“Come and join the party. I think you know most of the guests.”
Still holding my hand, Monster led me over to them. He was right, I did know the guests, and I was very surprised to see them: Asha and Bridget were huddled on the couch like cornered animals. I waved to Asha and wanted to talk to her, but she wouldn’t look in my direction. She didn’t look like a woman who was happy to be at a party, or to be seated next to a boy. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to see another of those ubiquitous blond boys, but Monster was so blatant about it. That boy looked up at Monster with utter adoration.
With a regal gesture, Monster gestured for everyone to stand.
“Dinner is ready,” he said, and we followed him to another cavern of pretentious dimensions with a chandelier so large that it occupied most of the broad ceiling. Monster directed us to a magnificent flower-strewn table, large enough to seat a football team but that in comparison to all the ostentation around it was inviting and tasteful.
“Please, sit down.”
Monster pointed to a chair next to the boy, but I politely ignored him and sat next to Asha. “How are you?” I whispered to her.
“I’ll talk to you later,” she said, barely moving her lips.
A waiter appeared with the first course. I guess I should have been stunned at such a complete reversal of Monster’s eating habits, but for whatever reason I wasn’t. Small azure bowls filled with beef tartar were placed in front of us.
I lifted up the bowl and smelled thyme and garlic.
I glanced up and saw Asha looking at the meat with barely concealed disgust.
After the busboy cleared away the azure bowls, the waiter returned with a tray of small red bowls filled with ceviche marinated with lemon and basil and laced with slivers of various hot peppers.
Monster still was doing the uncooked thing, but obviously had given up on the vegetables.
Monster and his companion seemed to be heartily enjoying themselves as they tasted from each other’s bowls. When the veal carpaccio was served, Asha quickly left the table. Monster didn’t seem to notice, so I followed her outside to the pool, which stretched to the horizon and disappeared like a waterfall onto the world below.
Asha finally looked at me.
“I can’t believe you served me raw meat,” she said, with disgust.
“I didn’t serve you, and I don’t cook for Monster. He gave that job to another chef. I do something else for him. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it pays a lot better.”
“Yeah, that’s how it is with Bridget too. You’re on the payroll and that’s all that matters.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s too complicated and fucked up to go into. Suffice it to say that Bridget can’t quit, and I’ve got to be a team player. Bridget wants me to follow her lead to humor this man. I guess that’s how it is, we’ve got to humor the rich, especially when it comes to eating. What happened to him? Last I heard, he was some sort of super-vegan. Did you get him on this meat kick?”
I shook my head. “You need to ask his current cook.”
A warm wind blew, and the beaded curtain separating the dining area outside from the kitchen entrance rustled. I took some of the beads into my hand and looked out toward the northeast.
“The wind is so warm,” Asha said.
“It’s those Santa Anas,” I said, having just read that winds from the east were the Santa Anas.
“Is that fire?” Asha asked, pointing to a touch of red at the edge of the blackness.
“I think so,” I said. “This is the time of year when brushfires get out of hand.”
Asha scowled. “I wish this fucking place would just burn down. Look at all of us here, indulging this disgusting man. I know he’s poisoned us all, I can taste it . . . I see the little flashes of color flickering on the edge of my vision, we’re hallucinating. I hope this place burns to the ground.”
“I want that too, matter of fact. Being bought gives you all kinds of rage.”
“Yes, well, I’ve always wanted to start a woman’s shelter, I’ve just never had the funding. I have it now, from an unknown benefactor.”
“Monster?”
“Yeah, he didn’t stay unknown very long. Everybody is in his web of influence.”
“How do you feel about that?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“I hate it. I feel like I’ve been corrupted, and while I don’t have many illusions about myself, I never thought I’d sink this low.”
“Welcome to the club,” I said. “But I’ve come to accept it, you know, that working for Monster makes me feel like I’m covered in shit.”
“Oh, yes. I know exactly what you mean, but at this point, between Bridget and me, we don’t have many good options.”
“With Monster, somehow it seems there are no options but to take the money.”
“Is that how it is with you? Your parole is up; you could get on with your life. Why the hell are you here?”
At first I tried to come up with something that sounded better than the truth, but that was impossible.
“For the money. I can’t think of a better reason than that.”
“Glad you’re honest because you can’t lie to me. I’m a trained social worker.”
“Yeah, I remember that,” I said with a smile.
“How easy it is to get involved in something so wrong, and then try to find all the reasons in the world to justify it.”
We walked back in time for dessert: chocolate pudding in enormous cups with fresh whipped cream, more delicious than any pudding had a right to be. But I lost my appetite when I saw Monster spoon-feeding his friend. Monster leaned over to wipe some chocolate from the boy’s cheek and slyly kissed him.
We all saw it, but we acted as if it was nothing to see. The kiss went on for an agonizingly long moment.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when Bridget began to silently sob, her cries suppressed but still shaking her. Asha led her out, and I sat there alone with Monster and the boy.
Monster obviously wanted us to be involved in his debauchery as passive participants, as witnesses. He rubbed the boy’s shoulders, and then his hand slipped lower, almost to his crotch.
I got up to leave. I didn’t want to see this, even if I couldn’t do anything about it, even if I was paid not to do anything about it.
“Gibson, sit,” Monster said without looking in my direction. I continued to stand.
“I want to explain myself to you,” he said.
After a moment, I realized that he wanted my permission.
“You don’t need to explain yourself to me.”
“But I want to,” he said as he gave the boy a pat on the ass and sent him on his way.
Alone, he took off his dark glasses and waved his hands like he intended to communicate with sign language, but then I realized he had made the sign of the cross.
“Before we get started, I hope you remember how I told you that I suspected that this place isn’t right? Well, I brought in someone to perform a cleansing. He gave me this.”
Monster held up a delicate glass atomizer.
“Mr. Chow is one of the foremost spiritualists in the world today. He has developed a plan to cleanse the estate, and I believe in his plan,” Monster said with so much conviction that he must not have been completely sold on the talents of Mr. Chow and needed to finish convincing himself.
Monster sat at the edge of the couch and again made odd gestures with his hands.
“I can feel the changes in the energy around here. Do you feel it?”
I nodded.
“How is it for you? Do you see it? Sometimes I see the colors and auras. Do you see them?”
“I don’t think it works too well for me,” I said, hoping that Monster would get bored with my lack of enthusiasm about whatever he was getting at.
“Yesterday Mr. Chow burned sage in each room, but he asked me to use this often to dispel negative energies.”
I should have
seen it coming; maybe I could have held my breath, or turned and run. He reached for a gold atomizer and squeezed the rubber bulb, and I got a faceful of what tasted like rose water.
Instantly, I was high. I’ve used many drugs, many times, and yet I had never experienced anything so fast and powerful. Monster’s words flowed together so quickly I couldn’t pull them apart. I did see colors, dark, low purples that reverberated right out of my grasp.
I was very high, speeding gently on my way to whatever level of consciousness Monster was at.
“The wind and the fire are a manifestation of the negative energy around us. You agree?”
I couldn’t answer since I was panicked into silence over the idea that he had poisoned me again with whatever he had drugged me with the first time.
“But since Mr. Chow has been here I feel the current is changing. I feel more positive.”
“That’s important,” I managed to say.
“I do need your help in one area we had discussed.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Rita still doesn’t understand that my feelings for her have changed. She can’t accept that. I’ve tried to get her to listen to reason, but it’s not working. If you could get her to think about what’s best for the baby, I’d be very grateful. She’s not a good parent. She can’t see that. You see that, don’t you?”
I nodded.
“It’s hard to be a good parent. It might be a gift. I have it and she doesn’t.”
He didn’t blink as he stared at me, waiting for a word to slip from my lips. I tried to organize my thoughts. Was I ready to say anything to get paid?
“Will you help me?”
“What do you want me to do?”
Monster smiled with relief at my answer. “She needs to leave. She needs to find herself a life. I’ve given her enough money to go wherever she chooses, but she wants to stay here. I can’t have that. Maybe you can reach her.”
Again I saw the sparks around Monster. If he lifted a hand or moved his head, little bursts of color trailed about him. It had to be that spray—was it acid? I hadn’t had acid since college, and I didn’t remember acid working so completely or so quickly.
Monster laughed and a cascade of twinkling lights radiated about him.
I reached to touch one, and Security, always omnipresent, appeared.
Monster waved them away.
“I need to go. I’m not feeling so well,” I said.
Monster giggled.
I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t. I wanted to be angry that he’d got me high again, wanted me to do his dirty work, do something with his wife, take her off his hands so he could have the baby to himself.
“Monster, do you ever think you might be wrong about the things you do?” I asked, watching the words tumble out of my mouth.
Soon as I had asked the question, I wished I hadn’t. It wasn’t a good question, and I didn’t want to know the answer. Whatever reason I was there, it wasn’t to get thrown out on my ass just when I was in good with him. But Monster didn’t take offense. Instead, he thought for a minute; then, as if satisfied with what he had come up with, he answered me.
“No, never. I do what God wants me to do. I’m a servant of the righteous and divine.”
“Right on,” I said, and left. On my way back to the bungalow a fragment of a song floated up to me, hanging words, faintly glowing in the dark: “If there’s a hell below, we’re all gonna go.”
ALMOND BUTTERSCHNAPPS CARAMEL
Note: This recipe was specifically formulated for metric measurements, so you will need a kitchen scale that shows grams. You will also need a candy thermometer in degrees Celsius.
680 grams sugar
680 grams evaporated milk
1 vanilla bean
250 grams cream
570 grams glucose syrup
40 grams butter
95 grams “butterschnapps” (butterscotch) liqueur
25 grams salt
400 grams almonds, toasted
In a pot, cook the sugar, evaporated milk, vanilla bean, and cream to 110°C. Then add the glucose and butter. Cook again, this time to 115°C. Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the butterschnapps, salt, and nuts.
Pour into prepared candy molds or into a pan lined with parchment paper. Let the candy cool completely before removing it from the molds or cutting it into pieces.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE NEXT DAY THE FIRE BURNED CLOSER to the 101 and toward Solvang, but the winds had changed and the ash had vanished. Still, I wanted to stay in my bungalow and not bother going out into the soot-filled morning. I needed to check on Rita as Monster had asked, though I also wanted to see Rita because I wanted to. I had avoided it, suspecting that an explosion would follow. She’d discover what kind of shithead I am, that I was a tool for Monster. I’ve never been the kind of man who could sleep with a woman and not feel connected to her. No, I think I’m genetically predisposed to monogamy. I felt that connection to Rita, but nothing good could come out of it because I was on Monster’s team, and I’d soon enough be returning to Elena.
I walked up the stairs that led to the private pool that faced the southwest corner of the Lair. I found her on a towel, tanning. I was reminded of just how beautiful she was naked. I thought of how lucky I was to have made love to her, even if she was nuts. Yes, at that moment her being crazy didn’t matter at all; I’d do it all over again. Then, coming out of the pool, pulling himself up with massive arms—Thug. He too was naked, and it suited him as much as Rita. Seeing Thug glistening in the morning sun, naked and of superhuman proportions, I felt so totally outclassed that I wondered if I was of the same gender.
“Gibson, get your ass in the pool. Once the wind changes, you might never get the chance again. I’m betting this place is gonna burn to the ground.”
I shook my head. No way would I be taking off my clothes anywhere near him. I didn’t need that kind of humiliation.
Thug poured himself a glass of champagne from the bottle in the ice bucket at the table under the umbrella. Maybe Thug was psychic; the wind changed, and almost immediately I saw drifting ash.
Rita turned over and looked toward me, but I nervously averted my eyes.
“So, I heard Monster wants you to talk to me.”
“Monster told you that?” I asked as I squatted down next to her, my hand shielding my eyes from the sun, and from the sight of Thug’s prodigious manhood. Thankfully, he put a towel over his lap, freeing me from twisting my neck so as not to look in that direction.
“No, Monster didn’t tell me that. Thug told me.”
Thug sat up and nodded.
“He also told me what he wants you to do. Your job is to get me to leave. You’re supposed to help me to forget about my baby.”
“Thug told you all that?”
“Yeah,” Rita said, nodding at Thug.
“How much did he offer you to do that, dog?” Thug asked.
“He didn’t. I didn’t say I would do anything other than talk to Rita, which I’m doing now.”
“Still, man, you should have got something up front. Cash, preferably, or at least a check. Promises are like toilet paper, you need to flush that shit.”
“I didn’t ask for nothing because I don’t want nothing. I’m here because—”
“See, you don’t even know what you’re doing. If you’re here, you’re supposed to be getting paid. That’s the deal, my brother, and now, you know, Monster is done writing checks. Security is gone. He’s on his own. So, you should have got yours when the getting was good.”
“That’s not who I am. I’m not always trying to get paid,” I said.
Thug lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t be selling me wolf tickets. We talked. You know the deal up here. I’m being straight with you so you don’t have to talk that righteous bullshit with me.”
“I appreciate that.”
“No, you don’t. But I don’t really give a fuck if you do or not. See, I’m a free agent now. I a
in’t on nobody’s payroll but my own.”
“What? You’re not working for Monster?”
“No, dog. I’m done. Monster’s done. Rita’s done and so are you. This shit is done.”
Rita stood up and walked to the far end of the pool, staring at the fire in the distance.
“The fire is moving faster,” she said.
She leaned against the railing; her long legs looked magnificent, her breasts perfect and natural. For having just had a baby, she was in beautiful shape.
Thug nodded toward Rita.
“Yeah, if I was into women, I’d be pimping that one. But no, my brother, she’s yours, and yours to talk sense to. Monster paid me a lot of money to make sure you handled Rita, and if you can’t, I was supposed to do whatever it takes to handle her, and you.”
“Handle us?” I asked, still mesmerized by Rita.
“Stop looking at her. You got time enough for that, but you don’t have much time to listen to what I have to tell you.”
“What’s that?”
Thug sat cross-legged and looked at me with that sardonic smile he always wore.
“I’m getting out. Today.”
“Getting out? Why, I thought you had more money to wring out of Monster.”
Thug stood and put on his pants, and shook his head as though he was through with me.
“Didn’t I tell you? You must not have been listening.”
“Listening to what?”
“I told you that someday Monster’s house of cards would fall in. Today is that day.”
“What, how?”
“Monster has always been nuts, but he’s way nuts now, so soon as I get my shit together I’m bailing. I suggest you do too.”
“If he’s always been pretty fucking crazy, why are you giving up on him now?”
Thug sighed, shaking his head. “Look, I’ll run it down one more time, you know, hit you upside the head with truth, but don’t get stupid and start yelling and acting righteous like some dumb-ass white boy who thinks he invented morality.”
This must be the truth because Thug never slipped out of character long enough to use a word like “morality.”
“Listen to me because this is it, once you hear this it’s on you. Monster wanted me to handle you.”
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