Devil's Dance

by Daniel Depp

  ‘I grew up just outside of Flagstaff.’

  ‘Ranch?’

  ‘In its more optimistic moments.’

  ‘I’m from Texas myself.’

  ‘I figured,’ said Spandau. ‘You were humming “Yellow Rose” while you played her tit like a bagpipe.’

  Jerry gave a laugh so big that it morphed itself into a fit of wheezing. ‘Shit,’ said Jerry when he’d recovered. ‘You done any cowboying?’

  ‘I used to do some rodeo. Too old for it now. I keep breaking things.’

  ‘Rodeo, goddamn, that’s something. I always thought you bastards were crazy. I grew up riding but, damn, I do not like falling off a horse. What events?’

  ‘Bulldogging mainly. I tried broncs early on but, as one of my friends used to say, that’s a short career and a hard dollar.’

  ‘That how you busted that nose?’

  ‘One of them. It’s been busted about five or six times. Last time was when I came crashing through a breakaway wall too high and about knocked my brains out on a stud.’

  ‘You do stunt work?’

  ‘Used to do that too.’

  ‘No shit. Who’d you work with?’

  ‘You remember Beau Macaulay?’

  ‘Oh hell yeah, everybody knew Beau. He was the best, man. The real thing. Goddamn shame when he died. His like won’t be around again, let me tell you. This is a town full of pissants and faggots now. Ah shit, I guess it always was, come to think of it. Have a drink.’

  He flagged down a waitress, ordered a George Dickel. Spandau ordered the same.

  ‘George Jones used to drink this stuff,’ Jerry told him. ‘You like George Jones?’

  ‘About the way George Jones liked George Dickel.’

  Jerry broke out into ‘It Was a Good Year for the Roses’ in a passable imitation of George Jones. Most of the bar watched and a few even applauded. Jerry ignored them. Then he said,

  ‘Well, I thought they were going to send some goddamn greasy little man or another fucking powder-puff.’

  ‘It’s not too late. I’m not sure I’m going to take the job.’

  ‘You’re right goddamn uppity, ain’t you. How come?’

  ‘I happen to think Frank Jurado is an asshole.’

  Another hoot.

  ‘You and me both, brother! Hot damn, I have found a soulmate! What I wouldn’t do to ram a hot poker about a foot and a half up his ass. I would too, if I didn’t think he’d enjoy it. What’d he do to you?’

  ‘I crossed him a couple of years ago and he had three guys work me over and dump me in the middle of the street.’

  ‘Well,’ said Jerry, ‘I can see how that might put a crimp in your working relationship. Here are them goddamn drinks. They are about as slow as Christmas in here.’

  The waitress never got as far as setting Jerry’s whiskey on the table. He intercepted it and took a desperate hit. Sat back and rubbed his forearms, one after another.

  ‘I think we ought to get shitfaced. Flush that motherfucker out and stomp his sorry ass.’

  ‘It’s a thought I’ve considered more than once.’

  ‘To huevos, and trying to hang on to them in Hollywood,’ Jerry offered as a toast.

  They drank.

  ‘The whole goddamn thing is like that now. Goddamn crooks and bean-counters. But you’re right, it didn’t used to be like this. I mean, the suits were always bastards, but at least they knew something about movies. Nowadays it’s all two-column book-keeping and bankable stars. Screw making a movie, let’s get a bunch of bankables and throw their glossy asses together and just stare at ’em. A goddamn fashion show. Maybe that is what people want now. I don’t know. I swear to god I don’t.’

  ‘You’re bankable enough. There’s a lot of good talk about Wet Eye.’

  ‘Bankable my ass. The only goddamn reason that film got made is because Cory Pernell wanted to do it. Up to that point nobody’d touch me with an eight-foot Russian. I’ve been persona non grata here for the last decade. Cory heard about the project. Goddamn Jurado and that bunch, they just wanted to option the story, get somebody else to write and direct. Old Cory, man, he stood his ground for me. He’s a tough little fucker. Crazy, though. A goddamn lunatic if there ever was one. He’s got a tattoo on his pecker, you know that?’

  ‘There was a rumor.’

  ‘It’s true! He showed it to me. You know what it is? The opening words of Ulysses by James Joyce. “Stately plump Buck Mulligan …” That’s what he calls it, his dick. Old Buck Mulligan. “Me and old Buck Mulligan banged the shit out of those two broads.” You know what he said? Said he wanted the rest of the novel on it but he couldn’t stay hard long enough.’

  Another fit of laughter.

  ‘He’s a goddamn lunatic, but I love him, I truly do.’

  Jerry laughed again, shook his head, took another long pull at his bourbon. ‘You going to take the job?’ he asked Spandau.

  ‘I’m thinking about it.’

  ‘That would be fine,’ said Jerry. ‘You and me could have some fine times together, I figure, just as soon as I could get a few drinks down you and get you to pull that plug part of the way out of your ass. But I won’t help you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Oh, a bunch of reasons. I have no information to give you, and I don’t like the idea of you and your pal Jurado poking around in my private life, which is exactly what this is. You work for him, you don’t work for me. You find out I like to stick nickels up my ass while pulling my pud, that info goes to him, not to me, and wouldn’t I just be the biggest chump on the face of the earth to help him do that. Anything he finds through you, you think he wouldn’t use that at some point? The bastard already has me tied up like a hog. No thank you. But mainly, you know, I just don’t give a shit. Jurado wants to hire you, it has nothing to do with me. He doesn’t give a fuck about me, he’s worried about his goddamn film. Me, he’d throw to the dogs in a heartbeat and you and me both know it.’

  ‘You don’t care about the film?’

  Long pull on the bourbon, drains it. Holds the glass up and wriggles it to get the attention of the waitress. ‘You want the truth or the Hollywood version?’

  ‘Something that resembles the truth would be refreshing.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit,’ Jerry repeated. ‘I don’t give a shit about Jurado, I don’t give a shit about these rumors, and especially I don’t give a shit about the film.’

  The new bourbon came. He didn’t bother to ask Spandau if he wanted anything. The waitress put it on the table, took his old glass, started to leave but Jerry motioned for her to wait and downed the bourbon in one shot while she watched and he gave her back the glass, tapping the rim as a signal for still another.

  She laughed, looked at Spandau, and said, ‘Is your friend going to get wild?’

  Spandau said to Jerry, ‘Are you going to get wild?’

  ‘Most likely,’ Jerry said, putting his head back to stare at the butterflies on the ceiling.

  ‘Well,’ said the waitress, ‘it’s a dull night anyway,’ and left.

  ‘You said yourself this film is going to revive your career. It’s interesting that you don’t mind somebody trying to sabotage it. It’s not a quality you often find in directors.’

  ‘It’s not my film.’

  ‘You wrote and directed it. It says so on the film canister.’

  ‘I wrote a movie and I directed a movie. Now the movie that I wrote and directed is not necessarily the movie that everybody will see. You know how this works.’

  ‘You didn’t get final cut.’

  ‘I did not get final cut. I did not get script approval, I did not get a decent percentage of the back end, I did not get shit. I was a desperate washed-up old fuck making a movie in Wisconsin about cheese. Cheese, I shit you not, and telling myself it was somehow a work of art when, in point of fact, it was the only thing anybody would give me money to do. I worked for the Wisconsin Society of Dairy Manufacturers and now I work for Frank Jurado. I by far p
refer the manufacturers of cheese – blessed are the cheesemakers, as Jesus says – but I’m in hock up to my ass and Hollywood beckoned. I lifted my balls and placed them gently in Satan’s hand. I used a Racine-based lawyer who specialized in agricultural suits to negotiate a fucking movie deal with the biggest shark in international cinema. We work with what we have.’

  The drink came.

  ‘How many is that?’ Jerry asked her.

  ‘Six,’ said the waitress. ‘We’re running a pool to see how long you’re going to remain upright.’

  ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘I’m thinking eight. You haven’t eaten anything and you seem determined.’

  ‘Ten would be about right,’ said Jerry.

  ‘Shit,’ said the waitress. ‘That would mean Aidan the bartender gets it.’

  ‘Tell Aidan he’s a fine judge of serious drunks,’ said Jerry, ‘but if you’ll give me your phone number I might be tempted to take a dive for you.’

  ‘You think you’d remember it?’

  ‘Good point,’ said Jerry. ‘Does a double count as one drink or two?’

  ‘I’ll have to ask,’ she said.

  ‘I’m a goddamn prisoner,’ Jerry said to Spandau when the waitress had gone again. Jerry tilted his head and went back to staring at the ceiling. ‘Why the fucking butterflies, I wonder? Not that I don’t like them or anything.’

  ‘You said a lawyer in Racine negotiated your contract. I thought Annie Michaels was your agent.’

  ‘Well, she wasn’t exactly on then and I hadn’t heard a word out of her for two years. I met Cory at the Banff Film Festival when they were doing a retrospective of my old stuff. Cory asked if I had any new projects and I sent him Wet Eye and he loved it and wanted the option. I needed the money quick so I let this guy in Racine do the deal, then all of a sudden the goddamn film is in play and I get this call from Annie screaming at the top of her lungs telling me what an idiot I am. Annie takes the project to Jurado and Jurado and Cory do a deal and there is a hell of a mess because the lawyer back in Racine didn’t have a goddamn clue and wanted ten percent. Anyway Jurado buys him off and Cory drops out of the project and all of a sudden I’m stuck with Jurado, who basically owns the whole thing lock, stock and barrel at this point. I don’t have approval on anything, I don’t have shit, I’m basically thrown into indentured servitude until the fucking film is released. No, excuse me, until even after the film is released because I’m obliged to go tarting my ass around for publicity. The whole setup was a mess and now I’m holed up here at the Marmont on Jurado’s dime waiting for him to do something. The bastard owes me money but it’s tied up and I’m too goddamn broke to tell him to kiss my ass and leave.’

  ‘What do you think of the film?’

  ‘You mean the version I saw? Or the version he’s got some other fucker re-editing and reshooting right now? We fought like hellcats and I did a version I wasn’t entirely ashamed of, then I found out he reshot some things and did at least one more edit that I never saw. It looks like Helen Keller directed it. I don’t know. It’s the biggest piece of shit excreted by Hollywood since Myra Breckinridge, which won’t do my already mostly submerged career any good any way. So why don’t you ask me again if I care.’

  The waitress came back with another drink. By this time Jerry was staring at the butterflies again.

  The waitress said, ‘Everybody insists that doubles count as two, not one. Which I suppose makes sense.’

  ‘Uh huh,’ said Jerry, closing one eye, as if trying to single out an individual species of Lepidoptera.

  After she put down the napkin and the drink, Spandau noticed a phone number lightly penciled along one edge. Jerry was very still now and Spandau noticed that he was snoring ever so slightly. The waitress noticed it too.

  She shook her head and laughed. ‘I guess I lose all around. Should I call him a cab?’

  ‘When he wakes up, just have somebody point him up the hill to the hotel,’ he said. ‘The sorry part is, he’s already home.’

  FOURTEEN

  Spandau pulled up again to the gate outside Jurado’s compound. Leaned out, stared into the camera without pushing any buttons. Finally the same irritated female voice as last time said,

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘David Spandau for Jurado.’

  ‘You don’t have an appointment.’

  ‘Honey,’ said Spandau, ‘if I need an appointment then I’m turning this car around and good old Frank can kiss my patootie.’

  There was a pause. The gate clicked open.

  Little Lulu was standing guard next to her desk when Spandau came in.

  ‘He’s in a meeting,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to wait.’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  He walked past her. She made no move to stop him but just glared. Spandau pushed open Jurado’s door and Jurado was sitting barefoot on the sofa, trimming a toenail with a pair of office scissors. He looked up at Spandau, shook his head, then went back to his operation. Spandau sat down in one of the chairs. Jurado whittled away at the toe for a while, and when he couldn’t stand it anymore he said,

  ‘I’m going to fire the girl who does my pedicures.’

  ‘I would,’ said Spandau. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ve seen more attractive nails on a tree sloth.’

  This seemed to have struck a nerve. ‘She leaves them too long. I keep telling her. They get snagged in my socks and my wife complains it’s like sleeping with a bobcat. What do you want? Are you going to do it or not?’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Spandau.

  ‘Good,’ said Jurado. ‘I’ll have my attorney make the arrangements and cut you an advance check.’

  Jurado daintily dropped a handful of fragmented toenail into an expensive-looking leather wastebin and pulled on his socks. He stood up and looked at Spandau as if surprised he was still there.

  ‘One more thing in the contract,’ said Spandau.

  ‘Whatever, take it up with the attorney.’

  ‘He can’t negotiate this one,’ said Spandau. ‘I’m going to hit you. I didn’t want to sucker-punch you so I decided to give you some advance warning.’

  ‘What the hell are you—’

  Spandau hit him. He’d wanted to break his nose, but that would have been difficult to explain. So he hit him in the stomach, in the solar plexus, not nearly as hard as he would have liked. Still it was rather satisfying. Jurado curled up like a boiled langoustine. He wasn’t making any noise because air could neither get in or out. Jurado stood there and Spandau eased him over to the sofa.

  ‘Don’t fight it. It’ll get better in a minute or two.’ Jurado had a petrified look on his face. ‘It always seems worse than it is.’

  Spandau knelt by the sofa and put his face close to Jurado’s.

  ‘If you ever, ever again get it into that shit-filled head of yours to have somebody, anybody, threaten me or try to rough me up or even so much as brush dandruff off the shoulder of my jacket, I am going to forget they even exist but I will make like a homing pigeon to you, you miserable asshole, wherever you are, and I will start breaking things, beginning with a BMW tire iron for a creative rearrangement of your disgusting smirking face, and work my way down your body until your repulsive fucking toenails will be the only things that aren’t cracked. If you are listening to me, I want you to nod.’

  Jurado nodded.

  ‘Good,’ said Spandau. ‘Two things. I’m going to take the case, but any information I find about Margashack that I don’t think is relevant to the case, I keep to myself. The other thing is that whatever amount you agreed with Walter, it’s going to cost you twice that.’ Spandau stood up, with his booted foot pushed the wastebin over next to Jurado. ‘This is just in case you feel like puking.’

  Spandau eased out, closed the door softly behind him. Lulu was sitting at the desk. As Spandau passed she couldn’t resist one last glare, but this was interrupted by the sound of her employer retching violently into a one thousand dollar Louis Vuitto
n trash basket.

  FIFTEEN

  The Chipmunks’ van pulled off the street and into the alley behind Atom’s Meats. There was the usual grab-ass between Savan and Tavit. All the way up from Laguna Beach Savan had been ragging Tavit about sex.

  Tavit was twenty-three but Savan said he was convinced Tavit had never even touched a naked woman, much less ever bonked one. Tavit protested that he had. Savan was trying to get names, dates, details, and when Tavit didn’t give them Savan used this as proof of his virginity. Actually everybody in the van knew damned well Tavit had scored at least once, with a fat Native American waitress at one of the reservation casinos. He’d nailed her in the back of this very van, and then spent a hypochondriac week irritating the hell out of everybody, certain he’d contracted every STD known to mankind. Savan just liked tormenting him, it helped pass the time, and Tavit was one of those poor schnooks who encouraged it by confusing mental cruelty with male bonding. Tavit thought he was being playfully ragged but in truth Savan had simply never liked him.

  Anyway they both irritated Araz, who kept turning up the van radio in an attempt to drown them out, but they only talked louder. There was just no way to stop them, they were like fucking kids, never took a goddamn thing seriously. Now they were going to see Uncle Atom and it was guaranteed either Savan or Tavit would do something to piss the old bastard off. Araz was the oldest and it would be him that Uncle Atom laid into. He was supposed to be in charge.

  Just before they got out of the van, Savan licked his index finger and stuck it in Tavit’s ear.

  ‘Goddamn it, Savan!’ yelled Tavit, frantically wiping at his ear with the cuff of his jacket.

  ‘A wet dick in your ear,’ Savan said to him. ‘This is as close as you’re ever going to get to sex.’

  ‘Will you make him stop,’ Tavit said to Araz.

  ‘Stop it,’ Araz said to Savan, halfheartedly because he didn’t much like Tavit either.

  ‘Maybe you like it up the poop chute,’ said Savan, goosing Tavit in the ass with his thumb.

  ‘I mean it!’ said Tavit.

  ‘Will you leave him the fuck alone,’ Araz said to Savan.