blotter right here. Very mellow. Ludes, downers, mixers for the coke, even a touch of Number Four.' She was pointing at an open silver snuffbox. A mezzotint of a foxhunt scene adorned the lid.

  'Number Four?' Lost at last, was Jonathan.

  'Straight out of Chaing-Mai. As close to heaven as you or I will ever get.'

  She did a peculiar thing, then. She rummaged under the bar until she found a box of paper drinking straws. She poked one into the snuffbox until it filled, then she twisted each end tight.

  The icy Quietly tasted just like a shot of Xanadu. 'I don't understand a thing you just said.' He nonchalantly wiped the smear of coke on the thigh of his jeans. It didn't go away.

  'You really are a virgin, aren't you?' Again the timbre that said she found this genuinely charming. 'Look, it's schooltime.' She pointed at each item. 'Mild acid, for relaxing. Makes you smile a lot. The downers are to take the edge off the coke. And the heroin - mm, baby! Heroin smooths out the rough spots better than any other cocktail. Like, when you overbalance on blow, a little smack settles you right down. Mind you, no needlework - just a touch to toot. Mr Coke plus Mr Heroin equals Mr Speedball…'

  'Isn't that how John Belushi died?'

  'He mixed too much of it with too much of other shit. Does it really matter? No.' She helped herself to a swig of his beer.

  'Why the bit with the straw?'

  'That's how they sell it in Thailand. Chaing-Mai is the gateway to the Golden Triangle.' She stowed the straw in her saddlebag, eyes bright with this unanticipated boon. 'Relax, Jonathan. Enjoy life. Eat out more often. What were once vices are now habits, and what was once Pepsi Please is now the White Tornado. Watch.'

  On the bartop she chopped five or six skinny novice lines from the chrome bowl. It looked as though the black mirror surface had been laid open by a white claw. She selected a glass straw from a squat mug of cocktail pics and swizzlers.

  'You pinch one shut.' Her voice got a helium buzz as she closed off one nostril. 'You Hooverize with the other.' The first line wind-tunneled away. She went erect and sniffed several times to blow the magic dust back into her system. She giggled. 'Repeat as needed.' Another line zipped into the opposite nostril. 'Easier than Aspergum. Your turn.'

  Jonathan bit his lip as his eyes tried to dodge the proffered straw. No go. Surely a blast of this stuff could do him no more internal damage than, say, one of Bash's Terminal Turbos. Bash had done coke before; at least Jonathan felt pretty sure that he had. No big deal.

  Or: Jonathan could politely decline. Sit and sip his beer. Quietly. Then sashay out of this den of iniquity as though he were still a quaint innocent, a forest foundling, a walking he.

  He played at making his smile hardy. 'Well… here goes nothing, I guess.' If it was good enough for Sherlock Holmes…

  'Not nothing,' she said. 'I cut these lines thin to keep you from sneezing and blowing about ten large all over the floor. Ever use nose drops or a nasal inhaler?'

  'Yeah.'

  'You'll feel the powder, but don't sneeze. Kind of like tipping liquor toward the back of your throat.'

  'Like shotgunning a beer.' Another college skill.

  'Generally. Then tip your head back and shoot some air to get the residue off the top of your palate.'

  He did it, crossing his eyes in a bullish yet amateur attempt to visually aim the straw. He thought of tyro smokers and their dislike for having fire close to their feces. He caught most of the weak dose and followed instructions, sniffing hard and swallowing a couple of times.

  'Take a drink. How's it feel?'

  'Funny. Not bad, but… I don't know. Cold, like ice. Nice, though. Sorta numb ice.' He hadn't turned into' a werewolf.

  'You got it. It's crystals - like ice. Only it looks like powder because it's sooo fine.'

  On the spiral stair, Lord Alfred scratched his hair-free balls. In the pit, Krystal witnessed another gooshy homicide with all the emotional involvement of a mannequin. Whee, toeeee. 'Now do the other one.'

  He positioned the straw, feeling like a southpaw attempting to draw with his right hand. The coke achieved ignition and liftoff; it seemed to rebound from the ceiling of his skull and beeline dead-bang for his heart. He swore he could feel it skid past the backsides of his eyeballs. He wrinkled his nose. 'Feels like it's gone to sleep.'

  'You know they still use coke as an anesthetic for plastic surgery? It's supposed to be one of the world's few naturally occurring anesthetics.'

  All of a sudden Jamaica made him feel undereducated. Jonathan's serotonin ignored input while his other neurotransmitters jump-started. His pupils dilated slightly. He felt his heart and respiration t
orque up. He seemed acutely sensitized to motion; the nape of his neck and the backs of his hands became radar dishes feeding his fight-or-flight reflex. He felt alert and controlled, as though he had sought and found cruising altitude.

  'Burns now,' he said, making the face dogs make when they don't like their dinner.

  'Have another drink. Wash that bad taste right out.'

  He drained his Quietly to the lees. So this was it. It with a capital I. The social drug that scuffed up so much brimstone and damnation. It was more or less like a knock of straight gin to the nose.

  Jamaica loaded a couple of extra straws with the root canal quality coke and tucked them into Jonathan's parka, which was draped across the ladder back of one of the dining room chairs. That seemed a right neighborly thing for her to do, and for her to flash so much leg while doing it. Jonathan thought Jamaica was pretty swell.

  A few lines later, Jonathan was polishing off his second beer, thinking Jamaica was even more than swell, mega-swell, when Bauhaus re-emerged.

  'What's the matter, Papa Bear?' said Jamaica. 'Lose track of time while you were watching Cruz through the peephole in the shower?' She elbowed Jonathan. 'Just kidding. He's got video on every room in the joint.'

  The fun escaped Jonathan's expression. Had Bauhaus watched Jamaica stashing coke in his parka? Had he taped their conversation regarding him…?

  'He's got secret panels, too. Escape doors. Wooo, scary!'

  Bauhaus ignored her jibes. 'Jonathan, yes?' Was he trying to recall Jonathan's name, or merely sanctioning his presence? 'Yes. Jonathan.' He handed over a blue parchment envelope containing ten one-hundred dollar bills.

  Thanks. Thank you. Mr Bauhaus.' He had one leg twined tight around the upright of the barstool, his opposite foot bouncing manically, burning ergs. He needed something else brilliant to say. 'Have to piss. I mean, uh, where's the…?'

  It might have been the beer, or his compact-sized bladder, or another common reaction to the coke, or all three. Jamaica pointed the way.

  Bauhaus' rheumy eyes followed Jonathan's wandering progress down the hall. He stopped and started. The framed pictures on both sides seemed intensely interesting. They were abstract canvases, expensive originals. They were signed in arcane, illegible ways. Chaotic splashes of color. Disordered lines. Jarring compositions. Definitely real art.

  Jonathan at last ducked through the correct door.

  ***

  'Now, my dearest. A query or two?' Bauhaus massaged

  Jamaica's shoulders from behind. She went rigid, and gently replaced the paraphernalia on the bartop.

  'First. My coke. Is Cruz telling the truth? About having to dispose of it?'

  'Sure.' Her eyes were downcast, defocused.

  'And did you see how he did it?'

  'Flushed it. All of it. Surely you've taken a four-pound shit before. It all went down.'

  'No doubt.' Rub, rub, harder now. 'I've rarely taken a ninety thousand dollar shit. Next. What did he do with the wrappings? All that coke-coated plastic?'

  'Flush number two. The cops were on their way up the stairs and he had no idea they weren't out to squash him. He thought it was something you set up. A loyalty test.'

  'That's good. I hadn't thought of that.' His voice stayed fatherly, succoring. 'And the wrappings, dear. What were they made of?'

  'I didn't really see, Bauhaus, I was watching the window. Five cop cars at least. And they want your big fat ass. That's why Cruz slept in jail.' Not exactly true, but it made for a more leakproof defense.

  'And what did Cruz do with the gun?'

  Something poked at her skirt. Bauhaus' interrogation had inspired him with a hard-on, which now protruded from his Grand Poopah robe and was bonging the leather on her butt like a metronome. He was revving up to get mean.

  'Gun. Is that what was in the candy box?' She had suspected this from the moment she lifted the box, but had not actually verified anything. Her ass was poked again. 'Stop it.'

  He whirled her, fingers digging into her upper arms fiercely enough to make the point. 'Don't lie to me, you cunt. Don't forget that I own you. I snap my fingers and your life burns to the ground. I won't even leave ashes. If you're shooting me through the grease they'll find your head on a spike in the Plaza.' His erection was full-up now, curving toward her, pulsing in time with his heartbeat.

  'I didn't see a gun.' Her voice had dried up.

  'They busted him for the dope in your purse. You fucking owe me. You want to keep your public access twat between your legs and not in my garbage disposal, you level with me and don't ever, ever lie to me.'

  'I'm not lying,' she lied. 'Cruz flushed the dope. I didn't see a gun. Bauhaus… there was no time at all, from the moment the cops dropped out of the trees. Cruz acted fast. If they had tied any dope to you, bigtime, we'd all be freezing in cells right now. The cops don't have shit on you. Cruz did okay.'

  His grip relaxed, but did not release. The door to the blue bedroom closed and the hallway filled up… not with Cruz. Jamaica did not recognize the man except by genus. He had curly, golden-fleece hair that looked abnormal above the tight tweed jacket. He was gangstered out in a black shirt and a dove-gray tie knotted tight as a hangman's noose. The suit was buttoned and looked ready to burst. No question about the bulge at the armpit; no attempt had been made to disguise it. 'Marko,' Bauhaus nodded.

  Marko scoped the living room with eyes like ball bearings pressed deep into hot black rubber. He followed Bauhaus' glance and parked himself accordingly on the sofa next to Krystal just as Jason chalked up a fresh kill. Whee. His notice was drawn more to the potato chips than to the stalk 'n' slash antics onscreen, or Krystal's boobs.

  'Do I pass or what?' Jamaica was impatient and angry. Enough accusations, enough fencing, enough of Bauhaus and his nasty little boner.

  'I always liked you, my dear.' His voice passed her ear hotly. 'You give better head than the children, here. You stay straight with me and it's good dope and fast times and everybody makes out, yes?' He paused to deepen his tone significantly. 'You cross me, and I'll pick up the phone one more time. And when the knife work is done, you'll have a hole in your crotch big enough to hide those two kilos in. You understand and approve wholeheartedly, I'm sure.'

  She let the spark rise in her eyes, heightening the amber there. 'Okay, okay, I read you, I'm not stupid.' Her retort was tempered by her knowledge that Bauhaus could make good on his vile threats. He could make her evaporate, and no one would ever miss a hooker with a quick mouth.

  'Now. Go await my pleasure in the big bedroom.'

  'Gimme a break, Bauhaus. Not tonight. Not after all this shit.'

  He smiled and came around to pat her cheek. Not quite a slap; not nearly a love tap. 'Ah, I do like that. Such fire and defiance. Next time I luck you in the ass I'll have you sing 'Addicted to Love' while I bugger away.' He clapped his hands loudly. Marko did not look over. Lord Alfred, catamite-in-residence, snapped to attention like a pointer. Jamaica ate another face-to-face tap-slap. 'All this brutal honesty has aroused me. And Lord Alfred is much tighter than you ever were.'

  Her expression told him to get on with it.

  'Marko will see our friend Cruz to a hospital. St Jude's, I think. Make sure he's not broken as well as busted. He is two days behind, and as you know, I have a slight operating loss I need to recoup. What is Jonathan's story?'

  'He just wanted to get Cruz out of jail.'

  'Why?'

  Lord Alfred drifted past, bedroom-bound, butt jiggling beneath his monk's robe. His necklaces and bracelets clinked and jangled.

  'Look - why don't you ask Cruz?'

  'I did, dearest. Marko, my stout yeoman, helped. Grilling someone naked carries a tremendous psychological advantage. And if your answers, just now, had deviated from his… well. Never mind. Uncrease thy rumpled brow. But before I go back there to play with Lord Alfred, you, my dear, are going to moisten me up, and Jonathan's going to see you do it. Because you are a whore. And you insulted me in front of him.
And I am not one of your lucking cops. And because I pay you, and you'll goddamn well do what I demand, or you'll stop breathing right now. Right, Marko?'

  Marko nodded. He hadn't missed a thing.

  She saw the light. She knew he could make it happen. Her bloodstream was rocking and rolling with Bauhaus' primo drugs; because of him she had had every conceivable orifice breached. She had accepted cash, purloined dope, and if she had ever believed in possessing a soul, she would have pawned it years ago. He could force her to become nothing, make her die and blow into oblivion with the next winter wind.

  If he made her disappear, then he won. Bauhaus was one sick ticket.

  And so it came to pass that Jamaica was pressed to her knees there on the flagstones of the kitchen, Bauhaus' reddened member waving an inch from her nose like a blind cobra. She was sorry that Jonathan would have to see her with a mouthful: Sorry for him, because she kind of liked him. Sorry for herself, because unlike Jonathan, she needed to act the part as well as speak the lines.

  Krystal did not have to get up to change cassettes. Friday the 13th Part Six commenced in Super VHS. It was the neatest one in the series, even at silent-movie speed.

  Chari kept to her stool, immobile as a sculptor's bust. Marko sat, stayed, did not fetch.

  Bauhaus grabbed Jamaica's hair and thrust, making her gag unexpectedly. The occipital ridge of her head banged the bar cabinet; the small fridge there started up at the shock. She felt the purr of its motor vibrating the laminated woodwork. She concentrated on it.

  Her saliva oiled Bauhaus up good.

  She was sorry for a lot of things. But Cruz still had the dope. That dope could transmute into money just as surely as fairytale spinning wheels made straw into gold. If Cruz could retrieve the two kilos, then most likely he could save the gun as well. She remembered seeing the candy box go into the trash bag before everything was stuffed out the bathroom window.

  And if Cruz still had the gun…

  Preseminal fluid lotioned the roof of her mouth. An old, old taste to her. Jonathan came out of the bathroom, rubbing one eye. He looked up and then grated to a petrified standstill in the hall.