Dieter sat facing me. “You must think us stupid, Mr. Brendan, that we do not know what is happening here.”
I looked at him without speaking.
“But there is nothing we can do about it. You must remember that we are newcomers here and a wrong word from them would strip us of everything we own.”
“If it could happen to you who are now Mexican citizens, imagine what they could do to me.”
“It’s not the same thing. You are a gringo. And even if they don’t like gringos, they respect the money and business you can bring. They would not dare alienate you. Besides, there is your uncle.”
“What about him?”
“He is a very important man in Los Angeles, is he not? He is the only man I think Julio has respect for.” He lit another joint. “Julio is a very important man down here, but your uncle is even more important. We have heard that without your uncle’s permission, Julio could not exist in Los Angeles.”
Julio was smiling and happy now, dancing with Verita. The other men standing around and watching all looked like Julio. He was really home.
But Lonergan had gone to bed. Suddenly I realized that he had changed the moment that Julio had appeared. He’d withdrawn into himself, like the boss who does not want to associate with the hired help. I remembered that once he had said, “How long do you think Julio would have protected you if I didn’t okay it?”
I looked back at Dieter. “How much do you really know?” I asked.
“Enough to tell you that Julio would never stop the planes from using the airstrip for you. The only man who could make him do that is your uncle.”
CHAPTER 36
I lay back on the blanket, letting the music swirl around me while I floated on the stars. The night sky was purple-black, the stars tiny Christmas-tree lights flickering on and off. I threaded my way through them, wondering if there really was a Santa Claus.
Marissa’s voice was soft in my ear. “Your girlfriend is very pretty.”
I rolled over onto my stomach. “She says the same thing about you.” I held my cigarette toward her.
She took several tokes, then gave it back to me.
“I’m sad,” she said.
“Why? It’s a beautiful life down here.”
“Nothing is what it seems to be, is it?”
“Reality is whatever you see. Even if no one else in the world sees what you see, it doesn’t make it any less real.”
She smiled. “You have an answer for everything.”
“I wish I did.” I sat up. “Life would be simpler.”
A burst of laughter caught our attention. The models, Bobby, the crew and King Dong had joined the party. Now they were really jumping around the fire.
Bobby fell onto the blanket beside me. “I couldn’t keep them away once they heard the music.”
“That’s okay. Let them have fun.”
“I’ll never get them up for a seven o’clock call tomorrow morning.”
“Relax.” I passed him the joint.
He dragged deeply. “How’s it going?”
“Okay.”
“Make up your mind yet?”
“Not yet.”
“If it’s money, my father told me to tell you he’s interested.”
“It’s not money.”
He turned to Marissa. “I’d like to do a set with you.”
She looked bewildered.
“Photographs,” I explained.
“Oh.” She smiled. “I don’t think so.”
“You’ve got a great body,” he said. “You’d look beautiful.”
“I’m not the type. It would be too embarrassing.”
“Tell her we’re very cool about it,” Bobby said to me.
“I’m sure she knows that.”
“As a publisher you’re not much help. She’d make a dynamite centerfold.”
“If I did your job as well as mine,” I said, “I’d be Bob Guccione.”
He dragged on the cigarette again, then gave it back to me as he got to his feet. “If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. The music’s fantastic.”
They were into mean salsa now. I held my hand out to Marissa. “Come,” I said.
“Wait a minute.” Dieter held a coke spoon and vial in his hand. “This will get the motor running.”
Even before we finished, we were surrounded by the others and the spoon and vial moved quickly from hand to hand. By the time it got back to Dieter it was empty and everybody was high. Dieter sent for more coke and the party began to rock.
The musicians played at a faster pace and in addition to the coke and grass, Bobby had come up with a box of poppers. An hour later we were soaking wet, all strung out. I went back to the blanket and sat down. Age was catching up to me.
Samantha, the model, started it first. She ripped off her bra and skirt. “I can’t stand it,” she yelled, running toward the water. “Last one in is a stinker!”
A moment later the other models were getting out of their clothes and then we all joined in a mad scramble to shed our clothing and run for the water. In the midst of all the noise the band suddenly stopped playing. The silence was shocking.
I looked up. All of them, men and women alike, were staring at King Dong. Slowly he stepped out of his trousers. You could hear the collective gasp as they reacted to his nakedness.
Dieter’s eyes glazed over. Julio’s mouth hung open. The girls, too, were silent, fascinated, unable to turn away. I glanced around. Anyone who said that women didn’t respond to a big cock was crazy.
Julio’s voice broke the stillness. “El toro.”
Everybody laughed. “I don’t believe it,” Dieter said almost worshipfully. He started toward him, but King Dong had already begun to run into the water. He cut into the surf in a clean dive. We could see the girls clustering around him and hear their screams of laughter as he broke the surface.
Eileen dropped to the blanket beside me. “My knees went weak.”
I laughed. “He got to you?”
“I’m soaking wet. I almost came just looking at it. And I thought I’d seen everything.”
“Those were just pictures. This was the real thing.”
“I wonder what it’s like hard,” she said.
“You’ll never see it.”
“Why not?”
“Before it gets halfway hard, it’s drawn all the blood from his body and he faints,” I said with a straight face.
“Funny,” she said, raising her hand as if to hit me. Then she laughed.
I saw Marissa watching us with a strange expression on her face. I held my hand out to her. She took it and I drew her down on my other side. She seemed very stiff. So I bent over and kissed her. Her mouth was soft and moist.
After a moment she pulled back. “I think I’d better go to my room.”
“I thought you were with me.”
She looked across at Eileen. “Not now that your girlfriend is here.”
“Nothing has changed. After all, aren’t we all friends?”
“That’s right,” Eileen said softly. “Friends.” She touched Marissa’s face tenderly with her fingers. “Friends share. Friends love.”
Marissa’s eyes were wide. “I don’t know. I never—” She hesitated, then shivered suddenly. “I’m stoned.” Abruptly she got to her feet. She stood there, weaving slightly. “I’m going to my room.” She managed two steps before she swayed and began to fall.
I caught her before she hit the sand and put her gently on the blanket. Her face was pale and there were faint beads of perspiration on her upper lip. I checked her pulse. It was all right.
Eileen looked frightened. “She just passed out,” I said reassuringly.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“A wet compress on her forehead wouldn’t hurt.”
Eileen ran toward the surf, untying the kerchief from around her neck. It wouldn’t do much good, but at least it would make Eileen feel better. The only thing that would really help Marissa was sleep.
Between us we managed to get her to the cottage. I put her on the couch. A note on the coffee table caught my eye. I picked it up.
Gareth—
I thought we’d all be more comfortable if I moved up to the main building. See you in the morning.
L
“We can put her in the other bedroom,” I said. “Uncle John’s moved out.”
I left Eileen in the bedroom to undress her and went out into the living room and made myself a drink. The junk had all worn off. I had come down from the high and felt strangely sober and wide-awake. Coke did that to me.
I took the drink out into the garden and sank into a chaise. I could hear the sounds of laughter as the models made their way back to the cottage and Bobby’s voice giving instructions to the crew for the morning session. Then silence again. I took a sip of the drink. The party was over.
Eileen came out and stood beside the chaise. “She’s sleeping.”
I didn’t answer.
“I’ll go back on the morning plane.”
I looked up at her.
“I shouldn’t have come down. I have no business being here. I work on the magazine.”
“Hey, there’s no reason to feel like that.”
“I was jealous. I can cope with the girls in Los Angeles, but when you’re away, I get paranoid, thinking that you’ll find someone you really flip out over.”
“You shouldn’t feel like that,” I said lightly. “If I find someone, you’ll be the first to know.”
She wasn’t in the mood for jokes. “Fuck you!” she said angrily. “I don’t want to be the first to know. Tell your mother! She’s the one who’s always after me about your getting married. Thirty-five, she says, and time you settled down.”
I was surprised. “She really lays that on you?”
“Yes,” she snapped bitterly.
“Why doesn’t she say anything to me?”
“How the hell do I know?” she retorted. “Your mother’s afraid of you. She says she never could talk to you. Next time she hits me with it, I’m going to tell her that it’s none of my business what the fuck you do!”
I grabbed her hand. “Easy,” I said.
She suddenly softened and I pulled her down on to the chaise with me. I stroked her face gently and felt the tears on her cheeks. “It’s not that bad,” I said.
“Yes, it is,” she said, straightening up. “I really did it this time, didn’t I? I broke all the rules. Went way out of line.”
I put a finger on her lips. “Hush, child. I didn’t know there were rules that governed how people should love each other.”
She stared at me for a moment, then rested her head on my chest. “Gareth,” she whispered in a small voice, “how did things become so complicated? Why can’t it be simple the way it used to be?”
I didn’t answer.
Her voice was low. “Remember how it was when we first started the magazine? How there just weren’t enough hours in the day for us and I came down to live with you in that little apartment over the store? There was just you and me.”
“Yes,” I said, still stroking her cheek. But I thought memories are funny things. Private things. Each of us remembers only what we want to. We discard as extraneous those things that are not important to us.
As far as she was concerned, she was right. There were just the two of us. But she had forgotten. There was also Denise.
CHAPTER 37
Eileen’s voice was weary as she placed a folder on the kitchen table in front of me. “That’s ‘Head Trips’ for the May issue. A thousand words for his Trip, twelve hundred more for her Trip.”
“How come she gets more words than he does?” I asked. “I know women talk more but—”
She was too tired to rise to the bait. “Women’s sexual fantasies are easier for me than men’s. But either way I don’t think I can do it anymore. I’m all fantasied out. We need help.”
I opened the folder. With illustrations the article could be stretched to six pages. I looked up at her. “Hang in there, baby. We’ll be on the stands next week. If things go the way I hope they will, you can hire half the town to help you.” I checked my watch. It was past two in the morning. “Go home and get some sleep. We’ll pick up again tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday.”
I looked at my watch again. She was right. Seiko said so. And the Japanese were never wrong. Not since World War Two anyway. “Stay in bed tomorrow and catch up on your sleep,” I said.
“I still have four features to write and the third episode of Modern Fanny Hill,” she said.
“It’ll keep till Monday.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Bobby left me six layouts. I have to select the photos, decide which one will be Supercunt and then write the commentary and captions. I’m having the same trouble you are. I’m running out of ideas for nymphomaniacs.”
“Do they all have to be?” she asked.
I smiled at her. “When every picture shows her playing with her cunt, what’s she supposed to be thinking of—going to church on Sunday?”
“It’s such a put-down. Sometimes I think—” She stopped and got to her feet.
“What do you think?”
“It’s not important. I’m just tired, I guess.”
“Say it. If you think it, say it.”
“We make everything seem so cheap. As if nothing in the world existed except cocks and cunts. I didn’t have to take my master’s in journalism to turn this out.”
“You have options. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.”
“Do you have options, Gareth?”
“Not anymore. I used to think I did, but I know better now. I had big dreams when I came back from Nam. I was going to tell them what a downer we were on. But nobody listened; nobody even really cared, except a few politicians who wanted to make points. The people didn’t give a damn. The dreams are gone now. I’m going to give them what they really want. And it will be just as filled with their own illusions as their cars, their beer and their television.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“No. I’m justifying myself.” I got out of the chair. “But I think somehow I’ve grown up. I’m never going to be able to make society over in my image, so I might as well go along and make the best of it. And the name of the game is money. If this works, I’ll make a lot of it.”
“Will that make you happy?”
“I don’t know. But I wasn’t happy when I was broke. It will certainly be a lot more comfortable being unhappy when I’m rich.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe you’re right.” A weary sigh escaped her. “I will take your advice and stay in bed tomorrow.”
“Good. I’ll walk you to your car.”
The streets were almost deserted. Only an occasional auto went by as we walked to the corner where her car was parked.
She unlocked the door, got in and rolled down the window. “I’m beginning to feel it’s awfully silly to be going home every night and coming back again early the next morning.”
I was silent.
“Gareth, why didn’t you ever ask me to stay over?”
“In that apartment? You know what it’s like. A real shithouse with papers scattered all over the place.”
“You’ve had girls there. Boys, too. Why not me?”
“You’re different.”
“How?” she asked. “I like to fuck, too.”
I shook my head. “That’s not it.”
“You still think of me as a child, but I’m not. I know exactly where your head is at and I understand it. I’ve made it with girls, too. So what? It’s not really important, but relationships are. And I care about you.”
“I know that. But you’re something else. You’re a commitment.”
“And you don’t want commitments?”
“Not until I know where I’m at and who I am.”
She turned the key in the ignition and started the engine. She stuck her hea
d out the window and I kissed her. “I know who you are, Gareth,” she said softly. “Why don’t you?”
I watched the car speed off toward Beverly Hills, then turned and started to walk slowly back to the store.
“Hey, Gareth.” The voice called from across the street. I turned and saw the thin leather-jacketed boy come toward me. The streetlight fell across his face. I recognized him as a hustler who had been working the Silver Stud for years.
We slapped hands. “Hey, Danny,” I said. “What are you doing up this way?”
“I’m headin’ for Hollywood Boulevard to see if I can find me a trick.” He looked into my face. “What are you doing?”
“Not me. I’ve got to go back to work.”
He couldn’t help the slightly bitchy tone. “The chick leave you dry?”
I laughed. “I told you straight.”
“Man,” he said, “the world’s a downer.”
“No action at the Silver Stud tonight?”
“There’s action all right, but the kids are acing me out. Would you believe they’re comin’ in there, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, with their phony IDs and makin’ out like crazy? All those queens love chicken. I guess I’m an old man to them.”
“That’s rough, but you got a long way to go before you’re old.”
“Twenty-five is old in my business.”
“You just had a run of bad luck; things will turn.”
He shook his head despondently. “I gotta score tonight. My girl is bitchin’. He says I haven’t bought him a present in weeks.”
“Belt him.”
“You gotta be kidding. He’s six-two and thirty pounds heavier than me. If things keep up like this, I’ll have to find another line of work. I may go into dealing full time.” He looked into my face, his voice lowered to a whisper. “Can you use a gram of pure rock crystal?”
“How much?”
“Sixty-five.” He saw the expression on my face. “For you fifty,” he added quickly.
He palmed the fifty and slipped me the cellophane envelope, which I put into my pocket. “Thanks,” he said. “That’ll help.”
“Okay.”
We began walking toward the store. “Nobody appreciates style anymore,” he said. “All they want is young juice.”
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