by Jerry Stahl
THIRTY-EIGHT
The hooker took one look at Tony Zank’s blood-pulped face and backed away from the door. She was a whip-thin, sloe-eyed brunette in six-inch heels. Her fishnet stockings sagged under her red leather microskirt, but the cutoff Metallica T-shirt she wore under her chin-chilla jacket was so tight her nipples stood out like knuckles. A tiny heart dangled out of her pierced belly button, which looked infected.
“What the hell happened to you?” she shrieked, clutching her car keys to her chest.
“What do you think happened?” Zank had found her number in the Yellow Pages, under Escorts, and when he called up she asked if he was a police officer. Tony’d ordered up before. He knew that only pros asked if you were a cop when you gave them your address. “I was in a bus accident,” he told her. “On my way to work. Fucking bus driver drove into a phone pole when a possum ran across the road. You believe that? He saves a goddamn possum, now I got a mug like road-kill.”
“You lie,” said the girl.
“Hey,” he shrugged. “You don’t gotta touch me above the neck.”
Zank glanced over the girl’s shoulder to see if anyone was looking. He wasn’t officially checked in, if you wanted to get technical. But he liked the Pawnee Lodge, despite what happened there with Carmella and McCardle. More important, he still had the key to Number Two, the room he never used.
Zank pulled the girl inside. “Just come in and we’ll talk about it. It’s uncool standing here. You don’t exactly look like a Jehovah’s Witness.”
“You should talk,” said the girl, eyeballing the room where Tony’d made himself at home. Clumps of Chore Boy dotted the dresser top, scattered around his glass pipe, some empty vials, and the five rocks he still had left. Zank didn’t know for sure whether McCardle had ratted him out. But he knew enough to know he might be taking a risk going home. Which was a drag, for all kinds of reasons. Not the least of which being that Mac had dug up the phone numbers of some bigtimey Republicans, party stalwarts who’d be willing to pay plenty for snaps of W.’s bubble, to put the kibosh on a potential scandal. “First we tell ’em we have the nut-shots,” McCardle’d explained, in one of his rare take-charge moments. “Then we tell ’em there’s a happy face painted on them, then we tell ’em they’re superbloated two inches from the mayor of Upper Marilyn’s mouth. Once that sinks in, all we gotta do is make sure the money’s in cash.”
Assuming McCardle could still move his lips, Zank had to figure he’d already fingered him. Which meant they’d have his apartment scoped, if they hadn’t already tossed it. No, Tony had to come up with something on his own. Which was why he decided to call Time. He was hitting the pipe and thinking about what to do next when a rock popped out on the carpet. Thrashing around for it, he’d discovered the old news magazine under the bed. Bill Gates was on the cover, looking very NAMBLA. Tony took this as a sign. It was Time! But when he tried calling their office in New York, the snotbag who answered the phone hung up when he told him his business.
What kind of dude worked as a telephone operator, anyway? Had to be some kind of pud-monkey. “Time Warner,” the operator’d said, “how may I direct your call?” “Well,” Tony explained, “I’m sittin’ here looking at some Polaroids of President Bush’s testiculars, and that’s not all. He drew a smiley face on ’em, in Magic Marker. Guy must have a lotta free time. Who do you think I should talk to?” There was a long silence after that, before the puffwad just clicked off. Tony called right back, and this time got a friendly lady who connected him to the photo department, where he tried a different tack with a young-sounding girl who said she was the assistant photo editor. “This is your lucky day!” Tony told her, trying to come on upbeat and professional right out of the chute, “I have pictures of George Bush Junior’s genitalia.” “I’m sorry?” the girl said. “Don’t be,” Tony continued, “you’ll probably get a raise. This is the type of thing your editor in chief is going to want, especially when you see what they’re doing.” “What who are doing?” the girl asked, in a tone Tony couldn’t quite get a bead on. “The president’s testicles,” Tony said. “I didn’t know they could do anything,” the girl giggled. “Well,” Tony persisted, “that’s why you need to see these pictures.”
He was proud of himself for the editor in chief angle, but in the end it didn’t matter. At least the assistant photo editor said good-bye before slamming the phone down….
Metallica Girl snapped her fingers in his face. “You gonna stand there or you wanna do something? I got my kid in the car.”
“Okay! Keep your tits on.”
Ignoring his guest, Tony tamped at the filthy Band-Aid flopping off his earlobe, then stretched out his upper lip and stuck his finger in his mouth. He poked around until he found what he wanted, a loose chunk of gum flesh that had been driving him crazy since Pepe pistol-whipped him. He ripped out the bloody morsel and smeared it on his pants. His missing tooth hurt like fuck, but he was amazed how little pain his sliced-up ear caused. The blade must have missed his lobe nerves.
“That’s better,” Tony said, having finished his little surgery. He plopped down on the bed and patted the spot beside him. “So how much?”
The girl hung back, playing with the tiny heart in her belly button.
“Twenty-five.”
“For what?”
“Blowjob.”
“What if I want somethin’ else?”
“You should’ve thought about that before you stuck your face in a fan.”
Tony smiled. “I am having one fucked-up day,” he said, spreading his knees wide over the side of the bed. “Pull down my zipper and say hi to Mister Rogers.”
“Money first.”
“Come on, I’m just tryin’ to get some love here!”
He tried to reach under her leather skirt and she smacked his hand. “No cash, no gash.”
Tony tugged a crumpled twenty out of his pocket. “That’s all I got.”
“Bigshot.” The girl snatched the bill and squeezed it into a crumpled ball. “Okay, unpack.”
Sighing—he didn’t want trouble, just some honest relief—Tony laid back and fished himself out of his pants. The girl’s scream jerked him up again.
“What?” he yelled, fumbling for the gun under the pillow.
“You’re bleeding! No way am I gonna do you.”
Tony checked himself. Sure enough, his wrinkled organ was dabbed with blood, and clumps of his patchy pubic hair were dyed bright red.
“Relax,” he said, “it’s not dick-blood. I must have touched myself.”
“Excuse me?”
“You know, I probably rubbed my face or something, then held my doggy when I went to the bathroom. It’s no thing.”
“It’s blood,” said the girl. “I knew you were a sick shit the second I saw you. Fucking crackhead!”
She turned to go, and Tony caught her hand. “What’s your hurry? I don’t even know your name.”
The girl glared at him. “If it’s Tuesday I’m Cherry. But I don’t know if it’s Tuesday, okay?”
“You took my money, you can’t walk out now.”
The girl bounced the balled-up twenty off his forehead. “Keep your money, cock-breath. It’s probably diseased anyway. Now lemme the fuck go!”
Tony wrestled her close, keeping one hand on her throat and shoving the other between her skinny legs. She went for his eyes and missed. He tried to jam a finger inside her—sometimes that got girls hot—but it was no go. “How come you’re dry?” he said hoarsely. “You some kind of dyke?”
Tony yanked her hair, and the girl whipped something out of her coat. It looked like a skinny deodorant can, and for one happy second he thought, Nice, she wants to freshen up…. But when she raised the can to his face and pressed the nozzle, his skin exploded in scalding pain. His eyeballs felt scorched in their sockets. Tony yelped and ran for water. But his pants were around his knees. He made two steps and tripped. Picking himself off the carpet, he began to crawl, gasping up at her. “You p
eppered me, you bitch! I’m on fire…! I’M ON FUCKING FIRE!”
The hooker drove a stiletto heel in his ribs as Tony struggled to tug his pants over his shoes. It was like some demented IQ test. When he finally managed to get his pants on and stand, he staggered straight into a wall. Feeling his way to the bathroom, he found the sink and started to splash water on his face. When suddenly—What the fuck?—there was a hand on his ass cheeks. She was spreading him.
“Hey, Hey! No! Cut that out! Hey, NO—”
Screams tore out of him as she pepper-sprayed his sphincter. It felt like he’d shit a barbecued chicken.
Tony spun around to grab her but she tripped him. He crashed hard off the toilet. Brain-dizzy, he pushed himself up. All he could think of were glaciers. If he could just get to Alaska and sit on a glacier. Then something banged—it all happened fast—and she shoved him forward, down, crunching his throat on the rim of the bowl. She slammed the seat on the back of his head and his face hit liquid. Fuck! From now on he’d flush.
Zank’s anus felt napalmed, his face sautéed, but in spite of the agony at both ends, he smiled into the rust-stained bowl. He mouthed words underwater, chuckling bubbles. Just leave my coke, bitch, I’ll only rape you a little before I suck your eyes out and fuck the holes….
When Tony came to, he realized he was alone and dragged himself out of the commode. His eyes still burned. He blinked a few times and made out the blurry forms of the sink, the door, the wastebasket. Not blind.
He lurched out of the bathroom to the dresser and checked his supplies. He shoved a rock in the pipe, fired up, smoked it wet-lipped, and staggered to the bed. Lifted the pillow. The .357 was still there.
Zank collapsed on the mattress, exhaled, and let the jagged rush overtake him. His nerves were screaming in Siamese. He sped back to the bathroom, stood over the toilet, and flushed. That echoey WHOOSH always calmed him, like Niagara Falls in Sensurround.
There was no way he could stay in the Pawnee Lodge. Not now! This was a bad idea to begin with. He’d killed a lady in the next room. What was he thinking? Sometimes he didn’t know what his brain was saying until he smoked some crack and it started yelling at him.
“Okay,” he said, trying not to piss himself off. “Okay, be quiet, I’m leaving. Shut the fuck UP!”
He spun back to the dresser and squooshed all the rocks back into vials. Before a run, he liked to handle his shit. After the crack was stashed, he slid the pipe in his sock, retrieved the .357, and scooped up the keys to the Saab. He rushed to the door, opened it a sliver, and checked the room one last time. That’s when he realized he had no pants on.
“Close call,” he muttered, and moved jerkily back inside. The pants weren’t anywhere he could see, so he looked under the bed. No. Maybe she’d thrown them in the closet. No. Maybe the bathroom. No.
Did he already check under the bed?
No! No, No, No, NO NO NO NO!
Naked from socks to navel—he hated underpants, they chafed—Zank paced in tight circles in the center of the room. He squeezed his hands into fists, mashed them into his pan-fried eyeballs, and moaned. Then he opened his eyes again, to see if he was still in hell.
“Stole your pants,” a voice from the TV giggled.
Tony looked over his shoulder. The TV wasn’t on.
“Stole your pants,” screeched the tube again. “Bitch stole your pants.”
“Shut UP!”
Tony hoisted the .357 and blew the screen to a thousand pieces. A puff of tinkling smoke filled the motel room.
“Teach you to mess with me!” he said.
Fuck the pants. It wasn’t like he needed to stop for anything. He had his big-ass Colt Python and a batch of crack. What else did he need?
He just had to make it back to his pad and call some big-time Republicans, and the future was his.
THIRTY-NINE
Manny found Tina outside the station, chatting with Stuey the Hunchback and nibbling a pretzel. She had one arm slung over the deformed mound of his shoulder.
“Stuey used to double-date with Brando,” Tina said, while the vendor beamed up at her.
“We did a lot of bowling,” Stuey crowed, swiping a rag over the top of his cart. “Lotta people don’t know this, but Marlon coulda gone pro.”
“Tough call,” said Manny. “Do I go with the greatest-actor-of-my-generation thing, or do I stick with the ten-pins?”
“Manny does nothing but mock,” Stuey told her sadly. He threw down the rag and began pumping French’s mustard from a jumbo tub into a plastic squeeze bottle. “A man hates himself, he can’t be nice to nobody else. You got such nice kaboolies, whyn’t you forget him and let me take care of you?”
Tina dropped the pretzel in the trash and smiled. “Only if I get my own cart.”
The Impala was across the street, and Manny had to kick the passenger door to get it open. “You know,” Tina said as she got in, “I can’t decide if we’re Bonnie and Clyde or Starsky and Hutch.”
“Probably Bonnie and Hutch,” he said. “One more stop, then we unload the goods and get comfy.”
“So should I ask how it went with Mac and the police chief?”
“It was pretty much what you’d imagine.”
Tina watched Manny reach under the seat for his prescription bottle. He tapped out three pills, crunched them dry, then popped three more. He saw her looking as he shoved the bottle back under the seat. “When this is over, I’m gonna cut this stuff out.”
“You talking to me or you?”
Manny didn’t answer. He slammed into DRIVE and skidded into traffic.
“You don’t mind my saying so,” Tina continued, “for a guy who’s supposed to be a cop, you seem to pretty much do what you want.”
“It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta fuck it up. Anyway, I don’t see you doing much nursing.”
“Personal leave. You want, I can put on the uniform. What I hear, a lot of guys like that. So where we going?”
Ahead of them, a line of cars stopped at an intersection. Manny made a quick left into an alley and floored the Impala, dodging potholes and garbage cans. “I’m going to Tony Zank’s. Our pal McCardle was nice enough to tell me where it is, and it turns out that’s where Lipton’s been calling from. But I can drop you anywhere. I just want you off the streets while Tony’s on the warpath. By now he’s gonna know McCardle gave him up, so he has to figure we know his moves. Where he lives, and all the rest of it.”
“The guy didn’t strike me as the logical type.”
“There’s logic and there’s logic.” Manny reached in the back for a thick sheaf of papers, stapled at the top, and tossed it on the seat between them. “I grabbed the guy’s jacket. Often as he’s been popped, there’s not a whole lot anybody could make stick. He did a jolt for burglary, assault, minor possession. But none of the people he really tore up—I mean the ones who weren’t dead—ever wanted to show up in court and talk about it.”
“How surprising.”
Manny took a left wide and Tina was thrown against him. She stayed with her hand on his thigh an extra second, then straightened up.
“To go around that crazy, you gotta be smart,” Manny said. “A cat like Zank learns young. Far as anybody can tell he killed his old man, but the only person who could testify against him was his mother, and she gave him his alibi.”
“And he still throws her out a window. Whatever happened to gratitude?”
“Right. You want me to leave you anywhere special?”
“And let you keep those swanky yoga pants? I don’t think so.”
Manny contemplated her before speaking. “Tina, let’s cut the bullshit, okay? If Lipton’s in Zank’s pad, then he’s in it as deep as anybody. But if we’re gonna make a move with Mister Biobrain, we need to know the back story. Lipton’s the missing piece.”
“Yeah, and?”
“And something seriously bad could go down, that’s all. Zank is a major piper. He hears voices telling him to buy a steak knife an
d X out pretty white girls, it could be a shitstorm. I don’t want you in it.”
Tina beheaded another Viceroy and flipped the cigarette to her lips. Manny lit her up. She exhaled a slow train of smoke and stared out the passenger window. In spite of himself, Manny felt a pang of desire. If there was anything sexier in the known universe than Tina smoking a Viceroy, he hadn’t seen it yet. He had to force himself to watch the road.
“I can’t leave you,” she said at last, tossing the lipsticked cigarette out of the car half smoked. “Somebody has to make sure you don’t blow up another sink. You’ve got to be stopped.”
“Tina,” Manny began, then let his voice trail off. He made the turnoff toward the river and drove in silence. The Impala crawled past blocks of abandoned meat-processing plants toward the unlikely apartment building. By the time they were close enough to see the faded letters spelling BUNDTHOUSE ARMS, the stench had penetrated the closed windows. He parked a hundred feet past the door, killed the engine, and turned to her again. “I’m gonna give you the car keys, okay? Take off. I’m not asking. If I need a ride, I’ll call you.”
“What if you need a ride in a hurry?”
“I’ll dial fast.”
Something in his eyes told her not to argue and she held out her hand. Manny dropped the keys in her palm, then folded his own hand over hers. The codeine was kicking back in and he felt that opiated itch to get intimate. Though maybe it wasn’t the codeine. “This isn’t my style,” he confided, “but I want to tell you something.”
Tina met his gaze. “Go ahead.”
“Okay, listen. The reason I don’t want you going up there with me? I’ve got this total fear of being shot in the spine and ending up some kind of dead-from-the-neck-down hump in a wheelchair.” He cleared his throat. “What I’m saying is, if that happens, I’ll need you alive. I don’t want anybody giving me baths but you.”
Tina grabbed the keys. “Is that your idea of romantic? You fucking asshole, get out of the car before I cripple you myself.”